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Oral Answers to Questions
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)
People who are instructed to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace and are on a qualifying means-tested benefit, unable to work from home and losing income as a result may be entitled to a payment of £500 from their local authority.
Vicky Foxcroft [V]
We need people to self-isolate to control transmission and ease restrictions, yet many are continuing to work as they cannot survive on £95.85 statutory sick pay per week. The Chancellor has been asked about this on numerous occasions, and it was disappointing that nothing new was announced in his Budget. Does the Minister agree that those who do not have access to occupational sick pay and cannot work from home should be eligible for the Test and Trace support payments?
Steve Barclay
The hon. Lady is right that many people —indeed, the majority of workers—will have support from employers above statutory sick pay, but it is for the reason she outlines that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor also announced that there will be a payment of £500 for those not qualifying for the means-tested benefit, paid through the discretionary scheme that was funded at the Budget and to be administered by local authorities.
Judith Cummins [V]
Bradford Council has the highest demand for self-isolation payments in the country, reflecting the fact that most people in our city are unable to work from home. The standard scheme for people in receipt of certain benefits is fully funded, but the discretionary scheme, which the council must use for everyone else, is not. In fact, the funding for Bradford falls far short of demand, so will the Minister urgently look into this so that councils with a high demand can support all workers who need to self-isolate?
Steve Barclay
The hon. Lady makes a fair point, which is that there was a pressure on the scheme for local authorities. It is for exactly that reason that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced in the Budget that there will be an increase to £20 million per month for the discretionary scheme. He also listened to representations from the hon. Lady and others about widening the scope of eligibility under that scheme.
Kate Hollern [V]
The Government have now made available £20 million a month in discretionary self-isolation funding for local authorities, despite only making £15 million available for four months when the scheme first started, and because of this, hundreds of people in Blackburn have been denied support to self-isolate. Does the Minister now accept that initial allocations fell well below what was needed and contributed to the rise in cases, and does he think that that is fair on my constituents?
Steve Barclay
It is right that there was support in place, but it is also right that my right hon Friend the Chancellor has listened to points made by Members across the House, which is why the discretionary support has been increased and also why it has been extended to cover parents who are unable to work because they are caring for a child who is self-isolating and a number of other factors. I think that shows once again the willingness of this Government to respond to the path of the virus and to adapt our schemes to what is needed with, in particular, the extensive support that is now being offered and has throughout the pandemic been offered to local authorities.
Mrs Hodgson [V]
In November, a constituent of mine was told to isolate via the NHS covid-19 app. She would have been eligible for the isolation payment, but as she was told to isolate via the app, she was never given an NHS Test and Trace account ID, and therefore her application could go no further. My constituent was affected financially as she could not work, and she has been going round in circles, even with my help, trying to access the payment. Can the Minister advise if my constituent can still access this payment retrospectively?
Steve Barclay
It is always difficult to comment without seeing the full facts of an individual case, and I know the hon. Lady is always an incredibly assiduous constituency Member and will ensure that the case is looked at. On the specifics, I would also point to the fact that there is a wider package of support as well. For example, in addition to the self-isolation payments, there is often eligibility for self-employed workers through the self-employed income support scheme. There is a wide range of measures, but obviously it will depend on the individual case.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Test and Trace has now been allocated £37 billion, but its head, Baroness Dido Harding, has told both the Public Accounts Committee and the Science and Technology Committee that the big struggle is to get people to isolate. So, although the Government have provided support for people to self-isolate, surely the Chief Secretary can go back and look again to ensure that what the Treasury is providing enables test, trace and isolate to be truly effective, or we are really not going to beat this pandemic?
Steve Barclay
The hon. Lady is right about the importance of Test and Trace; it is key to our unlocking the economy and to addressing the much more substantive costs in terms of the non-pharmaceutical interventions. As she will know as Chair of the PAC, while I as Chief Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will always look at the cost of Test and Trace, the bigger prize is getting our economy opened. On the substantive point the hon. Lady raises on the self-isolation payments, again I point to the fact that at the Budget my right hon. Friend the Chancellor increased the funding for discretionary support; that sits alongside the £500 itself, and is in addition to the wider support that the majority of employers provide.
James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
The Government’s road map out lockdown says that self-isolation is critically important to halting the spread of disease, yet Baroness Harding has recently admitted that financial difficulties prevent people from self-isolating and a year ago the Health Secretary admitted he could not live on statutory sick pay of £94.25 a week. It is now £95.85 a week, so can the Minister explain why the Chancellor refuses simply to guarantee that anyone who has to rely on statutory sick pay or is unable to access even that should be eligible for the £500 payment?
Steve Barclay
I do not think the hon. Gentleman has actually read the Budget announcement made last week, because the discretionary element of the Test and Trace support payments applies even if people are not in receipt of means-tested benefits. So it does recognise the point raised by Members that it is important that there is an incentive for people to be tested; that is what the £500 payment through the Test and Trace system addresses. But in addition Members raised cases which were just outside the means-tested element of Test and Trace; that is the issue that the discretionary fund addresses, and it was dealt with in the Budget last week.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)
The Government have provided an unprecedented multibillion- pound package of support for Britain’s charities, including £750 million of dedicated funding that has helped more than 15,000 organisations across the country respond to the impacts of covid-19 and relieve the pressure on our NHS.
Craig Whittaker [V]
As we all know, yesterday marked International Women’s Day, a day when we celebrate and recognise the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. However, this pandemic has also shone a light on domestic abuse and the struggles of many women across the country, so will my right hon. Friend set out what steps he is taking to support charities in this field so we can ensure that victims and their children can access the support they need?
Steve Barclay
I join my hon. Friend in marking International Women’s Day yesterday, and he raises a very important issue. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor at the Budget last week committed a further £90 million of funding; that, of course, builds on the £125 million announced at the spending review and indeed the earlier £25 million that had also been provided, recognising the 65% increase in calls to the national domestic abuse hotline and the renewed focus within Government on this important issue.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]
Charities across these islands have done amazing work through the pandemic, so with the Finance Bill coming up will the Treasury reward the efforts of these charities and encourage the public to donate by temporarily increasing the rate of gift aid from 20% to 25% and expanding the small donations scheme to make gift aid much easier to claim?
Steve Barclay
I join the hon. Lady in recognising the huge contribution that charities have made. In respect of specific tax measures, obviously they were dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the Budget last week, but I remind the hon. Lady of the £750 million of dedicated funding that has been provided to date in recognition of that important work.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
Once in every Parliament, the National Infrastructure Commission publishes a national infrastructure assessment. The first assessment was launched in July 2018, and the commission operates UK-wide.
Geraint Davies [V]
Wales has 5% of the population but it has had only 2% of the railway enhancement investment over decades, and it has the lowest household income. Given that HS2 will not pass through Wales, will the Minister and the Treasury look very carefully at providing a high-speed rail link between Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea and beyond—over 3 million people live there—in line with the Burns review, to help the agenda for levelling up and connecting the Union, and to give us our fair share of rail investment based on need?
Jesse Norman
I thank the hon. Member for his question. Of course, he will be aware that the benefits of HS2 are not, by any means, just restricted to the cities that are on its route; it is a national project of significance. More widely, Wales has done very well in the last Budget, if I might remind him more generally, with accelerated funding for the Swansea bay, north Wales and mid-Wales city growth deals, money for the hydrogen hub and, of course, £30 million towards the global centre of rail excellence in Neath Port Talbot. What I would say, though, is that of course we do now have a UK infrastructure bank, which will be looking at issues of infrastructure across the country, including in the devolved Administrations.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)
The Government are providing over £407 billion-worth of support for the UK economy over this year and next. Contained within that is considerable support for business, through discounted loans, cash grants, VAT reductions and tax deferrals, all designed to help business get through this crisis and protect as many jobs as possible.
Tom Hunt
I very much welcome the £25 million that Ipswich will be getting through a town deal, and the creation of Freeport East. Some 6,000 of my constituents are employed, directly or indirectly, through the port of Felixstowe. The town deal will create a new tech campus and a maritime skills academy to feed jobs—high-skilled jobs—in the area. Therefore, does the Chancellor agree that both the town deal money and the new freeport, together, will be vital to the creation of new local skills in Ipswich and therefore crucial to supporting local business at this difficult time?
Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I congratulate him; he has long campaigned on the importance of a town deal for his local community and, indeed, a freeport. I am delighted that this Budget could deliver both of those for his constituents and I agree with him that it will deliver growth, jobs and prosperity to his local area.
Laura Trott [V]
I thank the Chancellor for his earlier response. The measures in the Budget provided a lifeline to high streets in my constituency, from Westerham to Swanley. In particular, the restart grants are much anticipated. Can the Chancellor confirm when local authorities will be able to begin distributing these vital grants?
Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we must get support to businesses as quickly as possible. I am pleased to confirm to her that guidance will be published, hopefully by the end of this week, for local authorities, and that the restart grants, which are designed to take the place of our grant scheme that runs out at the end of April, will be distributed to local authorities in the first full week—the week commencing 5 April. I hope that is a reassurance to her and her businesses, and that local authorities can get the cash to them at this vital time.
Greg Smith
The scale of support for businesses has been truly outstanding, but may I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the coach industry? Pre-pandemic, it already found itself heavily indebted because of requirements that the state put on it, such as the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 and Euro 6 requirements, so will he look again at how the coach industry can be supported, given the level of debt it is already in?
Rishi Sunak
I thank my hon. Friend for shining a spotlight on this important industry; he is right to do so. I know that he will be talking to the Department for Transport about regulations for the industry, but I can tell him that we will be providing local authorities with discretionary funding of around £425 million to sit alongside the restart grants. That money, at the discretion of local areas, can be used to support businesses such as coach businesses in their areas.
Mark Menzies [V]
I just want to take this opportunity to thank the Chancellor for the way in which he has engaged with me and other Members representing coastal communities throughout the lifetime of the pandemic. I know the extensive measures he has put in place, particularly for the hospitality sector, will make a huge difference to those businesses surviving. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that he will continue to monitor and work with me to ensure that local businesses get all the support they need for their continued recovery?
Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend has been instrumental in providing on-the-ground information to me and my team about the particular situation facing hospitality businesses in coastal communities like his. He is an absolute champion for them and rightly so. They are an important part of his local economy and I am glad that this Budget supported them. He has my assurance that we will continue to work with him and them to get them the support that they deserve.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that £27 billion-worth of loans made under coronavirus loan schemes will never be repaid. Why is the Chancellor insisting that banks pursue that as conventional business debt, when the circumstances that gave rise to those loans are anything but conventional? Would lifting the debt burden on businesses and turning it into a contingent tax liability not help to fire up the economy, set business free and really get Britain moving again?
Rishi Sunak
What we have done is provide a scheme called Pay as You Grow to give businesses incredible flexibility and generosity in how they repay bounce back loans. Those loans at an instant can be turned automatically into 10-year loans, which reduces the monthly cash payment by almost 50%. Beyond that, there are opportunities for interest-only periods and payment holidays, all of which will support the cash flow of businesses. We also have to get a balance with the taxpayer in all of this, which is why we have taken the approach we have. I am sad that the right hon. Gentleman did not also welcome the £25 million of investment in his local community through a town deal in this Budget, which will help local businesses there as well.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]
The Save our Salons campaign presented to the gaps in support all-party group this morning. It remains hugely frustrated that the hair, beauty and holistic service industry has had no sector-specific support from the Chancellor, despite contributing £9.2 billion to the economy. Can the Chancellor explain why he has decided to ignore the calls from this largely female industry to chop VAT to 5%?
Rishi Sunak
With regard to VAT, I am sure the hon. Lady knows that the majority of businesses in the personal care sector are below the VAT threshold, so they do not actually pay any VAT. What we did do is include that sector in the more generous restart grants, so, depending on their rateable value, businesses in that sector, like those in hospitality, will be able to receive grants of up to £18,000.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con) [V]
I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement in the Budget of the super deduction, which will definitely have a very positive impact on investment. Of course, it will primarily do that by pulling forward what would have been future investment into a more recent time period. What measures is my right hon. Friend looking to, to ensure that that increase in corporate investment in the shorter term is continued into the medium and longer term?
Rishi Sunak
I am glad my right hon. Friend recognises the importance of the super deduction. He is right that it will bring forward investment, but I believe it will also increase the amount of investment as well, given the attractiveness of doing so. What I would point him to are a couple of other announcements in the Budget. One is a consultation to reform our research and development tax credits regime, which we hope to conduct over the course of this year to make sure of support for investment in R&D in a way that reflects current R&D practices. Secondly, our freeports agenda contains enhanced capital allowances, and structures and building allowances, which last well beyond the period of the super deduction and will serve as an incentive for capital investment in those areas for years to come.
Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)
In July last year, the OBR forecast unemployment to peak at around just under 12%. Now, because of policy development, it has forecast a much lower peak of 6.5%. That means 1.8 million fewer people who are expected to lose their jobs. Whether it is through interventions such as the furlough scheme, we remain committed to protecting, supporting and creating jobs.
Gary Sambrook
The furlough scheme has helped to protect 11.2 million jobs across the UK, including nearly 6,000 jobs in my Birmingham, Northfield constituency, so I take this opportunity to thank the Chancellor for the extension until September. Does he agree that this will give businesses the vital breathing space needed to be able to plan as we go along the Prime Minister’s road map?
Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of protecting jobs. The extension of the furlough scheme on generous terms beyond the end of the road map is designed to give his local businesses and others the reassurance that they need to reopen safely and confidently. I know he will be keen to protect as many of those jobs as possible in his local area and I am delighted that this Government can support him in doing so.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
A SAGE—Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies —adviser is reported to have said:
“I thought the chancellor was in charge. He was the main person who was responsible for the second wave.”
Does the Chancellor accept that his refusal to follow the science by pitting public health against the economy led to worse outcomes for both?
Rishi Sunak
I urge the hon. Lady to be a little bit careful about what she reads in the newspaper. At all steps in this crisis, we have indeed taken the advice of our scientific advisers. Let us go back to September, which I think is what she is referring to. At that time—as she knows from the SAGE minutes herself, which are published, rather than unsourced quotes in newspapers—the evidence was finely balanced and there were many things for Ministers to consider. The consideration at that point was that the tiered system was working and deserved to be given a chance.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP)
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)
I have frequent discussions with the Scottish Government Finance Secretary and spoke to her ahead of the Budget last week.
Kenny MacAskill [V]
Despite furlough, high streets face devastation—first shops and now pubs, an even harder space to fill. Was the Budget not an opportunity to support what are community assets in urban as well as rural areas and where alcohol consumption is supervised and not unchecked? With supermarkets having made huge profits during lockdown, much of that through alcohol sales, is it not time to support the Social Market Foundation’s call to increase alcohol duty on off-trade to sustain the on-trade in our communities?
Steve Barclay
Many businesses across Scotland argued for the alcohol freeze, not least the Scottish whisky industry. They also argued for the fuel freeze, which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor delivered. I am also surprised, when the hon. Gentleman talks of community, that he does not even recognise the extra capacity funding that his community received in the Budget. With all these things that impact the community, clearly, the additional £1.2 billion of funding received by the Scottish Government through Barnett consequentials at the Budget will again enable the Scottish Government to work with the UK Government to deliver better services in his community.
Marion Fellows [V]
The poverty Chancellor has refused to make permanent the £20 universal credit increase and apply it to legacy benefits, with 75% of those affected being disabled. If he refuses to change course, 60,000 Scots, including 20,000 children, will be left in poverty and forced to decide between heating and eating. If the Minister was in their position, what would he choose: heating or eating?
Steve Barclay
First, as was set out in analysis published with the Budget, the measures that the Government have taken have supported the poorest working households the most. Secondly, the hon. Lady also failed to mention the additional capacity funding for her community that was announced at the Budget. Thirdly, the Scottish Government requested specific powers in respect of benefits and tax, and, of course, they have the option to use those powers that they said that they wanted.
Amy Callaghan [V]
As the Minister will be aware, the £20 uplift to universal credit has been a lifeline during the pandemic. Many families in my constituency are devastated that the uplift is set to end in September. With the Scottish Government committed to tackling child poverty, including through the game-changer Scottish child payment, the UK Government-imposed cliff edge could pose a significant setback. Does the Minister agree that plunging children and families into poverty, whether it is now or in September, is a callous act, and will he commit to a permanent uplift to universal credit?
Steve Barclay
We have managed to get a hat trick, because the hon. Lady also received capacity funding for her own area at the Budget but chose not to mention that funding, which will help the families she referred to. It is also slightly odd for her to talk about plunging into something when the Chancellor has announced an extension. Coupled with that, and the UK-wide measures that were set out at the Budget—including measures such as freezing fuel duty, which will help many families in her own constituency—there was an additional £1.2 billion of funding for the Scottish Government and the powers to which I referred in my previous answer. Therefore, many families have been helped, including 480,000 existing claimants in Scotland as well as new claimants, and the families helped through the £500 one- off payment that was announced at the Budget. There was a strong package of support for Scotland, none of which she chose to mention in her question.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
Improving transport connectivity across the UK is central to the Government’s levelling up agenda, and local residents across the UK will benefit from upgrades to infrastructure that improve everyday life as a result of the launch of the £4.8 billion levelling up fund. The Government have also maintained their commitment to already announced transport investment through the transforming cities fund and the roads investment strategy, and Budget 2021 confirmed capacity funding allocations for the £4.2 billion of intra-city transport settlements, so that the city regions receiving settlements can develop investment-ready transport plans to deliver on local priorities.
Robert Largan [V]
Politicians of all parties have been promising to build the Mottram bypass for more than 50 years. I am really pleased that Highways England and Balfour Beatty recently signed a contract to build the bypass, and a formal consultation has now been carried out on the detailed proposals, meaning that we are closer than we have ever been before to finally getting it built. Can the Minister assure me that the Government remain committed to building the bypass as soon as possible? The people of Glossop and Hadfield have waited long enough.
Jesse Norman
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He has been a vociferous supporter of this scheme and I can happily confirm that the Government remain committed to upgrading the A57 so as to improve connectivity between Manchester and Sheffield. The development consent order is on track to be submitted shortly and construction is expected to start in early 2023.
Sally-Ann Hart [V]
Investing in improved transport infrastructure is well recognised by this Government as a necessity for turbocharging our economy and levelling up. Beautiful Hastings and Rye has some of the most antiquated road and rail infrastructure in the country, which discourages new businesses from locating there and inhibits economic growth. Network Rail is currently finalising a strategic business case for HS1. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that funding will be available to finance such a vital project?
Jesse Norman
My hon. Friend will be aware that the strategic outline business case for the Kent and East Sussex coastal connectivity scheme includes proposals to extend HS1 services from Ashford International to Hastings and Rye. It is currently being taken forward by Network Rail and is due to be submitted to the Department for Transport in April 2021. It will then be reviewed by the Department and by stakeholders in Kent and East Sussex County Councils.
Simon Jupp [V]
Improving road and rail connections across all four nations of the UK will improve the quality of life for our communities and I am really looking forward to seeing the Hendy review this summer. However, there is no doubt that it will take the aviation sector longer than most to recover from the crisis. Taxes, including air passenger duty, need urgent reform to help the industry to get back on its feet. What plans does the Treasury have to remove the double charging of domestic air passenger duty, a call backed by regional airports including Exeter in my constituency and Newquay, which particularly rely on domestic flights to all corners of the United Kingdom?
Jesse Norman
The Treasury is committed to consulting on aviation tax reform. As part of that, we will consider the APD treatment of domestic flights. Unfortunately, the consultation has been delayed in recognition of the rather challenging circumstances that the aviation industry is currently facing, but we will update the House on this in due course.
Alexander Stafford [V]
Car ownership in Maltby in Rother Valley is lower than the national average and buses provide a vital lifeline. However, our services are severely lacking. You cannot get a direct bus between Maltby, my largest town, and Dinnington, my second largest town and, if you do take public transport, that five-mile journey takes almost an hour. What fiscal steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that communities in Rother Valley are linked up, so that those without cars have the same opportunities to be economically active, to get to and from jobs and even to go shopping as those with cars?
Jesse Norman
It is no secret that bus services are close to the Prime Minister’s heart. The Government have committed to improving bus services and since the start of the pandemic have supported operators with more than £1 billion of funding, as well as with £120 million at the spending review for the delivery of new zero emission buses. The national bus strategy is due to be published soon and will start to set out this wider ambition. I am also pleased to note that Budget 2020 allocated £166 million to the Sheffield city region from the transforming cities fund to support local transport investment, including bus infrastructure.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab) [V]
To deliver transport connectivity in every part of the United Kingdom, we need long-term investment in infrastructure but, staggeringly, the OBR analysis reveals that the Chancellor has cut capital investment plans by half a billion pounds since last March. The Budget also made no mention of Northern Powerhouse Rail and slashed the Transport for the North budget by 40%. Can the Minister explain why the reality of the Budget on infrastructure investment is so far from this Government’s rhetoric?
Jesse Norman
I do not recognise the figures the hon. Lady has used at all. The facts are that this Government published the “National Infrastructure Strategy” in November, which set out plans for £300 billion-worth of public investment over the next few years, as well as supporting £300 billion of private investment. Since then, the Chancellor has announced the new UK infrastructure bank, which will further support the development of infrastructure and levelling up, and the development of our green infrastructure across the UK.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
The Chancellor regularly engages with his international partners in the G7, G20 and the Paris Club on debt issues, including private sector participation in debt restructurings, and Treasury officials are also engaging with the private sector on this issue.
Mary Kelly Foy [V]
As the Government slash international aid, covid-19 could push up to 150 million people globally into extreme poverty, yet many banks and asset managers operating in the UK, including HSBC, BlackRock and J.P. Morgan, continue to demand debt repayments from developing countries, leaving them with less money to respond to covid-19. Will the Government urgently introduce new legislation to prevent developing countries from being sued in UK courts by banks, asset managers and vulture funds if they are unable to pay their debts as a result of the pandemic?
John Glen
I note the hon. Lady’s long-standing interest in this subject, but I want to state clearly that the Government support the role of the low-income developing countries to be supported by the UK’s G7 presidency. We have made clear our expectation that the private sector and the firms she mentioned will offer debt treatment on at least as favourable terms as the official sector, under the common framework, as agreed by the G20 last November.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)
In order to support people through the next stages of the pandemic, the Government have extended both the furlough scheme and the self-employment income support scheme through to September, which will help millions of people up and down the country.
Stephen Doughty [V]
I thank the Chancellor for his answer. The Welsh Labour Government this week announced a further £30 million to support hospitality and tourism, and freelancers working in our creative sectors are going to get a further round of support worth £8.9 million—this is targeting support to fill gaps left by the Chancellor. I accept that many people have had welcome support, but huge numbers of people are coming up to a year of little or no support because they have been excluded from UK Government support over the past year. What will the Chancellor do for all those excluded, left out and left behind the curve over the past year?
Rishi Sunak
I am glad the Welsh Government will receive more than £740 million in Barnett consequentials as a result of this Budget, which works for the whole United Kingdom. With regard to the self-employment scheme, what I can say is that we are now able to bring in those people who filed tax returns for the first time in the tax year 2019-20. That was something that many colleagues asked for. I am pleased that we were able to deliver that now that the tax deadline has passed, and it means that more than 600,000 more people will be able to benefit from this world-leading support for the self-employed.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
The Government have announced that the self-employment income support scheme will continue until September, with a fourth and a fifth grant. This provides certainty to business as the economy reopens and it means that the self-employment income support scheme continues to be one of the most generous covid-19 support schemes for self-employment income around the world.
Andrew Gwynne [V]
That is welcome for those who qualify for it, but a year ago it was the Chancellor who said that he would do “whatever it takes” to protect people. There are still millions of self-employed people without any support since this crisis started and they will not forget that either. It is untenable. Why will Ministers not finally act and do whatever it takes to ensure that this important sector of the economy also has the chance to succeed post the pandemic?
Jesse Norman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Of course, we have put in place £407 billion-worth of support across the whole of the pandemic, which is an astonishing level of support for a very wide range of businesses and people across the country. In relation to the self-employed, he may not be aware, but I have bent over backwards to engage with different groups of the self-employed. Repeatedly, across different meetings, we have looked with the greatest care at the proposals that they have put forward to bring in people who may not be able to qualify at the moment. As the Chancellor mentioned, 600,000 people previously ineligible may now be eligible, including those newly self-employed in 2019-20.
Yasmin Qureshi [V]
The Government may well throw these figures about, but we know that 3.8 million self-employed people have had no financial support throughout this whole pandemic. Freelancers, small companies and other people across Bolton and this country want the Chancellor to recognise the fact that his continued silence is just not good enough.
Jesse Norman
In mentioning Bolton, the hon. Lady somehow neglected to mention the £22.9 million-worth of towns funding that Bolton has recently received. I thought that she might kick off with that. The answer that I gave was perfectly clear about the matter: we are bending over backwards to support people. We have leant into this issue as hard as we can and we will continue to do so.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Kemi Badenoch)
As the Chancellor reaffirmed at the Budget, the Government are increasing the national living wage by 2.2% from £8.72 to £8.91, an above-inflation pay rise. The Government remain committed to their ambitious target for the national living wage to reach two thirds of median earnings by 2024 provided that economic conditions allow. The Treasury will continue to work closely with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that we reach this target.
Mr Baron [V]
In welcoming the Government’s generous economic support packages and the increase in the national living wage, may I just ask the Minister to consider further increasing it ahead of inflation in the years ahead to help achieve our one nation agenda and ensure that work pays? I suggest that, combined with an effective and controlled immigration policy, that will also encourage businesses to invest in their workforce and in research and development generally, which will help to improve productivity.
Kemi Badenoch
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He should know that the Government remain committed to ensuring that work pays and to helping to end low pay. As he knows, investment to raise productivity is vital for long-term sustainable growth in wages. I am sure that his request is one that we will consider, as always, in future Budgets. Taxes and minimum wages are always under review, but this Government are absolutely focused on levelling up. We have set out our plan to build back better, which will drive economic growth that levels up the whole of the UK through significant investment in infrastructure as well as skills and innovation.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)
Taking into account all the measures announced since last March, this Government are providing more than £400 billion of direct fiscal support to the economy over this year and next. That will rank as one of the most comprehensive and generous responses of any country anywhere in the world.
David Simmonds [V]
[Inaudible]—and the further support announced for businesses. The extension of the VAT and the business rates holiday, alongside the restart grants, are particularly welcome for businesses in my constituency of Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, especially on our high streets. Does my right hon. Friend agree that these steps will support our short-term economic recovery, and ensure that businesses have the breathing space to protect jobs as they begin to bounce back?
Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our priority economically is to protect, support and create as many jobs as possible, and the support that we have provided to businesses will help to do that. My hon. Friend talks about breathing space; he is right to say that measures to improve businesses’ cash flow in the short term will help give them the breathing space they need to drive our recovery as they begin to reopen in the coming months.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)
Last week I presented to the House a Budget to protect the jobs and livelihoods of the British people, confirming more than £400 billion of support over this year and next, ranking as one of the most comprehensive responses of any country anywhere in the world. We also set out a fair and honest plan to begin fixing our public finances while also starting the work of building our future economy.
Stephen Timms [V]
How are the crucial EU negotiations on the memorandum of understanding on financial services progressing? Given its importance to the UK economy—by comparison, for example, with fishing—why was it not included in the overall deal?
Rishi Sunak
I cannot comment on ongoing negotiations; we remain committed to a constructive dialogue with our European partners regarding the memorandum of understanding, and I can confirm that those discussions are under way. With regard to financial services, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman saw the announcement of our listings review. I thank Jonathan Hill for his excellent work. We will take forward those reforms together with the Financial Conduct Authority to ensure that the UK remains one of the most attractive places anywhere in the world for companies to raise the finance they need to empower their future growth.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Rishi Sunak
My right hon. Friend has raised this industry with me multiple times, and he is right to do so. Although some food and drink wholesalers have been significantly impacted, others—for example, those that predominately serve the public sector—have not been, so I do not think it would be fair to provide blanket support. He talked about a postcode lottery. The other side of that coin is empowering local government and local decision making, and I believe that is the right approach. We have announced £425 million of additional discretionary support to local authorities, but I am sure that his raising the issue in the House in this way will give his local council and others the steer they need to direct support to this important industry.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
In 2017 the Chancellor asked a Member of this House whether Labour’s proposed increase in corporation tax
“would make it more or less likely that international investors would want to invest here in the UK?”—[Official Report, 12 September 2017; Vol. 628, c. 218WH.]
What’s the answer, Chancellor?
Rishi Sunak
I am delighted that the hon. Lady is raising the topic of corporation tax at this Budget. I feel that we have had various different versions of the Labour party policy on this topic over the past couple of weeks. What I can say is that we are honest with the British people about the challenges facing our public finances, and we have set out a fair and honest way to address those challenges. This will remain one of the most internationally competitive places anywhere in the world to invest, to grow a business and to create jobs, and this Government will always deliver on that promise.
Anneliese Dodds
Last week, the Chancellor said he wanted to “level with” the public. He mentioned a moment ago that he wanted to take an honest approach. Well, the head of the NHS just confirmed that he budgeted for the 2.1% pay rise that nurses expected, so we need a straight answer now from the Chancellor: why do the Conservatives believe that our nurses are worth less now than they were before the pandemic?
Rishi Sunak
I pay tribute to all those working on the frontline of our NHS and other public services. They are doing a fantastic job, and that is why this Government have supported the NHS with tens of billions of pounds of extra funding through this pandemic and will continue to do so. With regard to public sector pay, we set out a policy in November, but, given the situation, we were taking a more targeted approach to public sector pay to balance fairness and to protect as many jobs as possible. The hon. Lady will know that the NHS was exempted from that policy and NHS workers will receive a pay rise next year.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con) [V]
Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend is right to raise this important issue, as he has done with me several times on behalf of his local businesses. He is right that we are reviewing business rates. We are in the midst of that process. The next stage will be to publish all the consultation responses that we have received, which will happen shortly, and we will take forward the policy process over the course of this year. We outlined many options for potential reforms in the paper. I look forward to receiving from him some ideas on what the reforms might be. In the short term, we are providing a £6 billion tax cut in business rates, delivering a 75% discount on business rates for the vast majority of small and medium-sized businesses as they emerge from this pandemic.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Rishi Sunak
This Government are committed to record amounts of investment in infrastructure, both road and rail, as we heard from my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary earlier. The Budget announced upgrades for several stations in and around the midlands after representations that we heard from the fantastic Mayor, Andy Street, about the needs of his area. We remain committed to publishing the integrated rail plan in due course.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
What a fantastically niche question from my hon. Friend, and how delighted I am to be able to answer it. He will know that scoring is a matter for the OBR. As the Budget policy costings in the Budget 2021 document set out, the costing for corporation tax has been adjusted to reflect behavioural responses to an increase in the rate of corporation tax. It is important to be clear that dynamic scoring can include a number of potential behavioural responses, such as adjustments to reflect the impact on the incentive to incorporate, on profit shifting, and on investment. If he is so minded, he can find further detail on page 196 of the OBR’s “Economic and fiscal outlook”.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)
I am always happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and discuss that matter in more detail. As he will recognise, one of the features of the Budget was the number of UK-wide measures, but at the same time he is quite right to point to the additional £2.4 billion of Barnett consequential funding that was allocated to the devolved Administrations, which has enabled them to apply further support as a result of the fiscal strength that is offered by the UK Treasury. I am of course happy to discuss the specific point with him in more detail.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con) [V]
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
The Foreign Secretary is continuing to look very carefully at the legislative requirements and will set out further detail in due course on how the Government intend to proceed.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP) [V]
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Kemi Badenoch)
The hon. Gentleman will know we are carrying out an alcohol duty review that will look at all these decisions in the round, and I am very happy to speak to him in more detail specifically about any particular schemes or requests that he has.
Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con) [V]
Kemi Badenoch
The Government are supporting these businesses through new restart grants—a one-off cash grant of up to £6,000 per business premises for non-essential retailers in England—and up to £18,000 for hospitality and leisure businesses. They will also benefit from a five-month extension of the coronavirus job retention scheme, a further 12 months’ relief from business rates and a new UK-wide recovery loan scheme. Tony’s Deli, which my hon. Friend mentioned, and other businesses serving hot food can also enjoy a 12-month VAT cut at 5% until the end of September, and at 12.5% until the end of March.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab) [V]
Rishi Sunak
A majority of those working in the public sector will see an increase in their pay this forthcoming year as a result of our pay policy. Importantly, those earning less than the median UK salary will receive a £250 increase in their pay, because we want to protect those on the lowest incomes. Even at a difficult time, that is what this Government are committed to doing.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
Kemi Badenoch
We are committed to improving skills in the economy and levelling up productivity across England. That will be achieved through our lifetime skills guarantee and further reforms, which will create jobs and opportunity across the country, supporting us to build back better from the coronavirus pandemic. We will provide further detail and a full conclusion to the review of post-18 education and funding at the next comprehensive spending review. I thank my hon. Friend and the Open University for their engagement on this so far.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) [V]
Steve Barclay
With respect, the hon. Lady is simply wrong on the facts with her question. Under the Agenda for Change three-year award, the average increase this year was 2.5%, not the figure she alluded to. But of course, the Government have asked the pay review body to consider a number of factors and, as is normal practice, the Department of Health and Social Care has set out what is affordable within its budgets.
Ian Levy (Blyth Valley) (Con)
Kemi Badenoch
Freeports will be national hubs for international trade, innovation and commerce and they will regenerate communities across the UK. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government led a fair, open and transparent selection process to determine successful freeport locations in England. Unfortunately, as with any competitive process, there will always be those that are unsuccessful, and I am afraid there are no plans to designate other freeports in England. Freeports are part of a wider package of UK Government support, which invests in skills, infrastructure and innovation at local, regional and national levels. As part of that package, Blyth was awarded £11 million through the future high streets fund in December and is also one of 101 towns eligible for up to £25 million funding from the towns fund.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con) [V]
John Glen
The Government are committed to encouraging business investment in Doncaster and its surrounding area, and at the Budget we confirmed £23 million funding for Goldthorpe’s town deal—just due west of the town—and that will boost economic growth and encourage business investment in the area. MHCLG is currently assessing the remaining 49 towns fund bids, including those from Doncaster and Stainforth; we will make further announcements on those in due course.
Mr Speaker
I am suspending the House for a few minutes to enable the necessary arrangements for the next business to be made.
Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, if he will make a statement on the recent court order regarding the Government’s publication of contracts during the covid-19 pandemic.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
Although I am not the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, I hope the hon. Lady will none the less allow me to respond to her urgent question.
The first duty of any Government in a crisis is protecting their citizens, so our work to provide personal protective equipment was a critical part of our response. It was a herculean effort that involved setting up a new logistics network from scratch and expanding our PPE supply chain from 226 NHS trusts in England to more than 58,000 different settings. Our team has been working night and day on this vital national effort, and I can update the House that we have now delivered more than 8.8 billion items of PPE to those who need it. That work was taking place at a time when global demand was greater than ever before and rapid action was required, so we had to work at an unprecedented pace to get supplies to our frontline and the public.
Two weeks ago, in response to an urgent question from the hon. Lady, I updated the House on the initial High Court ruling. I will not set out that judgment at length once again, save to say that the case looked not at the awarding of the contracts, but rather at the delays in publishing the details of them as we responded to one of the greatest threats to public health that this country has ever seen. The hon. Lady’s question refers to a short declaratory judgment handed down subsequent to the original judgment in this matter, which makes a formal order as to the Government’s compliance with the relevant regulatory rules.
As before, I reiterate that we of course take the judgment of the Court very seriously and respect it. We have always been clear that transparency is vital, and the Court itself has found that there was no deliberate policy to delay publication. The fight against covid-19 is ongoing. As would be expected, we are agreeing new contracts as part of that fight all the time, and we will keep publishing details of them as we move forward.
I care passionately about transparency, and so does everyone in my Department. We will of course continue to look at how we can improve our response while we tackle one of the greatest threats to our public health that this nation has ever seen.
Rachel Reeves
This question and the answers to it really matter because our frontline workers were not adequately protected with the high-quality PPE that they needed during the pandemic. They matter because it is essential that taxpayers’ money is spent effectively and fairly, not handed out to those who happen to have close links with the party of government.
The Government ran down the PPE stockpile ahead of the pandemic, and that came back to haunt us when we needed it most. Contracts were handed out—many to friends of and donors linked to the Conservative party —without any transparency. The Good Law Project took the Government to court, and on 19 February the High Court ruled that the Government had acted unlawfully, saying:
“The public were entitled to see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the…contracts were awarded.”
Three days later, in this House, the Prime Minister said that
“the contracts are there on the record for everybody to see”—[Official Report, 22 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 638.]
But they are not. A judge confirmed through a court order last Friday that 100 contracts are still to be published. Will the Minister now take this opportunity to apologise for that statement and to put the record straight? Will the Government now finally agree to publish all 100 outstanding contracts by the end of this week?
For contracts that have failed, will the Minister tell us how much money has been and will be clawed back for taxpayers? Can he tell us which businesses were in the VIP fast lane for getting Government contracts and how they got there? Finally, can he honestly tell our brilliant NHS nurses, now facing a pay cut, that the Government have not wasted a single penny of their money on this curious incident of the missing contracts?
Edward Argar
It is a pleasure to be opposite the hon. Lady once again at the Dispatch Box—two weeks after we were last here. I will do my best to answer the questions she raised, not just for my own Department, but more broadly across Government.
The hon. Lady raised a number of points. She is absolutely right to say that transparency matters, because transparency of procurement and transparency in Government is one of the foundations of the trust that is so vital to our democracy. That is why we are working flat out to ensure that, as new contracts are awarded, the contract award notices and other relevant pieces of information are published in line with the requirements of regulations.
What is most important, though, is to recognise the situation that we faced last year, with rising infection rates, rising hospitalisation rates and the need to do everything we could—to “strain every sinew”, to quote one of the hon. Lady’s letters to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at the time—to make sure we got those working flat out on the frontline what they needed to keep them safe. I pay tribute to the officials in my Department, who did exactly that: they focused on getting what was needed in bulk in an incredibly challenging global market, to make sure that PPE did not run out.
The hon. Lady quite rightly quoted the judgment, and I will quote paragraph 149 of the judgment—the original judgment, not the supplementary judgment. The judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, stated that
“the overall picture shows the Secretary of State moving close to complete compliance. The evidence as a whole suggests that the backlog arose largely in the first few months of the pandemic and that officials began to bear down on it during the autumn of 2020.”
I think that recognises the efforts that have been put in place to ensure that we meet our transparency requirements. One hundred per cent. of the Department’s CANs—contract aware notices—have been published.
The hon. Member asked a particular question in referring to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s comments on 22 February—I hope I am correct in surmising that. My right hon. Friend was responding to a question around the failure to publish the details of specific contracts that are subject to judicial reviews. I am advised that, at the time of his statement, the details for all the contracts under scrutiny were published.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) [V]
As the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, I think that the Government’s following robust procurement measures is absolutely critical, but clearly a year ago we were not in normal circumstances; most reasonable people would accept that desperate times called for desperate measures. Will the Minister confirm that the Government are now following all normal, standard procurement processes? Will he confirm what percentage of the contracts from a year ago have been fully published and when the remainder will be published?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend highlights the situation we faced at the time. He also, quite rightly, highlights the importance of transparency and complying with all transparency processes. The Government invoked regulation 32, which recognised the exceptional circumstances that allowed for procurement without the usual tendering process. I believe that the usual tendering process could take, at a minimum, 25 days. My hon. Friend recalls the situation at the time. The Government did what we felt was right to ensure that we got the PPE that our frontline needed. The court case also found that there was no policy to deprioritise compliance with transparency regulations. I give him the assurance he seeks: the Government are doing everything possible to ensure that we fully comply with those regulations going forward.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP) [V]
Some 94% of contracts awarded before 7 October were, unlawfully, not published in time and, as of late last week, 100 are still not published. Some 58% were awarded without a competitive tendering process. There are conflicts of interest, inadequate documentation, a high-priority crony lane and then the Prime Minister announcing that all of the contracts were,
“on the record for everybody to see”—[Official Report, 22 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 631.]
When he said that, it was simply not correct. Is the Minister not concerned that this failure in transparency, the potential conflicts of interest and a Prime Minister who does not even appear to know what is going on, simply feeds a perception of a Government doing profitable deals with friends and cronies, rather than delivering meaningful transparency that will drive value for money for the taxpayer?
Edward Argar
The right hon. Gentleman highlights quite accurately the 94%, which was cited in the subsequent judgment and the order that flowed from it, of the contracts that were late in publication. We accept that that is a statement of fact. The Department has published 100% of the CANs that it is obliged to publish that are related to this matter. He talked about a percentage that were procured without following a normal competitive tendering process—I think he referred to 58% as the percentage that were procured. That is entirely appropriate under regulation 32, recognising the situation we faced at the time and the priority of this Government to make sure that, at pace, we got the PPE that our frontline needed to keep it safe.
On his final two points, I do not see in the judgments in this case or in any of the other scrutiny of this issue by Committees of this House or other organisations anything that asserts or finds that inappropriate conflicts of interest influenced how these contracts were awarded. I am proud to serve in a Government led by a Prime Minister who leads from the front and has done whatever is necessary to make sure this country gets through this pandemic.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
This time last year, there was a desperate need to secure PPE urgently when, almost overnight, it became one of the most hotly sought-after commodities globally. I congratulate the Department on its Herculean efforts to keep my residents safe and get them the PPE they needed when the shortage hit. Of course, delays to publication are not ideal, and I am glad that the Department is urgently trying to resolve that. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as part of the review into the pandemic, we need to look at how procurement procedures can be improved when responding to a national crisis or, indeed, future pandemics?
Edward Argar
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work on this issue; he is a strong and vocal champion for the NHS and those who work in it. The context he sets is absolutely right. I will quote from the summary of the NAO report without making a value judgment on it. It highlighted in paragraph 2:
“Demand for PPE rocketed in England from March…There was also a surge in demand in other countries. At the same time, the global supply of PPE declined as a result of a fall in exports from China (the country that manufactures the most PPE) in February.”
That is a statement of fact, and it highlights the context in which we were operating.
My hon. Friend is right: all Governments should rightly look at what they have done and what lessons they can learn, to ensure that they are well prepared for future events.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]
On 22 February, the Prime Minister answered my question about unpublished covid contracts by claiming:
“As for the contracts…all the details are on the record”—[Official Report, 22 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 634.]
Two days later, when the Minister was dragged to the Chamber, he did not tell us about the 100 contracts that were still not on the record. We had to wait for the High Court to reveal that last Friday. Are we expected to believe that the Prime Minister had not sought any briefing after the High Court found that his Secretary of State had acted unlawfully? If he sought no facts, why did he give such a categorical yet wildly inaccurate reply, and why was that inaccurate reply not corrected two days later by the Minister?
Edward Argar
At the point in time to which the hon. Lady is referring—22 February, when she asked the Prime Minister her question—I understand that we had published 100% of our contract award notices for contracts of the Department that were subject to the Court case, and I believe the Prime Minister spoke accurately.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con) [V]
Notwithstanding the answer that the Minister gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), does he agree with my constituents and I that, during a national emergency, the British people want a Government who focus resources on saving lives over prioritising red tape?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the point he makes on behalf of his constituents. The overwhelming priority was to ensure that we got the PPE in the quantities we needed to our frontline, and we procured that in an incredibly challenging environment. I pay tribute to all the officials who worked flat out to do that. The Court judgment found that there was no policy of deprioritisation of meeting transparency requirements, but it also found as a matter of fact, which is clear in the judgment, that that bar was not met. That is something we have worked very hard on subsequently and continue to do so, to ensure that transparency requirements are met.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It feels a bit like groundhog day. Once again, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who has overall responsibility for procurement, is missing in action, and the Health Minister has come to the House to talk about how breathlessly urgent it all was at the beginning of the pandemic—I do not disagree with that, but it is not an excuse for not publishing these contracts in time. With contracts worth more than £10 billion awarded without tendering action between the beginning of the pandemic and July, seeing that paperwork urgently is more important, not less. If the paperwork is still not being published in time—and this goes back to the problems we discussed two weeks ago—can the Minister not just apologise and give a firm commitment that from now on, every contract will be published in time? It is either insouciance or incompetence that they were not published in the first place.
Edward Argar
I have known the hon. Lady since I came to this House, so I will not take it personally if she suggests that, as I am not the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the import of my answers is in some way diminished. I will endeavour to answer her specific questions. As I made clear, we have published 100% of the CANs that give the information on the contracts awarded—in the context of this case, the contracts awarded by the Department of Health and Social Care.
However, the hon. Lady asked a very fair question at the end about the future, and I can give her the reassurance that this Department is doing everything possible to ensure that it meets those transparency requirements. Officials are aware of them and officials are reminded of them. I recognise the vital importance of transparency, not least for building trust, which she mentioned last time in her question, but in allowing her, the NAO and other Members of this House to do their job, quite rightly, in scrutinising and challenging those contracts and Government decisions, where appropriate.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I am quite sure that Ministers want these contracts published, and I look forward to the remaining publications. Will the Minister confirm that in the emergency phase, when it was just desperate to get hold of PPE, all those contracts were negotiated and vetted by independent professional civil servants, and it was not a case of friends of Ministers?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I am happy to say he is absolutely right. He has a lot of experience in government and in this space. All those contracts and all assessments of contracts, whichever route they came via, went through the eight-stage process of assessment by independent civil servants who know commerce and know procurement. I would not for a moment cast aspersions on their judgment, and Ministers did not determine which contracts were or were not awarded in that context.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]
Given the number of fast-track VIP covid contracts that have resulted in unusable protective equipment, will the Minister commit to recovering public money from the companies that did not meet their contractual obligations? Does he agree that those hundreds of millions of pounds might have been better spent on a decent pay rise for the NHS workforce?
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady makes an important point about contracts that either failed to deliver or where PPE, for example, did not meet the required standards. I can reassure her that we are undertaking a stocktake—an audit—of exactly that, and we are already pursuing a number of cases where, if PPE was either not to the required standard or was not delivered, we will recoup the money from that.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con) [V]
The Court’s judgment focused solely on the publication of contract notices. It did not make any judgment on the contracting process or on any of the individual processes in any way. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Opposition are wrong to play politics and to misrepresent the Court’s opinion in this way?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend highlights something important, which is what the Court actually did and did not consider. It considered, quite rightly, whether the Government met the simple binary of publishing the notices within the required timeframe, and found that they did not. It did, however, find against the claimants and in favour of the Government that there was no policy of deprioritising transparency and publication requirements. As he says, the Court did not make any judgment on the appropriateness of the awards or the process followed for those awards.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I know the Minister to be a person of integrity and openness; indeed, this is an opportunity for the Government to show that.. Would the Minister once again outline the intention for timely competition in line with the comprehensive judicial review judgment? Does the Minister have any update on any moneys that the Government have been able to recoup from contracts for things that were unusable or incorrect?
Edward Argar
I can give the hon. Gentleman the reassurance I have given to other hon. Members. We recognise entirely the importance of transparency. We will comply fully with the Court judgment—the Court order—and, going forward, we will comply with the requirements on transparency. To his specific point, I have alluded to the stocktake—the audit—that we are doing to make sure that if anything was not delivered or was faulty, we can recoup the money for it. I would say more broadly that the Department has cancelled or curtailed contracts up to the value of around £400 million so far—I believe that was in the evidence given by the second permanent secretary at the Department to the Public Accounts Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier)—and I hasten to add that cancellation of those contracts has occurred for a multitude of reasons not necessarily representative of faulty or inadequate PPE. I hope that gives the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) an indication of the work the Government are doing to ensure value for money.
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con) [V]
Is it not important to remember that over the course of this pandemic we have created the largest diagnostic network in British history, delivering around 90 million tests and contacting over 9 million people who would otherwise have spread the virus? Does my hon. Friend agree that our ability to set up this network is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our frontline health and care workers?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight this amazing achievement. It reflects on the phenomenal effort of our frontline health and care workers, but also more broadly on the partnership we have seen at work in this country over the past year between the public sector, the private sector, the voluntary and charitable sector and ordinary members of the public all working together in a joint effort to beat this disease. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]
As much as I have a high personal regard for the Minister, he is incorrect in his remarks. The High Court ruling last Friday made it absolutely clear that at the time of the Prime Minister’s response to hon. and right hon. Members in this House last month 100 contracts had not been published; they were outstanding. Whether intentional or not, the Prime Minister—[Inaudible]—was factually untrue; he needs to come to this place with a full apology, as warranted by the ministerial code.
Edward Argar
I lost a few words of the hon. Lady’s question, but I think I know what she was asking about in respect of the Prime Minister’s remarks on 22 February. May I start by saying that her kind words at the start of her contribution are reciprocated? I have known her since I came to this House and I have the highest regard for her as well; so I am grateful for her kind words.
In terms of the specifics the hon. Lady asked about in respect of the Court judgment and the Prime Minister, as I understand it on the date the Prime Minister spoke 100% of the contract awards notices—the details of the contracts are contained within them—were published, and that, I believe, is what my right hon. Friend was referring to.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab) [V]
Our NHS staff have made huge sacrifices during this pandemic and done all they can to support patients and their families, and now they are delivering a successful roll-out of the vaccine. Does the Minister think it is fair for millions, in some cases billions, of pounds to be spent on contracts that do not deliver but to deny those same NHS staff the decent pay rise they need and deserve?
Edward Argar
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. She is right to highlight the amazing work being done in the roll-out of the vaccine by our frontline health and social care workers, and indeed many others, and I join her in paying tribute to them. What is important is that we worked flat out, as did senior officials, to make sure that the NHS and the frontline got what they needed last year: PPE to help keep them safe. I have to say to the hon. Lady that I hear the point she makes, but I make no apology for the efforts made by the Government to get the PPE in the quantities needed to keep our front- line safe.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con) [V]
The British people want us to focus on fighting this virus so we can protect our NHS as we roll out the vaccine and save lives. Does my hon. Friend agree that the political sniping the Opposition are engaging in is the exact opposite of what people expect and want to see politicians doing?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who alludes to the fact that our constituents and the wider public want to see all of us in this House and in Government doing everything we can to ensure, as in the context of last year’s procurement of PPE at the height of the pandemic, that the frontline gets what it needs to keep it safe. Transparency is of course hugely important, but this is not an either/or, and the focus had to be on getting that PPE to frontline. My hon. Friend’s point is absolutely right.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP) [V]
I believe in restorative justice, which requires the offender—that is the Government—to accept responsibility for the harm it has caused to the principles of contractual openness and transparency. Can the Minister therefore advise the House whether the Government—the offender in this case—accept responsibility for the judgment handed down by a court of law?
Edward Argar
I have been clear, both today and, indeed, when I came to the House two weeks ago, that the Government fully accept and respect the judgment of the court.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]
I recognise that the Government have had to take urgent decisions when it comes to some of these contracts, especially when securing PPE at the height of the pandemic, but will the Minister ensure that any new UK health contracts are not agreed or signed unless the business concerned employs a significant amount of apprentices—preferably higher than the public sector target of 2.3%—as part of its workforce?
Edward Argar
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for that question. I started out in Government as his Parliamentary Private Secretary when he was the apprenticeships Minister, and that is something that he has taken a huge and passionate interest in throughout his time in the House. I am sure that colleagues in the Cabinet Office responsible for Government procurement across the piece will be very happy to have a conversation with him about the point that he has just made as to how greater use of apprenticeships can be baked into procurement decisions.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC) [V]
Initially, the Welsh Government anticipated a UK-wide approach to buying PPE; they then took responsibility for their own procurement, but they have still worked with this Government when the opportunity has arisen. Therefore, did the Secretary of State seek the agreement of the Welsh Labour Government before awarding any relevant contracts without competitive tendering or transparency, and did the Welsh Government themselves raise any concerns about the lack of competition on their own initiative?
Edward Argar
My understanding is that the procurement process for PPE, as the hon. Gentleman rightly highlights, was a UK procurement process. As he will have seen, we invoked regulation 32, recognising the speed needed to meet the demand for PPE in the frontline, and throughout this process we worked at pace to ensure that the focus was on the procurement of the PPE required. Throughout this process—throughout this pandemic—we have worked closely with the Welsh Government.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
In the middle of an emergency, value for money goes out of the window, and I am sure that terrible mistakes were made in the tendering process, but on the central charge that contracts were awarded to cronies, I am mystified why that should have taken place if civil servants and not Ministers took the decision. Does my hon. Friend accept that the best way to resolve these issues is to take them out of party politics and let the National Audit Office get on with its job? No doubt in time, the Public Accounts Committee will issue coruscating reports that are very wise with the benefit of hindsight.
Edward Argar
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that the decisions, as I touched on and as the PAC was told, were made following an eight-stage process run by civil servants and not Ministers. He is also right that there has been no evidence found, either by Committees of this House or the NAO, or indeed in any court cases, of any inappropriate involvement in terms of conflict of interest by Ministers. On his final point, he is absolutely right, and I know that going forward, as we always do, the Government will look to co-operate fully with the NAO in seeking to supply all and any information that it seeks, so that it can form its judgments and inform the PAC and the House of them.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]
Back in December, in the public interest, not just playing politics or sniping, I and other MPs highlighted cronyism and waste in the Government’s pandemic procurement. Three months on from that Westminster Hall debate, does the Minister agree that responding then, by increasing transparency reporting on those companies that won £1.7 billion-worth of contracts via the Government’s VIP fast lane and were 10 times more likely to receive a contract, would have been better than waiting to be taken to court?
Edward Argar
In respect of the appropriateness of contract awards and whether there are any conflicts of interest, I refer the hon. Lady to the answer that I just gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). The hon. Lady talked about last December and the debate, I think, in Westminster Hall—although I could be wrong on that—where this was discussed, and I point her to the lines used by the judge in his judgment:
“The evidence as a whole suggests that the backlog arose largely in the first few months of the pandemic and that officials began to bear down on it during the autumn of 2020.”
At the time that she was speaking of—in December—the judge acknowledged that the Department and the Government were working at pace to meet their transparency requirements, so that was already being done.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con) [V]
In the teeth of the global pandemic and facing unprecedented global demand for vital supplies, does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s ability to secure over 32 billion items of PPE— including many items supplied from businesses in the Calder Valley and Leeds West, all stepping up to the plate—is a testament to the hard work and ingenuity of British businesses and should be celebrated?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. He is right to highlight the amazing effort by British business and by businesses that stepped up in this country’s hour of need to repurpose their production lines and to source PPE. Indeed, I would include in that the work of my officials and officials in the Cabinet Office to make sure that it was bought and procured and that it got to the frontline. To cite one statistic that alludes to exactly what he is saying, we have moved from 1% of this country’s needed PPE being produced in this country to 70%, and that is testament to the amazing ingenuity and hard work of British business.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Yesterday, the Minister’s Department answered a named day question that I tabled on 1 December 2020 about some of its multimillion- pound contracts with management consultants. The Government either have something to hide or they are staggeringly incompetent, so will the Minister see that I get answers to the further questions on consultants tabled on 19 January? And will the Government now support my Freedom of Information (Extension) Bill, which they blocked back in 2017 and which would make private companies winning public contracts subject to the Freedom of Information Act?
Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman made two points. On the latter, the Government will always look very carefully at anything he suggests to them. On the former, very serious point, if he is able to let me know, after this session in the House, the written parliamentary question numbers, I will endeavour to have them looked at and a response expedited for him.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Crisis situations such as the present pandemic often require action, not paper, and the ends can justify the means. Does the Minister agree that sending PPE out to users was the Government’s top priority and getting right the supporting paperwork, which can be filed later, should not jeopardise that speed of delivery?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my right hon. and gallant Friend for his question. He is absolutely right to highlight that our No. 1 priority, as I think the people of this country and Members of this House would expect, was, in the face of an unprecedented demand for PPE, that this Government did everything that they could to massively ramp up the supplies of PPE that were available and to get them to the frontline. Of course, transparency is hugely important and the court did find that there was no policy to deprioritise compliance with transparency regulations and requirements. However, he is absolutely right to highlight that the absolute priority must be to get the kit to save lives.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) [V]
It has been revealed that almost £2 billion has been handed to Conservative party friends and donors in dodgy covid contracts. That includes the likes of Steve Parkin, who has donated over £500,000 to the Conservatives. He is the chairman of Clipper Logistics, which was awarded a £1.3 million PPE contract. Another Tory donor, David Meller, has given £65,000 to the Tories over the past decade. His company, Meller Designs, was awarded PPE contracts worth over £150 million. Those people did not get rich giving their money away for nothing, so does the Minister believe that it is appropriate for the Conservative Government to hand out fortunes—public money—to Conservative party donors?
Edward Argar
I refer the hon. Lady, once again, to the answer I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough. I also highlight that, to the best of my recollection, no court and no Committee of this House has found any evidence of inappropriate conflicts of interest or inappropriate involvement by Ministers in the award of contracts. What I would say to her in conclusion is that what matters here is whether companies supply what is needed to standard. I pay tribute to all companies who came on board, stepped up and did what was necessary to help us get the kit we needed to protect those on the frontline.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
The vast majority of people in Blackpool can understand the exceptional circumstances which led to this paperwork being submitted slightly late. How many people does my hon. Friend estimate came to direct harm because of a late submission of that paperwork, as opposed to those people who would have come to direct harm had PPE and medical supplies been delivered late?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend makes an important point in his usual very forthright and clear way. The priority for this Government and for those working for them was to get the PPE needed in the quantities needed to be able to get it to the frontline to save lives. Transparency is important, of course it is. I recognise that and that is why we have worked since that time to get everything up to date in terms of transparency. But I make no apologies for the amazing effort that the Government and, most importantly, those working for them—the civil servants who did this work—put in to get the PPE in the quantities we needed.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]
Despite the Minister’s protestations and despite the huge amount of money that was spent, the fact is that for those working in the social care part of health and social care, the equipment did not get anywhere near the frontline anywhere like on time. I think the Minister is maybe glossing over the fact that, although supplies to the health service seemed to have been okay, supplies to the social care sector were desperately inadequate. A Public Accounts Committee report, endorsed by its members, a majority of whom are Government supporters, found that the Department had wasted hundreds of millions of pounds on equipment that was of poor quality and could not be used. We were also told by the Cabinet Office that it did not know how many contracts had essentially been approved after the work had started and how many contractors were only checked out for suitability after they had been given their contracts. Does the Minister not understand that all of that taken together creates a bad smell? Does he agree that the best way to get rid of that bad smell is to have everything published, including assessments of conflicts of interest and information that in normal circumstances might be termed or deemed to be commercially confidential? Does he not understand that confidence in public procurement by the British Government—
Edward Argar
I will endeavour to give a short answer to a long question. Two key points there. The hon. Gentleman mentions social care and he is right to do that. The focus of some of the questioning has been around the frontline in the NHS, but he is absolutely right to talk about social care. That is why we went from a supply chain where we were supplying PPE to 226 NHS trusts in England to 58,000 organisations. Historically, social care settings had procured their own PPE on the open market. We recognised the pressures on that market—price pressures and demand pressures—which was why we expanded the supply chain to ensure that 58,000 settings ended up being able to access it.
On the hon. Gentleman’s final point, very briefly, he talks about money spent on contracts where they were either not fulfilled or did not meet the relevant quality criteria. I have already set out to the House the steps the Government are taking to review and audit those, and we will recoup money where appropriate to do so.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con) [V]
Mr Speaker, do you recall photographs, back in the dark days of March, April and May last year, of nurses wearing bin liners, photographs taken in Spain, Italy and the United States? In fact, if I had not been banned from having a backdrop of Lichfield cathedral on Zoom, I could actually pop up those photographs from The New York Times. Does my hon. Friend the Minister not agree with me that the priority must be for the delivery of the PPE, and that these rather unpleasant Labour slurs actually do no good at all?
Edward Argar
It is a pleasure to see my hon. Friend, and I hope it will not be too long before we see him in person in the House again. He is absolutely right to highlight the overall priority as being to get the PPE to the frontline. He highlights clearly the situation we were seeing on our televisions every day—for example, the real challenges at hospitals in Bergamo and elsewhere. That was the context at that time in Europe, and we moved heaven and earth to try to get the PPE needed in time. We did not run out of PPE in this country, but it would be fair to say that there were shortages in particular situations. These were met by the Government through the national shortage response. It was in that context that we had to do everything we possibly could, and I pay tribute to the officials who did it to procure PPE in bulk in an incredibly overheated and challenging global market.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Minister rightly said that transparency mattered, so when will the Government publish the full details and criteria of how businesses got into the fast lane?
Edward Argar
As I alluded to on the previous occasion I came to this House to answer questions on this matter, we set out that some contracts were put forward by Members of this House and by Members of the other place and were assessed through the fast-track priority lane, but there was no difference in the approach taken—the eight stages that all those contracts had to pass through to be awarded. They were all assessed independently by civil servants, so they all went through the same process, and those contracts that were awarded and that met the rules for the contract award notices publication will be published, and have been published, under the CAN regulations and on the website.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con) [V]
At the start of the pandemic, just 1% of PPE in the UK was made here in this country. Now, 70% of it is made in the UK, which is a huge achievement. Does my hon. Friend agree that our rapid response to procuring and delivering PPE to frontline workers has been essential in keeping them and others safe? Will he work even harder to increase the percentage so that even more PPE is made in the UK, perhaps by focusing on areas with a textile heritage such as Thurcroft and Dinnington here in Rother Valley?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For our businesses to go from a capacity to produce this country’s PPE of 1% to 70% is an incredible achievement, but we must not rest on our laurels. We must continue to work with British business to allow it to continue to innovate and develop its ability to meet UK need. I pay tribute to the businesses in his constituency of Rother Valley for the work they did in helping out this country when it needed it most.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The simple truth is that businesses up and down the country feel as though they were misled by the Government. They were encouraged to get behind the PPE challenge, and they made capital investments to expand their capacity to manufacture, yet we know that Government middlemen mates were 10 times more likely than they were to win contracts. So can the Minister set out when he will publish the details of all the contracts, including when the principal businesses were established and what the duration of the contracts are?
Edward Argar
The Government will meet their legal obligations to publish contracts under regulation 50 and the requirements that that places on us for the information that needs to be published. Those that meet the criteria for a CAN—a contract award notice—under that, and that have been awarded by the Department of Health and Social Care directly, have been published. All contracts will be published—all details under CANs will be published—where that is required by the regulation, and the information specified as to what is published in a CAN notice is of a standard format. We will continue to meet that obligation.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) [V]
Does my hon. Friend accept the finding of the independent National Audit Office that no health trust in the UK went without the PPE it needed, in contrast with many other countries? My constituents rightly expect transparency in procurement, but most would never want pursuing paperwork to be prioritised over providing proper protective equipment.
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The people of this country would expect the Government’s No. 1 priority in March, April and May of last year to have been, as it was, to move heaven and earth to get the PPE that was needed in a very challenging environment to the frontline. I think that what he was alluding to in the NAO report was paragraph 18 of the summary, which said:
“The NHS provider organisations we spoke to told us that, while they were concerned about the low stocks of PPE, they were always able to get what they needed in time.”
That is not necessarily an NAO conclusion, but it is a reflection of what it was told and cited in this report, so he is right to highlight it.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP) [V]
The Ministerial Interests (Emergency Powers) Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson), which would require Ministers to answer questions in Parliament about any personal, political or financial connections they have to companies given government contracts, will now go forward to a Second Reading. I hope the Government will support it, as this Bill should help with the Government’s present court and publication difficulties. Does the Minister agree that it is crucial that we get greater scrutiny and have stringent regulations in order to increase transparency on the issuing of Government contracts and to ensure that the right people or companies are getting those contracts during these difficult times?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I have highlighted just how important I consider transparency to be. This is the second time in two weeks, rightly, that I have been answering at the Dispatch Box, so I would argue that there is scrutiny there. On her final point about that private Member’s Bill, I know that the Government will look at that Bill as they would look at any private Member’s Bill, in the usual way.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) [V]
Nurses have seen us through this crisis and they have been putting their lives on the line every day, yet the Prime Minister has offered them only a derogatory 1% pay rise but handed out billions to private companies that did not provide what was needed and to standard—I remind Members of the 400,000 substandard gowns from Turkey. Does the Minister agree that it is a kick in the teeth that this Govt have chosen to waste £37 billion by giving it to Serco for a failed track and trace system while denying our incredible nurses the pay rise they deserve?
Edward Argar
What this Government have done, and did in the context of the issues under discussion in this specific question, is recognise the huge need for PPE during the pandemic last year and take every step they could to meet that need. They secured a large number of contracts, which delivered 8.8 billion pieces of PPE to date. I think that is called delivering.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con) [V]
More than 70% of PPE is now made in the UK, whereas it was less than 1% before the pandemic. When that is coupled with the expansion of more than 22,000 ventilators, we see that this Government have done an incredible job. Does my hon. Friend agree that the petty point-scoring of the Labour party is not what we need at this time of national emergency?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have set out in my answers that what I think is most important for this country is that we work together— the public, private and voluntary sectors, and the Great British public—as we did, in this context. We have pulled together and done everything we can, including, as he alludes to, building that capacity for UK businesses to meet more of our need for PPE. That is a great success for those businesses and I pay tribute to them.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Minister is adorable, but I am not falling for that old trick. The truth of the matter is that the Government did not even get PPE out fast enough to people who really needed it, especially in our care homes, which is why so many people died and we have the highest excess death rate of any country in the world. So I am not taking any of this nonsense about how, “We had to focus on that, which meant we could not deal with transparency.” The truth is that they set up a VIP track for some people to be able to get massive contracts, and some people enriched themselves phenomenally during this pandemic, many of whom, surprise, surprise, happen to be Conservative party donors. I have to say that it looks like corruption, and the only way the Government can wipe that slate clean is if they come clean with all the contracts. Otherwise, it just looks like a cover-up.
Edward Argar
I will take the hon. Gentleman’s first comment as a compliment, I think, from a colleague I know well. Having said that, I do not recognise his characterisation of what happened. He is right that challenges were faced not just in frontline NHS situations, but in social care. He is absolutely right to highlight that, and I alluded to it earlier, and that is why we increased the number of organisations that we were able to supply centrally from 226 to 58,000. That is why we massively ramped up the purchases of PPE and the stocks of PPE that were available to get to the frontline to ensure that staff could access what they needed to keep them safe. He mentions the assessments of the contracts and how they were awarded. I merely take him back, very gently, to the point that I made to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), which is that these contracts, as set out to the Public Accounts Committee, went through an eight-stage assessment process undertaken by civil servants. I know the hon. Gentleman well, that he would not be impugning the integrity of those civil servants and that he has great respect for them. But I say very gently that there has been no evidence cited and no findings in court of any Minister in terms of conflicts of interest or having behaved inappropriately.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Throughout the pandemic, the Government, the NHS and the armed forces have focused on saving as many lives as possible, while the Labour party has focused on this sort of hindsight and political games. Saving lives meant securing as much PPE as possible as fast as possible, so can my hon. Friend confirm that all those PPE contract notices that faced a short delay in publication are now in the public domain?
Edward Argar
I can confirm that the contract award notices for the contracts here, the PPE contracts, awarded directly by the Department are now in the public domain.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP) [V]
Will the Minister tell us: how much was paid out under the contracts in advance of delivery; how much has actually been clawed back for services or products not delivered; and how much are the Government still to pursue in repayments?
Edward Argar
As part of the answer to her question, I refer the hon. Lady to the answer that I gave to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). In response to the rest of her question, the honest answer is that we are undertaking a stocktake and an audit. It is that which is required to assess whether any stockpiles are not fit for purpose or do not meet requirements, or to check what was and was not delivered and make sure that every order was fully fulfilled. We have been very clear that, as part of that audit, that stocktake, we will pursue with any who did not meet the requirements or did not supply the goods the recouping of that money for the public purse.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]
Last year, the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster wrote:
“We need Government to strain every sinew and utilise untapped resources in UK manufacturing, to deliver essential equipment to frontline workers. This must be a national effort which leaves no stone unturned.”
Can my hon. Friend say that the Government have done what she wanted and have delivered for the people of this country?
Edward Argar
I would argue that that is exactly what the Government have done. The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and I do not always agree, but I agreed with her then and I agree with what she wrote then now.
Mr Speaker
I am now suspending the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Landfill Sites (Odorous Emissions)
Tuesday 9th March 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Landfill Sites (Odorous Emissions) Bill 2019-21 View all Landfill Sites (Odorous Emissions) Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
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Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to introduce a presumption against planning applications for new landfill sites liable to cause odorous emissions in built-up areas; to set limits for odorous emissions from landfill sites; to make provision for the payment of compensation by site operators to local residents when emissions exceed those limits; and for connected purposes.
Perhaps it would have been simpler for me to say, “That leave be given to bring in a Bill to stop the stink”, because this Bill is being introduced against the backdrop of a major ongoing environmental incident in my constituency of Newcastle-under-Lyme that is affecting thousands of residents. It has been really bad for months, but on 26 February it became intolerable. The problem, in essence, is that the landfill in my constituency—Walley’s quarry—is once again, frankly, stinking. I am told that the Environment Agency’s hotline for reporting was completely overwhelmed by complaints, with residents unable to get through. Extra staff were brought in to deal with the number of calls. The EA logged 1,300 odour complaints in that one weekend. For context, in a typical month, it would log 1,600 such complaints across the whole country.
Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council received more than 2,000 individual reports of odour over the same weekend. There were reports from Keele University and, most upsettingly, from the Royal Stoke University Hospital, which has many coronavirus and cancer patients, and a substantial maternity unit. The hospital complained to the borough council that the odour from the landfill had got into its ventilation systems, affecting hundreds of staff and patients. Residents also stated on social media that they had broken covid rules to get away from the smell and stay with relatives.
The weekend just past was nearly as bad. I went out and about conducting live odour reports in Newcastle on Saturday night, and I can tell everyone here that it was appalling. On that occasion, it was particularly to the south-east of the site on the Poolfields estate, but at other times it is communities such as Silverdale, Knutton, Cross Heath, Keele, Thistleberry, Clayton and the Westlands that bear the brunt of the odour. This landfill causes a great deal of anxiety and distress for those affected. It goes well beyond simple annoyance; it has a significant impact on people’s quality of life and, I fear, on their mental health.
Yesterday morning, I visited St Giles’ and St George’s Church of England Academy Primary School on Orme Road. Children had written to me, and the headteacher, Mrs Pointon, had written to the local paper. She has often arrived at school to an overwhelming odour in the building, and has had to empty the building of it before she can let the children in. I have had similar reports from many other schools, pre-schools and nurseries in the area. One resident reported on social media that their house sale fell through on 27 February as a result of the odour scaring away their buyers; another, whom I spoke to on Saturday night, had to cut their asking price by £30,000.
Problems arising from this site have been reported on and off for many years, since it began operating in 2007, but it has been striking how much worse the odour has been—in terms of intensity and the distance from the site from which it can be smelled—in the last 12 months, with a particular change since Christmas. Local campaigners have been raising this issue over a number of years, including Derrick Huckfield, who asked me about it at my selection meeting, and who has convened many meetings with affected parties, residents and the Environment Agency. More recently, local residents Graham Eagles and Steve Meakin established a local “Stop the Stink” group and Facebook page. We have seen protests outside the site instigated by local residents. Recently, another very active Facebook group calling for the landfill to be capped off has reached more than 6,000 local members in the three months since it was set up. There have also been more than 11,000 signatures on an online petition calling for the landfill site to be closed.
All that is representative of the strength of feeling that I have encountered as the MP. It is also comfortably the biggest issue that I receive correspondence about in my mailbox. Since Christmas, the number of emails I have been receiving has nearly overwhelmed my team of staff, such is the strength of feeling and the number of incidents.
The local council, under the leadership of Simon Tagg and Stephen Sweeney, is doing everything it can within the constraints of the law, but the responsible body for the landfill is the Environment Agency. I believe it needs to step up, win back the trust of my residents and start forcing a solution to this issue.
This crisis is tragic in the context of what should be a time of great optimism in Newcastle-under-Lyme. We will be doing a huge amount of good in Newcastle through more than £30 million of Government funds from the future high streets fund and the towns fund, but our odour catastrophe is threatening to overshadow all that—it is literally casting a cloud. Who would want to eat out on the high street when we get our hospitality reopened if there is an almighty stink in the air? We are getting levelling up in Newcastle, but we need capping off too.
Walley’s quarry landfill quite simply should never have been permitted to exist. It is a former quarry that was obviously converted to landfill use. At all local levels, the application for the landfill site was opposed due to the inappropriate nature of its location. It is in a built-up area surrounded by housing in several directions, but the councils were overruled by the Secretary of State at the time, John Prescott.
The Environment Agency agrees that the site is in a particularly unusual location, close to a number of long-established properties that surround the landfill, belonging to people who have lived in their villages and communities all their lives. Nevertheless, it seems apparent from consulting with other right hon. and hon. Members that there are plenty of other landfills in inappropriate locations around the country causing similar distress—indeed, outrage—to their communities. I have spoken to my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), for High Peak (Robert Largan), for North Wiltshire (James Gray), for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), and, on the other side of the House, the hon. Members for South Antrim (Paul Girvan), for Bristol North West (Darren Jones)—I see he is in his place—and for Blaydon (Liz Twist). The right hon. Member for Chorley (Sir Lindsay Hoyle) has also had a major issue with his landfill. He seems to have got it capped off a bit earlier, so perhaps I need to take some tips about tips from Mr Speaker.
Although the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs acknowledged that landfill should not routinely be causing annoyance, that is essentially impossible to avoid when a landfill is 100 metres from your home. That is a problem that my Bill attempts to tackle. My Bill would introduce a presumption against planning permission for a landfill within 500 metres of a built-up area to prevent the problems that we have seen in Newcastle-under-Lyme from happening elsewhere. Of course, I am aware that odour reaches far further than 500 metres. At the weekend, there were reports from Red Street, Bradwell and Halmer End in my constituency, which are more like 5,000 metres away, but a 500-metre presumption would rule out a lot of unsuitable sites, such as Walley’s.
Difficult decisions need to be made because clearly placing landfill sites in beauty spots or national parks will not be acceptable either. A major part of the national solution is for us to continue to use more sustainable materials and recycle more. The Government’s landmark Environment Bill has an ambitious resources and waste strategy, which can be summed up by an eco-friendly version of the three Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. The planning laws permitting new housing to be built in the vicinity of landfills also need to be looked at. We need houses for the future, but it seems counter- productive to be building them in areas with known air-quality issues.
The second major aspect of my Bill would be to introduce new tougher limits for odorous emissions from landfill sites, going beyond the current guidance. The Environment Agency, as the regulator for the site, is aware of the problem in my constituency and how it affects my constituents because it receives their complaints, but to date it has been unable to act much beyond air quality monitoring exercises in the area, despite the misery of thousands of surrounding residents, at times across my borough and into Stoke-on-Trent. That is because the Environment Agency uses the World Health Organisation’s limits for hydrogen sulphide as its criteria for enforcement action. That utterly fails to take account of the severe annoyance of odour at levels not considered harmful to physical health.
The WHO’s guidelines for human health are averaged over 24 hours and refer to 150 micrograms per cubic metre. Happily, nothing that high has been recorded in Newcastle-under-Lyme—in the last exercise, we reached a peak of 44.5—but the annoyance measure, which is averaged over 30 minutes, is only 7 micrograms per cubic metre. My Bill would reduce the annoyance test for hydrogen sulphide emissions to half that level, equipping the Environment Agency to take earlier action against sites causing that level of disturbance in their communities.
In a nation such as the UK, we should be aspiring to higher, better limits on odour than the bare minimum prescribed by the WHO. That change would go hand in hand with a new framework for compensation where the limit is exceeded. The point of this aspect of my Bill is not that residents want to be paid off. In my experience, most residents do not want compensation—they just want the stink to stop. This aspect of my Bill is intended to provide a clear incentive to operators to take all practical measures to reduce odour and to be good and responsible neighbours.
We also need to get into the 21st century and stop relying on a human sniff test, conducted on a nought to six scale, which always has an attendant delay while an EA operative gets to the site in question. Because the odour can be quite transient, they often miss the true scale of the problem. Odorous landfill sites should be ringed by a network of permanent hydrogen sulphide monitors that should be capable of providing real-time data to a web feed, a bit like a weather report, so that residents can feel confident that their experience is being recorded in real time against a standardised measure.
It seems clear to me that our communities need to have their voices heard much more loudly where landfills are causing persistent problems. My Bill would strengthen their rights and give the EA a much stronger hand in dealing with problems when they arise. Although the Bill, if passed, would not necessarily solve my constituents’ problem with Walley’s Quarry once and for all, it would prevent similar problems from occurring for other communities, a goal that I hope we can all agree is well worth pursuing.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I have had no indication that anyone intends to oppose this ten-minute rule Bill motion, and I see no one, so I intend to put the question.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Aaron Bell, Simon Baynes, Jack Brereton, Sir William Cash, Jo Gideon, James Gray, Jonathan Gullis, Robert Halfon, Darren Jones, Marco Longhi, Alexander Stafford and Liz Twist present the Bill.
Aaron Bell accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 269).
Ways and Means
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:01 - The House divided: - Ayes: 360 / Noes: 274 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I inform the House that I have not selected the amendments in the names of the Leader of the Opposition or John McDonnell.
Before I call the Minister to open the debate, I have had notice of a point of order. I call Mr David Davis.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Budgets and Finance Bills were the first reason for having a Parliament —to approve the expenditures of the Executive. For more than a century, the first resolution for a Finance Bill has been what is known as the general amendment of the law resolution. The resolution allows Members to table amendments that deal with tax administration and relief provisions not otherwise provided for by the specific Ways and Means resolution.
However, since Philip Hammond’s Finance Bill 2017, the Government have not included such a resolution. The effect is that any amendments tabled by Members to the Finance Bill must be tied to one of the specific resolutions already agreed by the House. In effect, by not including the amendment of the law resolution, the Government have shut down the rights that the House has enjoyed for more than 100 years. The result is that Members’ hands are tied when it comes to effectively amending the Finance Bill. Mr Deputy Speaker, can you give guidance as to how the House can recover those fundamental rights, which have been arrogated by the Government?
Mr Deputy Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of the point of order. There is no matter of order for the Chair arising from the absence of an amendment of the law motion. There was no such motion after the last three Budgets and I think I remember, during the last Budget, a very similar if not identical point of order from the right hon. Gentleman. There is a lot of tradition around Budgets, and it may well be that the David Davis point of order becomes part of that tradition. Anyway, it has no effect on the scope of debate—the reasons for and implications of the absence of an amendment of the law resolution are themselves a proper matter for debate. The right hon. Gentleman has put his point on the record.
Before I call the Minister, I point out that up until and including No. 6, Darren Jones, on the call list, Back-Bench contributions will have a five-minute time limit. Thereafter—No. 7 onwards—the limit will be reduced to three minutes. For those who are contributing remotely, please look at the timer on the bottom right-hand corner of the device that you are using. If, for whatever reason, you do not have sight of that, please use an alternative way of ensuring that you keep within the time limit that has been set. Please do not be tempted to try to extend it, because we have 101 contributions to this debate. For those who are taking part in the Chamber, the timer will be displayed as usual on the monitors in the Chamber.
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)
It is a real pleasure for me to open today’s debate on the Budget that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor the Exchequer brought before the House last week. It is a Budget that meets the needs of the moment. It delivers support to all corners of our United Kingdom. It shores up our defences against the ravaging impact of the pandemic while laying a clear path for our journey out of the crisis and into a brighter future. As the Chancellor himself acknowledged last week, it is a path that we are only able to take because of the incredible efforts of our frontline health workers who have vaccinated more than 20 million people across the United Kingdom, and the researchers and manufacturers who have managed to produce effective vaccines in such a short space of time. I am sure I speak on behalf of the entire House when I express the deepest gratitude to everyone involved in this heroic national effort.
Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)
My right hon. Friend makes some very important points about our health staff and the vaccination programme, which has been absolutely superb in this country. Does he recognise that the creation of a new vaccine centre and medicines manufacturing centre were part of the life sciences deals that were enabled by the modern industrial strategy? Will he welcome the modern industrial strategy?
Kwasi Kwarteng
I have not come here to defend or rebut any of the wonderful measures that we took under my right hon. Friend’s leadership. I am very conscious of the fact that many people want to take part in this debate, and I am afraid that I have to press on.
The researchers and manufacturers have done an extremely good job, as my right hon. Friend says, in shoring up our response to the crisis. The Budget provides an additional £65 billion of measures in response to covid, designed to support the economy this year. It covers an extension of the furlough scheme, which has already supported 1.3 million employers and more than 11 million jobs, providing vital funds to households and communities throughout our country. It has added to the near £20 billion of support that the Treasury has paid out to support 2.7 million self-employed people.
The Budget presents a dynamic and generous plan to help businesses to get up to speed. We are providing restart grants of up to £18,000 to more than 680,000 business premises. We are also providing further support for hospitality and retail businesses who may be more affected by restrictions when they reopen. While our plan for jobs has been given a £126 million boost supporting 40,000 more traineeships and doubling the cash incentive for firms taking on new apprentices, the Budget ensures that more people are able to access secure, skilled work.
Of course, there can be no denial that the jobs market has changed profoundly over the past year.
Kwasi Kwarteng
I am very conscious, as I am sure my right hon. Friend I, that many, many Back Benchers want to take part in the debate. I understand that he is on the call list, so I am afraid I am going to have to make more progress.
It is no secret that over the years, and even in years of strong growth, prosperity has not been spread fairly between the regions and nations that make up our United Kingdom. That is an imbalance that this Budget seeks to correct, with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy leading the charge. Where regions have been left behind by the decline of old industries, we will create new industries and support sectors as they transition to a low-carbon, sustainable and competitive future.
Kwasi Kwarteng
I must press on. Lots of Back Benchers want to speak. However eminent and distinguished my right hon. Friend is, there are lots of other people who want to speak.
We are backing the development of hydrogen hubs in the Tees Valley and Holyhead, to breathe new life into coastal and post-industrial communities while we drive a new clean energy transition. We are establishing four carbon capture and storage clusters across the next two decades, and we hope that they will play their part in decarbonising our industrial processes. We are investing tens of millions of pounds in the Aberdeen energy transition zone and the global underwater hub.
We are providing a support package of more than £2 billion to Britain’s incredible auto industry, with £500 million going towards the growth of our electric vehicle supply chain. That package will help to support and safeguard nearly 170,000 jobs in the UK auto sector, including in the north of England, the west midlands and Wales. We intend fully to deliver a boost to the ambition to build at least one UK gigafactory before the end of this Parliament, and we hope to secure investment for others in the longer term.
Greg Clark
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and successor for giving way. Will he acknowledge that the battery manufacturing innovation centre and the Faraday challenge, which galvanised the move to providing batteries for electric vehicles, were part of the industrial strategy, as was vaccine manufacturing? Can he explain why it is thought appropriate to abolish that strategy? Is it not better to have a plan, rather than no plan?
Kwasi Kwarteng
I hear my right hon. Friend’s passionate defence of his own work, and I commend a lot of his work. I have read the industrial strategy comprehensively, and it was a pudding without a theme, in my view. I feel very strongly that the conditions of 2017 do not apply to 2021, and I am very pleased to announce to the House that we are morphing and changing the industrial strategy into the plan for growth. I am happy to take further interventions on that, should they arise.
What we have announced in these packages is levelling up in action. There will be new investment in new industries, creating new jobs and driving real change in communities across the UK. With these examples, we are talking about a vision for the future of the kind of country we want to be: a country that hosts good-quality, high-skilled, long-term jobs in every community and that takes its commitment to net zero extremely seriously. I would like to commend the work of my right hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) in passing the net zero legislation in 2019. That was a signal piece of legislation for which I commend them heartily. As Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—which is still the name of the Department—I am very pleased that we are committed to net zero in the way that we are.
Because of all the profound changes that we have seen over the last three or four years, as well as our departure from the EU, our legislation to end our contribution to climate change by 2050 and the unprecedented impact of the coronavirus, I believe that we must take a fresh look at our plans for industrial policy and long-term economic growth. As a consequence of all this, alongside the Budget, we have published “Build Back Better: our plan for growth”. Our cross-government plan for growth signals a departure from the industrial strategy brand and details a renewed focus on infrastructure, skills and innovation. It reflects new opportunities available to us following our exit from the European Union, which was successfully achieved as a consequence of the deal that we struck at the end of last year. This opens up new ways to drive growth, build on our competitive advantage and support a vision for a truly global Britain. We will draw on the valuable lessons we have learnt from the 2017 industrial strategy as we transition to this new, more focused and more ambitious plan for growth.
I want to reassure the House that the energy of my Department is entirely focused on building back better after the coronavirus pandemic. It is leading the Government’s work on supporting British industry and priority sectors, and I am happy to acknowledge that we are building on the incredibly dynamic and good work that was pursued by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells. We will publish our innovation strategy in the summer. We will set out details of our approach to supporting sectors, places and technologies in the innovation strategy. Those will give a clear indication and sense of purpose as we seek to shape the UK’s future. My Department is already leading on strategies with respect to net zero, hydrogen and, of course, innovation itself, as well as the space strategy. We are engaging on a comprehensive programme of work to protect and create jobs as we transition to net zero.
The principle underlying all this effort is, of course, the green recovery. We fully intend to end, and we will end, our contribution to climate change by 2050, and we will do so through investments and innovations such as the ones I have just mentioned. Last week’s Budget builds on the framework set out by the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan, as well as on the support announced at the spending review and in the national infrastructure strategy.
I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor spoke fulsomely about the UK infrastructure bank. The bank will target investment in green projects, which will help us meet our net zero targets in the public and private sectors throughout the country. It will provide a global centre of excellence and advisory support for net zero projects across the country.
We have committed an initial £12 billion of capital and £10 billion of guarantees. By crowding in— attracting—private investment, we fully expect the bank to support at least £40 billion of investment in our precious infrastructure. This investment will help us to amplify success in decreasing emissions, which we have already reduced by 44% against 1990 levels. That is by far the best performance in the G7.
With our strengths in many sectors, from offshore wind to hydrogen, carbon capture technologies and zero-emission vehicles, we are well placed to seize the opportunity of the green transition and lead a global green industrial revolution. The 10-point plan, which the Budget expands on, puts us in a very good position to achieve that goal.
Backed by £12 billion of public investment, the 10-point plan will reinvigorate our industrial heartlands in the north-east, the north-west, Yorkshire, the Humber, the midlands, Scotland, Wales and elsewhere. It will support the creation of hundreds of thousands of green jobs across the UK by 2030. It represents a really exciting and dynamic vision for the development of economic opportunity throughout this country.
This is a Budget that is timely in its interventions, entirely realistic in its ambitions and, above all, remorselessly and unapologetically optimistic about the future of the United Kingdom. It outlines an investment-led recovery, with a targeted, laser-like approach to levelling up every nation and region.
Thanks to the actions of the Government, we will emerge from this virus sooner and stronger than many would have anticipated. Thanks to the Budget, we have the means and the tools necessary to continue our trajectory towards recovery in the next year. We will be embracing innovation, we will be creating green jobs and we will be rejuvenating our industrial heartlands and spreading opportunities. We look forward to building back better throughout the entirety of the United Kingdom.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
I want to start by quoting a speech given in this Chamber 77 years ago, in June 1944, by Ernest Bevin, who was then the Minister of Labour. He said:
“With my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, I had an opportunity of visiting one of our ports and seeing the men, of the 50th Division among others, going aboard ship…The one question they put to me when I went through their ranks was, ‘Ernie, when we have done this job for you, are we going back to the dole?’…Both the Prime Minister and I answered, ‘No, you are not.’”—[Official Report, 21 June 1944; Vol. 401, c. 212-13.]
The circumstances of this Budget are, of course, very different, but the sentiment is just as relevant. As we come through a very different national crisis, how do we in our generation do right by the British people? Some 120,000 people have died from covid. Our way of life has been dramatically restricted. Our key workers have stepped up and put themselves in harm’s way for all of us. Businesses have shuttered to protect our health and have faced incredible strain. The British people have been nothing short of heroic.
While the crisis has revealed the best of our country, it has also laid bare the deep flaws in the way our institutions and economy are run. In the words of the OBR,
“the UK has experienced higher rates of infection, hospitalisations, and deaths from the virus than other countries.”
We know that is partly because of higher deprivation, inequality and poverty. We know we are deeply unequal, both within and between our regions. Even before this crisis, 2 million of our fellow citizens faced destitution. That means they lacked at least two of the following basic essentials: shelter, food, heating, lighting, clothing or basic toiletries. That should shame us all in one of the richest countries in the world. We know our public services are deeply underfunded, from health to social care. We know, too, that the world of work is characterised by deep divisions of power, which meant some workers were safe and some were not.
This chasm between the spirit of the British people and the reality of how our country works demands from us that we face the Bevin question once again, of how we transform our country not just on jobs, but on public services and on inequality, too. This challenges us all, whatever party, to think bigger and more boldly. Of course that is hard, in the dire circumstances we face coming out of this pandemic—the public finances are under strain and the economy will take time to recover—but they are far less dire than those Bevin and his colleagues faced after 1945, and they thought big about the kind of country we could be. They raised their sights in the face of adversity.
While I would praise some of the measures taken by the Chancellor, I do not believe that a fair-minded observer would say that the Budget passes the Bevin test. On jobs, according to the OBR, even by 2025 unemployment never even gets back to pre-crisis levels. On welfare, the Budget tells people on universal credit that they need to go back to living on £74 a week from September, just as unemployment starts to peak. On the next crisis—the climate emergency—the Budget rejects a green stimulus and cuts green spending, as I will explain.
On public services—I do not think the Business Secretary talked about public services—the Budget appears to draw the extraordinary lesson from the crisis that public services need less resources, not more. In total, £17 billion has been taken out of departmental spending since Budget 2020, which was before the crisis, despite the greater needs and despite all that has been revealed in the pandemic.
What does building back better mean when unemployment is higher as far as the eye can see, the welfare state goes back to the way it was, the green revolution is ducked and public service spending is cut? This Budget fails the Bevin test and the build back better test. Why? I think it is because the Government have not truly learned the lessons of the past decade.
To be fair, the Government have been remarkably open about the failure of the last decade. The Business Secretary referred to the “Build Back Better” document that they published. It is a very interesting document, perhaps not for the reasons intended. There is a striking chart that shows the long-standing productivity gap between ourselves and our competitors, but it shows something else. In the past decade, we have not addressed our long-standing weaknesses, but fallen further behind. The productivity gap has doubled with Germany and is up by three quarters with France and one quarter with the US. Government getting out of the way did not work. Markets left to their own devices did not work and austerity did not work, so the question for the Government is: what are they going to do differently in the coming years from the last 10?
We needed first of all—the right hon. Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) have made reference to it—an industrial policy that intervenes at scale to help growth sectors and industries to succeed. There is one pre-eminent test on that, which is the green stimulus. To give some context, President Biden has pledged a $1.7 trillion green plan over 10 years. Germany has committed €40 billion over two years and France €30 billion over two years. Even what the Business Secretary claims—I will come to that shortly—is a fraction of that amount over the decade.
Let us take the infrastructure bank, as the Secretary of State talked about that. The OBR is highly revealing on the infrastructure bank: the annual spending of the bank is going to be just a third of the amount of its predecessor, the European Investment Bank—£1.5 billion a year versus £5 billion a year. So, not more investment, but less. What is the OBR’s verdict on the infrastructure bank? It says that
“given the scale of its operations (at around 0.1 per cent of GDP a year) and the fact that it replaces only some European Investment Bank activity, we have not adjusted our economy forecast.”
In other words, the bank has absolutely zero effect on growth, from all of those green measures that the Business Secretary talked about.
One of the most interesting things about the Budget—but which has perhaps been less remarked on—is that the growth returns to trend is up just an anaemic 1.7%. That is incredibly low by historical standards. This is low growth and low ambition.
A green stimulus could have helped our crucial manufacturing sectors, but instead they were left out in the cold. On steel, where is the £250 million clean steel fund, which was promised two years ago? There is no mention of steel in this 110-page document. On offshore wind, we are way off the Government’s target of 60% domestic content, and the negligible resources in the Budget simply do not measure up. On the automotive sector, I want to say something positive: it is good that the Government have brought forward the date of the petrol and diesel phase-out to 2030, which is what we called for. But I say to the Business Secretary that the rhetoric of ambition is not matched by financial support for this crucial sector. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said in reaction to the Budget:
“This is an opportunity lost”.
Germany is investing a total of €7 billion for transformation; we are way off that. The Government seem almost allergic to support for these sectors.
Let us take another area that everybody agreed could create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and I do not think the Business Secretary mentioned this either. It could help people in every community in our country: home insulation and retrofitting. We need a transformation of our housing stock. People may forget that the flagship policy of the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan was the green homes grant. The Business Secretary was given personal responsibility, as the Minister of State, for the green homes grant. He told us the Government would learn the lessons of the green deal, which had been a complete disaster:
“We’re completely focused on trying to make this a much better roll-out, and we’ve learned our lessons…We need to make sure that the right projects are identified, and that we can get the money out”.
It would “pave the way”, he said,
“for the UK’s green homes revolution.”
What has happened? The project has been a complete fiasco on his watch: contractors not paid; installers forced to make lay-offs; homeowners unable to get the grants—not a long-term comprehensive plan, but a piecemeal, privatised approach characterised by shambolic delivery on his watch, and he said not a word about it. He would be welcome to come in and say something about it now; he obviously does not want to. And no wonder: now the Government are cutting more than £1 billion from the green homes grant scheme as it has been such a disaster.
Is this just an accident? No, it is not. The failure on the green homes grant and on green manufacturing is all part of the same problem. The Government are good at talking about a green revolution; they will the ends, but not the means—a proper, thought-through industrial strategy. Indeed, tragically, we now have a Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy who does not believe in industrial strategy. If I can put it this way, he is half the Secretary of State he once was. Any self-respecting organisation would have asked him in the interview when he was applying for the post of Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—although Secretaries of State do not exactly apply, they are offered the job—“Do you believe in industrial strategy?”
We got suspicious when in one of his first acts he tore up plans for the industrial strategy White Paper, and we thought, “How curious.” Then on Thursday we found out he had abolished the Industrial Strategy Council set up by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead. I hope the right hon. Lady will not take it amiss if I say that I admired some of her work, and this is one of the things I admired. I pay tribute to her and the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells; they learned the lessons of our history and said, “We need Government, business and unions working together on this joint enterprise, coming together to address the challenges our country faces.” And, goodness me, do we need this now as we seek to recover from coronavirus.
I have to say to the Business Secretary, who is new to his job, that this decision has caused consternation—I do not think that is too strong a word for it—in businesses up and down the country. Make UK said that it causes
“significant concern and frustration within manufacturers of all sizes across the UK.”
The director general of the British Chambers of Commerce said that the strategy’s demise was a
“short-sighted step that ministers will come to regret”.
All around the country, thanks to the work that was done, local chambers of commerce and local enterprise partnerships have spent years working on local industrial strategies. Now they are wondering what they are supposed to do with them, because the strategy seems to have fallen out of favour.
People might think that is just an accident. It is not an accident. I know that the Business Secretary dismisses his past pamphlets as the work of a maverick Back Bencher, but it is not a coincidence, because this—it is very interesting—is what he wrote:
“The draining of effort from our psyche has been replaced by a sense of entitlement.”
I do not know quite what that means. He continued:
“It has also led to a false belief in the value of industrial policy.”
I thought he had put all that behind him, but clearly not. He is so ideological—so dogmatic—about the free market that he had to get rid of the industrial strategy, and therefore he cannot deliver the partnership between Government and business that the country needs.
Let us turn more generally to business support. Businesses have made huge sacrifices in this crisis, as I said, and they face huge challenges in recovering from the pandemic, added to which are the billions of pounds of red tape as a result of the implementation of the Brexit deal. Even when the health crisis is over, businesses will take a long time to recover. We welcome some of the measures talked about by the Business Secretary, but there are still important groups that I believe are left out: two thirds of the excluded self-employed are not helped by this Budget, including limited companies, many freelancers and others; supply chain businesses are still left out; and whole sectors, such as the wedding industry, are ignored. Their plight will hold back the recovery.
We know that business debt is one of the biggest threats not just to individual businesses but to the recovery as a whole. Some £70 billion of business debt has built up during the crisis. In December, the Federation of Small Businesses reported that the proportion of those businesses describing their debt as “unmanageable” was 40%. The OBR says that, on current plans, the Chancellor will have to write off £27 billion of those loans.
In these circumstances, a sensible Chancellor would have been creative, yet he still refuses to budge. We have a scheme from the Chancellor with no links to profits, no ability to restructure and no ability for management or workers to develop creative solutions. He is just leaving it to the banks. Well, even the banks are telling him that that is very risky. If we face a wave of insolvencies, it will be at the Chancellor’s door. The danger is that this holds back the recovery, and it certainly fails the Bevin test.
Many of the businesses facing those debts are on our high streets, in retail. What is the single biggest long-term change that those businesses require? It is to address the deep unfairness that high street shops face against online retailers. I am sure that the Business Secretary is familiar with that problem. The Government launched a review of business rates not in the last Budget, not in the Budget before, not in the one before that, but six years ago. In fact, they launched the review so long ago that I was Leader of the Opposition when they did so—it is that long ago! A long-term Budget would have finally taken action in this area, but instead we got more delay.
I turn to the measures that were taken. On the so-called super deduction, we will welcome any measure to help business, but I point out, as we think about our capital stock and investment, that the OBR says that that measure
“does not affect the long-run level of the…capital stock”.
In other words, it will make a difference to the timing of business investment, but in fact, according to the OBR, business investment is expected to fall significantly in 2023 and 2024, and there are real questions about why this measure is targeted just at plant and machinery, which is only one fifth of business investment. Then we have freeports, which have been tried for 30 years. I am afraid that all the evidence is that, at best, they may displace economic activity from one area left out of prosperity to another a few miles away.
The problem is that the Government simply do not get that we cannot build private sector success on the back of public sector austerity. The cuts of the last decade have made local services worse, squeezed demand and undermined the crucial infrastructure of business success. People might wonder, “Well maybe they’ve learned their lesson.” I fear they have not. Again, this was not very clear from the Budget on the day, six days ago, but in a year’s time, for many of our public services, it will be austerity all over again. Next year, for current services in transport, housing and local government, and other so-called unprotected areas, public spending will be cut in real terms by £2.6 billion. Let us be clear: growth is anaemic, because their measures are so weak, so they turn to a strategy they tried from 2010 of cutting current spending and raising taxes on ordinary families. I fear they have not learned the lessons. They cannot grow the economy if they are giving tax cuts with one hand, but cutting the services that communities and businesses rely on with the other.
The issue is not just about resources, but about who spends them and where they are spent. We are the most regionally unequal country of any major developed economy and the most centralised. The levelling-up fund is a centralised pot of money to be determined by Ministers, and we are starting to discover where the money is actually going.
Salford is the 18th most deprived area in the country, but it is placed not in the category of most need—category 1 —but in category 2. Barnsley is the 38th most deprived area and is also in category 2. Richmond is 256th out of 317 for deprivation, but it happens to cover the Chancellor’s constituency, so it has found its way into category 1. The Government have said this is based on objective criteria, so what are they? Again, I am very happy to give way to the Business Secretary if he wants to explain what these objective criteria are. If it is all above board, why have they not published the criteria? Of course, they have form on this—the towns fund, the crony outsourcing of contracts to donors. The British people have a right to expect that the money meant for the most deprived areas is spent in the most deprived areas.
Ministers do not get the role for Government, they leave it to the market; they cannot tackle the inequalities we face; and, far from leaving austerity behind, for many it will look like austerity, feel like austerity and it will be austerity.
Of course, we have the most egregious example of all in the decision to cut the pay of nurses and NHS staff. They more than anyone have been the heroes of this crisis: they have put themselves in harm’s way for all of us. The Government promised a pay rise in the NHS plan. They did not just promise it; they legislated for it and they walked through the Lobby a year ago to vote for it. The Business Secretary was put up on “Question Time” on Thursday, as this decision was breaking, to try to justify this broken promise, and this is what he said:
“When I look at people in the hospitality sector, in aviation, in retail, many of them are very…worried they won’t…be in a job in two or three months.”
Edward Miliband
He nods. As if that is somehow a justification for cutting the pay of nurses. What is the world in which their plight justifies cutting the pay of our nurses? I have never heard anyone, in a year of discussions, in any of those sectors say to me, “I’m finding it hard, so Government should cut nurses’ pay.” People would only say that if they believe in a race to the bottom or they believe in levelling down.
Before the Minister says everybody needs to tighten their belts, he should be careful, because it turns out there is plenty of cash to spend millions on a Downing Street makeover for a media briefing room that has not been used; to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to pay off the man the Home Secretary was accused of bullying; and to give Dominic Cummings a 40% pay rise. The truth is it is one rule for them and another rule for everyone else. Let them not ever try again to tell people in this country that we are in this together.
Beneath the rhetoric, the Government cannot be the answer to the problems of the country. They may have produced a document charting 10 years of failure on productivity, but they have not changed their view. The answer to 10 years of failure cannot be more of the same. This should have been a Budget with a plan to respond to the climate emergency by creating the jobs of the future; and a Budget with a plan to help business through the crisis and beyond with debt restructuring, providing a decent pay rise for our key workers and dignity in the social security system, rather than plunging the most vulnerable into deeper poverty. This is a Budget of low ambition for Britain. The post-war generation would never have accepted such a meagre vision as that presented by the Chancellor and the Government. They never would have, and neither should we, and that is why we will vote against the Budget tonight.
Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
In unprecedented times, I commend my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for recognising the need to combine continued support for people in jobs, even as we see the light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic, with the need to restore our public finances and to set us on the path of growth for recovery in the future. I will not dwell on the first of those, but I welcome specifically the funding for tackling domestic abuse, focused as it will be on the perpetrator programmes often overlooked in the past. However, I continue to fail to understand why the Treasury, and, I fear, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, seem institutionally incapable of understanding the significance of the aviation sector for jobs and for our economy.
On other specific issues, I wish to refer to one group who are badly affected by the impact of dealing with the pandemic: women. There is evidence to show that lockdown measures have been particularly difficult for women, and that there are women who have abandoned their careers because they have found it impossible to juggle the requirements of lockdown, with home schooling and so forth, with their careers. We need those women in the workplace. We need those female entrepreneurs for our future. I urge the Government to look actively at what they can do to deal with that issue and to encourage women entrepreneurs.
Another group badly affected by the pandemic is young people, with the hospitality sector being a case in point. The intergenerational divide between young and old has been exacerbated by the measures taken to deal with the pandemic, so it is absolutely right that we take measures to restore our public finances and do not simply land the bill on young people and future generations. I know there are those, including some of my colleagues, who will say, “You don’t need to do anything to taxes. You just need to have growth”, but one worry from this Budget must be the OBR forecast for growth. It is forecast in the medium term not to return to the pre-financial crisis level of an average annual rate of 2.5%, but to be around the pre-covid rate of 1.5%. There is no doubt that the pandemic has had an impact, but pre-covid the uncertainty around Brexit was also having an impact on our economy. Of course there is every prospect that Brexit will have a continued impact in reducing the size of our economy into the future. So we need to focus on growth, and I will say a little more specifically about that in a moment.
I am concerned that the Government have simply adopted the Treasury orthodoxy that if we wish to encourage investment by business, all we do are capital allowances. I can tell my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary that year after year that is the answer the Treasury comes up with. If we want an innovation economy, we need to invest and support investment in areas that encourage growth and innovation, and that means research and development. We are to see another consultation on R&D tax credits—I believe it is the third in three years. I have to say to him: stop consulting, just get on and do something. We could extend the definition of R&D expenditure or increase the rate, but we must act. We need investment in innovation, not in chief executives’ Jacuzzis.
Another area I want to emphasise for my right hon. Friend is that there is a lot of talk from Government—we all do it and we have done it in the past—about capital spending, and infrastructure is always what we reach for. We must never forget, however, that human capital is increasingly what we must be investing in. We should be ensuring that there is effort and funding available for the skills White Paper and for the response to the Augar review. What we need to build back better is a plan that transforms the economy: ideas and an innovation economy; people investing in skills; upgrading infrastructure; and making this the best place to grow and start a business. That was the modern industrial strategy.
The Government say they need a new framework. My right hon. Friend has said that that framework builds on the industrial strategy, but it does not. There are two reasons this is the wrong approach. First, we need a long-term strategy. We cannot just magic a plan out of thin air and expect it to work in a year or so—we need something that will work longer term. We should make changes where necessary, not just for the sake of making a change.
Secondly, a huge amount of effort went in, with Government working with the private sector, to develop that modern industrial strategy. The private sector welcomed it, because it was not about picking winners. This is where I depart from the former Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), because Labour’s answer was always to pick winners; we agreed with business the sectors that needed to be strengthened and in which we were strong, and let the market decide the companies that were going to be the winners. We need to continue with that effort. The industrial strategy was welcomed by the private sector and it was recognised internationally. Do not abandon it. Build on it, for the sake of all our futures.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
It was like a blast from the past there, momentarily.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]
It is always a privilege to speak on behalf of the Scottish National party in a debate such as this. I say to the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), that I do not think I have ever agreed so much with anything that she has said in her life, but I assure her that it is not a habit that I intend to continue for too long.
I commend the Minister on at least having the courage to mention Brexit in his opening remarks, because the Chancellor did not mention it once in his entire speech, despite the fact that the economic damage of Brexit is likely to be worse than that of the covid pandemic. I am puzzled as to how the Minister was able to describe that as a successful Brexit. If 4% off GDP was a successful result, I shudder to think what a bad Brexit would have been like in the Government’s eyes.
The Chancellor’s Budget speech contained all the usual words, all the usual platitudes and all the usual elements. There was a lot of bluster about how wonderful the Government are and obligatory name drops for some hand-picked Tory MPs, interspersed here and there with bits of substance, most of which we had already read in the previous weekend’s newspapers.
Perhaps unusually, I would not take immediate issue with a great deal of what the Chancellor announced. I want to see the details, obviously, because I know from experience that the reality can be very different from what is announced at the Dispatch Box, but in principle I would support a lot of what was announced. The problem is what was not announced and what the Chancellor did not say. He did not say nearly enough about permanent support for the millions of families who are living in poverty. He did not say enough about supporting millions of small businesses and self-employed people who continue to be excluded. He did not say enough about several key sectors of the economy that still face an existential threat as a result of the covid pandemic, in some cases combined with other factors. He certainly did not say enough about investing in our public services and in the people who have served them with such dedication and professionalism during the last dreadful 12 months.
The former Prime Minister, who just finished speaking, mentioned the importance of our aviation industry. Even without the pandemic, we knew that that industry needed to change radically because of climate change. Even a year ago, none of us would have predicted the almost total closure of an entire industry, so what is the Chancellor’s vision for how the aviation industry will look five to 10 years from now? How big will it be? Will air traffic be back to pre-pandemic numbers? Will aviation still directly provide 470,000 jobs and still support around 650,000 other jobs in the UK, as it did before the pandemic? If it does not, what will happen to all the people whose jobs disappear? If the Chancellor’s speech is anything to go by, the answer to all those questions is that he does not know and probably has not even thought about it, because he never mentioned aviation during his speech. In almost 6,500 words, the industry that has perhaps been the worst affected of all industries during covid was literally never mentioned.
When we look at the crisis facing our retail industry, we see, again, that changes were happening anyway because of the growth in online shopping. There were around 143,000 job losses in retail the year before the pandemic and there are likely to be a further 380,000 between 2020 and 2021. Where is the recovery plan? Do the Government even have a vision of what the recovered retail industry will look like? Yes, there is a partial continuation of short-term survival rations and, of course, there is always the towns fund if someone happens to live in a marginal constituency, but otherwise, there is no indication that the Government have any clue how they intend to help our local shops and shopping centres to recover, or even if they care whether or not they recover.
Retail, aviation and, I could mention, oil and gas are all industries where the effects of wholesale change have been greatly accelerated and magnified by the covid pandemic. While those changes may have been inevitable, the Government’s continued failure to support the people who will be affected is anything but inevitable. We cannot allow this Tory Government to turn their back on hundreds of thousands of retail workers and aviation workers in the same way that they abandoned hundreds of thousands of miners in my constituency and others across these islands.
In addition to the lack of any clear vision for key sectors in the economy, there is a continued refusal to acknowledge the desperate plight of millions of self-employed people and small business owners. Of course, I welcome the fact that the Chancellor was eventually dragged kicking and screaming to announce an overdue and humiliating U-turn on support for about 600,000 self-employed people, but we in the SNP are not going to forget the 2.4 million others—the creators, freelancers and small business owner-director—who are still being deliberately abandoned. Last year, I warned that many of these people stand to lose their houses and everything they own if their businesses go under. Last week, the Chancellor had a choice: give them the support they need and deserve, or ignore them. He chose to ignore them yet again. Before the Budget, the Prospect trade union found that 46% of all self-employed people are less likely to stay in self-employment as a result of their experiences during the pandemic and 18% are unsure. That means barely a third of people in self-employment were sure they intended to stay there, and that was before the non-support that most of them got in last week’s Budget. These are the people we rely on to drive the recovery as we come out of the covid emergency. They are not asking for charity; they are asking for a fair deal. They deserve that. It is all they want.
As well as those 3 million people, perhaps falling to 2.4 million this year, there are now millions who have had to fall back on a benefit system that was never designed to support so many people for so long and was never fit for the purpose for which it was supposed to have been designed in the first place. The continuation of the £20 uplift is welcome, but it should be continued permanently. The cliff edge the Government are talking about threatens to plunge 60,000 people, including 20,000 children, into poverty in Scotland alone. The Government claimed that the response to covid would be driven by data not dates, so why is the universal credit cliff edge being set by a date regardless of what the data might say? I submit that an economic recovery in which the poorest get left behind is no economic recovery at all. We can judge how much this Chancellor and this Government care about the eradication of poverty from the fact that the Chancellor did not mention the word “poverty” even once in his entire speech.
The Budget fails to address the economic challenges that will impact on all our living standards for decades to come. It fails adequately to support the businesses on which our economic recovery depends. It fails to provide a decent income for millions of our citizens. The people of Scotland can have no confidence in this Budget. For the last 60 years, the people of Scotland have declared they have no confidence in the Government behind the present Budget. It is now clear that most people in Scotland no longer have any confidence in a constitutional Union that allows such a Government to continue to ride roughshod over the ancient rights of the people of Scotland.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
No Chancellor has faced this kind of crisis in living memory and, by and large, I think the Chancellor has navigated through it with some skill over the last year, supporting those who need support as much as he can. The Bill, as a result, underpins all of this particular Budget: some £407 billion will be spent by the end of next year, with an eye-watering deficit of over £250 billion, as set out in the Budget he has just produced. That clouds every single judgment.
The key point I want to make, and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), is that we must not lose sight of the reality of the need for growth. If we forget that, then we fall back on the idea that we will somehow get through this. The OBR’s forecasts for growth should make us sit up and look very carefully at that. I worry that the level of growth beyond the year after next is really very low in relation to where we start from now. If we cannot grow faster than that, it says a huge amount about some of our policies. I therefore remind my right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench that growth is the No. 1 reality for us now.
That is why I was somewhat concerned about some issues, and I want to come back to them, but one thing I did like, which feeds towards the idea of growth, is the super deduction tax relief to kickstart business investment. That is the right kind of thing to do: encourage businesses to bring their money back in to invest in the UK. The news about freeports is also very good indeed. I hope the Government will have time to review the corporation tax rate and be very careful about the effect of that further down the road. I note that the Chancellor has given himself some time to look at that very carefully.
The issue here is that sometimes we compare productivity across countries. I give a warning about that. I do not know why the Treasury has not done more work on this. No two countries compile productivity rates at the same level. For example, France does not have the public sector in its productivity rates; it has only the private sector. That means that comparisons are often between apples and pears. Our problem in the UK is not productivity, because the London and the south-east have the highest productivity in the whole of Europe. Our problem is regional productivity. No other region of the UK meets the average for the UK in productivity. That single fact should tell us more than anything else why it is critical to put stuff and build things in the north, the midlands and places such as Wales. Our productivity around the country does not match that average level of productivity, as we are far too concentrated in London and the south-east.
I agree with those who have said that R&D tax credits are really important. I would stress that that is a good idea and a policy that the Government have to push forward on, because it encourages greater growth. We must remember that many of our technology advancements are made in universities these days, and we have to maximise that. On deregulation, I am going to come forward with plans shortly; there is huge scope for us to release some businesses through deregulation.
I want to draw to a close by making a couple of points. First, I want to make the case for the Government to review the universal credit money. The reason for that is that universal credit is not a flat payment; it is a dynamic process, and it is aimed at helping people back to work. So in truth, even if we invest the £6 billion in universal credit, as we get more people back to work, the cost of that falls because they are back at work and paying taxes. This is the critical bit: I do not want it to be compared with the furlough scheme, which is a very different item. Universal credit is about getting people back to work, and therefore they pay more. I recommend that the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), and his colleagues think carefully about that, because money was taken out of it some years before, and it needs that investment back in it. That was how it was intended.
My last point relates to the 0.7% on overseas aid. I understand the Government’s issue on this and I recognise their problem, but I hope they will keep this under review. As we move away from certain countries, places such as China will move in, and their money will come with serious problems. They will demand more dictatorial government. We need only to look at Burma to see what is going on when China supports countries. I just raise that as a policy point that the Government may want to think about.
Overall, I say to the Government that this has been a good Budget, but it is a Budget that needs to buy a bit of time, and we must think carefully: growth, growth, growth is the most important thing in front of us now.
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)
The reality of this Budget is that the Government have no credible plan for long-term economic growth that will meet the required scale of ambition for the net zero transition, that will mean real change for workers in every community across the country or that will really help businesses to grow and make a profit. There is no denying that the extension of covid support was welcome, and I am pleased that the Chancellor agreed with my Committee’s assessment that premature end dates had caused unnecessary redundancies and harm to business, but that was the least that we could have expected. On a longer-term vision for our country, I cannot find very much at all. The OBR has concluded that Brexit will shrink our economy by 4% and covid by an additional 3%. After the initial year of reopening post-lockdown, our expectations for growth still hover around only 1.5% a year, and in the face of a decade of failed austerity, the Chancellor has still cut billions from day-to-day spending.
There is a reason that Labour in government was able to invest in our nurses and teachers—something this Government are not willing to do. There is a reason that Labour in government was able to take millions of pensioners and children out of poverty. This Government did not mention child poverty once in the Budget. That reason was sustainable, long-term economic growth. The one major piece of Government policy that attempted to take a longer-term view of the economy was the industrial strategy—a strategy that after only four years was cancelled via a footnote in the Budget and a leaked letter sacking the national Industrial Strategy Council. That is not how you announce major changes to Britain’s industrial policy. The Secretary of State said today that the industrial strategy was a “pudding without a theme”. With respect, he has not just withdrawn the pudding; he has failed to serve the starters and the main course as well.
The so-called plan for growth generates more questions than answers; it is essentially of no use to business. The national infrastructure bank was also supposed to be about long-term growth, but it has been given public funding of only £12 billion, which is £8 billion less than the amount recommended by the National Infrastructure Commission and a whopping £23 billion less than the European Investment Bank used to invest in the UK alone, when the UK was a member of the European Union.
The Budget also fell short of the required ambition to deliver on our net zero commitments, with no real increase in infrastructure spending and the Chancellor sticking to his previous position of only 3% of GDP. That is, I am afraid, a continuation of Ministers announcing targets with no plan or finance to allow them to happen. The Government cannot just announce a green industrial revolution and hope for the best. A failure to stimulate the growth of the green economy is just part of their failure in the Budget to meet the scale of the unemployment challenge. According to HMRC data, 782,000 fewer people are on company payrolls since October 2020, yet does the Government’s job and skills programme meet the scale of the challenge? No, it does not.
For all the failures by the Government in the Budget, I want to end on a positive note. Throughout the pandemic, both as a constituency MP and Chair of the Business Committee, I have seen the remarkable abilities of the British people to adapt to the challenges that we face: the researchers and innovators that led the world in genomic sequencing in vaccine development; the engineers who pivoted from aircraft wings to ventilators; and the small businesses that transformed themselves by moving online. Our key workers—carers, nurses, shopworkers, truck drivers, teachers, police officers and many more—kept our country moving when we all had to stop, reminding us of our sense of national duty, and the volunteers, churches, food banks and resident groups renewed our sense of community. Behind every business and public service is a worker, a business owner, a leader, an innovator, a public servant, a citizen of our United Kingdom. Brexit, technology, climate change and the legacy of covid are all like tectonic plates, slowly reshaping the British economy.
We need every person who can to roll up their sleeves and contribute to the national effort of recovery and change, where each country in our Union depends on each of the others for our collective national success. However, we also need a Prime Minister who has a bolder vision for modernising Britain in the post-covid world—a vision of a modern Britain that not only meets our ambitions as a country, but recognises and rewards the enormous potential of the British people.
Last week’s Budget could have been something special. It could have been the start of a new chapter for a more sustainable, inclusive and successful Britain, meeting the challenges of reshaping the British economy and providing work for people in every community; a Budget that showed the British people that we could be excited by the future and proud of our country once again. Instead, it had no credible long-term plan for growth and no credible long-term plan for the future. It was, unfortunately, a return to the failures of the past.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con) [V]
Greetings from Lancashire, Mr Deputy Speaker.
May I begin by welcoming the Budget delivered by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week? I also particularly thank him for the support that he has given to the tourism and leisure sector throughout the pandemic.
In the three minutes that I have I shall first acknowledge the importance of infrastructure and the considerable investment that this Government and, indeed, the Government led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), have made in the north-west of England, and my constituency in particular. The M55 link road, the A585 Singleton bypass, the Preston western distributor road, the South Fylde line passing loop, £10 million for Kirkham town centre, a new school at Lytham St Annes High School—and the list goes on. So, to pretend that the Government and their predecessor did not invest in the north-west, were not committed to levelling up and did not have a plan for the future is, I am afraid, the result of reading Labour party press releases.
I shall focus attention on three things, briefly—first, the importance of enterprise zones in generating jobs and investment locally. Blackpool enterprise zone has been a huge success and we have about 1,200 jobs in the process of being created in what was an area of incredibly high unemployment and some of the most deprived communities anywhere in the United Kingdom; so those jobs are incredibly welcome. However, I would just encourage the Minister on the Front Bench, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), who I believe also has responsibility for Lancashire, to make sure that enterprise zones do not, as a consequence of the development of freeports and some of the other strategies unveiled in the Budget, become the poor relation.
I would like to make sure, as the UK Government host COP 26, that nuclear fuel is front and centre, because in order for the United Kingdom to develop a radical decarbonisation strategy, it is very important not only that we are investing in small modular reactors and advanced modular reactors—documents for which are currently sat with the Treasury—but that we have the means to manufacture all the aspects within that, and in my constituency nuclear fuel is responsible for 900 jobs.
Finally, when it comes to aerospace, I have the head- quarters of BAE Systems in my constituency, employing just over 6,000 people. Team Tempest and the integrated review are incredibly important to us. They are the jobs of the future. It is the technology that has been referred to today. I encourage the Treasury to look to the future, invest in technology and continue to support the Fylde and the north-west.
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
This Budget fails millions of people across the UK. It fails tens of thousands of small businesses and millions of self-employed people. It fails millions of NHS staff and carers, and it fails future generations with its lack of ambition for action on climate change. The Liberal Democrats argued for a Budget for small businesses, which would protect shops, restaurants, pubs, cafés, beauticians and barbers, all of which make up our local high streets, and create jobs in our communities. The Liberal Democrats wanted a Budget to make our country fairer, greener and more caring. We got the reverse.
There is no doubt that our economy and our national finances are both in a terrible state, so I welcome the sharp U-turn that the Chancellor has made on corporation tax. Large and profitable businesses must pay their fair share, but other choices that the Chancellor has made are clearly wrong. By freezing the personal income tax allowance for years, the Conservatives are targeting tax rises on the lowest paid. In Government, the Liberal Democrats championed and won the case for higher income tax allowance because it meant lower taxes for the lowest paid. By contrast, what the Chancellor has announced will hit the lowest paid with higher taxes. We will oppose this deeply unfair move.
Tax hikes are not the only way that this Government will punish hard-working families. Given that the NHS has performed so brilliantly during the pandemic, why are Ministers offering nurses, doctors and health workers an insulting 1% pay rise? What world does the Prime Minister live in if he thinks that a 1% pay rise is acceptable for Britain’s NHS heroes? When this Government doled out billions of pounds in contracts to private companies, many of which had close links with the Conservative party, how can Ministers say that they cannot afford a better pay deal for our nurses and doctors? Conservative MPs who back this shameful decision on NHS pay will have to answer for it.
Finally, I want to come to the other disastrous move that this Government have made: the EU trade deal, the albatross around the neck of British businesses. Whether it is the Office for Budget Responsibility report of this Budget or other analysis, the evidence so far shows that the UK’s recovery will be weaker than that of other countries, because this Government chose to erect new barriers to trade and hit our exporters with the biggest rise in red tape ever, just as British businesses are struggling with the deepest recession for 300 years.
This Budget does nothing to make our country fairer, greener, or more caring. It fails those who most need our support right now—those who have been working tirelessly to keep us safe during the coronavirus crisis and the businesses fighting desperately to stay afloat. The country deserves so much better. The Liberal Democrats will oppose this Budget.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
Today, I want to talk about the Budget and social care, or rather the lack of anything in the Budget on social care. The case that I want to make is not that the Government should have brought forward their long-promised reforms because the pandemic has exposed fundamental flaws that we must address if we want dignity and security for elderly and disabled people; it is not that these reforms are desperately needed because families have been pushed to their limits helping to care for loved ones; it is not even that our frontline care workers deserve a decent pay rise after everything that they have been through—although all these points are clearly true. The argument that I want to make today is not the moral case for social care reform, but the economic case. The Government’s failure to grasp the role that social care plays in our wider economy is undermining growth, productivity and the need to get value for taxpayers’ money, all of which are essential with both family finances and the public finances under such strain.
Much of the debate about how we build back better or level up has focused on investing in our physical infrastructure, but investing in our social infrastructure is equally important. Put simply, in today’s world childcare and social care are as much a part of our economic infrastructure as the roads and railways. First, that is because of the basics of demographic change; our population is ageing, and we need more than half a million more care workers just to keep pace with the growing demand. The Resolution Foundation has rightly argued that if the Government prioritised investment in social care, that would quickly boost jobs in every part of the country. The Women’s Budget Group has shown that investing in care would ultimately generate even more employment, because of the multiplier effects.
The second argument for investing in social care is to help improve our low productivity rates. Too many workers—predominantly women—have to take jobs below their true skill level, reduce their hours or leave the labour market because they cannot get the help they need to balance work and family life. With our ageing population, that is as much about the lack of social care as it is about the availability of affordable childcare. We have to change this. Finally, we need to invest in prioritising social care to stop costs being shifted to other more expensive parts of the public sector. Just look at delayed discharges from hospital; it makes no sense to have elderly people stuck in more expensive, acute care, when they could be cared for at home.
We have to do more to boost jobs and growth. Reform of social care is vital to achieving those goals. It is a matter of social justice and an economic necessity. The Government must bring forward their plans for reform; there is not a moment to waste.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
The Chancellor’s Budget last week comes against the backdrop of the country facing the biggest peacetime crisis in modern times—not just a health crisis, but a financial one as well. Throughout the pandemic, the Chancellor, under this Conservative Government, has ensured that most people have been provided for in a variety of different ways, balancing support for individuals and the businesses to which they hope to return with the overall health of our public finances. We would not be able to supercharge our economy after this Budget without the support we have received through the pandemic.
My constituency of Southport has already seen much support from this Government; 13,000 local jobs have been protected through furlough and other support schemes, and around 1,600 businesses have been supported with grants and business loans totalling £7.8 million. There has been a huge impact on our retailers. In addition, a third of businesses in my constituency are in the hospitality and tourism sector, so the support has been vital, and the Budget for after lockdown will provide for more.
In the Budget, the Chancellor extended the business rates holiday, which has been widely welcomed. Tapering the support will mean that businesses face no cliff edge, and, as we unlock, footfall and revenue will rise, allowing for a more gradual move back to normality. The 100% rates relief until June, which moves to two thirds for the rest of the year, provides not only support, but certainty. I hope that this will continue into the future, until we reform business rates in line with the challenges faced by online competition.
I also welcome the extension of the VAT cut, which will help to protect almost 7,000 jobs in hospitality and tourism in my constituency—an industry that has been the hardest hit. Extending the 5% reduced rate of VAT for a further six months until the end of September and then tapering from October, will not only mean that there is also no cliff edge here; it will allow the sector rapidly to recover. Of course, the most important point about the reduced rate of VAT is that if people pay for their hotel room in Southport before October, they will get the 5% rate, not the rate when it goes back up; that is something to remember.
The most important announcement by far for my constituency was the town deal worth £37.5 million. It is the biggest direct investment in a generation, and will be transformational. We have already had £1 million of accelerated funding, which has seen the main street in my town, Lord Street—as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker—become a boulevard of light. We have also seen some revitalisation of our market. Our existing tourism and hospitality sectors will be enhanced with a range of projects, including a theatre and convention centre; this will be truly spectacular, bringing an extra £25 million to the local economy. We believe that further business and innovation projects will bring another £400 million of private sector investment.
In short, after hearing his Budget, I think that my constituents are protected, our town is supported and our future is more secure.
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab) [V]
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this vital Budget debate. This Government are endangering our NHS through their lacklustre approach to the coronavirus pandemic, hospital services and the social care crisis. Last Wednesday, it was clear that there is no plan for a recovery in NHS finances. In fact, the NHS was only mentioned once during the Chancellor’s entire speech.
During the pandemic, nurses and NHS workers have gone above and beyond to contain this hideous disease. Their sacrifice has been immense, which makes the 1% pay increase offered by the Chancellor all the more insulting.
Like the PM, I suffered and was saved by brave frontline staff. Having received world-class care himself, the PM and his Government cannot be so miserly and must reward our NHS heroes with a substantial pay rise.
In my own constituency, after years of dedicated campaigning by local Members of Parliament such as myself, we saw off the “Shaping a Healthier Future” programme. However, its toxic legacy lives on. Ealing Hospital has lost full A&E services, which we badly need. We have lost our maternity ward and we have lost in-patient paediatric care. The closure of the maternity unit in particular—where my own grandchildren were born—has been very harmful to my community. The Government must put their money where their mouth is and properly fund our NHS, and level up areas such as mine, with a densely populated and fast-growing population.
Finally, I want to speak about social care services, which at present are in the midst of a severe crisis. Some 40,000 older people have tragically died in care homes since the beginning of the pandemic, yet, in the Chancellor’s speech last week, there was no mention of social care. The Government have nothing to say to the hundreds of thousands of older people, neglected by a broken system that denies them the care that they so desperately need.
Instead of papering over the cracks, as this Budget does, I urge the Government to tackle these inequalities head on, properly fund social care and give NHS staff the pay rise they truly deserve. Only then will the Government be able to say that they are truly committed to levelling up our society, ensuring that no one, regardless of their wealth and background, is left behind.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
Balancing people’s health, saving lives and supporting the economy is an unenviable and complex task. While there are certainly a few areas that still need attention, I believe the Chancellor produced a Budget that supports people, begins to fix the public finances and looks to the future.
I am regularly told in Stroud that furlough has saved businesses. In the first lockdown, Stroud District Council gave out £26 million of Government money in grants. There are more than 4,000 businesses in Stroud. Additional funds have been paid out since.
Skills, reskilling, further education and colleges are going to be integral to the future of our country—I am pleased to see the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the Chamber today. I would like to see green apprenticeships and green-collared work and all of that worked through. We have a White Paper and I am so pleased that the Budget recognised the importance of this area.
I have already been speaking to community groups about the £150 million community ownership fund. I hope we can use funds such as that to support Rush skate park and other sports clubs, and really think about how to use those Government funds and the Government desire for communities to thrive. I know that Stroud communities will be there with their hands up.
The investment in our future through the environment cannot be understated. Stroud will be putting a bid into the fusion STEP programme—the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production programme. There is a chance to be the world’s first fusion power plant; Berkeley and Oldbury and the south-west want to be first in line.
We also need to look to the wetlands—Slimbridge wetlands. We have put together a blue recovery plan for carbon storage and for wellbeing and for everything that we already have on our shores. I say again: please, green investment and private investment for the green stimulus.
It is important to learn from the devastating impact of covid. Businesses have come to me and said that they did not feel heard and understood. They feel that they were shouting into the vacuum. We have to learn from that. I will give a few headlines. The leisure, gyms and heath sector has skilled experts who are going to look after our health, mental health and wellbeing, yet there was no VAT reduction for them and grants were refused. Classes were banned. Some of the road map does not allow them to thrive. These people can help our minds and our health.
I have met many businesses in the wedding sector that have struggled. They are predominantly female-led. Again, the road map does not allow them to step up and work, and there are arbitrary figures for guests—five, six, 15 and 30 people. They can actually go back to work. Let them work. Let them pay back into the economy.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP) [V]
I am in no doubt that the Chancellor’s Budget will result in the continuation of Tory austerity for those on the lowest incomes, especially disabled people and children. During the global pandemic and health crisis, people have been denied vital support to ensure a dignified standard of living. Like successive Tory Governments, this Tory Government are entrenching class inequalities, which weigh heavily on people’s lives.
I welcome the extension of the universal credit £20 uplift. However, those receiving it face a sudden £1,000 cut to their incomes in six months’ time. The Chancellor must provide people with certainty and agree to make the uplift permanent. People claiming legacy benefits will not even see the £20 uplift; 60,000 Scots, including 20,000 children, will be left in poverty and forced to choose between heating and eating in a cynical attempt to force people on to universal credit, which could leave many worse off and facing a gruelling wait of weeks for their first payment. That means that 2.5 million people across the UK, 1.9 million of whom are disabled, are being denied that support.
Being disabled incurs ongoing costs. The disability price tag means that disabled people already pay a premium for normal living, but the UK Government have opted to deny them support to protect their standard of living and health at the time they need it most. Yesterday, I asked the Work and Pensions Secretary whether she had asked the Chancellor to consider extending the £20 uplift. Her answer was no. Refusing even to consider the £20 lifeline for those on legacy benefits is a complete dereliction of duty by this UK Government to the very people they are supposed to protect, particularly after anti-poverty organisations have been asking for the extension for 11 months. Instead, people claiming legacy benefits are being given a pathetic 37p a week extra. When the UK Government have stuffed billions into the pockets of their cronies for bungled contracts, it is clear whose side they are on.
The UK Budget was an all-round kick in the teeth for disabled people. There was no commitment to increasing statutory sick pay, no commitment to the real living wage and making it available for 52 weeks, no commitment to increasing funding for the Access to Work scheme to keep disabled people in work, and no commitment to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work with a real living wage. Whether people are working or seeking work, the UK Government have yet again failed to support them.
Coronavirus has exposed the deep inequalities that exist under this Westminster Government. People in Scotland—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Marion, you are going to have to leave it there. I am terribly sorry, but we are out of time.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con) [V]
I congratulate the Chancellor on passing the first test of a successful Budget: it is now the last day of the Budget debate and the Budget is still intact. I have seen Budgets hailed on Wednesday, doubted on Thursday, excoriated on Sunday and reversed by Tuesday, so the Chancellor has passed his first important test.
Longer term, what will make this Budget a success is a rise in productivity, so the most important of the Budget documents published alongside the statement is the plan for growth. That is starkly revealed by the GDP forecasts from the OBR. The forecast is 7.3% next year, which sounds extremely encouraging, but after that we go back to a procession of 1.6% or 1.7%. Straight- forwardly, if we do not improve productivity, we will not improve those figures to 2-point-something or even higher, which is what we need to achieve, because if we do not, we will permanently suffer from pressure on public finances and public services. We know that it is not impossible to achieve that because, in some parts of the UK, we do. Some areas in the UK are 9% more productive than Germany at the moment. Other parts, sadly, are less productive than some other former communist economies of eastern and central Europe.
Levelling up—the central purpose of this Government —is not just a political slogan; it is an economic necessity. We need to do what we already achieve in some places in all places in the UK. Some of that will involve traditional infrastructure spending, and at this point I welcome the continuing support for the lower Thames crossing, which is essential for not only spreading growth but spreading traffic heading towards the channel into both Kent’s motorways, not just one.
Apart from physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges and broadband, equally important is human capital. For 70 years, the biggest weakness in our education system has been the relative neglect of vocational and practical skills. I am delighted that the ministerial team at the Department for Education are trying to rectify that, but that much used phrase about “parity of esteem” between academic and vocational qualifications will just be lip service if we carry on making more careers graduate-only for entrants. Why on earth have we done that for the police?
We also need to level up on health because the disparity between healthy life expectancy is not just bad for those involved; it is a drag on our economic growth. Also, we need innovation, particularly in green products and sectors, which we will need to lead the world on. Overall, I congratulate the Chancellor on a balanced Budget that meets one nation ideals and purposes by aiming to bring the whole UK on to a higher growth path.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con) [V]
In 2019, this Government were elected to deliver on their promises to level up towns like Scunthorpe. We could not have imagined then the challenges that would befall the country. As we move towards what we all hope will be better days ahead, alongside that recovery and support, it is still the job of this Government to keep the promises they made to towns like Scunthorpe, where local people put their faith in MPs like me, knowing that we have a shared stake in our town’s future.
That is why last week’s Budget was so important to Scunthorpe. It is one thing to tell local people that we will keep our promises and that we will invest, improve and truly level up places like Scunthorpe; it is another to show them. In addition to over £10 million of Government investment in our high street, I particularly welcome the Chancellor’s Budget announcement committing a further £21 million of proper new money to Scunthorpe via the towns fund. I worked on our bid with our excellent board and my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). We were ambitious to bring forward projects that would benefit local people in both Scunthorpe and surrounding towns and villages—projects that would raise our whole area, not just the town centre.
In addition, the Budget announced the exciting approval of our bid for a new Humber freeport, which will make a huge difference to North Lincolnshire and the whole Humber region. Along with Members on both sides of the House, I have seen the potential benefits of freeports and supported the project, which will create jobs and investment. The freeport will include a customs site at British Steel—further evidence of the Government’s support for the industry.
This Budget also recognises the many businesses in Scunthorpe and the incredibly tough time that they have had over the last year. I want to thank those businesses in my constituency that have worked with me and taken the time to talk to me about their views and give me their insights, which we have been able to feed back to Government. In these tough times, the Budget will give those businesses more certainty and not only protect jobs but create new jobs in our area. The excellent kickstart scheme has already attracted interest from over 100 local employers.
With the towns fund, the investments we have seen over the last year and a freeport agreed, the Government have finally aligned the stars and recognised Scunthorpe for what it actually is: the ideal place for businesses to invest and grow, a great place to live and an area of our country with fantastic potential. I look forward to seeing those promises for Scunthorpe delivered.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
You are on mute, Giles. If you don’t mind, we will take Andrea Leadsom straightaway. We hope we will get back sequentially. We will be back with you, Giles, I promise.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I am full of praise for the Chancellor’s work to protect jobs and businesses as we emerge from lockdown, and I support the measures he announced in the Budget, but I also urge him to give even greater focus than he has done to the prospects for our green economy.
In my stint as Business Secretary, I rewrote the Department’s objectives, so that its top priority was for the UK to lead the world in tackling global climate change. On the one hand, there is no doubt that that is the right thing to do—the future of our planet keeps far too many people awake at night. However, on the other hand, building a green economy also makes superb business sense for the UK.
First, the UK is at the forefront of developing green technologies: from offshore wind to nuclear fusion and green hydrogen, we are leading the way. Secondly, the UK has more than 450,000 people in the green collar workforce already. In my time at BEIS, I was confident that a target of 2 million green jobs by 2030 was possible. The particular beauty of the green economy is the breadth of employment opportunities—from apprenticeships in solar power to decarbonisation of heavy industry to cutting- edge scientific discoveries, there is something for all talents. The UK’s green economy could become a bigger jewel in our crown than UK financial services is today, and I urge the Chancellor to share that vision.
COP26 is a great platform, and we need radical action with world-changing initiatives, so I want to put forward three specific ideas. The first is to announce at COP26 a yearbook in which the Paris agreement signatories can record their Government, state and business-level achievements—transparency so that all can see and challenge, while the discussion continues over the more formal measurements.
The second idea is to announce at COP26 three ambitious bilateral commitments to decarbonisation by 2030. The UK can be a key role model, and those pledges could include, for example, working with India on delivering 100 GW of battery storage around the world, with China to deliver 200 GW of offshore wind, and with Brazil, say, to deliver 0.5 billion hectares of new woodland around the world.
The third idea is to announce at COP26 a global green investment bank. Our former rock star central banker, Mark Carney, is now the Prime Minister’s green adviser, and he should be pulling together the global pensions industry, project financing and green investment expertise to work together on financing the decarbonisation of our planet.
As one of the great heroes, Sir David Attenborough, has said,
“real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics.”
The UK has the chance post Brexit to lead that change.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Very professionally done, as we expected, Andrea. Thank you for helping us out. I think our comms are now back. Let us see if we have Barry Sheerman.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
Thank you so much, Mr Deputy Speaker—I am, I think, unmuted.
First, I thank my constituents, not only for sending me back to Parliament yet again, but for being so forthright in what they want me to do when there is a Budget speech. I have been present at many Budgets and spoken in most of the Budget debates; I am a bit of permanent feature. I have seen a lot of aspirant merchant banker types—the George Osbornes who come and do their bit on the Front Bench and then go on their way to the next stage in their career. I just hope that this time, this merchant banker, who is the wealthiest Member of Parliament we have ever had, will stay the course. I do not usually trust merchant bankers because I trade as an economist and I would prefer an economist’s view of our country’s future.
My folk in Huddersfield tell me that what they want is pretty simple: good jobs on good pay, a good health service, a good education service, a clean environment, and a modernised welfare state that is up to date. One of the things this country can be proudest of is a welfare state that really looks after people when they are sick or out of work. The covid crisis has pointed out to us that there are some severe deficiencies in our welfare state. If someone is thrown out of a job and has no employment, the support and the income they get are dramatically lower than in most of our competing nations. This Budget should have addressed that, bringing the NHS up to date—I will not even go into the shameful 1% pay rise that is in fact not a pay rise—and looking thoroughly at equipping it for the future after it has been systematically cut and cut again since 2010, but also looking at the welfare state in its entirety.
Many people have talked about the green economy. Our good science, good technology and good manufacturing have meant that we have sorted covid and we are winning against this global pandemic. Now we have the science, the technology, the partnerships and the manufacturing capacity to set about saving our planet from climate change and global warming, so let us do that. This Budget should have taken a lead. It should have shown passion, partnership and a real ability to build relationships that work. I only hope that this Chancellor will stay on and do a proper job for a change.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We will now see if the technology and science are going to bring us Kate Osamor.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this really important debate.
The consequences of covid-19 have been disastrous for us, causing the worst recession of any major developed economy. The Budget was a missed opportunity to help to repair the damage caused by covid-19. This Government have used covid-19 and the Budget to hand out contracts to large corporations, funnel funds via the so-called towns fund towards the constituencies of Conservative Members, and cut public sector pay, universal credit and NHS funding. Meanwhile, in Edmonton, 5,000 of my constituents have lost their jobs in the past year alone, and the unemployment rate is now double the national average. Almost half the children in Edmonton live in poverty. Yet the Chancellor will cut the £20 universal credit uplift in September and continues to ignore the millions of disabled and sick people on legacy benefits who never received the so-called uplift. The UK welfare benefits system is one of the least generous in the developed world. This Government have torn holes in our welfare safety net. Sadly, too often, losing your job or falling ill means going hungry and losing your home.
Many leaseholders like those in Prowse Court in Edmonton listened to the Chancellor hoping that the Government would finally offer them the help they need to make their homes safe. There was not a single mention of cladding or building safety from the Chancellor last week. Instead, they are being left to foot bills they cannot afford while the property developers who profited from the Government’s unsafe cuts to building safety regulations walk away without paying a penny.
After more than a decade of austerity, my constituents in Edmonton needed a transformative Budget that would tackle inequality, rebuild the local economy, recover jobs, retrain unemployed workers and rebuild businesses to reflect a fairer society. We cannot go back to business as usual. This country and my constituents deserve better.
James Grundy (Leigh) (Con) [V]
I welcome this Budget, not least because of the Chancellor’s extension of the support packages to assist businesses as we begin the transition out of lockdown. The extended furlough scheme and self-employment income support scheme will continue to be a vital crutch for businesses in my constituency, and the restart grant and recovery loans will ensure that businesses are supported well beyond the current road map timetable, helping to smooth the shift back to normal trading.
Another measure that my constituents and I were pleased to hear will continue was the extension of the freeze in fuel duty. Many of my Back-Bench colleagues and I stressed the importance of that to the Chancellor earlier this year. It will prevent increased costs for struggling commuters and businesses in Leigh during this crucial time.
Ahead of the Budget, local businesses in the hospitality sector contacted me to express the need for further financial support. While there are many existing schemes in place for them, I know that they were concerned about the potential rise in beer duty. Working alongside the Long Live The Local campaign and local pubs in my constituency, I heard at first hand just how important it is for pubs and the wider hospitality sector to be able to offer a cheaper pint and get customers back through the door. That is why I know the Chancellor’s decision to extend the beer duty freeze will be strongly welcomed.
While I welcome the extension of the business rates holiday until June and the fact that the vast majority of local businesses will see a temporary 75% cut in their business rates, my constituents are concerned that those measures will provide only a temporary fix to a more deeply rooted problem. In some of the more deprived communities in the north, business rates are so high as a proportion of earnings that businesses pay an effective tax rate of up to 70%, compared with 20% for those in the south. Businesses in Leigh are some of the worst affected in the whole of England, paying twice the national average. If we are going to keep our promise to level up those areas most affected by the pandemic and in need of financial support to thrive, we must reform business rates and create a system fit for the future.
As we move out of this crisis, we have an opportunity to ensure that, through our national recovery programme, we build back better. Again, I welcome this Budget. Although there is more to do, it will benefit businesses, families and the high street in communities such as Leigh as we exit this crisis.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
A decade ago, we were told that austerity was a necessary response to borrowing £158 billion, and we have spent 10 years arguing about the damage done as a result: cost-cutting measures that cost us more than they saved—the bedroom tax springs to mind—the sluggish productivity that we have not dealt with, and the inequality that has grown worse as a result of focusing not on investing in people and their potential but on trying to pick winners and losers.
Now we are in a position where we are borrowing a figure double that and then some. The Chancellor tells us that he is being honest, but he is not being honest, and he is about to repeat the mistakes that were made in 2010. Austerity did not move our economy forward and it did not improve the lives of our local communities. We have the fourth highest death rate from covid-19 out of 132 countries. As Sir Michael Marmot has said, that is at least in part down to the pre-existing poor health in poorer sections of our local communities. What a damning indictment of austerity indeed.
Coming out of the pandemic, we cannot afford to make the same mistakes again, but that is exactly what is about to happen. The universal credit cut will see 500,000 children dragged into poverty. It is a 7% cut in incomes. Some people might say that 7% is not very much, but if that is the difference between waving and drowning, that is the impact this Chancellor is going to have.
The Government promised that nobody would lose their home as a result of covid, yet we know that half a million people are already in rent arrears, and the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have said nothing about that issue. We know that they plan to clobber nurses with a pay cut—because it is a pay cut when inflation is predicted to be 1.5%. It is going to cost us more, just as the bedroom tax did, because nurses are not daft. In London alone, we are paying £6 billion a year for agency staff, because we have NHS staff shortages. Nurses are going to work for agencies when they are not being paid properly. There is money there to be had.
It is right that we look at corporation tax rates. It is right that we do more on capital gains tax—after all, there are people trading shares in UK companies through tax havens who are not paying it. However, there is no point raising money if we are not going to invest in people, and the mums of this country know that most of all. Those who became a mum in the past year are one and a half times more likely to have lost their job than a dad. Our childcare sector is crumbling, with 58% of nurseries saying they cannot make it to the end of the term, but the Chancellor said nothing. We have spent the last 10 years dealing with the outcome of not investing in the people of this country. I urge the Chancellor to rethink and not do that again.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab) [V]
Erdington is rich in talent, but is one of the poorest constituencies in England. Levelling up matters, but it is not happening in Erdington. Our high streets fund bid was rejected. Services that have already been badly hit, from social care to street cleaning, are facing fresh austerity cuts. Twenty-seven nursery schools in the most deprived areas of the city now face closure.
We now have the proposed closure of the GKN factory in my constituency. GKN is one of the oldest engineering companies in Britain. It is 262 years old. It manufactured the cannonballs for the battle of Waterloo and helped build the Spitfires during the war. It was taken over three years ago by Melrose and now faces closure. There are 519 highly skilled workers who work in that plant.
What happened was utterly outrageous. Crucial now is what happens. If the company goes to the wall, 519 jobs go, but what also goes are many more jobs in the supply chain. That would be bad news for British workers and bad news for British manufacturing, because we would lose the capacity to make high-value components. Those jobs will be exported to continental Europe. That is why I welcome the constructive discussions that have taken place with the Secretary of State, and I say to him that the test of the Government in the next stages will be what they say and what they do, because the solution could be positive: avoiding the closure of that great historic marque with 50 years of manufacturing for the automotive industry.
In conclusion, on manufacturing more generally, we have 300,000 manufacturing jobs in the west midlands, which is the heart of England. There were some welcome moves in the Budget—of that there was no doubt—but they went nowhere near far enough, because if one looks at our continental competitors, their Governments are investing on a grand scale, far in excess of what is happening in our country. For example, the French Government are putting £15 billion of investment in aviation and automotive. That is four times more than what is happening in this country. Sixteen gigafactories are being established in continental Europe, but there is just one in our country, and we hope the second one will be at Coventry airport.
Much more needs to be done, because manufacturing is key to the recovery of our economy. It is key to the recovery of Britain. The Government have gone nowhere near far enough. What they need to do at the next stages is to back British manufacturing.
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con) [V]
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). In what are extremely challenging circumstances, I commend this Budget for meeting so many of the immediate and longer-term needs of north Wales. The extension of furlough for the employed and self-employed, the continued VAT reduction for hospitality, holiday accommodation and attractions, and the freezing of alcohol duty are all welcome measures that provide security, particularly for the hospitality and tourism sectors during what we hope are the final stages of the pandemic.
Those sectors are extremely important in a constituency such as the Vale of Clwyd. In addition to the Chancellor’s Budget measures, there is a desperate need for the Welsh Government to publish a road map out of lockdown to align with the clear measures set out by the Prime Minister. The medium to long-term commitments that the Chancellor has made will provide the boost that is needed to address local pockets of deprivation and to ensure levelling up in more general regional economic performance.
The Budget included funding that will provide tangible benefits to my constituents. Denbighshire County Council is a direct beneficiary of the Budget, receiving £125,000 of capacity funding from the levelling up fund and an additional £20,000 for similar purposes from the community renewal fund. These programmes open up the possibility of many millions of pounds of support for the county within the next year or so to promote local regeneration. I look forward to working with the council to secure a turnaround in the fortunes of Rhyl high street, and with my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) and my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), to see investment in other town centres in the area. I also welcome the community ownership fund, which has the potential to be a major boost for all those who desperately want the Belle Vue ground to remain the home of football in Rhyl.
It was announced at the Budget that the north Wales growth deal will be reprofiled, with funding being brought forward from 15 years to 10 years. This will mean an extra £4.4 million per year from this April for nine years. It is hoped that this investment will create 3,800 new jobs and deliver a £2.2 billion boost to the local economy. This deal alone is set to help redevelop the former North Wales Hospital in Denbigh, support high-value manufacturing in St Asaph, and boost digital connectivity and green energy projects.
As we bounce back from the coronavirus, this transformation of our local communities and economy will be very welcome. I sincerely hope that, in the months ahead, these measures will be matched with further commitments to boost regional rail infrastructure, and I very much look forward to the findings of Sir Peter Hendy’s Union connectivity review. I am confident that this Budget puts north Wales and the whole of Britain in a strong position to recover and grow following a particularly challenging year for us all.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP) [V]
Freezing alcohol duty rates is fine for alcohol producers, but not so good for Scottish publicans. Before covid, there was a drift from on-sale to off-sale consumption both north and south of the border. Something like 75% of sales were for the latter, predominantly in supermarkets, and now it will be even more.
Even once lockdown eases, will people return to their old local or to their pub, or will attitudes change further? Some might say it does not matter, but I actually think it does, and not just for publicans but for communities. It is a difficult time for the licensed trade, but it is also a difficult time for others in our communities. Pubs are community assets in towns as well as in rural parts. We have seen the demise of the country pub, but we now face that on the high street. Dealing with closed shops and what to do with them is difficult enough in towns and villages, but dealing with a pub that is even larger will be much harder, yet that is what we face unless action is taken.
Pubs are also places of supervised consumption. It is much better to have people drinking alcohol where there are ways of ensuring that their behaviour is monitored. Likewise, people’s measures are much more liberal when they are pouring for themselves, rather than having a publican pour them. Indeed, alcohol consumption health-wise, as well as justice-wise, is probably better done in supervised premises. That is why the failure to take any action in the Budget is rather shameful and will harm communities as well as the trade.
We have seen a proposal from the Social Market Foundation that would have allowed for a variation in alcohol duty rates, loading a modest increase on to the off-sale trade to ensure that there could be a reduction for the on-sale trade. That would help keep pubs alive, but it would not reduce the burden required for the Exchequer. Indeed, as I say, given the profits made by many supermarkets, it would probably be seen by most as legitimate and entirely acceptable.
Similarly, there are other attitudes that can be taken on VAT. Italy has reduced VAT on alcohol in pubs and restaurants. Again, that could be revenue-neutral by encouraging increased consumption, but consumption that is better done in a supervised manner, keeps a local asset and maintains a viable business, rather than having people buy tranches of alcohol from supermarkets at discounted prices. That is why, as I say, this has been a missed opportunity.
Pubs are vital for our communities. They are assets, and we have to take steps to support them with either a reduction in VAT, as in Italy, or indeed the more radical steps of the Social Market Foundation, which I would support, to try to secure alcohol being taken in supervised premises, as opposed to simply sold en masse by super- markets at discounted prices. Actions have to change, and this has been a missed opportunity for the pub trade.
Giles Watling [V]
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) for stepping in as my understudy earlier. Unsurprisingly, this Budget is all about holding the line and keeping things alive so that when we do emerge, blinking, into the sunshine of a bright new future, this nation is prepared to take its rightful place at the centre of the world’s stage. It is about keeping working people going so that we do not bleed talent away. It is about maintaining our structural heritage so that everything from the mightiest theatre to the smallest village hall is ready to throw open its doors to re-engage with our communities. It is about supporting businesses, large and small. It is also about delivering all this in a cost-effective way so that our children, and our children’s children’s children, are not lumbered with a totally unmanageable debt.
It is also worth remembering that it was only in 2015 that George Osborne announced that we were to make the final payment on the loans for the first world war. With the coronavirus outbreak, we have now entered similar unpleasant territory. With well over a third of a trillion pounds already thrown at the management of this terrible pandemic, we must tread cautiously. We must keep things going until our economy can stand on its own two feet once more. Then we must build that economy so that through the efforts of the people of these islands, this massive debt is reduced rapidly and is manageable for future generations.
With all that in mind, I am happy to support the Budget, as it delivers significant value to my constituents and helps our businesses through the end of lockdown. Importantly, to my mind, this Budget extends and ends the furlough scheme in a very sensible way. Many residents in Clacton will be dependent on furlough. The scheme currently supports 880,000 jobs in the east of England. The scheme is also protecting jobs: only 10% of local businesses have been forced to lay off someone because of the pandemic, according to the results of a covid recovery survey that I ran recently. That is why I have always believed that furlough needs to be in place until restrictions are fully lifted, and the tapered ending is the right approach, which will help businesses to manage costs after reopening. Alongside furlough, I am pleased that 600,000 new claimants are now eligible for self-employment income support schemes. It is right that we deliver these two new grants in this financial year.
One of my major concerns is the fate of the freelancers who have so far fallen through the cracks of the support schemes, unable to access them, so I hope that these changes will be of benefit to them. Many of those freelancers are of course involved in the arts, and I am sure that they will appreciate the additional £408 million to help that sector recover, but as I warned in my speech last week, we must ensure that that support remains in place even after restrictions are lifted. One note of warning: if we do not support the creative sector—the fastest-growing sector—we will have a hard job indeed getting out of this economic nightmare.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
During the run-up to any Budget, there is much chatter about the rate at which Government set taxes—too high and we run the risk of choking off growth; too low and the national debt will rise to unmanageable levels. What is very rarely asked, however, is how taxpayers’ money is spent. A taxpayer has a right, when they hand over a proportion of their hard-earned wages, for that money to be spent in a wise and prudent manner by the Government. However, the facts and evidence, as presented by the independent National Audit Office, show that this is simply not the case.
From April 2017 until the end of 2020, central Government Departments have recorded at least £5 billion in accounting losses. This is an incredibly high figure of wastage. For example, HMRC racked up over £470 million in departmental losses from 2017 to 2020. It gets worse: according to HMRC’s own planning assumption, total fraud and error arising from the coronavirus job retention scheme cost anything in the region of £2 billion to £3.9 billion. So far, only £10 million has been recovered and any more is unlikely to be claimed back.
To put that into perspective, Saffron Cordery, the NHS Providers deputy chief executive, said that building a new, average, mid-sized hospital costs around £500 million. This means that the £5 billion in accounting losses over three years could have built 10 new hospitals. Given the strain that we have seen on NHS resources this year, I am sure that an extra 10 hospitals would have been appreciated by many communities across the country.
The new Grange University Hospital has just been built near my constituency by a Welsh Labour Government. The hospital has a specialist critical care centre, a top-range cardiac suite and 30 individual intensive therapy unit rooms. It was even able to open four months early to relieve pressure on the NHS during the pandemic. All of that cost £350 million.
Let me tell the House what else was over £300 million: the total losses for the Department for Work and Pensions departmental group. That was in one year alone. I cannot speak for other Members in this House, but I certainly know what I would rather have taxpayers’ money spent on and it is certainly not fraud and error. All that money should be spent helping the people of the UK to recover from the effects of the pandemic and not wasted on departmental error. We owe that to the British people. It is their money. Let us spend it wisely.
Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con) [V]
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate and to respond to last week’s Budget. I certainly do not envy the Chancellor having to set the Budget during a global pandemic which has had such a devastating effect on our economy. This is a pragmatic, responsible Budget that maintains the commitment to levelling up and aims to speed up our economic recovery. There were undoubtedly some difficult choices to make, but they must be measured against the whole economic picture rather than as single issues. Small pay rises for some must be viewed against more than 1 million new jobseekers, those who have lost their businesses, and those surviving on reduced furlough wages.
Helping people back into work must be our first priority. That is why I applaud several measures in the Budget that highlight the Chancellor’s ongoing commitment to protecting and creating jobs: schemes like Help to Grow, which will offer MBA-style management training and also help businesses to develop digital skills; the creation of freeports, including two that will help to fire up our midlands engine; the extension of furlough; the VAT cut to the hospitality industry; and more money for apprenticeships.
There are many measures, but I especially want to mention something that will benefit my home city. This is where we see real change and a real plan. Without resorting to the school assembly stalwart of giving a man a fish or a fishing rod, the Government’s investment in Wolverhampton has given our city a clear plan to a better economic future. The Budget announced not only a successful £25 million towns fund bid, but we will benefit from £10 million of investment for a taskforce into modern methods of construction. This will be based at a new Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government headquarters in Wolverhampton. This all links to the £15 million the Government invested in our National Brownfield Institute, which sits next to our School of Architecture at Springfield brewery. The Government’s investment means Wolverhampton will be the home of the green home building industry and all the jobs and opportunities that that will bring in over the coming decades.
This vision for Wolverhampton is worth so much more than just the funds the Government have provided. Moving a Ministry away from London proves the commitment to levelling up. I would like to say this to the Leader of the Opposition: I know today’s Labour party is more Wandsworth than Wolverhampton, more Balham than Bilston and more Willesden than Wednesfield, but moving Government Departments away from London is not giving up, it is giving hope: hope to our local economy and hope to the thousands of people looking for work in my constituency.
I commend the Budget, and I commend the Chancellor and the Government, who are committed to changing life chances and giving better opportunities to people around the United Kingdom and in my wonderful home city of Wolverhampton.
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab) [V]
For that last 10 years, we have been told that austerity was the only way: local governments operating on a shoestring budget, services cut to the bone, councils managing on the bare minimum, charities closing, no money available for specialist women’s refuges, and mental health provision at crisis point, with children waiting up to two years for even the most basic initial assessments. During that decade, child poverty soared, homelessness stopped being noticed, widening gaps just kept on widening, and public sector workers suffered from a pay freeze that never seemed to start to thaw.
We know that the majority of people using food banks are actually in work—the working poor. Many of those are the nurses who, by this Budget, have once again been insulted. When our frontline NHS workers urgently needed protective equipment, did the Government respond by quickly securing it from tried and tested suppliers, or did they award contracts to those with absolutely no previous experience, wasting huge amounts of taxpayers’ money and leaving those frontline workers without adequate protection? When hundreds of nurses and doctors lost their lives, and many thousands of lives had been saved by their colleagues, the Government made sure they were clapping. They said some nice words and thanked them, but as our nursing force start to emerge from the real trauma they have faced this year, where is the Government’s respect? The insulting offer of a 1% pay rise, said to be the equivalent of £3.50 per week, does not even honour the basic starting point, which is legislated for, of 2.1%. So those nurses, who are literally making the difference between life and death for so many people, will be going back to food banks in between their gruelling shifts.
Those of us with many local hospitality businesses welcome any help available, and those of us able to bid for the levelling-up funds urgently to support our high streets, creative sector and tourism industry will gladly do so. However, we also note the opportunities lost to level up for the self-employed, the millions excluded and the public sector workers, and, yet again, the social care sector and our unpaid carers are left out. Women are also, yet again, at the bottom of the pile. The Women’s Budget Group can advise the Chancellor on how to change that with its expert knowledge. Those glossy photos of swish new Downing Street makeovers are a kick in the teeth to those excluded—the wedding industry, unpaid carers, and the very people who put their lives at risk to save ours. I urge the Chancellor to listen to the public outrage and think again about the insulting 1% pay rise for nurses.
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con) [V]
This Budget delivers for all parts of the UK and it is the most important Budget for my constituency in years. The Secretary of State outlined the importance of levelling up and creating new industries, and that will certainly happen here in the Solent region, because levelling up is just not a tagline for one part of the country; as this Budget shows, it is for all parts of the UK. Levelling up and infrastructure improvements are about not just physical manifestations of infrastructure, but preparing the economy, and communities and industries that will prepare and propel Britain’s future.
The Solent region has pockets of deprivation left over by the old industries of the railways in Eastleigh town centre and the post-industrial past of Southampton’s docks. The announcement of the Solent freeport, which was opposed by the Lib Dem leader and pooh-poohed by the Labour party, will prepare our workforce for the future. We are talking about 52,000 jobs, the creation of decarbonisation industries, such as green maritime, green transport jobs and a world-leading sector in green energy. This will mean that £2 billion-worth of investment will be attracted to the Solent region and it will add £3.7 billion of gross value added uplift to the UK. This Budget is a shot in the arm for my region, which is often seen as economically developed, to ensure that the Solent region, my constituency and Southampton as a whole will have the world-leading recovery that we need.
The Government have recognised that need for my constituents, my region and the country, because not only does this Budget deliver the infrastructure needed to propel that future, but it puts in place some of the solutions to the problems that my region has had for decades. Such problems include three-generation unemployment, whereby people have not been able to get back into the workplace because the industrial heritage of areas such as Southampton and Eastleigh has not been worked on. This Budget does that, all delivered by a Conservative Government. The people of the Solent region have been given ambition and opportunity, and the Business Secretary, the Treasury and the Prime Minister should know that my constituents and I will grab that opportunity with relish.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC) [V]
Page 41 of the Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto in Wales guaranteed that Wales would
“receive at least the same level of financial support”—
from the UK—
“as it currently receives from the EU.”
That was a cast-iron, copper-bottomed manifesto promise. We also had endless levelling-up rhetoric and the UK Government singing the praises of the Union. What could possibly go wrong?
Fifteen months later, this Budget announced an array of competing, competitive and opaque Westminster-controlled funds, which undermine rather than enhance Wales’s economic strategy, and fail to honour this Government’s promises to Wales. The shared prosperity fund’s pilot, disingenuously named the community renewal fund, was allocated a mere £220 million to boost the entire UK, yet Wales alone received around £370 million a year in needs-based funding—I emphasis that it was needs-based funding—from Europe. This is not only a broken manifesto promise, but a broken promise to Wales.
Equally flawed is the levelling-up fund, which is being applied in the devolved nations in a way that is deliberately set out to undermine devolution. Both schemes entail UK-wide competition, rather than a needs-based system, which effectively and disinterestedly tackles the UK’s vast regional inequalities without fear or favour.
Welsh local authorities will now bid for funding from a smaller pot in direct competition with the entire UK. The consequences for economic planning are enormous. Instead of a Wales-wide economic development agenda, the UK Government have divided and, they hope, conquered Wales, by breaking our economy into 22 competing units. What makes that worse, of course, is that the UK Government have linked the success of these funds to representation by MPs. The Chancellor is therefore obviously not discomfited by whether Wales receives our fair share, since the Government are also cutting the number of Welsh MPs by a fifth.
It seems that this Conservative Government, not content with breaking promises and scorning need, are rigging the system to favour their own political interests, as both funds disproportionately benefit Conservative seats, including, appallingly, the Chancellor’s.
The Chancellor failed to present a coherent long-term strategy that complements Wales’s existing development agenda to improve the lives of Welsh people. Instead, he withdrew support, undermined our autonomy and prioritised his party’s interest. Wales does have a choice, though, and Plaid Cymru has a better plan—a strategic £6 billion recovery stimulus to make our economy fairer and greener. I urge the Chancellor to give us the tools to help ourselves and deliver a recovery that works for Wales.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I wish the Chancellor had sat down and asked himself when he was writing his Budget what he needed to do to reduce the social and economic divide in the UK and how he would stop those who have done well during the epidemic doing even better in the recovery, while millions more are on a downward slope—the K-shaped recovery that we all want to avoid. The K-shaped recovery will not be avoided by a Budget that increases poverty.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation predicts that the cut in universal credit and tax credit will plunge a further 500,000 people into poverty, including 200,000 children. What we needed was a revision of the welfare state that will fit the needs of the gig economy and lift people out of poverty, not trap them in it.
During the recovery from the global banking crash, the Tories imposed 10 years of austerity on this country, cutting public services to the point where we struggled to respond to the covid crisis. The 120,000 deaths have not happened just by bad luck. The Tories changed, but their actions prove that their words are not what they intend to do. They claim to have found a Keynesian mojo, but if there is anything that exposes their façade and the same old Tory thinking, we need look no further than a derisory 1% pay increase offered to NHS staff.
A Government who were committed to renewing our NHS after the covid crisis would have made sure that we permanently filled the 100,000 vacancies that existed at its start. They would have made sure that we were recruiting the highest quality recruits into jobs in the NHS and retaining its highly qualified, dedicated staff. A 1% pay offer does none of those things. Instead, what we got from the Government were choreographed pledges for money to go to Tory seats and some rehashed policies on housing that will repeat the errors of austerity, fuelling another housing bubble, forcing first-time buyers out of the market.
The level of home ownership has gone down under the Tories at a time when borrowing is at an all-time consistent low. There are now 800,000 fewer people under the age of 45 who own their homes than in 2010. What we needed was a plan to decarbonise the existing housing stock. That would create jobs in every region. What we needed was a plan to build council housing and to upskill local workforces. Sadly, that requires thinking of which the Tories are simply not capable.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab) [V]
May I welcome the Chancellor’s long-overdue announcement of an extension to the furlough scheme? This will help to avoid an economic cliff edge this spring. However, much more is needed, and our alternative Labour Budget would address the deep inequalities and injustices in the UK and take us forward to a stronger, more prosperous future. After covid, we need to rebuild the foundations of our economy for the long term by supporting new jobs across the whole UK; backing businesses as they recover, and protecting family finances.
We need new jobs in emerging industries, and we need them quickly. Yet the Government’s flagship policy, the kickstart scheme, is proving to be a failure. A business in my constituency applied to the scheme last September. It was keen to start giving opportunities to young people, but, months later, the application is stalled. That is not good enough. The process needs to work much more efficiently. Kickstart also needs to be paired with extra investment for places such as Blaenau Gwent.
The hospitality sector in particular has suffered and many have lost their livelihoods. Our Tradeteam logistics depot took a hammering last summer and 50 jobs were lost, with 50 families left in the lurch. They were well-paid, unionised jobs and they will be missed. To build a new economy and support business, we need investment, yet we are still waiting for a well-funded shared prosperity fund. We need jobs, but we also need to help people get to jobs. I have written to the Chancellor previously about funding improvements to the Ebbw Vale to Cardiff trainline. Accessing the employment market, higher education and leisure is crucial to our valleys communities. Improvements such as this would be hugely beneficial to our economy. New train infrastructure and more frequent services need to be delivered in better time.
On protecting family finances, I will end on an issue that I have raised before in the House. In recent years, thousands of British Steel pensioners were ripped off by pension sharks and denied justice. I urge the Chancellor to look at the Financial Conduct Authority’s role in this crisis and to review its effectiveness in protecting consumers. After constant prodding, I think that it is time to reform this regulator so that it faces towards the whole of the UK, not just the City of London.
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)
This virus has dealt our economy its worst blow in 300 years, but I am confident that we will rise phoenix-like from the ashes. I am confident because our support has already protected more than 11 million jobs. I am confident because our economy is now expected to recover to pre-crisis levels six months sooner than predicted. I am confident because of the speed of our vaccine roll-out and, above all, I am confident because I believe in the ingenuity and hard work of the British people. That is not to say that there has not been a great cost. On a tour of a local business last year, the scale of the harm was brought home to me. The silence of its almost empty offices spoke louder than any words. That is why I am so relieved that the Chancellor has put jobs, both protecting and creating them, at the heart of this Budget: extending furlough and support for the self-employed and providing restart grants and recovery loans, but also setting the stage for our future economy through investment in towns and communities across our country, helping businesses to invest through the new super-deduction, and turbo-charging whole regions through a new network of freeports.
I want to highlight what the East Midlands freeport based at East Midlands airport, the intermodal rail park in Derbyshire and the Ratcliffe on Soar power station site in my constituency will do for people in the east midlands and for my constituents in Rushcliffe, because I believe that in debates such as this about big infrastructure projects, the very real benefits they will have for local communities are often lost in the noise.
At its heart, a freeport attracts more businesses, and more businesses mean more jobs—60,000 more jobs, in the case of the East Midlands freeport. The site at Ratcliffe on Soar in Rushcliffe will be the heart of our shift to a green economy, encouraging employers in green energy generation to locate on the site. Proposals for a new zero carbon research centre there, backed by six universities across the region, will be accelerated. Creating attractive career paths in growing industries will encourage more university graduates to stay in the region; currently only 17% do so. It is also good news for local businesses, which will form part of the supply chain for the building and infrastructure associated with it.
Successive Governments of all political colours have underinvested in the east midlands. Today marks a change. The Budget represents the biggest Government investment in the east midlands for a generation, so I will be proud to vote for it tonight.
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab) [V]
After 10 years of Government cuts, Blackburn is one of the most deprived towns in the country. We have been under additional restrictions for longer than almost anywhere else. Our high street has been decimated, and going into the pandemic, Blackburn’s health outcomes were some of the worst in the country. So it is right that Blackburn has been identified as a high priority for the Government’s levelling up fund, and I look forward to working with the council on the further development of the exciting plans for the borough to recover and grow.
Having read the fine print of the Government’s self-styled levelling-up agenda, though, I must say I am disappointed. I am concerned that the money is not going to all the right places. Some is going to the Chancellor’s constituency, where multimillion-pound houses are on sale, yet deprived areas like Halton and Salford—both identified as being in the top 20 local authorities—are not so fortunate. There is clearly something wrong with that, so I ask the Minister what level of involvement Ministers have in choosing winners and losers, and whether the Department will share with the House the formula that the Government use to allocate funding.
My next issue is with the Government forcing regions to compete with one another. If the Government really want the regions to recover, all regions should get their fair share of investment. It must mean that the Government accept that places like Blackburn are starting from a lower base and will recover more slowly, and therefore the Government must put more into the most deprived regions to unleash their potential. The Government also need to recognise that the funding announced in the Budget does not come anywhere near the £15 billion that has been cut from council budgets over the past decade.
The hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) boasted about what successive Tory Governments had done for Lancashire. He failed to mention that Lancashire councils have faced, on average, 45% cuts in the last decade. That is not levelling up Lancashire—it is levelling down, particularly in public services.
Briefly, for the sake of time, my final issue is with the Government’s double counting and the smoke and mirrors strategy they deploy. Half of the £6 million being handed out to councils this coming financial year as part of the levelling-up fund has been reshuffled from towns fund funding. The £150 million budget of the pinch point fund announced in 2018 has now been assumed into the levelling-up fund, and £175 million for freeports has also been redistributed. So when the Government talk about a £4.8 billion levelling-up fund and a £3.6 billion towns fund, they need to be honest about the fact that they are playing musical chairs with old money in many cases.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
This Budget puts in place the framework for a steady economic revival, and provides a strong package for my constituents in Dover and Deal. The recent pandemic has seen thousands of jobs at risk in the ferry, port, retail, hospitality and tourism businesses on which my area depends, so I strongly welcome the range of continued support, including the extension of the self-employed income support scheme and the £5 billion in restart grants, which will help hard-hit businesses to get back on their feet.
The levelling-up fund provides an opportunity to strengthen and diversify. We are an area rich in advanced manufacturing and biotechnology, and we are ambitious to be strong in digital skills and the green economy. Priority 1 status and a £150,000 award in the levelling-up fund will ensure that we can put together the best bid possible for a further £20 million investment in our area. That is on top of the millions of pounds already earmarked for our future high streets fund bid and our proposed White Cliffs border control facility. These important investments will attract further opportunities for new jobs, businesses and prosperity.
As we look forward to making the most of these opportunities, there are also emerging economic risks that will fall hardest on less affluent areas, so we also need to look at a better deal for households and consumers. For example, Dover has the advantage of a high-speed rail train that connects to central London in an hour, but a season ticket costs over £7,000; that is around 25% of average earnings. To unleash the railway opportunity—whether that is high-speed Dover or the new HS2—rail tickets must be affordable within the context of the area and linked to average income. We should also introduce flexible tickets that are affordable for people who travel once, twice or three times a week. As we meet today, oil prices have surged recently and inflationary risks loom on the horizon. This risks consequent rises in energy, rents and other household and consumer bills. The Government’s commitment on fuel freezes is welcome, yet the transition to new fuel such as the electric car also needs to take place in rural and coastal areas.
In conclusion, this is a Budget that supports the areas hardest hit by the pandemic, and ensures a fairer share of investment and opportunity in the years to come.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Ten harsh years of austerity have had a huge impact on areas like mine. Barnsley Council has faced some of the worst Government cuts in the country, losing 40% of its income since 2010, so the concept of levelling up could be a very welcome one. The Government have described levelling up as their intention to address inequality and “level up” underperforming and left-behind parts of the UK, but this is simply not what we have seen; it is six days after the Budget, and the Government are yet to publish the criteria for the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund. The Chancellor has previously stated that the fund would be allocated
“based on an index of economic need.”
That is curious when we consider that the Chancellor’s own constituency of Richmond in North Yorkshire is among the top fifth of the most prosperous places in the country, and currently the 251st most deprived place in Britain, and yet it is placed in the uppermost level for funding. Compare that to Barnsley, which is the 38th most deprived area in the country, but has been placed in level 2—behind Richmond—in the queue for funding.
Given that the Government are yet to publish the criteria, I would like to consider for a moment what those criteria could be. Let us begin with child poverty. In Barnsley East, 25% of nought to 15-year-olds live in poverty; that is double the figure of 12% in the Chancellor’s constituency of Richmond. Let us move on to free school meals. There are over 3,000 eligible children in Barnsley East—double the figure of 1,500 in the Chancellor’s constituency of Richmond. Let us look at unemployment, which in Barnsley is 6.6%; again, that is double the figure of 3.3% in the Chancellor’s constituency of Richmond. Child poverty, free school meals, unemployment claimants—the list goes on. The statistics will continue to prove that Barnsley is clearly in greater need than the Chancellor’s constituency, yet Richmond is in line to receive funding ahead of Barnsley.
The fact is that, despite the slogan “levelling up” and whatever the criteria the Government eventually publish, they have chosen to allocate funding in a way that favours affluent areas over those of greater need. That is the simple reality, and it is not the first time. The towns fund was the same: 60 out of 61 areas picked by Ministers for the new funds were Conservative-held or Tory election target seats. The Government are pretending to give money to the communities that need it most when they are actually doing the opposite.
Areas such as mine have suffered greatly through this pandemic. An increase in unemployment and in-work poverty has led to a sharp rise in food bank use. The Government should admit that levelling up is no more than an empty slogan, or change the criteria and put the money where the need is greatest.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con) [V]
The 2021 Budget is a Budget befitting a Government leading the way in building back better post-Brexit and post-covid. On behalf of my constituents on Ynys Môn, I particularly thank the Chancellor for the funding he announced for the Holyhead hydrogen hub. The investment of £4.8 million will have a significant impact on Ynys Môn and will provide a major stepping stone in the Government’s commitment to achieving net zero.
The hydrogen hub is a pioneering project based on a hub-and-spoke model. It will kickstart a local sustainable hydrogen supply chain, and will form part of a connected network all across the UK. It will help to decrease carbon emissions, air pollution and noise pollution, and will set the scene for growth and green regeneration on Anglesey. It will initially create between 20 and 30 jobs, help to support more than 500 jobs in local businesses, and offer valuable local training and skills development opportunities. It makes use of existing electricity and gas infrastructure, with a capacity to scale up to diversify into a range of hydrogen markets, including heat, power and agriculture. It brings with it opportunities for cutting-edge innovation, which will in turn elevate the research and development work already being undertaken by Bangor University.
The project is the culmination of work by a number of important local and national employers, including Menter Môn, Stena, M-SParc, the Isle of Anglesey County Council and Coleg Menai. They should be saluted for their initiative and drive. It is that type of project that will form the heart of Anglesey as the energy island, turning our local natural assets into green energy and once again crowning Anglesey as Môn Mam Cymru.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) [V]
I listened to the Chancellor’s polished rhetoric last week and heard a man who knows nothing of and has never faced the dire circumstances that millions of people face in our nation today. This Budget offers nothing by way of a solution to the increasing levels of poverty and inequality in our communities.
The Independent Food Bank Network reported an increase of 88% in emergency food parcels between February and October 2020. Action for Children reported that 40% of families were struggling to feed their children. A Kellogg’s survey last week said that one in five schools now run food banks. In Liverpool, West Derby, we have seen a 100% increase in youth unemployment. Those are desperate, desperate statistics.
To combat that, we have a Government with a perverse interpretation of levelling up, and a Budget that shamefully denies a pay rise to public sector workers, cuts the pay in real terms of NHS staff, who are putting their lives on the line to protect ours, takes away the £20 uplift to universal credit from 6.5 million families in September, continues to deny an uplift in legacy benefits, and continues to deny justice to 4,889 of my constituents who have missed out on that vital extra support for the past year. It brings 1.3 million people into paying income tax for the first time, hits families with council tax rises of about 5%, and continues to exclude many from any Government support at all, including constituents of mine who have now gone without pay for 13 months. It also provides no support for the 700,000 households in rent arrears and those who face the threat of eviction.
Liverpool, West Derby and the nation need solutions to these grave issues. The images of hundreds of people queuing for food banks are now commonplace and they shame this Government. We need root-and-branch systemic change, but instead we have a Government tinkering round the edges of inequality with a garden strimmer.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
It is a pleasure to participate in this debate. My main reason for wanting to take part is to celebrate and praise the Government for this Budget. It has done a great deal to contribute to the levelling-up agenda and to overcome the north-south divide, which was a major plank of our 2019 election manifesto. In the past, cities and city regions have had much of the Government’s resources, and that policy was not necessarily wrong, but provincial towns such as Cleethorpes, neighbouring Grimsby and others in northern Lincolnshire could not benefit in the slightest from it because they have no immediate cities from which there could be a trickle-down effect. So it was right that we moved to focus on provincial towns.
I am delighted that the town deal, which has so far generated more than £100 million of investment into the area, has received another £21 million in the Budget. The town deal for greater Grimsby was actually the first; it was established in 2014 and involved a relationship between North East Lincolnshire Council and the private sector, led by local entrepreneur David Ross. That has moved forward, and it was acknowledged in the Government’s industrial strategy when it was published in, I think, 2017, when the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), used the greater Grimsby deal as a platform for others that have followed.
I am delighted that the Humber ports have been given freeport status. When my right hon. Friend the Chancellor published his report some years ago advocating freeports, I spoke to local businesses and to the port operator, Associated British Ports. I foresaw the advantages of freeports, so this is splendid. It is also important to acknowledge that the area is a major centre for the renewables sector, and I am delighted that the Government have invested more than £70 million in the Able marine energy park—something that the chairman of Able said would not have gone ahead without Government support. There has been criticism from the Opposition that the money is going to the wrong places. Take the Humber: I do not think there were any complaints from this side of the House when Hull got the Siemens investment. Now there has been an evening up. These are major moves forward, all of which I welcome. My thanks to the Chancellor.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]
Last week, the headlines were screaming about levelling up, but nothing in this Budget helps my constituents. In the last 10 years, we have seen severe cuts that have caused child poverty of 40%, total unemployment of 10.5% and youth unemployment in parts of my constituency that stands at 30%. The recent cut of £20 in universal credit has caused more people to go into poverty. I think we all remember when the bus said £350 million for the NHS, but in reality its staff will get £3.50, which is an absolute insult. But it seems that the money tree has now been found, because £29 billion has just been given to test and trace, the discredited private scheme with links to Tory donors, and PPE contracts have been given by the Tory party to its friends. This Budget has done nothing to address what my constituency needs.
I want to talk specifically about housing. There was no real mention of housing in the Budget, apart from stamp duty and Help to Buy. My constituents need a house to live in. We need proper social housing. There are 9,000 people registered on the housing list to be accommodated, and everybody knows that decent homes help towards eliminating poverty and deprivation. Bolton at Home in my constituency does a tremendous job, but it needs support and assistance to be able to build more homes. The Leader of the Opposition said last week that this is a Beveridgean moment—a “fork in the road”. We face similar challenges to the ones we faced in the second world war, and we need a stimulus package similar to President Biden’s in the USA.
I welcome the extension of the furlough scheme to September. That is great, but there are 3.8 million self-employed people who have received no help at all through the pandemic. This Budget has failed to address the deep-rooted problems in our society such as deprivation and bad health indicators. My constituency is the 38th most deprived in the country. My constituency has been neglected over the last 10 years. I want proper funding to help the people of Bolton South East.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con) [V]
This is a very strong Budget for the Union. We are stronger as one United Kingdom. As a Welsh MP, I am particularly pleased to see the extra £740 million for Wales in the Budget, and I only hope that the Welsh Government will spend that money in a timely fashion, rather than continuing their habit over the last year of holding back hundreds of millions of pounds of the UK Government’s support from those who need it most in Wales. This means that overall, the Welsh Government are receiving an additional £2.1 billion in the next financial year through the Barnett formula, on top of the baseline of £15 billion. There is also £300 million of funding outside the Barnett formula, in particular for farm support and fisheries.
Businesses in Clwyd South are very appreciative of the continued financial support outlined in the Budget, such as the extension of furlough and support for the self-employed, the recovery loan scheme and the extension of the reduced VAT rate of 5%. I am delighted that the Government are accelerating the three city and growth deals in Wales—in Swansea bay, mid-Wales and north Wales—by bringing £58.7 million forward in the investment programme. This means that the north Wales growth deal will get an extra £4.4 million per year from April for the remaining nine years of the deal, which will create up to 3,800 new jobs and support an uplift of £2.2 billion for the economy, as well as local regeneration projects—in the Wrexham area, for instance—amounting to £9.1 million.
That boost to the economy will be further strengthened by the newly announced levelling-up fund, which will be UK-wide and will bring at least £800 million for infrastructure projects in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and by the newly announced community renewal fund, which will provide £220 million of extra funding over and above the old EU structural funds to pilot programmes and new approaches in Wales and across the rest of the UK.
This Budget helps to cement the UK as a world leader in offshore wind, which is of great importance to north Wales. Following the measures included in the 10-point plan and the energy White Paper, the Government have shown that they are determined to deliver a green and cleaner economy. Many constituents in Clwyd South contacted me before the Budget about universal credit, so I was particularly pleased by the extension of the £20 per week uplift for a further six months. In conclusion, I strongly support this Budget, which shows that the UK Government have north Wales at the heart of their agenda and are leading the way in Wales on delivering for local communities.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]
Last week, the Chancellor spoke a lot about fairness and levelling with the British public, but does the Budget actually pass the fairness test? Even before the challenges of covid and Brexit, Hull had been hit hard by a decade of austerity after the global banking crisis, and that is why it was disappointing to see no real green industrial strategy, where the Humber could be central, and that the universal credit uplift was not made permanent to help hard-pressed families as council tax and other bills soar. There was also another real-terms pay cut for NHS staff, a £30 billion cut in day-to-day NHS spending from April, and still no sign of the Prime Minister’s talked-about clear plan for social care.
Hull is the fourth-most deprived local authority area in the UK, always high in social and economic indices measuring disadvantage, so how is it fair, consistent or logical that Hull is excluded from the list of 100 priority places for the community renewal fund while it achieves priority 1 status for the levelling-up fund? The Government say that they look at measuring unemployment, household income, productivity, skills and population density, but the criteria have not been published, and perhaps are still being cobbled together in Whitehall.
This unfairness runs riot again with the towns fund. Of 45 towns and some cities chosen for funding, a disproportionate number—40—have a Tory MP. Hull was told that we are not eligible as we are a city. However, the city of Wolverhampton was awarded £25 million after electing two Conservative MPs, and last Thursday the Leader of the House confirmed that Hull, with three Labour MPs, will not be considered by Whitehall decision-makers even if we make a bid. That is not fairness. However, the winners from this gerrymandering should not celebrate too much as the towns fund is worth less than half the £2.4 billion that the Government had cut since 2010 from the funding of the 45 local authorities receiving it.
Even for the north’s favoured areas these pots of levelling-up funding will not be transformational. The infrastructure bank in Leeds will only provide loans and finance on a scale two-thirds smaller than the £5 billion per year from the European Investment Bank that it replaces, and there is growing doubt about whether Transport for the North will have the finance and clout to deliver on its promises.
There is just not enough pork in the barrel, and nothing like the sustained public and private investment that is needed for the real regeneration that we have seen over the last 40 years in places such as London docklands—all achieved without Whitehall insisting on permanent local government reorganisation. This was not a fair Budget for my constituents. Real investment in the Humber docklands seems no nearer.
Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and to talk about a Budget that works for everyone and that will bring real investment in every part of the United Kingdom and begin to build our future economy. However, from the poor picture the Opposition have painted we would not believe that that was the case. The Leader of the Opposition claimed that the Chancellor was raising taxes based on the electoral cycle rather than an economic cycle and that raising taxes now means he will just cut them before the next election. Speaking of electoral cycles, the cynic in me might point towards the Welsh Labour Government sitting on about £1.3 billion in unallocated funds and wonder when they might actually get around to using them to provide the support that businesses in Delyn and across north Wales are so desperately asking for. Far from being politically churlish, the Chancellor has based his decisions on sound economics and has left playing games with the electorate to the Leader of the Opposition and his party.
Personal tax allowance has been frozen over the remainder of this Parliament and until 2026, hardly a populist move. Corporation tax only rises in 2023, a whole year before the next general election. Delaying the corporation tax rise and implementing the excellent super deduction plan allows businesses to invest with confidence now, helping us build back better sooner and ensuring that we pay back the cost of the support schemes at a point when we have higher employment and a more stable economy.
A number of Opposition contributors have talked about the Chancellor’s brand, and I say to them that if they spent more time emulating the Chancellor’s brand, they might make for a more credible Opposition, because the only brand the Chancellor is cultivating is one of fiscal responsibility, backing business and supporting those most in need in our society.
Looking a little further along the shadow Front Bench, the shadow Chancellor claimed that only a Labour Budget would hand power to local communities. Again, I wonder whether she has read the Budget at all, as this is a programme that is clear on its commitment to levelling up every community, every town and every region, whether through the community ownership fund, which gives power to communities to buy much-loved local assets, or through the levelling-up fund, which will invest in vital local infrastructure projects. Every corner of the United Kingdom benefits, leaving no one behind.
This is a Budget that delivers for the whole Union, with Wales receiving an additional £740 million, and the north Wales growth deal being brought forward from 15 to 10 years, supporting that deal to create over 3,500 new jobs, with an uplift of 2.2 billion for the local economy in north Wales. It is a Budget that rightly has one eye on the present and one eye firmly on the future as we build back better.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
There are three aspects of this Budget that I want to address. The first is the short-term emergency measures to mitigate some of the economic effects of the pandemic, bearing in mind that the persistence of the virus is itself the fault of Government policy. Today Australia celebrates 10 straight days without a single domestic case of covid-19. All across the world, billions of people are living, effectively, without the virus. Cases and deaths have been reduced to a handful, or even zero, because they took effective measures to suppress it. This Government did not. So we have a public health disaster and an economic disaster. Countries that suppressed the virus have seen a relative hiccup in their economy and are now on their way to recovery. We, on the other hand, will suffer surging unemployment of up to 5.9%, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. This Government deserve no plaudits for being obliged to spend hundreds of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on measures to address a crisis they caused. We do not praise an arsonist because they called the fire brigade. This Government were even worse. For example, the second wave is widely seen as being the impact of the misconceived and reckless Eat Out to Help Out policy.
The second aspect is the long-term or structural elements beyond the emergency payments. These structural elements can be summed up in two words: vicious austerity, from every angle, that reduces the living standards of ordinary people, deepens existing inequalities, and provides unnecessary subsidies to big business. It is Robin Hood in reverse. Consider these elements of the Budget: a £4 billion cut to public spending on services, following a 5.7% cut in last year’s Budget; a £2 billion hike in council tax payments; a freeze on income tax thresholds, which makes poor people pay more tax; and a public sector pay freeze, not to mention the exception of nurses’ pay—the insult of just 1%. Ministers tell nurses that there is no money left, but that is false. In the Budget there is a £27 billion tax giveaway to businesses, which the OBR says will have no lasting effect, and £37 billion spent on a useless private test and trace system.
The third and final insult is a Treasury Red Book that barely mentions inequality—in fact, just once. Yet again, no equality impact assessment was published alongside the resolutions, because even though equality is our law, to this Government it is expendable—an add-on—and policy after policy adversely impacts the most disadvantaged in our society. This Government are responsible for the scope of both the public health and the economic disasters, and this Budget widens both even further.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con) [V]
I warmly welcome the measures taken in this Budget. I particularly welcome the super deduction, especially as last month I wrote for The Times Red Box calling on the Government to break down barriers to a green industrial revolution through the tax system, including by cutting investment taxes to help businesses to buy new cleaner technologies. The super deduction, by reducing a tax bill by 130% for businesses that are investing, will indeed boost investment and help businesses to make the transition to cleaner technology. I thank the Chancellor for listening to those calls.
I want briefly to touch on the support for families and businesses in Carshalton and Wallington. Throughout this pandemic, I have had many discussions and roundtables with individuals and businesses in my constituency, including dealing with well over 12,000 pieces of casework. The immediate and short-term financial support measures have been welcome, but what I especially welcome in this Budget is the recognition that reopening and bouncing back will not happen overnight for many. Measures such as extending furlough to September, extending the 5% VAT cut for six months, extending universal credit and working tax credit for six months, two further grants for the self-employed, ongoing support for food and holiday activity programmes, providing food, essential goods and laptops to those in need, and new recovery loans, will help families and businesses through the final months of the pandemic and on the road to recovery.
I want to briefly mention three support measures. After leading a debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, I warmly welcome the extension of the stamp duty relief, and I thank the Chancellor for listing to my calls to taper off the relief rather than stopping it overnight.
I also welcome the £700 million for arts, culture and sport. I hope that organisations in Carshalton and Wallington, such as CryerArts, Mitcham & Carshalton rugby club and Carshalton Athletic, will benefit.
Finally, I welcome the restart grants for hospitality, retail, leisure and personal care. Having held many meetings in Carshalton and Wallington with our independent stores, cafés, pubs, restaurants, hairdressers, salons and others, I knew the concerns they had about surviving to the point that they could reopen properly. I hope that this goes some way to alleviating those concerns. I would just add that I hope we can find a way of extending that support to the wedding sector—and I do not just say that as I am due to get married in July myself.
I thank the Chancellor for listening to many of the concerns that I have raised with him, and I welcome this Budget. I will continue to engage with families and businesses across Carshalton and Wallington to do whatever I can to help them through these last few months.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]
It is always good to be constructive, and there are certainly things to welcome in this Budget. The ongoing support for business and furlough is absolutely essential until the crisis is completely over. We heard this morning from the chief medical officer that we may face another surge, despite the amazing progress on vaccination. It is clear that we cannot take anything for granted, so it is right that that support is not ended prematurely.
I also welcome the fact that more people are now eligible for the self-employment income support scheme, but as I raised earlier today at Treasury questions, that still leaves millions without anything. That is an inconvenient truth that the Treasury has repeatedly failed to address, including through this Budget.
As with previous Budgets, a lot of the most significant bits are the parts that the Chancellor did not announce last week. He is forcing through a council tax hike—devolving blame seems to be the only devolution that the Government are interested in—and the decision on income tax allowances will hit the poorest hardest. That is a huge mistake, particularly as we emerge from the crisis.
There was also a missed opportunity to address the tax imbalance between online and high street retail. This is an accelerating trend that is destroying our town centres, and the pandemic has supercharged it. We may not have more opportunities to save the high street, so it is disappointing to see another one missed.
The Government talk a lot about building back better and meeting the productivity challenge, but I am not convinced at all that this Budget meets that challenge. Key to doing that will be rebalancing our economy, as imbalances between and inside regions are directly linked to productivity gaps. That is why tackling regional inequalities is so important. In theory, that is what levelling up is intended to do, but if this Budget is anything to go by, it is not clear that the Government have any real idea what they are doing with levelling up. Pork barrel politics, tokenistic moves and asking local areas to go to central Government cap in hand, rather than devolving power and decision making to regions and communities, is not levelling up.
Finally, our NHS staff deserve more than warm words and applause. The Government should put their money where their mouth is and give our fantastic NHS workers the kind of pay rise they deserve. The 1% on offer, a real-terms cut after the work that they have done throughout the pandemic, is an absolute insult. What the country needed was a bold Budget based on a credible strategy for economic recovery from the covid crisis, but unfortunately there does not seem to be a plan.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con) [V]
I start by thanking the Chancellor and the Treasury team for the support they have provided throughout the pandemic, which is rightly continuing this year as we look to recover from the pandemic. In particular, I am grateful for the new self-employment grant scheme, which will allow more than 600,000 people who became newly self-employed last year to access support, because they have really struggled. I have heard from hairdressers, driving instructors and tutors in my constituency who will benefit directly from that grant money. I also strongly welcome the restart grants of up to £18,000, which will help businesses to get going again, along with the 100% business rates holiday and the extension of the VAT cut to 5%. Cutting these taxes and providing cash boosts will help the many tourism and hospitality businesses, including hotels, pubs, caravan parks and wedding venues across my constituency, to recover.
In addition, I want to thank the Chancellor and the Work and Pensions Secretary for extending the universal credit uplift by six months. Although we have done so much to protect jobs throughout the crisis, there are still millions who will be relying on universal credit this year. We need to make sure we continue to properly support the vulnerable in our society. This pandemic has caused a lot of financial hardship too, and it is right that we reduce and spread the financial burden as much as possible.
As we build back better from the coronavirus, I, like the Prime Minister, want to see a green industrial revolution so that we use this opportunity to make positive changes to our economy. The new super deduction will allow companies to cut their tax bills by up to 25p for every £1 they invest in new machinery over the next two years, bringing forward capital investment and replacing older, dirtier machines with newer, more efficient ones. This is worth around £25 billion to UK companies and will kickstart an investment-led recovery.
I would be grateful, however, if the Minister on the Front Bench today could put forward my suggestion that new fishing boats qualify for that tax cut. Many of our fishing boats in the south-west are built in the north of England, so reducing taxation on new boats would help to create more jobs across the country, improving our fleets, saving on emissions and improving the safety of our fishermen at sea. This policy would be a win-win for our economy, much like the green homes grant that I believe will be extended and fully funded on a multiannual basis. If done properly, the green homes grant will deliver insulated homes, create skilled jobs, reduce heating emissions and save on household bills. So I urge the Minister to take that policy forward and create a green revolution not just for this year because we are hosting COP26, but for the next decade as we recover from covid-19 and work towards net zero.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab) [V]
Last week, the Chancellor spoke of being fair and honest with the public, yet 24 hours later it became very clear that he was doing neither. The worst example of that was the cowardly omission of the real-terms pay cut for our NHS heroes, people who have put their lives on the line day in and day out, who diligently turned up to save lives knowing that the Government had not provided them with PPE, and who have been the only comfort for strangers as they took their final breaths. They have been told that the public finances are under strain. This pitiful excuse might wash if they had not seen £37 billion wasted on failing test and trace, if they had not heard the Conservative head of that failed programme defending wasting tens of thousands of pounds per day on consultants to help run this shambles, if they had not seen nearly £2 billion given to Tory friends and donors for covid-related contracts, or the half a billion spent on the Nightingales that did little more than provide some good PR for a poorly performing Health Secretary.
The fact is that the Government do not value our NHS. Their Benches are filled with those who vote time and again to cut the NHS and its workforce to the bone, forcing local hospitals to downgrade and promoting a privatised system of health and social care. It is not just the NHS they show disdain for, however. It is also whole communities who do not vote for them or share their ethos. It was noticed by people in South Shields and our surrounding areas that last week’s Budget offered zero investment in our infrastructure, jobs, schools or high streets. Levelling up is already proving itself to be as vacuous as the northern powerhouse was.
We are smart enough to see through the soundbites, the slogans and the rhetoric. When it comes to the levelling up fund, typically there is a lack of clarity regarding the formula and criteria for making the awards. What is clear, however, is that these funds will pit communities and regions against each other. At a time when we should be coming together, the Tories are again sowing division and fostering competition for small pots of money that will see a piecemeal and unequal recovery across our country.
For our local economies to survive they need local people with money to spend, yet just as unemployment is due to peak later this year, the universal credit uplift will be scrapped. Legacy benefits remain static, the benefit cap and the two-child limit remain, council tax is rising and key worker pay is frozen.
Our communities will never forget that, in the middle of a pandemic, this Government presided over one of the highest death tolls in the world, led us to the worst economic crisis of any major economy and used it as an opportunity to make money for them, their friends and donors. We will all have to live with the scars of this Government’s recklessness for decades to come and I will never give them a minute’s peace over it.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con) [V]
I am very pleased to be taking part in this debate today. This is a Budget that I believe will deliver security for my constituents in the short term, with the gradual lifting of restrictions, and in the long term, as our economy continues the steady growth and development it was experiencing before the outbreak began. I welcome the announcement of the Solent freeport, which will benefit constituents in the south of Meon Valley, many of whom work and live around Portsmouth and Southampton.
The Solent region, including parts of my constituency, contains some pockets of deprivation. While I accept the need to level up areas in the north and the midlands, there are definitely parts in the south that we must not leave behind. One of those areas is Waterlooville in my constituency, which is a good example of the hollowing out of town centres through changes in the way we live and shop creating a need for investment and redevelopment.
Waterlooville is a town that has vibrant growth around it, with new housing and more jobs coming. However, it has a struggling high street and the town centre is in need of redevelopment. That is not the fault of the businesses, which are trying their best, but the empty units now outnumber those that are occupied. The levelling up fund is exactly the sort of support many towns need, so I hope that Havant Borough Council will look at accessing national funds like the levelling up fund with me, so that we can drive real change. I also welcome the input by the Solent local enterprise partnership and Hampshire County Council, whose strategic view and input on transport will be important, since travel into and from the town centre is something that needs a rethink.
Reshaping the town centre can achieve a number of aims at the same time—economic development, of course, and a strong return on investment, alongside strengthening social cohesion and promoting green development in all aspects of urban design from transport to affordable housing. We can make Waterlooville in its totality a showcase for how a modern town centre can be redeveloped to meet the needs of people, where they can live, work and play without having to travel.
I will be asking all local stakeholders to contribute to this work and, as the MP, will do everything I can to support them. I will be asking the community what they want to see in their town centre and for ideas for regeneration. That includes our local schools, because projects like this take time and regeneration will shape the place where children grow up and live. They should have their say as well.
This is an excellent Budget, which offers potential for growth and regeneration. I hope it will bring greater prosperity to Waterlooville and all the communities that make up my Meon Valley constituency.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP) [V]
Can I say at the outset that I was very disappointed that the Secretary of State could not bring himself to mention Northern Ireland in any detail at all during his opening comments? Yet the economy and recovery of Northern Ireland as a Province have kept pace with the rest of the United Kingdom during the entirety of the last 10 years.
Covid has had an impact and we welcome the measures that have been introduced by the Chancellor. Some 250,000 jobs have been protected through the jobs retention scheme here in Northern Ireland, 210,000 people have been assisted through the self-employment income grant and 39,000 businesses have been helped by the loan guarantee scheme. That is a practical outworking of being part of the Union and part of the fifth largest economy of the world. Northern Ireland wants to play its part and it is right that we should therefore be mentioned.
Northern Ireland has had the added nightmare, of course, of coping with the Northern Ireland protocol, which poses more of a long-term, systemic threat to the Northern Ireland economy than the short shock caused by the covid crisis. The protocol must go and we welcome the steps in that direction that are being taken.
However, the Budget will be measured on how it delivers on the economic promises that it makes, especially the green revolution promises. For me, the measurement will be investment in the green economy of hydrogen. The Prime Minister has set a target of 5 GW of hydrogen by 2030. I want to pose this question to the Front Bench: does the Secretary of State agree that the hydrogen strategy must marry supply with demand? The Government can kickstart this supply and demand approach by turbocharging their investment in 4,000 zero-emission buses and making at least half of these hydrogen buses. Combined with this, we must reform two things—the renewable transport fuel obligation and the bus service operators grant. These reforms will support bus operators to buy hydrogen buses made across the United Kingdom, and therefore unlock major investment and job creation schemes in green hydrogen production across all four parts of the United Kingdom.
In Northern Ireland, we would also of course welcome a cut in corporation tax, which would help us to outpace the tax haven that is the Republic of Ireland.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
In the most difficult economic circumstances we have faced for generations, the Chancellor has struck a careful balance between the difficult and necessary measures to recover our public finances from covid-19 and the need to protect the most vulnerable and the lowest-paid in society. From the support for businesses, the freezing of alcohol duty, the super deduction—my brilliant business of Emerson and Renwick told me this week that it was welcome news—to the continuation of the universal credit uplift, this Budget truly is a road map to recovery. This comes just after Hyndburn received £2.3 million from the Government from the public sector de- carbonisation scheme, which I called for very early on in my term, when we looked at our economic recovery and a green one to give Hyndburn and Haslingden the incentive to be at the heart of it—secured.
There is one aspect of the Budget I would particularly like to place a focus on today, and that is the levelling up fund. As many hon. and right hon. Members may know, my area has historically struggled to attract investment and has not been given the opportunities it has deserved. I was elected to change that. That is why the levelling up fund is so transformative for my area. I have spent a long time campaigning for the regeneration of my local high streets and for significant investment to be made in our town centres. The Prime Minister has supported my campaign and on a recent visit he reaffirmed that. The Budget begins to truly deliver on this not in the form of some temporary handout, as we have seen from previous Labour Governments, who have failed to invest in my area, but as an important part of building prosperity in our region.
With the whole of Hyndburn and Haslingden in the highest category for accessing the levelling up fund, we are now near the front of the queue for accessing this money. That means our chance to transform our area has now come. We need to work together to develop the bid and to ensure that the £125,000 is used most effectively. On top of this, Rossendale has been given extra funding from the community renewal fund. When I speak to residents in Haslingden, the same message is repeated, which is that they have been forgotten about and left behind. I want to change that and I urge Rossendale council to make sure that this is not the case any more.
I was sent to Westminster in December 2019 to make sure that our local voices were heard in Government. By lobbying the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, I have done all that I can to get our area into the priority group for investment and to get money to support it in putting forward a bid to the Government, which is what has been secured. Now it is time for our local councils to make sure that they truly take up this opportunity and develop a successful bid, so that we can make sure that our once forgotten towns truly are forgotten no more. I can certainly assure my residents that, while I am here, that certainly will not be done by me.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab) [V]
Healthcare for everyone, rich or poor, paid by us all through our taxes, not charity: 73 years on from Nye Bevan’s vision, our NHS workers are still breaking the mould and smashing records with the vaccine roll-out. The joy as people receive their vaccine—a step closer to hugging loved ones—should be a reminder of just how special our NHS is, but it was forgotten by the Chancellor. The NHS was missing from this Budget. It was a missed opportunity to rebuild our country into one that is not just wealthier, but healthier as we recover from this crisis.
If the last year has taught us anything, it is that levelling up our country cannot stop at Tory MPs in marginal seats pointing at a new train station platform or a motorway bypass. We need to wake up and realise that no country where life expectancy is eight years longer in parts of the Chancellor’s constituency than in parts of mine is one that is being levelled up.
The crisis has exposed yawning inequalities and the virus has exploited them, while 11 years of cuts to the NHS and the public sector have left us defending ourselves in a health war with shields made of bin bags. We all know that having a secure job makes someone less likely to get seriously ill, but while Luton has seen some of the highest job losses, we have thousands of businesses, self-employed people and entire industries, such as aviation and events, that have been completely forgotten by this Government.
Tory Chancellors tell us at every Budget, dewy-eyed, that these are tough and difficult decisions, but for over a decade their decisions have ended up costing our country so much more in the long run, not just financially but in terms of people’s health and wellbeing. These decisions have led to people in Luton enduring increased levels of in-work poverty and child poverty, to the extent that in this country one in five schools now needs its own food bank.
This Budget was missing so much, and it had all the depth of the Chancellor’s Instagram and all the sincerity of clapping nurses all the way to the food bank. This was the moment to finally invest in communities that had been forgotten—in our schools, in our NHS and in ending the inequalities that are holding our country back. It is time to prove that levelling up goes beyond posing in a high-vis jacket. After a year of sacrifice by people in Luton North, let us invest in areas based on need. Let us support businesses and high streets to recover. Let us bring more skilled jobs to Luton. Let us invest in making people healthier, and let us start by giving health and social care staff the pay they deserve. Our healthcare heroes deserved better than this Budget. The people of Luton North deserved better than this Budget.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
I want to focus on the importance of our delivering on the Prime Minister’s ambition to build back better. If levelling up relates to anywhere, it is Stoke-on-Trent. For decades we were ignored, but no longer. We now have a Government who, through this Budget, are focused on investing in areas that have seen little.
Whitehall is starting to wake up to the huge potential in places like Stoke-on-Trent, just waiting to be unleashed. With my Stoke-on-Trent colleagues and our fantastic council leader, Councillor Abi Brown, I was pleased to launch our “Powering Up Stoke-on-Trent” prospectus just over a week ago. It outlines our ambition for Stoke- on-Trent, an area that before covid had had been one of the fastest growing economically. As the 12th most deprived local authority area in the country, we must focus on addressing our challenges, but they will not hold us back. We are determined to overcome them for the benefit of everybody.
Our prospectus identifies four key high-growth sectors: digital, advanced manufacturing, especially in ceramics, green energy and creatives—decent jobs, proper skills and rewarding pay. Our prospectus outlines a range of projects we hope to deliver based around four priority areas: transport, economic development, education and skills, and health and productivity.
The Prime Minister and the Government are refocusing attention on areas like Stoke-on-Trent. Changes to the Treasury Green Book are especially welcome and will be vital to ensure a good slice of the levelling-up fund announced alongside the Budget. I am delighted that Stoke-on-Trent is identified as a top priority and will receive capacity funding.
In my constituency, the top priority must be securing additional investment for our main town of Longton. The town centre was struggling before covid, with double the national average of empty retail space, but the town still has huge potential. The focus for further investment should be supporting the conversion of empty space, improving public spaces, better stitching together the town and redeveloping key sites such as the former Tams works.
Clearly, levelling up is more than just one fund—it is for the entirety of Government—but the fund can stimulate wider change. With three wards in my constituency alone identified as left behind by the local trust and the all-party parliamentary group for left behind neighbourhoods, there is much to do to improve skills and opportunities. The kickstart scheme and the lifetime skills guarantee are vital parts of that, empowering people to access skilled and better-paid work.
We must also improve local public transport. In some wards in my constituency, more than 40% of households do not own a car, which severely limits life chances. I am delighted that my campaigns on transport are bearing fruit. We secured £36.4 million to improve local bus and rail through the transforming cities fund. Meir station is progressing well as part of the Government’s fantastic Restoring your Railway programme. Alongside my north Staffordshire colleagues, I was delighted to resubmit our bid last week for the reopening of the Stoke to Leek line, including a station at Fenton Manor in my constituency. I thank the Chief Secretary for all the support he has been giving so far, and I hope he will back our exciting opportunities to power up Stoke-on-Trent.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
We have many important sectors in our country that will hopefully be the engine of growth in the future, but which need support in the short and medium term—not least public transport. Sadly, there was very little in this Budget on transport. What we did see were mostly drastic cuts, with transport funding slashed from £13 billion to just £2.1 billion for the current financial year at a time when ridership levels are at record lows and operators are struggling to balance the books. Furthermore, funding for transport capital projects was cut from a meagre £600 million to zero, while intra-city funding has been delayed until at least 2022.
The lack of pandemic support has already had a profound impact on those who work in the transport sector, with over 1,000 jobs lost in both the bus and coach manufacturing industries—mostly, unfortunately, again in the north of England. And all this is at a time when the fuel duty freeze is costing the Government the best part of £1 billion, sending a clear message about where their priorities lie in terms of their decarbonisation agenda.
What hope is there for the ordinary worker who wants to return to work but is faced with a rise in rail fares and cuts to bus routes, which, in recent years, have seen 134 million miles lost? Where is the Government’s much heralded bus strategy, which was supposed to have been published last year? There was not a word of this in the Chancellor’s statement or, indeed, any update on the commitment to unveil 4,000 zero-emission buses, which can only lead us to conclude that their decarbonisation agenda has missed the bus. As the MP for Ilford South, I watch in dismay as the Government continue to level down London’s transport network rather than truly levelling up the midlands and the north.
The Budget was a pivotal moment for the climate emergency and jobs crisis, but next to nothing was announced for a new economic green recovery. There is no new investment for green recoveries in key industries, including automotive, aerospace and steel. Just £20 million was announced for floating offshore wind technology. Labour has called for a £30 billion green economic recovery, which would create 400,000 secure jobs in clean industries.
Earlier this week, the Chancellor boasted about kick-starting a green industrial revolution, but in reality the Government have slashed climate spending in this Budget, including a devastating £1.1 billion reduction in the green homes grant. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) pointed out, we are lagging far behind our European and global partners, with the US’s recent $1.7 trillion green plan over the next decade, while Germany and France have pledged a combined total of €70 billion over the next two years. Mass unemployment should not be inevitable in this pandemic, but the way that the Government are carrying on, it unfortunately could be.
At a time of acute and prolonged national crisis, there is an opportunity for the Budget to be more than one that drives a new political economy—one of investment to create well-paid jobs, the renewal and expansion of infrastructure projects to fit out our country for the century ahead, and a world-leading acceleration of a green industrial revolution to lift our nation up through an active industrial strategy, not buzzwords, tax-evading freeports and pork barrel projects to shore up Tory ambitions.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con) [V]
It is a pleasure to make my first contribution to a Budget debate. Almost a year ago today, I made my maiden speech just as the pandemic was beginning to grip the globe. The year that has followed has been tragic in every sense of the word, yet it could have been much worse. In July, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted that unemployment would peak at 11.9%. That figure now stands at 6.5%, yet this is not a meaningless statistic. It has made a real difference. Close to 2 million jobs have been saved through the furlough scheme, business loans and the plethora of Government initiatives that I have been proud to support, but, as I have said repeatedly in this Chamber, we must now focus our energies on making sure that we have a sufficient economic recovery that ensures that people get back into work and start reaping the rewards provided by our dynamic economy.
Although it comes as no surprise that I was disappointed that Doncaster Sheffield airport was not awarded freeport status, this innovative policy will help to unlock the enterprising spirit of British businesses. I am pleased that a freeport will soon open in the Humber, benefiting the entire region and furthering this Government’s levelling-up agenda—an agenda that we should turn our attention to right now. The promise of levelling up is, after all, the reason why many in Don Valley voted for me and for Conservative party candidates across the north of England, yet to truly level up a region, business needs to thrive. The extension of the business rates holiday, the introduction of the restart grants and the continued reduction in VAT for the hospitality sector provide the foundation for economic recovery. Furthermore, the renewal of the airport and ground operations support scheme for a further six months will ensure that our regional airports, such as Doncaster Sheffield airport, can continue to facilitate economic growth in all four corners of the UK. The £4.8 billion levelling-up fund and the super deductions for businesses will supercharge our recovery. For families, the freezing of fuel duty and the extension of the universal credit uplift will provide security for those who need it most. The Budget will make a long-lasting difference in the next couple of years.
For many people, politics can seem remote and irrelevant to their everyday lives, yet I know that people and businesses across Don Valley have been reassured and energised by the measures announced by the Chancellor last week. They know it will make a difference to their lives.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab) [V]
Having heard the Chancellor’s speech last week and having listened to the Prime Minister since the start of the pandemic, I can understand how some people in this country have been fooled into believing that the Government have their best interests at heart. Today I heard colleagues on the Government Benches acknowledge the need to address the vast economic inequality in the UK—but that was caused by a decade of Conservative financial mismanagement, so I welcome their comments.
I am concerned that the rhetoric of levelling up is just that. We know that the devil is always in the detail. For all the fanfare around the Budget, the money pledged is a drop in the ocean next to the billions cut from local authorities and local services over the past decade. For all the talk of moving Government jobs out of London, 750 jobs on an economic campus do not make up for the loss of over 30,000 civil service jobs across the United Kingdom—civil servants with experience and institutional knowledge, leaving in droves as they are increasingly undervalued. How can we hope to fix regional inequality when the opaque, centralised approach employed by the Government to distribute those funds pits region against region? If levelling up means the Chancellor picking out his favourite blue pen and colouring in just Conservative-held areas, it smacks of the timocracy that has come to define this Government’s attitude. We are told that the Government are driven by a desire to level up, but their actions are led not by evidence, but by ideology.
We see that too with the freeports. English freeports are receiving £26 million each, whereas Wales has been offered only £8 million. That glaring disparity exposes the fact that levelling up is more of a slogan than a true ambition. On top of that, if Liverpool and Bristol become freeports, that will have a major impact on Holyhead and ports across south Wales. This myopic approach to spending, which seems to target positive headlines, not economic prosperity, puts jobs and industry at risk.
Will the Minister ensure that funding is distributed in a way that grows the economy, creating and preserving jobs throughout the United Kingdom, not just England, and ensure that freeports are not introduced at the expense of existing and successful places? It is a failing of this Tory Government not to understand and respect devolution. To move our countries forward, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor need to understand that and work collaboratively with our devolved Governments, not against them. We need the levelling up of the entire United Kingdom.
To conclude, will the Government rise above their petty, power-grab, bully-boy tactics and provide parity in their levelling-up agenda for the whole United Kingdom?
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
What a pleasure it is to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi).
There is much to say about the Budget—unfortunately, very little of it good. It fails on every count to address the fundamental weaknesses and unfairness in our economy and offers no coherent plan to rebuild our country, invest in our communities and allow our citizens to prosper. That is felt acutely in my community by my friends, neighbours and constituents, who faced huge challenges before the pandemic. When I talk about health, educational, social and economic inequalities in St Helens North, I am not talking about a place on a map or about statistics; I am talking about our people and their lives. We know privilege grants to its inheritors a head start—that has always been the way—but should it not be the job of Government to help the rest of us catch up? Why then does it feel as though communities such as mine are not only starting behind, but deliberately being hampered?
In the next two years, the Government are forcing cuts to our local health and social care services of more than £6 million and to our children and young people’s services of almost £8 million. This is happening in a borough where people die younger, leave school with fewer qualifications, are poorer and have worse health. That is not levelling up—it is doubling down. But we are used to it, and, despite it, the past year has shown again what a resilient, caring, innovative and determined community we are. We are ambitious too, for our families and our future.
Sometimes we are even optimistic. Our Labour-run council, under the leadership of David Baines, and alongside partners in business and in the community, has already started to deliver on ambitious plans to quite simply make St Helens borough the best place to live, work and visit in the north-west of England. We do not want the Government to do it for us; we know they cannot, but they can help us to do it for ourselves. We want to do it for ourselves, which is why we needed this Budget to give us a fighting chance to succeed and why it is so frustrating and disappointing that all it has done is give us an even harder race to run.
Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con) [V]
I welcome this Budget, which is pragmatic and fair, and clearly responds to the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in. But it is much, much more than just short-term crisis management. In its ambitions for growth, it is an extraordinary Budget. It is a Budget that says to the world that this Government mean business when it comes to business. It announces that this Government want the UK to lead the world in innovative, high-potential, high-growth sectors of the future. I have been advocating something similar to the new “future fund: breakthrough” scheme for some time. It is a smart policy that helps to root innovation companies to the UK by getting more money into the venture capital ecosystem at early stages. With better access to capital at an early stage we will encourage cutting-edge businesses to grow and eventually list here. I also commend Ron Kalifa and Lord Hill’s work in this space.
I also welcome the review of the charge cap announced by the Chancellor and look forward to seeing more ideas in the coming months from the Treasury, Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority’s industry working group. We have nearly £10 trillion-worth of assets under management in the UK, but only a tiny amount of that is ever directed at UK venture. Just 0.5% of UK defined-contribution pension investments were invested in unlisted equities in 2020. Too much capital is locked away in pension funds and hidden by a culture of avoiding any risk. In 2019, a mere 2% of the £48 billion raised by UK-based venture capital and private equity funds came from UK pension funds. I am delighted that this Government are beginning to grasp this nettle, and are prepared both to review the regulatory landscape and provide incentives.
Now is the time for a truly radical approach to this undertaking, and to lift the venture sector as an asset class, to be part of mainstream investing in its own right. That will be transformational. Venture capital has the power to propel us into the green and technology-led future to which we aspire. It has the power to lift our economy up, pay our debt down and provide skills, wealth and opportunities to our people and communities. We need to unleash the power of venture capital. This Budget sets us on that path, and I look forward to supporting the Government and being a part of this exciting journey.
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab) [V]
The Chancellor has boasted that this Budget will create jobs, revive high streets, reinvigorate the economy and level up the regions and nations of the UK, but as the Counsel General for Wales, Jeremy Miles, has said,
“this UK Government has an appalling record on providing Wales with even a fair share of UK spending, let alone the kind of funding needed to ‘level up’.”
Rhondda Cynon Taf, the local authority within which my constituency of Cynon Valley is located, has the third-highest covid death rate in the UK. Poverty and ever-widening inequality are the root cause of the high death toll, and they have been made worse by the past 11 years of Tory Government austerity.
I am angry that the levelling-up fund will be centrally managed. That goes against the express position of the Welsh Government and is contrary to previous announcements by the UK Government. It is not new money, it is not ring-fenced to Wales, and it represents a fraction of the funding that we need. It bypasses the democratically elected structures in Wales, which are best placed to understand the issues facing our country.
I am pleased that the furlough scheme has been extended, even though it was a last-minute announcement. The Prime Minister said last week that 3,400 people in my constituency are reliant on the scheme, but due to the Government’s short-sightedness, they are now facing a cliff edge in six months’ time.
I have just returned from a meeting with the aerospace industry in my constituency. Those jobs should be supported by the Government, but instead the industry is on the brink of collapse. Since the pandemic started, GE Aviation has cut almost 500 jobs, and there is fear for the future. As Ross Williams, a constituent of mine and a senior shop steward, states,
“if the sector isn’t protected and a sector specific deal provided the impact will be devastating. These are one of the last highly skilled and well paid jobs in the south Wales valleys. There’ll be nothing left for my son and future generations if these jobs go”.
The Chancellor’s decisions surrounding benefit payments are damaging all round. The much-needed uplift to universal credit will only be a temporary measure. For thousands of my constituents, that uplift is the difference between feeding their families and going hungry. One of my constituents, Emma, told me:
“I didn’t ever expect to get sick but you know, I have. And I’m suffering. I’m living on the breadline, and my mental health is suffering. I feel like I’m being punished.”
If the Chancellor understood the hardship that so many endure, he would have made the uplift permanent and extended it to those on legacy benefits. How does he see my constituents managing in six months’ time when furlough ends and he proposes to end the £20 uplift to universal credit? How will that help to create demand in the economies of Mountain Ash or Aberdare in my constituency?
It does not have to be this way. We are the fifth richest nation in the world. There is a different way: introduce a wealth tax and a windfall tax, adopt a jobs guarantee scheme, properly invest in a green industrial revolution, increase statutory sick pay in line with the living wage and introduce a universal basic income. The new normal must incorporate a tax system that ensures that the wealthy pay their fair share and a welfare system that ensures that no one is left behind, but to level up in communities such as mine, Westminster must respect the democratic structures in Wales and ensure we get our fair share of funding. Diolch yn fawr.
Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con) [V]
I welcome this pragmatic Budget, which recognises that flexibility, not ideology, is what is needed in responding to a global pandemic. It addresses the current needs that we have as a country by extending the furlough scheme to September and giving further grants to the self-employed, bringing an additional 600,000 taxpayers into one of the most generous schemes in the world. The measures not just in this Budget but over the past year are rightly lauded. They ensure that businesses can bring back as many employees as possible, and provide security for millions.
Guildford, Cranleigh and our villages are home to wonderful high streets. We are proud of them, and they draw visitors from near and far. I know that local businesses will join me in welcoming the restart grants package of £5 billion, which equates to up to £6,000 or £18,000, depending on when the business reopens. That measure, along with continuing the business rates holiday and extending the cut in VAT so that it remains at 5% for a further six months, is a genuine springboard.
It has been fantastic to see new businesses open in Guildford and Cranleigh, and existing businesses take up locations with a larger square footage, over the past year. That fantastic sign of confidence can be attributed to the Government’s commitment to business.
I want to take this opportunity to recognise the value of our local arts and culture to the economy in Guildford, which is often underestimated. The University of Surrey, in conjunction with the Yvonne Arnaud theatre and the Watts gallery in my constituency, and The Lightbox gallery and museum in nearby Woking, conducted a study last year on the economic and social impacts of the arts. It found that for every £10 spent at a venue, there was an additional spend of up to £13.28, the majority of which stays in the local economy. Over the course of a normal year, the Yvonne Arnaud theatre is calculated to bring an additional £1.5 million into the area simply with theatre attendances. Some 70% of visitors to the area would not have come had the venues been located elsewhere. It therefore strikes me as incredibly short-sighted of Guildford Borough Council to propose cutting funding to the Yvonne Arnaud, and, thankfully, sensible of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to extend the culture recovery fund by an additional £300 million, recognising not only the fiscal value of these institutions, but their value to the social fabric of our communities.
There is a clear plan of investment by this Government in business, high streets and our communities, supporting jobs and providing training and apprenticeships to help enable those who have sadly lost their jobs to get back into work. I will be voting for this Budget tonight.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
It is now one year since the first tragic deaths in the UK from covid-19 were reported, and the true scale of this crisis became clear. Thousands have lost their lives to this terrible virus, and, sadly, we now have the worst death toll in Europe. Our economy has been convulsed by a collapse in GDP, a spike in unemployment, and a crisis for businesses, especially in arts, aviation and hospitality, which have been made worse by Government inaction and blunders and billions being wasted on Tory crony covid contracts.
Shamefully, we are now facing the worst economic crisis of any major economy. Therefore we might have hoped for a bold Budget that recognised the scale of the challenge, equipping our economy for the future, but all the Chancellor has shown is that he is completely out of touch with what this country needs. What did this Budget promise? The centrepiece for long-term investment is a national infrastructure bank. It is almost 10 years since David Cameron launched the green investment bank, with all the same promises and rhetoric, and it is four years since the Conservatives privatised it. What we need is an investment bank capitalised at £20 billion over five years at least, with regional investment banks in every region to invest in green businesses throughout our country. We need an institutional champion for green businesses and jobs. Instead, we got a get-rich-quick scheme for investors. This Budget could have provided the platform for a green recovery, just as Slough is attempting to do in Berkshire.
We could have had a major national rail electrification programme to help decarbonise our transport, but, no. I welcome the £20 million for floating offshore wind technology, but that is paltry compared with the scale of the challenge. In reality, we need a £30 billion green economic recovery package to create 400,000 green secure jobs. That is how we would get a proper investment-led recovery to help us meet our carbon targets and help tackle the climate crisis.
This could have been a Budget for the next generation, creating jobs and housing, investing in education and safeguarding the climate for younger people, but they have all been overlooked yet again. A Budget is a statement of values and priorities, and the Chancellor’s priorities are transparent: no extra funding to fix fire-hazard cladding, but a tax break for second home owners; a mere 1% rise for the NHS workers who have given their all for us during the past year; no mention at all of the Government’s trade deal with the EU and the 4% reduction in GDP over 15 years caused by the thin, terrible, burned oven-ready Brexit deal. This is a Budget that stores up trouble for places such as Slough and hits the poorest hardest.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
I welcome this Budget, as it will protect the jobs and livelihoods of the people living in Runnymede and Weybridge, but it does so much more. In particular, I want to talk today about some of the core provisions that will benefit my constituents over the short, medium and long term. This is a Budget that meets our short-term and emergency needs while we still face the pandemic and restrictions remain in place, providing vital support for businesses and families to enable them to weather the covid storm.
Over the course of the past year, I have had many discussions with residents and I know what a lifeline the self-employment income support scheme and furlough have been, along with direct business support. My local businesses often tell me that they need certainty, and this Budget, and the extension of provisions alongside the road map for the lifting of restrictions, will give them the certainty they need to plan for the months ahead.
For the medium term, I welcome the support for investment and innovation, the incredible super deduction, Help to Grow and further support for enterprise management incentives. Those will all help companies in my constituency, particularly the many small and medium-sized enterprises that, I am sure all Members will agree, set up in Runnymede and Weybridge because of the excellent logistics benefits it offers. Those businesses are champing at the bit to get moving as restrictions lift and to grow and flourish, providing jobs and investment locally.
Finally, but most importantly, this is a Budget that tackles the long-term challenges we face. First, on sustainability and climate change, I particularly want to draw attention to energy innovation and support for the UK biomass feedstocks programme. That will be essential for the development of domestic biofuel supplies to support the sustainability of our aviation sector and jet zero, benefiting my constituents by securing the future of the aviation sector and those employed in it and reducing aircraft pollution and the harms that it causes.
Secondly, on national finances, we are in a hugely challenging economic situation as a result of the pandemic. While it is right to spend now, invest in infrastructure and projects that will drive growth and tackle the perennial regional inequalities that have plagued our country, we need to tackle the deficit. The tax policies set out in the Budget begin to address that without undermining the plan for economic growth. The Budget protects jobs and livelihoods now and lays the foundation for both the economic recovery ahead and a return to strong public finances. It is not us here who will be paying off our debt but our children, and we owe it to them to balance the books today, so that they inherit a flourishing economy unburdened by the debts of their parents.
Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab) [V]
When it comes to the Government’s levelling-up agenda, this Budget leaves a great deal to be desired. I welcome the move to send Treasury North to the Tees Valley and the exploration of Teesside and locations in my constituency for the siting of a freeport, but I believe the Government could offer more for our communities.
While the exploration of potential new large-scale infrastructure projects is very welcome, there is already one large employer in my constituency in the form of Hartlepool nuclear power station, which is integral to our nation’s energy supply and needs guarantees about its future. The Budget was the perfect opportunity to cement the future of nuclear energy in Hartlepool, which contributes to the Government’s green energy commitments and our zero carbon future. The omission of the nuclear sector from the Budget is deeply concerning to the workers in that power station, as the clock ticks down to the decommissioning of the site without a renewal firmly on the table. Sites such as Hartlepool already have the infrastructure, the professional and skilled workforce and the desire to keep those generators spinning. We just need the Treasury to show that it is willing to support us, and I hope the Minister will respond to that. The Government must be serious about the future of the sector, as thousands of jobs nationwide and our national energy security depend on it.
On the same note, towns such as Hartlepool do not feel they got the recognition they deserve from this Budget. After a decade of cuts to funding for some of the poorest and smallest local authorities, including Hartlepool, we need funding available to kickstart our local economies and get money back into the community, where it can stimulate local business and revitalise our communities. As the towns fund makes its way to mostly Conservative seats, my constituents are right to wonder in whose interests this Budget is being made.
The Government will be aware that nothing comes from nothing, and after a decade of cuts and the biggest peacetime crisis in our history, they will also be aware that we cannot expect to bounce back without sufficient support. This Budget certainly has potential benefits to Hartlepool—no doubt—but until the gaps in the safety net are closed, our public services are properly funded and existing key industries such as Liberty Steel are supported with the means to survive long term, our recovery and the Government’s flagship levelling-up agenda will only ever fall short of what we need in a community that needs it more than most.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con) [V]
Over the past 12 months, this country has faced its biggest challenge for a generation. Our constituents, our economy and our health service have all been tested. We have been asked to make enormous sacrifices of all different kinds: friends and family cut off from each other; some people not seeing loved ones at the end of their lives; hard-grown businesses ground to a halt; and young people missing out on their education at a key time in their lives and their growth. We have all, as taxpayers, paid an enormous financial price, and this comes on the back of a decade of everybody making sacrifices to help get the deficit under control. We can all be very glad that we achieved that, as it allowed us to spend quickly and to spend big at this crucial time.
We are now faced again with a difficult journey to get our economy back on track. I want to talk about three of the Government’s approaches that are vital, not just for driving our recovery now, but for ensuring that we continue to be a country that gives its citizens opportunities: first, the lifetime skills guarantee; secondly, the commitment to apprenticeships; and thirdly, the targeted approach to corporation tax and incentives for capital investment.
We know that there are employers out there who are growing their workforces and expanding their operations. We also know that, for years now, hundreds of thousands of jobs have gone unfilled. Whenever a skilled job goes unfilled or whenever an employer needs to look abroad to fill it, that is a missed opportunity for one of our constituents—an opportunity to get a better paid job, to earn enough to support their own families and to get on the housing ladder.
During National Apprenticeship Week, I had the opportunity to talk to apprentices working at Bentley and at Alstom in Crewe. Those young people were incredibly ambitious and determined, and were very clear about the course they wanted to chart in their lives. They knew that their future was going to be more secure in skilled work, using their hands and minds to apply themselves.
What we are doing with apprenticeships can be built on with the lifetime skills guarantee. Now more than ever, our workforce need to be able to gain new skills and be flexible. The challenge is not just about whether a course is available and free; it is about changing how we think and feel about our careers throughout our adult lives. Too many people will feel that they have failed or done something wrong if they need to change skills and careers. We have to change that mindset. I encourage the Government to ensure that we shout loudly about the lifetime skills offer, and keep shouting about it until everybody has heard the message loud and clear.
Our approach to tax will encourage businesses to keep creating jobs for our constituents to take up. Recovery is not going to be pain-free. I am a member of the Conservative party because we know that the Government cannot wipe out the pain and difficulty with a click of our fingers, or fix it all on the back of wealthy people. We are starting to get to grips with what this recovery needs to look like. I welcome the Government’s aims and ambitions as laid out in this Budget, and will be supporting it this evening.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]
The shadow Business Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), spoke earlier about the post-war years, Ernie Bevin and the need to build back better, then and now. In Bristol—where Bevin started work on the docks at the age of 11 and fought for workers’ rights as a trade unionist, before becoming one of the giants of the post-war Labour Government—we are hugely disappointed at the lack of any funding in the Budget for our biggest project, Temple quarter. The regeneration of the area around Brunel’s historic Temple Meads station would mean 22,000 new jobs, 10,000 new homes and an economic boost of £1.6 billion per annum for the city. That is exactly the sort of “shovel-ready” project that the Government were asking for. We have to ask why places such as Bristol are being overlooked for levelling-up funds in favour of far more affluent areas.
The Chancellor’s offer to extend support to the 600,000 newly self-employed is welcome, but that still leaves more than 2 million freelancers and limited company directors excluded—and that is a conscious decision by the Chancellor. People on legacy benefits are being treated as second-class citizens, and the freezing of income tax bands will hit those on modest incomes the hardest. Events supply chain companies in my constituency are desperate for targeted support. When I raised this issue recently with the Prime Minister, he assured me that we would be hearing more on this from the Chancellor in the Budget; we listened, but we heard very little.
We also heard nothing new on support for our failing social care system and nothing on child poverty. What was meant to be a 2.1% pay rise for nurses has been whittled down to 1%—a real-terms pay cut—in the interests of austerity; and we know how well austerity worked last time.
Finally, we were promised a green Budget, yet we got nothing of the sort. We needed to see measures that would kick-start a transformative green recovery, but what we got was a pitiful lack of ambition from the Chancellor. Although I welcome the £4.1 million allocated to reducing car usage in the west of England, this kind of piecemeal funding is no substitute for a national strategy for decarbonising transport and encouraging take-up of active travel. Ahead of hosting COP26, we should be leading the way on tackling climate change and biodiversity loss, yet the Chancellor is more concerned with boosting his own leadership prospects and “brand Rishi” than with showing the international leadership that we need from our senior politicians on this issue.
The UK is being eclipsed in green recovery spending at an international level. For instance, France and Germany have both delivered substantial green spending packages to decarbonise their economies. Labour has already set out its plan for a £30 billion green stimulus to support 400,000 new green jobs. I urge the Chancellor to read those plans, which might just help him to think bigger when it comes to protecting our planet.
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
Covid-19 has had a catastrophic impact on our economy, but I truly believe that, despite that, it will provide the architecture for change and fertile ground for innovation. We have already seen the homeworking revolution, the pace of digitalisation ramping up, the incredible speed of vaccination—from creation to roll-out—and the seeds of transformation in our NHS, with new ways of working and the largest diagnostic network in British history. While we have had big collapses in sectors such as retail and hospitality, we have evolution and growth in others, including construction and social care. This is the fastest changing jobs market for a generation.
To ensure that this pandemic does not define a generation, we should look forward and look for new economic opportunities with confidence and optimism. This Budget helps us do just that. It sends a strong message of recovery, unveiling major tax incentives for businesses to invest. This is the Budget with the biggest business tax cut in modern British history, with the introduction of a super reduction in tax bills, which is particularly welcome in the manufacturing heartlands of the urban west midlands. This is a Budget that is investing in public and private projects to finance the green industrial revolution. I also loudly applaud the eight freeports, which will encourage free trade and bring investment to all regions of the country through lower taxes and cheaper customs.
We should not treat this Budget in isolation from other important investments. The Government had the foresight to invest in innovation, with the £800 million investment in the advanced research and innovation agency. The agency will be tasked with empowering some of the world’s most exceptional scientists and researchers to turn incredible ideas into new technologies, discoveries, products and services, and it is welcome to put its roots in my constituency. I also welcome the £500 million being pumped into the electric car revolution, which will benefit the west midlands enormously.
This Budget is the largest economic peacetime support package on record, and it fits with my agenda of jobs and investment in my constituency. As a result of the Government’s interventions, unemployment is now estimated to peak at far lower levels than previously expected. This Budget is providing a lifeline for my businesses in Stourbridge.
I welcome this Budget, which stands by the workers and businesses in my constituency and which stands by to protect people’s livelihoods. It is a Budget that encourages investment and innovation and that recognises the need for transformation. We have seen human tragedy in 2020. We must not let that be the prelude to an economic tragedy. This is a bold Budget, providing the architecture for a better future—a Budget that is taking unprecedented action to drive our economic recovery.
Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)
The Budget represents interim measures, which may be understandable, given the economic climate, but it also represents missed opportunities, which are much less excusable—missed opportunities to have a genuine and meaningful green recovery, to invest in a resilient health service and the NHS workforce, or to support those who have lost jobs and income over the last year. It appears that the Government have not learned much from the last decade. Rather than injecting stimulus through people to tackle inequality, such as through a meaningful living wage or investing in child care, infrastructure or skills, they are choosing to leave it to the market to encourage growth and recovery.
Not only have businesses been dealing with pandemic, but many are seeking to survive and recover from the shock of Brexit, on which the Chancellor was suspiciously quiet. Northern Ireland finds itself in a unique position due to the Northern Ireland protocol, because we have access to both the UK and EU markets. This is not the best of both worlds—that was the EU or, at a push, the backstop. That is because both worlds—the EU and the UK—have been diminished by Brexit. Northern Ireland and its people opposed Brexit, but it has been imposed on us, so responsible political parties such as the Social Democratic and Labour party are working to make the best of the hand we have been dealt. I wish that those Northern Ireland MPs who campaigned relentlessly for Brexit would find it in themselves to be constructive now.
Making lemonade with the lemons we have been handed requires the Government to work with Northern Ireland Executive partners to develop an investment plan for Northern Ireland, based on promoting the business advantages of investing at this crossroads, including big opportunities in agrifoods, advanced manufacturing and green and low-carbon technology. There is now a chance for Northern Ireland to have its first ever unique selling point and to move towards climate-friendly production and a gear change in our historically poor productivity.
Overall, despite the Government’s chat on green recovery, this Budget does not do much to convince us of genuine ambition in this regard. The SDLP has spoken in the past 12 months about the opportunity for a generational rethink and a turning point, including on the climate. The year that we have had to reflect on what is really important in life, work and society has been a perfect opportunity to transition from obsessing exclusively about economic growth to a Budget that mainstreams the enhancement of the health and wellbeing of individuals, communities and the environment.
There has been insufficient focus on the environment and on those who are already living economically precarious and marginal lives. Yes, the Chancellor was dragged kicking and screaming to extend furlough and universal credit, but the poorest households will still see their income drop by 7% while unemployment benefits are at their lowest real level since the early 1990s. This is not levelling up; rather, it favours those who have been able to build up savings. This Budget does not allow the whole of society to recover. Finally, the lack of ambition and investment for the NHS workforce is bitterly disappointing, given what they have just gone through on our behalf, and the U-turn away from the derisory 1% pay increase needs to come fast.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con) [V]
From a Waveney and East Anglian perspective, the two main features of the Budget were the towns fund deal announcement for Lowestoft and the successful freeport bid for Felixstowe and Harwich. These two announcements are welcome and can play a key role in the covid recovery. Locally, the cornerstone of the Waveney recovery will be the £220 million public investment in the centre of Lowestoft in the next five years—not just for the towns fund deal but for the Gull Wing bridge and the Lowestoft flood defence scheme. We must ensure that these projects are built on time and on budget and that they act as catalysts for private sector investment and provide local people with the opportunity to work on them.
East Anglia has enormous potential to play a lead role in the emerging green economy. We can be a global leader and exemplar, and we must ensure that local people benefit from this. There are great opportunities in a wide variety of sectors: low carbon energy production, including offshore wind, nuclear and hydrogen; the storage of carbon in the gas fields of the southern North sea; sustainable, responsible custodianship of our marine and fishing resources, building on the work of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, which has been in Lowestoft for over a century; low-carbon shipping and maritime activities, not just in Felixstowe and Harwich but in Ipswich, Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn; and, finally, the emergence of net zero agriculture.
The policy framework that will enable us to make the most of these opportunities is emerging. The announcements in the Budget follow on from the publication in December of the energy White Paper and last month of the further education White Paper. Moving forward, we now need to put into practice the proposals in the further education White Paper so as to provide young and local people with the skills and expertise to take advantage of these exciting opportunities. We must move away from the low-wage economy that has been prevalent in East Anglia for too long.
The North sea transition deal that will be published in the next few weeks must properly recognise the full potential in the southern North sea. A lot of work is required, as well as investment, to rebuild a sustainable fishing industry on the East Anglian coast. The fishing aspect of the free trade agreement with the EU is not helpful and has set us back a few years, but with the right investment and responsible management, progress can be made. Finally, the arrangements and support provided for the Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth enterprise zone should be reviewed and properly aligned with these emerging and exciting opportunities.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab) [V]
The Chancellor’s Budget was a disappointment, because it failed to grasp the enormity of the challenges facing our country: the challenges of poverty, inequality, low pay and unemployment; the erosion of our vital public services over the past 11 years; and the urgency of addressing the climate crisis. It also failed to take the opportunity to reward the public sector workers who have kept the country going throughout the pandemic. Instead, the Chancellor has shamefully decided to cut the pay of NHS staff and other public sector workers when he should be giving them a pay rise.
There were already 14 million people living in poverty in the UK before the pandemic and over 4 million of them were children. Despite all the evidence of the extreme hardship of those on low pay and those out of work, last week the Chancellor merely deferred his £20 a week cut to universal credit for another six months. We on these Benches have been calling on the Government to extend statutory sick pay to all workers and to increase it; instead, the Chancellor is cutting statutory sick pay in real terms, despite the fact that it was already at one of the lowest levels in Europe. He waited too long to extend furlough, causing uncertainty for businesses and workers, and newly announced support for the self-employed has been described by ExcludedUK as “too little too late” for the 3 million workers so far excluded from financial help during the pandemic.
There has been a large increase in the numbers of people who are unemployed during the pandemic, and young people have been particularly badly hit, with youth unemployment increasing by 13%. The Government response has been inadequate. Last July the Chancellor announced his kickstart scheme to get young people into work, saying that it was aimed at preventing an entire generation from being “left behind”, yet only about 4,000 young people have started new jobs through it.
The Chancellor has also failed to show ambition to tackle the climate emergency. Labour has repeatedly called for a £30 billion green economic recovery to secure 400,000 secure jobs in clean industries, but the Chancellor has failed to deliver. He announced just £20 million for floating offshore wind and has actually cut the green homes grant by more than £1 billion. The new national infrastructure bank offers a fraction of the funding recommended by the National Infrastructure Commission.
To conclude, the Government should cancel their plans to cut the pay of public sector workers and cancel once and for all the cut to UC; reinvest in our public services, which have been damaged by years of austerity; and heed Labour’s call for a £30 billion green economic recovery to create 400,000 secure jobs in clean industries to tackle the climate emergency.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
Who would want to be the Chancellor putting forward a Budget during a global pandemic? But this is where we are and this is what has to be done.
This Budget walks a tightrope: it stimulates businesses; it provides certainty to markets and investors; it provides the foundations for rebooting our economy while supporting people, jobs, livelihoods and businesses as we look to climb down the mountain of covid; and it puts in place the opportunity to build back better. It is the Budget where we levelled with the people, but we level up next. This will turbocharge our levelling up.
The first job, however, is to get through the pandemic. A total of £407 billion has been put aside in support for this year and next; that is equivalent to 19% of GDP. Furlough has been extended again through until September, and it is to be hoped that that is it and that is all we need to save those jobs—11.2 million jobs secured. A further two self-employment grants have been brought in, bringing total support of £33 billion, and there are 100% business rate holidays in retail, hospitality and leisure, worth £10 billion. This is a Budget that looks after jobs, but that also looks to the future.
I am particularly pleased with the £22.7 million of investment in Milton Keynes through the towns fund. That will kickstart the development of a new tech campus at Milton Keynes College. It is a vote of confidence by this Government in the ambition and the skills of the next generation of pioneers who will take the ideas born in Milton Keynes and make them global.
Councillors in Milton Keynes have put forward a global MK idea, and I am right behind that; global MK should be at the heart of global Britain with all these trade deals we are doing around the world. MK is home to Bletchley—the codebreakers—and is home to robots that deliver our groceries, and high-tech businesses with data and space technology. We can be the centre of the recovery, and the inward investment we will get as a result of measures taken in this Budget will turbocharge that.
Only the United States ranks higher than the UK for foreign direct investment. The UK is open for business and this Budget will make sure that we are the most competitive, nimble and attractive destination for business in the world. This is a Budget that works for Britain and for Milton Keynes.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP) [V]
The idea that the Tories can level up broken Britain just defies logic. They have been the party of government for two thirds of the past century, they have been in power since 2010, and it was them who brought in austerity aligned with tax cuts for the richest. The PPE contracts awarded to friends and cronies say it all: the Tories create inequality.
The Tories’ concept of levelling up is that Westminster knows best, as demonstrated by the UK shared prosperity fund, which bypasses Scottish devolution. We know that the stronger towns fund was manipulated for political gain, so why will this agenda be any different? Even the handling of the furlough scheme and support measures showed the opposite of levelling up, with the refusal to listen to the devolved Administrations and regional Mayors about the need to extend the furlough and business support schemes; they were roundly ignored until London had covid spikes again. The Budget measures demonstrate the Tories’ view of levelling up too— £1.6 billion allocated for maintaining the stamp duty freeze, and the introduction of a mortgage guarantee scheme to the value of £600,000. That shows they are out of touch with reality.
When we have 3,000 people per year dying from fuel poverty, levelling up should involve cutting VAT on energy- efficiency measures and direct Government investment in them. As we transition to net zero, we must not create further fuel poverty. The contracts for difference process has been successful in bringing down the cost of renewables, but the overall project costs go on our electricity bills. It is unsustainable for the costs of decarbonising our heating systems to go directly on to energy bills. When will the Government address that?
The 10-point plan itself is useless without policies to back it up. For example, a target of 600,000 heat pump installations per year is useless without a credible, funded programme. That needs to go hand in hand with energy installation measures, starting with off-grid homes—a proper levelling-up opportunity that has been missed.
We need a pricing mechanism to be put in place to allow pumped-storage hydro in Scotland, in order to progress in rural areas that need economic stimulus. We must move quickly on carbon capture and storage schemes or we can forget the 2025 target. We need real investment in marine and tidal, reform of the CfD process to create further green jobs and a hydrogen strategy that matches the lead of the Scottish Government—and we really need to repurpose investment from the nuclear folly.
I welcome the Government’s plans to raise corporation tax, but they show that we have been fed lies that previous cuts in corporation tax increased revenue. About £50 billion has been lost in recent years that the Government could now be using for reinvestment. We needed additional investment, but worse, the Scottish Government’s capital budget was cut. That shows more than ever that Scotland needs the full powers of independence to implement its own green recovery and level up.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
This year’s Budget is like no other, not only coming at the height of a global economic crash brought on by covid but setting the terms of our recovery as we embark on the road map to freedom. This is all made possible by the amazing vaccine roll-out programme, which so far has delivered over 22 million vaccines across the UK.
The Budget delivered many of the changes that I have been lobbying for on behalf of the residents of Radcliffe, Whitefield and Prestwich. The cancellation of the planned increases in both alcohol and fuel duty means that an average driver in Bury will save £1,600 against Labour’s fuel duty escalator. For the brewing and distilling sectors, the freeze on alcohol duty is also very welcome news, as it is for those who, like me, are looking forward to visiting pubs such as the Sparking Clog when they reopen shortly.
For homebuyers in Bury, there was the heartening announcement that the stamp duty holiday will be extended by a further three months to ensure that those who are in the process of buying will get the benefit of the reduction. Young people trying to get on the property ladder will be freed from Generation Rent, with Government- backed 95% mortgages to ensure that everyone can have the security of owning their own home.
For businesses in Whitefield, Prestwich and Radcliffe, help continues; the business rates holiday has been extended to the end of June, with a reduced payment for the remainder of the financial year, while the VAT reduction holiday for hospitality and tourism businesses has also been extended, until October. We are helping businesses build back as they reopen following lockdown by offering business restart grants to allow them to hit the ground running.
It would be remiss of me to talk about investing in businesses without talking about the super deduction. For many people, super deduction sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it is really not just a huge tax cut, but a tax stimulus to invest in our own economy, our own research and development, our own learning and our own people. It is truly to be recommended.
The Chancellor announced that the levelling up fund is now open for applications for all areas of the UK. Over the next few weeks and months that will be my focus, working with Bury Council to put in the best bid possible to regenerate our town centres and high streets, such as Radcliffe and Prestwich. Securing that funding will be central to my ambition to improve our towns, so that we can have an even better place to live, work and go to school, even more so on the back of delivering the new high school for Radcliffe, which we secured just a few weeks’ ago.
I conclude by saying that this Budget will ensure that we can recover from coronavirus by delivering for jobs, apprentices, business and homebuyers, and will help boost world-leading investment programmes. In driving forward these spending plans, we can really build back better for a stronger Bury.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab) [V]
I have only got three minutes, so I have ditched most of my speech. I am going to talk about how this Budget frankly ain’t going to work for the children or people of West Ham.
Newham Council surveyed schools a month ago and found that 5,000 Newham children still do not have a laptop and around 2,000 are still without broadband. The Government have got through a whole year without delivering the basic resources needed by the children in Newham in this pandemic. Lack of access is a consequence of poverty and inequality, and it has increased terribly over the past 10 years. In Newham, more than half our children are living in poverty.
Most children lost 5% of their normal lifetime in school during the pandemic and they could not learn properly without digital resources. We need to recognise that inequality is not going away simply because schools have reopened. These children still need IT and access to broadband just to ensure a more level playing field for the rest of their education. In Newham, our schools do an amazing job seeking to ensure that all our children achieve their potential, but these children and teachers must have the resources they need to repair the damage of inequality and this pandemic. There must surely be a true guarantee, finally, that every young person who needs digital access to their education will actually get it.
Let me quickly talk about the damage that is being done to families. Unemployment in Newham has increased 240% since the start of the pandemic. There are an estimated 19,500 people furloughed in West Ham alone. I am afraid that huge numbers of those excluded from support over the past year are still going to be left without the income they deserve. The Government seem determined to cut vital social security support in October in one of the most expensive cities in the world just when many more constituents may be forced into unemployment and as furlough and other support schemes end. It is unreasonable, it is unfair.
This pandemic has not gone away, yet the Budget has not fixed statutory sick pay. We cannot ensure that no one will lose out from doing the right thing and self-isolating when sick. Instead of fixing it, sick pay is going to be cut in real terms from next month. We need to ensure our economic recovery can take place as safely, as fairly and as quickly as possible, but I just do not think this Budget is going to do that for the people Newham—and I don’t think it was intended to.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con) [V]
There is so much to welcome in this Budget that will benefit the businesses and individuals across the Cities of London and Westminster: the extension of the furlough until the end of September; a host of restart grants worth an extra £5 billion and the new recovery loans to replace our existing loan scheme; £700 million for arts, culture and sports to reopen safely; a further 600,000 self-employed people eligible for covid-related financial support; the extension of the 5% VAT cut for the hospitality industry for a further six months; and the extension of the 100% business rates holiday for a further three months until June. I would like to take this opportunity also to congratulate the Corporation of London on announcing its own £50 million covid business recovery fund, which will be made available to City-based small and independent businesses in certain sectors to support a return to work.
Central London is likely to see a very slow recovery that takes several years to reach pre-pandemic levels. Its economy depends on workers and international visitors, both of whom will be slow to be return to the capital. I hope the Government will consider launching a marketing campaign to encourage workers to return to their offices in the spring. From the conversations I have had with local employers, it seems that most do not expect to see their staff back until the autumn. This could be difficult for the hospitality and retail sectors as they begin to pay rates and rent from July. We also need a robust transport system that commuters are confident to use again, and I hope the Mayor of London will work constructively with the Government to ensure that this is the case.
I wholeheartedly welcome the Chancellor’s announcement to amend UK listing rules, making the UK a more attractive location for initial public offerings and introducing improvements to tech visas to attract global talent and boost the fintech workforce. Both of those were recommendations from the Kalifa review on the FinTech sector, which is worth £110 billion to the UK economy and is set to grow to £380 billion by 2030. We currently have 10% global market share, and with Government support we can build our technology talent. Covid has been a game changer for FinTech. Six million people— 10% of the population—downloaded a banking app for the first time last April, the first month of lockdown. We have seen digital transactions and interactions for both business and individuals grow hugely. I hope we will see more of Kalifa’s recommendations introduced, including a centre for finance, innovation and technology to strengthen our national FinTech co-ordination.
I thank the Chancellor for a long list of progressive and sensible policies announced in this investment recovery Budget, making the UK the best place in the world for high-growth, innovative companies bringing strong job growth across the country.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab) [V]
I am grateful to be called in this debate.
I fear that the investment-led recovery and the levelling-up agenda referred to by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) is set to fall at the first hurdle. The Minister will no doubt be aware of the plans by the notorious venture capitalists Melrose Industries to close the GKN Automotive factory in Birmingham. Indeed, hon. Members may remember the controversy that surrounded the hostile takeover of GKN by Melrose in 2018. Serious concerns were raised at the time by Unite the union and hon. and right hon. Members in this House about the implications of that takeover for national security and for the future of the GKN brand. In an attempt to allay these fears, Melrose promised to rebuild GKN into a British manufacturing powerhouse. It was a horrible promise. Five hundred highly skilled workers at the Chester Road site are now facing the sack.
The news of the planned closure has come as a shock to the workforce and to their union, which until recently had been in discussions with management about boosting investment into the site. Melrose maintains that the plant is unviable owing to the transition to vehicle electrification. Unite the union disputes this and is developing a rescue plan that will secure a bright future for the site. I want to place on record my concern that Melrose’s chief executive officer, Simon Peckham, misled MPs on the BEIS Committee last month about the kind of work that takes place on-site. With the Government bringing forward their ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2040 to 2030, the shift to battery electric vehicle production is more urgent than ever, but it is vital that that transition to electric vehicles is investment-led and sustainable.
GKN can trace its origins back to the birth of the industrial revolution. It has more than 250 years of history. The Government owe it to British manufacturing and to this prestigious company, one of the largest UK industrial companies, to defend its future as we make a shift from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles. I urge the Government to join Unite the union in urging Melrose to examine alternatives to the closure of the GKN automotive plant, and to prevent Melrose from asset-stripping and then disposing of this important British company.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab) [V]
There are a lot of things missing from this Budget that I could comment on, but I will try to highlight some of the really important ones.
First, local government went into the covid crisis having had the biggest cuts of any part of the public sector since 2010. Some of the costs of covid and some of the loss of income have been covered by the Government, but local government went in with a £5 billion shortfall, and £2.6 billion of those extra costs and lost income have not been covered, so the crisis in funding for local government is all the greater. Croydon has put in a section 114 notice post covid, four other councils have had to have capitalisation plans accepted and we know that many others are on a financial lifeline. In the Budget, there was no mention of extra funding for local government, no mention of financial reform and no mention of reform to the business rates system, which has been promised over and over again.
The Chancellor could not even get the words “social care” out of his mouth when he spoke to the House about the Budget. There was no mention of social care at all, but we know that reform to social care funding is key to the whole reform of local authority funding. Indeed, two Select Committees—the Health and Social Care Committee and the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee—did a joint report three years ago and gave the Chancellor an oven-ready scheme, to coin a phrase, which would have reformed social care funding with a social care premium. We are still waiting for a response to that report three years later.
There was no mention of the public health grant, despite the incredible work that public health inspectors and directors have done during the covid crisis. If only they had had a fraction of the money that has gone to the private contractors doing track and trace, I think we would all be in a much better position today. And, of course, what is the reward for all those people who have worked so hard in local government services—the social care workers, the public health workers, the environmental health workers and people like the refuse collectors who have kept our important regular services going during this crisis? What is their reward? A pay freeze. That is what their reward is. It is completely unacceptable that these hard-working people should be asked to bear a disproportionate share of trying to get the budget deficit back under control.
If we are going to build back better, then of course we need more social housing. The Select Committee did a report saying that to get to 300,000 homes in this country, 90,000 need to be in the social housing sector, built by councils and housing associations. There was not a penny in the Budget to enable that programme to be got under way, and we estimated that it would cost about £10 billion a year.
What we are seeing, unfortunately, is that for all these important public services and important public servants, the pre-covid austerity has now been translated into—guess what?—post-covid austerity, which is something we should all oppose.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
The past decade has seen successive Conservative Governments fail every economic task they have set themselves. The Cameron Government came in, in 2010, claiming that our economy was under threat. They promptly lost our triple A rating, and have never got it back. They said we should have fixed the roof while the sun shone, and then underfunded our public services to already dangerous levels when the pandemic struck. They said they would address the deficit and the debt, and we are now forecast to borrow £355 billion this year, with a debt of over 100% of GDP. This simply cannot be due to covid because they rejected the circumstances of the last Labour Government spending to rescue us from a global recession. They said they wanted to make a bonfire of red tape, but they have made trade ever-more difficult for our businesses not just across the channel, but even over the Irish sea, and this low-tax Conservative Chancellor has raised taxes back to 1960s levels.
What have all these failures meant for this Budget? There are several sector-specific elements that I want to mention and a longer-term systemic issue. We have not yet seen the consequences of the neglect of the pub industry, but when we are free to a socialise again, we will mourn the carcases of what were once thriving businesses that were given expensive obligations and unscientific restrictions and had their custom eliminated. The industry welcomes the grants that are available, but they will not be enough to save many pubs, especially because they will not be able to open to full trade indoors for some time. I welcome financial support for rugby league and urge Ministers to continue to talk to the sport’s authorities to ensure the success of the world cup, women’s world cup and physical disability rugby league world cup in Warrington this year.
Offering our NHS and social care staff a below-inflation pay deal is an insult, but it is revealing of a hostility this Government have to the frontline heroes who have sacrificed and led us through this ghastly year. The Conservatives’ talk of thanks is now the definition of empty claptrap. The continued neglect of a comprehensive social care system guarantees our inequalities and vulnerabilities for years to come, with the proposed cuts to Transport for the North guaranteeing that regional inequality will be entrenched.
At a systemic level, and as a member of the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, I am alarmed that the Chancellor has scrapped the Industrial Strategy Council without even consulting us. We require an industrial strategy now more than ever to rebuild our economy and take advantage of the green industrial revolution that we need, including new nuclear. That is a truly retrograde step and disturbing short-sightedness when we desperately need an ambitious and broader plan.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). It seems like only yesterday that she and I went on a tour with the Doorkeepers when we first arrived here.
It is a brilliant Budget by the Chancellor, but I know that my constituents will want to know exactly what’s in it for them, so let’s get quickly to the point there: furlough has been extended—it has supported more than 10,000 people in Newcastle-under-Lyme; the self-employed will have more grants and the net has been cast wider; there is a universal credit extension for a further six months and equivalent support of £500 for working tax credits; there are business restart grants and recovery loans; and, importantly for a red wall town such as mine, there are freezes to alcohol duty and fuel duty. The latter is particularly important as we lack public transport in Newcastle-under-Lyme; that is a very welcome thing for a town.
I want to talk about towns because there has been a lot of talk about them recently and I feel that the Labour party has missed the boat on towns. I wish to quote at some length:
“For far too long the ambitions, needs and values of nine million people in towns across Britain have not been heard.
Our economic model treats cities as engines of growth, which at best drag surrounding towns along in their wake, causing life to become harder, less secure and less hopeful for too many people in towns in recent decades.
Our political system is blind to the values and experiences of people who live in our towns, wrongly treating cities as a proxy for the national opinion.
After the EU Referendum starkly exposed the growing gulf between towns and cities, it is clear that this is no longer sustainable.”
Those are brilliant words. They are the words of the shadow Foreign Secretary, the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), when she launched the Centre For Towns in December 2017. I have read all that it had to say. It is a centre-left think tank, but I agree with an awful lot of what it said. I am really proud that the previous Government took that agenda into the general election and started thinking about how we can deliver for left-behind towns—communities such as Newcastle-under-Lyme and others in north Staffordshire.
Locally we have seen so much investment. We have had £11 million already through the future high streets fund, and we have a £25 million towns fund bid in with the Ministry at the moment. I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on the £16.9 million success of Kidsgrove’s town deal bid, which will have knock-on effects for those living in the north of my constituency. I am pleased that even after all his largesse the Chancellor found that Newcastle-under-Lyme could also be a priority area for the UK community renewal fund, which will enable us to bid for a further £3 million, supporting skills, local businesses, communities and place—that is so important—and supporting people into employment. So I make no apology for what the Chancellor has done for the towns agenda. It is an agenda that has been neglected for far too long. The Labour party recognised that, through the hon. Member for Wigan, a few years ago. It is a shame it did not act on it, and that is why what happened in the 2019 election happened.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) [V]
We have had the worst economic hit of any major economy and it is easy to see why. On 2 March 2020, the first death from covid—the death of a woman living in a care home—was recorded in the UK. On the same day, the Prime Minister finally attended a Cobra meeting, having skipped the first five. On 3 March 2020, the Prime Minister boasted about visiting a hospital and shaking hands with every covid patient. By contrast, on that day, the New Zealand Prime Minister brought in tough restrictions on inbound flights and told people not to go around shaking hands. On 10 March, the Cheltenham festival went ahead, with 250,000 people attending. One month later, 1,122 people had died from covid. These are not the actions of a Government doing everything they can; they are the actions of a Government slow to act, who allowed a crisis to become a catastrophe, not just for health but for our economy. The price paid by people in Hull West and Hessle has been high, partly caused by the repeated lockdowns and an inability to keep the virus under control: businesses struggling, people excluded from support and unemployment rising.
We needed a Budget to match the difficulties we are facing and we have been badly let down. Freezing of the personal allowance against inflation is a stealth tax increase that will hit workers on the lowest incomes the hardest. The increase in statutory sick pay by 50p is pathetic and shows that the Government have learned nothing from last year. If we want people to self-isolate to bring down the number of cases, we must make it affordable for them to do so.
This Budget just forces poorer councils such as Hull to increase local tax. That is a trick that Conservative Governments have repeated time and again. Hull has the third lowest average council tax income in the country: 67% of housing stock is in band A and only 4% in band D. Compare that with neighbouring East Riding, which has 26% in band A and 15% in band D. That means that a 1% rise in council tax would provide double the amount to East Riding as to Hull. So people with lower incomes are facing higher taxes to fund the services they need. That is not levelling up; that is failing families.
You can see why I become angry when I read of those with links to the Conservatives having won £2 billion of Government contracts. But I should not be surprised because, even when the NHS saves the Prime Minister’s life, its staff are only rewarded with a 1% pay increase. We need a fairer system, not a Budget that hits struggling families the hardest. As it stands right now this is not a Budget that I can support.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab) [V]
It would be impossible not to recognise that the Chancellor, as he sat down to consider what was in his Budget, would have had the start of some very grey hairs in that carefully coiffured mop of his. It would be understood that the reason he was nervous doing that Budget was that he knew not only that he had presided over the worst recession of any major country, but that it had coincided with the period when we had entered the worst death rate of any major nation. He also knew that he was the Chancellor of a party that, after a previous global incident—the global banking crisis of 2008—blamed the Government for not cutting at a time of economic crisis, which everyone recognised to be entirely economically illiterate. So he was going to have to ignore the advice that his own party had been providing.
The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), a few moments ago—maybe accidentally —hit upon the point. She said that our economy would take many years possibly to recover to its previous position. Then she highlighted and welcomed a series of measures that were just a few months long. What we needed from the Budget was a long-term plan—a sense that the country had a plan for how we were going to make our economy work in future.
The right hon. Members for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) and for Maidenhead (Mrs May) spoke powerfully about the apparent end of the industrial strategy, because more than ever before, what we needed from the Budget was a long-term plan. The Secretary of State for Education keeps looking at Germany and saying that we will have a skills environment that could match Germany, but in Germany not only do they have an engrained industrial strategy that all of the Government work collectively on— they also have individual Government Departments that work collectively together. Here, we have a skills approach that pays no attention to the economy or the industrial approach that the Treasury is taking and a confused picture for employers as to what is expected from them. We have a kickstart scheme that only 2,000 people have got jobs from, when we were promised 100,000. We have had a refusal to adopt the apprentice wage subsidy that the Labour party called for, which would have made a massive difference. We have an apprenticeship levy that is sending £330 million back every year. It is no wonder that the Government are painting such a gloomy economic picture.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP) [V]
The key challenge the Government have is to use public money to help rebuild the economy. I want to use my time to discuss public sector pay, and in particular pay for civil servants.
The civil service has risen to the challenge, whether that is employees in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs who have processed furlough payments to ensure that money goes into workers’ pockets, or those in the Department for Work and Pensions who have processed millions of universal credit claims to ensure that the vulnerable and those who need help the most get it. It is frankly baffling, therefore, that the Chancellor intends a pay freeze in this Budget. This means that the Cabinet Office advice is for a 0% pay remit that will contain for the first time ever no additional funding to support the lowest paid. The House should be aware that 19 MPs from six political parties, representing constituencies across the whole United Kingdom, wrote to the Chancellor twice asking him to reconsider. It beggars belief that he has not responded to either of those letters.
Yesterday was International Women’s Day—a chance to highlight the lack of pay coherence across the civil service, which creates huge inequality. The average pay for women in the civil service in 2020 was £28,650, whereas for men it was £30,880. That gap increases with part-time work, with women working part time at higher rates in all age bands. Delegated bargaining has been a disaster. It is wholly unacceptable that workers doing the same job at broadly the same grade suffer huge disparities in pay. The delegated system is costly, time-consuming and inefficient. It is simply unacceptable that there are 200 separate pay negotiations across UK Government Departments; that is a ludicrous situation.
There is a clear economic illiteracy to a public sector pay freeze. Public sector workers and civil servants spend their wages in the private sector economy. They do not hide their wages in a shoebox under the bed. They spend that money in the retail sector, the hospitality sector and the like. Civil servants should be given a proper reward, and we should end the pay disparities and reduce the number of pay negotiations. Public sector workers deserve better than this Budget from this Chancellor.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab) [V]
Before the pandemic, a decade of austerity left far too many trapped in low-paid, insecure work, consistently failed by the social security system. The brutality of this failing economic regime has been further exposed throughout the coronavirus pandemic, with at least 3 million people being left without economic support. The post-covid economic recovery needs to be built upon equitable distribution of income and wealth and new jobs. But beyond the rhetoric of levelling up, a redistributive economic vision that can deliver the future that people across the UK deserve was wholly missing from the Budget.
Despite finally listening to trade unions and campaigners with regard to the furlough scheme, there was not nearly enough to secure a recovery that puts people in a better position than when they entered the pandemic, never mind laying the foundations for the economy to meet the challenges of the future, including tackling climate change and mass unemployment. Yes, the main rate of corporation tax will increase from the present 19% to 25%, but not until 2023. At the same time, the rich and big business are being treated to mouth-watering tax giveaways and reliefs, despite unclear evidence about whether that will actually create the investment needed.
Beyond the limited extensions of job and business support schemes, there is very little about providing support for public services and public investment and a lasting boost to welfare for those hit hardest by the crisis. Not only was this Budget a missed opportunity for a care-led green recovery that creates decent, well-paid, unionised jobs and addresses our care crisis. It will create widespread inequality and precarity. It actually laid out significant cuts to public spending.
The lockdowns and an inadequate social security system have caused widespread financial hardship, unemployment and debt, and yet the Budget fell far short in tackling poverty, low pay and the deepening divisions in our society. It risks plunging more people into poverty and forcing them to queue outside food banks. The £20-per-week top-up of universal credit, which was introduced at the start of the pandemic, will be temporarily retained and will help some 6.5 million families, but only until September. At the same time, there is no increase in the statutory sick pay of £95.85 per week. Despite the ongoing performed gratitude towards those working on the frontline, the Government did not end the wage freeze for public sector workers. That is an absolute insult.
In the long run, we need an inclusive, intersectional recovery to rebuild our economy and recover from the pandemic and entrenched inequality. I am sick of looking around me and seeing the hard work and creativity of my local people often go unrewarded.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
I have listened with great interest to the many contributions to the debate so far, but it is clear to me that the economy is still fundamentally unfair, and that is made worse by a Government intent on giving favours to their friends, not providing fairness to those we have all relied on during the past 12 months. The Government are working hard for crony billionaires, but hardly working at all for those who have healed our sick and kept us safe during the pandemic. None of the measures that the Chancellor announced last week seeks to remedy the inherent injustice in our economy.
There are many in this House who believe that charity begins at home—none more so than the Prime Minister, who wants to establish a charitable fund for his own home decoration. A freedom of information request shows that £2.6 million has been spent in the past year refurbishing Downing Street to include a new media centre. That has drawn anger from a famous Jeremy—not the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), but that well-known socialist Jeremy Clarkson.
We have all been working from home this year, but it is reasonable to ask why, if the Prime Minister can draw from the public funds to improve his place of work, has there been no public grant system to ease the pressures of working from home for my constituents in Newport West and millions of others around the UK? I am sure many others around the country share my frustration that that is where the Prime Minister’s focus has been in the past 12 months, instead of on saving lives and spending public funds wisely. There has been no public fund to allow people to make reasonable adjustments to their homes to make them safe, and no help to provide equipment that could have kept workers safe at home, rather than commuting to the office, but a scheme has been announced that will see businesses paid by the Government to buy swimming pools and jacuzzis.
The Government intend to increase the tax liabilities of ordinary working people before they ask the same of businesses. With the Government’s super deduction, they are in fact cutting taxes for businesses with no safeguards to ensure that corporation tax is still paid, but the state-sponsored saunas will be developed. Rather than austerity for Amazon, it is welfare for Walmart.
The real budget cuts are in the homes of our constituents. The Government can always guarantee contracts for Conservative party donors, but they refuse to guarantee support to thousands of self-employed contractors around the country. For a Government who purport to be run by the party of businesses, they have left many small and independent businesses to fight for themselves. For millions around this country, the Budget guarantees that it is not a fair fight at all. It is most definitely not about levelling up; rather, it is a divide-and-rule Budget.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab) [V]
I want to use my three minutes to touch briefly on the aspects of the Budget that most directly affect many of my constituents. First, I want to speak about all those constituents who have been excluded from help throughout the coronavirus pandemic—people who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves without income, work and the means to keep their homes and businesses together. I want to speak particularly about those people who do not qualify for the various business support schemes or the self-employed schemes—the hairdressers, the beauty salons, the home-based businesses such as driving instructors, and those working in the arts and entertainment industries whose work has completely fallen away. I know how desperate those people are. They are making their voices heard, and so they should. It was heartbreaking for them to hear nothing in this Budget to help them. They are an essential part of our local and national economy and need help. Too many of them have found out how hard it is to obtain universal credit and just how low the level of support is. I ask the Chancellor again to help these people, even now.
I want to talk about poverty among children and their families in my constituency. This issue is of particular concern in the north-east, where, according to the North East Child Poverty Commission, we were seeing the sharpest increase in child poverty even before the pandemic. The pandemic has only worsened what was an already unacceptable situation. I have spoken about this many times. Although I am happy to see the £20 uplift to universal credit being extended for the coming six months, this is not enough by any means, when more than half of the children living in poverty in the north-east are living in a home with at least one working adult. This is not a pandemic-only problem, and, despite what the Chancellor might want people to think, it is not a problem of worklessness either. Rather, it is an issue of insecure work and regional inequality of opportunity.
These problems will not go away in September, no matter how much the Chancellor may wish it so. For any talk about levelling up to be more than just talk, the Government must commit to tackling the underlying causes of child poverty in this country. We know that growing up in poverty can have lifelong consequences for children. Much more needs to be done to protect children and their future.
Finally, and briefly, I want to talk about the things that were left out. We face a huge climate change issue. We know this—we have declared a climate emergency. It is really disappointing to see no real significant measures to address that. Then there is social care. We all know there is a problem and that we need to improve the quality and availability of social care. The people doing it do a great job and we should pay them for it.
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab) [V]
The covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented and it is true that none of us could have predicted what was going to happen, but the reality is that some areas of the country were merely surviving even before the pandemic. For those areas, the consequences have been more severe.
Work by the Office for National Statistics shows that those living in the most deprived neighbourhoods have been more than twice as likely to die from covid as those in the least deprived. We know that data on infections shows the same picture. Therefore, if we come out of this pandemic without truly levelling up and supporting the most deprived neighbourhoods, what we are really doing is putting those communities at further risk of deaths with future waves.
I am a Labour Member of Parliament, but I am here to represent my entire constituency of Bradford West, and, although party politics matter, nothing is more important than protecting our communities and our nation. When the risk is so severe, I say to the Government that this is not the time to be handing out contracts to their friends and funding towns based on party lines. Let us stop playing party politics and start supporting the poorest in society, who have already suffered enough.
The current unemployment rate in my constituency is 12.2%, which is ranked eighth highest in the entire country. Alongside years of austerity, job losses, economic uncertainty and long-term covid restrictions have had a significant impact in Bradford. While I state the hard facts about the challenges that Bradford is facing, I am not here to complain but to make the argument to the Government that, together, we can change this. To take a line from the recent Bradford Council economic recovery plan, we do not want to go back to normal, because normal was not ever good enough. That is why I ask the Minister to meet me and hear the case that Bradford has to make.
Bradford was at the heart of the industrial revolution and is now at the heart of the northern powerhouse. We have one of the youngest populations not just in the UK, but in Europe. We have been ranked as the second most entrepreneurial city in Britain, and the University of Bradford was recently ranked, in a new study, No. 1 for impact on social mobility. Bradford is aiming to become the UK’s leading growth city. I am really grateful for the £50 million that we have already got from central Government for air quality. That contributes to the wider ambition, but this is about more than net zero. It is about incorporating sustainable development goals, one of which is our ambition to be the city of culture in 2025.
Bradford can be the catalyst, not just for unlocking the potential of the northern powerhouse, but for defining what levelling up can be. Bradford has an ambitious plan to provide people with the skills and jobs to transform Bradford into the fastest growing economy. We are aiming to become the UK’s leading growth city. Now is not the time for the red wall politics; now is the time to boost Britain and cities such as Bradford. Let us work together to level up Britain, and not just our friends.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Not a day goes by without the utterance of the phrase “levelling up”, whether it be here in the Chamber, in Committee Rooms or in virtual conference after conference. In the Prime Minister’s first speech some two years ago, he referred to “forgotten people” in “left-behind towns”. The very same Prime Minister has been part of a Tory Government who have inflicted the most horrendous ideologically driven cuts for our public services and our most vulnerable citizens over the past decade.
It now becomes apparent that when the Prime Minister talked about left-behind towns and forgotten people struggling to make ends meet, he was not talking about those who live in Halton Lea or the Windmill Hill area of Runcorn in my constituency. Is he talking about the affluent citizens of Richmond, which the Chancellor just so happens to represent? Or is he talking about Newark, where the constituency of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government is located? Both are placed in the highest priority category for levelling-up funding. Both are among the 40 out of 45 areas that just so happen to have Conservative MPs.
Let us do a quick comparison between Richmondshire and Halton. Halton is the 39th most deprived area in the UK, out of a total of 384. Richmondshire is 251st. The percentage of children living in low income families in Richmondshire was 11% in 2018-19. In Halton, it was more than double that. Unemployment is another comparison we could make. We could look at the proportion of the local population claiming universal credit. In Richmondshire, it is 2.9%. In Halton, it is nearly 7% and rising. A baby girl born in Richmondshire can expect to live three years longer than one born in Halton. A baby boy can expect to live four and a half years longer, simply because of their postcode.
Of course, there is one final difference between our two areas. Richmond has a Conservative MP. Halton has two Labour MPs and a Labour council.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Last week’s Budget should have been the moment when our country was put back on the path to growth. It was an opportunity to put in place the building blocks of a recovery that benefits every part of our country. It was the chance to give people hope that, despite the challenges we faced over this last year, a better future lies ahead—a future in which all parts of the country share in our prosperity, where our economy is resilient so that everyone, no matter where they are and no matter where they live, can expect a good job, a reliable wage and a roof over their head.
We have heard from a great number of Members this afternoon and this evening—sadly too many for me to mention them all individually, and I hope they will forgive me— but the contributions from those on these Benches made it clear that we needed a Budget that not only addressed the devastating impact of the pandemic, but tackled the burning injustices that have built up over the past decade under successive Conservative Governments.
The sad reality is that the Budget does not even come close to resolving the problems our country faced going into the pandemic. There is no plan for jobs, no plan to rebuild our economy and no industrial strategy. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) observed, we have a Secretary of State for industrial strategy who does not even believe in industrial strategy. That does not bode well for our recovery as we come out of the pandemic.
The Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), was right to emphasise that we need to see a focus on growth as part of a transition to net zero. We should have seen that joined-up approach to support growth in every part of our country, with decisions based on genuine need, not narrow, partisan advantage.
It is not even the simple cynicism of saying, “Vote Tory, see local investment.” It is starting to feel a lot like, “Vote Tory, see your money go to richer areas.” Let us take the levelling-up fund, which pits regions and nations against each other for vital funding. We want to see proper funding for every region, but it is crucial that it is done transparently, fairly and with a say for local communities, and this fund fails on all those counts.
In the powerful contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), they exposed the reality of this. Although a new economic campus for the Treasury in Darlington will bring 750 jobs, we should be clear that almost 7,000 civil service jobs have been lost in the north-east alone since 2010. Madam Deputy Speaker, you will not be surprised to hear that, as a north-east MP, I will always welcome jobs coming to our region, but how will it help with the much-needed task of delivering an investment-led recovery? How will it drive wider private sector growth? How will it rebalance our economy as we emerge from this crisis?
Madam Deputy Speaker, like me, you will have now listened to many Budget speeches from many different Chancellors, and we all know the structure of these things. We sit here expectantly, wondering what the centrepiece will be, wondering what the final flourish will be, waiting for the moment when the Chancellor makes it clear what he thinks is the biggest announcement of the day. Some of us were hoping that perhaps, at long last, the Chancellor would grasp the enormous challenge of social care, which touches on so many lives up and down the country, but, no, once again it was passed over in silence. The Chancellor could not even bring himself to say the words, and in so doing he ignored the economic as well as the moral case for social care reform, as was so eloquently set out this afternoon by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall).
That sense of disappointment was compounded when the Chancellor revealed that he has not had a new big idea in five years, and that he still believes that freeports will solve all our problems. I know that this is a hobby-horse of his; it has been for a while. In 2016, he claimed that they would deliver 80,000 new jobs in the UK. Those of us who have followed closely his approach to the pandemic have been unsurprised to learn of the rather simplistic economic modelling underpinning these claims, simply taking the total number of existing jobs in free zones in the US and scaling it down for our smaller population and for our smaller labour force.
The truth is that there is little evidence that freeports create new jobs. Instead, they simply risk moving them around, with the additional risk that deprivation is intensified in the areas just beyond the immediate vicinity of the freeport. They do not make companies more productive. They do not increase demand for the goods in the wider economy or increase the tax take for the Treasury. On the contrary, we know that there are real concerns about tax evasion and the risk of smuggling associated with freeports. With Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs left increasingly overstretched over the past 10 years, I fear that our country is not well-placed to manage these new risks.
We can only build a strong economy if we secure the recovery, and that means action now to secure jobs and to support job creation in the future, and it means clear steps to help businesses through the worst of this crisis. It means ambitious measures that would help build a greener, fairer and more dynamic economy, and on every one of these measures, the Budget falls short.
For the half a million unemployed young people who desperately need hope for a better tomorrow, there is still nothing on offer but the Chancellor’s kickstart scheme, which has only created enough opportunities for just one in 49 eligible young people. Likewise, his much vaunted restart scheme has not even begun and will not begin to meet demand until March 2022, months after unemployment is estimated to peak at 2.2 million. It beggars belief that, in the grips of the worst economic crisis for a generation where our economy has taken the biggest hit of any major economy, this is the best that the Government can muster.
But it is worse than that. At the point at which the furlough scheme is due to end and joblessness peaks, what do the Government plan to do? They plan to cut social security at a time when families will need it the most, sucking demand out of our economy in the process. We can only support job creation if we ensure that businesses remain viable now and into the future. That means helping as many as possible survive through these incredibly challenging circumstances in which they find themselves, not looking on while many good businesses teeter on the edge, unable to deal with the mountain of debt that they have built up over the past year.
The incredible work of our NHS staff and volunteers gives us all hope that soon we will see a semblance of normality return, which is why businesses are so frustrated. They feel that the Government are simply not listening to the immediate pressures they face. While of course Labour wants to see business investing and driving job creation, we also want to see Government playing their full and proper role. That means providing much-needed investment to support our recovery and bringing forward £30 billion of capital spending, not cutting capital spending by £500 million in the next financial year and cutting the green homes grant by £1 billion.
The pattern is clear: on every measure, the Government have fallen short, with no coherent strategy to rebuild and rebalance our economy. Indeed, the only obvious factor linking these policies is a complete lack of ambition, other than to take us back to the failed policies of the last decade—the same approach that weakened the foundations of our economy and left us so exposed when the virus hit. We simply cannot afford another lost decade.
Our country should take a different path: a future in which Government forge a new partnership with businesses and trade unions to get Britain back to work and support the creation of good, secure, clean jobs; a future in which Government take a strategic and fair approach to ensuring opportunity and prosperity in every region and nation of the UK; a future in which our economy is strong and resilient, making our country the best place to grow up in and the best place to grow old in. This is the future that our country deserves, and it is the future for which Labour will fight.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)
It is a privilege to close this debate on behalf of the Government. In recent days, the House has debated the Budget through the lens of the Government’s response to the pandemic, including the comprehensive efforts we have made to protect jobs and businesses. Today, the focus of the debate has been on looking forward and discussing the ways in which last week’s Budget prepares the country for an investment-led recovery. I thank right hon. and hon. Members from across the House for the very constructive contributions that we have had throughout the debate.
This is a Budget in three parts: first, it protects jobs and livelihoods and provides additional support to get the British people and businesses through the crisis; secondly, it is clear and honest about the need to fix the public finances once we are on the way to recovery; and thirdly, it begins the essential work of building our future economy, including by providing the opportunity to level up across the country.
The Budget announced an additional £65 billion of measures over this year and next to support the economy in response to coronavirus. Taking into account the support in last November’s spending review, that figure for this year and next is £352 billion. Add in measures from the spring Budget last year and the figure rises to £407 billion. In other words, a comprehensive and sustained economic shock has been met with a comprehensive and sustained response.
In fact, thanks to the actions of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, the Office for Budget Responsibility now expects the UK economy to recover to its pre-crisis level six months earlier than originally expected. That means the second rather than the fourth quarter of 2022. Unemployment, meanwhile, is expected to peak at around 6.5% instead of the nearly 12% that was feared last summer. As the Resolution Foundation has observed, this would be by far the lowest unemployment peak in any recent recession, despite this being the deepest downturn for 300 years.
The Budget maintains a number of essential further support measures, including the furlough scheme, which has been extended until the end of September, and support for the self-employed, which will also continue until September. Indeed, anyone who had filled in a tax return before last Wednesday will now be able to claim the fourth and fifth grants that have been made available for the self-employed, supporting more than 600,000 people on top of those already helped.
The Budget also maintains the universal credit uplift of £20 a week for a further six months, provides working tax credit claimants with equivalent support over the same timeframe and reaffirms our commitment to increase the national living wage to £8.91 from April. We announced a restart grant from April to help businesses to reopen and get going again and a new recovery loan scheme to replace our earlier bounce back loans and coronavirus interruption loans. We will continue to deliver a package that is unprecedented in its scope and scale and which reflects the wider strategy for cautiously reopening the economy, as set out in the Government’s road map. Above all, the distribution analysis shows that this is a package of measures that has supported those on the lowest incomes the most.
Over the course of the debate today, we have heard powerful contributions from a wide range of Members, and I want to draw attention to a number in particular. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) spoke of the importance of skills, innovation and investing in human capital, which a number of Budget measures set out. My hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) recognised the importance of additional economic support, particularly in the hospitality, leisure and tourism industry.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) reinforced the Government’s commitment to a green recovery and reskilling to take advantage of the investment set out in the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) also highlighted the importance of green innovation, which is reflected in the commitment to double the spending on energy innovation, with a new £1 billion net zero innovation portfolio.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) highlighted the key opportunity provided by our leadership of COP26. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) highlighted the value of the super deduction policy. In answer to his question on fishing, I can confirm that fishing boats are within scope either for the super deduction or the related 50% first-year allowance.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore) praised my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for the vital support that businesses in his constituency, particularly in the hospitality sector, have received throughout the pandemic. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) praised the Budget as one that looks after jobs and looks after the future, including the new tech campus that will help the next generation in his area.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) praised the additional funding for the Welsh Government and the investment through the accelerated city deals. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) praised the successful freeport bid for Felixstowe and the value of the towns fund, which will make such a difference to the regeneration of his local community.
My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson) praised the expansion of the self-employment income support scheme, which will support a further 600,000 people. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and many other Members praised the super deduction and the great benefits it will have for investment, as UK business leads that investment in our recovery.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) welcomed the skills package, which will help to support our economic recovery from the pandemic. My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) welcomed the 5% VAT cut extension and rightly drew the House’s attention to the importance of Lord Hill’s listing review and the wider opportunities of the FinTech industry.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) praised the Budget’s focus on levelling up and the towns agenda, and we make no apology for the frequency with which we will talk about our commitment to levelling up. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) recognised the package of business support and the stimulus for jobs in his constituency that is offered by the super deduction.
Given the time, I will not run through the wide range of measures that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out or how, in addressing some of the issues raised by those on the Opposition Front Bench, he will boost productivity through schemes such as Help to Grow and Help to Grow: Digital, the plans to ensure that the UK is a scientific superpower, the £400 million annual uplift in science spending, the “future fund: breakthrough” scheme, the lifetime skills guarantee, the kickstart scheme, the restart scheme, the £3,000 for apprenticeships, the tripling of traineeships and the Government’s commitment to skills and investment.
Over the last year, this country has experienced a 10% fall in GDP—the largest fall in 300 years. In response, the Chancellor has presented a plan that will continue to protect jobs and livelihoods, that supports the British people and businesses through this moment of crisis, and that begins to fix the public finances and build our future economy. This is a Budget that, as the Chancellor rightly said, “meets the moment”; I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That income tax is charged for the tax year 2021-22.
And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.
The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Questions necessary to dispose of the motions made in the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Standing Order No. 51(3)).
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am now required under Standing Order No. 51(3) to put successively, without further debate, the Question on each of the Ways and Means motions numbered 2 to 80, on which the Bill is to be brought in. These motions are set out in a separate paper distributed with today’s Order Paper.
2. Income tax (main rates)
Resolved,
That for the tax year 2021-22 the main rates of income tax are as follows—
(a) the basic rate is 20%,
(b) the higher rate is 40%, and
(c) the additional rate is 45%.
And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.
3. Income tax (default and savings rates)
Resolved,
That—
(1) For the tax year 2021-22 the default rates of income tax are as follows—
(a) the default basic rate is 20%,
(b) the default higher rate is 40%, and
(c) the default additional rate is 45%.
(2) For the tax year 2021-22 the savings rates of income tax are as follows—
(a) the savings basic rate is 20%,
(b) the savings higher rate is 40%, and
(c) the savings additional rate is 45%.
And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.
4. Income tax (starting rate limit for savings)
Resolved,
That—
(1) For the tax year 2021-22, the amount specified in section 12(3) of the Income Tax Act 2007 (the starting rate limit for savings) is “£5,000”.
(2) Accordingly, section 21 of that Act (indexation) does not apply in relation to the starting rate limit for savings for that tax year.
And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.
5. Basic rate limit and personal allowance (future years)
Question put,
That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made taking effect in a future year for each of the following amounts to remain at the amount specified for the tax year 2021-22—
(a) the amount specified in section 10(5) of the Income Tax Act 2007 (basic rate limit), and
(b) the amount specified in section 35(1) of that Act (personal allowance).
Part of relevant consideration | Percentage |
|---|---|
So much as does not exceed £250,000 | 0% |
So much as exceeds £250,000 but does not exceed £925,000 | 5% |
So much as exceeds £925,000 but does not exceed £1,500,000 | 10% |
The remainder (if any) | 12%”. |
Part of relevant consideration | Percentage |
|---|---|
So much as does not exceed £250,000 | 3% |
So much as exceeds £250,000 but does not exceed £925,000 | 8% |
So much as exceeds £925,000 but does not exceed £1,500,000 | 13% |
The remainder (if any) | 15%”. |
Rate bands | Percentage |
|---|---|
£0 to £250,000 | 0% |
Over £250,000 | 1% |
“non-resident transaction | Schedule 9A, paragraph 2” |
(1) | (2) | (3) | (4) |
|---|---|---|---|
Exceeding | Not exceeding | Reduced rate | Standard rate |
g/km | g/km | £ | £ |
100 | 110 | 10 | 20 |
110 | 120 | 20 | 30 |
120 | 130 | 120 | 130 |
130 | 140 | 145 | 155 |
140 | 150 | 160 | 170 |
150 | 165 | 200 | 210 |
165 | 175 | 240 | 250 |
175 | 185 | 265 | 275 |
185 | 200 | 305 | 315 |
200 | 225 | 330 | 340 |
225 | 255 | 575 | 585 |
255 | — | 590 | 600”. |
(1) | (2) | (3) | (4) |
|---|---|---|---|
Exceeding | Not exceeding | Reduced rate | Standard rate |
g/km | g/km | £ | £ |
0 | 50 | 0 | 10 |
50 | 75 | 15 | 25 |
75 | 90 | 105 | 115 |
90 | 100 | 130 | 140 |
100 | 110 | 150 | 160 |
110 | 130 | 170 | 180 |
130 | 150 | 210 | 220 |
150 | 170 | 545 | 555 |
170 | 190 | 885 | 895 |
190 | 225 | 1335 | 1345 |
225 | 255 | 1900 | 1910 |
255 | — | 2235 | 2245” |
(1) | (2) | (3) |
|---|---|---|
Exceeding | Not exceeding | Rate |
g/km | g/km | £ |
0 | 50 | 25 |
50 | 75 | 115 |
75 | 90 | 140 |
90 | 100 | 160 |
100 | 110 | 180 |
110 | 130 | 220 |
130 | 150 | 555 |
150 | 170 | 895 |
170 | 190 | 1345 |
190 | 225 | 1910 |
225 | 255 | 2245 |
255 | — | 2245”. |
Part of gross gaming yield | Rate |
|---|---|
The first £2,548,500 | 15% |
The next £1,757,000 | 20% |
The next £3,077,000 | 30% |
The next £6,494,500 | 40% |
The remainder | 50%”. |
Business without Debate
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
The House has just agreed that amendments and new clauses may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table. In the present circumstances, Members are asked to send their amendments by email to the Public Bill Office—pbohoc@parliament.uk—to arrive before the rise of the House.
Delegated Legislation (Electoral Commission)
Motion made,
That the Motion in the name of Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg relating to the Electoral Commission shall be treated as if it related to an instrument subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Delegated Legislation Committees) in respect of which notice has been given that the instrument be approved.—(Mr Marcus Jones.)
Covid-19: Workplace Protection
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The last year has seen extraordinary changes in the way we live our lives, with enormous hardship, enormous heartache and enormous sacrifice for many. As has been demonstrated in this place, the way that many people work has changed. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, the House staff and Mr Speaker for everything they have done to ensure that Members can still do their jobs remotely and safely.
But not everyone has had that choice. For many, their jobs have not only continued as before, but the dangers and pressures associated with them have increased tenfold. Those working in health and social care are the most obvious example of that, with over 800 people sadly losing their lives so far after contracting covid, but many others have also had to face new pressures and dangers as a result of the pandemic. The Government have been too slow to recognise those challenges, so I want to use tonight’s debate to highlight those issues.
The matters that I intend to raise are a combination of issues drawn to my attention by individual constituents and by trade unions, and I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Not all the issues raised with me are new deficiencies in workplace protection. In fact, they all follow a familiar pattern that has been given an extra dimension by covid. What they add up to is a difficult environment for workers where legitimate concerns are not addressed or, worse, are met with detrimental treatment.
I will start with self-isolation. This time last year, the Opposition identified a real issue with any strategy to deal with the pandemic that involved requiring those who tested positive to self-isolate. For many, the financial consequences of not going into work are significant. Many people do not get company sick pay, and statutory sick pay is not enough for people to live on, but perhaps more relevant to the debate is the fact that many people are working in jobs where they do not even qualify for SSP. It was not until six months into the pandemic that the Government finally recognised that by introducing the self-isolation payment. However, seven out of eight people do not qualify for it. That remains a huge hole in our defences.
I would like to focus on some of the issues that people have experienced with their employers when they have had to self-isolate. They do not have any protection from their employer for detrimental treatment. That detriment could be refusal to pay sick pay if they are entitled to it, or it could even be dismissal. I have heard from constituents of cases where a period of self-isolation was used by an employer to trigger a sickness absence review or was used as part of a process that was already under way. I am sure we can all understand the genuine anxieties that people might have if they have to tell their employer that they need to self-isolate—even more so if it is for a second or third time—so why do they have no protection for doing the right thing?
The Government could, either through guidance or regulations, state clearly that a period of self-isolation should be classed as “other leave” that cannot be called unauthorised leave, sickness absence or annual leave and cannot be used as part of any disciplinary or capability process. What of those suffering with long covid? Will the Government add that to the list of conditions classed as a disability under the Equality Act 2010, or will they expect people to prove that they are protected by the Act every time they want to raise an issue?
In terms of those with long-term medical conditions, we know that people with diabetes are at increased risk. Many with diabetes have been able to shield, but what workplace protections will be in place to support people who are clinically extremely vulnerable when shielding ends on 31 March? Are the Government confident that workplace risk will have significantly reduced after that date? Diabetes UK’s research shows that 69% of people with diabetes working outside the home felt unsafe in their workplace. Covid-19 is not going to go away, and neither are those concerns.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
A half-hour debate is probably not enough for the issues that could be raised. I know that the hon. Member has been contacted on numerous occasions by people who feel that their health has not been properly protected since the outbreak of covid-19. Does he agree that the information provided by public health agencies was slow in surfacing and that lessons need to be learnt even at this stage about the guidance given to small and medium-sized businesses on workplace protection, which is very important?
Justin Madders
I am grateful for the hon. Member’s intervention; he makes an important point. In the early stages of the pandemic, it was difficult for everyone to know exactly what the right thing to do was, but there is no excuse for that now. We have a lot more detail on how covid operates, and we know that it will be with us for some considerable time.
I turn to fire and rehire. This is not a new development—it has been around for as long as people have had jobs—but that does not make it acceptable. In fact, it shows that our employment protections are as antiquated as they are inadequate. GMB and Unite in particular have been involved in a number of high-profile examples of fire and rehire, and there is no doubt that the pandemic has seen the number of examples of this increase dramatically. The current crisis has shone a light on the imbalance of power in the employment relationship and how many people feel totally exposed to the whims of their employer. Their powerlessness does not just manifest itself in people losing their jobs. The imbalance is endemic across many workplaces. Look at everyone on zero-hours contracts, in the gig economy or in agency work—they are literally at their company’s beck and call.
Insecurity is baked into the workplace. It is little wonder that so many people feel a sense of helplessness. When ruthless employers use the cover of the pandemic to push home their advantage, it is time for the Government to step in. That people have job security in this country is an illusion for many. Even for those who are in what we might consider stable employment, any pretence of job security has been cruelly exposed by fire and rehire, which, I am sorry to say, has become almost as widespread as the virus in the last 12 months. People who face a dismissal and re-engagement, to give it its proper legal terminology, are often concerned that they are in this situation at all. Yes, they might have been employed by the same company for many years. Yes, their terms and conditions have remained largely unchanged. They may even have had them collectively agreed by their trade union. The job itself has not changed. It still needs to be done. They perform well and the company is still making good profits, so why are they suddenly being asked to come in and do the job for 20% less pay?
The answer to that lies in the destructive combination of weak employment laws, an indifferent Government and an opportunistic employer who is seizing the moment to chip away at hard-won rights. What then follows is a consultation period that amounts to nothing more than a box-ticking exercise, followed by an impossible dilemma of losing your job altogether or coming back into work the following week on less money. It is a race to the bottom that coronavirus has accelerated. It is time that race was stopped.
Of course, plenty of employers have struggled this year. We know that. That is why the furlough scheme was created, but there are some employers out there who, despite taking advantage of furlough, have still pushed ahead with fire and rehire tactics because they saw an opportunity to make a few more quid for their shareholders. I personally do not think that employers should be taking taxpayers’ cash with one hand only to be giving out dismissal notices with the other. I would like to see the Government saying to those companies that they take the money on the basis that they will support and protect people in their existing jobs, not chip away at them.
The law on unfair dismissal and “some other substantial reason” needs to be fundamentally strengthened so that the onus is on the employer to show that any such changes were essential to secure the survival of the business. That would raise the threshold for employers seeking to justify dismissal from the current test of “sound or good reason”, which we know tribunals do not examine in detail. It adds insult to injury that those who choose not to succumb to the financial blackmail of fire and rehire do not even get a redundancy payment. The Government should be looking to enhance job protection. The furlough scheme is the start of a recognition by the state that it has a role to keep people in work and keep them secure. Let us not abandon that principle now. Let us build on it.
One of the main problems has been people being asked to go into work despite being able to work from home, which is, of course, contrary to the Government’s “stay at home” message that has been in place for much of the past year. Thanks to the marvels of technology, many more people have been able to work from home, but some employers seem to have a very old fashioned attitude that unless they can see the person in front of them, even if they are just sat in front of a computer screen, they cannot be sure that they are working.
Many people have been forced to go into work unnecessarily, including people with underlying health conditions. I even had a constituent who had to go into work when they were supposed to be shielding; what was particularly of note was that the individual had been shielding from home during the previous two lockdowns and had performed their duties from home without any problem. In the third lockdown, however, that was suddenly not acceptable. That is a pattern we have seen with a number of other employers. Their willingness to support those shielding seems to have dropped off a little bit this year. It is almost as if their patience has worn thin. That has also manifested itself in the number of complaints I have had about staff without any health issues who have also been asked to go back into work contrary to the work at home instruction.
Sadly, we have come across someone who was made redundant after complaining about being required to go to work when they could have easily carried out those duties at home. They did not have two years’ service, so they could not claim unfair dismissal. It was difficult to see how they could use other health and safety-related protections, given the difficulties with that law. It is to be welcomed that the Government have just published new regulations which will extend protection to those classed as workers when raising health and safety issues, but it is disappointing that that is not due to come into force until 31 May. People need that protection now; they needed it 12 months ago. It is good that it is being extended to workers, but there are still too many people who are not classed as workers, or, in the case of Uber drivers, who had to fight a five-year court battle just to get that recognition. The Government really need to clean up and strengthen the rules in this area so that everyone in work has basic protections and we do not have the unfair, uneven and exploitative lottery that it is at the moment.
We are also getting more complaints about businesses that are not adhering to covid-19 measures and, sadly, some constituents are too afraid to tell us where they work because they are fearful of reprisals. They have raised concerns about their employer not applying social distancing, not allowing people to stay at home when they display symptoms, asking staff to come in while waiting for test results and telling staff not to disclose close contacts when they test positive. These are all real examples, and they completely undermine the Government’s attempts to restrict transmission of the virus. People need better support, and they need greater reassurance that when they raise concerns they will be addressed and, critically, that there will be no reprisals for them as individuals.
I spent 15 years before I came here representing people who had been victims of workplace injustice, and very often the reason they had been on the receiving end of that treatment was that they had raised a legitimate concern with their employer. Sadly, it seems that things have got worse rather than better in the past few years. In the past year, those concerns have increased tenfold because the number of issues an employee might reasonably raise with their employer about the inadequate level of protection they get when they go into work has increased considerably.
This is not just about workplace protections now. It is in all our interests that people can go about their business and go to work safely. Those who are in a trade union are able to raise concerns collectively, and one such example is from the GMB. It has raised concerns about the guidance on working in other people’s homes, which has changed during this lockdown. The union believes this is creating greater risk. The guidance now mentions meter reading specifically as being a permitted reason for someone to enter a home. The concern is that those meter readers could become super-spreaders and that they are putting themselves and the householders at unnecessary risk just to get a meter reading, which could be done in a number of ways. Unlike a plumber or an electrician, who might enter a handful of properties each day, meter readers can enter hundreds of homes each day, putting themselves and the public at risk. That really needs looking at again.
I want to say a few words on retail. Those working in supermarkets and other essential retail have been working throughout the crisis and have at times faced incredible pressure. They have played a critical role in keeping the country going and I pay tribute to them, but unfortunately not everyone appreciates the work they do. The shop workers’ trade union, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, surveyed its members and found that 76% of them said that abuse had been worse than normal during the pandemic, that 57% had been threatened by a customer and that 9% had been assaulted. We should not be surprised that abuse has increased, given that enforcing social distancing and face coverings were reported in the survey as being two of the biggest triggers for abuse from customers, and these were not issues before the pandemic started.
This highlights a disconnect between what has been decided in this place—regarding face coverings, for example—and the reality on the ground as to how those rules, which were introduced for a very good reason, are enforced. The police cannot be everywhere, and after a cut of 20,000 officers in the last decade, handing them a plethora of new laws to enforce was never going to be realistic. This is placing those who work in retail and hospitality, to name but two, in a difficult and potentially dangerous position.
When we pass laws in this place about important safety measures to stop the spread of the virus, we also need to look at ourselves and ask whether we are setting the right example. I am sorry to say that there have been a few recent high-profile examples of Government bodies not taking the lead. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea has been in the headlines a lot recently due to the number of cases contracted in the workplace there. I understand that work was commissioned in June 2020 to look at home working at the DVLA, but that the recognised trade union, the Public and Commercial Services Union, has not been granted sight of that report and has instead been told to go through the freedom of information route to see it.
I appreciate that this does not involve the Minister’s Department, but as the Minister responsible for the workplace, can he please have a word with the Department for Transport and point out that discussions about safe workplaces are not a matter to be pursued through FOI requests? This should involve both parties sitting down and engaging in constructive dialogue. I understand that 300-plus desks have recently been removed by the DVLA to ensure that social distancing is possible, but if that is right, how can it also be right that staff had been working in those conditions since last August? Is this lack of distancing the reason that there have been more than 550 positive cases at the DVLA since September last year? The Government and their agencies should be setting an example to other employers on how to operate safely and responsibly.
On that note, perhaps the Minister could also speak to his colleagues in the Department for Justice about the fact that court staff in London and Liverpool have balloted for industrial action because their union, PCS, says that its safety concerns have not been taken seriously, with not even a risk assessment process having been agreed between the employer and union. We really need to be doing better than this.
It is not an understatement to say that workplace health and safety, far from being a regulatory burden, is now a fundamental part of our return to normality and, indeed, key to wider economic success. That means that we need stronger regulatory interventions, and in this regard the decision to recognise covid as a “significant” rather than a “serious” workplace issue limits the options open to inspectors. I hope that that is something the Minister can look at again. A safe workforce is a productive workforce. It is good for employers and the economy. If this pandemic has taught us anything about the workplace, it is that it is too often characterised by insecurity, imbalance and indifference to basic protections. It is time we changed that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) on securing a debate on this important topic. I echo his thanks to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker and the staff of the House, who have allowed us to continue our business to the best of our abilities. I add my condolences to all the friends and families of the people who have lost their lives and suffered throughout this pandemic.
There is no doubt that the pandemic is one of the greatest challenges that the UK has faced, and as Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets, I see daily the difficult choices that individuals and businesses have had to make as we manage the threat to public health. One of my priorities has been to support businesses in making their workplaces covid-secure to ensure that they are able to operate as safely as possible, to keep our economy going and to protect workers and customers.
Before I speak in greater depth about the practical steps we have taken, I would like to pay tribute to the businesses we have worked with to make workplace protection a reality. As we have heard, a number of businesses have remained open for the duration of the pandemic, providing us with the essential goods and infrastructure that we need in the short and longer term. I am hugely grateful to them and their incredible staff. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right when he says that safe workplaces and safe staff make a productive workforce. Those businesses have made significant efforts over the past year.
I recognise that many sectors have not been permitted to operate as usual, including, as we have heard, hospitality, personal care, tourism and the performing arts. I commend their perseverance and adaptability in transforming into covid-secure businesses at such speed. Not all those sectors fall under my Department, but I am acutely aware that they continue to face significant pressure, and some businesses have been unable to reopen at all. The road map provides a route out of the current lockdown in England, but I recognise the tremendous difficulties that businesses have been experiencing and continue to endure in the face of the pandemic. We will continue to do all we can to support the British people and businesses through this moment of crisis.
As announced last week in the Budget, and as we heard earlier today, the Budget continues to provide unprecedented levels of support for the economy, protecting jobs and livelihoods across the whole of the UK. The Chancellor announced an additional £65 billion of further measures to support the economy in 2021-22. That will take the total support for the economy to £407 billion—the largest peacetime support package on record.
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement of the nationwide lockdown measures almost a year ago, the Government have worked tirelessly to develop clear guidance on how to work safely across a range of workplace settings. We consulted numerous businesses, industry leaders, trade unions and local and central Government organisations to develop the covid-secure guidance. We did that in close collaboration with Public Health England and the Health and Safety Executive to reflect the latest expert advice at each stage of the Government’s response to the pandemic. The guidance gives practical considerations for how to adapt a workplace to make it covid-secure, including simple but vital measures such as completing a workplace risk assessment that factors in covid-19, cleaning more often—both hands and surfaces—maintaining social distancing and putting in place mitigations where social distancing is not possible.
The guidance also raises other practical considerations, such as considering ventilation in line with HSE guidance—something that will continue to be very important—adapting a workplace layout to facilitate social distancing, and reducing the need for face-to-face meetings, including working from home where possible. It also reminds businesses of the need to support NHS Test and Trace, and to comply with face covering and self-isolation rules and others.
Justin Madders
The Minister is talking about risk assessments. Will he look at the concern that I have raised about court staff, and the Ministry of Justice and the Courts and Tribunals Service not agreeing on the process for a risk assessment in their working environment?
Paul Scully
I noted the examples that the hon. Gentleman gave of the DVLA and the court system, and I will certainly reflect on those and take them back.
The key thing is that the guidance also reminds employers of their duty to consider those with protected characteristics, as the hon. Gentleman says—those shielding or those with other vulnerabilities—and take particular care to factor their needs into workplace risk assessments. Every organisation is different and employers must translate the guidance into specific actions to take, depending on the nature of their organisation, such as its size and type and how it is organised, operated and managed. The duty is on employers to ensure that the risk assessment for their business addresses the risk of covid-19 to anyone affected by the business. The Health and Safety Executive, local authorities and health and safety representatives within businesses—and, of course, trade unions—ensure that support is available to help businesses to implement the right control measures. So we urge businesses to continue to keep their risk assessments up to date and maintain dialogue with their workers over the measures put in place for their safety. As we have heard, it is not always the case, but we must make sure that we press that home to all businesses.
The guidance does remain robust in the light of the new virus strains, although that is continuously reviewed as new data emerges. To continue to protect the most vulnerable in our society, businesses should continue to follow the guidance, even if employees have received a negative test result or have been vaccinated.
Following the publication of the road map, at this key point in the UK’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Government have taken the opportunity to build on the collective input and insights shared by businesses, unions and representative organisations. Almost a year from its initial publication, the message we hear most frequently is that continuity is key for businesses, and that the guidance is embedded and well understood. That does not mean that there is nothing left to learn about how well the guidance has been working in practice, and we have consulted widely to consider any improvements that we can make ahead of the reopening. The Government will provide further advice on how businesses can improve fresh air flow in indoor workplaces and introduce regular testing, as set out in the road map. User feedback is good and levels of compliance are high, but we must not be complacent. The covid-secure guidelines are underpinned by the health and safety legislation as regards the need to conduct a risk assessment, as well as certain requirements set out in new regulations brought forward by the House under the public health legislative framework. Enforcing authorities have been given the powers they need to enforce covid rules where necessary, for the purposes of controlling the spread of infection. Those powers are robust and proportionate, ranging from issuing fixed penalty notices to closing down a business in extremis. We continue to work closely with businesses and across Government to ensure that we maintain these high levels of compliance. If someone has a concern about the measures in a workplace, they should consult their health and safety representatives in the first instance.
Justin Madders
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. In terms of the enforcement powers that are at the disposal of inspectors, is the Minister able to say how many improvement notices or fixed penalty notices have been issued?
Paul Scully
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the answer at the moment, but I will find that out for him.
We have given more resource to the Health and Safety Executive to ensure that it can do its job to the best of its ability. We do look to people to come forward with evidence, and that includes not just employees but trade unions and other representatives as well. We make sure that we encourage all businesses, especially if they are considering reopening after a period of closure, to take the time to review and refresh their risk assessments in line with the latest advice.
Although there is much cause for hope and optimism with the vaccine roll-out, we must be mindful not to prematurely relax the social distancing and other safety measures that have been put in place to protect workers and the most vulnerable in society. As set out in the road map, covid-secure guidance will remain applicable throughout steps 1 to 3. At step 4, subject to review, we hope to relax legal limits on social contact and open the remaining closed settings, including clubs and large events, and including weddings. But the Government have been clear that some safety measures must still be required from summer onwards.
To cover a couple of areas that we have talked about, I have been working with the retail sector, including USDAW, to help as regards the violence shown to retail staff, who have done amazing work during the pandemic.
Fire and rehire, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, has been raised a number of times in this place. It is important that, yes, we retain our flexible employment practice, but it should not be used as a bullyboy tactic by large companies against their workers. He said correctly that any reasonable, sensible and forward-thinking employer would understand that treating their employees well gets the best out of them, makes it a productive business, and, ultimately, gets the best for the shareholder in the long term. We have charged ACAS with looking at the evidence to see how systematically the practice is being used. It has reported back, and I will be examining what it says.
On self-isolation, we have put in £110 million of funding for the test and trace support payment. A further £20 million per month will go to local authorities from March 2021. That will ensure that local authorities can continue to make payments and support people on low incomes to stay at home and self-isolate when required.
On zero-hour contracts, we must get the balance right to make sure that people who work on such contracts enjoy the flexibility of such work—the vast majority of students and young parents involved in such contracts do appreciate that flexibility. We have banned exclusive contracts, and we want to make sure that, in having that flexibility, people are not being exploited. I look forward to the Employment Bill coming forward so that we can look further at a number of issues around the gig economy, including making sure that our flexible working is a fair way of working. I can confirm that we will continue to work with all sectors of the economy as we forge a successful, long-term recovery from this pandemic. I remain grateful to businesses for everything that they currently do, and will do in the future, to help us to build back better.
Question put and agreed to.
Members Eligible for a Proxy Vote
Member eligible for proxy vote | Nominated proxy |
|---|---|
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Imran Ahmad Khan (Wakefield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con) | Chris Loder |
Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
James Brokenshire (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudon) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Sir Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP) | Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson |
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
James Daly (Bury North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mims Davies (Mid Sussex) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con) | Ben Everitt |
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP) | Patrick Grady |
Mark Eastwood (Dewsbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind) | Stuart Andrew |
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind) | Stuart Andrew |
Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP) | Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson |
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kate Griffiths (Burton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Grundy (Leigh) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP) | Ben Lake |
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
James Heappey (Wells) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Darren Henry (Broxtowe) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Howell (Henley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con) | Mr William Wragg |
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Levy (Blyth Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP) | Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson |
Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) | Patrick Grady |
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Wendy Morton (Aldridge- Brownhills) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con) | Chris Loder |
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (Con) | Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson |
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con) | Antony Higginbotham |
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP) | Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson |
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC) | Ben Lake |
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Grant Shapps (Welwyn Hatfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Sir Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con) | Mr William Wragg |
Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con) | Chris Loder |
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
David Warburton (Somerset and Frome) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
John Whittingdale (Malden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC) | Ben Lake |
Gavin Williamson (Montgomeryshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) | Wendy Chamberlain |
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP) | Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson |
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP) | Patrick Grady |
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Draft Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we begin, I remind Members about the social distancing regulations. Spaces available to Members are already clearly marked, and unmarked spaces must not be occupied. I see Members have taken their appropriate seats, but the usual convention of a Government side and an Opposition side is waived on this occasion, so Members may sit anywhere. Hansard colleagues would be very grateful if Members sent any speaking notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk.
The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order 2021.
The draft order, which was laid before the House on 3 February 2021, relates to the renewables obligation and the renewable electricity support scheme. The renewables obligation was introduced in 2002 to provide subsidy for electricity generation from renewable sources. It covers onshore and offshore wind, solar, hydro, biomass and so on. The scheme is closed to new applications, though support for existing stations continues. The scheme will finally close in 2037.
The scheme was part of a programme of measures aimed at stimulating the renewables industry to enable ambitious climate change targets to be met. Without subsidy, the nascent renewables sector would have struggled to make headway in a market dominated by the established heavyweights of coal, gas and nuclear. The renewables obligation had an initial target of 10% renewable electricity by 2010, but today about 30% of electricity supplied in the UK is supported under the scheme. Of course, the scheme needs to be paid for, and that falls on electricity suppliers, who currently provide almost £6.5 billion of subsidy a year to renewable generators. Those costs are passed on to customers via their bills, adding about £70 a year to the average domestic electricity bill. Costs will fall from 2027 as generators start reaching the end of their period of support and exit the scheme.
The draft statutory instrument deals with a technical matter that relates to supplier payment default. More specifically, it aims to prevent electricity suppliers from being unduly exposed to the unpaid bills of competitors who fail to meet their obligations. The renewables obligation comprises three separate but interlinked schemes: the renewables obligation, covering England and Wales; the renewables obligation Scotland; and the Northern Ireland renewables obligation. The Scottish and Northern Irish Governments are responsible for their own schemes; the UK Government cover the England and Wales scheme. The matter under debate relates to the England and Wales scheme only.
The renewables obligation is a traded scheme that places an obligation on electricity suppliers to obtain a number of green renewables obligation certificates in proportion to the amount of electricity they supply to their customers. Certificates are issued to renewable generators for free by Ofgem in relation to the amount of renewable electricity they generate. Suppliers typically buy those certificates, providing generators with an income stream over and above electricity sales revenues. Certificates are usually in short supply, so suppliers may make a cash payment, called a buy-out payment, in lieu of each certificate. The buy-out price is about £50 per certificate for the current renewables obligation year, and about 10% of the scheme is met in that way. At the end of the scheme year, the cash fund is recycled back to those suppliers who met their obligations with certificates, which gives certificates additional value over and above the buy-out price.
In recent years, an increasing number of suppliers have defaulted on their obligation under the scheme. Payment default leaves a shortfall in the cash fund, meaning recycle payments are lower than they would otherwise have been. That lowers the value of certificates, which ultimately impacts generators’ returns. The scheme therefore features a mutualisation mechanism that offers protection against payment default. Under the mechanism, shortfalls in the cash fund are recovered from all other suppliers and recycled back to those suppliers who met their obligation with certificates. The mechanism is triggered when the shortfall exceeds a £15.4 million threshold.
Mutualisation has been triggered in each of the past three years. In total, £173 million has been mutualised across suppliers in England and Wales. Electricity suppliers and their customers are understandably unhappy about the situation, so in December 2020 the Government consulted on a proposal to amend the mutualisation threshold so that it would be less easily triggered. It was proposed that the £15.4 million threshold should be replaced with a new threshold calculated annually as 1% of the cost of the scheme, which is broadly equivalent to the arrangements that were in place when mutualisation was first introduced into the scheme in 2005. Since then, the threshold has been gradually eroded in relative terms and is now equivalent to just 0.25% of scheme costs. Mutualisation can therefore now be more easily triggered. In other words, the risk associated with supplier payment default has become increasingly tilted away from generators and towards other suppliers.
Our proposal and the draft statutory instrument seek to redress the balance of risk. In the first year, the threshold will rise to about £62 million. That will ensure that suppliers and their customers are not unduly exposed to the unmet renewables obligation bills of other suppliers. Generators will face an increased risk that unmet obligations will remain uncovered. That will have a small impact on the value of certificates, but the new level of risk is broadly equivalent to what it was in 2005. In that respect the SI can be considered to be restorative.
The draft instrument makes minor technical changes to the Renewables Obligation Order 2015 so that a fixed £15.4 million threshold is replaced with a threshold that is calculated on an annual basis. The new threshold is determined as 1% of the forecast scheme cost for the year ahead. It also places a new requirement on the scheme’s administrator, Ofgem, to calculate and publish the threshold ahead of each obligation year.
The emergence of payment default and cost mutualisation under the renewables obligation has become of increasing concern to electricity suppliers. Through no fault of their own, those suppliers have become increasingly exposed to the unmet obligations of their competitors, whereas renewable generators have seen their returns increasingly protected.
The draft instrument will restore the original balance of risk between generators and suppliers. It will make it harder for mutualisation to be triggered, so suppliers will be less likely to be exposed to the unmet obligations of other suppliers. That is good news for consumers; they should benefit because the likelihood of mutualisation costs being passed on to them will be lower.
The legislative changes need to be effective on 1 April to enable them to take effect in respect of the next renewables obligation year, which runs from April 2021 to March 2022. Consequently, and subject to the will of Parliament, the draft instrument will enter into force on 31 March 2021. I commend the order to the Committee.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
The SI is, frankly, three years too late. It could be described as more of a disaster relief fund arrangement than anything else because there is a significant alternative history behind the measure in terms of the changes to mutualisation and the ROCs market.
The explanatory notes that were kindly sent out with the SI state:
“The mutualisation threshold has failed to keep pace with the growth in the scheme. When the threshold was introduced in 2005, it was equivalent to about 1% of the cost of the scheme.”
The Minister mentioned that when the scheme was first introduced in 2005 it was equivalent to 1% of the cost of the scheme, but that now it is equivalent to about 0.25%. All that is true, but those figures conceal an alarming story.
When the threshold was first introduced, it was never considered that it would be breached; it was regarded as a very, very long backstop for RO payments and repayments. The Minister has set out how the RO works, and how it distributes fund back to suppliers after putting money in the fund in the first place. Until about 2015, the issue of shortfalls was pretty much an academic issue and the mutualisation levels had not been breached. There were occasions on which generators received a slight shortfall on what they might have received, but that was nothing serious in terms of what they expected to receive as their reward for creating renewables obligation certificates in the first place which were then presented by a supplier for a scheme to proceed. I am not sure that we need to debate the complications of the renewables obligation scheme, but it is quite complicated in terms of how it works.
The point we ought to focus on is the period 2015 to 2016, when new licence arrangements were put in place by Government for entrants to the electricity supply markets. Those arrangements have been described thus:
“Energy suppliers could get a licence with little or no capital and no relevant industry experience.”
Licences were literally given away to people who turned up and said that they would like to set up an electricity supply company. That meant an explosion of supplier companies. Indeed, by the end of 2017, there were 73 supplier companies in the market—an increase from just 32 in December 2015. In the course of two years, the number of supplier companies in the market doubled. It was fairly inevitable that because of the lax licensing procedure arrangements, a number of those companies then proceeded to go bust—22 companies have gone bust in the last three years or so. Just this year, two further companies covering some 400,000 customers have gone bust. A total of 1.8 million customers have switched their accounts, not because they wanted to but because they had to. The supplier of last resort—another interestingly complicated device—has come in and customers have been transferred to companies that have not gone bust.
Over the past three years, supplier companies that have done their job properly, have ensured their customers are properly protected and, most importantly, paid their renewables obligation requirements have, quite naturally and not surprisingly, increasingly voiced their concerns. They have observed that companies were coming into the market, undercutting those companies that had acted responsibly, and hoovering up customers but then were unable to sustain the momentum of those efforts and were going bust. The people who paid the money were those energy supply companies that actually did their job properly. That was an extremely unjust outcome and one should have great sympathy for those suppliers that found themselves in that situation having done their job properly. For that reason I am in complete agreement with the thrust of the motion, but the problem has not just arisen. In the last three years, there has been an exceptional new development; not only has the mutualisation threshold of £15.4 million, which the Minister mentioned, been breached but it has been breached at an astonishing level. There was a short- fall of £53.4 million in 2018; £88 million in 2019; and £31.4 million in 2020. Those sums are way over the theoretical and academic mutualisation threshold originally set in 2005.
Of course, something has to be done about it. The measure will ensure that the mutualisation threshold increases substantially, as the Minister has mentioned. That does mean that generators will bear some of the results of any shortfall and suppliers to a much lesser extent. The level of mutualisation means that, probably, it will not be breached in the near future but, as we can see from the figures, even that new level was breached in two of the past three years.
I hope the Minister will acknowledge that what I have recounted is not just an alternative history, but, substantially, the history behind this particular SI. It is a measure to retrieve the disastrous situation that the Government have got themselves into by allowing the market to go in a wild west way, underpinned by the changes to the licensing arrangements in 2015 to 2016.
The Opposition will certainly not oppose this measure today, because it is the right thing to do given the situation we now find ourselves in, but I would like the Minister to reflect for a moment on the history of how we got here and to indicate to the Committee whether she has confidence that the new thresholds in place will take us back to that semi-academic position of theoretical mutualisation arrangements—mutualisation arrangements that would not be breached. I must say, however, that the signals that came out at the beginning of this year were not good: 400,000 further customers forcibly switching and confidence going down.
As we all know, last year Ofgem introduced tougher entry tests for energy suppliers, and I would be grateful were the Minister to reflect briefly on whether she thinks those new tougher tests will substantially ameliorate the problem that we saw between 2018 and 2020. If those tougher tests do not work and we have continuing large-scale failure of companies, as we have seen in the past three years, this measure will simply not work.
I hope that the Minister will give us a brief thought on what confidence she has that the measure will work and that the number of failures we have seen in recent years will be reduced. Will the market return to some semblance of balance in the relationship between what generators have to bear—insofar as far as shortfalls in ROs are concerned—and what suppliers have to bear in mutualisation?
For the past three years, in effect, every September a stern note has been put out by Ofgem to say, “The following companies are on notice because they have not paid their ROs by now.” Indeed, we got to the point where, regularly, that was the canary in the coalmine, when energy companies started to signal, “We’re in trouble.” Some got out of that by paying their ROs and coming to arrangements with Ofgem, but for others—regrettably in very large numbers of cases—that notice was followed shortly by the company going bust and abdicating its responsibility for the RO payments.
That has been happening for three years now. I would have thought that the Government might have spotted that and taken action to deal with the issue rather earlier. I therefore welcome the change—although it is really two years too late and a lot of damage has been done in the process—but it is incumbent on the Minister to assure us that she thinks that the measures in the draft order will really work and will put us into a new era for RO payments, restoring that balance between the concerns of the suppliers, customers and generators, which has been given as the purpose of this SI. We want to get back to a stable environment in which all such concerns are properly met.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I thank the hon. Member for Southampton, Test for his valued contribution and for his depth of knowledge—this is an opportunity to put that on the record. It is always a pleasure to discuss such issues, albeit across the Floor, because he has an extraordinary depth of understanding and a commitment to the consumer and to those who are generating our electricity.
I welcome the support of Members, who recognise that the draft SI will ensure that electricity suppliers and, by association, their customers will no longer be unduly exposed to the onerous obligations of other suppliers. I hope that my responses have provided the necessary assurances for the Committee to approve this statutory instrument.
In reply to the hon. Gentleman, I am confident that the new Ofgem tests will rebalance and therefore reduce the risk of supplier failure. The SI, alongside those changes, will therefore strike the right balance between the needs of renewable generators on the one hand and of electricity suppliers and their customers on the other. I commend the draft order to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Public Health (Coronavirus) (Protection from Eviction) (England) (No. 2) Regulations 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
I beg to move,
That this Committee has considered the Public Health (Coronavirus) (Protection from Eviction) (England) (No. 2) Regulations 2021 (S.I. 2021, No. 164).
The statutory instrument before us extends the existing prohibition on enforcement agents—bailiffs—from attending residential premises in England to execute a writ or warrant of possession, except in the most serious circumstances. It applies to enforcement action in England and will be in force until the end of March 2021. The House has debated this restriction on two previous occasions, so I will take the matter in short.
This statutory instrument is a public health rather than an economic measure. It extends the restrictions on enforcement agents carrying out evictions that have been in place since 17 November until 31 March. It prevents enforcement agents from giving tenants notices of eviction or from attending residential premises to enforce a writ or warrant of possession, except in the most serious circumstances. That ensures we continue to protect public health during the national lockdown, at a time when the risk of virus transmission is high, and to avoid placing additional burden on the NHS and local authorities.
We have continued to provide for limited exemptions from the ban in cases where the Government feel that the competing public interests in ensuring access to justice, preventing harm to third parties, taking action against egregious behaviour and upholding the integrity of the rental market sufficiently outweigh the public health risks.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I do not oppose the regulations, but I am interested in what will happen after 31 March. Will the Minister indicate whether there will be fresh regulations to renew the constraints, or will 31 March be the end date, after which people will be able to recover their properties under normal common law?
Alex Chalk
May I say that the Government are acutely aware of the point that my hon. Friend properly makes? There is a balance to strike here, not least to consider article 1 of the first protocol to the European convention on human rights—in other words, the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions. As to when the decision will be made, it will be made shortly.
Let me return to the exemptions. They are as follows: first, where the claim is against trespassers who are persons unknown; and, secondly, where the order for possession was made wholly or partly on the grounds of antisocial behaviour or nuisance, false statements, domestic abuse in social tenancies, or substantial rent arrears equivalent to six months’ rent, or where the order for possession was made wholly or partly on the grounds of the death of a tenant and the enforcement agent attending the property is satisfied that the property is unoccupied.
I pause there to make the point—picking up on the representations made a few moments ago—that those cases where the arrears are particularly egregious are capable of leading to an eviction order. It is important to recognise that.
Sir Christopher Chope
The Minister mentioned the arrears being for more than six months but £1,500 a month in rent in arrears for five months is still £7,500. Is that not a big sum?
Alex Chalk
It certainly is a big sum. My hon. Friend, with laser-like focus, highlights the very balance that has to be struck. That is the issue and concern here: at the time of a pandemic, what is the correct balance to strike between the interests of tenants and of landlords? The Government are acutely conscious of the need to strike that delicate balance, and will continue to give active consideration to where it lies.
The statutory instrument contains a requirement for the court to be satisfied that the exemption applies on a case-by-case basis. That will ensure a clear, uniform and transparent process for establishing whether an exemption to the ban applies. In cases in which a court has decided that an exemption to the ban applies, bailiffs need to give tenants at least 14 days’ notice of an eviction and have been asked not to enforce evictions where a tenant is self-isolating.
The instrument permits writs and warrants of restitution to be enforced. Those orders are issued in cases in which a person who has been evicted from premises re-enters those premises illegally. Therefore, it is appropriate that they are excluded from the ban.
These regulations will be in place until 31 March. We continue to keep the need for this measure under review, as I have indicated already, and will make an announcement shortly. In addition to the regulations, the Government have introduced a requirement in the Coronavirus Act 2020 to require landlords, in all but the most serious circumstances, to provide tenants with six months’ notice before beginning formal possession proceedings in the courts. That is an important protection for tenants, because we know that most tenants leave before the end of the landlord’s notice period. That protection will stay in place until at least the end of March 2021 and means that most renters now served notice by the landlord that they want them to leave the property can stay in their homes until September and have time to find alternative support or accommodation. The Government are also considering whether it is necessary to extend that measure.
As I have alluded to, the Government are continuing to take action to prevent people from getting into financial hardship by helping businesses to pay salaries—the most important measure to ensure that people can pay their rent—through the furlough scheme, which has been extended to the end of September, as the Committee is well aware. In addition, the self-employment income support scheme allows eligible individuals to claim a taxable grant worth up to 80% of their average monthly trading profits. That scheme will also remain in place until September.
We have also boosted the welfare safety net by billions of pounds. In the Budget, we announced that the universal credit top-up of £20 a week will continue for a further six months and that we will provide a one-off payment of £500 to eligible working tax credit claimants. We have, in addition, provided an extra £1 billion to increase local housing allowance rates so that they cover the lowest 30% of market rents. In 2021-22, local housing allowance rates will be maintained at their increased level, meaning that claimants renting in the private rented sector will continue to benefit from the significant increase in the rates applied in April 2020.
The Government have also made available for local authorities £180 million for discretionary housing payments to help renters with their housing costs. From 2021-22, the Government will make available an additional £140 million in DHP funding, which takes account of the increased LHA rates.
In addition, temporary court arrangements and rules remain in place to ensure appropriate support for all parties until the end of July. That includes the introduction of a new review stage at least 28 days before the substantive hearing, so that tenants can access legal advice; a requirement for any cases that were started prior to August 2020 to be reactivated by the landlords until 30 April; and a requirement for landlords to provide the courts and judges with information on how tenants have been affected by the pandemic.
In addition, the Government are piloting a new mediation service, as part of the possession action process, to support landlords and tenants to resolve disputes before a formal court hearing takes place. The new service is free for tenants and landlords that agree to use it. The aim is to help more tenants at an early stage of the formal possession process in order to help sustain tenancies where possible, thus reducing the risk of tenants becoming homeless. That pilot will run until August 2021.
The Government continue to think that it is proportionate to provide for an exemption in cases in which a landlord has brought a claim on the ground of rent arrears and where a full six months’ rent is owed. It is important to balance the impact of the ongoing restrictions on landlords, many of whom rely on rental income, with the need to continue to protect tenants. Given the significant level of financial support that has been available to renters through furlough, welfare and the other measures that I have referred to, it is unlikely—indeed, this is borne out by the statistics—that a full six months of arrears would have been accumulated solely due to covid-19.
Let me conclude by referring to some points that the right hon. Member for Tottenham made on the previous occasion we considered the matter. He talked about the level of financial support available to tenants to help them to pay their rent. As I have set out, the Budget has extended much of the support—I hope he will welcome this—that has been made available to help tenants to pay their rent. That includes extension of the furlough scheme, widening of access to grants in order to make a further 600,000 self-employed people eligible for help, and continuation of the universal credit top-up of £20 a week for a further six months.
The instrument provides tenants with protection from eviction up to 31 March, ensuring that vulnerable tenants are not forced from their homes during the current national lockdown restrictions. It is intended to protect public health during the national lockdown, at a time when the virus transmission is high, and to avoid placing additional burdens on the NHS and local authorities. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
It is self-evident that a ban on evictions should stop evictions, but that is not what the Government’s so-called ban is achieving. Eviction attempts by landlords doubled during the winter coronavirus lockdown and more than 500 households were forced out by county court bailiffs. However, the problem is even bigger than that. In 2020, between the start of April and the end of November, 207,543 households approached their council for help with homelessness. A combination of illegal evictions, tenants being put under pressure to leave before eviction, and lodgers never having had protection, has meant that hundreds of thousands have faced the indignity and threat of homelessness.
We all remember the words of the Housing Secretary last March, that
“no one should lose their home as a result of the coronavirus epidemic”.
How do the Government square their promises with the misery that they delivered? In the middle of the lockdown they created loopholes in the eviction ban that meant that hundreds of evictions continued to go ahead. No wonder the London Renters Union branded it a fake eviction ban. The Government promised to put their arms around the British people; but instead they pushed them out into the cold in the depths of the winter lockdown. Everyone deserves security in their home, but throughout the covid crisis the Government consistently made last-minute decisions that put renters at risk. Why does the Minister think it is right to allow arrears that have built up since the start of the pandemic to lead to evictions?
The Government should give people security in their homes by strengthening the ban so that it means what it should. Why does the Minister think it is right to extend the ban only to 31 March when we know that restrictions on our liberty, lives and work will go on much longer? It is becoming a farce that every couple of weeks we end up here debating yet another extension to the evictions ban. In a few weeks we will inevitably be back here again, debating the same problems, without any solutions.
Labour has the solution for renters and homeowners. I shall repeat what I said the last time and perhaps the Minister will listen. We need to strengthen and extend the ban on evictions and repossessions until restrictions are over, extend the mortgage holiday, raise the local housing allowance to cover median market rents, reform housing law to end automatic evictions through the courts, reduce the waiting period to receive support for mortgage interest payments, retain the £20 uplift to universal credit beyond six months, end the five-week wait and suspend the benefits cap.
People face the threat of losing their homes, and the biggest intervention that the Government will make is to extend the stamp duty holiday to help the owners of second homes, and buy-to-let landlords. Get your priorities straight. Stand up for those who need help. Do not turn this health crisis into a homelessness crisis as well.
Sir Christopher Chope
It is a pleasure to contribute to this short debate. If I had been selected as a member of the Committee it would have been quorate at the outset, instead of having to rely on Whips. It is desirable that on an issue as controversial as this one, which affects so many small businesses, ordinary Back Benchers should be able to articulate, on behalf of their constituents—
The Chair
Order. Sir Christopher, you will know, as a senior Member of this House, that when addressing the Chair in a debate we are talking about the matters before us. It is not a matter for this Committee to consider what the Whips may or may not be doing, and who is attending the Committee. You are here. You are free to speak, but can we please stick to the matter before us.
Sir Christopher Chope
Absolutely, Mr Pritchard. I shall stick to the matters in front of us. All I am pointing out is that I am the only Government Back Bencher present in the Committee and I therefore feel a heavy onus and responsibility on my shoulders. How that came about is of no interest to anyone on the Committee, I know.
I must say that the Opposition spokesman has really made me feel that I am sat on the right side of this Committee. His approach seems to be very much anti-landlord, “property is theft” and old-fashioned hard Labour. However, my approach is that we need to have a balance—and I think that my hon. Friend the Minister accepts this—between the needs of tenants in this crisis and the needs of small-scale landlords in particular, many of whom do not have any income other than from letting one or two properties.
Most private tenants are responsible and take the view that their first obligation is to pay their rent, and we must not damn all tenants by suggesting that they are irresponsible. The vast majority of tenants are being very responsible and, although they may be facing financial hardship, they recognise that paying their rent to their landlord is an essential part of what they do.
However, I am concerned about that small minority of tenants who are taking advantage of the indulgence of the Government and are making life a nightmare for their landlords. I have attended this afternoon because I have received a number of representations from constituents who are on their uppers, absolutely tearing their hair out, because of their frustration at not being able to recover possession of a premises. In some cases, the premises have probably been abandoned, but it is impossible to prove that under the present circumstances—no rent is being paid, there is a threat of squatters moving in, and there is sometimes active vandalism of the property.
I am concerned that my hon. Friend the Minister says he is still weighing up the options as to what will happen after 31 March, because here we are today, on 9 March, and this House rises in just over two weeks for the recess. There seems to be no urgency to bring regulations forward, which then justifies no advance notices and no consideration by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. I would have expected that, if the Government were going to bring forward regulations extending this protection from eviction beyond 31 March, they would have done so now, so that there would be a proper opportunity to debate those regulations before the Easter recess.
Am I right to interpret the fact that those regulations have not been laid as meaning that the Government have decided—and I would certainly support this—that the moment has now passed when this protection against eviction, in these stark terms, is needed, and that the time is now right to rebalance the interests? Unfortunately, in answering my own question, my hon. Friend the Minister said “No, this is still under consideration; it is still being balanced,” but when is it going to reach a conclusion?
I am not expecting to get an answer, but I think this is symptomatic of the hand-to-mouth existence that we seem to be living in this Parliament, in terms of legislating, without taking into account the burden that we are placing upon people who we are regulating. Those landlords—and, for that matter, the tenants—wish to know where they stand with this.
My plea to the Government is to ensure that these regulations are not renewed beyond 31 March, but, if they are renewed, to issue the draft regulations now, give a proper opportunity for people to discuss those and to debate their merits, ensure that they can be debated in this House before they come into effect—which would be a novel innovation—and I would also suggest that they have a proper regulatory impact assessment attached to them.
These regulations, like so many others, do not have an impact assessment because it is said that it is not necessary to have one, but the Minister himself has said that a careful balancing act must to be conducted, taking into account competing interests. Therefore, we owe it to Parliament and to the process of scrutiny to be able to see the Government’s workings. If the Government are going to proceed and extend the regulations beyond 31 March, I hope we have a proper impact assessment, early production of those regulations and a full opportunity to debate them before the Easter recess.
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making those powerful representations, and speaking up for those individuals for whom their rental income is often their only source of income. We in this House must avoid falling into the trap of assuming that those in that situation are somehow vastly wealthy and have numerous other sources of income to draw on. I have constituents, as my hon. Friend evidently does as well, for whom nothing could be further than the truth.
I gently push back on the suggestion of legislation being hand to mouth. It is not that; it is about being agile and responsive to the fact that this is a fluid situation. Notwithstanding the remarkable roll-out of the vaccine and the positive direction of travel in respect of covid infection numbers, the Government properly have to consider matters day by day. Striking that balance, to which my hon. Friend properly referred, must take account of that prevailing epidemiological context.
On the comments made by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), respectfully I think he offered an unfair mischaracterisation of the Government’s position. He took no proper account of the fact that in normal circumstances, if someone was two months late with their rent that would trigger eviction proceedings. Under these proposals the trigger is six months—three times more—and again, it is about striking that proper balance.
My bigger concern was the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that the exemptions listed in this statutory instrument are loopholes—his word. That prompts the question, which of the “loopholes” would he close? The first exemption only exists where the claim is against trespassers, who are persons unknown. Is he saying that no eviction proceedings should be taken in those circumstances?
The second exemption applies where the order for the possession is made wholly or partly on the basis of antisocial behaviour or nuisance. Again, should the landlord not be able to evict then, or if false statements have been made or if there is domestic abuse in social tenancies? Where someone is battering the other person in that flat, is it really being suggested by the Labour party that the courts ought not to be able to intervene, or where the possession is made wholly or partly on the grounds of the death of the tenant? It would be a ridiculous situation if the landlord could not intervene in circumstances where the tenant had sadly died.
For those reasons, we respectfully contend that the regulations strike the right balance and we have considered them with care. They are appropriate measures that ensure that the needs of tenants are properly safeguarded, while recognising that in those exceptional circumstances where it would make a nonsense of the law for courts not to be able to intervene, such circumstances are catered for. In those circumstances, I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Westminster Hall
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Covid-19 Vaccine: Take-up Rates in London
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Welcome to this version of Westminster Hall. May I thank all the people involved in facilitating this important development in our democracy? There have been some changes, which I will set out briefly. One is that we start five minutes earlier, so that we can finish this debate at five minutes to 11. I remind hon. Members participating, both physically and virtually, that they must arrive at the start of the debate and they are expected, under the instructions of the Deputy Speaker, to remain for the duration of the entire debate. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks’ email address. We ask that Members attending physically clean their spaces before using them and before leaving the room, so that those spaces can be used by others later. Without further ado, I call Andy Slaughter to move the motion.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered covid-19 vaccine take-up rates in London.
It is a great pleasure to be here in what I think is, from a Back-Bench point of view, the first of these virtual sessions in Westminster Hall, although it is also very good to be here physically, in the flesh, and to see the Minister and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), here in the flesh as well. On the screen I can see, I think, nine Labour colleagues and even one Conservative who will take part in this debate, so that is a very good start, and what better subject than this to start the process off with?
There is a reason, which the Minister will be familiar with, why this issue has aroused a lot of interest among my colleagues. I need to say first that the Minister has been making himself available on a regular basis—sometimes almost daily—to answer our questions, which are often the same questions. That is a rather barbed compliment, because it implies, perhaps, that he has not answered them the first time they were asked. One thing that I would like to do today is to try to pin him down on just a few very important issues. I do thank him for his candour, his availability and, of course, for being here today—as I have pointed out to him, he is the only Vaccines Minister, so it would be difficult for him to delegate this one.
The second thanks that I would like to express is to everybody who is making vaccination work in London, and indeed across the country. Obviously I especially appreciate the work done in my own area of Hammersmith and Fulham by NHS staff, council staff and volunteers. It has been an absolutely exemplary effort, and I can testify to that personally, because I had my first jab two weeks ago and I cannot imagine a smoother, more reassuring and more professional service than the one I experienced at the time. I am told by the many constituents with whom I have been in contact that that is the experience across the board, so I can express nothing other than praise for the way in which the system is being rolled out.
Indeed, the success of the programme nationally, whereby I think we are at 22 million first doses and about 1 million second doses, is, again, an achievement. Obviously—I do not wish to state this in any adverse way—we are going to talk about the problems today. We are going to take for granted the successes and talk about the problems, because that is our job.
About one third of the population has had a first dose, and a very small percentage—less than 2%—has had a second dose. That is a matter of political and scientific choice, which most people would agree with, although it is not how some other countries have dealt with it. Nevertheless, it shows the size of the achievement and also the task ahead. If we have done a third, which might include some young people who are not getting the vaccine in the near future, there are two thirds to go—even my maths tells me that—and then there is the second dose as well. There is still a mountain to climb, but what gives me confidence is the fact that the NHS’s data and operation are better placed than perhaps any health service could be to deal with the problem. However, let us not gloss over the fact that this is taking the individual effort of millions of people across the country.
I shall go through some problems, but on another positive note, I had a very uplifting conversation with my local director of covid-19 response and recovery last night. She told me that the expectation, which I hope the Minister will be able to confirm, is that, first, from next week there will be a substantial increase in the amount of vaccine available nationally and locally. I think we are going from some 2 million doses a week to 4 million. I do not know whether that is true, so perhaps the Minister will be able to confirm that.
Secondly, that will allow the centres that are dispensing the vaccine to expand. One problem so far has been a lack of vaccine at some of the GP-run primary care network centres, with major centres in many places not opening at all. I hope that the Minister, if his information is this granular, will be able to confirm that the Hammersmith mass vaccination centre based at the Novotel hotel in the centre of Hammersmith, which was due to open on 8 February, will open next week and that other centres will open this month in north-west London.
My third point, which relates to a local initiative, is on the issue of vaccine hesitancy. Next Monday we start a local programme to contact every person who we know has either declined or not been contacted and is in one of the priority groups. We will go through the process of contact, persuasion or whatever else is necessary to ensure that we catch up on what are not terribly good figures at the moment. I will come back to that at the end, because one thing we are looking for there is perhaps support from the Government in carrying out that programme, which is a really good programme. I have been told all about it, and I compliment the local council on setting that up and using the Hammersmith and Fulham community aid network—H&F CAN—which has been helping people shield and helping people in need over the past year.
We have been asking for data for many weeks. I can see the Minister’s dilemma, because if he gives us national data, we ask for regional; if he gives us regional, we ask for integrated care systems; if we get ICS, we ask for clinical commissioning group; if we get CCG, we ask for Medical Science Liaison Association; if he gives us medical support officer, we ask for postcode—so he might think it is a slippery slope. In a darker moment, he might have concluded that it is better to give us nothing at all. I will contradict that view by saying that it is better to say, “There is a story to tell here.” I do not think that anybody will take a view other than one that will help the process go ahead. It is important to have more granular data, at least down to ward level, so that we can see what is happening in our constituencies and we can take action to deal with it.
On the issue of supply, it appears that—I say “appears” because I spend a lot of time on this and it is difficult to do the sleuthing work—in the initial roll-out at the beginning of the year, London was being left behind, and then there was a correction and more vaccines came into London, and in the past few weeks we have had something of a dearth—a drought—of vaccines nationally. If one looks at the daily figures, one sees that by the end of last year they were at around 600,000 doses a day. For the past week or so they have been between 200,000 to 400,000 a day, which is a significant change. I hope that we will see the figures go up again.
In a way, there is a bit of “bald men arguing over a comb” here, because colleagues in other regions will say, “Hang on, you are not taking our vaccines to London, are you?” I do not know whether they are saying that in your part of the world, Sir Christopher, but I have heard it said. The reality is that we all need to vaccinate all our populations. The question is one of overall supply. It would have helped had we known the situation more clearly at an earlier stage.
There is also the push and pull factor. Some privileged institutions, such as the hospital hubs, are able to order from what supplies there are and obtain those. There may be some logic to that, in the sense that they are principally—not exclusively—vaccinating NHS staff, who clearly are a priority, but it does mean that the local GP-run PCN hubs are reliant simply on what is delivered to them; they have very little control over that. They may have very little notice of what is being delivered. It got to the state last week where, between Monday and Friday, not one of the five dispensing outlets in my constituency had any vaccine delivered. Unless there was some left over still within its shelf life, no vaccination was going on.
That was an extreme example, but if I look at those GP hubs, during the course of this year, the best of them—where I had my jab—has operated for about 25 days, so less than half the time. When I say “operated”, I mean at a significant level of, say, more than 400 vaccinations a day, and that was for only 25 days. But for the other two hubs in the borough, including the one at White City, which is the most deprived area in my constituency and the one where vaccination rates are giving us most concern, the number of days has been in single figures since the beginning of the year. In that area, significant vaccination has been going on for fewer than 10 days. That is of great concern.
That may be corrected by the sheer volume that is coming through. It is essential that we get enough vaccine for the PCNs, the major centres, and for the pharmacy and hospital centres if they are to continue to operate. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm what I think is the strategy now, which is that the major centres—in my case, say, 1,500 doses a day, which is very significant—will be dealing with the new cohorts, so the younger people coming into the system now and also possibly some second doses. That is what we think is going to happen.
There is a certain sense in that, because the process of going to a major centre involves getting a letter and making an appointment, and it may involve some travel. It is more suitable for people who are more mobile and may have a car or something of that nature to get them where they are going.
The PCNs are going to give some of the second doses, but I suspect they are going to scale down a little, because GPs obviously have other work to do—I am going to ask the Minister about this. The problem is that we are neglecting an important group of people in groups 1 to 4 who missed out on the vaccine and who now need to be the target for ensuring that we get our vaccination rates up. It is pretty clear that the PCNs are the best vehicle for delivering that.
I do not want to go on for too long as I know many colleagues want to get in, but the last and most important point for us at the moment is how we deal with the issue that is variously called vaccine resistance or vaccine hesitancy, but is simply a problem for the NHS, the Government and all of us working to resolve it. We need local solutions as well as national resources. There has been a lack of data in relation to these matters. The evidence for that is the reliance that so many colleagues have placed on Sky News’s analysis of the data on the NHS website. I am not sure that is where we should be going as our first port of call, although they did a good job, because for the first time, over a week ago, we were able to see figures by ward. Knowing the different characteristics of our wards, we were able to see how things were going within the constituency.
In my constituency—I feel the pattern is true across the rest of London—the more prosperous areas, the less ethnically diverse areas and the less deprived areas were already at 100% for the older cohort of the population. Poorer areas, such as those in Shepherd’s Bush, White City and West Kensington, were below 75%. That is a very significant difference. It is replicated across London, and north-west London is one of the most difficult areas. As of last Friday, it was the only integrated care system area in England that was below 80% for those over the age of 65. All the London ICSs are down at the bottom, but north-west London is slightly further down.
We talk about 80% and 75% as worrying and significant, but when one adds in deprivation, by looking at the most deprived 10% of the population, and ethnicity, because certain ethnic groups are being vaccinated at a much lower rate, often below 50%, then that should be ringing alarm bells in Whitehall. It is certainly ringing them locally. We have not cracked this nut. I seek a response from the Minister on that point.
We know what is needed: time, money and personnel to ensure that those contacts are made. The problem is that phone calls are made that are not answered once, twice or three times, or someone may express a reservation about the question, and either there is not time to deal with it, as that is not the way the system is set up, or the caller is not expert enough to deal with it. A lot of it is about trusted people—that is very important— and places, and places that are accessible.
All of those are important, but so is having people who can answer the questions that are asked. If they cannot answer questions such as, “How do you know that the vaccine will be safe in 5 years’ time?” or, “How will it protect someone with my medical condition?”, or dispel fears and rumours such as, “I have heard this about the vaccine from somebody I trust,” it is almost worse than not having made the approach at all, because they end up reinforcing the problem.
We think we have cracked that. I have been looking at the hesitancy programme that Hammersmith has set up, and I think it is good. I pay tribute to the staff doing it. It will be labour intensive and will cost money. The Minister knows my beef on that. When the £23 million of so-called community champions money was made available at the end of January, quite rightly, and handed out to some 60 local authority areas across the country, those that had the lowest take-up rates at that time essentially did not get any money—Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith, and Newham. Some did, but it seemed to be a bit of a lottery. I think seven London boroughs got sums ranging between £40,000 and £750,000. I do not think we need help in knowing what to do, but we do need some resource of that kind. I understand that there is a little resource coming in through the NHS: £100,000 per ICS. However, that really only goes down to £10,000 per CCG. Looking at areas we have the most data on, where there are particular problems, it would be useful to add to that resource now.
I think I have gone on long enough—you are probably not the man to ask, Sir Christopher—but I think I have had enough questions for the Minister to be able to remember and answer them all. This is special pleading for London, in a way, because London has suffered. We can conjecture the reasons for that. They are complicated. We have talked about deprivation, we have talked about ethnicity, but there are other factors in London we all know about. We know about them through canvassing and elections; we know about them through electoral registration; we will know about them this month through trying to fill in census forms.
London has a disproportionate number of people who are isolated, for all sorts of reasons. They may not have financial resources, or they may not have a mobile phone, or have credit on their mobile phone. They may live in a room in a multi-occupancy house which has no doorbell or other means of reaching them. They may have mental health problems. They may simply live alone and have become isolated from the community around them.
We are actually very good at contacting those people if we have the time and the money to do so; we do it through electoral registration, and we are also doing it with the census. However, we do need that prioritisation and I hope that the Minister will understand that, and will be able to respond in kind.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab) [V]
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on introducing this very welcome and extremely timely debate. He has set out the arguments very comprehensively and I shall endeavour not to repeat too many of the key points.
I will repeat, and I am sure that everyone speaking this morning will also repeat, our grateful thanks to NHS and public health staff who are working so hard to deliver this vaccine. It has been a national success story; there is no doubt of that whatever. It is an extraordinary logistical achievement, of which the NHS can be extremely proud. I had my vaccine on Saturday at St Charles’ Hospital and it was an extraordinary, professional operation; swift and effective. I think everyone should be very proud of what they have done.
Of course, that does not mean that that we should not be able to focus on some of the outstanding questions that arise regarding the delivery of the vaccine in London. As has been stated, London as a city, as a region, is not achieving the same figures as other parts of the country, which should be a cause for concern. My particular concern is my own borough, my own constituency area, Westminster North. It is apparently the second-worst performing borough in the country with just 69% coverage of 65-plus. City of London and Westminster South are also performing very poorly.
This does matter very greatly, for reasons we all understand. It matters in terms of individuals and in terms of the public health of the borough, but I would also suggest to the Minister that it is a particular concern because the central London economy is so critical to our national economic revival. Therefore, being confident that we have good coverage in central London seems, to me, to have a significance even over and above the pure public health considerations.
I want to focus on two particular themes, the first of which I am afraid is going back to the question of data. For the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith has outlined, inner London generally has a highly complex set of population characteristics. We need to understand the particularity of those circumstances to be effective in delivering to those populations. While it is useful, indeed, to have the national and regional—north-west London, in my instance—and some of the borough data, we need to be able to look at local data, understand it and know that it is accurate.
I have yet to see the information that is provided to the directors of public health. As of this point, the middle of March, nearly three months into the vaccination programme, it has not yet been shared with me. The fact that it has not been shared with me by my local authority reflects its concerns that the data is not accurate. The Minister will have heard, no doubt, from many other people, that there is a concern that building up from the basis of the local data to a larger picture and then expanding it out to a national picture will give different results, and people will start looking at variations in that data and asking questions about it. I understand that point and can see that it is indeed difficult to get those statistics all squared off. On the other hand, I am absolutely clear that unless we understand the difference between what is in happening in, for example, the Mozart estate area in the Queens Park ward, and in Belgravia and Knightsbridge, we will not get a proper understanding of where the priorities should be.
My local authority has told me that part of its anxiety is that there is a variance between the use of the Office for National Statistics data and the national immunisation management system data, which has led to a significant national population variant of, I believe, as high as 5 million. As my hon. Friend outlined, there is good reason to believe that the percentage variance will be greater in central London than anywhere else in the country. We have seen that in terms of the census and the population figures. I had a debate on the 2001 census because of my concerns about accurate recording of population. However, it is unclear to me, from discussions with people working in the local health service, what population denominators are being used locally. It is unclear who is using what data, and as a consequence it is unclear whether such local data as exists is even remotely accurate.
The question is: does that matter? I would say that it does, because if we are spending time trying to find people who are simply not present, to raise the vaccination rate, for good reasons, we are wasting time and effort on them, whereas at the same time—both phenomena are, I think, true simultaneously—there are wards, estates and communities in my constituency, as there will be in others, where we are failing to make contact with people who need to be contacted, because they are extremely hard-to-reach populations. My hon. Friend outlined some of the reasons for that. There is a high relative proportion of single people who will not necessarily have ties to communities, and links so that we can use the normal channels of communication. There is a high proportion of people with mental health problems, again, often living singly. There is the largest private rented sector in the country, with a high degree of population churn, which means that when talking to someone it is often unclear whether they are the same person who was living there six months before. Unless and until we can be sure of the granular data and understand the baseline population statistics on which it is based, we have a problem.
A secondary data problem concerns ethnicity and understanding some of the issues around both the take-up of the vaccine and vaccine reluctance, which are different components. The issue is that, in central London, we have the largest Arabic-speaking populations, a very diverse set of communities, but these are being recorded under “ethnic—other”, and therefore it is difficult for us to be able to focus in on those communities, which are important, in terms of delivery.
I have written to the Minister with some of these questions, but even since I wrote to him there has been new information from the local authority and from the clinical commissioning groups that raise questions for me about the data. We need to know whether the population that we are chasing is there, whether we are chasing hard-to-reach people or whether we need to focus in on people who have vaccine reluctance. I was told last week—
Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. I am sorry, but if the hon. Lady were participating physically, I would by now have been staring her down, because a lot more people wish to participate in the debate. I hope that she will bring her remarks to a swift close so that I can call the next speaker.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Christopher, albeit for the first time virtually. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on securing the debate, which is important for all Londoners. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck).
In the London Borough of Harrow, we have had an outstanding performance on vaccination rates. We received congratulations from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on that performance, and I put on the record my appreciation and thanks to the fantastic team—both from the NHS and the volunteers—who made this possible. To set it in context, more than 70,000 people in Harrow have had their first vaccination, out of an adult population of just under 200,000, which is a remarkable performance, at the Hive centre, which opened in December, and at Byron Hall and Tithe Farm, which opened in January. To get to this stage so quickly has been remarkably good.
That has to be set against the fact that Harrow is the most ethnically diverse borough in London. Others have a higher number of different sections of population, but we literally have someone from every country on the planet and various different communities, so it is a direct challenge to reach all those different communities and to encourage them to come forward to get their vaccinations. This fantastic effort also has to be set against the position that, at the beginning of the pandemic, Northwick Park Hospital came very close to being overwhelmed by the number of covid cases. Sadly, we have had a very high death rate, and at one stage Harrow had the highest covid transmission rate in London, so achieving this vaccination rate has been vital.
More than 35,000 people have had their first vaccination at the Hive since the middle of December, and the Prime Minister visited the site to see at first hand the excellent work that is being done. However, we are experiencing problems, and I will relay some of those for the Minister. There is reluctance among the Afro-Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities, who are hard to reach. There have been real difficulties in getting them to come forward; there is a reluctance to have the vaccine. Among the white British, Irish and Indian population, there have been no such problems—they have come forward in their droves to receive their vaccinations, which is good news.
The supply problems are really serious. To give the Minister an example—I hope he will be able to answer this—the capacity at each of our vaccination centres is roughly 860 doses a day, yet this week, our centres will only receive 400 doses. That is less than half a day’s work, so the lack of supply is holding us back from achieving even faster vaccination rates.
The real problem that emanates from that is that we are having particular difficulties in contacting younger people who have underlying health conditions. They are among the most reluctant to come forward, because of the myths and legends about what the vaccine does to people’s bodies. I am pleased that we now have a myth-buster to combat this unfortunate propaganda, which is spreading very widely among different communities. An excellent video has also been put together by different community leaders, coming together irrespective of race, religion, colour or creed to say why it is important that people have the vaccination, to encourage people to do so, and to try to combat some of this insidious propaganda.
Also on the issue of vaccine supply, my centres complain that they get notified only a day in advance of the vaccine arriving, which of course means that it is very difficult to schedule people in to get their vaccinations. Can we have a better plan for supply of vaccine, which is vitally important? Equally, allowing flexibility to GPs undertaking vaccinations at GP surgeries would help considerably. It would reach those harder-to-reach groups, because people trust their GPs in the way that they do not necessarily trust going to a large vaccination centre.
I will end my remarks by saying that in Harrow, certainly, we have achieved remarkably well, but we can do better provided that we get the supply, that we have better notice, and that the facilities continue to arrive. At the end of April, two of our mass vaccination centres will close, and there will be the potential for complete chaos when we come to the second doses, because everyone will be invited to attend one centre in Harrow to get their second dose. I predict that is going to be quite chaotic, so I would ask that we look at potentially keeping those centres open for a further period to ensure that every adult gets their opportunity for at least the first dose by the end of July, as per the plan that the Minister has.
Thank you, Sir Christopher, and I look forward to listening to what other colleagues have to say.
Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
As there are still eight more speakers and we start the wind-ups at 10.33, I am afraid that I now have to impose a four-minute maximum time limit.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab) [V]
We are now in the second year of coronavirus, and we have all experienced highs and lows throughout this period. At the beginning, we were told that this is a great leveller, given that Prince Charles and the Prime Minister had it. Rather than the “we are all in it together” narrative, it is maybe more fair to say that we are all in the same storm, but in different boats. Nowhere have we seen that differential impact more clearly than in the vaccine roll-out in London.
We all remember the pictures of the memorably named William Shakespeare having his jab early in December, but it took a good 10 days for the vaccine to reach the magnificent gothic splendour of Ealing town hall, and sadly the supply in London has lagged behind other parts of the country. It has been a magnificent effort. We have all seen the brilliant statistic that a third of the population have been done, but again, there is room for improvement here. We remember the highs and lows—the 50,000 fatalities figure came just before the miracle of the vaccine at Christmas that has given everyone hope—but that maxim of differential impact is one we have to look at.
There are two things that will take us to the other side of this: vaccine uptake among the population and the hesitancy that people talk about, and supply. London has nudging 10 million people—some 12% of the population. My own borough has 360,000 people. Initially, we had the town hall, then we had a second venue in Southall— in the west of the borough. Both those were closed last week. The latter did a record 1,200, I think, before shutting its doors until further notice. There has been a magnificent effort from volunteers and NHS staff, and everyone was poised. I have heard nothing but praise about the efficiency of the operation, but then they were all stood down.
There are old divides between the inner city and the leafy suburbs, but my seat has both: Ealing is known as “queen of the suburbs”, but there are wards of deprivation in Acton, where there has been no vaccination centre; it is a bit of a vaccination black spot. I hope the Minister will help me to address that issue. Acton is big enough to have a tube or rail station with every compass point on several different lines—Central, District, and Piccadilly—but there is no vaccination centre. Given the characteristics of its population, the Acton-shaped hole makes the issue even more urgent.
As a whole, London—our nation’s capital—sometimes seems to have experienced this over-promising, and this moonshot rhetoric. Not that long ago, we were promised 24-hour vaccinations in the capital. That was being said in January. The experience of our centres last week was far from that.
We are waiting for the second dose and hopefully there will be a big surge, but it concerns me that there seems to be a bit of anti-London rhetoric from the Government at times. That stretches to the fact that we have a towns fund with new bungs bringing in prosperity and opportunity—but not in London, which has been completely excluded in favour of red wall locations. I would caution the Government not to let that apply to vaccination supply. London is not immune from deprivation, poor housing and overcrowding: I have those in my wards in Acton. Localised need should drive allocation, not centralised supply.
Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt, but you have gone beyond your time limit. I do not know whether it is because you cannot see the clock. My job is to try to ensure that everybody is able to speak. I call Feryal Clark.
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) for securing the debate. I start by paying tribute to the amazing NHS workers at North Middlesex University Hospital and at Chase Farm Hospital, as well as all the NHS workers in Enfield and the public health team at Enfield Council, who are working day and night to make the vaccine roll-out a success.
The vaccine roll-out programme that began in early January across the nation is nothing short of amazing, thanks to the great work by our NHS. I congratulate the Minister on the work he has done. Right from the start, however, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith set out, there have been concerns with the roll-out in London, and those concerns have been raised by London MPs from day one.
It transpired initially that the vaccine supply to London was inadequate in comparison with other regions, and that the set-up of delivery centres across London was limited and done too slowly to come on board. We knew that the pandemic had highlighted the inequality in our communities and we knew about the pockets of deprivation—the areas with high covid rates and poor healthcare provision: we have been raising those issues over the past twelve months of the pandemic.
It took a very long time for the NHS to be allowed to share the vaccine update data with us MPs. When the Government finally gave clinical commissioning groups permission to share that data, it became abundantly clear that those areas and communities that we had been raising—in Enfield, the communities that had suffered the worst of the pandemic—were also those with the lowest vaccine uptake.
I have raised this matter at many meetings with NHS colleagues and with the Minister. There are many barriers. The issue is not just about vaccine hesitancy, as is constantly repeated; there is an expectation that an 80-year-old Kurdish woman will book an appointment over the internet, but that is just not going to happen. The digital divide in the eastern part of Enfield North constituency, where the uptake of the vaccine by over-65s is just above 50%, is a real issue. There needs to be an easier booking mechanism for areas with a digital divide, as well as for the elderly, who are not very tech-savvy.
The wards in my constituency with the highest covid rates and poor primary care provision do not have vaccine centres nearby. The nearest vaccine centre for constituents in those wards is two bus rides away, which is just not acceptable. Where the need is greatest, the provision is low. In the most affluent areas of my constituency, where there is good primary care provision and many vaccine centres, the uptake is more than 80%, and 40-year-olds are now being called for their vaccines.
Finally, 16,000 people across Enfield—predominantly in the eastern part—are not registered with a GP. There is no clarity on how those constituents will access vaccines. I would be really grateful if the Minister set out the plan for people who are not registered with a GP. Will the Minister also clarify what is meant by the term “hesitancy”, as there is real confusion on that? Does it mean people who reject the vaccine outright, saying, “I do not want this,” or does it mean people with whom no contact has been made after three contact attempts? It is really important that we get some clarity on that.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab) [V]
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) for securing this debate. What we are seeing is a tale of two cities, but within one constituency in my case. We know from the excellent work of Professor Marmot that the decade of neglecting to address health inequalities, which are writ large under the covid pandemic, is really showing itself in the vaccination strategy.
I thank Dr Maimaris from Haringey Council, who is the head of public health, and Dr Peter Christian of Dukes Avenue practice, who is leading on the GP side. He told me last Friday that one of his colleagues in Wood Green made 30 phone calls, and that of those only one person was keen to take up the vaccine offer. That is the kind of hesitancy that we are seeing. In my constituency, someone who catches the 41 bus from Wood Green to Hornsey Rise sees their life expectancy rise by years and years, so that by the time they get to Highgate, they will be living 15 to 20 years longer than the average person in Wood Green—that is common across many of our London constituencies.
We have been working hard with Christian churches, with Rabbi David Mason in Muswell Hill, and with the Imam in Wightman Road mosque, where I will be at the weekend to push for many more people to take up the vaccine. We really need to understand the granular detail of the levelling-up debate in the national context. It is not just about levelling-up between the north and south of England, but levelling-up within our constituencies. North Middlesex University Hospital and Whittington Hospital have done a wonderful job during the pandemic. I pay tribute to their staff, and call for them to be correctly remunerated. I hope that the Government will review their position on the 1% pay offer, which is just a disgrace.
This is not just about the level of vaccine on offer. We know, for example, that in the Fortis Green and Crouch End wards in my constituency, 99% of eligible people have had the vaccine. That number falls to 74% in Wood Green. Office for National Statistics data up to February 2021 showed that fewer than 50%—some 49%—of black or black British adults said that they were likely to have the jab. We must have high-quality conversations between GPs and their patients to tackle that. We also know from the OpenSAFELY analysis that 60% of black people aged 70 or over had been vaccinated, compared with 75% of south Asians and 90% of white people. Nowhere is that clearer than in my constituency.
What we need to do is to address health inequalities in the wider sense. We need to consider the impact of overcrowded housing, educational attainment, the high incidence of violent crime and all the indicators of inequality, and address them. We cannot have another decade of neglect and unequal distribution. We are a wealthy country; we are simply not spending public funds in the right way to address long-term health inequalities. If anything has shown that, it is this vaccination strategy, which shows it in all its detail.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to join this very important debate, Sir Christopher, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on securing it.
The speed of the roll-out of the vaccination programme is a great source of hope for all of us. Those of us who have lost loved ones are particularly grateful to the NHS, to the scientists and to so many people who have come together to produce this vaccine, because we all know how important it is to protect our constituents, and our friends and family.
Locally, I pay tribute to my local authority, which has set up a helpline that is proactively contacting people who have not been vaccinated, and addressing and answering their questions. Government resources will make a big difference to other local authorities to help support that effort, and we need that back-up from Ministers.
I also thank the Royal London Hospital, Queen Mary University, GPs’ surgeries, the London Muslim Centre and other partners who have been helping with the vaccination effort in my constituency. Many people will be aware that in the first wave Tower Hamlets had the fourth-highest age-standardised death rate in the country. Although we are a young population, relatively speaking, there are huge health inequalities and huge issues with deprivation, severe overcrowding, intergenerational households and many other factors that, as other colleagues have said, make inner London extremely vulnerable to this pandemic.
In the second wave, we saw that the spread of the virus caused more deaths, which is why it is vital that we get to those who have not yet been vaccinated and those who have underlying health conditions by increasing the supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and that we get to those who did not take up the vaccine when they were offered it, for a number of complicated reasons, as other colleagues have mentioned. In some cases, it is about reticence, but it is also about practicalities and about deprivation. It is not just ethnic minority communities who are affected, although we have seen big differentials; it is also those from white disadvantaged backgrounds and from working-class backgrounds who have been disproportionately affected, both in terms of death rates and in lower take-up of vaccines.
What we need to do now is make sure that the vaccines are in the right places. The centralised hubs are, of course, useful and important, but it is also vital that we get vaccines to local GP surgeries. As I have said to the Minister time and again, it is vital that we get more vaccines to pharmacies and that pop-up clinics get up and running. The ones that we have are very good and very helpful, but the unpredictability of supply, the inability to plan and the lack of local flexibility are all leading to sub-optimal outcomes, when we could have better outcomes.
So today I call on the Minister, once again, to get the vaccines to the local providers and to provide local authorities with additional support, so that they can do the chasing, as is the case in my local authority. What we have seen is that when GPs are responsible for getting vulnerable patients, including homebound patients, vaccinated in my borough, 95% of those patients have been vaccinated. So this is not rocket science; we can address the gaps.
I am grateful to the Minister for the work that he has done so far and I appreciate that in him we have a listening ear. I hope that he listens to the arguments that have been made—not just by Members in my party, but by Members in his own: we have to get the supplies in. Going forward, as other colleagues have pointed out, we also need to address some of the deeper underlying conditions and to make sure that people’s vulnerabilities are addressed.
There is one final issue. Ramadan is coming, so we are in a race against time to vaccinate vulnerable constituents from the Muslim community in our city, because if we do not vaccinate them there will be even greater risks. So I hope the Minister will address that point, as well as the importance of getting more supplies into London—
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on securing this very important debate, to enable us, as London MPs, to speak about the situation now, which can be rectified. I add my thanks to all the scientists, NHS managers and fixers, vaccinators and volunteers who have made the roll-out of the vaccine programme so far so swift and such a success.
To defeat this pandemic in the UK, we have to defeat it in London—there is no getting away from that—but the vaccination rate is lower here, as colleagues have said. In my area of south-west London, the CCG has provided the first dose to 389,000 people, which is 26% of the population, but some local authorities around England have a rate of over 50%. Areas such as Rother, West Devon and North Norfolk have much higher vaccination rates, so it is not just an issue of supply, although supply is an issue in my area. We have two vaccination centres and they are not open today. We do hope to see that surge.
In January, a promise was made to open a vaccination centre in Queen Mary’s hospital in Roehampton. It will not surprise the Minister that I am going to talk about Roehampton today, as I have raised the subject many times. The vaccination centre there has been built but not opened. There is no vaccination centre in Roehampton, but there have been spikes of covid infection there. It is an area of high deprivation; as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) said, this is a tale of two cities.
There are not good transport links from Roehampton. The primary care network is keen to support vaccination but there is no vaccination centre. The rates at the moment are because a huge amount of transport has been organised, relying on voluntary organisations, to make minibus trips to Putney. That cannot go on for the long term; we need a long-term solution for Roehampton, which is an area of highest need.
The Minister knows Roehampton well because he was a Putney councillor for many years. I know that last week he met Dr Hasan from the Alton Practice, who is a shining example of someone passionate about the health inequalities in Roehampton and the need to address them. She is very concerned about vaccine hesitancy in young people. As the vaccine roll-out goes on, the vaccine hesitancy we see will only increase.
In Roehampton there are higher levels of black and ethnic minority populations, isolation and overcrowding. All those mean that having a trusted vaccination centre nearby that can be attended around shifts—for a care worker, for example—is so important. Otherwise, we risk baking in those existing health inequalities for the long term, which will go alongside all the other inequalities felt by the population in Roehampton. They are throwing up their arms and saying, “We don’t get other things, so we are not getting a vaccination centre.” That is not acceptable.
We are not arguing for more in London; we are arguing for our fair share. We are not arguing for more in particular areas; we are just arguing for every area to have its fair share. We must anticipate, see the problems that are already developing and nip them in the bud right now and address them. I hope I will hear from the Minister that we will have a vaccination centre in Roehampton and that those areas being left behind will be identified and addressed.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
May I begin by making it clear that I am not here to raise criticism for criticism’s sake? I am here because I understand how imperative it is that the vaccine programme is successful. Although I welcome the scale of the programme and the number of vaccinations delivered, I am extremely concerned about the vaccination take-up in my constituency, and the inconceivable decision to open the two new vaccination centres miles away from the NHS declared low take-up wards of concern.
Let me briefly explain the geography. The borough of Merton is split in two: Mitcham and Morden, and Wimbledon. Merton’s inequalities in health are stark, with an eight-year difference in life expectancy between parts of Mitcham and parts of Wimbledon. The Minister will be aware of Tudor Hart’s inverse care law—that the areas in the greatest health are then statistically more likely to receive better health services.
Look no further than Merton. When the state-of-the-art Nelson health centre was opened in one of the wealthiest, richest wards of Wimbledon, Mitcham received the “Wilson portacabin”. When lateral flow testing was introduced at community pharmacies, they were opened everywhere but Mitcham. When a decision was made to relocate acute hospital services—guess what? The proposals moved them miles further away from the most deprived areas, with the statistically worst health. While many of these decisions are baked into decades of inequality, the location of a vaccination centre is a decision for here and now.
Here is the state of play: there are two centres in Merton; one in Wimbledon and one in Mitcham. However, take-up of the vaccine across the borough has varied significantly and, as ever, the devil is in the detail. Merton has 25 middle and lower layer super output areas. Of the 12 with the highest vaccination take-up rates, 11 are in Wimbledon. In all 12 Wimbledon areas, over 93% of over-70s have received their first dose. Compare that with Mitcham and Morden, where seven of the 13 areas are still below 90%, and Mitcham West, where the vaccination take-up was just 81%. That means that one in five residents have been offered, but not accepted, the vaccine.
I recognise the breadth of factors as to why this could be, and that accessibility of the vaccination centre is only one. However, it is a significant one, particularly given that, of the two new large-scale vaccination centres that are set to open in Merton, both are in Wimbledon—two centres, miles away from the wards with the lowest take-up areas, which also have statistically lower levels of car ownership. Are we not supposed to be breaking down barriers, rather than throwing up even more?
I am not calling for Wimbledon to lose their services, but the Minister must surely see the absurdity of this decision.
Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
I will have to limit the last two speakers to three minutes each. If they have not seen it, there should be a countdown clock at the top of their screens to help them keep to the time limit.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on securing this important debate.
I put on record my thanks to everyone who is working to deliver the vaccination roll-out in Dulwich and West Norwood, from the scientists who have worked to deliver safe and effective vaccines at such a rapid speed, the nurses, doctors and public health teams who have organised the delivery to the volunteers who have made vaccination centres such welcoming, joyful places.
The vaccination programme is our great hope at the end of this difficult year of coronavirus, but it is as true locally as it is globally that none of us is safe until all of us are safe. Coronavirus has already shown itself to be a disease of inequality, thriving on pre-existing ill health, low paid occupations and overcrowded housing, and affecting people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities much more severely.
Previous studies of flu vaccination uptakes have identified ethnicity and deprivation as factors correlating negatively with take-up. It was entirely predictable that the inequalities of covid-19 could be further exacerbated by vaccine hesitancy within communities and occupations that were already at a high risk of serious illness and death. That is what we now see. Last week, more than a quarter of over-80s in Lambeth and Southwark had still not received their first jab, and while 80% of white residents over 65 have now been vaccinated, the rate among African and Caribbean residents was below 45%.
The reasons for hesitancy are complex, but they are not mysterious: well-documented examples of appalling, unethical medical experimentation have led to understandable fear and mistrust in some communities; mild side effects of a jab, which might require a day off work, are a deterrent if there is no guaranteed sick pay; the structural racism that some communities have encountered has eroded their trust in institutions, including the NHS, and peer-to-peer communication of anti-vax misinformation on WhatsApp and Facebook is very potent. All those factors and more may lead people to be hesitant to come forward to take the vaccine.
Addressing people’s deep-seated fears and concerns requires time and resources. I pay tribute to some of the very effective work being done at a local level in Lambeth and Southwark to address vaccine hesitancy, including the leadership being shown by black and Asian councillors. Those efforts are driving up vaccination rates week by week, but our councils urgently need more resources to deliver that work. When the Government recently invited a select list of councils to bid for additional funding to address vaccine hesitancy, Lambeth and Southwark were not on the list. This is, frankly, inexplicable.
The vaccination programme is rightly being celebrated across the country, but it will not have been a complete success as long as disparities remain in the vaccination rate between different communities according to race, income or occupation. If that is allowed to persist, covid-19 will become a disease of inequality to an even greater extent, with some communities enjoying protection, while those in others still fall ill and die. That is not a reality that we can possibly accept, so I urge the Government to take this issue much more seriously and fund our councils properly to combat vaccine hesitancy.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab) [V]
The truth is that the vaccine roll-out has not worked as well as it might for the vulnerable of London. In West Ham, it has been about age. We are one of the youngest areas in Europe and we have had the highest excess deaths. The numbers in the highest-priority groups, especially the over-70s and 80s, are low; consequently, our areas were allocated vaccine supplies at a level far below what could have been delivered. We have had disproportionately large numbers with clinical vulnerabilities—illness linked to higher levels of deprivation—but they were in the top four priority groups, so clinicians have only just started to vaccinate them.
Sky News found that Newham had the highest excess deaths in the UK between March and mid-January. Some 15 of the top 20 areas for excess deaths are in London. Local clinicians have constantly called for the flexibility to vaccinate younger people with clinical vulnerabilities, and I know that Ministers will remember that I have echoed those calls. However, I am not here just to complain, because I am very grateful that Ministers and officials have listened, and I am hopeful that London CCGs will be given greater flexibility to deliver second jabs. More than anything, we have to focus on the role of deprivation, because it is the major barrier to speedy vaccinations.
GP data is limited in areas such as mine because people move, from one short private rental to another, over and again, and so many are in temporary accommodation. Those in poverty and insecure work are less likely to be able to keep their phone contracts and hang on to the same number, which makes it hard when so many vaccine appointments are organised by text. People do not have access to broadband or mobile data, and the consequences are clear.
For the affluent group in DQ5, uptake has been 60%. For the most deprived group, DQ1, it has been just 37%, and it drops at each step, from DQ5 to DQ1. We must find better ways to address this, because we are letting down the vulnerable and it is hindering our collective ability to fight this virus. I would therefore like to hear more from the Minister today about how we will tackle this.
But I do not want to finish without heaping massive praise on our NHS locally—our fantastic local GPs, our local public health teams and all our volunteers. I genuinely cannot thank them enough. They are working together with such tenacity and extraordinary commitment, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher, and it is a pleasure, too, to be back doing Westminster Hall. These debates are a crucial way of airing important topics. I am grateful to the staff for the clearly extraordinary efforts they have made to make this happen. Facing a wall of pictures of one’s colleagues in this way is possibly the closest I will get to being on “Saturday Night Takeaway”, so I am grateful for that, too.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on securing this debate and his leadership of it. His argument was very much based around three themes: data, supply and the impact on take-up in diverse and poorer communities. It is remarkable that all the contributions that followed basically fitted within that framework. It is clear that this is a strongly held view and a commonly shared experience in London, so I hope the Minister will address the points raised. I was particularly interested in what my hon. Friend said about the catch-up point and using local authorities to contact those who have chosen not to take up their vaccine yet, or who have been unable to do so, and encourage them to do so. I know that, as a former leader of a council, he shares my enthusiasm for the ability of local authorities to cut through and connect with their constituents. That is a very good model and is certainly one that has succeeded for us in Nottingham.
Just to pick up briefly on some of the things colleagues have said, my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) made the point about granular data, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith says, we always want more data, but it is for a purpose. I think it is really clear that we need granular data about the vaccine because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) said, we started off thinking this would be a great leveller, but actually in terms of both covid deaths and vaccine take-up, we know that it is not a great leveller and the experiences are not common to everyone.
That chimes very much with the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) made about the tale of two cities, which is a very elegant way of explaining it. Similarly, my hon. Friends the Members for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for West Ham (Ms Brown) all talked about the inequalities that exist within London, and that difference between inner and outer London. We have to match our policy response to that. In that spirit, the point that the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) made about different ethnic minorities and not grouping them collectively, which I will talk about in a second, was very interesting, too.
The critical point that my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) made about access was so well put. It can be easy to say, “Hang on a minute, we just know that in certain groups of the population take-up is lower and that is kind of how it is.” But, as the care law she mentioned says, if that is then overlaid with access and where facilities are, we are baking in and causing that conclusion ourselves. Again, I hope that is something that can be addressed.
All colleagues were at pains to talk about good news, and I think that is right. It is wonderful that over 22 million people have now had at least one dose. That is about one in three of all of us in the UK, and about 40% of the adult population. People are getting those first doses at a rate of about 300,000 a day, which is a real success and an extraordinary effort by all involved. I am grateful to the Minister for his leadership and for his constant availability to me and to all colleagues, and, of course, to the staff who have delivered this. It is working; we are seeing a decline in hospitalisations and cases. Of course, lockdown is a significant part of that, but the vaccination effect is a major part. It is wonderful news and provides that light at the end of the tunnel.
Today’s spotlight on London reveals a challenge for our capital, but also other similar communities. While the regional data is a little bit older—about 10 days’ old—in London just over 2 million doses have been delivered, which is about 29% of the adult population, so a significant drop from the 40% nationwide. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith made it very clear that he did not want this to be special pleading. It is not special pleading; there is something different going on and therefore we must react in a different manner. That is true among boroughs, too. In Tower Hamlets, with the highest poverty rate in the capital, by my maths 16%—the BBC have it at 14%—of the adult population have had their first dose. In Newham it is 20% and this is the same across the capital. With Bromley, where there are some of the lowest rates of poverty, the percentage is close to 40% and in Richmond upon Thames the figure is about one in three.
London is not alone. Vaccination rates are lowest in urban areas in general, with Birmingham and Manchester also reporting lower take-up than the rest of England. These regional variations really matter and have a significant impact on local health systems. In London, the rate of decline in covid hospital patients is now the slowest in the country, with a weekly rate of decline of just 15% compared with twice that in the midlands, where I live, and nearly 40% in the south-west. That means more people in hospital suffering from covid but also less capacity for other treatments. I noted that in January, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust had to cancel all priority cancer operations—that is all those that need to be carried out within 28 days. I am keen to know what assessment Ministers have made of the impacts of such decisions and what plans there are to try to catch up.
Yesterday, YouGov released polling that might help pick away at some of the disparities. In the study, 19% of people who categorised themselves as black said they would not take a vaccine and 18% who said they were Pakistani said the same. That is compared with 6% of people who look like me or 5% who said they were Asian. Again, as the hon. Member for Harrow East demonstrated, that is a reminder of the limits of the term BAME as a collective, and that we should not lose the individual experiences of different communities by using that term. It should give us all cause for concern, because those groups who have said they are less likely to take the vaccine are also the groups who are most likely to have died from covid. That is a sobering paradox.
I know there is a lot of interest in this issue, so I would say for people who are watching, of course it is okay and it is natural to be hesitant about what you put into your body. However, we see all the misinformation that is circulated, whether on WhatsApp or online, and it is frustrating because much, if not all of it, has simple explanations. If someone watching today is unsure, I hope they will ask their doctor, their pharmacist, their Member of Parliament, or their faith leader—whoever they trust, please will they ask those questions?
With supplies set to double and, hopefully, able to tackle many of the supply issues that colleagues raised, we are at a crossroads. Will the inequalities widen or can we to use this moment to close them? I have a few questions that I hope the Minister will address this morning. What different steps are being taken to mop up segments of cohorts that the roll-out has moved past? What is being done to provide more local vaccination sites in communities that are being left behind? I am conscious that often, in politics—we all know this—sometimes we cannot change the message, but we can change the messenger. A community pharmacy, for example, is a trusted alternative in the heart of every community, on every high street, which can help reach a different group of people. How can we use those to try to close this gap? On a similar note, in Nottingham, we are using mosques as vaccination sites now. Are similar approaches being supported in the capital?
Before I conclude, I want to make a point about the staff delivering this tremendous vaccination programme. Their efforts have been incredible and are inching us out of this awful period, a day at a time. It is shameful that their reward for this is a real-terms pay cut and then to be told, as they were over the weekend by a Minister, that they are lucky to be getting anything at all.
Similarly, local authorities are playing a pivotal role in the logistics of the roll-out, as they did in resurrecting test and trace. Their reward is an even greater real-terms pay cut. As well as being a shoddy way to treat these people, this is also bad for the collective, as we seek to rebound from the impact of covid. Where do these healthcare assistants or leisure centre cleaners spend their money? It is in our local economies.
We have just finished a decade of disaster economics and all it did was lead to anaemic growth and an erosion of living standards that has weakened our communities, which has meant that the poorest communities were most vulnerable to covid. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that we have the same ahead of us again. It is crucial that we do not keep making the same mistakes. Simply put, those who clapped on their doorstep should not be voting to cut NHS pay this evening.
There is much to be pleased about with the vaccine roll-out, and it is giving the nation hope. However, we are seeing widening inequalities among already unequal groups. We must act now to tackle that.
The Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment (Nadhim Zahawi)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. It is truly wonderful to be back with Westminster Hall debates.
Before I respond to the various points made by hon. Members, I thank the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) for his collegiate way in highlighting some of the concerns and working together to address them, as well as for raising the issue of covid vaccinations in London, which is at the forefront of many Londoners’ minds.
It is worth reminding ourselves of where we were at the turn of the year, before the vaccine roll-out really gathered pace. In early January, we were seeing more than 50,000 new cases of covid and around 4,500 people admitted to hospital every day. Sadly, we were seeing more than 1,000 deaths every day. In London alone, there were more than 1,100 deaths a week. Each one of those deaths was of a grandmother or grandfather, mother or father, daughter or son, or in my case an uncle; each of them desperately missed by their families. We cannot prevent every death, but we are on the road to making sure that such tragedies are less commonplace.
Recent Public Health England data shows that levels of antibodies against covid-19 are highest in the over-80s, the first group to be vaccinated. It also tells us that a single dose of either the Oxford or the Pfizer vaccine delivers protection against severe infection in the over-70s, with a more than 80% reduction in hospitalisation. The vaccine is working and having a real impact, protecting the NHS, protecting individuals and putting us on the right track out of the pandemic.
I am pleased that enthusiasm for vaccination is still incredibly high and rising, in fact, week on week. When I took on this job, the percentage was in the late-70s in the adult population; now 94% say they would be willing to have the jab. I have read glowing words from people who have received the vaccine. In the constituency of the hon. Member for Hammersmith, there is Doris Sargeant, a 90-year-old former hairdresser, who was determined to get the vaccine to make sure she can see her family once lockdown is eased, or Jan Keith, for whom the vaccine means hope for reintegration into a better quality of life after almost a year of shielding alone. These stories are replicated many times across London and the rest of the country. I am determined that we will continue to hear more of these personal triumphs over the coming weeks and months of the roll-out.
On 22 February, the Prime Minister set out the new targets for the acceleration of the programme. We set an ambitious aim to offer all adults over 50 a first dose by mid-April and the rest of the adult population by the end of July. I reassure hon. Members that we are on track to meet those targets. Although day-to-day figures for vaccine supply vary and a few days are better than others, overall we are working towards accelerating the pace of the roll-out, as many hon. Members have indicated. We have some bumper weeks ahead, from the middle of this month, allowing us to ramp up vaccination during March.
I know that hon. Members have raised the issue of uptake rates in London and vaccine hesitancy. I am concerned about uptake in the BAME communities, which is why I spend a great deal of my time talking to community leaders about how we can reassure people about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. On 13 February, we published our covid-19 vaccine uptake strategy, which aims to improve uptake across all communities. This was very much a strategy developed by our NHS, backed by the Department and local government.
The plan takes a local community-led approach, with support from the Government, NHS England and local authorities to co-ordinate and enable action. It includes engagement at local level, using trusted voices, sharing examples of what is known to work well in nearby areas and encouraging community-led efforts to address vaccine disinformation. We are absolutely committed to providing advice and information at every possible opportunity to support those getting the vaccine and anyone who might have questions about the vaccination process.
The community champions scheme, which was mentioned earlier, councils and voluntary organisations will deliver a wide range of measures to protect those most at risk. They are building trust, communicating accurate health information and ultimately helping to save lives. This will include developing new networks of trusted local champions where they do not already exist.
The funding is specifically targeted at areas with plans to reach groups such as older people, disabled people and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. According to the latest evidence, these individuals are more likely to suffer long-term impacts, as we have heard from colleagues, and poor outcomes from covid-19. We have put £23 million to work on this in 16 local areas.
Hon. Members have raised the issue of how vaccine supplies are managed in London at a local level. I want to reassure hon. Members that our supply and scheduled deliveries of vaccine will fully support the vaccination of priority groups 1 to 9, which the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation set, by mid-April. The UK has secured access to eight different possible vaccines across four different vaccine types, reflecting our strategy to ensure that we not only deliver the vaccines now but future-proof any vaccination programme—a booster or annual vaccination programme—in years to come.
Parts of the country have made significant progress, as we have heard, and gone faster than the average. We are putting more supply into areas, and I reassure colleagues that we will do more. The NHS is doing brilliantly to deliver the amount of supply we have. London vaccine allocations are now managed at a London regional level. Prioritisation is based on the uptake data; where the vaccine is most needed and which delivery methods are used are decided at a system level. We have heard about pop-up sites. Roving models are also used to take the vaccine to the under-served communities that we have heard so much about. Colleagues have been very supportive. We have an MPs’ toolkit to support the vaccination effort in their areas, which has done incredibly well.
Before I finish, I want to address some of the more specific points raised by the hon. Member for Hammersmith and others. The hon. Member raised the issue of the Novotel opening next week. I can confirm that it will open next week as a vaccination centre. There are 200 sites across London now vaccinating. I know that some people have issues about travel, but I know also that Age UK, for example, and some other brilliant charities have come forward to offer free travel for the over-50s to get them to vaccination sites.
The hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) raised a specific point about confusion between ONS data and NIMS data. I will just point out to her that, on occasion, there is double counting. ONS data is purely age based, and at-risk people or the workforce in care homes will be double counted in that data. The NIMS data is more accurate, but, for the sake of full transparency, the NHS has made both datasets available.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) raised the specific issue of vaccine supply. I can reassure him that we are about to see a massive step change in vaccine supply to his constituency. Of course, we need to make sure that we do not make a mistake, as he quite rightly warned us, with second doses. I can assure him of that, and I will take another look at his point about the mass vax centre closures.
The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) raised a number of specific issues about Acton town, which I will take up with her.
The hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark) talked about unregistered people. They can actually register at any GP practice, because we have amended the contracts to allow GPs to take on more people who are unregistered, including those who are undocumented, who have the ability to be vaccinated, because we want everyone to be protected.
The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), again, raised a number of issues about health inequalities. A standing agenda item in our daily ops meetings in the deployment programme is about health inequalities, and the strategy that I mentioned earlier, which we launched on 13 February, is very much part of that.
The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) raised a very important issue about Ramadan and the use of mosques. I was at the Brent mosque last week to see how brilliantly it was doing by really getting into the community. I remind colleagues that Dr Habib Naqvi has said that the contents of the vaccines are halal and it would not invalidate a person’s fast if they were to be vaccinated in Ramadan.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith needs to close the debate, so I will end with a quotation from the director of public health for Newham Council that sums up the collaboration and partnership. He last week said:
“Over 50000 in Newham now vaccinated! Long way to go but real progress. All 60+ can book online + this week popup clinics at
Sri Murugan Temple
Minhaj Ul Quran
Ramgarhia Centre
Redeemed Christian Church of God
East Ham leisure centre
& homeless clinic - real partnership”.
That is what we are doing; that is what I am determined to deliver for those communities; no one will be left behind. I am grateful to colleagues for this very important debate.
Andy Slaughter
Thank you, Sir Christopher, for your stewardship of our proceedings this morning. I am grateful to colleagues from north, south, east and west London for speaking on behalf of their unique constituencies but also identifying some common problems; to the shadow Minister, who has shown, as always, the support and solidarity that London MPs can expect from northern colleagues; and to the Minister himself. The Minister will be able to judge whether he has satisfied us on every point raised today by how many people turn up to his Friday briefing this week.
If there is one takeaway for the Minister from this debate, it is the need, in the laudable rush to hit overall targets, not to forget those left behind. That could be people of certain ethnicities. I draw his attention to the Royal College of Nursing’s work on this issue, which shows that even among nursing staff there is a disparity between different ethnicities. There are also those who fall through the net. I have a 68-year-old constituent who, because of her good health for 20 years, lost her NHS number and now is told that she has to wait eight weeks before she can get the vaccine. There are people who simply fall through the net, and it is partly our job to ensure that that does not happen.
On the hesitancy issue, I ask the Minister to look at the work that we are doing in Hammersmith and in north-west London. It is really good stuff. It is good practice that perhaps can be reflected elsewhere. He might even, after having seen it, want to go away and fund it.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered covid-19 vaccine take-up rates in London.
Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
The sitting will be suspended until 11 o’clock. May I ask those who have participated in this excellent debate to leave as quickly as possible?
UK Video Games Industry: Contribution of Leamington Spa
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the contribution of Leamington Spa to the creation of the UK video games industry.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Sir Christopher. If I were to say “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster”, those of a particular vintage might recall that headline in a certain newspaper, but if I were to mention the title “Rock Star Ate My Hamster”, they might be forgiven for not knowing what I referred to. However, that was one of the first video games produced in the area of Leamington Spa. It is perhaps one of the least known games that emanated from a particular business that I want to talk about, along with the wider sector.
I do not know, Sir Christopher, if you are a seasoned video games player, but even if you are not, you may have heard of some of our global success stories, such as “Forza Horizon”, “Dirt Rally”, “Sonic Dash” or “The Division 2”. The UK games industry contributes a huge £2.8 billion to the UK economy. It comprises 50,000 full-time equivalent jobs, generating over £900 million in tax revenue. It comprises eight major hubs across the UK, as well as a huge number of cottage businesses around the country.
Those hubs include London, Birmingham, Manchester, Dundee, Slough and Leamington Spa—or should I say Leamington Spa, Slough, Dundee, Manchester, Birmingham and London? Because while the UK is one of the global centres for the video games industry, it is Leamington Spa—or should I say Silicon Spa?—that is the motor of the sector here in the UK. A simple glance at the gross valued added of the industry across those towns and cities, and a look at their relative populations, will show that it is Leamington Spa and its immediate environs where the per capita contribution is at its greatest and most intense.
Silicon Spa, as it is known, happened by happy chance, thanks to the vision of two young brothers, the Darling brothers, who started up a business back in the 1980s that would ultimately be called Codemasters, and who had the good sense to locate themselves just outside Leamington, rather than in Banbury, Oxford or London. They then had the foresight to hire the hugely talented Philip and Nicholas Oliver. From that silicon spring, some 40 years ago, would gush Silicon Spa.
That led naturally to other developers being attracted to the area, Leamington being an obvious choice due to its reputation for great bars and good nightlife, establishing a hotbed of talent. Today, the Silicon Spa cluster employs over 2,000 highly-skilled people in 32 studios, equating to over 10% of the UK total games development sector. Per capita, that is the highest in the country, which is some sector clout. The businesses and talent are well recognised by the big players, with Electronic Arts’ acquisition of Codemasters in recent weeks for £1 billion, making it the latest big name to invest in the Warwick and Leamington area.
Back in 2008, a long time before I became the Member of Parliament or indeed was drawn to politics, I was talking to the local council about putting Warwick and Leamington on the map, because I could see the diversity and richness of talent, the breadth and opportunity of business, and the phenomenal skills pool we had in the community. At the time, I was talking to Sir James Dyson’s foundation to try to get him to invest in our towns, but unfortunately the global financial crash put paid to that.
I have long held that we have the businesses, the people and the educational resource to lead the way. That is because we also have the traditional automotive industry based in the area, which allows a fusion of skills and talent from the likes of Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin, just down the road. The steady stream of engineers and specialists working at their Gaydon hubs has had a knock-on effect on the games industry, with talent-switching between the industries.
This is something we are seeing with the emergence of augmented reality and virtual reality technologies in particular, which were developed in the games industry, and how they can be applied to other sectors as well. We have talked about the automotive sector, but there are a great many others. We are starting to see the AR and VR genres spreading into all other aspects of audio-visual media. It will no doubt be at least a £100 billion industry very shortly, within the next few years. Those who were lucky enough to see the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of “The Tempest” in Stratford will realise how these skills and emerging technologies can be used in theatrical production, as well as so many other areas.
What makes the area unique is that 75% of the digital media companies there are gaming companies, whereas the figure might more typically be 5% to 10%. With a turnover of £101 million, the Leamington area’s economic contribution is the largest outside of London, or the Slough-Heathrow area, as an aggregate figure. The area has the highest percentage of games employees in the working-age population, so you are more likely to meet someone in the Leamington Spa area who works in the games industry than perhaps anywhere else, Sir Christopher. The area benefits not just the cluster, but from soft-landing opportunities, the skills and talent, the crossover, and the fusion between different sectors. It also has a relatively low cost profile, with excellent networks across the industry and world-class research on its doorstep.
When it comes to skills and education, we have Warwickshire College Group, which offers a foundation degree in games art, with the opportunity to add a further year and receive a BA (Hons) through the University of Gloucestershire on its interactive games art programme. Across the west midlands higher education institutions, there are 2,045 on games courses, 12,800 in design studies and almost 17,000 on creative courses. A huge talent coming through, perpetually, to support this industry and many others.
In 2019, Coventry University was ranked the UK’s modern university for the 7th year running, and produces internationally recognised research. Some 2,000 students study the creative art and design courses that it offers, and 1,700 computer science students also attend. As well as that, the university offers its Q-interactive digital studio. Down the road, at the University if Warwick, there is a school of creative arts, performance and visual cultures, and it is home to the largest university art centre outside of London.
Elsewhere, it is clear that the entire creative sector of our area will benefit from the redevelopment of Leamington’s creative quarter through the regeneration of its old town. We can build upon and reinforce the importance of the creative and digital industries in the town and attract inward investment to the cultural and creative sectors. With costs so significantly lower than in London or the south-east, there are good, simple financial reasons for businesses to locate there. This is recognised by the Department for International Trade, which presents the area as a centre of high potential for video games both inside and outside the entertainment sector.
I can honestly say that Leamington is absolutely the place to be, and not just in terms of investment, but in terms of skills and opportunities, and also the support. It is also the happiest town in the UK.
I am nothing if not ambitious for our area, and slightly green with envy about the work being done by the games industry veteran Ian Livingston, who is spearheading a project to open a brand-new UK academy dedicated to science, technology and digital skills. This is something I very much want to see replicated in the towns of Warwick and Leamington, as it is something that I was envisioning back in 2008. I very much hope we can see that on the horizon.
In terms of challenges, it would be remiss of me not to talk about the economic, political and legal landscape, because it is so crucial to the future of the sector. The news the other day regarding a draft decision for a data adequacy agreement with the EU is of considerable importance to the sector, and clearly to Leamington as a result. It is positive that Brussels is set to allow data to continue to flow freely from the EU to the UK after all, although the arrangement will be reviewed every four years, underlining just how fluid the landscape is right now.
The UK is and remains a major international player, particularly when we consider the number of companies that we have here relative to our GDP and population. The US has twice as many businesses, but it has a domestic market far larger than the UK’s. It is only when we look at countries such as Japan and Germany that we can understand the scale of our sector here in relative terms, which helps explain why so many nations envy greatly the commercial success that we enjoy globally. Those countries are eager to grab market share, and many, such as Canada, Sweden and eastern European nations, are making a determined effort to attract UK companies and our talent to relocate to their shores through fiscal incentives and easy visas. These are themes among many that business sector representatives such as the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment and The Independent Game Developers’ Association are working very hard on. That is also why the sector-specific video games tax relief is so important.
In August last year the Government revealed that £355 million had been spent on making more than 150 video games in the previous year. In fact, since the relief’s introduction in 2014, just under £4 billion has been spent on making 1,400 games, which shows what can be done with support. We need not only to maintain that relief, but to deepen the UK games development fund with an increase in Government investment in intellectual property while providing greater support for trade and investment activity.
When it comes to skills, it would be good to see the Government match fund an industry-led skills programme as well as ensuring UK businesses can continue to attract the best of global talent through sensible business-friendly immigration policies. All this is good, but other nations are throwing serious money at the industry to lure our businesses away. It is vital not only that these businesses remain here, but we must ensure that they continue to invest here in Warwick and Leamington, in Silicon Spa and elsewhere across the country.
No speech these days would be complete without a review of the challenges we presently face. It is clear that for many businesses the pandemic has been incredibly hard, but for the games sector it has, I am glad to say, been relatively buoyant. Of course, many people have been turning to video games in this period to stay socially connected, to maintain their mental wellbeing and to keep entertained, especially given that so much traditional support has been closed down for long periods and has suffered so greatly. That is why I am particularly thankful for the initiative shown by the sector and by my local businesses during the crisis, and for the recognition of the sector’s responsibility by taking various actions to help support players, people and public health. The “Games for Carers” campaign donated tens of thousands of free games from across the games industry to frontline NHS heroes.
Elsewhere, there was the establishment of the partnership between leading games companies and the UK Government to place central public health messaging in games, which enabled millions to be reached. That was a very good initiative. Then there were local games companies such as Playground Games in Leamington partnering with local food providers to give away free lunches to children eligible for free school meals.
It is once in a generation that a few individuals step forward—inventors and innovators—and it is particularly rare when those innovators or inventors also have the enterprise to match. Of course, it is easy to think of those on the west coast of the US in Silicon Valley and the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and the sorts of businesses that they founded, but I would suggest that the Darling brothers and the Oliver twins were our equivalents in the establishment of Silicon Spa. Thanks to them, 40 years on, Leamington and the wider region boast our own Silicon Spa, which has become a world-renowned area and sector for a hugely successful global industry, and it is very much the motor of the UK games sector. If businesses out there across the UK, or indeed elsewhere in the world, are looking for the best location, the best talent, the best skills, and maybe the happiest town in which to locate themselves, could I suggest they look no further than Leamington Spa—Silicon Spa—and that they get in touch with me?
May I just say one final thing? When this pandemic eases and we are able to return to workplaces, I look forward to visiting many of these businesses, and I very much look forward to seeing David Darling—I just have to have a demonstration of “Rock Star Ate My Hamster.”
The Minister for Digital and Culture (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) for bringing this debate to the House today, and I am so chuffed to have the opportunity to congratulate Leamington Spa and highlight its incredible contribution to the creation and development of the UK video games sector. That sector is such a key element of our world-leading creative industries.
Only a few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to speak about the importance of Leamington Spa as a games hub. I was very disappointed that, given covid, I was not able to be there in person, and had to do it virtually. I would very much rather have been there in person, but I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has brought Leamington Spa to me today by bringing it to life in such a vibrant and exciting fashion. He is a great advert for the town, and I very much hope, one day, that I will be able to visit some of his local companies. I was delighted to be able to provide that keynote speech, because Leamington Spa is so vibrant and such an important part of our video games sector. Its very own “Interactive Futures” virtual event showcased the incredible careers and exciting career paths in the video games sector to younger generations and their parents. That is so important: what an exciting, vibrant and interesting career it would be to be in the video games industry!
Leamington Spa—or Silicon Spa, as I think we should now refer to it—and the whole surrounding area has played such a key part in the development and growth of our UK games industry. The games hub has its origins way back in the late 1980s—which, of course, I do not remember at all—with the emergence of Codemasters and then Blitz Games. Their founders, the Darling brothers and the Oliver twins, were pioneers of the British games industry, as the hon. Gentleman highlighted so eloquently. Over the years, we have seen Leamington Spa flourish as a games development cluster, experiencing superb growth and creating major economic value, not only in the west midlands but for the whole of the UK.
The games hub is now home to such a diverse mixture of games companies and smaller start-ups. Of course, Codemasters remains today one of our biggest and most successful games companies, but the area’s world-famous studios also include Playground Games, Ubisoft Leamington, and Sega’s HARDlight studio. Some of our most recognised game titles have been developed there, including internationally acclaimed racing games such as “Forza” and “F1” and—a particular favourite of mine—“Sonic the Hedgehog”. My parents always thought that I was wasting my time with all the years of my youth I spent playing video games, but it was clearly preparing me for life as the Minister responsible for video games, so it all worked out very well.
That blend of experienced games businesses and innovative start-ups has produced an organic system of inter-business mentoring and support, which has enabled the area to flourish so successfully. That mixture of business size and professional experience encourages an impressive rate of intellectual property development, and it is therefore no surprise at all that Leamington Spa has become one of the UK’s largest hubs for indie games studios. Of course, that is why the area is referred to as Silicon Spa, given its incredibly attractive mixture of innovation, artistic design, digital growth and skilled creative professionals.
Leamington Spa, though, is just one example of the UK’s many excellent games hubs. I do not know if you know this, Sir Christopher, but video games hubs have sprung up all across the UK, from Sheffield to Guildford, from Newcastle to Bristol, from Belfast to Cardiff, and from London to Edinburgh and, of course, Dundee—one of our oldest games clusters and the birthplace of the groundbreaking, iconic games that I am sure you are well aware of, “Lemmings” and “Grand Theft Auto”. Those are just some of the concentrations of games companies that are contributing to a huge drive in economic growth, innovation and creativity. Indeed, the industry is one that I am proud to say is truly British in its geographic representation.
According to recent figures from the trade association TIGA, 80% of games development jobs are located outside London, which is something many industries would, I think, aspire to. We recognise the benefits that that can bring to local economies, and, of course, the Government are committed to levelling up across the country. Is not the games industry a fine example of how that can be achieved? It plays such an important part in helping us to achieve shared prosperity across the UK.
As the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington said, the industry is flourishing and promises more growth and success in the years to come. The sector contributed an estimated £2.9 billion to the UK economy in 2019. That is up £0.4 billion from 2010, which is huge growth. We understand that the sector has huge potential to continue to grow, and can make an enormous contribution to the UK’s future prosperity. That is why the Government are so committed to supporting its continued growth and why we introduced the video games tax relief in 2014. That growth has supported £3.7 billion of additional investment in UK games production, helping to strengthen the UK’s reputation as one of the leading destinations in the world for making video games.
I am also delighted to say that my Department will continue to fund the UK games fund into the next financial year, to support early-phase games development and talent. That includes the games fund Transfuzer programme, which has helped 400 graduates so far. I am thrilled that the 2021 competition is now open for applications, supporting another cohort of games talent, based in a range of regional hubs. Transfuzer helps graduates to go on to great jobs in games development, which is increasingly important as the industry has such demand for incredibly talented and ambitious individuals. That demand will only continue to grow.
The sector already employed some 27,000 people in 2019—a 42% increase on 2013. That is exactly why events such as the one at which I recently spoke, Leamington Spa’s “Interactive Futures”, and Games Careers Week, which will happen later this month, are vital. We must continue to inspire people to look for roles in our incredibly rewarding creative industries. In recent times another great success story has been the emergence of the UK’s e-sports industry, which presents another huge set of opportunities to explore, to drive growth and investment. We are excited to see how we can build on that, to see the UK established as a major e-sports destination.
However, while we can celebrate the games industry’s fantastic growth and opportunities, there are some challenges for the creative industries. The video games sector remained relatively resilient against covid-19 but, of course, the pandemic placed unprecedented pressure on some organisations and individuals across the economy, and some other sectors in DDCMS have been particularly badly hit. That is why the £65 billion three-point plan that the Chancellor set out last week, to provide support for jobs and businesses as we emerge out of the pandemic and forge a path to recovery, is vital.
The Budget announcement coincides with the publication of “Build Back Better: our plan for growth”, which sets out the Government’s plan to support economic growth through significant investment in infrastructure, skills and innovation. That highlights more than anything, I think, the digital and creative industry as a major success story in the UK’s potential future growth, and as a driver of innovation.
It is important to acknowledge some of the themes that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington brought out in his speech today. The industry really is an incubator for some high-end technology. He also highlighted the fantastic opportunities to gain really high-quality skills, well-paid jobs and exciting future careers.
However, we must also recognise that there is still a little bit of work to be done to ensure that video games are enjoyed safely by everybody. We know that our evolving digital technologies, such as video games, present some new responsibilities as well. There are social responsibilities to make sure that anybody using them is not exposed to harm. That is why we take seriously public concerns about loot boxes, for example, and why we launched a bespoke call for evidence last September. This sort of process will inform what we can do as a Government and as an industry to ensure that all consumers are well protected. We will announce the next steps in that process in the months ahead.
However, I want to end with a key positive message from the Government. We fully appreciate the amazing potential—indeed, the amazing achievement up to now—and the future growth potential of the video games industry. We want to exploit fully the UK games sector’s potential for growth and to cement its position as a world leader. We fully recognise the games industry’s importance and its future potential, and the contribution that the sector, which is exemplified in areas such as Leamington Spa, makes to British prosperity.
Finally, of course, something that I had forgotten to mention until now is the sheer joy and entertainment that video games bring to millions of players in the UK, not least a few in my own household. I am excited to see what opportunities the UK games sector will present in the future. It is an industry with an extremely bright future.
Question put and agreed to.
Support for Women Leaving Prison
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will also be suspensions between each debate. I remind Members participating physically and virtually that they must arrive for the start of debates in Westminster Hall. Members are expected to remain for the entire debate. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks’ email address. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and before they leave the room.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered support for women leaving prison.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. When you look at the female prison population, you are faced with the stark reality that, for the most part, it is nurture, not nature, that has led these women down the path they are following: a path of destruction; a path that embodies a lack of self-worth; a path that has been created for them by life experiences and subsequent complex needs.
Nearly 60% of women who come into contact with the criminal justice system are survivors of domestic violence, and more than half report having received emotional, physical or sexual abuse during childhood. Both of these figures are likely to be underestimates. If we add issues such as poverty and addiction to that, we can start to see the full picture of how past trauma leads to crime, conviction and imprisonment.
I could talk—and I have talked—at great length about the need for alternatives to prison for many women in the first place. The female offender strategy gave me a sense of real hope that more would be done to advocate for women’s centres, with the emphasis on supporting and rehabilitating women in a more constructive setting. In the strategy, the Government signalled a commitment to a new programme of work for female offenders, driven by three priorities: early intervention, an emphasis on community-based solutions, and an aim to make custody as effective and decent as possible for those women who have to be there.
I was therefore shocked and disappointed by the Ministry of Justice’s announcement earlier this year of 500 new prison places for women, at a cost of £150 million, particularly when co-funding for women’s centres, which are proven to reduce offending, is being cut.
Today, I want to look at what happens to women when they finish their sentence. What support is available to them to help them rebuild their lives? What more needs to be done to reduce the number of women whose initial conviction becomes a catalyst for a lifetime in the criminal justice system?
I recently met representatives from the Safe Homes for Women Leaving Prison initiative. Shockingly, they told me that over half of all women leaving prison have nowhere safe to go. They walk through the gate with three things: the paltry £46 prison discharge grant, a plastic bag full of belongings, and the threat of recall if they miss their probation appointment. For some, the simple fact that they have been in prison a long way from home means that they have no local connections when they are released. For others, who are victims of abuse, returning to their homes, and consequently the perpetrators, comes at a huge personal risk. Yet what other options are there?
A lack of secure housing is a significant barrier to rehabilitation. According to a report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of probation, between 2019 and 2020, 65% of men and women who were released from prison without settled accommodation reoffended. Without somewhere to live, the chances of finding employment are minimal and the impact on mental health is devastating. A return to familiar surroundings, harmful behaviour, substance abuse and crime is almost inevitable.
The duty to refer in the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 is failing vulnerable women leaving prison. The Government must take urgent action to change this and improve the Act’s effectiveness. Although the announcement of dedicated staff to act as brokers for prisoners in order to give them faster access to accommodation on release is welcome, having this resource in only 11 prisons around the country will not come close to solving the problem. These staff need to be placed in every women’s prison in the country and be fully trained to address the challenges faced by women when they leave prison.
Likewise, the new pilot announced by the Government of temporary basic accommodation for prison leavers at risk of homelessness does not go far enough. It has been launched in only five of the 12 probation regions in England and Wales. It is limited to a maximum of 12 weeks’ accommodation and does not address the particular needs of women at all. This needs to be a national scheme that takes into account the specific issues faced by vulnerable women with complex needs and offers safe and secure permanent accommodation to enable them to achieve resettlement and rehabilitation.
Leaving prison should be the chance for a new beginning, but the way things stand, it is just the start of another battle for many women—a battle to find somewhere safe to live, to get a job, to stay clean and to not reoffend. It is a battle to avoid being recalled, because that £46 was just not enough for a fresh start.
Will the Minister look again at the Government’s commitments in the female offender strategy? Will they make commitments to take an approach that addresses vulnerability, follows the evidence about what works in supporting them to turn their lives around and treats them as individuals of value? Will he consider what could be done to improve women’s life chances on release, be it an uplift in the prison discharge grant; a pledge to look again at additional prison places, given that it is clear that women’s centres provide better outcomes; extending dedicated support across the whole female justice estate to help with accommodation before release; making available guaranteed accommodation for all those leaving who are at risk of homelessness; or perhaps all these things?
We know that the majority of women with convictions have experienced trauma. We have all heard the harrowing stories of abuse, addiction, coercion, and self-deprivation that have led these women to commit crimes in the first place. We need a system that supports their rehabilitation and offers them freedom from the past, to help them avoid recall and allow them to choose a different path; not a system that is set up for failure from the very start.
If we are to see an end to this injustice, so much more needs to be done to offer women the support and tools they need to build themselves a better future. I talk to very many women who started on this vicious journey because of the environment in which they lived. I have met women whose original crime was not having a TV licence. Unable to pay the associated fine, they ended up in prison. I have met women whose children refused to go to school. Again, unable to pay the fine, their punishment was prison. When they are released they have lost their family, their home and their dignity. They now live on the streets, and too many are working the streets and financing the pimps and the drug dealers. We have to break this cycle. The Government must act now to prevent this cycle of inevitability.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles, and to follow the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). I agree with every word she said. There are some people who, when they come to this place, like to play to the gallery, and there are some who come to do the right thing. The substance of this debate is one where we need to make sure we do the right thing, because the measure of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable people.
Many colleagues on my side of the House have a very “Hang ’em and flog ’em” approach to criminal justice—locking people up and throwing away the key. There is a place for that. However, many people who end up in our criminal justice system or in custody are themselves some of the most vulnerable people, and they are symptoms of state failure. That is particularly true of women prisoners. As we all know, quite often people who have been in the care system are over-represented on the prison estate, as are people with addiction problems, and people with literacy and numeracy issues, and that is the state failing those people.
How we deal with people once they enter that cycle of offending and reoffending is how we should judge our success in rehabilitation and making sure that we give people a second chance. We should not be writing people off forever. We know that if we do not give them the support to be rehabilitated, they will continue a cycle of reoffending. That is not good for society at all, or indeed for the taxpayer, because putting people in prison is quite an expensive solution. We need to grasp this debate head-on. We should not be letting our criminal justice system pick up the price of state failure.
Women who have been let down by the state are particularly over-represented in the prisons system. As the hon. Member for Swansea East has alluded, many are victims of abuse, whether domestic abuse or sexual violence, and trauma is symptomatic. In fact, for some of those women, prison is probably as safe and secure an environment as they have ever been in. What a travesty for our society that we let that happen.
We know that there have been many moves in recent years to recognise that prison is not the right place for people who are vulnerable and suffering the consequences of trauma. For a long time, we had a move towards different, more community-based solutions. In particular, talking about women who are also parents, what good is there to be done by putting women in prison and putting their children into care? What is going to be the positive outcome for society of that? Other solutions can be pursued, such as treatment orders combined with community payback schemes. I think we should look at that.
The direction of travel was very much in favour of this more enlightened way of treating women in the criminal justice system, but we seem to have had a change in emphasis. As the hon. Lady mentioned, the announcement of 500 new prison places comes at a time when the women’s prison population has gone down by 600. We are talking about an increase in capacity of 1,100. We ask ourselves: what signal are we showing about how we are going to deal with people who, frankly, need support to not reoffend?
In not too recent a time, the then Cameron Government had very big ambitions for prison reform and emphasis on rehabilitation, but they seem to have died with that Government. It is easy to be populist and easy to play to a gallery that wants to lock people up and throw away the key, but we need to think about what the best outcome for society is. Surely the best outcome for society is to make sure we do everything in our power to support people to get out of that cycle of reoffending.
I often say in this place that there is no public policy issue that cannot be solved by a housing solution, and that is also true of this. It is clear that some kind of security in accommodation when people leave prison is fundamental to making sure that people do not reoffend. As the hon. Lady mentioned, there are pilots in place to give that support in housing, but I helpfully suggest to the Minister that perhaps we should have more focus on those kinds of step-down solutions for housing for people who leave prison, and that perhaps that might be a better value-for-money investment of taxpayers’ money than simply expanding the prison estate.
As I say, the more we can do to divert women away from simply being incarcerated, the better it will be for society. It will prevent some children from going into the care system, and prevent that generational flow of history repeating itself in families. We also know that, as the hon. Lady mentioned, some of the offences committed by women for which they end up with a custodial sentence are not ones that justify such a sentence. In particular, they can often be with reference to debt, and again, I think we can find much better solutions for supporting people out of that.
I have little more to add, other than to reaffirm my support for everything the hon. Lady has said. We as political leaders perhaps need to give more leadership to our communities, and to be more understanding and more forgiving of why people end up the way they are. It is when people feel excluded from society—when they feel that society is not giving them a chance—that they end up in this cycle of crime and reoffending, in and out of prison. As I say, that is our failing. We need to make sure that when we pick people up for the first time, we do what we can to help them address their problems, whether that is debt, poor literacy, or all the other traumas that they may have suffered. As we know, mental health difficulties are a big characteristic of this prison population too. Let us do our bit and not simply rely on more prison places.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. First of all, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing this incredibly important debate today; it is particularly timely, given that yesterday was International Women’s Day. It is important to see from the first two contributions that women from both sides of the House can find common ground on this really important issue. I for one am grateful that there are these issues that, as women, we can potentially work together on.
It is important to remember that as many as 70% of women in prison are survivors of domestic abuse, and that women in prison are also five times more likely to have mental health difficulties than those in the general population. However, sadly, in many cases they are simply not receiving the support they need on being released from prison. According to the Ministry of Justice, in the year ending March 2020, one in 25 women were sleeping rough on release from custody, and nearly half of women left without settled accommodation. Data from the independent monitoring boards for women’s prisons and the prisons themselves suggest that the figure is actually as high as 60%. This is a huge problem, not least because 65% of women released from prison to no fixed abode go on to reoffend. Failure to provide safe and secure accommodation is therefore preventing rehabilitation and fuelling reoffending.
The Ministry of Justice has recently announced £70 million of funding to support former offenders at risk of homelessness, including a pilot to provide prison leavers with temporary accommodation for up to 12 weeks. However, that pilot is limited in scope, as it covers only five of the 12 probation regions and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East pointed out, does nothing for women in the other seven probation regions. There is also uncertainty about whether those vulnerable women leaving prison will be supported beyond the 12 weeks’ temporary accommodation to find long-term, safe and secure accommodation. That is the type of accommodation that is desperately needed, not a 12-week temporary fix.
That funding is also incredibly low, compared with the £150 million recently pledged to build 500 new prison cells for women. While Ministry of Justice figures published in November last year show that the female prison population is projected to rise by around two fifths by 2026, it is important to remember that, in the main, we need to focus on community sentences and the use of women’s centres instead of prison, especially given that 80% of women are in prison for non-violent offences. Indeed, a series of inquiries and reports in recent decades have all concluded that prison is rarely a necessary, appropriate or proportionate response to women who offend. The Government’s own female offender strategy promises a focus on early intervention and community-based solutions. Why are the Government not following that female offender strategy? Why are they investing in prisons, when actually the money is needed in women’s centres?
Specialist women’s services are best placed to address women’s complex needs, to divert women from the criminal justice system, and to prevent reoffending. The Women’s Budget Group further found that a place at a women’s centre costs between £1,223 and £4,125 per woman, depending on needs, while a place in a women’s prison costs £52,000 per year. Better investment in and use of women’s centres would therefore yield huge savings on the costs incurred directly by the criminal justice system, and on those incurred indirectly by the health, mental health, housing, welfare services that would otherwise be used by a previous offender. Instead, these specialist providers face a £10 million core funding gap from this March. The Government should provide proper ring-fenced core funding to ensure the long-term sustainability of those services.
We also seriously need to look at the presumption against short sentences. Fifty-eight per cent. of women are reconvicted within one year of leaving prison. That figure rises to 73% for sentences of less than 12 months. Meanwhile, the proportion of women sent to prison to serve very short sentences has risen sharply. In 1993, only a third of custodial sentences given to women were for less than six months. In 2019, the figure had nearly doubled to 62%. The problem with short sentences is that there is no time for any form of rehabilitation, and it often means that during that time women lose their family ties, any job they may have, and their housing. Statistics show that women are more likely to reoffend when they are given a short sentence. A review of the purpose and use of short sentences for women offenders, and their value to victims, offenders and the taxpayer is needed.
We know that women are more likely to reoffend if they are released from prison to no fixed abode. We know that women released from prison are more likely to reoffend than those serving community sentences, and that women are more likely to reoffend if they are given a short sentence in prison rather than a community sentence. Despite that, the Government are not seriously looking into a presumption against short sentences, are leaving women’s centres at the risk of closure through underfunding, and are not investing enough in measures to prevent homelessness. Instead, they are investing more in prison places, which is the one thing that has been shown to not be of use for the majority of female offenders.
Without action on those issues, the Government simply condemn many women to a cycle of crime. To truly support women in the criminal justice system we need a much more holistic, understanding approach, which ultimately would cost less to both the taxpayer and to society.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is very nice to be in the new Westminster Hall and to make a contribution. It is certainly different and does not have the ambience of the original, but it is nice to have the debates back.
I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on setting the scene so well, and I thank those who have contributed. It has been good to hear all the valuable contributions.
Obviously, I am very pleased to make a contribution on this issue, because—like the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price)—I have a passion to help those in society who are probably less well-off and need help. My heart’s desire and my position here is to help those who perhaps are not able to help themselves. The hon. Lady outlined the issues very clearly and I want to speak about them as well.
I thank the organisation Safe Homes for Women Leaving Prisons for its sterling work to highlight the problems that exist within the rehabilitation process for women leaving prison. When I read through the briefing notes, it was clear that we can and must do better to rehabilitate these women properly rather than their leaving prison with no support, which makes it much harder for them to make the change in their lives that they need. That is why we are here today. I am very pleased to see the Minister in his place and I know that he will be able to answer the questions that we put to him.
The briefing highlighted that each year thousands of vulnerable women really need follow-on help from whenever they leave prison. The hon. Member for Swansea East said at the beginning of the debate that people leave prison with £46—my goodness—and a plastic bag with their clothes in and probably all their life’s possessions, and with nowhere to live, which, of all things, I really worry about. There is also the threat of recall if they miss a probationary appointment. Is that the level of preparedness that is needed for the outside world? I would say not; indeed, that is why this debate is happening. Instead, they are left at the mercy of those evil and wicked people out there who take advantage of others, and who the hon. Members for Swansea East and for Thurrock both referred to.
I believe that we should give these women the dignity that they want and need, and the confidence that comes from that, so that they can leave prison well. If someone gets out of prison and they do not have a house, the first thing that they need is a house, or accommodation. But that should not be provided just as a one-off, leaving all the other things to fall into place, or hoping that that happens. It is about the follow-on help.
Who addresses the mental health issues? We have lived through a year of coronavirus, and many people in my constituency and indeed in all our constituencies have experienced mental health and wellbeing at a lower level than ever before—at least, I cannot remember in my lifetime there being a lower level. Mental health issues are affecting lots of people. Multiply that by those who are stuck in prison for the sentence that they have been given for the crime that they have committed, and for those people the mental health issues are really overwhelming.
What we do to provide follow-on help matters. Housing is the No.1 priority, as the hon. Member for Swansea East said. The next stage is to provide follow-on help for any mental health issues. We can help with simple things, for example, managing budgets and the moneys people have. Even those small things matter.
I watched a TV programme with Simon Reeve, who I quite like; he does a trip to different places. On Sunday night, my wife and I watched it together. He was doing a trip around the Americas and he went to a place in Colorado; I hope that I am right on that. It was a prison town—there were nine prisons in that town. But what they were doing in that prison town was getting people prepared for whenever they left prison.
We all have our own opinion of the US justice system. It is quite a complicated system, where someone can start off with a fine for a broken tail-light but things can multiply and they can end up being in prison, because they do not have the money to repay a debt and get themselves back in credit. However, what they were doing in this prison town was get people prepared for the outside world. The prisoners were being taught simple things, such as going to a restaurant. These are people who perhaps do not have the educational standards that they need; they probably do not have the social skills, either. For them, the outside world is a scary place and they are vulnerable to being taken advantage of.
I believe that the practice that we are debating today is a devastating one, which places vulnerable women at risk and prevents them from rebuilding their lives after a prison sentence. Safe and secure accommodation is essential for rehabilitation, but 65% of prisoners are released to no fixed abode. Basically, they go out the door of the prison and they are on their own. If they have no family, the situation is even worse, because they really are singular and alone with what happens to them. And, yes, the potential for them to reoffend emerges very quickly. Let us consider that figure I just gave; it is an incredibly significant figure. It is 65%, and this figure alone prompts calls for action to be taken.
It is only right that we give the Government credit for recognising that women have a very different experience of the criminal justice system from men, but because of that, while the Government have done some things, they have perhaps not done enough. They have committed to improving outcomes for women in contact with the criminal justice system across England and Wales, but I just wish that we in Northern Ireland had the same pilot scheme that the Government have looked at. Has the Minister had the opportunity to speak to the Justice Minister in the Assembly in Northern Ireland, Naomi Long, to discuss these things and see what we can learn from the UK Parliament to make this thing happen in Northern Ireland as well?
I also highlight that, despite that recognition, the Government have not set out any gender-specific measures to address support for, in particular, the complex needs of vulnerable women prison leavers in their new pilot scheme to house prison leavers in temporary accommodation. I welcome the pilot scheme, which really gets us to the stage where we really want to be—the first stage of trying to rehabilitate and bring people into society with better opportunities and life potential. I would love to see that, and if that that is the intention of the Minister and the Government, it is to be welcomed. However, at this stage, the Government have missed that opportunity, so I ask again whether the Minister will set out how this pilot will cater for the specific and complex needs of vulnerable women prison leavers. I really want to make sure that, when the pilot scheme is in place, what comes forward after that gets people ready for the next stage of their lives. Further, there is a question to be asked about whether this will be extended across all probation regions in England and Wales.
I also asked whether the information will be shared with Northern Ireland to ensure that new designated prison officers acting as brokers for housing are appointed in every women’s prison—I think the hon. Member for Swansea East referred to this in her contribution at the very beginning—and receive specific training on the challenges facing women prison leavers.
Back in 2019, I read an incredibly interesting article that included excerpts from a study carried out by the criminology lecturer Gillian McNaull as part of research for Queen’s University Belfast. What she said sums up this issue very well:
“Many women are not remanded due to the severity of their crime, but instead due to their vulnerability.”
If society puts people away because they are vulnerable and not because of the severity of their crime, there is something wrong. If Gillian McNaull at Queen’s University Belfast can recognise that, I am absolutely sure that Members who speak in this debate and the Minister recognise it. She also says:
“I found that a significant number of women are being arrested and remanded to custody for issues relating to mental health crisis, suicidal ideation, alcohol use issues and homelessness.”
The hon. Member for Thurrock referred to that. We really need to know the reasons why people are in prison. If it is because they have committed a crime of such severity that warrants prison, that is okay, but it is not if they are in because they are vulnerable or have nobody to turn to or are really down on their ankles.
Gillian McNaull added:
“This sees an unacceptable use of prison as a place of ‘safety’ and ‘containment’ for women—an issue exacerbated by deficits in community resources, such as a lack of gender-appropriate hostel accommodation, adequate community mental health support and social care provision.”
The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) made a similar reference. What can be done to help to achieve successful and secure hostel accommodation, community mental health support, which is really necessary, and that social care provision? If we get all those in place, I believe we can help in a more constructive way and give people hope for society for the future. That is really important.
At this time, the Justice Minister is committed to carrying out a review. I ask the Minister to ensure that all information, practices and pilots are shared UK-wide—we are very much part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and want to be, and we want those pilot schemes and practices shared in a way that we can take advantage of them as well—to inform what changes can be made to prevent offending and the improper use of facilities. More support is clearly needed and I believe that the effort will bring reward. I know it is the intention of everybody here, including the Minister, to lessen reoffending. It is vital that more women will be able to change their lives with the support that they are crying out for.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. This is an important debate, on which there is much agreement, and I will add to many of the things that have been said today.
If the Government are serious about reducing reoffending by women, they need to support specialist services, such as those offered by women’s centres, to help them stop offending in the first place and, if they have offended, to give them support afterwards. Providing accommodation is key because being homeless is one of the biggest factors in reoffending.
Many women who have committed crimes and are therefore in the criminal justice system are disproportionately victims of crime themselves. They also tend to be imprisoned for crimes less serious than those committed against them. Addiction or being in an abusive relationship are also factors for many of those women.
Short sentences are very disruptive for women, especially if they have children. Most women serving short prison sentences are back in prison within a year. Reoffending levels are staggeringly high, with 48% of women reconvicted within a year of leaving prison. That rises to 61% for sentences of under 12 months.
The Minister will know that women released from prison are more likely to reoffend, and reoffend earlier, than those serving community sentences. Women receiving short sentences often lose their accommodation, with many needing to be rehoused with children, as they are primary carers. As we know, such accommodation is very limited for local authorities and there are huge waiting lists.
If women are victims of domestic abuse, they cannot go back to the place where the abuse happened. There is already a chronic lack of suitable housing, including for women with complex needs. Many women imprisoned from previous addresses, to which they cannot return, lose that local connection and their ability to be rehoused.
I welcome the recent announcement from the Ministry of Justice of £70 million funding for a pilot scheme to house prison leavers in temporary accommodation for up to 12 weeks. That is in only five of the 12 probation regions. I understand that that is a pilot but I would very much welcome its extension much further. I am also concerned that the Government are spending £150 million to build 500 new prison cells for women. That clearly indicates that the problem will not be solved, that there will be more women going to prison. That addresses the symptom, not the cause.
We need to get to the heart of what will stop women offending. For me, that is support for women’s centres. We know that women’s centres are very effective in helping women who are vulnerable not to offend in the first place. A survey showed that for every £1 spent, £2.84 was saved in costs, if the money were invested in women’s centres.
When women leave prison they are given only the discharge grant of £46, which is clearly not enough. Having to survive the first week out of prison on less than £7 a day is not going to get anyone very far. We need to ensure support networks are there for women when they leave prison.
To conclude, we need to provide more accommodation for women leaving prison, increase the discharge grant and invest in women’s centres. I thank Women in Prison, Agenda and Safe Homes for Women Leaving Prison for the excellent work they do and for their briefings for today’s debate.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab) [V]
It is a genuine pleasure to see you and serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for calling this important debate and for her stonking speech. There have been excellent contributions today from Members on both sides of the House.
This Government’s female offender strategy set out some very clear principles, and we agree totally that we need to address vulnerability, acknowledge the role of gender, treat women as individuals with the potential to make a positive contribution, and break the cycle of reoffending. To do this, the strategy made it clear that
“Short custodial sentences do not deliver the best results for female offenders”.
It acknowledged the essential role of women’s centres and made it clear that when women leave prison, the support they receive has to respond to their complex needs. Again, we agree. However, it has been almost three years since the strategy was published and, as we have heard, as many as six out of 10 women leaving prison are being released into homelessness—60%. The strategy is simply not being successfully implemented.
We know that without a home, it is so much harder to find work. Reuniting with children and family is even more difficult. Meeting probation commitments and accessing healthcare and substance misuse treatment is that much harder. Not having a stable home damages mental health. It destroys life chances and lives. It kills hope. This Government have acknowledged that the likelihood of reoffending can be as much as 50% higher for those released into homelessness. Between 23 March and 31 August last year, during the height of the first lockdown, more than 3,500 prisoners, including 275 women, were released into homelessness. During those first terrifying months of covid, 65 women were sent out to sleep rough on our streets on their very first night out of prison. Some of the most vulnerable people in our society were effectively sent by the Government to sleep on the streets, when the rest of us had been told to stay home, to stay safe and to protect the NHS. It beggars belief.
We have got to acknowledge that outcomes for women leaving prison are frankly terrible. One reason is clearly the lack of accommodation, but another significant reason is the lack of continuity of care for those in need of drug or alcohol abuse treatment when they leave prison. Last year, the national average of continuity in care in England was just 35%. When drug-related deaths are at an all-time high and when a third of people in prison are there for reasons related to drug use, surely to heavens continuing treatment outside of prison must be a priority? I am told there is an ambitious Government target to go from this derisory 35% to 75%, but there are simply no details of how that will happen. I am hoping that the Minister will tell us today how and when that 75% target will be met.
It cannot be a surprise to anyone listening to this extremely well informed debate that reoffending is rife. Of women who have served a sentence of under a year, 73% will be convicted of another offence within a year. If we are to tackle reoffending and if we want fewer victims of crime, we have to tackle the root causes of that crime. The Government’s own research tells us that often women in prison are dealing with enormous trauma caused by sometimes years of abuse.
That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East was absolutely right to highlight the need for women’s centres. The evidence is clear that they slash reoffending, they cut crime and they help many women to heal and create better lives—and, unlike short prison sentences for women, they are great value for money. Some women’s centres have managed to demonstrate that they save £2.80 for the public purse for every £1 invested, so why are the Government planning to spend £150 million on women’s prison expansion when they have committed just £2 million to women’s centres? That is 75 times more to be spent on something they have admitted does not than on something that does. Why?
Let me touch on one aspect we have not yet discussed: the specific needs of black, Asian, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller women and all of those from other minority ethnic communities. We know, and the Government know, that projects led by women from a community are best suited to develop effective resettlement within that community. There are excellent examples like the Khidmat centres in Bradford, but there are not nearly enough of them across the country. Why?
As we recover from covid, it is even more important to have additional support in place for women leaving prison. It is good to see that the Government plan to take some action on homelessness among prison leavers, but, as we have heard, only five of the 12 probation regions—less than half—are likely to receive some funding for temporary accommodation pilots, even though the value-for-money case for better accommodation is overwhelming. Why? May I gently point out that London and the south-east are two of the areas where the problems of prison-leaver homelessness are greatest, yet neither is included as a pilot?
I have been doing this job for less than a year and I have already worked out that the Ministry of Justice is, frankly, addicted to pilots, but there is no follow-through. Time and again, projects are proven successful but they are simply not rolled out. The truth is that, when it comes to women prison leavers, we need ambition and commitment. We need to provide accommodation, and that accommodation needs to be fit for purpose. Women domestic abuse survivors may need to relocate away from their area. Homes often need to be able to accommodate women’s children. If those needs are not met, women do not get a second chance, their families do not get a chance, and reoffending becomes even more likely.
Despite all those facts, in their announcement on temporary accommodation the Government went out of their way to trumpet just how basic and temporary the planned accommodation for prison leavers will be. I ask the Minister gently: how will the new accommodation address the specific needs of women leaving prison and the needs of their families? How will it stop the very expensive revolving door? I have to ask: is the priority cutting reoffending and cutting crime, or is it about dog-whistle politics and cutting costs? If it is about cutting costs, the Minister should know that that is a false economy. His own research shows that. The lack of approved premises for women around the country has been a huge problem. How many of the 200 new places planned will be in specialist women’s hostels? When will they delivered? Where will they be located? Perhaps the Minister can inform us today of the progress of the approved premises for women in the south-west.
Another public relations announcement was that of a paltry £6 million for through-the-gate support for prison leavers. Only one of the 16 prisons receiving that funding will be a women’s prison: New Hall in West Yorkshire. Why?
Frankly, when women are put into prison but are not supported to deal with the trauma and violence that they have experienced in their lives, or with the addiction that has put them there, and when they are released knowing that their only option is to sleep on the street, and they are condemned to the revolving door of reoffending because support services for drugs and alcohol just are not there, that is an injustice. It is Government failure. Women are not being given a fair chance to change their lives, or their children’s lives, for the better.
The Government must demonstrate that they truly understand their own research. They need to demonstrate real commitment to and ambition for their own strategy. They need to begin to create a criminal justice system that truly understands the root causes of women’s offending, and that starts to treat women fairly.
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
It is a joy to appear under your moderating hand once again, Sir Charles. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for this important debate in the aftermath of International Women’s Day. I ought to start by reassuring her and other hon. Members, and indeed my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), of my long-standing commitment to smart justice over tough justice.
Just over 10 years ago, I became devotee of Mark Kleiman, a remarkable academic in the United States, who sadly died a couple of years ago. He wrote a seminal book, which I would recommend to hon. Members if they can get hold of it, called “When Brute Force Fails”. It is an examination of the American criminal justice system, where many years of locking up more and more prisoners for longer and longer in the hope that it would do something about crime actually produced the reverse. It proposed a series of smarter, more innovative approaches towards criminal justice, which were, a decade or so ago, showing some potential.
I am pleased to say that one of those proposals—sobriety tagging for those for whom alcohol is driving their criminal behaviour—is now rolling out across the country. It has started in Wales, where just the other day we managed to tag our 100th offender with a sobriety tag rather than sending them for a custodial sentence. Compliance in that particular project is running in the high 90th percentile. It will be rolled out in England at end of this month. I hope that for all kinds of offenders—male, female or other nomenclatures—it is the kind of smart approach that will have benefits beyond the positive and negative of incarceration.
I will start by reaffirming what the hon. Member for Swansea East referred to as our ambition and commitment to fully delivering the female offenders strategy, which was published, as she said, back in June 2018. I am pleased that she expressed real hope about that strategy. As she said, it has three main aims: fewer women coming into the criminal justice system and reoffending, fewer women serving short custodial sentences, with a greater proportion managed successfully in the community, and better conditions in custody to enable rehabilitation and improved outcomes.
The strategy clearly articulates why we need a different approach for female offenders. They make up less than 5% of the prison population, but are among the most vulnerable in society in terms of both the prevalence and the complexity of their needs. Many live chaotic lives, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, and have experience of abuse, as well as of mental health issues, substance misuse, accommodation needs, and debt and finance problems. Female prisoners are more likely than male prisoners to have been taken into care and to have witnessed violence in the home as a child. More than 60% of female prisoners reported having experienced domestic abuse, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, compared with 7% of male prisoners. Outcomes for women in custody are worse than for men, including high levels of self-harm.
Women are also more likely than men to be living with dependent children before imprisonment, and the consequent impact on families is therefore greater, increasing the risk of intergenerational offending. Each of the strategy’s aims is equally important, and each one is equally relevant to the subject of the present debate on support for women leaving prison. Clearly there will be fewer women leaving prison and requiring support if we can successfully reduce the number of women entering the criminal justice system and reoffending. Equally, if more women are managed effectively in the community, there will be fewer serving short prison sentences. For those women who must be sentenced to prison because of the severity of their crimes and to protect the public, providing better conditions in custody improves the chances of effective rehabilitation.
A number of Members mentioned the Government plans to build 500 more prison places in women’s prisons. Many Members argue that this proves the Government have abandoned their female offenders strategy, particularly the aims of having fewer women in custody serving shorter sentences, and more being managed successfully in the community, but I hope that my comments thus far make clear that that is not the case. However, the impact of the extra 20,000 police officers, with the likely increase in charge volumes, cannot be ignored and doing nothing is not an option. The long-term prison population is expected to increase over the six-year project horizon.
While custody should remain the last resort for most women, in line with the female offenders strategy in meeting projected demand, the expansion of the women’s estate will provide better conditions for those who do require custody. Our design principles include requirements around being trauma-informed and gender-specific, ensuring suitable visiting spaces are provided, greater in-cell communications options informed by the covid learning, and in open design the potential inclusion of rooms to support overnight visits for mothers and their children, currently available in only two women’s prisons. If we succeed in reducing demand for prison places, we will be able to close older, less suitable accommodation. Having reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to fully delivering the female offenders strategy, I would like to highlight our activity in two specific areas of support raised by Members this afternoon specifically for women leaving prison: accommodation and employment.
Offenders face significant barriers to securing suitable accommodation, often linked to their lack of access to the necessary funds, availability of local authority housing supply and affordability of or access to the private rented sector. A £70 million investment programme was announced in January to provide stable accommodation to these prison leavers. The investment will bring together the work on approved premises and the Bail Accommodation and Support Service with a new tier of provision for prison leavers at risk of homelessness.
To reduce reoffending and provide health and wellbeing support, we are launching a new accommodation service providing up to 12 weeks of basic temporary accommodation for prison leavers who would otherwise be homeless. This will launch in five of the 12 probation regions in England and Wales, and all individuals aged 18 and over released from prison and at risk of homelessness will be eligible, as will those moving on from approved premises who are also at the same risk. It is anticipated that the new intervention will begin in summer 2021 and provide support for approximately 3,000 service users, who will be subject to supervision by probation and have ongoing support from their community offender manager.
As part of its response to the covid-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Justice secured £11.5 million to support individuals at risk of homelessness on their release from prison and help them to move on to permanent accommodation. The scheme initially ran between 18 May and the end of August and provided up to 56 nights’ accommodation per individual, meaning some prison leavers were accommodated until 26 October. We reinstated the scheme on 22 October to run up to 31 March, meaning individuals may receive accommodation support up to 26 May this year.
While the scheme is an immediate response to support prison leavers at risk of homelessness, the Ministry of Justice is keen to utilise the learning gathered from the scheme to help develop longer term improvements. We have started to draw together learning with the intention of publishing a report in the autumn. To support the oversight of its covid-19 response, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service set up seven homelessness prevention taskforces to help find accommodation for offenders upon release. These teams have been very successful in securing improved accommodation outcomes and building new local partnerships with local authorities and housing partners. The service is considering how they might be a feature of the future landscape.
On employment, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service’s New Futures Network has a dedicated employment broker focused on partnering employers with prisons across the women’s estate. These partnerships result in work opportunities for serving prisoners that provide training skills, qualification and employment on release. Opportunities are available across a variety of industry sectors.
More recently, to mark International Women’s Day, Sodexo announced the launch of its SheWorks skills-building programme in three prisons. With the support of the New Futures Network, this will be extended to further prisons over the course of the year. Sodexo aims to fill 5% of its job vacancies with prison leavers and those with an offending background by 2023.
Additionally, from the end of April this year, the Clink charity’s kitchen training programme will be expanded to women’s prisons at Eastwood Park, Send and Downview, as part of a broader roll-out of the programme. The training scheme provides the opportunity to transform job prospects by delivering industry-recognised qualifications, training and work experience.
Jim Shannon
The Minister is setting out clearly some of the good things that can be done. Within those, in my contribution I mentioned social skills. It is important that people can leave prison and interact with people in a way that they can understand and feel the confidence that they need. Is this one of the measures that the Minister will introduce for those who are leaving prison?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. In discussions in the Ministry of Justice I have made it clear that my view, which I think is shared broadly by Ministers in the Department, is that there are three foundations for success in life post-prison. They are a job, a house and a friend—effectively, someone to hold your hand. If someone leaving prison has those three pillars in their life, they are much more likely to succeed on the outside. Too often, people have one, or possibly two, but certainly not all three. In the role that I am trying to put in place around integrated offender management—the reboot of that effort—that is what we are going to try to achieve.
The New Futures Network continues to support businesses that are part of the employers’ forum for reducing reoffending, to deliver new, tailored employment for women. Initiatives to be trialled include mentoring and thematic virtual sessions covering the development of soft skills, as the hon. Gentleman said. These will be offered to women serving the last few months of their sentence. The framework of support will be tested in three prisons.
Given the ambition of the hon. Member for Swansea East for the Government to go further, she will be pleased to know that as part of the January announcement to tackle and reduce reoffending, we are seeking to introduce and test new approaches and roles across education, employment, accommodation and substance misuse. HMP New Hall, which was mentioned, has been selected to ensure the specific needs of women are captured, so that learning can be shared across the female estate more broadly.
To conclude, I hope I have removed any doubts about the Government’s ongoing commitment to deliver fully the female offender strategy and that, in the time available, I have been able to provide clear examples of how we are working to properly support women leaving prison. As far as the extra 500 places are concerned, I hope that the hon. Lady and others will understand that, while we have to plan for the worst, and the impact of 20,000 police officers on the prison estate cannot be ignored, we will work very hard between then and now for a much better outcome than an increase in the prison population.
Carolyn Harris
I thank all Members for their contributions—I am pleased to see so many people here. I came to this debate feeling really apprehensive about the subject—it is something I have sleepless nights about. I am leaving terrified at the prospect of 20,000 extra police on the streets spending a large proportion of their time filling 500 spaces for women in prisons in order to justify the money that the Government have spent on this. That is certainly not what we need to be doing. We need to provide a different service for women. We need to recognise the fact that women have specific needs. They are in large part victims, despite the fact that they have been labelled as criminals. Most of them are victims of society and, I am afraid to say, victims of this Government’s disinterest in providing anything for them.
We have to stop perpetuating the cycle of criminality and incarceration, criminality and incarceration. We have a moral duty to provide sustainable, productive, appropriate and holistic support and to encourage these women to be productive and to re-engage with society. That is a far better way of using taxpayers’ money than freeing up spaces in prisons. We have to be more humane in the way that we provide for these vulnerable and all too often exploited individuals. That is where we need to concentrate our efforts, not on putting them in prisons. I ask the Minister to please rethink the strategy. Too many women will lose their life, dignity, children, families and homes. We cannot perpetuate this any longer.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered support for women leaving prison.
Teignmouth Hospital
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con) [V]
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of Teignmouth Hospital.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. This is the story of a hospital being closed by stealth. Teignmouth Hospital, which is in my constituency, was built in 1954. It was one of the first purpose-built NHS hospitals and offered a wide range of services. Even today, it has three community clinics, in audiology, physiotherapy and podiatry, which have largely been funded by the League of Friends. In addition, there are out-patient clinics dealing with abdominal aortic screening, anaesthetics, breast, cardiology, chronic fatigue—there are 23 of them in total, so I will not labour through all of them, in the interests of time and to allow a proper discussion of this issue. The hospital also has an operating theatre, which takes day cases relating to eye complaints and skin issues.
However, all of this was put into a quandary in 2014, when the local clinical commissioning group decided to look again at how health and care should be properly provided in Teignmouth and Dawlish. That is absolutely the right thing to do. However, my issue is with how it has been done, and with the evidence that has been collected and the way it has been evaluated.
The consultations took the following steps. First of all, they looked at removing two of the in-patient wards within Teignmouth Hospital. So, at a stroke in 2016 and after two consultations—one in 2014-15 and one in 2016—a decision was made to remove two whole wards. As anyone can imagine, the local community were not at all happy and the only thing that helped was the promise of 12 new rehabilitation beds to help in the community. That would have been very appropriate in a rural community with an ageing population, which mine is, and with a state-of-the-art physiotherapy unit paid for, as I have said, by the League of Friends. However, what was even worse was that those rehabilitation beds were never delivered. A unilateral decision was then taken in 2017 that there would be no rehabilitation beds. No evidence was produced and no consultation took place.
Then, in 2018 a further consultation looked at a reconfiguration of services. The creation of a new health hub, which was the core proposal, was and remains absolutely the right thing to do, and is in accordance with the NHS Long Term Plan. It would house the GPs in Teignmouth and an integrated care hub, with individuals from the voluntary sector, and the three community clinics. However, the out-patient clinics—all 23 of them—were to be relocated to another hospital in Dawlish. It is not that far away, but given our transport problems it is quite far enough away to be problematic for an ageing population.
The consequence suggested—but with no questions asked—because of the hub and the relocation of services to Dawlish, was that Teignmouth Hospital would necessarily close. There was no consultation. It seems to me that although there has been a consultation on reconfiguration, there has been no consultation on a hospital closure. It is my understanding that legally—never mind to ensure best care—such a consultation should take place.
I and a number of colleagues were very disquieted by all this. Indeed, the health scrutiny committee at Devon County Council was sufficiently concerned about the lack of evidence and the failure to consult that it went to the reconfiguration panel to take informal advice as to what it should do. It is only the health scrutiny committee, under current legislative provisions, that can, in effect, call in such a decision. It is my belief that, had it done that formally, the reconfiguration panel would have had to take a much more serious approach. Instead, its response to the request for advice was, frankly, a bit of a pat on the head: “Go and talk to the clinical commissioning group; I’m sure you can resolve your differences,” or words to that effect. I do not really think that is a responsible reply to a very urgent and well meant request for assistance, and my view would be, in the light of that response, that the county council, through its scrutiny committee, should now make a formal application.
The issue is that Teignmouth Hospital is to close, without any consultation at all. Why does that matter? It matters because there has been no assessment of the health and care outcomes for residents of Teignmouth. Without such a consultation, how can we be clear that health and care needs are being properly met? Worse, the consultation takes no account of what is happening in the landscape of social care. In Teignmouth there are no nursing care homes, so there is no fall-back; there are no other beds in the community that can be used.
Why are the health scrutiny committee and I so exercised about the flaws in the reconfiguration, which mean that closing Teignmouth Hospital without consultation is a real mistake? First, the decision is based on an assumption that all intermediary care can be undertaken at home, with the balance in nursing care homes. I contend that it is simply unrealistic to consider that all intermediate care can be undertaken in an individual’s home. There are lots of reasons for that. First, we do not have any nursing care homes in Teignmouth. Secondly, even if we did, rehabilitation is not what nursing homes are all about. Thirdly, some of these elderly people have to have help come to them from some distance, which makes it a challenge. We also have an acute lack of domiciliary care provision. That puts a very big question mark over the key assumption that underpins all the decision making.
The evidence that was presented is inadequate in quality and in quantity. There was a lot of data; I am drowning in data, but I have very little genuine information and very little genuine analysis. On that basis, I am very unhappy with what I have seen. It is fundamentally desk-based research by the clinical senate and the University of Plymouth—two outstanding institutions. However, the information that they have used is simply records of beds and their use, whether in a hospital setting or otherwise. It looks at discharge and delayed discharge, but because there are no beds at the moment in Teignmouth Hospital, there is nowhere for people to go other than home, or a care home outside Teignmouth, so is it surprising that we find an argument being made that those beds that were in Teignmouth Hospital are not needed? It seems to me that a negative cannot prove a positive.
Of more concern is the fact that there is no research whatever on the patient experience. Given the lack of domiciliary care provision, that is a crucial omission. People should bear it in mind that, at this point in time, the hospital’s beds have been closed for two years. Why has no evidence been gleaned as to the quality and quantity of the care provided to people in their homes? That seems to me a glaring error, which must be resolved.
It also seems to me that the evidence is definitely defective. It takes no account of this new, post-covid world. I accept that the consultation started before covid, but it has lasted through covid, and for me that has made one thing clear: the old system we had, which was very much just in time, is no longer the way forward. We must have a resilient care system. That means taking into account the impact of covid. We know long covid is following covid. We know that that specifically requires a lot of rehabilitation care. I raised that with the clinical commissioning group, who believed it was inappropriate to take account of the figures for 2020-21 because those covid figures were unrepresentative. I find that strange, because, if those are unrepresentative of the real need, surely the figures for 2019 are equally not representative. That causes me real concern.
I will turn to the proposal in relation to the other services, not beds in Teignmouth Hospital. That care is to continue to be provided in Dawlish Hospital. Dawlish is, effectively, to take double the number of referrals—23 out-patient clinic patients on top of its existing load of patients. The “building works”, which I would not really call building works, will simply reconfigure the maternity room into two consulting rooms. It is a bit like moving the deckchairs on the Titanic. There is no evidence of any real effort to ensure that Dawlish is properly configured to meet what will be an increasing demand.
As for the hub itself, there is no evidence that it will have the capacity to take all the GPs, all the community service clinics, the integrated care hub and the voluntary sector representatives. Yes, planning permission has been put in for and, indeed, granted. It is clear how the rooms will be configured in the new hub, but not how they will be used, and until they are used we simply do not have evidence that they will be sufficient for the need.
What is the way forward? It seems to me—because we have two years during which the hub is to be built—that the first priority is to collect the missing data. Let us collect the data for 2020-21, and look properly at bed occupancy and why it is as it is. Let us look at discharge, readmissions and waiting lists. Let us look particularly at the impact that long covid will have in that period on rehabilitation care and growing need. Let us also undertake some research on the quality and quantity of home-based care. There is no evidence about either of those in anything that has been presented by the clinical commissioning group. Worse, there is nothing on the patient experience at all. When all the data has been gathered, let us have a separate consultation on Teignmouth Hospital—not only after the data has been gathered but after the hub has been opened and we can see whether it is adequate, and Dawlish has taken on its additional work.
To be clear about the impact of the reconfiguration on Teignmouth residents, all those things must be taken into account. That is right and responsible. If we get the decision wrong, we could well find that we are closing a facility only to spend money on reopening something else to meet the rehabilitation need that is not met. That is lose-lose. I would be the first to agree that it is an ageing hospital, but it could be improved—not to become state of the art, and I am not looking for that; but it would cost just over £600,000 to get it to a position where it could continue to provide the services that are needed.
My ask of the Minister and the Secretary of State is, first, to intervene to stop this automatic closure of Teignmouth Hospital, as the Secretary of State did to stop the closure of Chorley hospital accident and emergency department in Lancashire. I quote regional director Bill McCarthy:
“We have received instruction from both the secretary of state for health and the minister of state for health, to work with the integrated care system and local leadership to develop an option that provides safe, high quality care, that continues to include Chorley”
emergency department. That was reported in “North by Northwest” in February this year, not many weeks ago.
I do not have an opinion as to whether that was the right decision, but the Secretary of State said expressly in the very recent latest White Paper—which will lead to an NHS Bill—that he intends to enable power to be given to him to call in decisions such as the Teignmouth one and to remove the reconfiguration panel. From the experience I have had, that panel is not fit for purpose.
My second ask is that the Secretary of State and the Minister instruct the reconfiguration panel that no closure of any hospital or facility should be made going forward without the impacts of covid having been taken into account and a proper impact assessment having been made.
My third ask is for the Secretary of State and the Minister to instruct the clinical commissioning group to put in hand a separate consultation specifically on the closure of Teignmouth Hospital, after the data I referred to have been collected, and to mandate the CCG to collect the necessary evidence on patient experience, on the impact of Dawlish Hospital and on the adequacy of the new hub at Teignmouth. The group should then review the data collected and analyse it properly.
Teignmouth Hospital deserves better and the people of Teignmouth deserve the Secretary of State’s support. I ask the Minister in his place to grant that support and to do what he and the Secretary of State are more than capable of doing, so setting an example of how important health and care are to him and to us. That would set a marker that covid has changed the game and that covid, and long covid in particular, must influence and guide future decisions on hospital closures. I thank you for your indulgence, Sir Charles, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles, in a sense for the second time. In my first Committee post in the House, when I was first elected, I served under your chairmanship on the Procedure Committee.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing this debate on such an important subject, and one that I know she has taken a close and long-standing interest in on behalf of her constituents, for whom she is a very strong local voice. From the outset, I pay tribute—I suspect with her—to the amazing work during the pandemic that has been done by not only all those working in our NHS but those in her local trust and hospital. I hope I might prevail on her to pass on my thanks to her local team.
As my hon. Friend set out, Teignmouth Community Hospital is part of Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust and provides health and care services to patients across Teignmouth and Dawlish. She set out their work very clearly in her speech, alongside a very helpful exposition of the broader health and social care context in the area in which she serves as the Member of Parliament. She recognised it, quite rightly—I hear her plea—as a whole system, and the broader picture, rather than as individual siloed parts of a health system. In the past, she and I have had the pleasure of discussing what she cares deeply about, which is the future evolution of health and social care as a coherent single model. I hope that it will not be too long before we can have those conversations in person again in this place.
As part of its work on ensuring that services across Devon are, as the CCG sees it, fit for the future and fully address the aspirations of the NHS long-term plan, the CCG, as my hon. Friend says, has been reviewing how services are provided and how to best integrate services in order to make improvements for the most vulnerable people in the communities that it serves. Considerable progress has been made in this area, for which I highlight the work of the CCG.
However, the ongoing review process has highlighted that three main cases for change remain, in the view of the CCG: that the joined-up community care now provided means that, in the CCG’s view, the 12 rehabilitation beds previously promised for Teignmouth community hospital are no longer needed, and my hon. Friend made very clear her views on that on behalf of her constituents; that there is a pressing need to safeguard the future of primary care across the entirety of the area she represents; and that both the national local strategies to integrate care further make the best use of the NHS estate.
The CCG’s reviews of the need for rehabilitation beds at Teignmouth hospital led it to believe that the health and wellbeing team was successfully meeting the needs of local patients without them, but my hon. Friend set out clearly her concerns about that conclusion and the reasons why she has those concerns. I will mention at this point an important contextual point. While hopefully many things we have seen in the past year relating to covid will become things of the past soon, it is highly likely that covid has changed the nature of how we look at the provision of healthcare, and that there are lessons to learn there for the long term and for the future. I think I heard her clearly saying that we should not lose that by virtue of something that was begun before covid not being able to scoop up and learn those lessons for the future—i.e. future-proofing the services that her constituents rely on. I am sure that the CCG will have heard her message loud and clear on that particular point.
My hon. Friend talked about the consultation and the decision-making process in some detail. Clearly, as I gather from that and from a letter she has recently written to the Secretary of State, which I will turn to in a moment when I conclude, she has undertaken a lot of work in looking at these consultation processes, the history of them, the genesis of them and how over time they have changed what they have been looking at.
As my hon. Friend said, the CCG undertook a formal consultation from 1 September to 26 October 2020—I caveat that with the point that my hon. Friend and I made earlier, which is that that was mid covid and not after the covid pandemic—which proposed to move high-use community clinics from Teignmouth community hospital to a health and wellbeing centre in Teignmouth; to move specialist outpatient clinics from Teignmouth community hospital to Dawlish community hospital, four miles away; to move day-case procedures from Teignmouth community hospital to Dawlish community hospital, which she picked up on clearly in her speech at the opening of the debate; to continue with that model of community-based intermediate care; and to reverse the decision to establish 12 rehabilitation beds at Teignmouth community hospital, as advocated by the CCG and, it asserts, as supported by previous public engagement in 2018 on the success of the service provision without the beds.
I understand that NHS England’s position is that the consultation in 2020 set out that a likely consequence of the reconfiguration was that the requirement for those beds in Teignmouth would no longer be there for the local NHS. However, I hear what my hon. Friend says; she highlighted that, in her view and that of her constituents, that is worthy of a more discrete and focused consultation.
The consultation was overseen by the independent Healthwatch for Devon, Plymouth and Torbay, which analysed the just over 1,000 responses received, finding that 61.3% of respondents were in favour of the overall proposals. The equality impact assessment undertaken indicated that, overall, the impact on people using the services affected by this proposal was deemed by them to be of benefit, while the EIA indicated that, overall, the impact on people using the services affected by this proposal was neutral or of benefit.
Following a review of both consultation feedback and the quality and equality impact assessments, the steering group approved the consultation and agreed to make a recommendation to the CCG governing body that all four elements of the consultation proposal be approved. The Teignmouth steering group approved the consultation and the local NHS plans to continue to review the proposed model of care in light of potential changes in levels of need within the local area, as well as—they have related to my office—the impact of covid-19 on ways of working. I will turn to that in a minute, as well as an offer that I will make to my hon. Friend when I conclude.
I am aware that, as she has said, local councillors recently wrote to the independent reconfiguration panel to seek informal advice on this reconfiguration, and have been advised to continue to work co-operatively with the CCG to find a local resolution. My understanding is that the IRP is constrained in what it can or cannot do and how it can engage where it is not a formal referral, but I understand from what my hon. Friend said that that remains a possibility, so I will be a little cautious about prejudging whether that may or may not happen. She asked a number of specific questions—for example, about Chorley, and then her asks at the end of her speech. What I would say about Chorley is that we do not have the power to instruct in the context of reconfiguration at this point, hence the legislative proposals that she talked about. We requested that they look at this, which they accepted, but I add the slight caveat that, as I understand it, we do not have the legal power to instruct the local CCG to do x or y at this point in the reconfiguration.
However, what I can offer to her within that legal constraint, which may be of help to her, is that first, of course, I will endeavour to reply to her letter swiftly, with responses to the detailed points she has raised in it. Secondly, although the legal powers available to me in the name of the Secretary of State are limited until and unless an IRP referral is received and the advice is then given, I am always delighted to meet with my hon. Friend if she feels that would be helpful. It may be helpful to her if I arrange to meet with her outwith this debate, to discuss with her in more detail some of the process points and legal constraints, but also to listen in more detail than she is perhaps able to set out in a debate of this sort. I would expect her CCG to have heard her voice in the House today loud and clear, as I suspect it does in her capacity as the local Member of Parliament on the ground in Newton Abbot.
It is right that all reconfiguration decisions are taken in the best interests of patients and the local population following the due process, and it is that due process that slightly constrains what I can say or do in this context. However, the Government are committed to ensuring that the appropriate resources are available to the NHS in Devon to support patients, and to continue to provide the people of Devon and of her constituency with the best possible care, so the people affected by these changes need to be involved in making the key decisions—including my hon. Friend, of course, as their elected voice. I would hope and expect that the CCG will set out a clear plan to engage proactively with her and with the local population, and would encourage all of her constituents to be involved in that process.
I will reiterate two things on the record. First, I will of course reply to my hon. Friend’s letter. Secondly, I repeat my offer to meet with her separately to discuss in more detail what is and is not possible within the legal constraints around the reconfiguration process, and also to learn more about Teignmouth Hospital. I hope that in more normal times, when such things are possible, I might be able to come down and see my hon. Friend in sunny Devon, to visit that hospital with her.
Question put and agreed to.
Cyber-troop Activity: UK
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered cyber troop activity in the UK.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I secured this debate because I feel that we cannot go into another round of elections in May with our heads in the sand about a very real threat to our democracy: industrialised disinformation by state and political actors. Across political divides we must stand against the forces that seek to smear, manipulate, speak untruths and undermine the legitimacy of Governments or political opponents, through underhand and under-regulated techniques.
Politics, by its nature, will always host opposing and differing views, and that is absolutely right, as is the opportunity to debate the points around these views, but it is incumbent on all of us to ensure that the public can have confidence in the information that they see presented from politicians and those who report on political events. The old adage that a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on certainly applies here, but at a whole new industrialised level, with mass distribution only ever a mouse click away.
Social media has been both a blessing and a curse. It is, in theory, a great leveller, providing an open platform for the discussion of ideas and helping the disadvantaged to organise groups to get their voices heard. It opens up publishing to citizen journalists, speaking without gatekeepers. However, in many ways, instead of widening the debate, it has become increasingly polarised and dominated by echo chambers, with information provision ruled by mysterious algorithms. The lack of editorial content control has created a nightmare for fact checking and fairness, and increasing numbers of nefarious actors have learned how to manipulate the system, fuel conspiracy theories and sow division. The waters have become murky and it is a pool in which many people no longer want to swim.
It cannot be dismissed simply as modern-day political spin. The new technologies create far more poisonous possibilities for the most Machiavellian practitioners of the dark arts, and there is plenty of evidence that they are taking advantage of these new superpowers. Those who want to see standards and integrity in public life maintained cannot simply stand by and ignore it.
Millions are being spent on orchestrated disinformation in what the Electoral Reform Society described as the unregulated “wild west” of online political campaigning. Organised cyber-troop operations use an increasingly sophisticated armoury to alter the nature and course of legitimate political debate, to smear and discredit opponents, to interfere in foreign affairs and generally to create distrust in the very processes on which democracy relies. Facts get confused, opposing points of view are tainted and people are turned off by an onslaught of hate, misleading propaganda and deliberately divisive content.
Techniques used by these cyber-troops include armies of trolls or political bots amplifying particular opinions or hate speech, harassment, doxxing, smearing, doctoring images and videos, mass reporting of content and illegally harvesting data to micro-target with misleading information. They do it because it works.
Fergus Bell, the co-founder of London-based media consultancy Fathm, has worked on many elections and believes that false information shared online has been “very successful” at swaying voters. It does not have to be direct in its influence but, as he says,
“if you cause division between people, or if you can change someone’s mind on one tiny thing that might make them vote differently, you can push an election”.
The cyber-troops have precise, data-driven strategies to home in on the soft spots, and they know exactly where those are.
People who are targeted by these tactics may be disenfranchised by the processes, become disillusioned with everyone involved in politics and no longer bother to participate in democracy. In some cases, this appears to be the purpose of cyber-troop activities, as Channel 4 reported in the US elections, where they found evidence of micro-targeting by the Trump campaign to deter 3.5 million black Americans from voting at all. That type of voter suppression should alarm us all.
The rapid rise of disinformation industries is evidenced in the Oxford Internet Institute’s report, “Industrialized Disinformation: 2020 Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation”. It is quite a wake-up call for those who think that these things could not happen or do not happen here. The report found that 81 countries are now using social media to spread computational propaganda and disinformation about politics, including the UK, which is a jump from 70 countries in the previous year.
The report found evidence of Chinese, Russian and Iranian-backed disinformation campaigns about covid-19 to amplify anti-democratic narratives and undermine trust in health officials. Microsoft has also warned that hackers operating out of Russia, China and Iran were targeting the staff and associates of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden ahead of the US election last year. In Argentina, a “deepfake” video was used to manipulate the Minister of Security to make her appear drunk.
As for China, a 2017 Harvard paper estimated that the Chinese Government employ 2 million people to write 448 million social media posts a year. The primary purpose of this activity is to keep online discussions away from sensitive political topics. Closer to home, the long-delayed Russia report from the Intelligence and Security Committee confirmed that there was “credible open source commentary” suggesting that Russia tried to influence the Scottish independence referendum and subsequent elections. Yet astonishingly it seems that the Government have not yet sought to find evidence of interference in the EU referendum and instead took an ostrich-like approach to defending our democratic process. At the very least, I would hope that the Government could be looking to implement the recommendations of the ISC report.
It is not just foreign interference that is at stake here; the UK has to get its own house in order. There are questions about data-driven profiling and Facebook advertising by political actors in the UK. In the 2019 general election, 90% of the Conservative party’s Facebook advertisements in early December were labelled as misleading by Full Fact. The real danger of this kind of misleading content is that cyber-troop tactics can then be used to amplify it to the extent that, by the time it is rebutted, it has already reached thousands of feeds. The Conservatives even tried to rebrand their Twitter output during a debate as coming from “factcheckUK”, changed its logo to hide its political origins and pushed pro-Conservative material in a way that deliberately confused it with independent fact-checking sites.
Another question is why Topham Guerin, one of the communications companies behind the 2019 campaign, was awarded a £3 million covid-19 contract by the Government. It is yet more evidence of the need for my Ministerial Interests (Emergency Powers) Bill, which aims to hold the Government to account, to be supported in all quarters of the House—but that matter is for another day.
Although it is not always clear who is behind these actions, there is always clear evidence of bots being used to swell numbers artificially and drive political positions. A study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue identified that almost all of the 10 most active accounts on Twitter discussing the Brexit party appeared to be automated bots, while prior to the 2019 general election a report found that a third of the Prime Minister’s own Twitter followers were bots.
Tackling this issue is not about silencing voices; it is about getting back some semblance of a level playing field, recognising the range of genuine voices and turning down the noise from the fakes. The UK is one of 48 countries identified in the Oxford report where cyber-troop manipulation campaigns are being run by private firms on behalf of Government or political actors. The report found that almost $60 million had been spent on hiring these firms since 2009, but I suspect that this figure is only the tip of the iceberg. There needs to be greater transparency and a tightening of the links between the public sector and private contractors.
Cyber-troops sometimes work in conjunction with civil society organisations, internet subcultures, youth groups and fringe movements; groups who may be motivated by genuinely held beliefs but whose causes may ultimately be damaged by those who strategically spread disinformation or computational propaganda. Take, for example, Turning Point, a right-wing youth pressure group. A US Senate report found that its social media activity was regularly co-opted and reposted by the Internet Research Agency, which is known in Russian slang as the “trolls from Olgino”.
The use of third-party campaigning organisations can also be a way to rig the system—to channel illegal levels of funds and campaigns, or at the very least to exploit gaps in our outdated electoral laws in order to press political agendas. Many questions have rightly been asked about the official Vote Leave campaign’s techniques, their links to other groups, the “dark money” spent and their micro-targeting techniques, used in breach of privacy laws.
As the Vote Leave campaign demonstrated, tougher rules are needed in the conduct of future referenda, as well as elections. The Scottish Government introduced the Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020 to better regulate the conduct of any future referendum, where they have the power to do so, including on campaign spending and donations. I would like to see further action to tighten the rules in this place too.
Fighting cyber-troops is complex and has to be tackled on several fronts, with governments, civil society, academia and technology businesses all having a role to play. The social media giants must certainly be better regulated and take greater responsibility for what is published. I therefore welcome the moves to improve regulation through the online safety Bill.
However, the misinformation and disinformation being propagated by cyber-troops is clearly an ongoing and growing aspect of online harms, so it is disappointing that this aspect has not been robustly tackled through these proposals. There are half-hearted plans from the Government for digital imprints, which is a move in the right direction, towards greater transparency, but it does not go far enough or fast enough. The get-out clause, which is that the imprint can be located in an
“accessible alternative location linked to the material”,
is not good enough.
Online political advertising remains largely unregulated, and there is nothing from the Government so far that shows a determination to better regulate against indecent and dishonest material, dark ads or data targeting. At the very least, we need to see who is using citizens’ data and why, as well as why people see particular ads. I believe that, on this front, the European regulatory plans go further than those of the UK.
I am aware of the challenges with regulating and fact-checking political content, but it is not impossible to overcome these, and it is essential that this is looked at urgently. It is no longer enough simply to rely on a sense of fair play and “a fair crack of the whip for all sides” to manage the truth amidst the overwhelming barrage of information being dumped upon us. There is no chance for rebuttals from opponents when so much content can spread so widely and maliciously, without any clarity or transparency on the sources.
It is not enough to treat the threat of cyber-troops as solely an electoral phenomenon. The Government’s counter-disinformation unit is usually only operational during periods of heightened vulnerability, when we know that cyber-troops are working to sow division and discord every minute of every day.
Much needs to be done to reform the rules, strengthen democracy and restore faith in our democratic processes, yet there has been disappointingly slow progress so far. Many organisations, such as Reset and the Fair Vote Project, are working on this alongside the all- party parliamentary groups on electoral campaigning transparency and digital regulation and responsibility. They are doing the research and taking forward proposals on a cross-party basis, so a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done on the Government’s behalf.
However, the Government have given no indication that they collect data on cyber-troop activity, despite the important role that they should be playing in analysing and assessing this threat. When I have raised questions about cyber-troops, I have been advised, in response, that the Government’s fine-sounding “defending democracy programme” is tackling this. However, from what I have found so far, it does not seem to be doing very much. Perhaps the Minister can point me to something other than that when she responds today.
We need to stop kicking this into the long grass. There is plenty of evidence of the threats from both within and outwith the UK. I have previously called for a debate, in Government time, on the need for electoral reforms to protect free and fair elections. However, if I cannot have that, we need to have it moving forward on another basis.
This is not a party political issue; it is about integrity in public life. Political differences are healthy, as is debate, but the tactics of division and disinformation from cyber-troops are a cancer on all political discourse, and it is spreading too fast to ignore. We all have a moral imperative to take action, and I call on this Government to do so.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for setting the scene so well. He knows that we do not agree on everything—far from it—but there are many things that we do agree on, and I echo his concerns. This is not about hearing a point of view that we may disagree with; it is about whether something is right; whether it is true.
I was looking through The Times today, and one of the stories refers to fake news and also a fake review, where facts are disputed and questioned. Fake news, as the hon. Gentleman referred to, can suddenly become the perceived truth when quite clearly it is not. I remember many years ago, when I was a young boy, some people at school telling me that if you tell a lie often enough, people will believe it. Whether that is true or not, I suspect that sometimes it is true. People tell a story or a so-called fact over and over, and suddenly somebody will say it is true. That worries me greatly.
The hon. Member for Midlothian referred to voter suppression, and he mentioned the United States of America as an example. What happens in America very often ends up happening here—it is said that when America sneezes, we catch a cold. If that is right, then we need to be really on top of what is happening. The hon. Gentleman referred to three countries, but I will refer to four. Other countries that are very much involved in voter suppression, fake news and telling the truth in a way that suits their political ambitions are Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. In the press a few months ago they were talking about the ability that North Korea now has to do this as well.
I think the Government really need to be on top of this and know what has been put out as wrong and untruthful, and respond to it in a really positive fashion. I have done the armed forces parliamentary scheme over the years. The last time we did it was with the Royal Air Force and the first couple of times was with the Army. Last time, even with those few years of difference between when I did it way back in 2012 and 2013 and again in 2018, I could see how the role of the Ministry of Defence and the RAF was changing, even compared with just four or five years ago. I just wanted to highlight that. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response—I say that nicely, but she knows I mean it—which I hope will give us the important reassurance that we seek.
I do not want to say much more but I will refer to a couple more things if I may. Misinformation can be a danger. A comment deliberately taken out of context can and has caused irreparable harm. The good book—the Bible—says that the word is mightier than the sword. It certainly is. It can hurt more. Surgically, the sword can bleed you, but words spoken out of tune, out of place and hurtfully can strike deeper to the heart than anything else. I am always very aware of that as well.
I support the notion of combating this at Governmental level, which is why I look to the Minister for a positive and helpful response. However—I know the hon. Member for Midlothian will understand my point—neither can we be in the position of becoming the guardian of speech. Sir Charles, you are one of those who believes in free speech, and I believe that we must remain free; we must possess the ability to have opposing views, and a way that we can agree to differ and still be friends at the end of it. That is always what I look to do in the comments that I make. We must possess the ability to have opposing views and state them in a non-threatening factual way, with the truth very much in place.
I watched the polarisation that took place in the United States over the last election, and in this nation in reference to Brexit. I am a Brexiteer, and I am glad that we are out of the EU—as a Northern Ireland MP, I know there are obviously issues with the deal, but I am glad that we are out—but how much of that was due to the influences of a variety of forms of social media?
The hon. Member for Midlothian referred to social media, which we all know can be a plus, but it can also be an absolute curse that can destroy people and carry all the wrong things. We all know friends, including colleagues in my party, who have been trolled, as I have been. Some of the comments are absolutely despicable My staff probably try to protect me from it, which, by the way, is not a bad thing, because an ill spoken word can be mightier than the sword.
We need to watch our words and ensure that our truth does not eclipse the truth. When I say, “our truth”, I do not mean my truth or the hon. Gentleman’s truth; I mean someone putting out what they refer to as “the truth” when it is not. The balance will be hard to find, but I believe that he, like me, wants to find that balance. That is the thrust of what he said, and I support that. I encourage the Government to use publications such as the “Industrialized Disinformation: 2020 Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation” report, published by the University of Oxford, along with other evidence to find an informed and balanced way forward.
The hon. Gentleman referred to integrity and said that debate is healthy. So it is. I am always happy to speak to anyone who has a different point of view from me because there is no threat in that, but we should be able to debate in a healthy and constructive way and, at the end of it, still be able to go our different ways, perhaps still with our own points of view.
I finish with a biblical quote as I sometimes like to do in debates, and I hold strongly to this. I was sat here, thinking:
“the truth will set you free”.
I knew that from an early age as a young boy in the children’s meetings in my village and back home in Ballywalter. It is true in political life, it is true in social life and it is true in everything. The truth will set you free. We need to hold to the truth. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response.
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
We now go to the Front-Bench speakers, who have five minutes each, until the Minister, who has 10 minutes.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this evening, Sir Charles, and to serve under your chairmanship for this debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson).
Disinformation, and state-sponsored disinformation campaigns in particular, is an issue close to my heart, and I know it is close to my hon. Friend’s heart. Disinformation represents a growing threat, as was adumbrated in the Oxford Internet Institute’s report he referenced in his opening remarks. It is not just that there are now more so-called cyber-troops working on disinformation campaigns but that they are growing in sophistication, the amount of money being spent on that around the globe has grown into the many millions, and the threat is going only in one direction.
As we know from the events in Capitol Hill in January, disinformation has to radicalise only a relatively small percentage of the population to be a serious and violent threat not just to others in society but to democracy itself. Of course, there are countless examples of that in history throughout the world. We can even look—if anyone cares to—at the example of the bronze soldier of Tallinn in Estonia in 2007.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is right to highlight that this is not about regulating people’s opinions and views. He is a staunch Unionist who I have a lot of respect for, and I am a staunch supporter of Scottish independence. It is an idea that has been around since around 843 AD and is a perfectly mainstream view to hold, albeit that I accept it is not held by a majority of those appearing in the debate this evening. However, the Scottish National party recognises how we in particular can be targeted, to be used as a means to sow division, through hostile actors weaponising a mainstream, legitimate idea. We do not want that to happen. We want our debates to be conducted entirely properly.
I want to call for a couple of things. Members of Parliament need a greater understanding of the threat picture. When we talk about the sophisticated network of cyber-troops, exactly what does that mean? I ask the Government to facilitate briefings on the threat picture. I also want us to have a national strategy to counter disinformation. It should build information resilience, and not just among young people in schools—important though that is. The strategy should reach every part of the population. The pandemic has surely shown us why that is important.
Lastly—we could go on much longer, I am sure—I plead with the Government, while accepting that it is not the departmental responsibility of the Minister: the ISC recommendations in the Russia report must be implemented. There is agreement across all the parties in the House on that, and the Government must implement those recommendations, disinformation being one of the many areas where not just the UK but many open societies are vulnerable. There is a good discussion that we could have, that would be free of party political heat, to ensure that we do that, and build a resilient democracy that allows ideas to be debated and to flourish as they should in any free, open society. I think we can all agree on that.
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
In these one-hour debates the two Opposition Front Benchers get five minutes each, but, since we have a bit of time, if the Labour shadow Minister would like to take a little longer, she can. I hope that all Ministers’ and shadow Ministers’ offices make them aware of the rules on Westminster Hall debates and timings; but please, shadow Minister, have a little longer. It is not as if we are short of time at the moment.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Thank you, Sir Charles. I greatly appreciate that, but in any case I would like to start by saying what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairship, and what appropriate discretion you show.
I congratulate and thank the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson), who called today’s debate. The internet plays an ever-increasing role in our lives, as the pandemic has shown. Our work, social and family lives, and our Parliament, are all largely online, and we get our news from online sources and develop our politics digitally. Research by Ofcom shows that Facebook now rivals ITV as the second most popular news source for UK adults. That is reflected at party level. In 2018 the UK’s three largest parties spent £3.7 million on Facebook advertising alone, which, as Members have observed, is largely unregulated.
We live in a digital age and there are, unsurprisingly, perhaps, emerging digital threats to our democracy, so today’s debate is overdue and I am concerned that the Government are weak on online protections, and are presiding over continuing delays to the online safety Bill as well as failing to decisively oversee the impact of Huawei on our telecoms networks.
As we have heard, cyber-troops are Government military or political party teams, committed to manipulating public opinion over social media. I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Midlothian again. I was the first Member of Parliament to mention the internet of things in the House. As I understand it, he is the first Member of Parliament to mention cyber-troops in a debate, and in congratulating him—it is, as we have heard, a very important subject—I wonder why the Government are not bringing forward or raising issues of this importance. It has been 11 years since the earliest reports of organised social media manipulation in 2010, which coincided with the first Conservative Government after Labour.
Members have mentioned the research by the University of Oxford that found that cyber-troop teams use a variety of strategies, tools and techniques, but they often have an overarching communications strategy that involves creating official Government applications, websites or platforms for disseminating content, using accounts that are either real, fake, or automated to interact with users on social media, or creating substantive content such as images, videos or blog posts—fake images, as well. They do not have to be sinister or abusive in themselves: for example, Israel deploys the policy of positive interactions with social media users who are critical of the Government, and the Czech Republic seeks to provide neutral fact-checking services. However, negative strategies are used, as we have heard.
These Government-sponsored accounts are not always run directly by the services whose message they are spreading, nor is that message always obvious. The University of Oxford research found one Russian cyber-trooper who ran a fortune-telling blog that provided insight into relationships, weight loss, feng shui, and just occasionally geopolitics, with the goal of weaving propaganda seamlessly into what appeared to be the non-political musings of an everyday person. The serious point is that this can be very hard to detect by the most informed consumer.
With the vast range of activities, sources and strategies deployed by cyber-troops, it is important to keep up with the changing geopolitical landscape, so I ask the Minister to tell me what assessment has been made of these measures deployed by cyber-troops across the world, and specifically what the impact is on UK citizens and our democracy. The emergence of these strategies and threats is a threat to our democracy, which emphasises the importance of collaboration with our friends and allies to fully map the threats that we face. We have heard of the well-publicised Russian disinformation campaign in the US 2016 election, as well as our lack of resilience, and even as our service personnel are mobilised to help contain the pandemic, our adversaries are feeding disinformation and division into our communities. That shows how essential public understanding is in a crisis, and that the enemies of democracy will exploit every weakness. The Government launched the armed forces cyber-regiment last year. That is good, but I ask the Minister why it took so long, and whether we have already been exposed to digital hostility.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) emphasised the changing role of the armed forces, and I pay tribute to his work with the armed forces. What discussions has the Minister had with the Secretary of State for Defence specifically on cyber-troops? There can be confusion between the responsibilities of the National Cyber Security Centre and those of Ofcom in this key area, so could she outline where the demarcation is there? As we have heard, cyber-troops operate primarily on social media: Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, and all parts of our social lives, as well as our work lives and consumer lives. However, we have little control over how that content is curated. Facebook itself says that millions of users have been exposed to coronavirus disinformation, so I ask the Minister why we are so slow to introduce any effective regulation of online content, when the online safety Bill will be before us, and whether it will include anything to address cyber-troops.
The hon. Member for Midlothian also highlighted the impact of disinformation on our democracy specifically. What discussions has the Minister had about the need to reform our electoral system to protect it from foreign interference, as the Electoral Commission and the Law Commission have set out in a number of reports? Does she accept that cyber-troops warrant reform to our electoral laws, and what recommendations does she have, if any?
It is harder than ever to trust what we see online, with fake images pretending to be from reputable sources such as the BBC and so on. As we have heard, the Government were themselves guilty of that during the 2019 general election, when they changed their official social media channels to appear as unbiased, neutral fact-checkers. The bots may be following the Prime Minister, but is the Prime Minister following the bots?
So far, the Government appear content to leave those issues to the market, but it is a market that has allowed the spread of disinformation, opening the door to cyber-troops. Self-regulation by the social media giants has failed, and they have made little progress. Twitter has begun checking some of its posts, and Mark Zuckerberg has rolled back on his declaration that Facebook would not become the arbiter of peace, but that is too little, too late, and there is not enough progress. Will the Minister explain why the only requirement that she places on those platforms is that they should not make money from disinformation? Surely there has to be a higher standard than not directly profiting from it.
Finally, anonymity is a complex issue, but the sheer scale of misinformation, online abuse and extremism means that there has to be more we can do. We recognise anonymity as a shield for whisteblowers, victims finding refuge online, or children in minorities exploring self-expression, but how does the Minister see the relationship between anonymity and the work of cyber-troops? Is she looking at the trade-off of protecting privacy and free speech—the hon. Member for Strangford talked about the importance of free speech, and I echo that point—and protecting our democracy and citizens from harm and abuse? Inaction is to make the worst trade-off of them all.
This Government have been in place, in one form or another, since 2010, and in that time we have seen a dramatic change in the prominence and the role that the online world plays in our lives, our democracy, our news and our understanding of the world, yet we have seen no action from the Government. Understanding mapping and measuring the impact of cyber-troops on UK citizens is an action that any responsible Government should be taking. We have heard today about the ways in which cyber-troops are deployed, controlled and developed, but those strategies will not stay the same—they will continue to evolve—and we are not even playing catch-up, because we do not seem to be in the game at all. I am really pleased that those key points have been raised in the debate, and I hope that the Minister will set out in her response the action that the Government will take.
The Minister for Digital and Culture (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Sir Charles. I join everyone else in thanking the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for bringing forward this really important topic. I know that he has long been a really powerful and strong voice on the subject, and he is absolutely right to keep bringing attention to the issue, because the worrying industrialisation in disinformation is something that we should all be concerned about.
A number of Members have spoken about the increasing sophistication of digital technology. Even this week there was a deepfake of Tom Cruise on TikTok; it was incredibly lifelike and plausible and was not intended for sinister purposes. That only underlines what is the art of the possible if that technology is in the hands of those who are up to no good. It has always been vital that UK citizens have access to accurate information when it comes to elections but also situations such as our current pandemic; it is vital to our democracy and everyday life as well. Disinformation and mis-information, which is spread without intention, threaten our democratic freedoms and can cause harm to individuals and society, and it is an issue that the Government take incredibly seriously.
That is why we established a dedicated counter-disinformation unit, which brings together cross-Government monitoring and analysis capabilities to build a comprehensive picture of disinformation and misinformation. It works with partners to ensure appropriate action is taken. The hon. Gentleman rightly said that this unit that has generally been stood up at elections; it was stood up during the European parliamentary elections, the UK general election in 2019 and again in March last year to respond to the covid pandemic, and it remains operational. The component parts of the unit remain operational all the time—organisations such as the 77th Brigade, for example.
Throughout the pandemic particularly, the unit has been working closely with social media platforms to quickly identify potential harmful content on their platforms and help them respond to it. We have seen major platforms update their terms of service and introduce new measures to tackle disinformation and misinformation related to covid-19. This is not just about not being able to profit from it; a really important part of the agreement is that they also put up links to reliable, Government-backed sources of information. We welcome this, and there is clearly more to do. We continue to put pressure on platforms to ensure that their policies and enforcement are fit for purpose, while respecting freedom of expression. The unit also works with Government communications teams to ensure that public communications and community engagement address false information where appropriate to do so.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for her comments and the information she is giving. Before she moves on from the unit for disinformation, when I asked recently how many full-time employees it had, the answer was none. She has talked about how spread out it is, but given the increased importance of disinformation, will there be full-time employees in the unit or will they all have other things to do as well as disinformation?
Caroline Dinenage
It is a unit that expands. There are full-time members of staff dedicated to this, but that is obviously a tiny number in normal circumstances. It expands enormously when the Government disinformation unit is stood up.
Jim Shannon
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) has referred to the numbers in the unit, but surely the close working with the police forces across all the regions gives extra numerical strength to what the Government are trying to do.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are working closely with the police and also the Army, as I have mentioned. I am always slightly nervous about what I am allowed to say around this issue, not being an MOD Minister, but there is the 77th Brigade, which is a military unit dedicated to this sort of activity and with which we work very closely.
While such information can come from a range of sources, we know that certain states routinely use it as a tool to exploit our open system by sowing division and undermining trust in our democracy, as the hon. Gentleman said. This can be through disinformation, cyber-attacks and other methods. We have made it clear that any foreign interference in the UK’s democratic process is absolutely unacceptable—it does not even need to be said—and it is, and always will be, an absolute priority to protect the UK against it. The UK, along with our G7 and NATO partners, is working hard to protect our democracy against disinformation as we work together to tackle the shared threat of covid-19.
We remain firmly committed to protecting our democratic values and our electoral processes, which I know the hon. Member for Midlothian is concerned about, and we have robust systems in place to protect the UK against foreign interference. As he says, it is all about working collaboratively. These systems bring together Government, civil society and private sector organisations to monitor and respond to interference in whatever form it takes. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) talked about these things sometimes coming in the guise of something that could look quite harmless but can actually be incredibly sinister.
It is absolutely vital to ensure that our democracy stays open, vibrant and transparent. The Government are strengthening our legislative framework, enhancing capabilities and engaging with partners to expand our efforts to ensure the maximum impact. That joined-up approach is supported through the defending democracy programme, based in the Cabinet Office, which provides a strategic co-ordinating forum, drawing together work and expertise across Departments on a number of fronts to protect democratic processes, strengthen the integrity of elections, encourage respect for open and safe democratic participation, and promote open, fact-based discourse.
The Government are taking steps to strengthen elections by introducing legislation, as the hon. Member for Midlothian said, to ensure that the framework is fit for the modern age, for example by updating online campaigning rules. In May 2019, the Government committed to introducing a digital imprints regime, which will inform voters about the source of online campaign material. In August, we launched a technical consultation on this proposal. It closed in November, and further details will be set out shortly.
During major democratic events, the Government stand up an election cell—a co-ordinated structure that works with relevant organisations to identify and respond to emerging issues and protect the safety and security of the democratic process. The counter-disinformation unit works closely with the election cell, co-ordinating the Government’s operational response to any evolving threat of disinformation and other forms of online manipulation. The Government are working really closely with partners to support the delivery of safe and inclusive elections. Of course, the next ones will be very shortly, in May.
The Government welcome the valuable analysis and insight from academia, including the Oxford University report, and we take seriously the findings of other experts in this field. Countering disinformation and other forms of manipulation requires a whole-of-society approach, and the Government are working closely with the Oxford Internet Institute and other stakeholders from civil society, academia and industry to much better understand the issues in this space. In particular, last year the Government launched a counter-disinformation policy forum, bringing together key actors in industry, civil society and academia to improve responses to misinformation and disinformation and, crucially, to prepare for future threats. This forum contributes to the collective understanding of challenges to the information ecosystem, allows us to improve the responses that our organisations can deliver to better mitigate evolving threats posed by false narrative and helps us to prepare for future advances in technology, which is of course what we are all really worried about; as we have already said, the technology evolves rapidly.
We are entering a new age of accountability for the tech industry. The hon. Member for Midlothian and others mentioned the online safety legislation. We announced plans at the end of last year for a groundbreaking rulebook that will make tech companies responsible for tackling harmful content on their sites. This new regulatory framework will give digital businesses much more robust rules of the road, as it were, so that we can seize the brilliance of modern technology to improve our lives while protecting children, building trust and, crucially, tackling criminal activity online.
The full Government response to the online harms White Paper was published at the end of last year and set out how the proposed legal duty of care on online companies will work in practice. It will of course defend freedom of expression and the role of the free press. The new laws will also ensure appropriate checks and balances on platforms’ power over public discourse and will promote a thriving democracy where pluralism and freedom of expression are protected. The laws will have robust and proportionate measures to deal with misinformation and disinformation. That is crucial, because we know that they can cause significant physical or psychological harm to an individual. An example is the anti-vax falsehoods that we are seeing around covid-19 at the moment. Crucially, the Bill will give Ofcom the tools it needs to understand how effectively disinformation is being addressed. That will be done through transparency reports, and then it can take action in the appropriate way, as required.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for her comments. I asked about the role of Ofcom with regard to cyber-troops and electoral disinformation and whether she sees a role for Ofcom and the NCSC there.
Caroline Dinenage
As the hon. Lady knows, the NCSC is not a regulator, but it provides authoritative advice, and the online harms response says very clearly that it is vital that Ofcom is able to take advice, if necessary, from experts in whatever field, whether civil society, charities, academia or businesses. They will have to work together very collaboratively, because it is Ofcom’s job to hold companies to account to ensure that this issue is being tackled appropriately.
It is important to say that we really do support freedom of expression as a fundamental right. It is an essential element of the full range of human rights. Therefore, while we take action to address false narratives online, we have to remain committed to protecting the freedom of expression that we are so well known for, across our nations. However, our commitment to tackling misinformation and disinformation in all their forms remains an absolutely key priority. Our challenge as a society is to help to shape the internet so that it remains open and vibrant but still protects users from all kinds of harm. It is a really difficult balance to strike, but our commitment to protecting our democratic freedoms and processes from outside interference by any actor, whether state or non-state, remains unwavering.
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Mr Thompson, would you like to give us a couple more minutes in winding up the debate?
Owen Thompson
Thank you, Sir Charles. I will briefly thank all hon. Members for their contributions this afternoon. I think we have seen a very clear understanding that it is in all our interests to ensure that we tackle this issue and get it right. I very much endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) about seeking a strategy, because we are starting to see a swell of opinion for tackling some of these things, especially misinformation online. We have seen the importance of that through the current pandemic. The public need to be able to have confidence in the information that they access.
In a nutshell, the issue comes back to what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said. He very ably made the point that it is so important that we are able to agree to disagree. I do not think that anybody is suggesting that we need to have any kind of thought control or that everybody has to have the same opinions. It is important that we do not, but it is important also that we can have confidence that those views and opinions are presented in a way that is accurate and factual.
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
I thank colleagues for facilitating and conducting such an excellent debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered cyber troop activity in the UK.
Written Statements
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Tackling Intimidation in Public Life
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for the Constitution and Devolution (Chloe Smith)
I wish to update hon. Members on the steps that the Government are taking to tackle intimidation in public life.
In July 2017, the then Prime Minister commissioned the Committee on Standards in Public Life to undertake a review into abuse and intimidation in elections. This followed concerning evidence from many parliamentary candidates across the political spectrum on their experiences during the 2017 general election. The Government’s response to that report in March 2018 outlined the Government’s planned programme of work in the area, and the Committee has published its own follow-up to its report in December 2020.
Tackling intimidation in public life also forms an important part of the defending democracy programme, a cross-Government initiative led by the Cabinet Office.
Protecting free speech within the law
It is important to distinguish between strongly felt political debate on the one hand, and unacceptable acts of abuse, intimidation and violence on the other. British democracy has always been robust and oppositional.
Free speech within the law can sometimes involve the expression of political views that some may find offensive: a point that the Government have recognised in the Department for Education’s policy paper, “Higher education: free speech and academic freedom”, published last month. But a line is crossed when disagreement mutates into intimidation, which refuses to tolerate other opinions and seeks to deprive others from exercising their free speech and freedom of association.
Tackling threats to MPs
The Home Office is responding today, on behalf of Government, to the Joint Committee on Human Rights report, “Democracy, freedom of expression and freedom of association: Threats to MPs”.
This outlines how the Government are addressing the concerns raised in the report on:
The need for collaboration to tackle the issue of threats to MPs;
The national approach to prosecuting offences against MPs;
The online abuse and harassment faced by MPs; and
Policing around Parliament and beyond.
Ensuring safety of journalists
Also today, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is publishing the first National Action Plan for the Safety of Journalists.
The Government’s aim is to ensure that journalists operating in the UK are as safe as possible; reduce the number of attacks on and threats issued to journalists; and ensure those that are responsible for such are brought to justice. In order to support this goal, it outlines how the Government are taking steps to:
Increase our understanding of the problem;
Enhance the criminal justice system response in tackling crimes against journalists;
Support journalists and their employers to build the resources they need to protect personal safety;
Help online platforms to tackle the wider issue of abuse online; and
Improve public recognition of the value of journalists.
Preventing intimidation in elections
In due course, the Government will legislate to introduce a new electoral sanction of intimidation against those who participate in elections and contribute to the political debate, including candidates and campaigners. This new sanction complements the existing offence of undue influence against electors.
Under this new electoral sanction, someone convicted of intimidating a candidate, future candidate, campaigner or elected representative will face a ban on standing for and holding elective office for five years. This five-year disqualification is in addition to the substantive punishment for the underlying existing criminal offences of an intimidatory nature. It is simply not right that those who seek to damage free, fair and vibrant political participation should then be allowed to participate in the very same process they sought to undermine.
We have already updated electoral law to ensure local candidates can choose for their home address to not be made public; the local authority area in which they live can appear on the ballot paper instead.
The Government will also be legislating to require imprints on digital campaigning material. While this will increase transparency in modern campaigning, it will also ensure greater scrutiny and accountability of those who promote material, including third party campaigners. The Cabinet Office has undertaken two separate consultations on this area, as it is complex. We need to be mindful not to impose excessive regulation of free speech by individuals, nor force campaigners to publish their home addresses as part of the imprint requirement.
The Government will also legislate to clarify and improve the offence of undue influence of a voter. We want to ensure that the offence offers adequate protection for electors to be free from undue influence and that the offence is effective for enforcement agencies. This reflects recommendations made by the Pickles review into electoral fraud, following the 2015 election court relating to elections in Tower Hamlets.
Parties leading on codes of conduct and support
The Government response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life report asserted that all political parties should put in place their own individual, tailored, code of conduct which sets out the standards of behaviour expected of their party members and representatives. All of the political parties represented in the House of Commons now have in place their own code of conduct.
The Government did not, and does not, support a joint code. This is impractical given there are over 300 registered political parties, and since joint codes may fuel and encourage the issuing of politically vexatious and unfounded complaints.
Many parties have significantly increased their support for elected representatives who face abuse.
Providing guidance for MPs
The Government have worked with the Law Officers to publish new guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on the laws on intimidation, and the wide range of areas in which intimidation can be prosecuted under existing laws. This has been complemented by police guidance from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).
For hon. Members who have not previously read the CPS guidance, it can be found at:
Responding to intimidating behaviour: Information for Parliamentarians:
https://www.cps.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/publications/responding-to-intimidating-behaviour-04-2019.
The NPCC, CPS, College of Policing and Electoral Commission have also issued Joint Guidance for Candidates in Elections, which is distributed by the Electoral Commission:
https://www.electoraslcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf_file/Joint-Guidance-for-Candidates-in-Elections.
Action on online communications
The Government have published their full response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation. The response confirms that Ofcom will be named as the independent regulator, who will oversee the regulatory framework, setting clear safety standards, backed up by mandatory reporting requirements and strong enforcement powers to deal with non-compliance. Legislation will follow in due course.
We expect companies to take action now, ahead of the regulatory framework coming into force. We have set out steps that we expect companies to take across a range of harms on a voluntary basis ahead of legislation being finalised. These include ensuring products and services are safe by design and that users who have experienced harm are directed to, and are able to receive, adequate support. While it is not for the Government to dictate how companies allocate resources internally, we have been clear that platforms need to do significantly more to address online abuse.
We are also ensuring that the criminal law is fit for purpose to deal with online abuse. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Ministry of Justice engaged the Law Commission on a second phase of its review of abusive and offensive online communications. This included considering whether co-ordinated harassment by groups of people online could be more effectively dealt with by the criminal law. The Law Commission has now consulted on proposed recommendations for reform. It will provide final recommendations in 2021, which we will carefully consider.
The Government are engaging with international partners to promote international consensus on what constitutes hate crime and intimidation online. The Government are currently working with international partners on this issue in the Council of Europe.
I hope this outlines how the Government are continuing to work to deliver their commitments to tackle intimidation in public life. The Government are open and receptive to ideas from hon. Members and other elected representatives on what further steps can be taken to protect the exercise of free speech and democratic representation across the United Kingdom.
[HCWS833]
Covid-19: Industrial Development Act 1982
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
I am tabling this statement for the benefit of hon. Members to bring to their attention spend under the Industrial Development Act 1982. In addition to the obligation to report on spend under the Industrial Development Act annually, the Coronavirus Act 2020 created a new quarterly reporting requirement for spend which has been designated as coronavirus-related under the Coronavirus Act. This statement fulfils that purpose. Actual expenditure of assistance provided by Her Majesty’s Government from 1 July 2020 to 30 September 2020 £647,308,581 All expenditure of assistance provided by Her Majesty’s Government from 25 March 2020 £ 694,945,581 Actual expenditure of assistance provided by: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy £694,908,581 Competition Appeal Tribunal £ 37,000 Contingent liability under the Coronavirus Act 2020 Contingent liability of assistance provided by the Secretary of State from 1 July 2020 to 30 September 2020 £ 18,985,945,140 All contingent liability of assistance provided by the Secretary of State from 25 March 2020 £ 49,442,128,910
The statement also includes a report of the movement in contingent liability during the quarter. Hon. Members will wish to note that measures such as local authority grants, the coronavirus job retention scheme and self-employed income support scheme, and tax measures such as the suspension of business rates are not provided under the Industrial Development Act 1982 and hence are not included below.
This report covers the third quarter of 2020, from 1 July to 30 September 2020, in accordance with the Coronavirus Act. The written ministerial statement covering the second quarter of 2020 was published on 18 January 2021.
Spend under the Coronavirus Act 2020
Under the Coronavirus Act 2020, there is a requirement to lay before Parliament details of the amount of assistance designated as coronavirus-related provided in each relevant quarter. In the period from 1 July to 30 September 2020, the following expenditures were incurred:
[HCWS832]
National Action Plan for the Safety of Journalists
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Media and Data (Mr John Whittingdale)
Today, the Government will publish the UK’s first “National Action Plan for the Safety of Journalists”. This ambitious document is intended to ensure that journalists operating in the UK can do so free from abuse, violence and threats of harm. This Government are committed to a free and open media. In order to protect this, journalists must be free to carry out their vital roles free from threats and violence. Threats to journalists’ safety are not just threats to individuals—such threats lead to journalists leaving the profession, and to self-censorship of those that remain. Without action in this area, there will be less challenge to those in power, and weaker democracy. This work is critical in its own right, and it will also serve to support the ongoing work by the Government to tackle intimidation in public life. An update on this is also being published today.
The plan has been produced by members of the National Committee for Safety of Journalists, established in 2020, chaired by relevant Home Office and DCMS Ministers, and comprising representatives of police and prosecutors from across the UK, as well as publishers, broadcasters, groups representing journalists and non-governmental organisations.
It focuses on five key areas: increasing our understanding of the problem; enhancing the criminal justice system response in tackling crimes against journalists; supporting journalists and their employers to build the resources they need to protect personal safety; helping online platforms to tackle the wider issue of online abuse, and improving public recognition of the value of journalists. It makes a range of commitments from the Government, law enforcement agencies and industry. These include a plan to launch a call for evidence into the scale of the threats facing journalists, the police working with the National Council for the Training of Journalists to provide training on police operations for journalists and the provision of guidance to help journalists understand the law in this area by the Media Lawyers Association.
The committee will hold its members to account for the delivery of these commitments while the action plan and its impact will be reviewed regularly and updated if and when appropriate.
A copy of the action plan will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Attachments can be viewed online at: http://www. parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2021-03-09/HCWS831/.
[HCWS831]
Covid-19: Children's Social Care Services
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)
Extension of temporary regulations to support children’s social care during the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic.
Throughout the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic, the Government have consistently put protecting the most vulnerable at the forefront of our actions. The duties to our most vulnerable children, which are set out in primary legislation, all remain in place. This statutory framework enables the most effective support and protection to children and their families, by local authorities, local safeguarding partners and other services. However, the impact of the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic, has required the Government to introduce a number of amendments to secondary legislation to ensure that children and families can be supported in the best way possible despite the restrictions in place across society.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the Government introduced a series of temporary changes to the Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations to support children’s social care services. These changes provided flexibilities to local authorities and other children’s social care settings, in the event that services suffered from high levels of staff absence or an increased need for services supporting vulnerable children. We made no amendments to primary legislation, and the vast majority of statutory duties in secondary legislation remained unchanged.
Over the summer we reviewed these flexibilities and decided that only a small number continued to be needed. Following a consultation, a second set of regulations with fewer flexibilities—the Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) (No.2) Regulations—came into force in September 2020. These are due to lapse on 31 March 2021.
The extraordinary measures the Government have taken over the last year means that we are now in a much better position to ease the restrictions that everyone has faced in the coming months. However, the challenges from the covid-19 pandemic remain significant and Government believe that there may be circumstances in which some services continue to face specific and exceptional challenges into spring/summer. As more children are seen by schools, and national restrictions ease further and hitherto hidden harms may come to light, we must be prepared for the potential additional demands that may still be placed on services.
We therefore went out to public consultation on 9 February to seek views on whether to extend all the existing flexibilities for a further six months, up to September 2021, and whether to amend arrangements for healthcare assessments in adoption. This statement updates the House on the outcome of that consultation.
The consultation closed on 28 February and a total of 212 responses were received. Officials engaged with stakeholders, including local authorities, charities, children’s rights organisations and other Government Departments and captured the views of children and young people directly.
The majority of respondents agreed with our proposals to extend the existing flexibilities in relation to virtual visits, medical reports—for fostering and adoption—and the minimum frequency of Ofsted inspections of children’s social care provision. I am therefore today laying regulations before the House to that effect. This means that:
General Practitioners and other health professionals will continue to be given more time to provide information to support the process of approving much needed potential adopters and foster carers. This does not remove the requirement for medical reports to be provided before the child is placed with the foster parent or adoptive parent, but allows some flexibility as to when in the process the report is required.
Social workers will continue to be able to carry out virtual, rather than face-to face visits in some limited circumstances. The regulations and guidance are clear that virtual visits should only happen when face to face visits would be contrary to public health advice, or where face to face visits would otherwise not be reasonably practicable as a result of coronavirus.
The requirement for a minimum frequency of Ofsted inspections for all children’s social care providers will continue to be suspended for six months, until 30 September 2021. Extending the flexibility will enable Ofsted to use their resources under existing inspection powers to carry out inspections to as many providers as possible, prioritised on a risk-assessed basis. It is important to note that extending this flexibility does not prevent Ofsted from inspecting services or change their inspection powers, it only affects the frequency with which they must inspect.
Alongside the regulations, I am today publishing the Government’s response to the consultation, setting out more detail on each flexibility, the rationale for our approach and the views received.
As part of the consultation, we also asked for views on two new proposals in relation to adoption: to allow medical reports to be completed by other qualified medical professionals and to remove the requirement for a full medical examination. While a majority agreed with the first proposal, there were a greater number who disagreed with the second proposal, and concerns were raised in relation to safeguarding. This is an area on which the Government places paramount importance and we therefore want to give this further reflection. We are therefore not proceeding with these additional flexibilities at this time.
Protecting vulnerable children has been at the heart of the Government’s response to the virus. These regulations formed part of that response, alongside keeping schools and other settings open for vulnerable children, substantial additional investment in local authority services and additional support direct to children, young people, and their families. The Government are clear that these flexibilities will only remain in place for as long as they are needed and there currently are no plans to extend them beyond 30 September 2021. Their use will continue to be monitored and they will be reviewed in line with the Government road map to recovery. Our guidance sets out clear safeguards about how and when they should be used.
Since the introduction of the Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 we have kept the flexibilities under constant review. Data for the period from 25 September to 24 November 2020 suggested that over half of local authorities were using both the existing temporary flexibilities—to enable virtual visits and to allow greater time to provide a medical report for a prospective foster carer or adopter. Out of 113 LAs that we had spoken to over 90 LAs had made use of the regulations. The most used related to virtual engagement with children and families—this had often been used alongside face-to-face visits and, in some cases, this has resulted in greater levels of contact between children, young people, parents, and carers—and improved engagement from some young people. We will continue to monitor the usage of the flexibilities through monitoring information collected from the Regional Educational and Care Teams and delivery partners.
Medical reports
In order to become a foster carer or adoptive parent, one needs to provide a medical report from a General Practitioner. As restrictions are eased and schools return, we expect that there may be more children needing care than is usual, and therefore there will be a higher need for potential adopters and foster carers. Our National Health Service (NHS) continues to face unprecedented challenges during the ongoing pressure from the pandemic. This is unlikely to ease for some time, even when the country enters a period of recovery. Therefore, I am minded to extend the amendments that allow more time for General Practitioners and other health professionals to provide information to support the process of approving much needed potential adopters and foster carers. This does not remove the requirement for medical reports to be provided but moves the time during the process that the report must be provided before the child is placed with the foster parent or adoptive parent.
Virtual Visits
We must be able to keep essential services, such as social worker visits, operating during any local lockdowns, and in cases where households are being required to self-isolate due to a case, or suspected case, of covid-19, or contact with someone who has tested positive for covid-19, in line with medical advice from the NHS test and trace service. The Government recognise that visits by social workers to looked after children provide important opportunities to consider children and young people’s safety and wellbeing and that virtual visits may not always provide the best conditions. We have been clear in the consultation and in our guidance that visits should happen, whenever possible, face to face. The regulations and guidance explicitly provide that virtual visits should only happen when face to face visits would be contrary to public health advice, or where face to face visits would otherwise not be reasonably practicable as a result of coronavirus.
The Government also recognise the importance of ensuring that social workers are well equipped to use virtual visits effectively. Therefore, I am suggesting that it is appropriate to continue to enable visits in these situations to happen virtually. However, in all other situations I would expect face to face visits to take place.
Ofsted inspections of children’s social care providers
The Government and Ofsted are keen that routine inspections of children’s social care providers are resumed as soon as it is safe to do so. At present, Ofsted inspection frequency cycles are suspended due to covid-19, although it is continuing to register social care providers and managers, and to monitor children’s homes where there are safeguarding concerns. Therefore, I am minded to extend the suspension of the requirement for a minimum frequency of Ofsted inspections for all children’s social care providers to be extended for six months, until 30 September 2021. Extending the flexibility will enable Ofsted to use its resources under existing inspection powers to carry out inspections to as many providers as possible, prioritised on a risk- assessed basis.
It is important to note that extending this flexibility does not prevent Ofsted from inspecting services or change its inspection powers, it only affects the frequency with which they must inspect. During the covid-19 pandemic Ofsted is aiming to restart graded inspections from April although it will balance this with the nature and extent of any covid-19 restrictions that might be in place moving into the 2021-22 inspection year.
Throughout this pandemic, social workers, charities, and others working to support our most vulnerable children and families have worked tirelessly to ensure that they continue to receive the support they need. I would like to place on record my personal gratitude, and that of the whole Government, for everything they have done and continue to do. I would also like to acknowledge the extremely difficult circumstances many children and families have faced during this pandemic.
Protecting vulnerable children remains our top priority, as it does for local authorities and children’s social care providers across the country. As the country begins to return to a more normal way of life, it is absolutely right that this also applies to children’s social care.
[HCWS835]
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
This Government were elected on a clear manifesto commitment to make our country safer. This means backing our police and preventing and cutting crime.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, introduced today, will do this by: equipping police officers with the powers and tools they need to keep themselves and all of us safe; putting the police covenant into law; tackling unauthorised Traveller encampments; requiring schools, police, councils and health authorities to work together through violence reduction units to prevent serious crime; and empowering the police by a new court order to target known knife carriers, making it easier for officers to stop and search those convicted of knife crime.
This joint Bill also contains a number of Ministry of Justice-led measures, set out in a written ministerial statement by the Lord Chancellor.
The Home Office-led measures in the Bill will:
Establish a duty on the Home Secretary to publish an annual report on the work undertaken against delivery of the police covenant—the response to our consultation was published on 8 September 2020 [HCWS438];
Enable special constables to join the Police Federation of England and Wales;
Amend the definitions of dangerous and careless driving in road traffic legislation so that the skills and training of police officers can be taken into account should there be any subsequent investigations into their actions—the response to our consultation was published on 2 May 2019 [HCWS1536];
Introduce a new duty on specified authorities and bodies delivering public services to collaborate with each other to prevent and reduce serious violence—the response to our consultation was published on 15 July 2019 [HCWS1721];
Place a duty on the relevant chief officer of police, local authority and clinical commissioning group or local health board to undertake a homicide review of the circumstances of the death of a person aged 18 or over which involved an offensive weapon;
Reform pre-charge bail to better protect vulnerable victims and witnesses—the response to our consultation was published on 14 January 2021 [HCWS708];
Establish a statutory framework for the extraction of information from digital devices for the purposes of the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of crime, safeguarding purposes and the purposes of investigating deaths;
Extend the offence of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence to cover a wider range of preparatory conduct in respect of sex offences committed against children under 13;
Amend the Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Act 2019 to ensure that it operates effectively to give the police and prosecutors the power to obtain faster access to electronic data held overseas;
Streamline the police powers to require a convicted person to attend a police station for the purposes of taking their fingerprints, non-intimate samples and photographs;
Confer powers on the police to obtain information about the location of human remains where there is no ongoing criminal investigation;
Strengthen police powers to tackle non-violent protests that have a significant disruptive effect on the public or on access to Parliament;
Strengthen police powers to tackle unauthorised encampments, where trespassers cause distress and misery to local communities and businesses—the response to our consultation was being published on 8 March 2021 [HCWS826];
Place on a statutory footing the police’s powers to charge for the provision of retraining courses for those admitting to low-level driving offences and clarify their powers to charge for the removal of abandoned vehicles or those causing an obstruction;
Introduce serious violence reduction orders to confer on the police new targeted stop-and-search powers to tackle knife crime offenders—the response to the consultation is being published today—see below;
Strengthen the management of sex offenders, including by enabling positive obligations and electronic monitoring requirements to be imposed on those who pose a risk through sexual harm prevention orders and sexual risk orders;
Strengthen the management of terrorism risk offenders on licence in the community by introducing new police powers of premises and personal search and an urgent power of arrest, implementing recommendations made by Jonathan Hall, QC, following his independent review of multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) [HCWS686].
To support the parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill, we are publishing on www.gov.uk the following documents:
Overarching impact assessment covering the Home Office and two Department for Transport measures;
Impact assessment on the reforms to pre-charge bail;
Impact assessment on the new serious violence duty;
Delegated powers memorandum;
European convention on human rights memorandum; and
Fact sheets.
Serious Violence Reduction Orders
Today we are also publishing the Government’s response to the consultation on Serious violence reduction orders (SVROs) which ran from 14 September to 8 November 2020. We have received responses from the public, police, charities and other organisations and I am grateful to all those who provided responses.
SVROs are being introduced through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. SVROs will help the police to tackle knife crime by giving them additional powers to stop and search adults convicted of knife and offensive weapons offences. The orders, one of the tools that the police will be able to use as part of a wider approach to reducing serious violence and saving young lives, are intended to be a powerful deterrent. They will send a clear signal to offenders that if they persist in carrying knives, they will be caught. Every offender issued with a SVRO will face an increased likelihood of being stopped by the police and if they continue to carry weapons, they will be sent back to prison or brought before the court, where they can expect to receive an immediate custodial sentence under the existing “two strikes” legislation brought by the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. Targeted use of stop and search, as part of a wider approach to intervene and support offenders, aims to help to safeguard those communities and individuals most at risk. To ensure that SVROs operate as effectively as possible, we will pilot SVROs in one or more police forces before a decision is made on national roll-out.
The response to the consultation will be available at www.gov.uk. A copy will also be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS834]
Property: Household Guidance on Hazards
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Eddie Hughes)
The Government have responded at pace since the onset of this pandemic to provide a range of guidance to support and advise households. We have kept our guidance under continual review in response to the latest available evidence.
Today, the Government have published a new page of guidance. This guidance is for people living in all types of housing, in particular for people who live in accommodation with shared facilities, such as a block of flats; overcrowded accommodation; and shared accommodation.
The guidance highlights the importance of ventilation and cleaning, and makes information available on people’s rights as tenants and how to work with landlords and local authorities to address hazardous issues.
We continue to work with agencies across Government to collect evidence to inform the advice we issue so that it reflects the realities on the ground.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-shared-and-overcrowded-housing-reducing-the-risk-of-infection.
[HCWS837]
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)
This Government were elected on a clear manifesto commitment to make our country safer. This means toughening sentences for the worst crimes and bringing offenders to justice swiftly through an efficient court system.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, introduced today, will do this by: introducing tougher sentencing for the worst offenders and ending automatic halfway release from prison for serious crimes; creating robust and effective community sentences; enabling the trialling of secure schools; increasing the use of technology in courts; and improving employment opportunities for ex-offenders. This joint Bill also contains a number of Home Office-led measures, set out in a written statement by the Home Secretary.
The Ministry of Justice-led measures in the Bill will:
Deliver on commitments made in the Sentencing White Paper, “A Smarter Approach to Sentencing”, announced to the House on 16 September 2020, which will reform the sentencing and release framework, so that we have a system that takes account of the true nature of crimes and protects the public from harm.
Ensure serious criminals spend longer in custody, including: ending the automatic halfway release point from prison for an additional cohort of serious sexual and violent offenders; making a whole life order the starting point for the premeditated murder of a child; instead of a life sentence with the possibility of Parole Board release after the minimum term is served; and preventing the automatic early release of prisoners who become of significant public protection concern while in custody.
Make community sentences more effective so that they offer an appropriate level of punishment and address the underlying drivers of offending, including: piloting a problem-solving court approach for certain community and suspended sentence orders; improving national consistency for adult out of court disposals; and extending the use of electronic monitoring.
Reduce the time periods after which some criminal sentences become spent, aiding rehabilitation by helping offenders to move on with their lives.
Deliver on the Government’s longstanding commitment to increase the maximum penalties for causing death by dangerous driving and for causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drinks or drugs. It will also introduce a new offence of causing serious injury by careless driving.
Double the maximum penalty for assaulting an emergency worker from 12 months to two years to ensure that the courts have the necessary powers to deal effectively with offenders who use violence against emergency workers.
Strengthen alternatives to custody for children who have offended which promote rehabilitation, and raise the threshold for custodial remand, while at the same time ensuring that children who commit serious offences and pose a risk to the public receive sentences that reflect the seriousness of their offending.
Empower future providers of secure schools, which represent our vision for the future of youth custody—schools with security, rather than prisons with education: with education, healthcare and purposeful activity at their heart.
Enable prisoner escort and custody service officers to manage video remand hearings in police stations to continue to make the best use of technology and improve future efficiency.
Replace the current emergency provisions in the Coronavirus Act 2020, which extend the use of video and audio hearings to enable more participants to attend criminal hearings remotely. We will always ensure a full hearing in court will be available when needed in the interests of justice.
Introduce measures to facilitate the remote observation of proceedings across the courts and tribunals using video and audio links underpinning the principle of open justice. These measures will also provide the necessary safeguards against the recording or broadcasting of proceedings by participants and observers.
Enable British sign language interpreters to be present in the jury deliberation room, meaning that profoundly deaf individuals are not prevented from participating in jury service.
Extend the scope of positions of trust legislation, which currently covers a number of statutory roles such as teachers and social workers, to include those who knowingly carry out certain activities within religious and sports settings, such as faith leaders or sports coaches.
Toughen the law where criminal damage of less than £5,000 is caused to a memorial by increasing the maximum sentence from three months to 10-years imprisonment. This brings it in line with criminal damage of £5,000 or more and ensures our courts have sufficient sentencing powers to punish the emotional harm caused by this type of offending even when the financial impact may be low.
To support the parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill, we are publishing on gov.uk the following documents:
Impact assessments covering sentencing, courts and criminal law;
Delegated Powers memorandum;
ECHR memorandum; and
Fact sheets.
[HCWS836]
Grand Committee
National Security and Investment Bill
Tuesday 9th March 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate National Security and Investment Bill 2019-21 View all National Security and Investment Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 165-II Second marshalled list for Grand Committee - (4 Mar 2021)
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now begin. Some Members are here in person, respecting social distancing, others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. I must ask Members in the Room to wear a face covering except when seated at their desk, to speak sitting down, and to wipe down their desk, chair and any other touch points before and after use. If the capacity of the Committee Room is exceeded, or other safety requirements are breached, I will immediately adjourn the Committee. If there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for five minutes.
I will call Members to speak in the order listed. During the debate on each group, I invite Members, including Members in the Grand Committee Room, to email the clerk if they wish to speak after the Minister, using the Grand Committee address. I will call Members to speak in order of request.
The groupings are binding. Leave should be given to withdraw amendments. When putting the Question, I will collect voices in the Grand Committee Room only. I remind Members that Divisions cannot take place in Grand Committee. It takes unanimity to amend the Bill, so if a single voice says “Not Content” an amendment is negatived, and if a single voice says “Content” a clause stands part. If a Member taking part remotely wants their voice accounted for if the Question is put, they must make this clear when speaking on the group.
Clause 6: Notifiable acquisitions
Amendment 15
Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con) [V]
My Lords, Amendment 15 and other subsequent amendments seek to bring in an exemption from the mandatory filing requirement for acquisitions and investments by entities that are ultimately controlled by UK nationals or nationals from certain countries allied to the UK. It is important to stress that this is to exempt companies from the mandatory filing requirement, not from having to file at all.
The Bill currently provides that the mandatory filing requirement applies equally to all investors, despite the fact that the Government have acknowledged that UK investors are inherently less likely to give rise to national security concerns. A more targeted and proportionate approach, which would better reflect where national security risks are most likely to lie, would be to exempt from the mandatory filing requirement acquisitions and investments by UK nationals or entities that are ultimately controlled by UK nationals.
In addition, investors from countries which are closely allied to the UK, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US, plus any other country subsequently specified by the Secretary of State, should also be exempt from mandatory filing requirements for the reasons I have already stated. That is the thinking behind my Amendment 95, which is included in this group. To the extent that national security risks arise in relation to any such transaction, the Secretary of State would still retain the power to call in a qualifying transaction for review. As I say, the exemption would relate solely to the mandatory filing requirements.
Amending the Bill in this way would also better align the UK’s regime with those of other countries, such as the US and Australia, which I have already mentioned. I can understand why the Government may wish to appear agnostic when it comes to providing exemptions to UK nationals and friendly countries. While there is no doubt that, for example, investments from China in sensitive sectors would come under close scrutiny under the new regime—no one should pretend otherwise—it is important to bear in mind that only four of the 12 national security interventions under the existing regimes have involved Chinese investments.
It is important for me to acknowledge that the Government have intervened in eight transactions that involved investors from countries that have historically been allies, such as the US, Canada, Italy and Germany; they extracted undertakings from those investors to protect UK national security interests. A consistent theme in those interventions, in addition to the usual concerns about access to sensitive data, has been the Government’s interest in ensuring continuity of supply to critical services to government and to maintain strategic capabilities. Such concerns, I acknowledge, are effectively nationality-agnostic, because they go to ensuring that critical capabilities, skills and manufacturing are maintained in the UK and not moved abroad. As a result, it is likely that in particularly sensitive sectors we will see the Government calling in transactions involving investors from so-called friendly countries and imposing remedies under the new regime. The Government can, via regulation, exempt certain acquirers from notification requirements but no investors or classes of investor are currently exempt. Nevertheless, these interventions happened before the Bill was introduced, so I do not believe that they undermine my point—namely, that friendly countries and UK investors should be exempt from the mandatory filing requirement, which will not exist until the Bill is passed.
I looked at the evidence given to the Bill Committee in the other place and was particularly struck by two interventions from witnesses. One was from Dr Ashley Lenihan from the London School of Economics, who said that for the legislation to cover domestic investors would be “truly rare” in comparison to similar legislation in other countries and, importantly, that the inclusion of domestic investors will
“lead to a much larger volume of mandatory notifications than most other national security FDI regimes”.—[Official Report, Commons, National Security and Investment Bill Committee, 24/11/20; col. 33.]
This brings out the point that was a theme of our debate on our first day in Committee and at Second Reading, which is that the Government have wildly underestimated the number of notifications they expect to get. As I say, I think we are all united in wanting to see this legislation passed, but we all want to see it passed in a form that is workable, does not overwhelm the new unit that the Government are setting up and does not put off investors by placing too onerous burdens on them.
In addition, other evidence given to the Bill Committee in the other place in the same session included that of Michael Leiter, a lawyer from Skadden Arps, a US law firm. He said that including domestic investors “is probably not wise”. He went on:
“I think trying to take a slightly smaller bite of the apple and not including current UK businesses in the scheme would be well advised.”—[Official Report, Commons, National Security and Investment Bill Committee, 24/11/20; col. 42.]
So I pray in aid those two experts in making the point that this amendment in no way undermines the regime that the Government propose to bring in, but it does make it a slightly more practical approach as this legislation beds down. Indeed, Mr Leiter pointed out later that the Bill can still catch transactions in which the ultimate actor may be foreign, because the unit that the Government are setting up can still look at the ultimate parent or, indeed, at a follow-on transaction.
I understand why the Government may want the legislation to pass in its current form—to have a belt-and-braces approach and to avoid people trying to hide behind a UK investor or a friendly foreign investor—but in my view the Government will still have powers to call in such transactions if they believe that this is the case. I beg to move.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, for introducing his amendments and explaining some issues that I agree with, such as whether the Government are trying to make a failsafe, will it catch too many people and whether there will be too much to do. Although I understand that there may be different levels of concern, depending on the relationship with the country of the acquirer, I do not fully support the amendments in this group.
Where there are already sensitive industries, especially related to defence, who owns them matters in the sense of whether they are fit and proper for that kind of industry. Those considerations can apply within the UK as well as outside so, at some point, they have to be looked at. The question is whether they should be within the same regime or left to other operations that, the Government have considered, do not necessarily pick up everything.
My experience suggests that, in most instances, companies already used to dealing with sensitive matters would already be alert to what might not be desirable, and that it would either not happen or not happen often, but that does not mean that there should be no way of acting when it does. Therefore, they should all be included within this generic framework.
The Bill will apply to more companies or interests than companies used to dealing with sensitive matters, as I have just called them. Quite a lot still looks speculative, so I wonder whether there is, or in due course might be, further subdivision where certain geographies and industries might have different thresholds, depending on how likely they are to be particularly sensitive.
There will certainly be instances where the ownership interests of Five Eyes countries or other allies are of less or maybe no concern, but that may not always be the case if the security of supply or knowledge base is threatened. There are examples in the defence industry where, following takeovers by US corporations, research has been closed down, leaving only certification, assembly or supply of parts as the UK activity. This has led to a serious loss of forward vision and an undermining of the knowledge base, as well as other issues, such as access to technology. Sometimes that might be accepted, but not always.
It is one thing to recognise that we do not—indeed cannot—stand alone on defence issues, but quite another to accept, always and without review, what might be serious diminution or removal of all active participation. Therefore, although I expect the results of reviews to be different for different categories of acquirer, I do not see how there can be any blanket exclusion at the initial filtering stage. I am very interested in how different thresholds may play a part in reducing the number of transactions that would have to be filtered.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, my first instinct was to say that the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Vaizey are obviously correct. I am sure that the majority of cases that would threaten our national security will involve foreign actors and, like him, I am concerned about the volumes of notifiable transactions.
However, I think that there might be circumstances in which the powers in the Bill could appropriately be used in respect of wholly UK companies. In that respect, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted. For example, large company A may have a monopoly or near monopoly in providing something critical to our security. Tiny company B may have developed a new technology, which not only achieves a better result in the light of emerging risks, but at a fraction of the price. If company A acquires control of company B, it can kill the new technology and keep its monopoly profits on its old products. Sometimes, large companies acquire smaller ones to avoid disruption to lucrative markets, rather than to exploit their innovations. I do not think it would apply often, but it is a good reason not to restrict the Secretary of State’s powers in the Bill.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and to agree with her. The point she made—that competition can be a security issue as well as a trust issue—was one I was going to make myself. I was thinking in particular of the concentration of media ownership and the impact that can have on national security.
As the Committee may have guessed, I am speaking in this group, respectfully but strongly, against the inclusion of any of these amendments in the Bill. If we included these amendments, we would be heading down the road of the Dangerous Dogs Act, generally acknowledged as one of the worst pieces of legislation passed through your Lordships' House. It penalised and gave a death sentence to dogs identified as belonging to certain breeds, which completely misidentified the problem, which was not canine genetics but human owners.
The idea that where giant multinational companies are based—those are the kind we will be talking about in many cases—can give any evidence of their loyalties is a great stretch. I was in the Chamber yesterday, speaking about the stance taken by HSBC in backing the Government in Beijing against the interests of the UK, the joint declaration, the rights of the people of Hong Kong and the rule of law.
I want to note concerns about Amendments 95 and 96, which identify a number of countries—Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US—to be automatically excluded. That is a large assumption, and we can probably all think of case studies—maybe different ones—where individual owners of companies from those countries can be of great concern. It is not a measure of risk. I cannot help noticing certain characteristics shared by those countries that the proposer might like to consider and how the grouping of those countries might play in terms of the UK’s international reputation.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, when we discussed the second group, I said that when we are looking at the national security risk, the purposes of the Bill are to define the relevant entities and assets; the extent of control, which is significant for these purposes; and the nature of the acquirer of those entities and assets. I think the third is proving among the most difficult. This group seeks to define that person by reference to their nationality. This is a substantial change to the nature of the legislation, since the purpose of the legislation is to address national security risks; it is not to screen foreign investment in the United Kingdom. The analogies with other regimes—for example, with the European Union’s regulations—do not stretch far because they are concerned with foreign investment.
This group has strayed considerably beyond areas of national security and into the area of what is termed “open strategic autonomy”. I am not sure how open it will prove to be, but it is potentially protectionist by nature. It strikes me that we should really aim to focus on national security, which is the purpose of the Bill, and in the Bill’s broader economic aspects, we should continue to adhere to the principle of non-discrimination. If we include UK domestic actors in the potential definitions of acquirers who raise national security issues, we will be non-discriminatory in our effects, and it is important that we should aim at that. In practice, where national security is concerned, we know that not all foreigners are hostile, and not all those who are hostile are foreigners. So, I am afraid I am not persuaded.
There is also an issue here about authorised countries, which is linked to this but could be separated, although it is not for these purposes at the moment. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has since last year, I think, had excepted states. Interestingly, they are Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. The list does not include New Zealand for reasons no doubt well known to the United States Administration but not to me, so I am not entirely sure why my noble friend included New Zealand. The criteria appear to be related to the intelligence-sharing arrangements and the extent of defence integration between those countries’ industries and the United States.
Even where the United States’ excepted states are concerned, this is only temporary. There has to be a determination in the early part of next year of whether we have sufficient investment screening arrangements to give the United States assurance to maintain our excepted state position, which I think the Bill will allow us to do. That will be useful to United Kingdom investors into what are known as TID businesses in the United States—those dealing with sensitive technologies, infrastructure and data.
I say to my noble friend that I am not persuaded by this group of amendments, nor yet by the authorised country issue. I suspect the latter issue is one that it might be useful to come back to and think about under what circumstances we differentiate between people from countries that have comparable investment screening regimes in practice.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, has withdrawn so I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, the Bill currently provides that the mandatory filing requirement applies equally to all investors, as my noble friend Lord Vaizey said. This is despite the Government stating quite rightly that domestic investors are inherently less likely to pose a national security risk. The Bill is ultimately about managing risk, so we need to ensure that the notifications that the ISU receives are the right sample. Exempting UK nationals from this process would be a far from proportionate approach. Since we are in the business of managing risk in a proportionate manner, we should consider whether investors from specific allies—Australia, Canada, the US and New Zealand have been suggested—should be exempt since, again, the evidence strongly suggests that such investments are less likely to pose a national security risk, although I will come on to one caveat at the end of my remarks.
This aspect would also align more closely with some of our competitor jurisdictions. In any event, since national security is always paramount, it is worth noting that these amendments concern only the mandatory filing requirement. The Secretary of State would remain fully empowered to call in such transactions for review even if they concerned our citizens or allies or were below the threshold for control. That is an important distinction. I hope it means that lots of potential acquisitions by UK players will not get covered by notifiable regulations if we approve these amendments.
I am sure that the legislation is not meant to cover the situation where someone starts a business with a great idea and, say, £1,000. That business might touch on a number of sectors including, say, defence. We know that the sector definitions are very widely drawn. This entrepreneur then goes to some family and friends to seek funding, which might be through an EIS or, even better, an SEIS or possibly an EIS fund. The family and friends are all local. I know one investor who has only ever invested—with great success—in businesses run by someone he has personally met in his local pub. Such investors are vital to the UK economy and, in my opinion, do not carry a risk to security any greater than the person who started the business. As we currently have no size threshold at all, they would be caught by the Bill. It would be a great shame if they decided that they did not want to wait the 30 days or more for the Secretary of State to opine.
We all know the purpose of the Bill and it is not to restrict UK investors investing in UK companies. If we go down the route of exempting UK companies, we need to look more carefully at the definition of a UK company, which Amendment 96 seeks to do. I recognise that this is difficult. For example, many companies have private equity investment in them. They are clearly UK companies with a UK HQ, UK board and UK business but because the general partner investor may be based in, say, Guernsey, for the limited partners requirement—and the limited partner is almost certainly based abroad—they would need to be treated as a UK company to ensure a level playing field.
My noble friend Lady Noakes and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, have made some valid points. It is indeed true, for example, that many companies which are essentially Chinese are listed on NASDAQ. Would we call them American or Chinese? There has to be some very careful examination.
My last concern, which I mentioned in respect of Amendment 95, is to stop shell companies being created in countries such as Australia. Under these amendments, a shell company could buy a UK tech business and be sold immediately thereafter to a non-friendly company. Undertakings would therefore have to be put in to protect against that situation.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I agree with the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, that Her Majesty’s Government have underestimated the potential workload that this unit will get, but I am not convinced that his solution to reducing that workload is the right one. We have heard many speeches but I would single out those of my noble friend Lady Bowles, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, as reasons why we should not be separating out one set of companies due to their nationality. The noble Lord made the point clearly that the criterion should be: is it or is it not a national security risk, rather than, does it or does it not come from Hampshire or New Hampshire? That should be the rule running through this.
The noble Lord, Lord Leigh, when moving into caveat territory, started to explain why singling out foreign companies becomes an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. First, what is one, and is it a shell company? Is it listed on NASDAQ but actually resident in Beijing? Those kinds of complications start to point to the Government’s analysis that all companies are in. Clearly, it will be easier for the company whose owner your friend meets in a pub to get through the process and not be called in, compared with one that hails from the Far East, for example. Surely, the process should be the efficiency with which the unit can deal with and dismiss issues quickly, rather than accidentally filtering out things that we should not.
On the concept that, “Our friends are our friends, so we include them as ourselves”, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, made the wider point about access to the technology. Access can be cut off by our friends as much as by ourselves or, indeed, by external companies. I am sorry, but I am going to repeat the example I gave at Second Reading. A British company with a US-based subsidiary took the technology to the United States, started to produce it and made one small amendment to that technology. The use and sale of the technology back to the UK was then blocked by the Department of Defense under export controls, because it considered it to then be United States strategic technology. I am sure that such things happen all the time—this example is just one that I happen to know about.
Regional agnosticism, the gospel according to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is the sensible approach here, and I hope that the Minister can explain his views on this issue.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, we have some sympathy with the intention here, which is to seek clarification about whether certain investors or countries should be more or less encouraged to invest here, although this may not be exactly the right way to achieve that. Such clarification is clearly needed and is sought in a different way by Amendment 91, which we will reach next week, I think, and which stands in the name of my noble friend Lord West.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this very useful short debate. I welcome the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Vaizey. Taken together, as numerous speakers have said, his amendments would exempt UK investors and investors from other particular countries from the Bill’s mandatory notification regime. As it stands, both the mandatory and the voluntary notification regimes provided for by the Bill are both actor and nationality-agnostic. The mandatory notification regime is based on the risks posed by acquisitions of target entities due to those entities’ activities, rather than the risks posed by the acquirers. The risks posed by acquirers are then considered on a case-by-case basis by the Secretary of State as part of the particular national security assessment.
My noble friend is right to suggest that, in many cases, acquisitions by UK nationals and UK-based companies, or those based in like-minded countries, are less likely to give rise to national security concerns, even in relatively sensitive sectors. Such acquirers, if their proposed acquisitions do not give rise to national security risks, will find their acquisitions cleared to proceed by the Secretary of State, following assessment or following call-in, should that be necessary, for further review.
However, an acquirer’s nationality cannot tell the Secretary of State everything he needs to know about that acquirer’s intent. For example, it is possible that a UK acquirer may be paid by a hostile actor or otherwise have strong links to hostile actors based outside the UK. A similar rationale follows for the amendment’s reference to other like-minded countries. So, excluding purely on the basis of nationality could create a loophole to exploit.
The particular approach of the amendments in this group also raises some practical challenges. For instance, the references to nationality appear not to deal with the issue of dual nationality; nor is a change of nationality covered. Key considerations in designing this regime have included ensuring that it is not discriminatory, and that it upholds our World Trade Organization and other international obligations in this regard. It is not clear that these amendments would achieve this.
None the less, we wish to consider over time how we might temper and adjust the regime to take account of areas of lower risk. Under Clause 6, the Bill gives the Secretary of State the ability to make exemptions from the mandatory notification regime based on the “characteristics” of the acquirer. This may include nationality if this is judged appropriate and the various issues that I have highlighted can be resolved.
We will of course monitor closely how the regime works in practice to determine through detailed further work and carefully assess whether any such exemptions should be introduced. Any such regulations would be subject to appropriate parliamentary scrutiny through the affirmative procedure.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss the impact of nationality on the regime with my noble friends and to set out our thinking in more detail. However, for the reasons I have given, I cannot accept my noble friend’s amendments. Before I conclude, I can confirm to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that the Government will engage with a number of stakeholders on the voluntary and mandatory notification forms. Therefore, given the points I have made, I wonder whether my noble friend will consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his response. Never have I seen so many noble Lords and noble Baronesses arraign so uniformly against an amendment, so the mood of the Grand Committee is clearly against me. In fact, through the powers of my advocacy I think that I even persuaded the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, to move from being a supporter to an opposer of my amendments, if I followed her speech correctly.
I am not sure that the issue of media ownership threw much light on the power of my amendments. However distasteful we might find the antics of media owners in this country, the British ones are just as guilty as any foreign ones of potentially challenging our democracy.
My noble friend Lord Lansley was correct to say that I included New Zealand along the lines of the Five Eyes, although I notice that he said that the US regime could be helpful to UK businesses if the UK was exempt from the equivalent provisions in the US. That was the purpose of my amendment.
Fundamentally, the point I was trying to make with these amendments, which did not really shine through, is that I seek not to hide any transactions from the national security regime but simply to avoid an overwhelming number of mandatory notifications for the department. Of all the speeches that I heard, the Minister’s was the most supportive. I noted his very welcome comments that the door remains ajar, as the regime develops, to put in place provisions to ease the bureaucracy and the number of mandatory notifications.
Finally, I was inspired by my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley’s speech to potentially draft a new amendment as we progress—perhaps the pub amendment, whereby the only transactions that can be notified in a mandatory fashion to the Government are those that can fit into my noble friend’s local pub. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 15A. I should inform the Grand Committee that if Amendment 15A is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 16 and 17.
Amendment 15A
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
Amendment 15A would delete Clause 6(2)(b), because otherwise that paragraph means that someone increasing their interest in a qualifying entity from under 15% to over 15% would then turn it into a notifiable acquisition.
This amendment asks a simple but significant question: why has 15% been chosen and what is the rationale for it? The people we spoke to were a bit bemused by the figure. I think someone mentioned in Committee last week that 15% appeared somewhere else, but those we spoke to across a range of areas could not find, and did not know, where that 15% came from. There is obviously no particular evidence behind it. I am not sure whether it appears elsewhere in legislation, but I am sure the Minister will know the answer and outline the thinking behind that figure.
Not just for pubs but for other early stage start-ups and developments, this could certainly be an impediment to an investment just at the point when it is needed. For these small start-ups there seems to be a more or less continuous need for money, but drip by drip as things develop. It is on a continual basis rather than a great big one-off deal; the more the work begins to show potential, the more extra money is needed. Any concern about suddenly hitting 15% in the case of a small company, particularly a new one, just when it needs the money could jeopardise access to funds when they are most needed.
I am not even absolutely certain about the purpose of Clause 6(2)(b), but, again, I am sure the Minister will elucidate in his reply. Clause 8(2) already describes shareholding thresholds for qualifying entities of a specialist description, where the figures of 25%, 50% and 75% are used, and Clause 8(5) does the same with voting rights. So the references in Clause 6(2)(b) to a 15% threshold for
“a qualifying entity of a specified description”
appear to go over very similar ground, unless the intention is to have two different classes of qualifying entities of a specified description, with the higher-risk one subject to the additional 15% level. If that is the case, it seems to add an extra level of complexity to the legislation. Dropping the 15% level could remove the regulatory burden from at least some fundraising that needs to go on. It might be questionable anyway how much control a shareholding of below a quarter would achieve.
Amendment 29A would delete Clause 8(8), which again is a bit unclear. Perhaps the Minister will be able to spell it out a bit more. It concerns the fourth listed case of a person gaining
“control of a qualifying entity”
as described earlier in Clause 8(1). However, Clause 8(8) is not part of the mandatory regime in the earlier Clause 6, which we are now looking at, because in Clause 8 only cases one to three are cross-referenced with reference to subsections (2), (5) and (6). It does not include subsection (8), so a bit more explanation would be good.
Clause 8(8) is perhaps there to allow for a broad range of call-ins than those covered by the mandatory notification regime, but the imprecision of the language is difficult. It talks of where it
“enables the person materially to influence the policy of the entity”.
As that is fairly broad, it could lead to a lot of excess voluntary reporting and it is hard to know what it means in practice. “Influence” is hard enough to define. Maybe “materially to influence” meets a legal threshold of which I am unaware, but it is quite difficult for a researcher or company to know what that means.
It is true that the CMA uses some of that language when we are talking about much bigger operations. However, it is probably not a phrase that is particularly familiar to most businesses or, indeed, to academia. As I said, it could lead to a lot of extra voluntary notification by parties in an attempt to get certainty. As we have heard, we are worried about too many voluntary notifications clogging up the system.
The reason why 25% in Amendment 17 was chosen might need some spelling out. It may well be correct, but it would be useful to know the thinking behind it.
I beg to move.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 17, which is in my name. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for her comments in respect of her amendment, which might actually be a better amendment than mine but none the less would achieve much the same thing. She probably does it in a more elegant way, but the purpose of my amendment is to understand the logic here and to persuade my noble friend the Minister that he should revert to 25% throughout.
The mandatory notification obligation in Clause 6(2)(b), which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, wants to delete, is triggered as a result of acquiring over 15% of shareholding or voting rights. In paragraph 52 and elsewhere, the White Paper specifies 25% but forecasts 15% for notifiable acquisitions. Accordingly, it is not, and is not intended to be, consistent with Clause 8, as the noble Baroness said, but that leads us into problems. Let us try to walk through this. It is complicated.
As I read it, Clause 6 is there so that the Secretary of State is given a mandatory notification for them to consider whether a trigger event has happened. Let us look at what a trigger event is, then. For that, we have to rely on Clause 8 to see under what definitions a people has gained control. Clause 8 lists four situations, three of which are where the shareholding is 25% or more. That is fine, but that clearly does not apply in a 15% situation. So you have to rely on the fourth situation, which is set out in Clause 8(8), which bites because it is the scenario where there is the ability, alone or with others,
“materially to influence the policy of the entity.”
Therefore, if an investor goes from, say, 14% to 20%, a lot of work has to be undertaken to see whether that person can materially influence the policy. If the threshold was 25%, there would be no need to do this. So given that it is most unlikely that a sub-25% shareholder can materially alter the policy—more importantly, this will be hard to determine in practice, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said—are we not creating an unnecessary problem for ourselves? What does “materially influence the policy” mean anyway? Which policy? All policies? Dividend policy? Maybe. Hiring and firing policy? Most unlikely. Again, this will lead to consternation and commercial agreements on shareholders’ rights having to be implemented, which will be hard to negotiate because, when you enter this sort of area, there will be uncertainty over whether you can materially alter policy.
In my plea for certainty and clarity, can we make it 25% throughout? The risk of a 15% shareholder throwing their weight around to demand that action be taken to change a policy that would be against our national interest is somewhat remote. I suggest that, with a 15% threshold, there will be significantly more cases to consider, the overwhelming majority of which will not have national security implications. The current filing threshold of 15% is significantly below the thresholds used in a number of other major foreign direct investment regimes. France’s is 25%, which the amendment proposes, and Canada’s is 33.3%. I note that my noble friend Lord Vaizey is not due to speak on this group, unfortunately, but if he did I am sure that he would continue to encourage the Minister to look to Canada rather than France, which is perhaps a natural progression.
I am aware that some countries have a 15% threshold, but they are not jurisdictions seen as international business headquarters or centres of international business in the same way as we are, and we have to remember that there is a difference. Considering the volume of transactions, it will even, I suggest, lead to transactions that pose a national risk being overlooked because of the volume generated by this very low, 15% threshold.
While we are on this clause, can the Minister help me with Clause 6(3), which is relevant to the clause we are debating? It states:
“But a notifiable acquisition does not take place if complying with the requirement to give a mandatory notice under section 14(1) in relation to the gaining of control, or the acquisition of the right or interest, would be impossible for the person within subsection (2).”
What does “would be impossible” mean? I have asked around, and no one I have asked can be sure. Is this when a public company’s shareholder trips over 15%? What does “complying … would be impossible” mean? Could we all argue that it is impossible, give all sorts of reasons unspecified and that is the end of it? If much, much better brains than mine cannot understand the clause, it must need amending. I cannot amend it because I do not know what it is trying to achieve, but it cannot be good law to have clauses which are not immediately intelligible to, if not the layman, then the reasonably well-informed reader.
The whole of Clause 6 is difficult. It talks about regulations we have not seen and then gives power for those regulations to be amended at will under subsection (5). I think subsection (5) is where a white list is introduced in the regulations, but it, and subsection (6) allow carte blanche and, accordingly, more uncertainty. Can the Minister commit to look at Clause 6 again, specifically with the amendment I have tabled and with the amendment that he can see I will perhaps have to table on Report? Amendment 94, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which we discussed the other day, would have helped. Can the Minister give some assurances that parliamentary scrutiny will be given to these regulations?
Amendment 17 looks to strike a more proportionate balance between protecting national security and reducing unnecessary burdens on investors. We want to be seen as an investment-friendly country.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for introducing their amendments and exploring the reasoning behind them, which I have found helpful. I put my name down to speak to Amendment 17, which was signed by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, for whom I am broadly substituting because he is regrettably unavailable until later today. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, I was wondering why the Government chose 15% as the threshold above which a notification would become mandatory.
On the previous group, I wondered whether we could have different thresholds for different reasons. That would not be without precedent. For example, Australia has different percentage thresholds for lesser and more sensitive assets and different business value thresholds depending on the country of the acquirer. However, here we have 15%, which might be a number above which you fear an activist shareholder, but why?
In the UK, shareholders get some additional rights at 5%: they can go to court to prevent the conversion of a public company to a private company; they can call a general meeting; they can require the circulation of a written resolution to shareholders in a private company; or they can require the passing of a resolution at an annual general meeting of a public company. At 10%, you can call a poll vote on a resolution. At more than 10%, in a private company, you can prevent a meeting being held at short notice. At 15%, you can apply to the court to cancel a variation of class rights, provided that the shareholders have not consented to or voted in favour of the variation. Getting to 25% is significant, because it gives the right to prevent the passing of a special resolution, which could affect various articles and other things. I cannot see that preventing a change in class rights, assuming that a court would agree, is significant. I am slightly bemused about where that 15% number was plucked from.
We get to the point about whether fear of an activist shareholder is what this is all about. We hear of the insistence on having a director, when there is a certain quantity of shares, but they have to be able to control all the other directors, which does not always happen. It brings to the fore a thought about who owns the other shares, which would have to be taken into account in any assessments. Conditions might then be put on a company in respect of what happens to other shareholders to allow a transaction to pass.
As the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, explained, this makes something more complicated for reasons that do not yet seem clear. There are surely other inherent safeguards that would do the job. From that point of view, I support Amendment 17 signed by my noble friend but, as has been explained, there are other ways in which it could be achieved.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, the effect of amendments in this group may be to restrict the Government’s ability of to act where de facto control is the result of an acquisition. We should not underestimate the ingenuity that could be deployed to achieve de facto control or make it easier for people to escape the Bill where there are substantive concerns. For that reason, I do not believe that we should tie the Government’s hands in this way.
I put my name down to speak on this group, in particular on my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley’s Amendment 17, which increases the voting rights threshold for notification from 15% to 25%, and I support the probing Amendment 15A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, which removes the reference to the voting rights test.
While a shareholding needs to be 25% to be certain of stopping a special resolution—the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, referred to that a moment ago—in practical terms that assumes that all other voting rights would be exercised and in the opposite direction. The de facto ability to stop a special resolution kicks in at much lower levels. I am interested to hear what the Minister says about the rationale for 15%.
For many years, I was a director of the Reuters Founders Share Company, which was set up to hold a form of golden share in Reuters to protect the independence and integrity of the Reuters news service and to prevent it falling under the control of any faction. There is a long history to that, which I will not go into. The trigger point for the ability to use the golden share was set at 15%, for the very reasons I have just given. It is the level at which the influence of a shareholding bloc can be significant. In the history of Reuters Founders Share Company, deployment of the 15% was needed on one occasion. For that reason, I am inclined to support the Bill’s cautious approach in this area.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I want to say a word on this group, because I am particularly interested in Amendment 29A, which would remove Clause 8(8). This is of interest, not least because of the question of how to define “material influence”, which we will come to later.
Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, I understand what she has done; she is testing the question why material influence is there if it is one of the ways in which control of an entity can be established under Clause 8. Currently, it is not referenced in Clause 6(2)(a) as one of the cases by which that control leads to a notifiable acquisition.
Instead, taking subsection (8) out of Clause 8 and putting it into Clause 6(2)(a) would in effect be saying that a notifiable acquisition takes place when a person gains control of an entity. Clause 8 explains how you gain control of an entity. It can be by acquiring various voting shares, as defined, or by exercising material influence over the entity. That has been left out, so putting it into subsection (2)(a)—that is not precisely what we are proposing here, but I am speculating slightly—would be a much cleaner option. It would enable one to do what my noble friend Lord Leigh is proposing, which is to take the 15% out. The 15% is there only because there are conceivably circumstances in which a 15% or more voting share constitutes material influence. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said, we know that, because the Competition and Markets Authority has on occasion determined such things. It did so on BskyB v ITV, which concerned a 17.9% shareholding, and it did so in the case, which it none the less cleared, of RWE’s stake in E.ON at 16.67%.
We know that voting shares of between 15% and 25% can represent a material influence, but that is not the issue. The point is not about the voting share: 25% is, generally speaking, the voting share that gives rise to an issue of control, but about the need to say, “Material influence is what we are talking about, so why don’t we use that?” Why introduce this potentially rarely used 15% threshold instead?
My contribution is to ask Ministers if they will go away and look at whether it would be cleaner and simpler for Clause 6 to say simply, “A notifiable acquisition takes place when a person gains control of a qualifying entity of a specified description”, and Clause 8 goes on to explain what “control” means.
Lord Fox (LD)
Were my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones here he would pick up his fishing rod again and say that this is a question of mesh size. But, actually, the issues raised by your Lordships should tell the Government that there is work to be done on redrafting subsections in Clauses 6 and 8 to try to clarify. Whatever we come up with, we need clarity, because there seems to be some dissonance in how this is read and regarded.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked the right question at the beginning of her speech, which was: what is the rationale behind the 15%? My noble friend Lady Bowles set out the sliding scale of different accountabilities and rights that come with different levels of ownership and said that there was some logical mismatch with the 15%. The Minister has taken refuge in the past in the policies of the other European Union countries, and the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, can happily put his mind at rest that France uses 25%, so clearly, if it is good enough for France, it will be good enough for the Minister.
On a more serious note, the issue of material control is interesting. We have seen so-called shareholder activists reversing into companies with far less shareholding than 15% and making material changes to the strategy of businesses. So what is material and what is a change? The point that my noble friend Lady Bowles brought up about the nature of the other shareholders cannot be left out.
Tracker funds tend not to be active in the way a long or a short fund tends to be, and clearly shares get loaned in situations of activity. All these add up to the mess which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, described well: who is in control of the business, and what is material control? To some extent, the difference between 25% and 15% is less important than where the control lies. That is harder to enumerate, and difficult for the market to understand, but it is clear that the way this stands in the Bill will not work. I hope the Government can sit down with their lawyers and drafters and come up with something that we can look at next time which takes on board the good advice the Minister has received from your Lordships.
Lord Callanan (Con)
First, I extend my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and my noble friend Lord Leigh for the amendments in this grouping. Let me start by addressing Amendments 15A and 17, which concern the scope of the mandatory notification regime.
Clause 6 sets out the circumstances where a notifiable acquisition takes place for the purposes of the Bill. Noble Lords will see in subsection (2) that the types of acquisition covered by mandatory notification are not simply the full list of trigger events in Clause 8. Rather, notifiable acquisitions are objective circumstances based primarily on an acquisition taking a party’s holding of share or votes to or past a particular numerical threshold. The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, would remove subsection (2)(b) to remove the lowest of the numerical thresholds: 15%. My noble friend’s amendment seeks to amend Clause 8(2)(b).
Let me make three points about these amendments, which I trust will address the concerns which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and my noble friend Lord Leigh raised in their opening comments. First, acquisitions that take a party’s shares or voting rights in a specified entity to 15% or more, not exceeding 25%, are notifiable even though they are not, by themselves, trigger events that may be called in by the Secretary of State for scrutiny under the Bill. We have, nevertheless, required such acquisitions to be notified, because increases in shares or voting rights to 15% or more may realistically result in the acquirer having material influence, and therefore control, over the policy of the entity, and that would constitute a trigger event.
The notification requirement is thus intended to ensure that the Secretary of State is made aware of the proposed acquisition and can take steps to determine whether material influence will in fact be required. The 15% threshold is broadly consistent with the UK’s merger framework. As the Competition and Markets Authority notes in its merger guidance, although there is no presumption of material influence below 25%, shareholdings of 15% or more may be examined to see whether the holder might be able materially to influence the company’s policy. We think that this strikes the right balance by requiring parties to focus only on a numerical threshold, while still allowing the Secretary of State to be notified about, and then call in if the legal test is met, more subjective acquisitions of control in the most sensitive sectors.
Secondly, my noble friend made an important point: the investment security unit will be required to process notifications for acquisitions of 15%. We expect that, as with acquisitions across the regime, the vast majority will quickly be cleared to proceed. It is vital that the statutory timescales set out in the Bill for processing such notifications are met to maintain business and investor confidence; the Government will resource the investment security unit accordingly to do just that.
I understand that my noble friend has a particular interest in what “material influence over the policy of an entity” relates to. I assure him that material influence is an existing concept under the Enterprise Act 2002. The Competition and Markets Authority sets out what it considers constitutes material influence in its mergers guidance. The Secretary of State intends to apply this in so far as it is possible in the context of this new regime for the purposes of determining whether control has been, or is to be, gained over a qualifying entity. For the avoidance of doubt, the Government have no plans to publish their own separate guidance on material influence.
My noble friend also queried the reference in subsection (3) to excluding acquisitions that are “impossible” to notify from constituting notifiable acquisitions. Let me explain the reasons for this. The Government recognise that there may be circumstances where it is impossible to notify and obtain clearance from the Secretary of State for an acquisition before it takes place. They could include lack of awareness on the part of the acquirer that they were about to acquire control, or where it was otherwise impossible to notify in the time available before the acquisition took place.
Let me give an example. A beneficiary to a will may have no prior knowledge that that they stand to inherit a stake in a business that would ordinarily be a “notifiable acquisition” and will automatically do so on the execution of the will. The Bill does not exhaustively define the circumstances that are “impossible”. I have given one example around inheritance; others might include bankruptcy, intestacy and by operation of law, but these examples are indicative.
The third point I should make, specifically about my noble friend’s amendment, is that, as currently drafted, it would not simply remove the 15% threshold but replace it with a reference to 25%. On this point, I hope he will recognise that subsection (2)(a) of the clause already provides for this—or, to be specific, very close to this effect—as it draws on the existing numerical trigger event thresholds in Clause 8, which start at acquisitions taking a person’s holding past 25%. As such, the amendment would duplicate those existing provisions and would in fact result in a requirement to notify when acquiring specifically 25% and then again if moving beyond 25% in future. I trust he will agree that we should avoid this, I am sure, unintentional effect.
Amendment 19A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, seeks to prevent notifiable acquisition regulations being used to bring asset acquisitions in scope of the mandatory notification regime. Let me start by setting out why it is important that the delegated powers in Clause 6 are not constrained in this way before I address the amendment itself.
The noble Baroness will accept, I am sure, that the future is uncertain, that the threats we face as a nation inevitably change over time and that the ways in which hostile actors seek to bring us harm are constantly evolving. That is precisely why the Bill extends the new investment screening regime’s coverage to acquisitions of individual assets, not just acquisitions of control over entities. We cannot, and should not, rule out the possibility that changes to the scope of the mandatory notification regime may be required, based on the types of acquisition and not just the sectors in which they take place.
None the less, the noble Baroness has spoken powerfully on a couple of occasions about the concerns of the Wellcome Trust and others, so let me say this categorically: the Government have no current plans to bring assets in scope of the mandatory notification regime, and neither subsections (5)(a) nor (6) require them to do so; they merely allow for that possibility, subject to the restrictions in subsection (7). Were we or a future Government to do so, it is clear that such a move would constitute a major change to the regime. It is difficult to conceive of many instances where consultation with relevant stakeholders would not be a practical necessity for a change such as this.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
I have received a request from the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, to speak after the Minister. I call the noble Lord.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for his very considered comments, in particular his explanation of Clause 6(3). I think it allows a coach and horses to be driven through most of this legislation if someone can claim an impossibility. The examples he gave were excellent but there will be many other examples where people can claim an impossible circumstance. We will come on later to talk about, for example, the position of administrators and liquidators, and I can think of many others as well. I would have thought Clause 6(3) needed refinement.
Both the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, mentioned “materially control” as opposed to “materially influence”. There is a difference and this is not about materially controlling but about materially influencing. Regarding Clause 8(8), I accept that there are definitions elsewhere of materially influencing the policy. However, I remain of the view that it is not possible below 15%, or indeed below 25%, to materially influence the policy as far as national security is concerned. Therefore, I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister has a chance to reflect on this specifically before Report.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I will take that as a comment and not as a question. I continue to look at all aspects of the Bill to see how they can be improved.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
The Minister referred to the meeting that he and the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, very kindly held yesterday with the Wellcome Trust, and I very much welcome the reassurances that he has read into the record today. The shorthand for this is the nervousness in academia of bringing in assets—IP, information, ideas and software—rather than just entities. That was what we discussed at the meeting yesterday, and the Minister has now read into the record the reassurances he gave there, for which we thank him.
I thought that the suggestion—I was going to call it a wheeze—of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, was rather crafty: if that is what you mean, why do you not say it upfront? However, from what the Minister said, there seems to be a difference between the objective and the subjective criteria. I do not know whether that is why the Government want them in different clauses, but there is a problem with the subjectivity of this phrase. It is not simply, as the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, just said, about material influence rather than material control, but also the policy, and it is hard to define what that means. It seems to me a very subjective test for the big change made in Clause 6. I remain unconvinced that we have got it clear enough.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, for explaining where the 15% figure, to which the Minister referred again, comes from. The CMA uses it when talking about mergers, but we are talking here about big companies, not small ones. However, because there is no threshold, much smaller companies will be covered by this. It may be absolutely important for the takeover of very large companies whether competition is taken out of the market. The Minister knows that, as a consumer champion, I am always very happy for the CMA to look at the impact on competition. However, I have my doubts whether a regime defined for competition in consumer goods and access should be lifted and shifted—the Minister said that there will not be separate guidance—into something that will sometimes affect small start-ups and new developments.
I certainly know more about the subject than I did 43 minutes ago, for which I thank all those who have spoken on the amendment. As has been said, I hope that the Minister and his draftspeople will look at whether this is clear enough, necessary and appropriate for the sorts of investments we are dealing with. When the Minister gives a bequest in a will as the reason for including a particular provision in the Bill, that feels like clutching at straws to me. I hope there are better arguments than that, but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 20.
Clause 7: Qualifying entities and assets
Amendment 20
Lord Leigh of Hurley
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, and the amendment to page 5, line 20 in the name of Lord Leigh of Hurley, seek to introduce value thresholds for qualifying entities and assets (subject to anti-avoidance provisions to prevent the circumvention of the Act), which would bring the NSI regime in line with other leading foreign investment regimes that have de minimis financial thresholds for notification.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, the Bill is probably more important than many people have realised. I suspect it is not by coincidence that, as I was pleasantly surprised to read in my Sunday papers—on the front page of the business news, no less—it has finally attracted attention from the business community. It has, to be honest, been a bit slow in picking up the significance and importance of this Bill. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, will be speaking to this group of amendments, representing as he does the most important business representative body.
There are significant concerns. Amendment 20 would achieve consistency with other regimes which have de minimis thresholds for notification. A key concern is not to dampen innovation in the UK, where vast VC investment is essential to the growth of businesses, particularly in the tech sector, where we have been spectacularly successful. The cost of investment is high for people watching every penny in a start-up. These are the most mobile entrepreneurs, of course. People just graduating or completing a PhD can choose pretty much any country in the world to start their business. They often start their business knowing it will need a lot of capital to be attractive, and possibly hoping it will be sold to realise capital gain. So, impediments will be a deterrent, particularly for small businesses.
Equally, investors in small businesses want to be sure they can obtain a clean and simple exit. I know that tech businesses can go for astonishingly high valuations and revenue multiples, much to the horror of people like me and, I suspect, other noble Lords in this Committee, who were brought up to regard post-tax profits multiples of seven as perfectly respectable, and are astonished to see revenue multiples of seven on transactions. What we might regard as a small business can have a huge valuation. I hope the Minister finds an acceptable number for a de minimis threshold and, as a result, cuts out a lot of red tape for small businesses, which are looking for government to honour their commitment in these happy post-Brexit days to less red tape for business people—particularly from this Government. Introducing the value thresholds of £10 million in annual turnover in the UK for qualifying entities and £10 million gross value for qualifying assets, subject to anti-avoidance provisions, is a proportionate approach. But, obviously, we look to the Minister to suggest another number if he thinks that is appropriate.
Amendment 52A, which is also in my name, is extremely important. It introduces a fast-track process for transactions that clearly might not raise national security concerns, but which none the less need to be notified due to their targeted activities being in a specified sector. The Bill currently envisages that the ISU will reach an initial decision on whether to clear a notified transaction or call it in for a detailed assessment within 30 working days of accepting the notification as complete. A number of parties who contributed to the public consultation were worried that the ISU would not be able to manage even the modest expected flow of transactions. If a 30-day period is granted and then an extension, which it is within its power to do, one can easily see this becoming the norm. Frankly, this will be far too long. As Ministers know, most things in life, but transactions in particular, have a momentum, and imposing a delay of 30-plus working days could lead to huge uncertainty and worry. People will be aware that the transaction is taking place, and they will be worried about their jobs in case the transaction does not happen. Employers will be nervous, because they will know that this is the point at which their employees are most vulnerable to being poached or headhunted. This long freeze on activity could be a disaster, to the point where business owners become reluctant to take in investment for this very reason, which would be a great shame.
To minimise the deterrent effect of the new regime on foreign investment into the UK, this amendment would introduce a fast-track procedure for non-problematic transactions, enabling the acquirer to request a review period of 10 working days, instead of 30, combined with reduced information requirements for the notification. The use of a fast-track initial review procedure would not prevent the Secretary of State referring a transaction for an in-depth assessment, if considered necessary. The timetable for such subsequent review would not be affected.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to follow my noble friend Lord Leigh. I am sure he is being modest; I would think that tomorrow evening is all sold out. But I agree with him; nobody seems to know anything about the Bill, which is very surprising, given that we are approaching the point at which the trigger events will be in scope and have been for three months. Knowledge about the Bill is woefully deficient. This impels us to crack on, because we have to get this into law quickly, as the period when these trigger events have been taking place, when people do not realise that they are notifiable or that a call-in notice may be issued, is extending every day.
With that said, I will be quick. I forbear to comment on the other amendments and refer just to Amendment 25, which is in my name. It has the effect of adding
“(but are not limited to)”
to Clause 7(5) to find out why it is there. We have the statement under Clause 3, the purpose of which, among other things, is to set out what the qualifying assets are, so we know that. Clause 7(4)(c) tells us that qualifying assets include
“ideas, information or techniques which have industrial, commercial or other economic value”,
which is so broad as to be almost meaningless. It is all-encompassing. Then Clause 7(5) lists a lot of things, but I do not know whether it is exhaustive, as it says they are examples. What I want to know from the Minister is why we are including examples if the list is not exhaustive. If it is not an exhaustive list, why are we not saying
“(but are not limited to)”
to ensure that people realise that it is not an exhaustive list? That is often done in legislation and for good reasons. It is just a drafting practice.
Equally, however, why does this bit of the Bill not refer back to the statement under Clause 3? That would make life a lot simpler: qualifying assets are in these categories and, to see more, look to the statement. Frankly, we will not know until we finally see the statement produced—I know we have seen drafts—whether something is or is not a qualifying asset.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, on his amendments. I think he will cause quite a stir when he gives his annual lecture. I will speak first to Amendments 20 and 24. I refer to my interests in the register.
Amendments 20 and 24 take account of the fact that the Bill as drafted does not include any de minimis thresholds for qualifying entities and assets, in stark contrast to other leading foreign investment regimes. The point behind these amendments is to ensure that mandatory notification requirements involving businesses have a de minimis threshold. Not having one would be disproportionate, given the likely cost of making mandatory filings and the relatively low risk of any national security issue arising in the context of such transactions. It would also act as a significant disincentive to global investors and the start-up and early stage businesses that they fund, which may simply relocate to a jurisdiction that takes a more benign approach. As the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, said, this risks seriously dampening innovation in the UK, particularly in the continued development of the technology sector and start-ups, which rely heavily on venture capital investment.
Introducing value thresholds of £10 million annual turnover in the UK for qualifying entities and £10 million gross value for qualifying assets, subject to anti-avoidance provisions to prevent the circumvention of the Act, would ensure a much more proportionate approach. Value thresholds are also used in a number of other leading foreign investment regimes. For example, Australia and Canada use a tiered threshold system based on the identity of the investor and the nature of the business, and, in the case of Australia, the level of control acquired.
The noble Lord, Lord Leigh, also explained the other amendments that he and I put forward in this group, Amendments 52A, 55A, 64A and 67A, which would introduce another red tape busting proposal: a fast-track process for non-problematic transactions. The Bill currently envisages that the investment security unit will reach an initial decision as to whether to clear a notified transaction or to call it in for a detailed assessment within 30 working days of acceptance of the notification as complete. As the noble Lord explained, a significant number of transactions will fall within the scope of the mandatory notification requirements due to the target’s activities being in a specified sector—we have seen those in the document published last week—but which clearly do not raise national security concerns. To minimise the deterrent effect of the new regime on foreign investment into the UK, these amendments would introduce a fast-track procedure for such non-problematic transactions, enabling the acquirer to request a review period, as the noble Lord again explained, within a period of 10 workings days instead of 30, combined with reduced information requirements for the notification.
I have mentioned Australia and Canada; if the Minister would prefer it, I can refer in this case to a special accelerated procedure recently introduced in France for certain transactions. The use of a fast-track initial review procedure would not prevent the Secretary of State referring a transaction for in-depth assessment, as the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, cogently explained, if this was considered necessary and the timetable for such subsequent review would not be affected.
I very much hope that, as I said, these two red tape busting amendments will be very carefully considered by the Government. Otherwise, we seriously risk the Bill’s impact being disproportionate and having a chilling effect on investment.
Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 20 and 24 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Leigh. The CBI, of which I am president, supports the principle of the legislation in the Bill in protecting national security, which will always be top priority. However, the current drafting makes the practical application of the Bill difficult for business and could lead to additional burdens and complexity at a micro level and be an unintended deterrent to investment at a macro level.
With no set de minimis thresholds for transactions caught by the legislation, there is a risk that a high volume of notifications will inadvertently represent relatively low-risk activity caught by this maximalist approach from legal teams and counsel. On top of that is the extraterritorial nature of the provisions in the Bill. Many transactions involving target suppliers supplying goods and services outside the nation will be caught in the notification requirements. Given this backdrop of a maximalist approach, there is real concern in business that the Government’s capacity to process the projected number of notifications while the regulations are in their infancy will be a problem.
According to the CFIUS annual report, in the United States in 2019, 231 notices were filed for screening, with 113 resulting in investigation. The Government currently estimate, and I wonder whether the Minister can confirm, that there will be 1,800 annual notifications. However, there is concern that the true estimate could be up to 10,000. We should not have the unintended consequence, mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Leigh and Lord Clement-Jones, of deterring foreign investment just when the UK needs to increase its attractiveness to it. We are just coming through the pandemic, we have had Brexit, and we are establishing ourselves as an independent trading nation—global Britain. We are the second or third largest recipient of inward investment in the world, and a magnet for it. We are a gateway to Europe when it comes to investment, and we need to continue to be so.
Amendments 20 and 24, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Leigh,
“seek to introduce value thresholds for qualifying entities and assets (subject to anti-avoidance provisions to prevent the circumvention of the Act), which would bring the NSI regime in line with other leading foreign investment regimes that have de minimis financial thresholds for notification.”
Such thresholds provide a critical floor to the regime, ensuring that higher-value, higher-interest transactions, entities and assets are predominantly in focus. Of course the Government should consider national security threats of all sizes. However, in order to provide officials with sufficient breathing space to make a success of the predicted number of notifications, which I spoke about earlier, this threshold should be applied.
Importantly, this amendment would concurrently bring the planned regime in line with other leading foreign investment regimes, as we have heard from other speakers. International comparisons and their consequential impact on the UK’s attractiveness as a location for inward investment should be a continual focus for government when implementing this regime.
Before I come to what the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned, I should say that the Bill represents a significant expansion of the UK’s FDI. Since the Enterprise Act intervention regime was introduced in 2002, nearly 20 years ago, there have been just 12 interventions on the basis of national security. It appears that this new regime will see a large increase in the government’s workload and, as the noble Lord said, a much stricter regime than those brought in by other countries, including the USA, Australia, Japan and many countries in Europe.
We must not jeopardise, at any cost, our attraction for inward investment. Of course, national security is important, but we have to be a magnet for inward investment and the Bill must not prevent that happening.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, who spoke with such passion and, obviously, such knowledge.
I am delighted to support Amendments 20 and 24 and the later amendments in the names of my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I share the concern of my noble friend Lord Leigh that there appears to be little knowledge of this Bill in the wider business community, but I reassure noble Lords that the law societies of England and Scotland are well aware of this Bill and have raised a number of issues, including the ones we will come on to in Amendment 21 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hodgson.
The Bill as it currently stands leaves a number of loopholes and is loose in its drafting, so Amendments 20 and 24, in seeking to set a de minimis rule, are welcome indeed. They would assist the Government for the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, set out. I welcome the fact that my noble friend Lord Grimstone will respond to this group of amendments and I look forward to what he has to say, but the Government have set themselves a very difficult task. We wish to keep, and possibly increase, the level of foreign investment into this country. It was always one of our greatest achievements while members of the European Union that we attracted more foreign investment than any other EU country. There was a lot of envy of us because of that, because we were, dare I say, a light-touch regime, but there was a regulation in place and it worked effectively.
The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, touched on the sensitive issue of the level of referrals or own-initiative investigations which the Government, under the Bill as it currently stands, might bring upon themselves. I wish the department well in that regard. Surely it must be of interest to rule out some that, due to the level of investment, do not attract sufficient concern. If the Government are seeking to maintain a balance, which they have successfully kept to date, between encouraging a high level of foreign inward investment and meeting the national security concerns as set out in the Bill, the terms of Amendments 20 and 24, in particular setting the level of investment as an annual turnover of less than £10 million in particular, would not jeopardise national security concerns.
I also support the later amendments in this group in the names of my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley, which seek to set out an accelerated procedure. It cannot be in the Government’s interest to jeopardise what would be a legitimate investment if the procedure was fairly straightforward and could not be met under the terms set out in those amendments. These two sets of amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley would improve the Bill, maintain a flow of foreign inward investment and not unnecessarily jeopardise our national security. I support them, and I look forward to hearing what my noble friend Lord Grimstone says in summing up.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I strongly support the amendments in this group, which seek to set up a fast-track process. Anything that can make the processes more friendly to help non-problematic business transactions is welcome. I am very worried about the impact that this Bill, which I support in principle, will have on the UK’s reputation as a good place to invest, and I echo what other noble Lords have already said today. That is why we have to work to make the operation of the Bill as painless as possible for transactions that fundamentally do not raise concerns.
I am less sure about the other amendments in this group. I understand the desire to protect SMEs and start-ups from the full force of the Bill. I do not believe that national security risks can be sized by reference to a point in time, monetary value of current assets or turnover of a business. So I do not support Amendments 20 and 24 in the name of my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley.
Similarly, I am not convinced about restricting qualifying assets outside the UK to those in connection with activities carried out in the UK, as envisaged by my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts in Amendment 26. I do see a need to be able to focus on supply chains as well as on activities carried out in the UK, and I would not want to deprive the Government of the ability to do that if genuine national security issues arose.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, is correct to say that the Bill is far more important than the outside world seems to realise. When I have been speaking externally, I have been trying to remind people of the Bill’s existence and the need for them to read it. Perhaps we should adopt the policy of the Ancient Mariner and stop in one in three in the street and tell them about it because it does not seem that the message is getting through. Perhaps we will just have to work on their behalf.
A strong case has been made by the proponents of Amendments 20 and 24. When the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, speaks on a number of different issues, he often talks about flexibility and keeping options open. This seems another example of where the Government are seeking to keep their options open and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, set out, there might or might not be good reason for that. When I sat on your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee, it held an inquiry into the challenge of scale-up and the need for patient capital and for money to come in. It is very clear that the United Kingdom has a way to travel in getting the sort of funding that we are talking about for these scale-up situations. I am interested to hear from the Minister what sensitivity studies have been done on this. How much work has been done in talking to the investment and venture capital community about how it views it? Perhaps the Minister could write to us with the evidence has been received about its reception and the Government’s impression of it. I am persuaded that there is an issue. The question is how big an issue it is, given that we have a suboptimal venture capital regime in this country for this sort of scale-up. How badly and to what extent would damage be wrought?
I read Amendment 25 differently from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. I read the words “examples include” to mean that that is not exclusive and I think the noble Lord has what he wants without having to put the words in. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that.
I find myself in complete agreement with Amendments 52A, 55A, 64A and 67A. If these transactions are not supposed to be impacted by this, let us get them out of the system as quickly as possible. The doctrine expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, about the workability of the regime, the amount of friction it introduces and our responsibility to remove that friction wherever possible is completely correct, so those four amendments deserve noble Lords’ complete support.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Bilimoria, for the opening amendments in this group, which give rise to various considerations. We recognise the caveat in Amendments 20 and 24 to mitigate the impact of hostile actors going to complex lengths to hide their interests in a qualifying asset or entity. It is also understandable to set de minimis thresholds. Having the powers in the definition still requires a thought process to initiate using them. There have been several instances in which hostile actors have behaved entirely transparently that have not been identified and prevented. Indeed, mitigating actions may have been rejected even by the Government.
One needs only to recall the debate over the growing dependency of many nations on China and the resultant rejection of identifying potential harm that could result. It could be raised here regarding dependency on research skills and partnerships in the technology fields, with security implications. Indeed, the Government’s assessment of risk can be mysterious. In relation to the Bill, perhaps what we need to see are the ways in which the Government will actively identify evolving and growing risks, whether or not they hide behind complex organisations or a complex process of additionality. Has the Minister considered this and when a risk may change its colours?
To the proponents of the £10 million threshold in the amendments, is there some logic or any evidence that this is indeed the correct level, other than that other jurisdictions may have chosen it? The valuation of some of these types of asset is hard to quantify and the value of a database code or algorithm will be considered much greater once in the hands of a hostile intent. The intention not to overburden SMEs with the bureaucracy of this regime is worthy and commendable, but may not be easily carried out. How many SMEs would be excluded as a consequence and would it also benefit the department not to have to devote resources to excessive screenings of transactions?
Amendments 52A, 55A, 64A and 67A, also thoughtfully proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Leigh and Lord Clement-Jones, are for the fast-track procedure for notifications. Has such a procedure been considered by the Government? It has yet to be identified how the regime proposed by the Bill will deal with so-called everyday transactions in the business community and the amount of resources that will need to be committed to so-called evidently non-controversial activity. Would this allow the possibility of experience gained through the Bill to mature into a more workable format?
In the drafting of the procedure, care would need to be taken regarding the person being given the ability to give the relevant notice. In one interpretation it could be the company initiating such a request, not only the person acting on behalf of the Secretary of State. That would result in everyone requesting a fast-track procedure. The Minister’s remarks will be interesting in this respect. Overall, it would be perhaps best to ensure that the regime is set up in the first instance in the Bill to be properly resourced and to have properly identified targets for all its notifications.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley for his Amendments 20 and 24, my noble friend Lord Lansley for his Amendment 25, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his Amendment 26 and my noble friend Lord Leigh and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their package of Amendments 52A, 55A, 64A and 67A. I will take them sequentially.
I completely agree with my noble friend Lord Leigh and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that we must be careful to do nothing that diminishes the entrepreneurial or innovative spirit in our country or to diminish the attractiveness of this country for investment. You might imagine that, as the UK’s Minister for Investment, I am especially concerned about the latter point. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I have spoken to many investors and VCs and, once the rationale and the processes of the Bill are explained to people, I have been very reassured by the reception that the Bill has had. The key point one has to explain is that the investment screening unit will be a rational unit that will seek to minimise time spent and maximise efficiency wherever it can.
With the permission of my noble friend Lord Leigh, I will address his Amendments 20 and 24 together, given that both relate to introducing de minimis thresholds into the regime. Clause 7 defines the meaning of “qualifying entity” and “qualifying asset” for the purposes of the Bill. These definitions underpin reasonable and proportionate powers for the Secretary of State to scrutinise acquisitions of control of qualifying entities and assets where that raises national security risks.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
I thank the Minister and all noble Lords who contributed to this group. We did not quite get unanimity, but we got close to it from those who spoke. The second-biggest accolade of my life has to be the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, calling my arguments “cogent”, so I am grateful to him for that.
It is noticeable that the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria—I know that he speaks on behalf of himself—spoke as president of the CBI. It is regarded by some as the advocate for large businesses, but he recognises that small businesses may struggle with this Bill. Although I take the point of my noble friend Lady Noakes that a very small business could be subject to a national security risk, I have to say to the Minister that there must be some level below which this Bill should not apply. He suggested that the Government start with £1 million as a stopgap, but I started with £10 million. What do you say?
I also take his points that revenue and gross asset definitions are difficult sometimes, but there are other ways—for example, just looking at the amount invested in a project or business. If it is less than £0.5 million, would we really think that there is a national security risk from someone taking a 15% stake? Perhaps we could have another look at that.
I thank the Minister again for his comments on the working days needed. I am sure that he is sincere in his view that this will be a deadline but we have seen circumstances where the deadline becomes the norm, and 30 working days with a possible extension of another 40 is a long time. The takeover panel gives rulings within an hour. I would have thought that the Secretary of State might allow himself to be stretched to having the option of allowing a reply within 10 working days in certain circumstances where it is apparent that an urgent matter needs to be resolved for all sorts of extremely important reasons, as we discussed earlier. It could be an opportunity for the Secretary of State to agree to a sticker of 10 working days, as it were, going on a particular case because of a threat to employment, a threat to a business’s viability or certain other criteria.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 21.
Amendment 21
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that only those entities that carry on activities in the UK are qualifying entities.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con) [V]
My Lords, in moving Amendment 21 I will speak also to Amendments 27 and 32.
The first two of those amendments would amend Clause 7, which is entitled “Qualifying entities and assets”. Amendment 32 is a consequential amendment to Clause 9. As has been the case with all the amendments I have tabled, they are designed to give greater clarity to the detail of the proposed regime and maintain the delicate balance between national security and investor rights, which we have all talked about at some length.
I add to noble Lords’ views that the level of knowledge about the provisions of this Bill is pretty low. Last week, I was in the north of England at a conference involving a number of senior professional firms. I do not think that they had hoisted in the reduction in thresholds. They still thought that it was a regime that would apply primarily to large companies. When I raised the point made by my noble friend Lord Lansley—that the regime began to come into force on 12 November last year—they looked fairly astonished.
Turning to the amendments, as before, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his support and to the Law Society for its help in drafting them. First, I will speak to Amendment 21. Under Clause 7(3), an overseas entity is a qualifying entity if, among other things, it
“carries on activities in the United Kingdom”.
It would be useful if we could have some guidance on the meaning of “qualifying entity” under the provisions of this Bill. There is a useful definition in the Bribery Act; it may be possible to bring that across to give clarity to this Bill as well.
Clause 7(3)(b) also provides that an overseas entity that supplies goods or services to persons in the United Kingdom would be a qualifying entity. Other major jurisdictions do not apply their national security laws to investments in foreign entities. The argument is that the Bill should only treat overseas entities that carry on activities in the United Kingdom as qualifying entities, rather than include entities that simply export to the United Kingdom. To achieve this, Clause 7(3)(b) should be removed.
Amendments 27 and 32 would replace Clause 7(6)(a) and (b) with new wording. The background to this is as follows. Clause 7(4)(c) and Clause 7(6)(b) together provide that non-tangible assets, such as ideas, information or techniques, are qualifying assets if used in connection with the supply of goods or services to persons in the United Kingdom. This provision could inadvertently cover UK businesses that buy, procure or use technological products or services supplied by third-party providers. Under this scenario, a UK company that buys in foreign artificial intelligence technology to help to deliver its business objectives could be covered, as could a UK company that uses foreign computer software in, for example, building and maintaining a database.
The situation I just described could be further complicated if a UK business plans to purchase another UK company covered by that scenario. Although it is a UK to UK transaction, under the nexus set out in Clause 7 these types of deals will be covered and caught under the new regime. Solicitors will have a duty to flag that up as a risk when advising corporate clients, which means that many more companies are likely to seek a voluntary judgment from the Secretary of State for reasons of certainty. This is likely to significantly increase the number of applications for a judgment made to the Secretary of State, and so is likely to slow down business. On the other hand, if a deal goes ahead and the ruling is made after it is completed, it could have significant consequences for the organisations in cost and outcomes.
This possible application of the regime to acquisitions by domestic acquirers is unusual compared to other jurisdictions where Governments have taken national security powers. Concerns relating to national security and domestic investments are likely to be able to be dealt with much more expeditiously under existing regulations—for example, confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act or the director disqualification regime. Amendments 27 and 32 would give effect to this simplification. I beg to move.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I start with an apology to the Minister. Amendment 26 in the previous group was a rogue and should have been deleted, because Amendment 27, introduced so well by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, superseded it. The PBO produced a much better format, so Amendment 26 was left like an orphan in a previous group, but it has been extremely helpful in getting a foretaste of the Minister’s arguments in this group, so I apologise to him, but there is nothing like hearing a good argument twice, and no doubt we will be all that wiser for it.
As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has introduced the amendments so well, he has made it clear that they are intended to do two things: to ensure that qualifying assets are only assets used in connection with activities carried on in the UK, but not the supply of goods or services to persons in the UK; and, secondly, to prevent “in connection with” being interpreted in a way that treats all assets within the relevant supply chain as being within scope, even if owned and controlled by unconnected third parties, which may have no visibility of the activities of businesses further down the supply chain.
As drafted, the territorial scope of the Government’s call-in power is extremely broad, extending to non-UK entities that supply goods or services to persons in the UK, and assets situated outside the UK that are used in connection with activities carried on in the UK or the supply of goods or services to persons in the UK. This extraterritorial application is out of line with the approach taken in most other foreign investment regimes, which focus only on acquisitions of corporate entities registered in the relevant jurisdiction. It is also unnecessary. There are a number of other more appropriate ways to protect against a threat to the UK’s national security in connection with a transaction involving a non-UK registered company or assets that are not located in the UK, such as export/import controls, the network and information systems regime for critical infrastructure and other licensing requirements relating specifically to national security. From a practical perspective, it may also be difficult in many cases for an acquirer to analyse fully all aspects of the supply chain in order to self-assess the risk of a particular transaction being called in for review.
Furthermore, referring to supplies of goods or services captures all aspects of the supply chain, however minor. It is difficult for an acquirer of a business fully to analyse the supply chain, and including this as part of a mandatory regime with criminal sanctions is disproportionate. The proposed requirement for control by the person exercising the relevant activities is necessary to prevent “in connection with” being interpreted in a way that treats all assets in the relevant supply chain as being in scope, even if owned and controlled by unconnected third parties that may have no visibility of the activities of businesses further down the supply chain.
There are other more appropriate ways to protect against a threat to the UK’s national security in connection with a transaction involving a non-UK registered company or assets that are not located in the UK. As I said, most other foreign investment regimes have managed to crack that issue. I very much hope that the Government will think again.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am delighted to support this small group of amendments. I will speak in particular to Amendment 21 for the reasons my noble friend Lord Hodgson so eloquently and effectively set out.
I am very well aware of the concerns raised by the Law Society of England, as set out by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Clement Jones, as to the extraterritorial aspects of the application of Clause 7(3) as drafted. It raises a number of practical problems as to how it will be applied. In the view of the Law Society of England, it is potentially inappropriate in its wording.
I am grateful to my noble friend for stepping up to the plate and tabling these amendments. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will look favourably on them, the reason being that, in the definition of qualifying entities and assets currently given under Clause 7(3), an overseas entity is a qualifying entity if, among other things, it “carries on activities” in the UK. The Law Society would very much like to see further guidance on the meaning of this term, as is the case under the Bribery Act and the Modern Slavery Act. It begs the question as to why the Government have not felt able or willing to bring forward such a definition as part of the Bill. My noble friend must understand that it will be up to the practitioners to apply this wording. The courts could have to interpret it as well.
Clause 7(3)(b) also provides that an overseas entity that
“supplies goods or services to persons in the United Kingdom”
would be a qualifying entity. For reasons of international comity, other major jurisdictions do not apply their national security laws to investments in foreign entities. In accordance with this, I support the Law Society’s conclusion that the Bill should treat only overseas entities that carry on activities in the UK as qualifying entities, rather than including entities that simply export to the UK.
In my view, Clause 7(3)(b) should be removed entirely or the wording proposed by my noble friend Lord Hodgson, which I prefer, adopted. I find the Bill unacceptable as it currently stands. I hope my noble friend the Minister will understand that we are not the ones who will have to apply this. Practitioners have raised these concerns with us for very legitimate reasons.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, cleared up the position of Amendment 26 in the previous group, because I struggled, when I came to this group, to work out what else there was to say. I put my name down anyway to see what would emerge from previous speakers.
I said on the previous group that I had concerns about confining the Government’s powers to exclude those outside the UK that provide goods or services to the UK, because I believe that the Government should have as wide a definition as possible. I absolutely believe in making the processes of the Bill move as smoothly as possible and I do not want to add to what I believe will be the big burden of voluntary notifications. But, when it comes to defining where the Government could act, we need to be broad in our approach. If there is one such potential acquisition only, I would still say that it is worth having the power to go there, because these are serious issues about the national security of our land.
Lord Fox (LD)
This follows on quite well. Throughout this debate and lots of debates about Bills, we hear your Lordships use the phrase “unintended consequences”. Actually, giving the department credit, I assume that this is an intended rather than an unintended consequence, so I would like the Minister to explain exactly what it is seeking to achieve or prevent happening. What past examples would have been arrested, had this law been available then? Being a practical person, that would help me and others to understand what the Government are getting at.
This clearly does not have extraterritorial reach, as my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones said. It seeks to deal with all activities when it might be better to separate and segment them. I take the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes; it would help us if we understood what the Government are getting at with this wording.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, for his three amendments in this group and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for adding his name to the first, Amendment 21. He has an alternative to Amendment 27, Amendment 26, which was in the previous group, but both amend activities in general, so that they are more specifically attached to the person controlling those activities. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has recognised his amendment as “rogue”.
The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, queries the extension of Clause 7(3)(b) to suppliers of
“goods or services to persons in the United Kingdom”,
and asks for an explanation. Have there been previous incidents and what specific goods or services were involved, with what implications?
Clause 7(6) specifies land as well as “moveable property” and, in relation to Amendment 27 of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, gives rise to my reflections on the question of land and its use. While clearly an asset, the distinction is not made between the Bill’s application to ownership of land, in the sense of control, and any lease of its use, whereby a person other than the owner could be said to be in control. The Bill merely has the words “used in connection” to activities. Is this distinction relevant and what proof would be needed to clarify which person is in control of land?
One of the key sentences in the Government’s Statement of Policy Intent is in the section on acquirers:
“Clearly, national security risks are most likely to arise when acquirers are hostile to the UK’s national security, or when they owe allegiance to hostile states or organisations.”
Land, and the use of it in such a context, is made relevant as a qualifying asset. Yes, an operation needs to operate somewhere and will require land. Does this require any further reflection with regard to the workings of the regime? Can land in a particular country be considered a particular threat?
Amendment 32, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, to Clause 9, regarding control of assets, returns us to Clause 7(6). The Minister may wish merely to identify the strategic risk attaching to land in particular locations only.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, I welcome these amendments from my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, which concern the extraterritorial application of the call-in power. Amendment 21 seeks to ensure that where an entity is formed or recognised under the law of a country or territory outside the UK, it will be a qualifying entity only if it carries on activities in the UK but not where it supplies goods or services to persons in the UK, as the clause currently provides.
I am afraid that I was slightly unclear on the precise intent of Amendments 27 and 32 so, for the benefit of the Committee, I am interpreting them as seeking to remove the provision currently in Clause 7(6)(b): that an asset situated outside the UK or the territorial sea is a qualifying asset if it is used in connection with the supply of goods or services to persons in the UK. This would mean that an asset situated outside the UK or the territorial sea is a qualifying asset only if it is used in connection with certain activities carried on in the UK.
It is important that entities formed or recognised outside the UK which provide goods or services to persons in the UK are captured through the Bill as their acquisition may give rise to national security risks to the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked for some examples, and I am happy to provide them. For example, a foreign-registered company that does not carry on activities in the UK may still provide essential goods or services to parts of our critical national infrastructure. If a hostile party were to acquire control over that supplier, it could use that control to degrade our infrastructure. To take another example, imagine an overseas supplier of machinery or compounds to a UK-based entity producing cutting-edge advanced materials for our military. Control over that supplier could provide a hostile party with an insight into certain military capabilities or a means to sabotage the work of the UK entity to harm our military. As my noble friend Lady Noakes recognised, this could have a severe effect on national security.
Similarly, it is important that land and moveable property assets situated outside the UK or the territorial sea and intellectual property assets used in connection with the supply of goods or services to persons in the UK are also captured as their acquisition can give rise to national security risks to the UK. For example, as I have said previously, the acquisition of a wind farm situated outside the UK and its territorial sea that provides critical energy supplies to UK industry and consumers may give rise to national security risks, even though it is not strictly used in connection with activities in the UK. If the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would like to hear this example a third time, he only has to lay a further amendment.
Of course, any extraterritorial use of the powers under this Bill should be proportionate as well as meeting the other tests in the Bill. That is why the Bill explicitly sets out a UK nexus requirement that means that the Secretary of State may intervene to assess an acquisition overseas only where it has a clear connection to the UK. Remedies may be imposed at the end of an assessment only if the Secretary of State reasonably considers that they are necessary and proportionate for the purpose of safeguarding the UK’s national security. As such, the extent of an acquisition’s connection to the UK will be a clear factor in that decision.
The Bill also explicitly limits the application of remedies to persons outside the UK to those who have a clear connection to the UK—for example, UK nationals or companies, or those who carry on business in the UK.
I am conscious that I may not have answered fully the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. If I reflect, after looking at Hansard, that I have not, I may write to him. I understand, taking these amendments as a group, the desire to probe the Government in this area, but I hope that, with this explanation, my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)
I have received one request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Fox.
Lord Fox (LD)
I am probably being extremely stupid here, so please forgive me. In the first example of a foreign business supplying a critical operation in this country, I understand that that would be a problem were it taken over by a hostile nation. Let us imagine that a Belgian company, or perhaps a Canadian one, is being taken over by a company or a regime that we consider hostile. What is the Secretary of State’s next move in stopping it happening? I do not understand what the Secretary of State’s remit is over that Belgian or Canadian company, other than to suggest to the recipient of the supplies in this country that they have to change their supplier.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for that question. I assure him that it is not stupid. I think the answer is in what I said towards the end of my speech. The Bill explicitly limits the application of remedies to persons outside the UK to those who have a clear connection with the UK, for example, UK nationals or companies, or those who carry on business in the UK. That provides the nexus back to the UK, which I think the noble Lord was searching for.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con) [V]
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I was extremely relieved to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that Amendment 26 was a rogue amendment. He and I had both put our names to it originally and I withdrew mine. When I found that he had left his there, I thought he had seen some angle and I was going to be blown apart and take a torpedo amidships. I am grateful to hear that it was a rogue amendment.
I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the examples. I am still reaching for the implications of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Fox. I am not yet convinced that the qualifying entity idea has been probed enough, given that it has proved effective in the Bribery Act and has a similar purpose there. I will read what he has to say, think about it and maybe bring this back for a further discussion. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 22.
Amendment 22
Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am delighted that it will be my noble friend Lady Bloomfield answering for the Government on this occasion. Almost every amendment that I have put forward has had a substitute Minister step in and I am flattered that every member of the team wants to have a go at one of my amendments. I will be as brief as possible because it is important that we make as much progress as possible on the Bill. I hope that all the noble Lords and Baronesses who are no doubt lined up to rubbish my amendment will do so as briefly as possible.
Amendment 22 is about land. The Government have stated they expect to use their call-in powers in relation to acquisitions of land only where the land is being acquired proximate to a “sensitive site.” However, there is currently no definition of what is meant by “proximate”—near—in this context, and the location of sensitive sites will not necessarily be public. Given that the onus will be on acquirers to assess the risk of an acquisition of land being called in for review, the Bill should expressly specify that land will be regarded as a qualifying asset only if it is located within one mile of a sensitive site. No doubt we can debate that distance as we progress.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to have the chance to speak briefly to Amendment 38. This group is linked, in so far as we are all addressing issues relating to limitations on the interpretation of the “qualifying asset” in Clause 7. Amendment 38 in my name is particularly directed towards the issue of such assets in Clause 7(4)(c)—ideas and related intangible assets—where they are licensed. In particular, Amendment 38 seeks to regard such assets, which are licensed on a non-permanent basis, and where ownership of the asset is not transferred to somebody else in any permanent or substantive form, as not being controlled. This relates to the set of exceptions in Clause 11, which sets out those circumstances in which assets are not to be regarded as controlled.
We need to do that because Clause 9, “Control of assets”, is very widely drawn—deliberately, I am sure, and probably rightly so. It says that control of a qualifying asset can result in the person being able to use the asset. Of course, if an asset is licensed to somebody for their use, they could be said to be controlling it. But anybody licensing it to them will be doing so with restrictions and provisions. To that extent, they are not controlling it; the person who has licensed it to them is controlling it. So we have an issue not only of definitions but of scope.
The definition of control should not extend to where somebody had something licensed with restrictions imposed upon it. The definition of using the assets is probably, in that sense, too wide to be applied in this case to those kinds of innovative assets. To whom is this important? It is very important to those whose job it is to bring forward innovation and to license their intellectual property, and to do so in circumstances where they continue to control its use and exploitation. We do not want the routine use and exploitation of assets or intellectual property to be seriously impeded every time it is licensed or for this to be regarded as potentially the control of a qualifying asset and hence notifiable. Amendment 38 gives us an opportunity to set proper limitations on the use of licensing for assets on a temporary basis.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]
My Lords, my reason for speaking in this group relates to licences. I generally support the thrust of Amendment 23, if there can be appropriate definitions, but I was not quite sure whether I agreed with Amendment 38. I disagreed with the explanatory statement of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, because whether or not the licenser maintains control depends on quite a lot of things.
An IP licenser may be able to impose conditions when a licence is first granted, but what happens after that and how much control there is over future events is up to whatever is agreed in the licence. If the price and conditions are right, it could be a fully assignable licence; it could be assignable with or without consent of the IP owner; it could be exclusive, so that the IP owner no longer has any rights to use it themselves or to license others; or it could be a sole licence that also effectively restricts supply under the IP. A licence can therefore be for something that is relevant to national security and have both ownership and security of supply implications.
In paragraph (c) of Amendment 38—the substantive economic ownership point—I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is trying to exclude the exclusive licences that are assignable because, as he would say, economic control had been obtained. I am not sure whether that is the right way to define it, but I understand the sense of what he is trying to do. However, I wonder whether that also captures what could be restriction of supply issues. Those can also happen through licences that would not necessarily mean economic control.
The whole matter of licences is quite interesting, but they can be unique—I used to do them for a living, so I should know. We therefore have to be careful about clarifying, perhaps in a more substantive way, the things that one wants to exclude from review. I think it is necessary to exclude some, because I am absolutely certain that you would get an even bigger deluge if you did not. It may be that things that count as ordinary licences, where there are many licensees—rather like in the other amendment—and no security of supply issues, can be treated the same as any product for sale. However, wherever there is a sole or exclusive licence in particular, it would be necessary just to have a look to make sure there was nothing that you might want to do something about. There could quite possibly be something if it was in a relevant technology area. However, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has drawn an interesting point to our attention.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, as has been mentioned, the amendments in this group have a common factor very much along the lines of what the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said: that it is really important to look at the nature of qualifying entities and assets under Clause 7 with a keen eye. I think that the debate will continue beyond Committee.
One has to make choices here where one thinks it is appropriate to go for a change. I would give this a score of one out of three. I put my name to Amendment 23 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, because the argument there is very straightforward. As he said, it is about “business as usual” procurement and the purchasing of things such as software licences and standard equipment, so that, even if it might technically be caught by the sectors, it is not captured in the definition of a qualifying asset. This is so that, again, we do not have a vast quantity of referral requirements for what are essentially day-to-day transactions, which could be a massive burden on business. The noble Lord made the argument extremely well there.
I am much more nervous about the proposition of taking land out of this, particularly when it comes to reversing the requirement: that is, you publish the sensitive sites and then say whether the transaction is caught because it is next door to that site. The way in which the qualifying entities and assets clause is currently set out, with sensitive sites not being published, is probably a rather safer way of dealing with national security, but that is a purely personal view. I hope that we keep things that way round.
It was a great pleasure to hear what my noble friend Lady Bowles had to say about the third proposition, given her experience and expertise in the whole area of intellectual property. That was exactly my reaction: that licences are animals that can vary in many different ways. As she said, they can be exclusive or non-exclusive, long-term or short-term. I agree that they are not as easy to define as an asset transfer, such as an assignment of copyright or other forms of intellectual property. Nevertheless, in substance, they can mean the transfer for quite a period of time—indeed, the wholesale transfer of knowhow—just as much as an assignment can. One therefore needs to be somewhat wary.
Then you start getting into paragraph (c), as proposed by Amendment 38, which says that
“substantive economic ownership of the asset has not been transferred”.
That is virtually impossible to define for this particular purpose. I am wholly sympathetic to the idea of screening and filtering in a way that cuts back red tape, but at the same time one must recognise that intellectual property is one of the most sensitive aspects that needs to be caught by this Bill. That is the future. Intangible assets are the real Crown jewels of national economies. We must be very careful about that.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
The amendments in this group split into two: Amendments 22 and 28, and Amendments 23 and 38. Amendments 22 and 28, drawn to our attention by the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, continue reflections on the term “land” through consideration not only of any strategic placement in its own right but in relation to proximity to a sensitive site, as provided for under the US security regime. Here in the UK, Amendment 28 has it as
“any site identified as such by the Secretary of State and published”.
What that proximity is and whether it might need to be adjacent are further considerations.
Amendment 23 seeks to ensure that a disproportionate burden is not placed on businesses generally, although I am not sure whether the drafting of the amendment—
“which are not generally and widely available on the commercial market”—
is quite right. More normal “business as usual” procurement, such as the purchasing of software licences and standard network equipment, does not need to be captured in the definition of a qualifying asset. Procurement is not mentioned in the impact assessment. Certainly there needs to be a balance between protecting procurement contracts and not overburdening “business as usual” procurement. How many notifications does the Minister expect to see arising from procurement, however it may be interpreted?
The data infrastructure section of the consultation document and the Government’s report published last week state that one option for mitigating risk includes producing procurement guidance for data infrastructure operators. Will the Government publish this before Report? Does the Committee need to ask what procurement guidance for other sectors needs to be included, most notably defence?
Amendment 38, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, seeks to carve out from the regime
“Intellectual Property (IP) licences that do not transfer ownership of the asset to the licensee … as the licensor can impose restrictions on the use of the IP.”
It identifies that clarity is needed on how hostile actors may seek to circumvent the provisions of the Bill to acquire important IP or influence the company’s assets that they seek to acquire. This is a difficult area of increasing sophistication. In the Commons deliberations, Charles Parton of the Royal United Services Institute—RUSI—commented:
“On the question of intellectual property rights, China has a very rigorous campaign to get hold of our IP.”
David Petrie from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales remarked:
“It is possible to gain access to intellectual property through means other than ownership, so … that is something that the unit is going to have to assess on a case-by-case basis.”—[Official Report, Commons, National Security and Investment Bill Committee, 24/11/20; cols. 12-55.]
I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, but it is not clear how permanent transfers might be defined so as to be workable and worth while, as explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I thank my noble friends Lord Lansley and Lord Vaizey, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for these amendments. They seek to clarify and reduce the scope of the regime in relation to asset acquisitions. The Government expect that the majority of trigger events of national security interest will be traditional mergers and acquisitions, but the Secretary of State must also be able to intervene in the rare circumstances where acquisitions of individual assets, rather than entities, may raise national security risks. The Bill as drafted provides that land, tangible moveable property and intellectual property fall within scope of the regime as qualifying assets; this has a degree of extraterritorial application.
Amendments 22 and 28 seek to restrict the inclusion of land as a qualifying asset only to land located within one mile of a sensitive site, and to require the Government to create an online checking service to identify land that is regarded as sensitive. Amendment 23 seeks to exclude “business as usual” procurement, such as the purchasing of software licences or standard network equipment, from the definition of a qualifying asset. Amendment 38 aims to ensure that intellectual property licences that do not permanently transfer ownership of the IP to the licensee are not treated as an acquisition of control over that IP.
I will first turn to Amendments 22 and 28. In limited cases, the acquisition of land can give rise to national security concerns, in particular, but not limited to, proximity risks. The UK Government do not publish the location of the sites in the UK that they consider sensitive from a national security perspective. To do so would give rise to risks to national security: it would serve as a directory for hostile actors who wish to acquire land proximate to sensitive sites, as well as actors who wish to harm us in other ways. Acquisitions of land and other assets that do not pose a national security risk can be pursued with no expectation of being called in. Parties who are unsure or believe that the land in question may be proximate to a site where the Secretary of State is likely to have concerns can voluntarily notify and receive clearance if no national security risks arise.
Risks to national security can also arise from acquisitions of control over land more than one mile from a sensitive site. Indeed, the US regime under the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, to which my noble friend referred and to which the amendment alludes, includes a limit of more than one mile for some sites. For example, if we are concerned about a hostile party having a good line of sight to a sensitive site, a plot of land sitting atop a hill more than a mile away might still present an excellent view and the associated security risks. Although most land-based risks are expected to relate to proximity to sensitive sites, not all will. In particular, the Secretary of State will be entitled to take into account the intended use of the land, which may be divorced from any proximity concerns.
I will now turn to Amendment 23. Noble Lords are right to argue that, in most cases, there is unlikely to be a risk to national security from the acquisition of control over intellectual property that is generally and widely available on the commercial market, but such a scenario cannot be ruled out. As set out in the draft statement provided for in Clause 3, which was published alongside the Bill, the Secretary of State expects to intervene only very rarely in acquisitions of any assets. The draft statement lists intellectual property in relation to which the Secretary of State expects acquisitions to be more likely to give rise to national security risks, although this does not include intellectual property that is easily available.
Turning to the detail of the amendment, there is no generally recognised definition of an asset being
“generally and widely available on the commercial market”.
For example, it does not specify where or to whom the asset should be available. It may be that certain intellectual property is in general widely available but is not generally or widely available to certain parties. We may wish to ensure that those parties continue to struggle to access that intellectual property.
I now turn to Amendment 38. As currently drafted, an acquisition of control over intellectual property does not require the acquirer to gain ownership of that IP. This is because acquisitions of control over intellectual property, where the asset is being licensed on a non-permanent basis, can still give rise to national security concerns. Such an exemption could allow hostile parties to use licensing arrangements to avoid the regime, for example by leasing intellectual property for an arbitrarily long period of time rather than buying it.
Temporary access to sensitive intellectual property may, for example, also allow a hostile party to copy and transfer abroad parts of it. Of course, the licensor may have some level of control over the use of its intellectual property, and any assessment of a possible risk to national security would take this into account. However, in the same way that there is no guarantee that a party selling sensitive intellectual property would ensure that the sale does not give rise to national security risks, there is also no guarantee that a party licensing intellectual property would do so.
By way of conclusion, I appreciate that these amendments are motivated by a desire to limit how assets are covered by the regime without adversely affecting the Secretary of State’s ability to protect national security. They would effectively limit the scope, but they would also inadvertently expose our national security to additional risk, which I have confidence is not the aim of my noble friend. In answer to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, about how many notifications we expect to arise from procurements, the number is expected to be very low, and we will indeed publish guidance on those procurements.
For these reasons, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)
I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I will call the noble Baroness first.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]
I have one comment and one question. My comment is that I understand everything the Minister said and I broadly agree, but I think the Government underestimate the amount of licensing they might find has to be reported, because licensing is the new sale. That is the way everything is going: there is no outright purchase of anything any more; everything is licensed, whether the programmes you use on your computer or anything else. Indeed, accounting standards even drive towards that kind of model because in some instances it becomes increasingly difficult to fit true sales into the new IFRS. I cite IFRS 15 as an example.
I meant to ask my question, but I spoke a bit too spontaneously to remember it. I am interested in follow-on activities. If, for example, you have a clearance on an investment into, say, some university research but that also encompasses a right to have a licence, would that licence to the same organisation automatically be cleared if the investment has been cleared or would you have to go round the loop again? You could apply the same to any assignment of a licence: if it is assigned to an essentially similar kind of business and a previous notification has not resulted in a clearing, can you be confident that you do not have to notify again on the basis of such a previous clearance?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
The noble Baroness makes some very good points—I am conscious of her much greater knowledge of this area than I have—particularly the point she makes about licensing being the new sale. I am pretty confident that we have taken these points into consideration. On her specific point about whether investments would be cleared, the true answer is that every notification would be counted separately.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I bow to my noble friend’s much superior knowledge on intellectual property issues. I entirely agree with her. That is a good reason for keeping provisions about intellectual property broadly speaking as they are. My noble friend pointed out to me that nowadays even Rolls-Royce engines are licensed as opposed to sold, because so much data is given off by their operation. That is proprietary in itself. So it is very difficult to distinguish between an outright sale and a licence in commercial life.
I wanted to come back because I did not think that the Minister was quite positive enough on Amendment 23 from the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey. I laughed out loud; that particular response was like an episode of “Yes Minister” because it tried to draw distinctions that were not particularly helpful in the circumstances. Somebody was being extremely clever when they put the paragraph together, but I do not think it pushes back the argument why that day-to-day type of software —that sort of absolutely bog-standard commercial licence equipment—should be captured in the definition of a qualifying asset. I will look very carefully at that very well-crafted paragraph again before Report.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I am grateful for those comments. They will be noted.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con) [V]
My Lords, I would never put my noble friend the Minister in the same paragraph as “Yes Minister”. She is a far classier act than that and a wonderful and effective force in your Lordships’ House. But, in a hesitant fashion, I will say that, when listening to the Government’s response, my concerns continued to grow. It seems that their position, which is perhaps understandable, is that they have crafted a Bill that covers every conceivable transaction. Then they will see how it works in practice, over the next couple of years, and gradually narrow it down. That was the tone of the response that I got from my noble friend Lord Callanan. When my noble friend Lady Bloomfield was responding, I began to wonder whether the sale of an iPhone to a Chinese government official in a phone shop in Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush would count as a transaction.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment tightens the scope of the trigger event so that it does not capture minority investor veto rights that would not give rise to national security concerns.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con) [V]
My Lords, in moving Amendment 29, I shall speak also to Amendment 72. They take us back to some of the issues touched on in our earlier debate on the group beginning with Amendment 15A, and the way that control is exercised in companies and what it means. These two amendments are designed to tease out and provide clarity and protection for third-party investors, who may find that they have invested in a company that, in turn, has been caught up in the provisions of the Bill. I seek the Government’s explanation for how this will work.
Amendment 29 amends Clause 8, “Control of entities”. There is concern about the clause arising from the wide definition of control contained in subsection (6). The real background is as follows. Investments in unquoted companies are normally governed by an investment agreement. When all goes well and the investment performs as expected, the investment agreement remains in a drawer and is never looked at but, sadly, not all investments perform as hoped, and not all directors and managers behave impeccably. Investors need protection against egregious behaviour by company managements.
What form could such behaviours take? It could be a proposal to make an acquisition—not one involving national security issues—the size of which would put the original company at risk if it were to go wrong. It could be a decision to spend a large sum of capital on a scheme that is ill thought out and ill considered, potentially putting the entire venture at risk. It might be a decision by the management to award themselves large salary increases. It might be a decision to recruit to a senior position in the company someone who has a public reputation that is not impeccable or who is perhaps related to one of the existing management team. For obvious reasons, investors need special protection against such behaviours and, as a last resort, the power to block them. It is not clear whether the existence of such blocking powers could bring the company within the control of entities provisions of Clause 8.
These protections for investors have nothing to do with national security; they are concerned with corporate governance and behaviour. An inability to allow those protections will surely be a significant disincentive to third-party investors, so Amendment 29 provides clarity that such protections will not be caught by the Bill. The arguments I have just rehearsed lie behind Amendment 72, which amends Clause 26—“Final orders and final notifications”. It seeks to make it clear that any unwinding or divestment order made by the Secretary of State in no way undermines investor rights of the sort I have been describing. I beg to move.
Lord Lansley (Con)
I shall refer only to Amendment 30, in my name, in this group. Earlier, we discussed the question of material influence. At this point in Clause 8, the fourth case to which we referred—the control of an entity—is, under subsections (8) and (9), effectively material influence. Looking at this, I could not understand why this bit of Clause 8 did not simply replicate Section 29 of the Enterprise Act, which is concerned with obtaining control by stages. I will not read the whole thing, but it is essentially about where a transaction or, in this case, a series of transactions—I will come back to that point—can be treated as occurring simultaneously, but which enables a person
“directly or indirectly to control or materially to influence the policy”
of the enterprise, or enables that
“person or group of persons to do so to a greater degree”.
We have here different language, and I would like the Minister to kindly explain how it works. I can see that it will be a person together with others, because of course it brings in holding an interest or a right by virtue of Schedule 1—working together with others—so that might be sufficient to say “directly or indirectly”. So, that might be covered by a common purpose, the connected arrangements and so on. But subsection (9), as it qualifies subsection (8), appears to suggest that if somebody already exercises a material influence over an entity, the fact that they increase their material influence by stages is not defined as control, unless it is one of the other cases set out in the clause. I think that is a gap. I think it ought to be included, and the clause ought to be constructed in a manner similar to the way in which the Enterprise Act enables control to be acquired by stages. I am not particularly asking for my drafting to be incorporated, but I invite Ministers to see whether it will be simpler to take out subsections (8) and (9) and insert something drawn from and similar to Section 29 of the Enterprise Act when we come back to this at Report.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, it follows from the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, who introduced Amendments 29 and 72 so well, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who has taken us very carefully through subsection (8), that Clause 8 is a strange beast. It is a mixture of the absolutely specific and then the rather vague in its different cases, which contrast extraordinarily. I have signed Amendment 29, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, which tries to deal with the vagueness in subsection (6) because the scope of that trigger event—the third case—is very broad and unclear, as he described.
It is not clear precisely what resolutions govern
“the affairs of the entity”
as set out in subsection (6). It could potentially capture typical minority investor veto rights or negative protections, which would not give rise to national security concerns. The amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and supported by me, would narrow the scope, while ensuring that where a person can pass or block resolutions that cover matters akin to those covered by, say, ordinary and special resolutions under the Companies Act 2006, the ability to secure or prevent those resolutions would still be caught—even where the thresholds for passing those resolutions differ from the thresholds for passing ordinary and special resolutions under the Companies Act.
If shareholders of an overseas company can amend the company’s constitution, or wind up the company by passing a resolution with a threshold of 60% of the votes, any shareholder that increases their shareholding from less than 60% to 60% or more will be caught by the third case, if this amendment is accepted. At the moment, that subsection really repays some attention and I very much hope that the Minister will reply positively on this.
Amendment 72, also put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and explained clearly by him, would
“give investors certainty that any divestment or unwinding order will not render their contractual arrangements unenforceable”,
so they could contractually anticipate the consequences of an unwinding order. That is extremely important. If you cannot do that and everything is void, then you cannot make arrangements that stick after the voidness.
A long time ago when I knew some law, I think we talked about severable contracts. One would find that part of a contract was void but provisions that applied to circumstances in which the contract was void, or voided, would still subsist. It is important that those provisions continue after the voiding decision has been made and I very much hope that the Bill can be amended accordingly; otherwise, many companies trying to anticipate its impact will be absolutely confounded. They will have no way through what will be, in any event, a pretty difficult commercial situation.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I put my name down to speak in this group to support my noble friend Lord Lansley’s Amendment 97, which he has not spoken to. I shall speak to it in this group anyway in case he had no further intention of speaking to it when it comes up later as we go through the amendments on the Marshalled List.
Amendment 97 would remove former spouses from the list of connected persons who are defined in Schedule 1. I was fairly sure that this was a novel and unwelcome addition to the normal scope of connected persons found in legislation. In my view, it is not a common-sense interpretation of what a connected person is. For example, if I had had a brief marriage in my youth, Schedule 1 would continue to count my long-gone husband as a connected person of mine for ever, which is just not sensible. It also includes former cohabitees, so the possibilities of connected persons seem to be endless.
My view of the definition of connected persons was compatible with tax law, company law and even money laundering rules, but I discovered that this wider definition, extending to former spouses, is in the Insolvency Act 1986, which was a surprise to me. That definition was later picked up by the Pensions Regulator. The fact that precedents have somehow managed to find their way into the statute book or into regulations does not make it right, and I will support my noble friend Lord Lansley’s Amendment 97 if he chooses to propose it at some stage in the future.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, it would seem, when looking at Clause 29 and listening to the reasoned arguments of the noble Lords, Lord Hodgson and Lord Clement-Jones, that the Government would be hard put not to agree with the objectives they set out for this amendment, so I suppose we have to listen to the Minister to hear why the Government think that the Bill already does the things which this amendment seeks to achieve, unless the Minister wants to explain why those objectives are wrong. There is a similar argument to be made about Amendment 72, which is more complex. Again, why would the Government not wish to achieve what this amendment is seeking to achieve? If they do, it is not clear in the Bill.
I dubbed Amendment 97 the Gilbert and Sullivan amendment, because you have the cousins, the sisters and the aunts all lining up in the connected parties list, or perhaps not. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, would probably have made a fabulous argument, but in his stead the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, makes very good points.
Coming back to the substantive point about Clause 8, we have had a long debate on the group beginning with Amendment 15A, and a smaller, shorter debate that has focused on similar issues. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones called Clause 8 a hybrid, being both specific and broad. I hope the Minister and the Bill team will take from this that there is work to be done on this clause. It is quite clear from the debate we have had that tightening and clarifying are required to take the Bill into Report. Otherwise, I suspect there will be a lot of recalls coming from the sort of debate we have seen, particularly in the Amendment 15A group, but also, to some extent, from this one.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I am still slightly reeling from having to find names of people long since in my past, but maybe Hansard can piece things together.
We have heard today, both in this group and in others, and in the representations that we have all seen, that there are considerable investor concerns about bits of the Bill, some of which Amendments 29 and 72 in particular seek to address. It is important to recognise, although it has been made clear by people in Committee, that the Bill marks a radical transformation of national security screening for mergers and acquisitions. It is a new and different regime, so it is essential that the Government not only maintain business confidence but gain more confidence from businesses and the investors in them. That was why, on the first day of Committee, we set out why we thought we needed a definition of national security to provide clarity for businesses and investors and to build trust in the regime.
However, as has been said in this group, one of the things that would help that confidence is better drafting. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, is right when he says that more work is needed. I know it is the second day back at school, but it feels as if the homework has been self-marked and now needs a slightly more thorough look. As everyone has said, it is not that anyone has objections to the purpose of the Bill; the concerns are about the wording and perhaps the breadth of its scope.
Clause 8 defines the circumstances in which a person gains control of a qualifying entity, thus constituting a trigger event that may be subject to assessment under the regime. This is clearly a key part that must be got right. Amendment 29 would narrow the third circumstance to make sure that it does not capture minority investor veto rights, as has already been mentioned. Perhaps the Minister could clarify whether it is expected that minority investment veto rights would be captured.
The group of amendments raises some broad questions about the number of cases in which a person gains control of a qualifying entity. We are interested in why other cases are not included. We do not necessarily want them included but want to work out the limits that brought certain things to be put in the Bill. It is quite interesting to know what is not there. For example, is an acquisition involving state-owned entities or investors originating in a country of risk to UK national security not a concern? It is not mentioned. Neither is a person who becomes a major debt holder and could therefore gain influence over the entity’s operation and policy. Is that not of interest? It is not that I want to include them, but I am really interested in how the definitions were put together. Maybe the Government, either in writing afterwards because it may be more detailed, or in answer today could spell out why these particular cases were selected and the sort of advice that was taken in the selection process.
Amendment 97, which the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has discussed, raises the question of why a former partner should remain a person of concern. Probably all of us here have had difficulties with being a politically exposed person, a PEP. We have found it very difficult sometimes just to open or become a signatory to a charity’s accounts because of being a PEP. A number of difficulties were had, but I think they have been got over now after some work in this House. It really did affect those of us who have step-children and former partners and siblings we never see, and things like that.
This issue needs a little more clarification and protection, if you like. No investor or anybody involved in this wants to get caught up by something which they could not have thought at the time was of any interest. I understand that it might look suspicious if somebody divorced their partner two days before to get rid of some assets, but this is a very wide net. Perhaps the Minister can explain why this clause is needed and needs to be drawn quite as widely. This is a net that would catch whales, never mind tiddlers.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, I begin by briefly extending my thanks to my noble friends Lord Hodgson and Lord Lansley for tabling the amendments in this group relating to the circumstances determining the control of entities in the Bill, as well as arrangements and the impact of final orders on contracts.
I am conscious of the complexity of some of the matters that we are debating. If I am not able to explain or elucidate these points fully in my comments, I will of course write to noble Lords. I will also be happy to discuss them with noble Lords outside the Committee. Some of these things are quite difficult to get straight across a table like this.
I will start by addressing my noble friend Lord Hodgson’s Amendment 29. For the purposes of the Bill, Clause 8 sets out the circumstances in which a person gains control of a qualifying entity. It explains the four ways in which control can be gained. Subsection (6) sets out the third trigger event:
“The third case is where the acquisition is of voting rights in the entity that (whether alone or together with other voting rights held by the person) enable the person to secure or prevent the passage of any class of resolution governing the affairs of the entity.”
I think that there is broad support for that concept. However, Amendment 29 seeks to narrow this so that only acquisitions of such voting rights over matters that are equivalent to those which require the passing of ordinary or special resolutions under the Companies Act 2006 would be a trigger event.
I sincerely pay tribute to my noble friend for seeking to ensure that the regime is as reasonable and proportionate as possible. I believe that his intent is very much to seek to exclude acquisitions of minority veto rights from constituting trigger events. However, the Government consider that the Bill already achieves this goal to some extent as subsection (6), which my noble friend seeks to amend, is of course subject to the qualifying provision in subsection (7), which explains how references to voting rights in an entity apply to different sorts of entity.
In the case of an entity that has a share capital, this means voting rights conferred on shareholders to vote at general meetings of the entity on all or substantially all matters. In the case of an entity that does not have a share capital—this is where some complexity arises—this means the voting rights conferred on members to vote at general meetings of the entity on all or substantially all matters. The important words in both cases are
“all or substantially all matters.”
I therefore suggest, with deference to my noble friend, that minority veto rights would be captured by subsection (6) only where such voting rights provide the holder with a right to vote on all or substantially all matters, which perhaps takes it rather beyond the worry that some people had about these minority rights being constrained.
I hope that this puts the mind of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, at rest but, again, if a further discussion is needed to clarify how this works, I would be very happy to hold one. I also hope that the Committee agrees that it is only right that minority veto rights, in circumstances where they really are broad enough to cover all or substantially all matters, should be in scope of the Bill. For all intents and purposes, they are the same as majority rights if they are able to do that.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lansley for Amendment 30 in respect of Clause 8 and the definition of control of entities for the purposes of the Bill. This clause reflects the fact that there are ways of obtaining control over an entity other than just acquiring shares or voting rights at significant thresholds. As part of the new regime—I say without excuse that we have made this embracing because of the importance of national security—the Secretary of State must be able to scrutinise lower stakes of shares and votes or other rights or interests acquired by a person that allow them materially to influence the policy of the entity. This is consistent with the UK’s merger framework, and businesses and investors alike have welcomed our adoption of the familiar material influence concept that they have been accustomed to under the Enterprise Act 2002.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)
I have received requests to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Fox. I first call the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, first, I express my warm thanks to my noble friend Lady Noakes, who happily introduced Amendment 97 far better than I would have. I had neglected to notice that we had reached Schedule 1, since we had not even reached the clause that introduced it. Not noticing that was entirely my fault.
If I may, I will go away and read what my noble friend said about Amendment 98, because it is purely a matter of trying to get the drafting right. He may well be correct on that.
On the other two amendments, I kindly ask my noble friend to reflect. The issue about former spouses reflects what is said in Section 127 of the Enterprise Act 2002, but this includes cohabitees, who are not in Section 127, which was subsequently amended to include civil partners. “Associated persons” has turned into “connected persons” and has broadened in ways that nobody told us was a policy.
My other point about the Enterprise Act is that I do not understand what my noble friend is saying. Earlier, he told us that the Government would not issue new guidance about material influence, because the CMA has issued guidance. I have read the CMA’s guidance and it clearly includes reference to obtaining control by stages. Obtaining control by stages, in Section 29 of the Enterprise Act 2002, includes a reference to that
“person or group of persons … materially to influence the policy of … the enterprise … to a greater degree”.
I have not invented this; it is in the Enterprise Act 2002 now. If my noble friend proposes to use the CMA’s guidance and says that everybody is happy that we are using an established understanding of what material influence is, I suggest we go away and look at whether we can use the language and guidance of the Enterprise Act to make it consistent with the practice that people have understood for the best part of 20 years.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
I thank my noble friend very much for those comments. I will reflect on them and communicate with him.
Lord Fox (LD)
This covers similar territory to Amendment 30 and the answer that we were given to it. I will read that carefully, as some of the answers are complex, as the Minister himself said. I ask that the Minister reads his answer carefully because, knowing what he knows from his previous life, there will come a realisation that we are not quite where we should be on this.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that. I commit to reading the questions and answers carefully to make sure that they match up with each other as far as possible.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con) [V]
[Inaudible.] I am always slightly nervous when I hear Ministers talk about creating bespoke regimes because it brings to mind the gaps we might inadvertently allow to appear. The length the Minister has had to take to try to explain the way Clause 8 will work—I thank him very much for doing so—indicates that we need to look again at its practical implications. In essence, we are trying to decide whether the shoe pinches and whether it pinches in an unhelpful way. I am not sure that the “substantially all” get-out clause will always work, because in some cases investors will have very substantial rights or protection that might affect substantially all the activities of the company. But that is something one needs to take advice on. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for the trouble and time he has taken to answer the debate. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie
“(10) For the purposes of this section, acquiring a right or interest in, or in relation to, an entity by way of security does not constitute obtaining control over the entity, and any such rights or interests held by way of security do not constitute any of the cases described in this section.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that transactions are only caught where the person gains actual control of a qualifying entity and would exempt securities or other situations where no effective control is obtained.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
My Lords, I speak to Amendments 31 and 33, which relate to the continuing debate on Clause 8 and Clause 9 on the control of assets. The effect of Amendment 31 would be to ensure that an event is triggered only where the person gains actual control of a qualifying entity, and it would exempt securities and other situations where no effective control is obtained.
The definition of “control” in Clause 8(1), as has already been said, is framed very widely. It refers to 25%, 50% and 75% shareholding or voting thresholds, which correspond to those applied in the context of the people with significant control regime. Clause 8 also includes provisions adapting the above scenarios to cater for entities that do not have a share capital, such as partnerships.
This should be read alongside Schedule 1, which I suspect the Minister might allude to, which provides for particular cases in which a person is to be treated, for the purposes of the Bill, as holding an interest or right. In particular, paragraph 7 of Schedule 1 states:
“Rights attached to shares held by way of security provided by a person are to be treated as held by that person … where apart from the right to exercise them for the purpose of preserving the value of the security, or of realising it, the rights are exercisable only in accordance with that person’s instructions, and … where the shares are held in connection with the granting of loans as part of normal business activities and apart from the right to exercise them for the purpose of preserving the value of the security, or of realising it, the rights are exercisable only in that person’s interests.”
However, this clarification does not fully account for the situation where a lender becomes the registered holder of shares in security, as is the case with the legal mortgage over shares under the law in England and Wales, or a shares pledge under the law of Scotland.
Where the shares in an entity are transferred in security to a lender, the lender may find first that they have gained control of the entity under scenario one, notwithstanding the fact that under the terms of the security actual control remains with the security provider, for example, through the voting rights being exercisable only in accordance with the security provider’s instructions, as envisaged by paragraph 7 in Schedule 1 and that secondly, they would have triggered the second limb of the notifiable acquisition test.
As paragraph 7 of Schedule 1 refers only to:
“Rights attached to shares held by way of security,”
arguably it covers only the rights attaching to shares and not the ownership of the shares themselves—in other words, the rights rather than the ownership. As a legal mortgage over shares is unusual in England and Wales, but a shares pledge is the only way to obtain fixed security over shares under Scots law, this issue disproportionately affects Scots law fixed security over shares; that is, fixed security over shares in Scottish companies. As I have said in previous interventions on this Bill, the importance of the financial services sector and therefore the law of Scotland requires this to be addressed.
Effectively, we are talking about a situation where, for example, a bank providing a loan to a business takes security over shares unrelated to that business. In that context, the bank neither seeks nor exercises control of the shares; similarly if a parent company for example gives security to its bank over the shares of a wholly-owned trading subsidiary. In this case, the parent company retains direct day-to-day control, which would pass to the bank only in the case of default. Yet, as drafted, there is a risk that taking a fixed security over Scottish shares could trigger the provision, which would be highly disadvantageous to the Scottish economy specifically.
Given that a notifiable acquisition that is completed without the approval of the Secretary of State is void, the Law Society of Scotland argues that paragraph 7 of Schedule 1 should be extended to cater for the situation where shares are held in security by a lender. Paragraph 7 should similarly be extended to carve out security over qualifying assets since the security could be read as giving the security holder rights equivalent to those set out in Section 9. It would be helpful to include an express carve-out that nothing here is triggered simply by the act of holding any asset in security.
The society recognises what the Government are trying to achieve and addresses the situation where the borrower defaults and the terms of the security usually dictate that the asset will be sold. The transaction will therefore form a trigger event in the same way as any other transfer. I guess in rare circumstances, the holder of the security—that is, the lender—might seek to appropriate the asset. However, such appropriation could be caught within the meaning of a trigger event and if it were determined that the lender in question was not a suitable person to acquire ownership and control of the entity, the society considers that it would be possible for the conditions attached to the transfer to stipulate that the new owner would be obliged to sell their shares. They would thus be compensated for the value of their shares and any national security risk would be avoided.
I turn to Amendment 33, which has a similar purpose addressed to assets—namely, to ensure that transactions constitute a trigger event only where the person gains actual control of a qualifying entity and to exempt securities or other situations where no effective control is obtained. Where a lender holds as asset in security that lender may find that it has gained control of that asset, notwithstanding that under the terms of the security actual control remains with the security provider where they are in possession of the security. The second limb of the notifiable acquisition test may be triggered even when no effective control has passed.
Under Scots law, fixed security over incorporeal moveable property, which in English law is intangible property, can be achieved only be transferring the asset to the creditor. This includes, among other things, shares, insurance policies, contractual rights and intellectual property. For those assets where a real right of security can be treated without the transfer of ownership, such as land, a new real right is still being created in favour of the creditor. This right contains certain inherent negative controls—for example, a prohibition on sale—and certain positive controls: often the borrower must insure the property. I think we all know that this is common practice in mortgage arrangements and, as drafted, there is a risk that taking a fixed security over a Scottish asset could trigger this provision and this also would be highly disadvantageous to the Scottish economy.
Taking this into account, it would also be helpful to include an express carve-out, where nothing is triggered by the act of holding any asset. As stated in relation to the previous amendment, provision can be put in place to ensure that the Government’s interests are protected in the event of a default or the transfer of the assets, if triggered in the normal way. As already stated in the context of Amendment 31, such appropriation would be caught within the meaning of the trigger event. Conditions could attach to the transfer to stipulate that the new owner would be obliged to sell the asset; they would be compensated and national security risk avoided.
It appears that the Law Society of Scotland has identified practical issues for financial transactions under Scots law, which these amendments seek to address while fully recognising the Government’s national security objectives. It is a Scots law difference which could affect Scottish banks and Scottish mortgages but does not appear to have been considered in the Bill’s drafting. I hope that the Minister will be able to take this away and confirm whether the Bill needs to be changed in this way to ensure that the Scottish economy does not suffer what could be significant disadvantage as a result. I beg to move.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con) [V]
My Lords, I have tabled two amendments in this group, Amendments 34 and 35, which I shall now address. Again, they seek to provide clarity on the detailed operation of the Bill. As before, I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the Law Society.
Amendment 34 proposes a clarifying change to Clause 10(2)(b). It is argued that the existing wording of the clause means that any changes of ownership within the group of a company falling into one of the relevant sectors will require a notification. For example, an ultimate parent company might hold an interest in one such company through a wholly-owned subsidiary and, as a result of a decision to reorganise the group, it is decided that the parent should hold the interest directly. The holding company has the shares transferred to it. Any such holdings which are acquired after the commencement date, when the Bill becomes an Act, will have been through the security screening process, so there is surely no need for further consideration of what is essentially a paper transaction.
That leaves us with the question of how to deal with similar intragroup transfers where the initial investment was made before the commencement date. In such cases, of course, no screening will have taken place. Amendment 34 would require such changes to go through the standard notification and approval process.
Amendment 35 again seeks to provide clarity about how the Bill will operate in practice. Applying the current drafting of Clause 10 to a group which has multiple separate entities appears to require each of them to make a separate notification of a potential trigger event. That surely cannot be a sensible approach and, if followed, is likely greatly to increase the bureaucratic burden of form-filling and checking, and be a strain on the ISU. Amendment 35 establishes that, in the case of a corporate group, only one trigger event would arise and only one such notification would therefore be required.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
I speak in support of Amendments 31 and 33. As I have the same brief, I do not intend to speak for long but I support all the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie. I also state that I am a non-practising advocate of the Scottish Bar and a member of the Faculty of Advocates. If my noble friend the Minister is not minded to support the amendments, may I suggest that he meet the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, and me—if the noble Lord, as the author of the amendments, is agreeable—and, I hope, representatives from the Law Society of Scotland?
I honestly believe that this is a potential unintended consequence of the Bill, which could seriously disadvantage not just the Scottish legal profession but, more importantly, the financial service sector and financial investment sector in Scotland, which, as the noble Lord said, is sizeable in its contribution to the economy and employment. I endorse everything that he said and congratulate the Law Society of Scotland on bringing this to our attention. My understanding is that if the Bill is enacted as drafted, it could have grievous consequences for Scots law, Scottish practitioners and the financial sector. It behoves the Government to look favourably on the amendments. If not, I hope we can have the earliest possible meeting to discuss these matters in more depth.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I am not going to speak for any length on Amendments 31 and 33. I just hope that the Minister has a battery of Scots lawyers advising on these amendments because it sounds as if they could be of huge significance and the issues under Scots law may well have been ignored in the drafting of the Bill. I am looking forward to hearing the Minister’s response, no doubt on advice.
I support, in particular, Amendments 34 and 35, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, which he introduced so well. The common factor is that the existing wording of Clause 10(2) appears to catch intragroup investments where an ultimate parent company holds an interest indirectly through a wholly-owned subsidiary and decides to transfer the interest to itself so that it is held directly. Such transactions do not raise new or additional national risks as there is no change in the substantive control. For mandatory filings, as he also described, the initial acquisition will already have been notified and reviewed. Proposed Amendment 34 therefore makes sure that only those transactions where the initial investment took place before the commencement date are caught; they will thus not have been reviewed. Without this provision, each entity within a corporate group would need to make a separate notification for a single trigger event.
Amendment 35 deals with cases where corporate group companies comprise multiple, separate entities because Clause 10, as drafted, also appears to require each entity within the corporate group to make a separate notification for a single trigger event that takes place relating to the group.
These are well-crafted amendments and were well described by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, who, as he said, is supported by the Law Society. We have a Law Society group of amendments here relating to England, Wales and Scotland. I am sure that the Minister will have huge pleasure in responding on this group.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I have no new information to bring to the Committee. As we have heard, a number of transactions appear likely to be caught under the Bill which are probably outwith the intention of the authors of the Bill. I think the Minister has to explain why these provisions are in it, rather than noble Lords who tabled amendments having to explain why the provisions should be taken out. We look forward to his explanation of that and, perhaps, his reassurance to the Committee that the Bill is really fit for purpose across the whole of the UK, including for the Scottish legal system.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, with thanks to all noble Lords who have spoken with such knowledge and eloquence on the amendments tabled, I will begin by speaking to Amendments 31 and 33 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. The noble Lord, supported by my noble friend, clearly raises important questions on the juxtaposition of Scottish law with the powers that we are looking at in this group.
I am grateful to the Law Society of Scotland for having supported this and, if I may, rather than attempting to deal with these points on the hoof I will take them away. I commit to being in communication with noble Lords as to what needs to be done, if anything, in relation to them. More generally, perhaps putting the important Scottish points on one side for the moment, I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that the Bill has to work for every part of the United Kingdom.
These amendments concern Clauses 8 and 9 and the circumstances where acquisitions of control of entities and assets take place for the purposes of the Bill. They seek, I believe, to ensure that rights or interests in, or in relation to, entities and assets held by way of security are exempt from the regime, on the understandable basis that lending and debt arrangements do not give rise to control. Let me agree right away with the thrust of the concern expressed by the noble Lord and my noble friend. The Government do not consider that the provision of loans and finance is automatically a national security issue. Indeed, it is part of a healthy business ecosystem which enables businesses to flourish and grow in this country. Lenders need confidence that they can see a return on ordinary debt arrangements to provide that service, which is of course vital to the proper functioning of the economy. But we must recognise that there are, in a small number of cases, national security risks that can be posed through debt. I will come to this in a moment.
Access to finance is crucial for so many businesses and, to grow and succeed, they will often take out loans secured against the very businesses and assets they have fought so hard to build. That is why the Bill allows the Secretary of State to scrutinise acquisitions of control that take place when lenders exercise their rights over the collateral. The important point is that it is not where the lenders have hypothetical rights but where they exercise their rights over the collateral. This approach is needed because it will prevent hostile actors artificially structuring acquisitions in the form of loans which, following a swift and convenient default—let us put it that way—might otherwise allow them to evade scrutiny. This is a proportionate approach, and one that I am confident will keep finance flowing into UK companies and infrastructure while ensuring that our national security can be protected.
Amendments 34 and 35 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hodgson relate to Clause 10, which, in combination with Schedule 1, sets out various ways in which rights or interests are to be treated, for the purposes of the Bill, as held or acquired. These include indirect holdings whereby, for example, a person holds an interest or right indirectly if that person has a majority stake in an entity that is part of a chain of entities, each of which holds a majority stake in the entity immediately below it, the last company in the chain of which holds the interest or right. That example is relevant because Amendment 34 seeks to ensure that intragroup investments are not covered by Clause 10 and, as a result, Schedule 1 as well.
My interpretation is that my noble friend wishes to prevent internal reorganisations within the same corporate chain of entities from resulting in trigger events by virtue of Schedule 1. I confirm to the Committee that, in the vast majority of cases, that will not have an impact but, depending on the facts of the case, internal reorganisations may be in scope of the Bill. That is because there may be rare cases in which internal reorganisations pose national security risks. That may be true even if the ultimate beneficial owner is the same before and after the trigger event: for example, if there are concerns about changes to the level of control acquired by other links in the chain as a result of the internal reorganisation.
Clause 10(2)(b), which the amendment seeks to amend, is therefore important, because it makes it clear that in circumstances where a person is already treated as holding an interest or right, when something happens that would be regarded as the acquisition of that interest or right by the same person, then it is treated as such.
This means, for example, that an ultimate beneficial owner at the top of a corporate chain transferring existing majority holdings held by entities lower down in the chain to those above them could be a trigger event if it can be regarded as an acquisition by virtue of Schedule 1.
Amendment 35 would insert a new subsection into Clause 10 to provide that only one trigger event arises where more than one person is treated as acquiring an interest or right due to the provisions of Schedule 1. I can clearly see that my noble friend is seeking to help the Government by looking to ensure that the investment security unit is not deluged by duplicate notifications by corporate chains each time a new acquisition is made by an entity towards the bottom of the chain.
I can assure him that we are carefully designing the notification process and forms so that, wherever possible in situations such as these, a single notification providing all the details of the entities in the same corporate structure can be considered together. That is different from his amendment, which would seek to provide in the Bill that only one trigger event takes place. I am afraid that the Government consider that this would introduce ambiguity into the Bill, as it would not make it clear which trigger event is the one which takes place, and which should be discounted.
Hostile actors could try to exploit such a provision to avoid scrutiny by using shell companies at the bottom of long and complex corporate chains to acquire sensitive entities and assets. If only one trigger event is considered to take place by virtue of Schedule 1, the entity immediately above it in the chain could notify the acquisition, while not necessarily disclosing the control acquired by more troubling persons higher up the chain. In these circumstances, the amendment would mean that these could not be treated as separate trigger events, whereas surely they should be.
With the arguments I have outlined and my undertaking to write to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh about the important Scottish matters they raised, I ask that the noble Lord agrees to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)
I have received one request to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and my noble friend Lord Bruce will respond very positively to the Minister’s offer on Amendments 31 and 33.
I must say that on Amendments 34 and 35 the Government are really tying themselves in knots in the way that the mesh—to come back to the Minister’s splendid fishing analogy—is woven in this Bill. This is catching minnows—it is catching transactions such as these intragroup transactions. I will read very carefully what the Minister has to say, but, given the number of fish caught by this that will have to be continuously thrown back in the sea after a period—as we have discussed, one that could be unduly protracted—this really is a catch-all Bill the longer we talk about and debate it. I do not think any of us is particularly comfortable with that in this Committee; we have to find a way of making it more proportionate. That will be the key task of the House as the Bill goes forward.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that comment. Let me take it on the chin and, if I can, answer it.
Some of the hostile actors that we are trying to prevent acquiring sensitive matter are extremely sophisticated and wily. It is not appropriate to go into details, but we know this. We know that they are absolutely capable of structuring transactions to find the most minute loopholes and acquire control of assets that affect our national security. I think we all accept the premise that national security is paramount, and to protect ourselves against these threats we have to have these complex arrangements.
I completely understand noble Lords’ points that some of the things we are describing are complex almost to the point of absurdity. However, they have to be if we are to protect ourselves against these hostile actors. This is key and something that we will have to keep coming back to. It is why it will be so incumbent on the investment security unit to act sensibly and pragmatically. When things have to be notified to catch the important fish—in the noble Lord’s analogy—they will have to be dealt with quickly and moved out; otherwise, we risk circumventing the very thing that we are trying to avoid with this Bill, which is threats to our national security.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
I thank the Minister for his response. Given the detail of the response to the other amendments, I might have hoped that the department would be able to give us a little more detail on Amendments 31 and 33, but I genuinely accept his offer to write. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for her support and suggest that the Minister takes up her offer, on behalf of us both as well as the Law Society of Scotland, to meet to try to find a way through this, because there are clearly some practical concerns about the impact of the Bill as it stands.
These amendments do not seek to undermine the Bill in any way. The concern is that the Bill unintentionally undermines the good working of the legal and financial services sector in Scotland, and it is clear that the Bill needs to take that into account. I accept and appreciate the sincerity of the Minister’s offer, but I suggest that a meeting that includes the Law Society of Scotland would be a more practical way forward than just an exchange of letters. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Lansley (Con)
“( ) For the purposes of this Act a person is not to be regarded as gaining control of a qualifying asset to the extent that the use of a qualifying asset is conducted wholly within the activity of a United Kingdom-based higher education or research institution.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would provide a “safe harbour” in relation to assets wholly controlled within UK higher education and research institutes.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, we come to a group that contains just one amendment in my name, Amendment 36, which touches on the issue of higher education. We will, at a later stage, deal with the question of the time taken to review notifications. That is a pretty central issue for higher education, but I do not propose to talk about that in this group.
Judging from the earlier discussion between the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, about the meeting to discuss research and higher education interests, I am sure that this is well known to Ministers. The purpose of Amendment 36 is to create a safe harbour for activity undertaken by and maintained within British universities and research institutes. I can perfectly well see the objection to a safe harbour for this activity. It was well illustrated by a report published by my noble friend Lord Johnson of Marylebone and looking at the extent to which there were, in his instance, Chinese interests in university research in this country. Something like 30% of all principal research activity in higher education has Chinese interest somewhere in it.
The point is this: Clause 9, which we have just agreed, extends as structured to the right to use qualifying assets. The breadth of qualifying assets, when one considers them alongside the right to use them, brings in the Lambert report principles, which universities use for research activity. They extend the right to use to their financial, or mostly industrial, sponsors, so a large number of research activities in universities might be the subject of notifications.
I will shorten this debate by saying that, if one does not go down the route of a safe harbour for universities, we need a very positive approach to Amendment 88, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, which says that universities need specific, detailed guidance about the circumstances in which they need to make notifications. Otherwise, the number of notifications will be very large and there will be a substantial diversion of activity of the investment security unit away from areas where the risks are greatest to volume activity, where risks are lower.
I know that universities have plenty of experience—I will come on to in the next group of amendments—of working with the Export Control Joint Unit. If they have a similar relationship with and understanding of the requirements when notification is appropriate and when they can avoid voluntary notifications in large numbers, higher education will be able to live with this regime far better than they fear at the moment.
I move Amendment 36, but I encourage the Minister to respond positively to Amendment 88.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con) [V]
My Lords, this amendment seeks to ensure that research and development partnerships, such as those that are widely formed between companies and universities to create intellectual property and therefore qualifying assets, are not required to provide notification of the creation of these partnerships. If these partnerships lead to the creation of a qualifying asset, the trigger event should be determined to be the point of creation of the qualifying asset. It would minimise the notification burden on business and industry, and avoid discouraging these important relationships. This is the theme of many of my amendments.
To give your Lordships some background, UK companies are major funders of research and development at British universities across the world. They enter into hundreds, if not thousands, of research agreements every year. Those agreements can be a simple, straightforward funding of a PhD student or major multilateral projects valued at many millions of pounds. Business enterprise R&D represents something like two-thirds of the total, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. The biggest sectors for business enterprise R&D overlap significantly with the 17 sectors identified in the Bill. For example, computer programming is almost £2 billion, aerospace is almost £2 billion and software development is £1.5 billion.
This business investment, allied with our world-class universities, means that the UK is obviously at the forefront of many of these technologies, from quantum technology to artificial intelligence. The purpose of the research is, of course, to create new technology and new intellectual property that can be used by those British companies to grow British businesses, but at the beginning of any partnership the creation of intellectual property is simply an aspiration. It is certainly not guaranteed.
These projects risk being caught by the same minimal risk issue flagged in other debates on the Bill where companies seek pre-emptively to notify where there is a risk of a trigger event because there is a lack of clarity on this issue. All the amendment seeks to do is to postpone the need to consider notification until such time as the research has been successful, in effect by creating a qualifying asset.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I am very pleased to have put my name to all three amendments in this group. Rather like the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, I think that we have to find a way to deal with research and development partnerships in higher education. These are various alternative ways to do that, but whichever one is chosen we must find a constructive way. Having a debate and discussion at this stage is really important.
Although the Bill does not directly reference universities and a great deal depends on the Secretary of State and his statement saying how he will define and use the powers, given the width of the sectors it is clear that there is an intention to catch those partnerships entered into by universities. The Bill’s scope is so wide that it means universities could have to refer a significant proportion of their routine business collaborations for screening.
A key concern is that it is unclear which types of asset transaction should be referred for screening. The proposed definition of assets that should be referred to BEIS is very broad and could cover a significant proportion of what universities might consider run-of-the-mill engagement with businesses, including contract research, consultancy work and collaborative R&D. Elements of the Bill, while introducing measures to protect national security, could have unintended consequences for future investment in UK R&D and could cause BEIS to be overloaded with referrals from the university sector.
Up to 95% of Russell group research contracts grant external partners some form of intellectual property and could therefore be captured by the voluntary regime, given the current broad definition of assets. With uncertainty over definitions, universities will be forced to adopt a cautious approach and therefore will expect to refer a significant proportion of the partnerships that I have mentioned: their contract research, consultancy, and collaborative research projects, including those conducted with British businesses. This will add to lead-in times and create red tape for universities and businesses. That surely cannot be for the benefit of R&D in our universities.
As chair of the governing body of a research-intensive university, I can testify to the fact that protecting sensitive research from hostile foreign actors is now a priority for universities. Universities dedicate significant resource to complying with export control legislation and are now working to implement recommendations arising from last year’s guidance from Universities UK, Managing Risks in Internationalisation. As a result, enhanced due diligence processes have run in parallel to concerted efforts to secure R&D investment from domestic and international businesses. This includes due diligence on risk assessment, international research partnerships, policies and contractual agreements to protect intellectual property and dual-use technologies and export control legislation.
Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, although I spoke at Second Reading and have lent my name to later amendments, supporting my noble friend Lord West and the noble Lord, Lord Butler, I have to say that most of the content is way over my pay grade. I have learned an awful lot as I have listened to the debate this afternoon.
My position on the Bill is the same as on the CHIS Bill: I am with the Government. I realise that higher education is large and varied but I am not prepared to give it the blind support that I have done in the past. As such, I do not support Amendment 36.
I want to raise three aspects: pay, academic freedom and security, as it is tied to the Bill. The pay of vice-chancellors is out of control and, like the Army, where no general gets the sack for failure, no vice-chancellor walks the plank. That is due to poor governance, so it is not down to a single person. Many salaries are well north of £250,000 a year—some are £500,000 a year—with whopping increases into five figures annually, on top of which there are vast expenses and, sometimes, free accommodation. In the meantime, the so-called world-beaters screw down the staff on flimsy contracts, with pensions constantly under attack. The treatment of students during the pandemic has been appalling, in some cases. It reminds me of what I read about the Victorian mill owners’ treatment of their workers—but the students are the payees, not the employees. The leadership is not world-class, except as in snouts and troughs.
Then we see the negative aspects of academic freedom —that is, its decline—becoming the norm. The Civitas report makes for very disturbing reading. The study of campus censorship over the three years between 2017 and 2020 is grim. It covered all 137 registered universities and 22 variables were assessed. Noble Lords will be pleased to learn that I do not intend to detail them, but the key finding was that only 19 of the 137 universities were considered “the most friendly”. Seventy—that is 51% of them—were not performing well and were classed as “moderately restrictive”, leaving 48 universities, including some of the highest-ranked ones, performing badly on free speech. They were classed as the most restrictive. It would take too long to list them so I shall give just seven examples: St Andrews, Cambridge, Oxford, Liverpool, Exeter, UCL and Imperial College, London. There are more. There is a very strong correlation of them with the high pay of vice-chancellors. The Russell group of world-class universities did not come out very well either: 42% were recorded as “most restrictive”; 54% were “moderately restrictive”; and only one registered Russell group university came out with a “most friendly” score.
Before I come to my final point, it is worth pointing out that your Lordships’ House does not hear much about this aspect of education. The last time I checked, which was about three years ago, there were over 40 university chancellors in your Lordships’ House. That speaks volume.
My final point on why Amendment 36 should not be accepted by the Government is that too many universities are almost subsidiaries of the Chinese Communist Party Ltd. Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, has called for a clamp-down on British university research relationships with China to stop the flow of intelligence secrets. Bloomberg has reported that UK intelligence agencies are concerned about these links and the passing of sensitive information about defence technology from the UK to China. Too much Chinese money is going into UK universities. It is alleged that at least 20 British universities have relationships with 29 Chinese universities with strong ties to the Chinese military, as well as some of China’s largest weapons producers.
Earlier today came the report from the Policy Institute, The China Question. I have not had time to read it all, so I will make just two or three points. In 1990, there were 100 co-authored papers between Chinese and UK universities. By 2000, it was 750. In 2019, there were over 16,000. The report, which I have only glanced at, points out the reliance on significant tuition fee income by UK universities from China, which is used to cross-subsidise research. This creates a strategic dependency and potential vulnerability. We are not managing the risks associated with this aspect of our education and Chinese influence.
In short, it is a sorry tale from higher education. While I support my noble friend Lady Hayter’s Amendment 88, the Government should reject Amendment 36 out of hand.
Lord Fox (LD)
I remind the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that this is a particular Bill designed to do a particular thing. It is not a higher education Bill. While he may feel strongly about many of the issues, I will not comment on them, because they do not fall into the remit of the Bill. I point out that I am also not a university vice-chancellor.
The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, set out the danger, and this was supported by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. If this Bill is used to police these issues, the deluge that will fall on the agency will be huge. We are back to the point that my noble friend made on the previous group: we are creating a Bill that does everything, then the Government will gradually calibrate what they do and do not need to do. That is not the best legislative approach.
There are issues with the research relationships that universities may have, but this Bill is not the policing agency that we should be using for them. I do not 100% agree about the outset of a relationship, as set out by the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, in his and my noble friend’s amendment. Sometimes that has to be looked at, as well as the outcome of that relationship, but I do not think this Bill is the place to do it.
To steal a word that was used earlier and use it differently, we are also looking at the nexus between this and export control. Universities seem much more comfortable with export control, and if there is an issue with universities it could be addressed through the increased and more rigorous use of these measures, not through this Bill.
I return to the point which I asked the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, about last time and which I put to ask the Minister now, what are we seeking to stop? In other words, in putting this Bill together, how many partnership agreements does the Bill team imagine would have been stopped by this process? What sort of things are the Government seeking to arrest, stop or cancel compared to that which the export control regime would be doing anyway?
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, as the Minister knows and as has been said, there is considerable concern in the higher education and research sector about the potential impact of the Bill on research partnerships. We agree with the intention of Amendment 40, which is, as we have heard, to provide clarity for the sector. Indeed, it reflects a recommendation from the Russell group which said that a key concern is that it is unclear which type of asset transactions should be referred for screening. That will cause problems for the group as well as to the unit, which could have simply too many referrals. Amendment 40 is also to ensure that research and development partnerships, such as those between commercial organisations and universities to create new intellectual property and potentially qualifying assets, are not required to provide notification of the creation of such partnerships.
Amendment 88 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, reflects similar concerns. I hope it takes an approach that the Government are able to accept. It would require the Government to publish specific guidance for the HE and research sector, including a clear explanation of asset transactions indicating how contract research, consultancy work and collaborative research and development are affected and how the provisions apply to strategic security partnerships and domestic partners. The amendment also requires—and this is key—the Government to consult the higher education and research sector in a meaningful way in advance of the guidance so that the published guidance reflects what is workable for both sides, particularly in relation to that definition of assets which otherwise could lead to great uncertainty. The amendment therefore is about developing guidance and promoting good practice in that it should be done in co-operation with the sector. I thank my noble friend Lord Rooker and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for their support for this approach. The wording of my amendment may not be perfect, and we could perhaps tweak that on Report, but it will be important to have this in the Bill.
Perhaps the Minister who is about to reply—or may be doing that next week—would indicate the Government’s acceptance of this need for guidance as well as the way of getting it. As the Russell group says, without clear guidance a significant proportion of universities’ routine engagement with British business could be inadvertently captured by the Bill. We are all in favour of that engagement between universities and business. We want to make sure it happens. Any hiccups could delay time-sensitive research deals if the unit was preoccupied with this.
Universities want to help make this Bill work. They acknowledge that there are risks. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Fox. I think that the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Rooker about the amount of collaboration with certain countries is key and we must face up to it. I think that the leaders of the universities are aware of that. They want to be part of the solution, so I hope that the Minister will accept Amendment 88.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
Let us try to get this done in five minutes.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and my noble friends Lord Lansley and Lord Vaizey for tabling these amendments. I will begin with Amendments 36 and 88, which concern the Bill’s effect on higher education. Amendment 36 seeks to exempt from the regime the use of qualifying assets where that use is conducted wholly within the activity of a UK-based higher education or research institution. Amendment 88 seeks to introduce guidance to explain some of the Bill’s provisions in relation to higher education.
First, I intend to provide some general assurance to the Committee about the asset powers under the Bill. There are no asset transactions that must be notified to the Secretary of State as assets are not subject to the mandatory notifiable acquisitions regime. To quote the statement published on introduction, interventions in asset transactions by the Secretary of State are expected only in
“the headline sectors in which national security risks are more likely to arise than in the wider economy”.
The draft statement states more broadly:
“The Secretary of State expects to intervene very rarely in asset transactions.”
In relation to higher education, I assure the Committee that we do not generally expect the acquisition of qualifying assets for exclusive use by UK-based research or higher education institutions to give rise to national security concerns.
Indeed, to go further, the use of assets where there is no acquisition of a right or interest resulting in control over a qualifying asset would not even constitute a trigger event, although my understanding is that Amendment 36 seeks to go wider than this. We do, however, expect national security risks to arise in the higher education and research sectors sometimes. For example, hostile actors could seek to set up a UK-based research organisation and acquire sensitive assets through this vehicle, or enter into some form of agreement with one and gain control over sensitive assets that way. Exempting such acquisitions from the regime would therefore create a notable gap in the Secretary of State’s ability to safeguard national security.
Turning to the likelihood of the Secretary of State calling in acquisitions related to contract research, consultancy work and collaborative research and development, and the request for guidance, I point the noble Baroness to the three levels of risk set out in the draft statement. The intention of the statement is to provide guidance on the expected use of the call-in power by the Secretary of State. The three levels of risk in the statement give a hierarchy of how likely the Secretary of State is to call in an acquisition. The most likely areas of concern are “core areas”, “core activities” and “the wider economy”. Acquisitions in “core areas” are likely to be of most interest to the Secretary of State. “Core activities” are likely to fall within the “core areas” but may also fall outside them. This covers the sectors proposed to be set out in regulations under Clause 6. The Government have consulted on the definitions of the sectors to be covered by Clause 6 and published their response at the beginning of this Committee. “The wider economy” concerns everything else. The Secretary of State considers these areas unlikely to pose risks to national security. Therefore, they are unlikely to be called in under the NSI regime. I am confident that higher education and research institutions will be able to assess their activities and decide in which of these three areas of risk they fall.
I want to take a moment to assure the Committee that BEIS consulted Universities UK, the University Alliance and the Russell group on the national security and investment White Paper, published on 24 July 2018. They were very helpful. Of course, since the introduction of the Bill, as my noble friend Lord Lansley noted, BEIS has continued to engage with a number of research and academic institutions, including the Russell group. The Government very much appreciate the Russell group’s ideas on inclusion for guidance.
Turning to strategic security partnerships and domestic partners, the Bill deals only with acquisitions of control over qualifying entities and assets; it does not regulate these strategic security partnerships specifically. Any acquisitions of control made by such a partnership will be subject to the Bill in the same way as any other qualifying acquisition—namely, the Secretary of State’s likely interest in them is illustrated in the draft statement under Clause 3.
I now turn to Amendment 40 in the names of my noble friend Lord Vaizey and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. This amendment concerns Clause 12, which provides supplementary provisions about trigger events, including details about when they take place. The amendment seeks to make it clear that, in relation to the creation or potential creation of a new qualifying asset, a trigger event can take place only upon the creation of that asset.
The Government also consider that acquisitions of control over qualifying assets can take place only from the point of their creation, whether in tangible or intangible form. I reassure the noble Lords that the Bill as drafted provides for that. They will, however, be aware that the Secretary of State’s call-in power applies both to trigger events which have taken place and to those which are “in progress or contemplation”. The point at which a trigger event is in progress or contemplation will clearly depend on the facts of the case, but it could include circumstances where research and development partnerships are agreed, and it is abundantly clear what assets are to be developed and what control the funder will be acquiring over them.
We think that this is the right approach, as the primary focus of this regime is acquisitions of control over existing entities and assets. We cannot hope to know the future and how technology and national security risks might develop in every circumstance, so it is right that control of new assets can occur only once they have been created.
With the arguments I have outlined against the amendments in this group, I ask that noble Lords agree not to press them.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)
Before I call the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, to respond, I need to make the Committee aware of the Procedure Committee’s guidance about five hours of sitting, which expired five minutes ago. I do not want to put pressure on the noble Lord to respond on a very detailed debate, but if his response is brief we can probably include it. If not, it might be that the Whip needs to consider moving an adjournment.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I can be brief. I do not think my noble friend really replied to Amendment 88, so I think that we will return to this on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Callanan
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment removes the reference to Article 9 of the Export Control Order 2008 (S.I. 2008/3231) which was revoked by regulation 4(7) of the Export Control (Amendment)(EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (S.I. 2019/137).
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)
That concludes the Committee’s work this afternoon. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room. I thank very much the broadcasting team and the support team for their assistance.
House of Lords
Arrangement of Business
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now begin. Some Members are here in the Chamber, while others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. I ask all Members to respect social distancing. If the capacity of the Chamber is exceeded, I will immediately adjourn the House. Oral Questions will now commence. Please can those asking supplementary questions keep them no longer than 30 seconds and confined to two points. I ask that Ministers’ answers are also brief.
Unemployment: Over-50s
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Haskel
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to address the number of unemployed people over the age of 50.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
Our Plan for Jobs package provides funding to ensure that more people, including those aged 50 and over, get tailored Jobcentre Plus support to help them find work and build the skills that they need to get into work. As part of the Jobcentre Plus offer for over-50s, we are also providing dedicated support through 50-plus champions and mentoring circles to ensure that they fully benefit from the Plan for Jobs package and existing Jobcentre Plus support.
Lord Haskel (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the Government’s schemes, though, just do not seem to work. One scheme had the worst outturn, with just one in five being successful. In the past 12 months, the number of unemployed over-50s has gone up by a third, which is significantly more than any other group. This is partly because many employers prefer more technologically skilled younger people, who may come cheaper, perhaps with government money. This over-50s group requires specific, updated back-to-work support using their knowledge and experience. Will the Government be much more specific and give them that support?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I would like to speak to the noble Lord outside the Chamber about the statistics that he raises because they do not resonate with those that I have. I can only say to him that the support that over-50s are getting through the Jobcentre Plus network builds on their existing skills base and is doing everything possible to get them back into the labour market.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab) [V]
I am sure that the Minister will know that one in five people over 50 provide unpaid care to a family member or friend. These caring responsibilities have a significant impact on their ability to work, leaving many outside the labour market. Of course, the pandemic has exacerbated this situation. What support can the Government provide to help older carers return to work and juggle work with their caring responsibilities, on which social care so much depends?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
To help and support carers to remain in work or return to work, we have been working with employer organisations, the CIPD, the British Chambers of Commerce and LEPs to host a series of webinars, with content delivered by the business champion for older workers. We absolutely agree with the noble Baroness about the role that carers play. We want flexibility from employers, flexibility in hours and flexibility in the roles that those people can provide.
Baroness Janke (LD) [V]
My Lords, older workers have valuable experience and life skills but are twice as likely as younger workers to be out of work for 12 months or more. What opportunities for financially supported training and education will the Government make available to this age group to enable them to develop their skills and, if necessary, change their career paths?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
Again, the noble Baroness makes an important point about the value that older workers can add to the workforce. The UK Government are investing £2.5 billion in the national skills fund to aid the lifetime skills guarantee. This is a great opportunity for older workers.
Baroness Redfern (Con) [V]
My Lords, the fact is that many people need to work for longer, but workers aged 50-plus still face barriers to accessing work and training. What extra government support is there particularly for smaller and medium-sized businesses to help them to offer employment to older people who are disabled?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I am pleased to report that the Government have appointed Andy Briggs as business champion for older workers to spearhead the Government’s work to support employers to retain, retrain and recruit older workers, including the disabled.
Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]
My Lords, as the Minister well knows, the over-50s who have lost their jobs during the pandemic are at a serious risk of long-term unemployment, at huge cost to themselves but also to the taxpayer. Have the Government considered creating an over-50s Kickstart scheme—it is an excellent scheme for young people—encouraging employers to create jobs but also providing retraining for older workers who might well benefit from it?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
That is a great idea. I will take it back to the department because I can promise the whole House that our Secretary of State and our team are looking at innovative ways to get people back into work.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, to build on that, the pandemic has certainly caused job losses for older people and led to people retiring early, or indeed delaying retirement. That hurts those individuals and their families, but it also affects the labour supply and the pensions landscape. It is a big public policy issue. Have Ministers considered developing a focused strategy, with ring-fenced funding and targeted interventions, and perhaps adapted conditionality for older workers?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
In respect of conditionality and targeted support, the work that we are doing through the work coaches is tailored and individual. We are using the conditionality rules as compassionately and sensibly as we can.
Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]
My Lords, as has been indicated, over-50s are twice as likely as the rest of the population to stay unemployed, once unemployed, for more than two years. The truth is, of course, that many never get back into work, partly because there is a sense that taking on an older employee is less valuable, despite their skills and experience. Given that during the pandemic we have seen a much greater increase proportionately in unemployment among the over-50s, there is clearly a risk that many of these people will never return to work. I support the suggestion of the equivalent to the Kickstart programme for over-50s, because we know that the longer you are unemployed at over 50, the more likely it is that you will never return to work.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
As I said, I thought that the idea of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, was excellent. I can only concur with the noble Lord that we should explore that.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP) [V]
My Lords, the pandemic has been particularly difficult for older people in terms of job losses. Even in normal times, far too many are out of work well before retirement age. We must do more to acknowledge the contribution to society and the economy of people of all ages, so what more can the Government do to cut out age bias in recruitment and training and to get companies to recognise the importance of age inclusivity?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
This will be part of the important work of the over-50s champion appointed by the Government, Andy Briggs. I reiterate that older workers have skills and experience that employers are looking for. It is up to us to work with employers to encourage and influence them to secure vacancies for older workers.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I spoke only this morning to four distinguished horticulturalists who said that they would warmly welcome people aged over 50 coming into that sector. They, too, mentioned a modified Kickstart scheme, so may I add to the pleas already made?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
Kickstart for older workers: message received and understood. The UK Government are investing £2.5 billion in the national skills fund to aid the lifetime guarantee, we have a free online skills toolkit and the Chancellor’s announcement in July of his Plan for Jobs included an extra £17 million to support 32,000 more vocational training places.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB) [V]
My Lords, a snapshot by the Institute for Fiscal Studies last year showed that one in four people on furlough were over 50. My concern is that many of those people will not go back into employment again—as we have heard, over-50s are harder to employ. Could we not profitably use the time when people are on furlough to retrain them for the jobs that will be available when we come out of the pandemic properly?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I am pleased to be able to confirm to the House that, where an employee is on furlough, they can take part in training, volunteer for another employer or organisation or work for another employer if contractually allowed.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab) [V]
My Lords, what efforts are the job coaches and service centres making to assess the current skills of over-50s and to ensure the necessary retraining to enable re-employment? I hope that the House will recognise the enormous efforts being made by job coaches and service centre staff. The system might need some improvement, so the Kickstart idea is a good example.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I think that I have already covered the issue of reskilling and training. The key to getting people back to work is to have the work coach make an assessment and build an action plan that gets people back to work, along with the efforts that we are making to influence employers. I am grateful to the noble Lord, as will be the whole DWP staff, for his endorsement of their excellent and committed work.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and we now move to the next Question.
World Health Organization: Pandemics
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Crisp
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to strengthen the role of the World Health Organization to support the management of future pandemics.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, the UK is a strong supporter of the WHO and an advocate of reform to ensure that it further strengthens its ability to respond effectively to health emergencies. The UK is taking a leading role on reform through our seat at the WHO Executive Board and our G7 presidency. We are working with international partners to push for a stronger early warning system, reduced risk of zoonotic diseases through better surveillance and improved compliance with international health regulations.
Lord Crisp (CB) [V]
My Lords, I am delighted that the UK Government are providing support to the World Health Organization, contributing to COVAX and taking this very important role of reform. Further to the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response report, which talked about the World Health Organization being
“underpowered to do the job expected of it”,
will the Government ensure that this is discussed at G7 and that the world will commit to doing whatever it takes to ensure that the WHO is able to respond even more effectively to pandemics in the future?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the Government are extremely committed to pandemic preparedness. We support the principle of a pandemic preparedness treaty, and we have laid out at UNGA a very clear programme for enhancing global pandemic preparedness. We look forward to the publication of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response report shortly, and I reassure the noble Lord that this is top of the agenda at our G7.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]
Does the Minister agree that the WHO could support the management of future pandemics now by organising a worldwide vaccine passport? People are very keen to travel, and this would help the travel industry and could act as an incentive to those who are reluctant to take the vaccine.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I share the noble Lord’s passion for international travel. Like him, I cannot wait for global travel to restart. I also see the connection between the promise of a vaccine certificate of some kind and taking up the vaccine itself. Plans for vaccine certificates for global travel are emerging as we speak. We have a Cabinet Office programme which is co-ordinating across government initiatives on vaccine certification, and a review is in progress which will pronounce shortly.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]
[Inaudible]—excellent record in research, are the Government able to work through the WHO to promote research into recyclable PPE to avoid the environmental hazard of an enormous pile-up of plastics and discarded PPE? Can the Government work on a public education programme of basic hygiene, with clean water and soap available across the world, so that the very basic principles of hygiene can be maintained?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the environmental consequences of the pandemic are indeed severe, as the noble Baroness rightly points out. We are working with colleagues in Defra to try to figure out answers to this tricky problem of the legacy of all this PPE. With regards to hygiene education around the world, we have a number of programmes in place, through ODA and our various international development plans, and hygiene is very much at the centre of those.
Lord Judd (Lab) [V]
My Lords, has the pandemic not brought home almost more powerfully than ever before the total interdependence of the global community? Therefore, are the international institutions such as the WHO and other specialised UN agencies the only way that we can have a sane future for society as a whole? We cannot forge that on our own as an island. We played a distinguished part in the role of developing organisations such as the WHO in the past. Can the noble Lord reassure us that it is not just a matter of saying that we have priorities and commitments but of ensuring that the whole culture of government looks towards strengthening international institutions such as the WHO?
Lord Bethell (Con)
I completely agree with the noble Lord. A multilateral approach is at the heart of our response to the pandemic, and I agree that we are not safe here in the UK until the whole world has addressed the question of the pandemic.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, the World Health Organization recommends regular handwashing as a critical preventive measure against Covid-19, but 3 billion people worldwide lack access to soap and water at home. The UK’s Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition responded to the onset of the pandemic with a £100 million commitment to reach a billion people, but this project is now ending. It is wonderful to have the Government’s support for this project, but will they put their money where their mouth is and continue to fund this vital project?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her tribute to the Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition. I cannot offer guarantees from the Dispatch Box on its future funding, but I will inquire about the matter. As the noble Baroness suggests, it sounds like a fascinating and important project.
Viscount Ridley (Con) [V]
My Lords, after last month’s embarrassing Potemkin investigation of Wuhan, will my noble friend the Minister ask the WHO to insist that the Chinese Government release the genome sequences of eight bat viruses of the so-called 7896 clade held in the Wuhan Institute of Virology database that are known to be very closely related to SARS-CoV-2 and may hold critical clues, but which they refuse to release?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, we are extremely hopeful for the IPPPR process, and we have supported the team in its desire to get to the bottom of its investigations. I do not know the specifics of the bat viruses to which my noble friend refers, but I reassure him that the British Government are leaning on the WHO as hard as we possibly can to make the most of this important investigation.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
Given the cuts to the aid budget which have been announced, and given that experience shows that the world’s reaction to pandemics is to panic and then forget—which Covid-19 has cruelly exposed—can the Minister expand on how HMG are going to support the World Health Organization to address the immediate urgent work to fight the pandemic and to build for the future the firepower and structure to better handle an issue of global magnitude under the Government’s current budget constraints?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the financial support of the WHO from the Government is generous, and so is our support of COVAX. When it comes to the WHO, we are looking for stronger horizon scanning and early warning, higher-quality technical guidance that is tailored to different countries and resource settings, and greater co-ordination of governance and activity across the animal, human and environmental interface. This is a really clear manifesto. The Prime Minister has laid it out clearly, and we are using the G7 process to ensure that there is support for it across the G7 countries.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB) [V]
My Lords, do the Government fully recognise that most of the poorest countries, even states such as Vietnam, are still coping without any vaccinations? Does the Minister agree that much more attention must be paid to the support of local health services in the least developed countries? They are easily bypassed when there are major international health campaigns.
Lord Bethell (Con)
The noble Earl refers to the important role that the WHO plays. Of course, we are all frustrated sometimes with our multilateral organisations, but the noble Earl quite rightly alludes to the dependence that many countries have on the advice, counsel and practical support that organisations such as the WHO provide. That is why we want the WHO to step up to its responsibilities, why we have instituted a major reform programme recommendation, and why we are extremely hopeful that the WHO steps up.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
Will the WHO have a specific input and a direct voice in the G7 deliberations?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the WHO is not a sitting member of the G7, but we have a representative attending our health track in Oxford, and we have been in dialogue with them directly with our agenda on the G7.
Baroness Browning (Con) [V]
The WHO website officially states that, on 30 January, it declared a public health emergency of international concern. It claims that not many countries took much notice and that it was not until it used the word “pandemic”, on 11 March, five weeks later, that people sat up and took notice. This is clearly unsatisfactory. Will my noble friend do all that he can, as I hope he will, to ensure that the system of notification is improved at the earliest opportunity?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is right in her chronology, but we want the WHO to continue to learn lessons on how to improve its response to global health emergencies in the early stage. The delay in that global response is something that the WHO needs to learn from.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question. I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, intends to ask this Question on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Nye.
Women’s Equality
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Nye
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to increase women’s equality globally.
Baroness Crawley (Lab) [V]
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Nye, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, promoting gender equality remains a priority for the Government, including breaking down barriers to girls fulfilling their right to 12 years of quality education. Our leadership on gender equality is even more vital as we work globally to build back better and more inclusively after Covid-19. This year, we are putting gender equality at the heart of our G7 presidency, co-leading the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Gender-Based Violence, hosting the Global Partnership for Education and recognising the importance of gender to be effective in the fight against climate change.
Baroness Crawley (Lab [V])
I thank the Minister for his Answer. However, following the merger of DfID with the FCO, what responsibilities has the FCDO taken forward in standing up for women’s sexual and reproductive rights globally? He will know that in countries such as Nigeria and Brazil having an abortion can carry a heavy jail sentence. Closer to home, in Poland, recent rulings mean much suffering for thousands of women. How is the FCDO challenging such countries through diplomatic, economic and aid channels?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, when others on the world stage challenged the need for action on women’s sexual and reproductive health, the United Kingdom has been proud to defend comprehensive sexual and reproductive health rights, including at the UN Security Council, covering issues such as family planning. These are fundamental to empowerment and the health of girls and women. For example, between 2019 and 2020 alone, UK aid helped over 25 million women and girls access and use modern methods of contraception.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, the Department for International Development had an impressive track record in promoting gender equality globally, thanks in part to its ground-breaking strategic vision for gender equality. Can my noble friend the Minister tell me if the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is committed to that strategic vision and, if not, how will it ensure that supporting women and girls is at the heart of what it does?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that the FCDO has fully committed to retain and build on the strategic vision, using all our diplomatic and development levers. The strategic vision continues to reflect and respond to the UK Government’s ambitions on issues of gender equality, and this will not change. The challenges of advancing girls’ education, sexual reproductive health and women’s political empowerment remain central to our planning.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB) [V]
My Lords, a TUC report on the disproportionate hardship of childcare, home-schooling and often unsociable working hours endured by women in this country during lockdown shows that we have far to go in ensuring fairness to women here. Looking further afield, does the Minister agree that for real progress on equality to be made there is now an urgent need to place negative attitudes to women embedded in religious texts into the very different context of today’s times?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I totally agree with the noble Lord. Those who seek to marginalise women using erroneous interpretations of religious texts or, indeed, other reasons are totally and utterly wrong. We should stand up against the exclusion of women anytime, anywhere.
Baroness Gale (Lab) [V]
Is the Minister aware that the Commission on the Status of Women’s conference will commence on 15 March with the themes of women’s full participation in decision-making in public life, the elimination of violence, achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls? What role are the Government playing in this important global conference and how are they working with the global community to achieve gender equality—goal 5 of the sustainable development goals?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, we are fully engaged in the multilateral sphere, including with the conference that the noble Baroness mentioned. Specifically through our G7 presidency, we have the three pillars of educating girls, empowering women and ending violence against women and girls, which will also ensure the focus of the G7 countries on this important agenda.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, there can scarcely be anything more important than ensuring that women and girls globally have access to family planning. The noble Lord has said that the UK is a “proud” champion of this. Does he recognise that this will ring hollow if later he has to go beyond saying that no decisions have been made on the budget and then implement swingeing cuts, as in aid to Yemen, as the Government balance the books on the backs of the poor, as Mark Lowcock put it?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the issue of the budget, we are genuinely at the moment going through a review, so I cannot make any commitment and it would not be appropriate to do so. However, as I have said, this issue remains an important priority and the legacy of our work in this area is clear.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, malnutrition disproportionately affects girls and, as a result of Covid-19, rates of malnutrition around the world are soaring. Not only does that prevent girls reaching their full potential in school and as adults but it can be fatal, and can often lead to childbirth complications. Can the Minister assure us that, despite the aid cuts, he will continue to prioritise nutrition and take urgent steps to address the global rise in malnutrition among women and girls?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that I very much share his view on the issue of nutrition, which he rightly articulated. While we invest in empowerment and education, it is important that all girls everywhere receive the care they need, as well as the food they need, to ensure that they can lead productive lives for themselves and their countries.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con) [V]
My Lords, the Covid-19 pandemic is threatening to turn back the clock on gender equality globally. Nowhere is this worse than in conflict countries. How can we ensure that more funds reach women at the grass roots who are trying to survive and raise their children in those shocking and dangerous situations?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, again, I agree with my noble friend. The Covid-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to those who wish to suppress girls’ and women’s rights as a means to justify what they are doing. This is totally and utterly wrong, and UK development programming will continue to focus on important priorities such as supporting women’s meaningful participation, girls’ education and—as I said earlier, and as I am sure my noble friend will acknowledge and welcome—protecting girls and women from widespread gender-based violence.
Lord Loomba (CB) [V]
The empowerment of women and gender equality requires strategic interventions at all levels of programming and policymaking. Those levels include reproductive health and economic, educational and political empowerment. Unfortunately, the UK economy has been hit badly by the Covid-19 pandemic and our foreign aid has been reduced accordingly. Can the Minister say if the G7 countries should create a gender equality fund that could be used in developing countries in south Asia, Africa and South America to educate and empower women? This would support SDG 5 and increase gender equality globally.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I have noted the suggestion made by the noble Lord and we will put it to the Gender Equality Advisory Council, which will be headed within the G7 mechanism by my right honourable friend Liz Truss.
Lord Hendy (Lab) [V]
My Lords, is the Minister considering, as an important step towards equality between women and men, the United Kingdom following Uruguay, Namibia, Fiji and Argentina in ratifying International Labour Organization Convention No. 190, which was adopted by the ILO on 21 June 2019? The convention is directed against violence and harassment at work, particularly gender-based violence and harassment, and stresses the importance of a work culture based on mutual respect and the dignity of a human being.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I may write to the noble Lord on this.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
How do the Government plan to use their time as president of the Convention on Cluster Munitions to promote the global disarmament agenda, thereby helping nations to provide education for girls?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, we continue to champion the cause of education for girls both in conflict zones and around the world. That will continue to be a priority for the FCDO.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester [V]
I understand that the Government are investing over £67 million in the What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls programme. What plans do they have to follow the lead set by Australia in developing a national primary prevention framework to tackle the root causes of bias and discrimination against women and girls?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, we have a range of programmes and projects that cover issues of discrimination against women and girls from an early age, including discrimination against their entry into education and their progress into employment. Of course, in conflict-related zones specifically, our initiatives such as the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative reflect the Government’s priorities in this agenda.
Tigray Conflict: Axum
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of reports of a massacre at Axum in Tigray, which Amnesty International said may amount to crimes against humanity.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my interest as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eritrea.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, we believe that the allegations about human rights violations in the Amnesty report are credible. Over recent weeks, multiple reports, including from Human Rights Watch and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, have begun to document the scale of possible abuses and human rights violations in Tigray. Since the conflict started, the UK has called consistently for an end to the fighting, and I reiterate those calls today, as well as the need for urgent independent investigations into the atrocities in Tigray in order to end impunity.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. With vast numbers of Tigrayans having been displaced and 4 million now facing a manmade famine, reports from Amnesty and Human Rights Watch underline the allegations of crimes against humanity at Axum and allegations of an unfolding genocide. What are we doing to hold those responsible for this to account, including Nobel laureates? Why did we not jointly table last week a resolution with Ireland to the United Nations Security Council, despite China and Russia threatening to block it, along with supporting the international calls there for an immediate withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Tigray? Surely this is a prerequisite to ending the depredations in Tigray.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the situation in Tigray is dire. Since the conflict began, the UN Security Council has now discussed Ethiopia on four occasions. During the most recent discussions on 4 March, to which he referred, there was a clear consensus that the situation in Ethiopia, particularly the humanitarian situation, was of deep concern. It is regrettable, as he has pointed out, that certain members of the UN Security Council are continuing to block further discussion, and indeed public discussion, in the current sessions. However, we continue to press for actions in this respect.
Lord Triesman (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I welcome what the Minister has said, but obviously there is more to do. Those of us who were involved in trying to negotiate peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea a decade ago are dismayed by the fact that they are now united, but in the suppression of Tigray. Crimes of concern to humanity are being committed every day and it is no accident that there are highly organised and disciplined militaries on both sides. Can the Minister add to his comments about approaches to the United Nations and tell us what we are doing with the African Union, which can often be a very significant force for installing peace? Can he also comment specifically on the fact that many of the leading Tigrayans who have served in the Ethiopian Government have been absolutely vital to the UK’s interests in securing peace in Somalia and the northern Kenyan regions? They are eager to be in places where they no longer fear for their lives. They want to continue with their education and are keen to continue with their charitable work—
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord would curtail his questions and let the Minister answer now.
Lord Triesman (Lab)
I wonder if the Minister would meet me to discuss this.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the noble Lord’s first question, there are currently no concerted efforts at dialogue between the conflict parties. Regrettably, while I agree with him that the efforts of the AU are important, they have not picked up yet again. We will continue to call for Eritrean troops to leave, and to work with the AU as well as other partners to ensure peace in Tigray.
The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]
My Lords, I strongly endorse the comments of the two previous noble Lords. In view of the more than three months of communications blackout, along with continuing reports of the killing and rape of civilians, the destruction of harvests and medical facilities, widespread looting and starvation, do Her Majesty’s Government agree that what has taken place in Axum is almost certainly being repeated across Tigray and that there is enough evidence to suspect that ethnic cleansing is taking place in the province? In the light of the adoption by the UK of the responsibility to protect commitment of the 2005 UN World Summit, including paragraphs 138 and 139, what further steps do Her Majesty’s Government plan to take to secure the protection of the Tigrayan population?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the situation in Tigray is both challenging and dire, as I have just said. Our most recent efforts have included the formation of a joint humanitarian political team from the British embassy, which on 4 and 5 March visited Mekelle, the capital city of Tigray. The team met the provisional administration of Tigray and humanitarian agencies. Our efforts are both political and humanitarian in this respect.
Lord Chidgey (LD) [V]
The reports that several hundred civilians have been massacred in Axum have been confirmed by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, contrary to the claims of its own Government. However, within the unfettered access that we apparently now have been granted in the region, will the Government press for evidence of the deliberate destruction of crops and intentional starvation? Will this be a test case for the UN special envoy for famine prevention and humanitarian affairs? Finally, what support are the Government giving Ireland, our closest neighbour in this context and a newly elected member of the UN Security Council, in its campaign to raise the situation in Tigray at the council’s meetings?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the noble Lord’s final point, we continue to work with Ireland and indeed, on 15 February, the Foreign Secretary spoke with the Irish Foreign Minister. On the issue of unfettered access, unfortunately, while commitments have been made, that is not the case. Access to Tigray remains very challenging even for humanitarian agencies.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the 24 Hours for Tigray global lobby started at noon today and either is hearing or is about to hear from young women discussing the trauma of rape being used as a weapon of war. Given the statements in the Amnesty International report about the extent of this war crime, and with International Women’s Day very much in everyone’s mind, what assurances can the noble Lord provide that the many reports about the alleged rape of women in Tigray as part of the war will be taken up and that there will be justice for them?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, I say that this remains a key priority. We are deeply concerned about the credible reports. I was pleased to see the statement from SRSG Pramila Patten showing that teams are already working on the ground collecting evidence to ensure that those who have committed these crimes do not escape punishment.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Con) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as a founder and current trustee of the Band Aid/Live Aid Trust—hence my interest in the subject. This is clearly a human tragedy. These territories have long been troubled by famine, war, et cetera. What action are the Government considering taking—for example, targeted sanctions, including economic sanctions? There is a lot of talk and discussion, but very little action. Also, does it make complete sense to cut the 0.7% spend on development in the middle of the pandemic, a time when the chair of the G7 should be setting an example? This might help in the region.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the Government’s response to my noble friend’s second question is already well documented, but I agree that we must ensure change on the ground. He mentioned sanctions and I assure him that we will consider the full range of policy tools at our disposal.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister said that we must stop people acting with impunity in violating human rights. How are we responding to the call by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for an objective independent assessment? Also, how are we working with our allies on the dire humanitarian situation in terms of opening up corridors and getting aid into this very difficult area?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, there is a lot of work being done on the second question that the noble Lord raises, about opening up corridors, but, as I have already said, while declarations have been made, most recently by the Deputy Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the Human Rights Council, including his acceptance that there must be international investigations into allegations, we are yet to see this in practical terms. However, we are working very closely at the HRC, including with the office of the High Commissioner.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister share my feeling that these dreadful events at Axum are reminiscent of medieval barbarism, involving as they do the deliberate destruction of crops and the pillaging of the hospital and the pharmacy? What international assistance is available to assist this community to rebuild itself?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the first step, as I am sure the noble Lord agrees, is to help the thousands of internally displaced people. Getting humanitarian access to them in terms of medical supplies and food remains a key priority. I agree that we should then look at medium-term planning, but that cannot come until there is peace in Tigray. On the issue of crops being destroyed, I also know full well that there are also historic sites. The Axum site was an ancient historic city, rich in traditions of faith and in churches that allegedly have also been plundered. So there is a lot to do on the ground, but the priority must be access to Tigray to ensure that civilians get the support that they urgently need.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now resume. I ask Members to respect social distancing.
NHS: Pay
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the assumption set out in the NHS Long Term Plan Implementation Framework, published in June 2019, of a 2.1 per cent pay rise for National Health Service staff in the 2021/22 financial year, what plans they have to review their submission to the NHS Pay Review Body.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, our written evidence to the independent pay review body set out what is affordable. We have increased the size of the NHS workforce over the last decade and have committed a record-setting additional £33.9 billion by 2024-5 for the NHS to meet the rising demand for services. With strides being made in recruitment and retention, an enormous effort is under way to make the NHS a more inclusive and enjoyable place to work, with excellent well-being support for all staff.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the Government say that they cannot afford to give nurses a decent pay rise, yet they have managed to squander billions of pounds on management consultants, fly-by-night companies and friends of Ministers. The long-term plan built in a 2.1% pay rise for NHS staff next year; it was factored into the funding settlement and enshrined in legislation. It is one thing for the PM to be filmed applauding his appreciation for NHS staff, but no amount of clapping will help pay for rising living costs. Does the Minister agree that the Government should reverse this evidence and give staff in the NHS the increase they deserve?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I start by saying how much nursing staff and all healthcare staff are appreciated, not only by the Government but by the entire public. Of course we stand by that appreciation, and there is no way that the Government have anything less than the most enormous amount of appreciation for all those who have committed so much during Covid. On test and trace, I remind the noble Lord that that is an essential service which delivers value for money and, of course, pay increases are recurring and last for a long time. However, the evidence to the pay review body is clear: affordability is a key challenge for the whole country and we wait for the pay body to review that evidence.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, last year, at the height of the first lockdown, we on these Benches argued that all NHS and social care staff should receive a one-off payment from the Government as thanks from a grateful nation for their tireless dedication and sacrifice. Not only have they not received this but the Government are now reneging on this year’s pay rise as set out in the NHS 10-year plan. What on earth do the Government plan to do to retain and recruit staff after letting them down so badly?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I am not sure that retention is necessarily the challenge that the noble Baroness suggests. There has in fact been a 26% increase in acceptances to nursing and midwifery courses when compared to last year, and 1,290 more applications were made in 2020 compared to 2019. The truth is that nursing is a challenging job but one that many people want to take up. There is a long queue of people who want these positions because they are rewarding in many different ways. We appreciate the contribution made by nurses and the whole healthcare sector, but there is no disguising the fact that these are attractive jobs, which many people wish to take up.
Lord Balfe (Con)
Does the Minister accept that it was not a 2.1% increase but a 2.1% addition to the bill, which included a number of emoluments that are added each year? It was not 2.1% for everybody; it was a whole package. The Government need to get their case across a bit better, particularly with what the Minister just said about recruitment. I suggest that the Government pay attention to getting their case across. As the Minister said, nursing, with its lifetime pension, is a very attractive proposition at the moment.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the percentages are unbelievably complicated. It is difficult to stand by one single number to represent pay that goes to hundreds of thousands of different nurses under different circumstances. However, I agree completely with my noble friend. What is at stake here is not just one pay rise in one year but the entire package of circumstances in which nurses do their job. We are determined to ensure that that workplace package is as good as it can possibly be. We acknowledge that there are cultural challenges of working in the NHS, which we are fighting hard to improve. We recognise that training opportunities for nurses should be better and we are working hard to improve those. We recognise that nurses have little capacity for holidays, which is why we are recruiting a very large number of new nurses. It is the entire package that we are focused on, which is why we have put forward the affordability argument as we have.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, Ministers have time and again stated that supporting our nurses is a top priority but, as unions have pointed out, an offer that amounts to £3.50 per week looks more like a kick in the teeth than a top priority. I am sure there is one thing we can all agree on: nurses and other healthcare professionals have had to work in some of the most difficult, demanding and dangerous circumstances, and they have done so with astonishing care, compassion and commitment. The Government have got this badly wrong, and I urge them to reconsider their meagre, miserly, measly 1%.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I reject the rhetoric of the noble Lord. We absolutely do support nurses, which is why we are focused on recruitment, training, culture and opportunities. It is not right to think that one pay rise represents the entire and sum contribution to the welfare of nurses. That is the response we get from nurses themselves, what the public understand, and what the Government’s guidelines are about.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD) [V]
My Lords, could you imagine any employer, other than those of the sweatshops of the Far East, seeing their workers perform heroics to save the business and, in the process, the lives of millions of their clients, only to be rewarded by having their wages actually cut? Does the Minister agree with the Health Minister Nadine Dorries, who expressed surprise at the generosity of the Government’s offer, or with the view that a good employer would first offer a substantial bonus to its staff before taking time to negotiate a fair and sensible pay award? If we can pay a bonus to local publicans for sourcing easily obtainable files, surely a bonus to those who have saved our lives should be a no-brainer for this Government.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord on the point about heroics—we appreciate those—but I do not agree that this represents a pay cut. On the broad thrust of the noble Lord’s point, I gently remind him that millions of people are out of work off the back of this pandemic. Lots of people have had an extremely tough time and face a period of unemployment. Nurses are well paid for the job, which is a secure job, and they have other benefits. There are many people in this country who look upon professional jobs in the NHS with some envy; we should not forget that some public sector jobs are, in fact, extremely well-paid.
The Lord Bishop of Worcester
My Lords, I appreciate the immense, unprecedented and unforeseen pressure that the Government are under as they struggle with the devastating effects of the pandemic on public finances. At the same time, as has been noted, we all want to recognise the huge debt of gratitude that we owe to nurses and other health workers. Recognising that would best be done by a pay increase. We are told that a 1% increase is all that can be afforded. Can the Minister comment on whether he thinks tackling the estimated £2 billion lost annually through inefficiencies related to unnecessary A&E attendance and GP consultations might give more wriggle room?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I completely endorse the right reverend Prelate’s point about the heroics of—and the debt that we owe—nurses, but I just cannot agree with him that the best way of recognising the contribution of nurses is to give them a pay increase. That simply is not my experience of workplace engagement. Yes, pay rises are important and a recognition of work done, but there are other, much more important reasons why people work. They work for the status of that role, for the opportunities that it gives them in their life, for the security that it gives them and for the collaboration of working with fellow members of staff. There is a whole package of reasons why people do the work that they do. We live in extremely economically challenging times. It is right that the advice given to the pay review body looks at the entire package, not just at the pay increase.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
The Minister is quite right: it is not just about the 1% rise. A newly qualified nurse will earn £21,000 in 12 months; that is their starting salary. The consultants building the track and trace system, at £7,000 an hour, earn more than that amount in under four hours. Perhaps that will help the Minister understand why so many people are outraged at the proposed 1% so-called pay rise. Will he explain to the House what values and priorities he holds that lead him to believe that the Government’s decision is an acceptable one?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes some vivid comparisons on completely incomparable pay differentials. The values that we have are absolutely aligned with public service values. We are determined to create a workplace that is just, fair and equitable. We are committed to giving people a fair reward for the work that they do and to giving people decent job prospects within that role. Those are the values that people go to work for and are motivated by. We need to put together a package that works across the piece and is not narrowly focused on one particular material point, such as pay. I stand by what I said previously: the package of measures that was put in our evidence to the pay review body sees all those values in the round.
Baroness Jolly (LD) [V]
My Lords, for the last 10 years NHS pay has lagged behind inflation. Year on year, health professionals have had less to spend than they had the previous year, and the 1% pay rise does not help as inflation removes any increase. Apart from the moral case put by noble Lords, this is not good economics. If people are paid more, they spend more by putting cash back into the economy. Will the Minister ask the Chancellor to look at this again?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I am at a slight disadvantage because I am not quite sure that I can substantiate the noble Baroness’s view that pay has lagged behind inflation. Her economics lesson is extremely interesting but not one that the Chancellor is necessarily persuaded by. Where she is entirely right is that pay is an important aspect of any recruitment campaign by the NHS, and that is why we have put recruitment at the heart of our commitment to it. That is why we are recruiting 50,000 nurses and making a very large number of GP appointments. We are seeing huge gains in achieving those targets, which reflects the fact that there is not a massive or structural misalignment in our pay arrangements.
Lord Sikka (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the Government paid consultants up to £7,000 a day for advice on test and trace but nurses risking their lives are offered less than £1 a day. Does the Minister agree that this contempt for nurses is disgraceful because a higher award can easily be funded? For example, taxing capital gains in the same way as earned income can generate additional tax revenues of £14 billion a year.
Lord Bethell (Con)
I am grateful for the economics lesson from the noble Lord. I will take those recommendations and pass them on to colleagues at the Treasury.
Lord Scriven (LD) [V]
My Lords, the £37 billion found for the predominantly private sector-led test and trace system equates to spending more than £1 million every day for the next 100 years. How does the Minister reconcile that with the statement that the Government cannot find the money to fund more than a 1% pay increase for front-line NHS staff?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the test and trace system is part of an essential response to a virus pandemic that has shaken the world, and the costs of that pandemic are enormous. I regret them very much and wish with all my heart that we did not have to spend this money on our pandemic response, but there is no other way of cutting the chains of transmission and responding effectively to this awful disease. The ongoing pay arrangements for nurses and doctors are commitments that we will live with for years to come, and there is a difference between the two.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I should declare that my wife works in the NHS. Does the Minister agree with his ministerial colleague Nadine Dorries that the 1% settlement is generous because it is better than a pay freeze? Nurses get maybe 70p a day while billions are wasted on crony contracts and £200,000 is being spent on titivating a Downing Street living room, replacing decorations that are barely three years old. Does the Minister—or the Chancellor, for that matter—have any idea what living on £25,000 a year is really like?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I cannot hide from the noble Lord the fact that across the public sector there is a pay freeze. The only area that that does not apply to is the NHS, a point that I think my colleague made very thoughtfully. I remind the noble Lord that many in the private sector have lost their jobs and prospects altogether and that there is a massive economic challenge on the horizon. We fool ourselves if we close our eyes to that and regard the public sector as somehow sacrosanct and immune to the larger economic challenge.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
With apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I am afraid the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed. I am going to take a moment or two to allow people who want to escape from the Chamber to do so, and we will resume in a moment or two.
Women’s Health Strategy
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, we welcome this Statement, made yesterday on International Women’s Day. We believe that the six pillars it outlines are important signals of the need to take women’s health very seriously. It is welcome that the Government want to understand the plight of women throughout the country. However, although the Statement says that this strategy is the first of its kind, that is not the case. For example, when the Government launched the women’s mental health task force in 2017, the Minister responsible for mental health at the time, the honourable Member for Thurrock, Jackie Doyle-Price, said:
“This report is a call to action for all providers, commissioners and practitioners across the health care system to drive forward the ethos of trauma- and gender-informed mental health care.”
That is absolutely right, but we have to ask: why are the Government asking exactly the same questions four years later? The three matters that I want to raise with the Minister are: the questions that arise out of the effect of Covid on women’s health and well-being; the troubling matter of breast cancer and sexual health; and the implementation of the recommendations of the Cumberlege report.
Analysis of Covid-19 data from around the world suggests that men make up a higher share than women of reported hospitalisations, intensive care admissions and deaths, but the impacts of the pandemic extend far beyond health outcomes for people who have been infected with the Covid virus. There have also been significant economic impacts from measures adopted to control the spread of the virus, and those have affected women in specific ways. For example, what support can be offered to a woman who experiences baby loss without her partner by her side?
The Statement is right to highlight the fact that black women are four times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth. I welcome the launch of the forum but the Government have known about these inequalities for many years. Now we need to see some actual investment and action.
Covid-19 has worsened the mental health crisis among young women in the UK. Before the pandemic, young women aged 16 to 30 had the worst mental health of any age and gender group in the population. In the last 12 months those in this same group have experienced a bigger fall in their mental health than any other. The mental health of teenage girls and young women is now a very serious health issue. This will need some investment and attention in the call for evidence launched yesterday.
I turn to the issue of working mothers and the increase in the burden of care. The Government were quite rightly criticised for their sexist “Stay at home” advert depicting women doing schooling and housework. I am very glad it was withdrawn at short order. But this is the reality of the lockdown in many households with young children. The pandemic has revealed stubbornly persistent gender stereotyping in the division of domestic labour. It has shown that men and women are not equal when it comes to unpaid childcare and housework.
Before the pandemic, women did more than 60% of home childcare. When schools and childcare closed during the first lockdown, they took on roughly the same share of the massively increased burden of additional care. Evidence from the ONS indicates that women have taken on even more of the burden of home-schooling during the 2021 lockdown. Two-thirds of mothers, compared with half of fathers, report that they have personally home-schooled their children. Half of those who have done home-schooling report that this has negatively affected their mental health and well-being.
Looking at older women, before the pandemic, those aged 70 and above enjoyed a relatively high level of mental health compared to the population as a whole. But they have experienced one of the biggest falls, far greater than that of older men. An important factor is of course that older women are likely to experience a higher level of bereavement, since older men have a higher risk of death from Covid-19. We have seen a higher level of grief following deaths, with the inability to say goodbye to loved ones. The cost of grief has received relatively little attention from economists, with some notable exceptions, but it is a very important factor in the mental health of older women in our society. The cost of grief needs to be factored into this inquiry.
Women are still being misdiagnosed in 2021, with male bodies being seen as the default body. There is a huge historical data gap in understanding women’s health needs. It is shocking that women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack, simply because their symptoms differ from those of men. The research of the government commission needs to bridge that divide.
I turn to breast cancer specifically. Almost 11,000 women in the UK could be living with undiagnosed breast cancer because of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new analysis by Breast Cancer Now. It says that 10,700 fewer people were diagnosed with breast cancer between March and December than one would have expected. That data has to be factored into this commission of inquiry.
I turn now to women’s sexual health. Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust said that
“600,000 tests failed to go ahead in the UK last April and May … in addition to a backlog of 1.5 million appointments missed annually.”
Thousands of IVF cycles were cancelled or postponed in the early stages of the pandemic, with many clinics then facing a backlog of patients. Again, this needs to be factored into this research.
One of the most potent symbols of how the health service fails women is that identified in the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, First Do No Harm. It shows decades of women being ignored and dismissed by the medical profession and all of those in it. The report talked of the
“disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive”
health service not adequately recognising the needs of women over decades. Surely the best way to mark International Women’s Day would be to commit to implementing all the recommendations in that report, would it not?
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, the warm words in this Statement regarding women’s health inequalities are certainly a start, but there is so much to do. Many of us in your Lordships’ House have been working on the Domestic Abuse Bill, where looking at access to health and mental health support for victims—the vast majority of whom are women—has exposed that there is a major problem.
Mental health has been brought into sharp relief, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has already said. But we know that it has been underfunded, and services pre- pandemic were already at breaking point. The pandemic has really exposed these shortcomings. What are the Government going to do to provide that parity of mental health services they committed to in 2015, which women in particular are finding difficult to access?
The Statement talks about women’s experiences of specific services. For pregnancy and maternity support, the pandemic exposed that, for far too long, pregnant women have been isolated and their partners not permitted to be with them. My own niece had a baby during lockdown and was not particularly well. When she went in for her weekly tests, not knowing whether she would have to stay in until the birth, her husband was not allowed into the hospital with her until she was actually in the delivery suite. That caused tension for far too long.
We have also seen that the vital role of health visitors and community nurses, which has been curtailed somewhat, is absolutely evident when they are not there. Community services for young mothers are really important, and I hope the Government will look at that.
The Statement talks a lot about endometriosis. I was diagnosed with endometriosis well over 40 years ago. I am pleased to say that treatment in hospitals has advanced considerably since those days. But what seems not to have changed is diagnosis and referral. I ask the Minister this: what support is there to train all GPs, primary care nurses and employers to recognise when women have these problems? They should not be dismissed as “a bit of a bother” because all women have a problem at that time of the month. It is not just an information issue for women themselves to recognise it. We need the professionals and the business community to understand that endometriosis is a very serious illness.
The Statement notes that
“77% of the NHS workforce and 82% of the social care workforce are women”.
They are absolutely on the front line but too often have been let down. Despite that enormous ratio of women in the workforce, there are still pay gaps—certainly at a higher level. It would be interesting to see the publication of the percentage of male and female staff at each level and for all trusts and CCGs to publish their pay gaps on an annual basis, as we ask large companies to.
We also know that a higher percentage of BAME women were at risk of serious Covid and death. This was particularly amplified for our front-line NHS and social care staff.
I echo the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about caring responsibilities. It is not just about care for children who are home from school. The pandemic has brought into sharp relief the unpaid carers of adult family members. I would like to make a call out, and I hope the Minister will support me: when it is time for every one of us to fill in our census form in 10 days’ time, please will unpaid carers tick the box saying that they are carers? We need to know how many people out there are doing this. We know that the majority of them are women.
The Statement talks about issues facing women with disabilities. Yesterday, it was wonderful to see a series of tweets from disabled women about their lived experiences in our society. Some of it, especially on access to health services, was pretty depressing too.
Women with learning difficulties are also often at the end of the queue for health treatments. Ciara Lawrence, who is a Mencap ambassador, is an absolute shining example of how women with learning difficulties can get access to those services. She went for her cervical smear test a year ago. Since then, she has not only been promoting it among other young women with learning difficulties but is teaching the NHS how to work with women with learning difficulties to encourage and support them to have their tests. Women with learning difficulties also say that access to family planning services can often be harder too. Will the Government make sure that these issues for this group of disabled women are addressed?
The paper refers briefly to LBGT women, who also face particular difficulties in accessing services throughout their adult lives. What will the Government do to reach both these groups? I note that, towards its end, the Statement talks formally about working with women’s organisations, but so much will be missed if women who also have other protected characteristics—and their organisations—are not specifically asked.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Brinton, have both made their points incredibly well, and I will not argue the toss about any of them. I completely acknowledge that Covid has hit women harder than men, for all the reasons that the noble Baronesses have given—I could have listed even more. Women who have worked from home have undoubtedly shouldered more of the burden and done more of the teaching, and that has led to adverse mental health outcomes. Those outcomes are a real struggle for a health system to cope with when it is trying to deal with social distancing. We have done our best, using telemedicine to try to bridge the gap, but there is a shortfall and we will have to work extremely hard to catch up. I know from my own experience the challenge that young girls in particular have felt during Covid, and the statistics confirm that.
I agree with the observation made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about IVF—it has been extremely tough. It has been hard for the HFEA to restart clinics, and there are women for whom the clock is ticking who have no other options. We have worked really hard to try to meet the practicalities of that service but there has been bad news for some people. That is felt very hard indeed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, spoke very movingly about pregnant women whose partners had not been able to be there for the scan. There are sometimes good reasons for that because the scanning equipment may be in the basement of airless diagnostics rooms where social distancing is not possible and the risk assessment is very tough. That does not detract from the fact that that has massive and distressing mental health consequences.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, mentioned baby loss. There are many aspects to this. Bluntly, deaths during Covid hit all of us hard but women in particular. The noble Baroness spoke movingly of making grief an aspect of health planning; that is a good point, well made.
I completely accept the point made by both noble Baronesses that this plays into a long-term problem—it is not isolated or new. The review by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege paints a very clear picture of a defensive and siloed system that does not always do well for women; the culture is not always right and the practicalities do not always suit women’s lives and women’s bodies. The clinical trials regime has too often suited men. I will not defend every point that the noble Baronesses have made but I pay tribute to those who ran the clinical trials for the vaccines and did an enormously good job of recruiting women and getting a gender balance in those very important trials.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is, however, also right about data: too often it is skewed towards men. She mentioned in particular data about LGBT and disabled people and the importance of the census, which I completely endorse. But I know from my own work in the data area that too often our data is skewed away from those who belong to gender, disability or ethnicity minorities. The critical example—the one that is quite rightly often cited—is heart attacks, where the male symptoms are cited and the female symptoms are not. That is such a graphic and good example.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is right to raise pay gaps and representation, as is the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to cite the treatments for breast and cervical cancers, which have not always met the need.
I will not defend each and every one of these points. I would like to convey, however, the strong sense that we are trying to get one thing right in particular: listening. Anyone who reads the Cumberlege report, or speaks to my noble friend, will be struck by the really powerful testimony of patient groups who said that what agitated them most—more than almost anything else—was the feeling that they were not listened to. That has many effects, but two in particular. One is that we do not hear the symptoms and diagnostics: we get the health recommendations wrong because we were not listening. The emotional consequences of illness are, therefore, amplified. People feel frustrated and agitated because they can tell that they are not being listened to. We are absolutely determined to get that right.
This is a big exercise—bigger than the mental health exercise, because we have opened it up to the general public. We have had a phenomenal response, even in the day that it has been open, with more than 2,000 responses from the general public—a figure that I expect to grow dramatically.
We want to ensure that this exercise rights the wrongs because we really listen to women: we give them a platform and an opportunity to be heard and our response will be judged by whether we have truly listened to what we have been told.
I urge all noble Peers to put their evidence before the commission. We want a really good response that is truly diverse. There is always an anxiety in these situations that the groups with the loudest voice will predominate, but we are determined to make this evidence-gathering as diverse as possible. So I call on all in the Chamber to submit their evidence and encourage and enable those who have something to say to use this opportunity with vigour.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
My Lords, we now come to the 20 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. There are 13 questioners and only 20 minutes, so pith is the order of the day.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I have constantly argued against the lack of emphasis on prevention in the Domestic Abuse Bill and have been assured that the domestic abuse strategy and guidance will fill that gap. Domestic abuse disproportionately affects women’s mental and physical ill health, so will the new women’s health strategy prioritise its primary prevention, rather than, as usual, simply addressing its terrible harms?
Lord Bethell (Con)
I pay tribute to my noble friend for his campaigning on this important cause. It is not the specific focus of the health strategy but it will play a part in it, and I encourage my noble friend to submit the characteristically detailed evidence, for which he is so well known, to this important evidence-gathering process.
Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]
My Lords, I draw attention to my declared interests. In taking forward an initiative for clinical research as part of their G7 health agenda, how do Her Majesty’s Government propose to ensure alignment of the clinical research regulatory framework so that the approval of innovative devices and therapies is predicated on clinical trial and registry methodologies with appropriate representation of women, including those from ethnic minorities?
Lord Bethell (Con)
The noble Lord makes a really good point. I am not sure whether we have considered the gender aspect of the clinical trials work programme in our G7 agenda. It has been very much about pandemic-preparedness and ensuring that next time we are able to share clinical trial information. Of course, we pat ourselves on the back for our own vaccine clinical trials in the UK, which, I think, have met a new standard for gender representation. He makes a good point, however, about making that case in our G7 work programme, and I will take it back to the department for further consideration.
Baroness Andrews (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I welcome the consultation and hearing women speak for themselves. It is very encouraging that there has been such an immediate and very positive reaction. We have known for a very long time that health inequalities affect women specifically and disproportionately, and we can take action without necessarily waiting for the consultation—for example, the 2018 BMA report on women’s health showed that even women’s life expectancy had deteriorated, and it recommended changes in medical training and education. As the Minister says, getting this consultation right is a big challenge, but can he assure me that, however challenging it is, the findings will be heard, followed up, acted on and invested in?
Lord Bethell (Con)
I reassure the noble Baroness that we are committed to getting this right. The Minister of State and Secretary of State are both very committed to this agenda, and the whole healthcare system has tuned in to the importance of getting this right. I pay tribute to some of the fantastic women whom I have worked with during the pandemic at the highest levels of the healthcare system. I will not do a rolling name check now, but I reassure the noble Baroness that there are some phenomenal female leaders at the top of the NHS, social care and science, who will, I am sure, personally drive this agenda forward.
Baroness Jolly (LD) [V]
My Lords, the Statement yesterday addressed “taboos and stigmas” around areas of women’s health, and the greatest of these must be FGM, which was not mentioned yesterday. In the year to March 2020, there were over 6,500 women and girls in whom FGM was identified: that is over 15 women a day that we know about. How do these girls and women fit into the national strategy?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, we are of course drafting the national strategy, and we are collecting evidence on what its priorities should be. Undoubtedly, FGM should be in there; it is the most horrific crime, and it still touches far too many girls’ and women’s lives. I would like to see this country rid of it forever as soon as possible, and I encourage the noble Baroness to submit evidence on that point so that we can move clearly on it.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]
My Lords, the Statement rightly identifies the concern of mental health. Given the particular challenges experienced by women in the pandemic, from domestic abuse and disproportionate job losses to increased caring responsibilities, I ask my noble friend to give special focus to this area of research. I also applaud addressing the need for proper representation in the research programme of women from ethnic minorities, including from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities .
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend touches on two very important points. He is entirely right that mental health has previously been underrepresented in the strategies of our healthcare. I hear loud and clear noble Lords who repeatedly make the case for a greater focus on mental health, and I take that message back to the department as much as I can. I reassure him that mental health will be very much a priority in this area. The two facts—that it is often women who are connected with mental health issues and that it is women who are often overlooked—are probably connected. It is extremely challenging for us to get women from ethnic minorities, for instance those from a Gypsy or Roma background—that is such a good example—fully engaged in our healthcare strategy. If the noble Lord has any suggestions or recommendations for how we can better engage with them, I invite him to submit evidence to the consultation.
Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as chair of the trustees of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. I warmly welcome this Statement, but we know that women’s healthcare is too often fragmented and unco-ordinated. So how will the Government ensure that their different strands of work on women’s health—this strategy, the sexual health strategy and the violence against women and girls strategy—are all properly aligned and based on a life course approach to women’s health, avoiding the creation of even more fragmentation for women?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the question of fragmentation does not affect women alone; it is a problem across the healthcare system. However, the noble Baroness is entirely right: some of the conditions that afflict women in particular are not properly prioritised, and, therefore, the pathways connected with them are not as developed as they should be. That is the kind of challenge that we wish to address. However, the overall macro point is this question of listening: have we really listened to women—their symptoms, needs and health priorities—or are we behind the curve on that? I suspect that, too often, the health priorities that women would like to see emphasised simply have not been heard by the system.
Lord Wigley (PC) [V]
My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interest as a vice president of Mencap. In presenting this Statement to the House of Commons yesterday, the Minister stressed that the inquiry that the Government is initiating will specifically include disabled women and those with mental health issues—something that I greatly welcome. Will the Minister confirm that this group will also specifically include, in their own right, women who have learning disabilities, because they are disproportionately vulnerable to illnesses that have no relationship to their disabilities, which places them in potential double jeopardy and needs to be addressed in its own right?
Lord Bethell (Con)
Yes, I can reassure the noble Lord that the call for evidence is open to everyone aged 16 and over, which, of course, includes people with disabilities and learning disabilities. The online survey within the call for evidence specifically mentions disabilities throughout, and I reassure the noble Lord that the evidence that we gather with regard to disabilities and learning disabilities will be considered extremely carefully to inform the priorities, content and actions of the strategy.
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, should we be looking at leveraging the great success that we have had in developing online medicine during the pandemic to provide women with unmediated, immediate and direct access to specialist services on chronic issues such as menstruation, menopause problems and so on? After all, this is a structure that we have used successfully for many decades for eyes and teeth, and it is one that might also suit the trans community.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, as Minister for Innovation I favour using technology and the latest techniques wherever possible to provide options and choices for all patients, including women, to address their conditions. With women, the delicate question of their bodies, and the different functioning of their bodies to men’s, is one that the health system has to reconcile itself to. I do not regard technology as a panacea to that central challenge; in fact, I think that many of the issues that women face will require face-to-face consultations, and we remain committed to ensuring that that is an option for everyone.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I will not ask the Minister whether he has read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez—or the medical chapter at least—but, if he has not, I would recommend it. One of the things that it highlights is how many widely and long-used drugs have never been tested for any sex and gender variations in responses. Do the Government have a systematic programme for checking that all drugs have been so appropriately assessed—so that, when the results of this call for evidence are received and acted on, appropriate treatments are available to the newly enlightened medical systems?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I have previously referred to the challenge of gender-comprehensive clinical trials. There is growing evidence that drug prescriptions should be personalised a great deal more than they are, right across the board—not just on a gender basis but on genomic, ethnic, age and weight bases as well. The noble Baroness makes an extremely good point on this. I cannot guarantee that we will retrospectively conduct gender-specific clinical trials on the full library of medicines in the medicine cabinet, but we are keen to aspire to ensuring a future commitment to gender-specific clinical trials going forwards.
Baroness Stroud (Con) [V]
My Lords, in the ministerial foreword to the Women’s Health Strategy, the issue of data gaps has been highlighted. One such data gap I would like the Government to look at is the way in which abortion complication data is gathered. The Minister in the other place confirmed in a recent Written Answer that the only method the department uses to gather this data is via HSA4 forms. Between April and June 2020, from the 23,000 at-home abortions, these forms reported just a single complication, yet FOI requests to just six hospitals during the same period suggested that women were presenting due to complications at a rate five times higher than that reported by the Department of Health and Social Care. Moreover, there were 36 999 calls due to at-home abortion complications every month to the ambulance service. As part of the Women’s Health Strategy, will this gap be addressed, and does the Minister agree that the number of women who present to hospitals due to incomplete abortions requiring surgery or retained products of conception should be collected centrally?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My noble friend makes her case extremely powerfully, and the numbers she cites are extremely persuasive. I do not have a full brief on the treatment of abortion complication statistics at my fingertips, but she alludes to exactly the kind of data gaps that we wish to address in this consultation period and in the emerging strategy. If she would like to submit the evidence she has just described, we will definitely take it on board and use it as part of our strategy-drafting exercise.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, participants in clinical trials for breast and ovarian cancer not only take the medication as part of those clinical trials, whether they are double-blind or whatever, but give information about their genomic background and their ongoing assessments. Would it be possible, subject to their permission, to use that information from women as part of the strategy for updating and improving women’s health?
Lord Bethell (Con)
The noble Baroness is way ahead of me on that extremely specific point. I would be very happy to understand it more clearly, and if she could write to me with the details, I would be happy to take it on board.
Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]
My Lords, I welcome the Statement and particularly its commitment to ensure that all women’s voices are heard in setting out the health strategy, so can my noble friend confirm what platforms will be used to publicise the call for evidence and what languages it will be promoted in? Particularly in communities where the spoken word is more popular than the writing down of experiences, what efforts will be made to allow women to contribute to this call for evidence via face-to-face interviews, albeit virtually?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, we are largely inviting written submissions from individuals and organisations with expertise in women’s health. It is envisaged that this could largely be done either by individual researchers, royal colleges, think tanks and third sector organisations, as well as the general public. There is an online platform and the online survey accommodates screen reader support, allowing for questions and answers be rendered in other formats, such as spoken language or Braille output. I accept the thrust of my noble friend’s point that we need to do enough to reach ethnic minorities and those from hard-to-reach populations, who should have a voice in this kind of exercise. Let me take that point back to the department and I will write to her accordingly.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I welcome the Statement and I welcome what the Minister said earlier in response to a question about FGM. I know from the work done in Birmingham hospitals that the problem is probably much wider than any of us appreciate. At the end of this consultation, if the Minister finds that, in some areas where we asked for data, the data was not forthcoming, but we know we ought to seek more data and more information, will he undertake to do so to identify problems where part of the problem is that they are still very much hidden?
Lord Bethell (Con)
This debate is, unfortunately, not the place for me to be able to make that sort of commitment, but I completely take on board the point that the noble Baroness makes. There are hidden crimes in our communities and we cannot sit back and wait for them to present themselves; we have to go and find the evidence in order to meet the challenge. I am sorry to repeat this point, but I invite the noble Baroness to make this point in her evidence to the consultation. It is exactly that kind of insight that we are seeking to elicit, and the strategy is exactly the right platform for us to be able to make those kinds of points.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
Noble Lords have taken my call for pith to heart so, now that all questions have been asked, we will take a brief pause to allow the Room to reassemble itself ready for the next business.
Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) (No. 2) Bill
Tuesday 9th March 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) Act 2021 View all Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 146-R-I Marshalled list for Report - (24 Feb 2021)
The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
My Lords, in moving this Motion, I express my thanks to noble Lords for their helpful insights and support throughout the proceedings. I especially thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Bakewell and Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy, Lord Addington, Lord Shipley, Lord Stunell, Lord Moynihan, Lord Bourne and Lord Thurlow. I also thank the Local Government Association and the Valuation Office Agency for engaging with my officials during the passage of the Bill and, indeed, even before it was introduced in the other place.
Every revaluation requires the co-operation of all stakeholders involved in business rates. I thank the Rating Surveyors’ Association, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation. Their expertise and support have been, and will continue to be, a central part of the revaluation process. Finally, I thank my department’s Bill team—Nick Cooper, Rhys Tomlinson, Nick Pellegrini, Tom Adams and Lee Davies, as well as Sam Loxton in my own private office—for their support throughout this process. I beg to move.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
The Question is that this Bill do now pass. As many as are of that opinion shall say “content”.
I am sorry—I am being too quick this time. I call the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, for his engagement on the Bill. As always, he was very generous with his time and I have enjoyed working with him. Also, through him, I thank all the officials in his department. Again, they were generous with their time and open in engaging with me.
This is a very small, one-clause Bill, but it raises very important issues and the debates we had were much wider than the one clause itself. We all love our high streets. We love the pubs, cafés and shops we go to and I hope the Minister will take away all the issues we raised in the discussion of the Bill and look at them because, yes, it is great that we can have online deliveries, but getting a box to your front door is not quite the same as going out on a Saturday morning to your favourite café and reading the paper, meeting your friends at the shops and so forth. We have to protect our high streets and all the shops that we all love.
I know that the noble Lord agrees with me on those matters, but we need to make sure that, in the period ahead, we are looking at ways to support our high streets. Yes, they have to evolve, but, equally, we have to make sure that they are still there, delivering for our communities. Our communities thrive only when we can meet each other, and being on a high street and visiting your favourite café or pub to meet your friends is the way it works. However, on that basis, I thank the noble Lord and his officials again for their engagement on the Bill.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
I call the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I am back on form now.
Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]
My Lords, I give my thanks also to the Minister and his officials for the time that was offered for helpful briefings at each stage of the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, it is a very simple Bill just to change the date of revaluations, which start in April this year but come into effect in 2023.
One issue raised during the Bill which we need to keep a watchful brief on is that, because the revaluation is starting this April, with the huge upheaval in market rents due to the pandemic it will be difficult to make assessments of rental value, which could affect the outcome of when businesses start paying in 2023. I hope the Minister can confirm that he will inform the House of any difficulties that arise from the timings of the revaluation.
The other issue discussed during the passage of the Bill, on which there was broad agreement on all sides of the House, was the strategic one about the future of the business rates system. Evidence was provided during all stages of the Bill demonstrating that retailers on the high street were at a huge disadvantage in business rates charged compared to those retailers which were online only. The differential is very large; a small shop in a small town may have a rental value at least five times that of a large online retailer in an out-of-town warehouse.
There is wide concern about the future of our high streets. The vast majority of people want to see the high street retained as a community focus, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has just described. One policy lever available to the Government to provide stimulus to the high street is a fundamental reform of the business rates system. It cannot for ever be put on the “too difficult” pile that the Government must have. Can the Minister provide the House with any timetable for the long-awaited reform of business rates? That would provide some hope to retailers on our high streets that change will come.
With those questions and comments, I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say.
Lord Thurlow (CB) [V]
My Lords, it is a privilege to be asked to make the concluding remarks from the Cross Benches as we complete the passage of this Bill. I congratulate the Minister on steering it through, notwithstanding unsuccessful attempts—certainly from me—to divert the debate down other routes and related avenues. However, it is fair to say that we have been debating this in something of a straitjacket; those of us interested in non-domestic rates had nowhere to turn, try as we might—indeed, try as we did—to draw the failings of the NDR system to the Minister’s attention. He was perfectly within his rights to wear his benign smile throughout—and a tremendous smile it is. Why a straitjacket? Because it is a two-clause Bill, strictly focused on timing alone, to which there were only two amendments; I am aware of the frustrations of at least one other Peer who wished to table one and was unable to do so within the scope of the straitjacket. I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Moynihan, on successfully navigating these restrictions and tabling their well-founded amendments, both of which I was happy to support.
There are important implications in changing the dates for compiling the lists to two years’ time; I do not disagree with the principle, but I am concerned that the valuation date for determining rateable value, as we have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is within weeks. Without rehearsing the valuable and revealing contributions at earlier stages, it would be unwise to ignore the fact that retail and office markets are in crisis. Retail values are in freefall and office values are in pandemic-related confusion as businesses reassess their space occupancy needs. How on earth can the Valuation Office Agency determine rental value in these conditions? I wish it well.
There will inevitably be dramatic reductions in rateable values and a corresponding fall in local authority revenues. Unless the rate poundage is increased, when rates paid could exceed rent, that would be a lightning rod to disaster and a knife to the heart of the small business retail sector in that retail economy. Will the Chancellor continue to support the sector, or could we expect those who do not pay enough to compensate for those who pay too much? I am afraid that, regrettably, the Amazons of this world that do not pay enough will not make up the shortfall.
To conclude, I say to the Minister that I see some light in this dark place I describe. At every stage of the debate in this House, we have had reference to the fundamental review already mentioned. This is the real opportunity to introduce fairness across the landscape of NDR—sadly delayed but vital and urgent. I very much look forward to its publication and the chance for us all to consider it in the shape of a new Bill, no doubt steered by the Minister and his generous smile. I hope, for the sake of the smaller business sector, that it does not arrive too late.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, this has indeed been a very narrow Bill but a very broad discussion. I thank noble Lords for the many points that have been raised during its passage, particularly in considering how we can support our town centres, especially our high streets, that give such a high quality of life to the residents of our towns and cities.
I point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that we are very clear that we will ensure that we keep a close eye on the impact of timings as this exercise is carried out and that we intend to look at the future of business rates. However, that is predicated on the fundamental review of business rates taking place later this year. I also assure the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, that, as far as is practical, local authorities’ finance will be protected via the business rates retention scheme and other measures to ensure that there should be no material impact on local authority finances.
A number of issues have been raised, and it has been an important Bill.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
A bit of a longer debate than I anticipated, but a worthy one none the less.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now resume. I ask all Members to respect social distancing.
I will call Members to speak in the order listed. During the debate on each group, I invite Members, including Members in the Chamber, to email the clerk if they wish to speak after the Minister. I will call Members to speak in the order of request. The groupings are binding. A participant who might wish to press an amendment other than the lead amendment in the group to a Division must give notice in debate or by emailing the clerk. Leave should be given to withdraw amendments, and when putting the Question, I will collect voices in the Chamber only. If a Member taking part remotely wants their voice accounted for if the Question is put, they must make this clear when speaking on the group. We will now begin.
Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill
Tuesday 9th March 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill 2019-21 View all Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 147-II(Rev) Revised Second marshalled list for Committee - (9 Mar 2021)
Baroness Massey of Darwen
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides that the presumption against prosecution only applies after 10 years (instead of 5 years).
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 1, 2, 9 and 13 in this group. The thrust of these amendments is to provide that the presumption against prosecution applies only after 10 years instead of five years.
First, I thank the Minister for her explanatory letter, which touches on issues raised by these amendments and, of course on the whole Bill. It was a very clear letter, and I know that she is committed to working collaboratively and will be sensitive to concerns, so I look forward to productive sessions.
My noble friend Lord Dubs and I will speak from the perspective of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which last year carried out an inquiry on the Bill and produced a report in October. These amendments today address specific issues but it is worth saying that the committee, informed by expert opinion, had many overarching concerns about the Bill and seeks reassurances. We felt that the Bill creates problems for compatibility with the UK’s international legal obligations and simultaneously does not resolve any of the concerns that are supposedly the rationale for the Bill—that is, repeated MoD investigations.
The committee came to the conclusion that Clauses 1 to 7 could lead to impunity, violate the right to a remedy for genuine victims and undermine the UK’s international obligations to prosecute international crimes. These issues are covered in chapter 3 of the JCHR report. Of course, other noble Lords will speak on these clauses shortly. The Government argue that the Bill merely introduces a presumption against prosecution rather than a statute of limitation. However, there may be difficulties in bringing a prosecution after only five years. The prosecutor must only prosecute in exceptional circumstances; the prosecutor then needs to give “particular weight” to the adverse, or likely adverse effect on the person of conditions suffered during the demands of operations overseas. There may be a situation where a person has been previously investigated and there is no new compelling evidence. Another hurdle is that the consent of the Attorney-General is required.
The Law Society in its written evidence to the committee concluded that the presumption against prosecution creates a “quasi-statute of limitation” which is “unprecedented” in the criminal law and presents a “significant barrier to justice”. As the JCHR report points out, the MoD consultation in 2019 proposed a presumption against prosecution after 10 years; in the Bill, that has been halved to five years. That is a very short time in the circumstances of overseas armed conflict. There are many other practical reasons why a prosecution may not be possible in this time due to the protracted nature of the conflict, unlawful detention of the victim or persistent physical or mental distress. The British Red Cross has pointed out that safe access to evidence in such scenarios is difficult to obtain. Paragraph 64 of our report states:
“At a minimum the presumption against prosecution should be amended so that it does not apply to torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.”
The Minister discusses many of these concerns in her letter and points out that most claims by service personnel are brought within the six-year date of knowledge timeframe. That does not satisfy the concerns of the JCHR, or indeed those of other organisations such as the UN Commission on Human Rights. Other amendments in this group oppose the question that Clauses 1 to 7 stand part of the Bill. The amendments I present here are less drastic but, taken together, they would ensure that the “presumption against prosecution” does not apply until 10 years instead of five years after the day on which the alleged conduct took place. I beg to move.
Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Massey, as a fellow member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I appreciate that this House has a wealth of military experience. I am humbled by the knowledge that there is such experience in the House, and I fully respect the Members who have served so gallantly and at senior levels. I cannot match that, but I did once pay a very brief visit to Afghanistan, to Camp Bastion and Kandahar, during difficult times there, and saw for myself for just a few days the conditions there during a tense period. It hardly qualifies me to be an expert, but it means that I have some strong visual impressions of what the situation there was like.
My noble friend Lady Massey has already spoken to amendments that would have the effect that the presumption against prosecution would apply after 10 years instead of five. My amendment would remove the presumption against prosecution altogether, as recommended by the recent report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, although I am bound to say that many of the arguments used in relation to five or 10 years would also apply to removing the presumption altogether.
The Service Prosecuting Authority has been in charge of the prosecution process, and there is no suggestion of excessive or unjustified prosecutions. Indeed, there are already some safeguards. The Service Prosecuting Authority would bring a prosecution only, first, where there was sufficient evidence that the accused committed the offence and, secondly, where the prosecution was in the public interest. These seem to be pretty good safeguards and would prevent vexatious or unfounded prosecutions.
As they stand, Clauses 1 to 7 of the Bill would contravene the United Kingdom’s international obligations under international humanitarian law, specifically the law of armed conflict. They could also contravene the United Nations Convention against Torture. There would be the risk of prosecution of our armed forces under the laws of another state and, above all, the risk of prosecution under the terms of the International Criminal Court. That court has the jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide perpetrated by UK personnel if the UK is “unwilling or unable” to do so. It would be hazardous in the extreme to pass a Bill with measures in it that would run the risk of our service men and women being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.
The reputation of our Armed Forces has traditionally been second to none. I am concerned that, all over the world, people are looking at this legislation and wondering whether there is not some constraint on the reputation of our Armed Forces or, indeed, whether that reputation might not suffer through this legislation. I very much hope that, when we come to it, we shall be able to amend the Bill so as to strengthen the position of our Armed Forces, either by getting rid of Clauses 1 to 7 altogether or at least increasing the time period from five to 10 years. I am happy to be a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and our report has set a very good basis for the debate that is to follow.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]
My Lords, I wish to discuss only the question of whether it should be five or 10 years. It has to be remembered that this is in relation to a prosecution, so the only outcome of this is a criminal sanction. It does not of itself do any good to anyone else but, of course, gives a feeling of justice when the sanction is in accordance with what the people who have complained have suffered. Against this, it has to be remembered that the strain that comes with waiting under a dark shadow of a possible prosecution is quite considerable.
I have two experiences that I remember very well in relation to the feeling of strain associated with the possibility of a prosecution. The first was shortly after I became Lord Chancellor, when there was a huge allegation of fraud in relation to a company group. The number of people in the prosecution was quite large. The learned judge who presided decided that the case was too big to be dealt with by a single jury, and therefore decided that a good part of the case should be postponed until the first part had been tried. I received a considerable number of complaints that the pressure of waiting—it was not five years, but it was quite a long time—was sufficient to make it very difficult for people who were ultimately found innocent. The delay is something that has to be taken into account as an addition to the strain on the people involved.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. I hope that his concern about delay will be addressed in Amendment 4, to which I commend him, when we come to it.
I was talking to a cousin of mine at the weekend, a retired Army major, about his evacuation as a boy to Devon in the spring of 1944. The fields were crammed with soldiers, he said, until, on one day, they all vanished. I have my own memories of the Royal Welch Fusiliers exercising in the fields around my home before departing as suddenly, some to lose their lives on the beaches of Normandy. We owe the military an enormous debt. In this House, there will be few who did not lose close family members in the conflicts of the 20th century for the defence of our country and for the freedom of Europe and of Asia.
Today, I think there is great sensitivity for the welfare of our Armed Forces and their families, when we have committed our young men to risk their lives in overseas operations when the lifeblood of our country is not at risk at all—where the overseas operations have been for contestable political reasons and no longer, even as in our dubious past, for conquest and empire.
The military depends on discipline and the obeying of lawful orders within a framework of law. When we come later in the year to debate the new Armed Forces Bill, it may surprise many to discover that it is essentially concerned with discipline and military justice. The reason is that it is discipline and the law which enforces it which bind the Armed Forces into an effective arm of the state.
In my professional career, I never prosecuted at court martial. I was always on the defence side, in one instance for an officer but mainly for ordinary soldiers. The stated policy for this Bill, as set out in the Explanatory Notes, is to protect sailors, soldiers and airmen against historic investigations and prosecutions deriving from them. I do not believe that a presumption against prosecution is a protection; I believe that it weakens the bonds of discipline.
What the progenitors of this policy have failed to recognise are the protections which already exist. A soldier is trained to kill and to maim and given the means of so doing. His protection is that he does not commit a criminal offence in the use of violence if he acts in accordance with lawful orders—the lawful commands of his superiors. If he acts without or against those orders, by raping a woman or by shooting a defenceless civilian or a wounded or captured enemy, it surely must be public policy that, if proved, he is to be punished for it. He is also criminally and personally responsible, even if he is acting in obeying an unlawful order; for example, to torture a prisoner for information. But even in that case there is a system of justice, which we have developed over centuries, which is specifically designed to protect him.
He will know that the decision to prosecute will rest in the hands of an independent Director of Service Prosecutions. All the successive holders of that office will have to have demonstrated—to use the words of the Explanatory Notes—
“proper regard to the challenging context”
and the mitigating factors specified in the Bill. It is the DSP who is charged with considering the service interest and the public interest.
Further, a defendant soldier will not appear before the ordinary civilian jury, far removed from the stresses and strains of the battlefield, but before a panel of responsible and experienced officers and warrant officers who will have personal knowledge of the exigencies of the service and will take those matters into account. The soldiers who were engaged in the torture of Baha Mousa and those detained with him were acting under the unlawful orders of the corporal in charge. He pleaded guilty to a war crime, but they were all acquitted of murder or neglect of duty. A civil jury might have taken a different view.
Of course, the Government say that, if there is evidence of serious criminal acts, the presumption does not prevent a prosecution entirely, nor does the requirement for the consent of the Attorney-General—I shall say more on those topics later in this Committee. So what is the presumption and the seriousness of a crime which will rebut it? Is it a presumption against prosecution for stealing the mess funds in Iraq 10 years ago or, as in the current trial at Bulford, for claiming school fees as legitimate expenses? Of course not. If, as the former Judge Advocate-General, Jeff Blackett, has publicly stated, there have been only eight trials of serious crime in relation to operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, in which of these would this presumption have operated to prevent a prosecution? Would it have been in the case of Sergeant Blackman, who only subsequent to his court marital admitted on appeal having deliberately shot under stress a captured and wounded man? Would it have prevented the prosecution of the eight soldiers and three officers in the Baha Mousa case? If it would, there are a number of consequences.
First, the use of the presumption would be a violation of the spirit of the laws of this country which maintain coherence and discipline in our Armed Forces. There is nothing in the statute law since 1661 or in the Articles of War which followed which talks about a presumption against prosecution. The law and the values it represents protect our military, and those who speak of the dangers of “lawfare” know not of what they speak.
Secondly, it would violate the laws of war which exist internationally to temper the brutality and the devastation which are the inevitable consequences of armed conflict.
Thirdly, it would invite the investigation and punishment of British soldiers by the International Criminal Court. That court has, by treaty, investigatory powers and jurisdiction for criminal offences committed by the British Armed Forces. I suspect that its prosecutors are eager to demonstrate that the values and standards which are the core reason for the court’s existence are not designed simply for Slavic generals or African despots but are universal. Picture Parliament Square if a British squaddie or officer stands trial in The Hague. This Prime Minister would undoubtedly break the treaty.
Fourthly, it inhibits investigations. That is the barely concealed motivation for the triple lock in the Bill. I challenge the Minister to deny it. I shall discuss the difficulties of investigating overseas actions later but, with limited resources, why would an investigator undertake an expensive and time-consuming investigation if his report had to mount the hurdles of a presumption against acting on his report by the prosecutors and the fiat of the Attorney-General?
Fifthly—and we shall discuss this in the context of derogation from the Human Rights Act—it is a signal to an enemy or an insurgent that they need show no restraint in torturing or killing captured British soldiers in precisely the same way. Show me the Minister of Defence who is prepared to dispatch troops who are exposed, by the very legislation that we are considering today, to retaliatory risks such as these.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, I have some significant concerns over the Bill, but I confess that I am puzzled by Amendment 1 and those other amendments directly associated with it.
A proposal to extend the timescale for the application of the provisions within Part 1 of the Bill from five years to 10 years must surely be based on some perceived shortcoming associated with the lesser period that would be remedied by the substitution of the longer one, but what is that relative shortcoming? I start by accepting the Government’s assertion that there is no significant legal watershed involved in the proposed limitation. After that period, prosecutors will need to take account of the various considerations set out in the Bill but, as was generally conceded at Second Reading, a competent prosecutor would take account of those considerations even if the case arose before the expiry of the five-year period.
If this be so, arguments that defendants would try to defeat investigations by delaying them beyond the five-year period, or that those who had been rendered physically or mentally unable to begin such proceedings until after the expiry of that period would be denied justice, must surely rest on the presumption that the prosecuting authority is incompetent or biased. In that case, no proceedings would be safe, whenever initiated.
Similarly, the argument that the Attorney-General would act politically—for which I read “improperly”—regarding his or her responsibilities calls into question an important part of our entire legal structure. That would raise serious constitutional issues that went well beyond the scope of this Bill. It has also been suggested that it might be difficult to gather adequate evidence within a five-year period, particularly if the relevant conflict was still ongoing. That may well be true, but it might also be difficult to gather satisfactory evidence after the passage of many years. There is a need for balance here.
All this raises the question of whether there is any substantive benefit to be gained by defining a time period at all. The Government say that there is value in codifying the requirement in the way that they propose. If that is the case, why not codify it so that it applies to all potential prosecutions, no matter what timescale is involved? However, that is not what this amendment seeks to achieve, and it is to this amendment that I speak. Assuming that there must be a timescale, a five-year period is a reasonable span to choose in preference to any other. The Government’s position appears to be that one of the main purposes of the Bill is to reassure serving personnel that they will have a significantly reduced risk of being left exposed to prolonged, repeated, and mischievous accusations. If so, a period of 10 years would go a long way towards defeating that purpose. Although 10 years may not be for ever, it will seem like it to those who undergo such risks. I very much doubt that they would take any real comfort from such a provision.
Amendment 1 may be a way of neutering Part 1 to such an extent as to render it largely meaningless. If so, surely the various questions on clause stand part in the group are a better way of achieving this, although that would be to reject a Bill that has already been passed by the other place. Some might in this instance wish that we could, but they must consider whether we should.
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. Part 1 of the Bill creates a presumption against prosecution after five years, and factors are spelled out in the Bill which require consideration before any later prosecution. I would have thought that those factors would in any event form part of any decision on whether to prosecute, but I have no difficulty with them being put on the face of the Bill. What is important to stress is that this part of the Bill does not give impunity to our Armed Forces, nor does it explicitly deal with the real problem that has faced them, particularly after operations in Iraq and Afghanistan—namely, investigations and reinvestigations many years after the events.
This group seeks, among other things, to remove Part 1 from the Bill entirely, whereas the amendments in groups 2 and 3 at least attempt to amend and not wreck this part of the Bill. The reasons given for this drastic approach are the effect on our international reputation and, in particular, the risk that the International Criminal Court will or might become involved in circumstances where prosecutions would normally be left to our authorities. I am not at all convinced about the reality of this risk. Is it really suggested that if genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes, as defined by Articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Rome statute, were discovered five years after the original offences, they would not result in a prosecution? Nothing in this Bill would prevent one.
I hope that noble Lords who seek the removal of this part of the Bill have read the evidence that Major Bob Campbell gave to the Public Bill Committee in the House of Commons. He said of the Bill that the principle of attempting to improve the lot of veterans and service personnel was welcomed, and that
“if the Bill were to be squashed it would send a very depressing message to the veterans community—probably one that has been felt quite harshly by the Northern Ireland veterans—that we are not important enough to get any type of assistance when facing legal assault.”
Major Bob Campbell was investigated and reinvestigated 11 times in relation to the same incident over 17 years. His view was that if the Bill had been enforced, his torment would at least have ended in 2009. Whether or not he is right about that, it is important to pay attention to his answers. When asked about the danger of the ICC becoming involved, he told the Committee that he had been repeatedly informed that if IHAT—which noble Lords will know about—was in anyway interfered with, the International Criminal Court would “swoop in” and
“clamp us in leg irons and we would all be off to the Hague.”
About ICC involvement, Major Campbell said:
“I decided to test that theory, and I wrote to the chief prosecutor of the ICC, Ms Bensouda, asking in exasperation whether I, SO71 and SO72 could surrender ourselves to the ICC rather than go through several more appalling years at the hands of the Ministry of Defence. Ms Bensouda responded that our allegation does not fall within her remit, because her job is not to prosecute individual soldiers; her job is to prosecute commanders and policy makers for the most grave crimes. In her orbit, manslaughter, which is what I was accused of, is not a war crime. It is a domestic crime—a regular crime, as opposed to what she would normally deal with. I reported that rejection to the Ministry of Defence, which continued to repeat that the ICC would fall in.
The second point I would make is what would be so terrible about the ICC being involved? We kept getting told that the ICC has a bit of scrutiny over IHAT and is keeping a very close eye on it. Personally, I do not have a problem with that. Like I said, the ICC was not going to ruin our careers, the ICC was not going to harass our families, and the ICC was not going to go and bully soldiers who had left the Army for a witness statement—not even a suspect’s. The ICC would conduct itself professionally, and it would have no incentive—no financial incentive—to drag things out for years, like Red Snapper, which provided most of the detectives to IHAT, did. Finally, the ICC would probably not use the investigative technique that IHAT used, which was to pay Phil Shiner’s gofer to be the go-between between them and witnesses because IHAT was too scared to go to Iraq.”
He continued:
“So regarding the whole spectre of the ICC, first, I do not find it remotely as scary as people make it out to be and, secondly, it is completely false, because I attempted, with my two soldiers, to surrender ourselves in order to spare us another several years of the MOD fannying about, and the offer was refused. So to answer your question, I do not see that as an issue at all.
What I would say, though, is that I think I understand why the Government would be reluctant for the ICC to be involved, because the scrutiny would not be on Tommy Atkins; the scrutiny would be on General Atkins and Minister Atkins.”—[Official Report, Commons, Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill Committee, 6/10/20; cols. 27-28.]
This part of the Bill is not a panacea. It does not of itself prevent investigations or reinvestigations, but it is something which will be welcomed by our own forces. I respectfully suggest that the spectre of the ICC as a reason for wrecking this part of the Bill is unsound. I invite noble Lords who have quite rightly emphasised their respect for our Armed Forces to look soldiers like Major Bob Campbell in the eye and say to them that these provisions are entirely inappropriate and would damage our international reputation. I strongly oppose all these amendments.
Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I support Amendments 1 and 2. As I did not take part at Second Reading, I must resist the temptation to cover a whole range of subjects in my contribution to this debate.
As an old Defence Minister, and, indeed, an old soldier who served in Germany as an infantry subaltern and was involved in courts martial there, I broadly welcome the aims of the Bill to introduce a measure of protection against unfounded claims against military personnel, some of which go back many years. I deprecate the cottage industry in the growth of claims.
Let me say immediately that when there is wrongdoing, no person is above the law. Torture is a typical example where we should never propose exemption. I have argued before at the annual conferences of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Cape Town and, more recently, in St Petersburg to persuade all countries to accept the need to ensure that there is no exemption for this offence.
As a law officer, I played a very small part in encouraging the Foreign and Commonwealth Office under Robin Cook to create the International Criminal Court. As John Healey MP said in the other place on Third Reading of the Bill, the risks of
“British troops being dragged before”—[Official Report, Commons, 3/11/20; col. 277.]
the ICC are there. There may be an argument about this, but that is what he said and we should always bear it in mind. Perhaps the Minister could give an assurance on that very point of what—if any—the dangers are of going before the ICC.
The wise words of Professor Michael Clarke, the former director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, on the dangers of an idea gaining
“international traction that the UK operates a ‘quasi-statute of limitations’”,
and hence might be in danger of being indicted before the International Criminal Court, should always be borne in mind. They need rebuttal, and they need clarification.
When the Government launched their consultation on the changes to the legal protection for our Armed Forces serving overseas, the consultation included proposals to create a statutory presumption for alleged criminal offences which occurred more than 10 years ago. I repeat: 10 years was the issue that went out for consultation.
The Bill is a major departure from the norms of our international obligations
“under international humanitarian law … international human rights law and international criminal law.”
These are not my words; they are the words of Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights. They are words that we should bear in mind and rebut if it is possible to do so.
That is the background, and hence it is a basic requirement that any provisions in the Bill need thorough justification. Therefore, I support Amendments 1 and 2 to change the presumption against prosecution from five to 10 years. My question, very simply, is: what is the Government’s justification for the change from 10 years in the consultation document to five years? I would like an answer before the end of this debate.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, before I start my remarks about the Bill, I would like to say that nothing I say over the next few days in any way impugns the integrity of the Minister. I have every respect for her, but I think that the Bill is a terrible piece of legislation—worse than terrible. It is actually quite shocking. It is the international version of the “spy cops” Bill, which granted broad legal immunity to state agents who commit criminal acts. How can that be right?
It is one of those Bills that I think is so bad that we need to scrap it entirely. That is why I am joining the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Smith of Newnham, to oppose the question that Clauses 1 to 7 stand part of the Bill. If a “delete-all” amendment were in order, I would do that instead. I hope that we can build an alliance to oppose the Bill’s Third Reading.
It struck me listening to noble Lords who have spoken already that the support for the Bill is actually based on fake news. The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has written to our Joint Committee on Human Rights, chaired by Harriet Harman. In a letter, she says that the number of vexatious claims has been “exaggerated”—by our Government, obviously—to justify the proposed legislation. We do not have a whole heap of vexatious, baseless claims, which is what the Government seem to be suggesting.
The Bill clashes with the whole point of our justice system. I know that there are noble Lords in this Chamber who know a lot more about the law than I do, and I am sure they know that that is true. The whole point of our justice system is that the guilty are found guilty and the innocent are found innocent—that is obviously what we have to do. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, mentioned the strain of all these vexatious claims, but in fact they do not exist, so the argument for the Bill is extremely weak.
I consulted two ex-generals and an ex-admiral of my acquaintance about the Bill, and they all had severe qualms. They all felt that this could backfire quite seriously on our service personnel and that it would make things worse. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, demolished the argument for the Bill, but he said as well that service personnel could be brought to the ICC, which would be much worse than being dealt with here.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]
My Lords, my father-in-law fought in the desert with the Australian infantry, as part of the Commonwealth forces, during the Second World War. He spoke of some of the horrors he saw, and also of the support that he and his fellow servicemen and their families received on their return home, and over the years, from the Australian charity Legacy, where he himself did a great deal to help widows and orphans of those who had given their lives.
I know that much has changed since the Second World War, I hope for the better, in the treatment of service men and women, with recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder and the examination of alleged crimes and, where appropriate, prosecutions. However, when we ask our service men and women to put their lives on the line on a daily basis for the good of their country, we need to give them certainty as to when they can look forward to the future rather than back at the past.
I speak in favour of retaining the five-year limitation on bringing a prosecution, with the exceptions envisaged by this Bill, rather than the longer 10-year limitation being proposed by these amendments. Over time, memories and recall fade; it is only fair, for the sake of all involved, that any investigation and, if appropriate, prosecution, is brought when these memories are still clear and accurate and evidence is available. We should not forget that, even if an investigation does not result in a prosecution, it can take its toll on the mental health of the people involved and their families. To prolong this for up to 10 years after an event is just too long.
The Minister has previously said that this is not about reducing access to justice. I paraphrase her comments and support them. This is about giving certainty and finality and preventing injustice when, due to the amount of time that had elapsed, adjudicating would otherwise be on unreliable and incomplete evidence. Although my name is on the list, I do not propose to speak again later in this debate.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to address this fundamental part of the debate on Part 1 of the Bill. Before I begin, I want to say that, if I do not impugn the motives of Members of your Lordships’ House, I hope that that will be a reciprocal courtesy. I shall not be asking any noble Lords, let alone Ministers or their noble friends on their Benches, to look any victims of war in the eye. I would happily look Major Bob Campbell, or any other brave serviceperson, in the eye, in trying to address the problems that the Government say they are trying to address through this Bill, and in making the best analysis and argument that I can about this very important legislation. The rule of law is too precious for us to be impugning each other’s motives, patriotism, or support for either service personnel or the victims of war. It is not service personnel who make sometimes ill-judged decisions to go to war, and it is not Ministers and politicians who put themselves in harm’s way. I hope that we can continue with a slightly better-tempered debate than to accuse some of us, by implication, of being somehow unsupportive of ordinary servicemen and women.
This is about the rule of law, which is supposed to apply to everyone—although, granted, some people are dealing with particular difficulties. The difficulty that the Government say they are addressing here is that of servicepeople who have been put into sometimes unlawful and certainly very controversial and difficult conflict situations, and then been subject to repeat, lengthy and shoddy investigations, which have caused great anxiety to them and little resolution for the public or, indeed, alleged victims overseas. If that is the problem to be addressed, surely the solution would be to address shoddy, lengthy and repeated investigations, rather than to create a “triple lock” on prosecutions.
It would be better to address the actual problem being suggested to improve investigations, making them more independent, swifter and more robust, so that everyone has confidence in them. The beauty of attacking the actual problem, as posited by the Government, is that it would serve the rule of law rather than undermine it, which would be completely uncontroversial. No victim of an alleged war crime could complain about swifter, more independent and more robust investigations. Improving the investigation system would also, I have no doubt, give greater comfort to the military. Not to do that and, instead, to do what Part 1 of this Bill does—to create shields, locks and triple locks on prosecutions—would quite obviously be in contravention of the rule of law that our brave service men and women seek to serve, not just domestically but all over the world, and perhaps more so, I fear, in the context of modern warfare. That will often involve covert, secret operations that the wider public might not know about for a long time, and alleged crimes may not come to light for a long time. As has been said by other noble Lords, witnesses or, indeed, victims may well be incarcerated for much longer than the five years, or even the 10 years posited in the draft Bill and in amendments. There are people still in Guantanamo to this day. I am sad to say that we are heading for a very grim anniversary in the autumn, of 20 years since the atrocity of 9/11. Part 1 seems completely the wrong way to address the problem that the Government themselves have posited.
I turn to the observations made by noble and noble and learned Lords that, whether it is five years or 10 years, it is a long period to be worried about the risk of prosecution. That, of course, is true of anyone. If five years is an adequate period to justify the first part of a triple lock on prosecuting grave crimes, we would have a presumptive statute of limitations such as that for domestic crimes, but we do not. We believe that that would be anathema to justice because serious crimes such as unlawful killing and so on should not be subject to a statute of limitations, even a presumptive one. It is not considered good enough for British justice here at home, but it is being suggested that such a statute of limitations is good enough overseas.
Of course this sets a dangerous precedent. I would be grateful to hear the supporters of Part 1 say whether they would honestly be happy with a replica of this legislation, in particular this part, to be enacted in other countries around the world—including in those jurisdictions with which we have been at war or with which we have difficult and potentially hostile relations at the moment. Would we be happy with a replica of this being provided in countries that we are worried about in relation to human rights abuses?
The rule of law is about where we try to set a standard across the world, and our Armed Forces are all about a pride in setting that standard. On the argument that there is nothing to fear from the ICC, it is quite right that there should be nothing or little to fear from it at the moment because of the law in this jurisdiction as it stands and because of the respect in which it is held worldwide. But if we continue to chip away at it by limiting its reach through the creation of a triple lock, I fear that people will be subject to greater ICC interference. It is all very well for noble Lords to say, “Nothing to hide, nothing to fear; let the ICC do its worst,” but I do not believe that that would be the argument in reality if that outcome were to present itself.
I urge noble Lords to think again about Part 1, and urge the Government to consider making investigations swifter and more robust and not to keep chipping away at the law which is supposed to apply to all, with support and respect for the circumstances of police officers, prison personnel, doctors and teachers—all sorts of people find themselves the subject of false allegations through no fault of their own because of the nature of their work. Members of the Armed Forces have a special difficulty, but that should be tackled at the investigations end, where the problem lies, not by creating a presumption against prosecution after what is a very short period in relation to the commission of alleged grave crimes overseas.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. Like she does, I believe that Part 1 of the Bill should be cancelled because it creates a lock on prosecutions. I therefore support the amendments and the proposals to cancel Clauses 1 to 7.
Coming from Northern Ireland, I have denounced on every occasion the mayhem and the murder of members of the Armed Forces who were killed in the most indiscriminate way. They were human beings and they had families, and the way that they were treated by members of the paramilitary organisations was wrong, unacceptable and totally unwarranted, and did not contribute one iota to a political settlement. I want to set that out very clearly. But, like the Equality and Human Rights Commission does, I believe that the provisions in these clauses as they stand do not fulfil the requirements of honouring human rights requirements.
I honestly believe that none of us should be above the law, so I support the position taken by the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey of Darwen, Lady Smith of Newnham, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who have given notice of their intention to oppose Clauses 1 to 7 standing part of the Bill. By removing these clauses, we would take away the presumption against prosecution. At the very least, I support Amendments 1 to 9 and 13. They would help redress the balance currently in the Bill, which favours the accused, in order to ensure fairness and equality before the law for both claimants and defendants.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I start by declaring my interest as a member of the Army Reserve and, indeed, my morning job as the deputy director of joint warfare at UK Strategic Command. Listening to this debate, I have been struck by how clear the point of law seems to be, particularly for noble and learned Lords, from the comfort and security of this Chamber or, perhaps, one’s home. My mind turns to members of the Royal Anglian Regiment who are currently on patrol in Mali, fighting against al-Shabaab and trying to defend what we believe in. I have no doubt that they are equally clear about what is right and wrong.
It always amazes me how members of our Armed Forces, despite the circumstances in which they often find themselves, have applied what is right and wrong under the most difficult circumstances and their judgment is normally sound. However, they will be less interested in the detailed points of law than in knowing that their relationship with Parliament is one of trust and support. As I listened to this debate, I am genuinely concerned that we are beginning not to see the wood for the trees in relation to why we are bringing the Bill forward. It was done partly at the request of our Armed Forces who, in recent years, after a series of vexatious claims, simply want to know that Parliament and the Government have their back.
I have the utmost respect for noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have brought forward these amendments, which in the main come from a genuine concern that the Bill may disrespect international law or organisations such as the ICC. I understand, but I am concerned. Rather like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, I do not understand these early amendments, because they seem to go to the heart of what we are seeking to achieve, and the principles of what the Bill is for, in the triple lock. I find that frustrating, because nothing in the Bill ultimately will prevent, in the case of new evidence, a serviceman being brought to justice. No one is trying to say that members of our Armed Forces should be above the law. That is not the purpose of the Bill.
Some noble Lords simply do not like the Bill and want it gone. To be fair to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, she was clear in her comments and I absolutely respect her. In many ways, it reminds me of exactly why I joined the military 32 years ago—to ensure that she has the right to stand there and make these points. What I find frustrating, though, is that when some seem to be seeking, effectively, to wreck the Bill through these amendments, in the same breath we hear platitudes about the brave members of our Armed Forces. We should be supporting them.
I, for one, am not saying that the Bill is perfect; it is anything but. I have proposed my own amendment to try to improve the Bill. Later this afternoon, I will be commenting on some amendments that try sensibly to improve the Bill. However, I do not want to lose the purpose of what we are doing, because your Lordships’ House will not do itself any favours with members of our Armed Forces if we seek to undermine the general direction of the Bill and what it aims to do.
I turn in particular to the first set of amendments and the movement from five years to 10 years. I have concerns about that, not least because, in response to the public consultation, there were concerns about a 10-year timeframe. That is a long time and, particularly in the heat of battle, memories can fade and evidence can deteriorate. Given that we are seeking to create certainty and reassurance, a period of five years better achieves that objective. Ultimately, any timeframe will probably be viewed as arbitrary.
Perhaps to reassure myself, I considered how two of the most recent unfortunate cases would be impacted. The trial following the tragic death of Baha Mousa, the Iraqi man who died in British custody in September 2003, was in 2006, just three years later. Equally, I was involved as a Minister in the case of Sergeant Blackman when it came up again two or three years ago. It involved the killing of a Taliban prisoner in 2011 and the trial took place in 2013, well within a relatively short period. In both circumstances, the evidence came out after the event.
Ultimately, nothing changes if new evidence comes to light, which is why the amendment moving the timescale from five to 10 years is unnecessary. Indeed, it goes to the heart of what the Bill is trying to achieve. We should not be treating members of our Armed Forces like fools. They are anything but fools. If we are seeking to put the Bill through Parliament in an effort to support them, let us do just that. Of course there are areas in which the Bill can be improved, but I am not sure that these amendments do that.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the well-made points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton, and I certainly take them on board. I am going to speak briefly to the opening amendments and the general feel of the Bill. I do so having also taken on board the wise words of my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup. I look forward to hearing more about his reservations on the Bill.
I was enormously impressed by what we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. Their words are, I contend, in the interests of our armed services, given that clarity on the fairness that these matters require helps to give confidence that proceedings involving service personnel are thorough. We desire them to be thorough and universally admired. If they are, that only helps our service personnel. I look forward to hearing other speakers and the reply of the Minister to those concerns.
I turn to a slightly wider landscape. We hear virtually every week in your Lordships’ House about disturbing events in, for example, Myanmar, Hong Kong and China, as well as, even nearer to home, the recent case of the American woman claiming diplomatic immunity after her tragic road crash. There were the cases of the assassination of Mr Khashoggi, the poisonings in Salisbury, Sergei Magnitsky and the current detention of Mr Navalny. The point that I am making is that in all those cases it takes time for the facts to emerge, even to be dug up. The case of Baha Mousa could easily have taken six years, but I salute the efforts that were made. I am afraid that the facts often take longer than five years to emerge. Still more importantly, I contend that our remonstrations about these cases is all the stronger if the way in which we deal with our own employees is as beyond reproach as possible. That is why I worry that five years is too short and why I have real concerns over the presumptions against prosecutions contained in the Bill.
Finally, I stress that I accept that the terrible things that happen in the heat of battle are quite different from the premeditated use of torture. It is that matter which particularly concerns me and to which I shall return when we reach Amendment 14.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD) [V]
My Lords, it is conventional to say what a pleasure it is to speak after whichever noble Lord has preceded one. On this occasion, it genuinely is a pleasure to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, because I tended to agree with most of what he said. I am winding up on this group of amendments very much from the same place as when I was winding up at the end of Second Reading from the Liberal Democrat Benches.
On this occasion, my name is attached to some of the amendments, but I will none the less restate, for the avoidance of any doubt before I get into their substance, that I am not proposing that we throw out the Bill. The amendments to which my name is attached are intended for debate in Committee. I support the amendment to change the timescale from five to 10 years, but I am not necessarily at the point of suggesting that, when we get to Report and voting, certain clauses should not stand part of the Bill. Nor am I going to support, much to her disappointment, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and say that I shall vote against the whole Bill at Third Reading. That, to the best of my knowledge, is not the Liberal Democrat party line. We have not said that we will vote against the whole Bill. Rather, there are aspects of the Bill which we and many other noble Lords right across the Chamber argued at Second Reading were flawed and which need to be addressed in amendments in Committee that presumably will be voted on on Report.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
The debate has been very impressive. I take this opportunity to make special mention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon. I was Solicitor-General when he was the Attorney-General. As he pointed out, he served in the Armed Forces and was an incredibly effective Attorney-General, and he proved to me that as the Attorney-General you can ensure that the law is complied with in circumstances where you have a profound understanding of the pressures on the military.
There are, in effect, two proposals before the House in this group of amendments. One is to extend the period of presumption from five to 10 years. The other is to get rid of the presumption altogether. This part of the Bill deals only with criminal offences. I think that everybody in the House is of a like mind in the following two respects.
First, Members of the House have no desire whatever to authorise in any way members of our Armed Forces committing very serious crimes, such as crimes against the United Nations convention against torture or any other sorts of war crimes, or murder or manslaughter.
Secondly, and separately, everybody in the House understands the oppression of there being what my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti described as shoddy, lengthy and repeat investigations. Nobody wants our Armed Forces to have to go through shoddy, lengthy and repeat investigations. What I think everybody wants is that there should be timely, effective and thorough investigations, and that when the timely, effective and thorough investigation is completed, the soldier or other military personnel can be confident that that is the end of it.
That is not the position at the moment. The proposal for a presumption against prosecution after five or 10 years does not deal with that problem. The best way to deal with the problem is to have effective investigations and, after the investigation is over, for there to be a limitation in some way on any further investigation unless compelling evidence comes to light that justifies reopening an investigation which the military personnel who is the subject of the investigation can otherwise be entitled to assume is at an end.
I have no idea why the Government are going about trying to deliver on what everybody thinks is a laudable aim—namely, to protect military personnel from shoddy, repeat and inadequate investigations—by this presumption. There appears to be agreement among those who would know that the proposal that is being advanced by the Government does not deal with the problem. Johnny Mercer, in Committee in the other place, said:
“I want to reassure Members that the presumption measure is not an attempt to cover up past events as it does not prevent an investigation to credible allegations of wrongdoing in the past, and neither does it prevent the independent prosecutor from determining that a case should go forward to prosecution.”—[Official Report, Commons, 14/10/20; col. 154.]
Judge Blackett, who used to be the Advocate-General—the chief judge in the military justice system—said:
“a presumption against prosecution would not stop the knock on the door and the investigation. That is the whole point. The presumption against prosecution does not stop the investigation; the investigation happens.”
The noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton, said that we should not be too legalistic about this. I think he meant that we have to produce a solution to the problem. I completely agree. Later amendments in the group make it clear that there should be reinvestigation only where there is compelling evidence. Some of the amendments suggest, for example, that a judge would have to authorise further investigations to give the protection that is required and, in the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, to take away the dark shadow of prosecution.
I am very interested in these amendments. I am very keen to deliver on the purpose of the Bill, as is everybody else. I do not believe that the five-year presumption does that, and I would be very interested to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, respond to the points made by Johnny Mercer and Judge Blackett as to the fact that the Bill does not deliver on its purpose.
Three other points militate against either the five-year presumption or any presumption at all. First, this will create a special category of defence. It will in effect lead to there being a special category of criminal offences for which there is a presumption against prosecution. John Healey in another place put it very well when he said:
“Let us just step back a moment from the technical detail. This is the Government of Great Britain bringing in a legal presumption against prosecution for torture, for war crimes and for crimes against humanity. This is the Government of Great Britain saying sexual crimes are so serious they will be excluded from this presumption, but placing crimes outlawed by the Geneva convention on a less serious level and downgrading our unequivocal commitment to upholding international law that we in Britain ourselves, after the Second World War, helped to establish.”—[Official Report, Commons, 23/9/20; cols. 997-98.]
We should not be doing what John Healey described. We should be doing what the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, hopes we should be doing. Let us do it in a direct and effective way rather than in this oblique, obscure and ineffective way.
The second reason why the presumption does not work is that it may be illegal. I would very much like to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, has to say about the points made in the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ ninth report of this Session, which says that it offends against Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Convention against Torture, the Rome Statute, and customary international law. The report is basically saying that, if you could have a presumption against prosecution where there is evidence that would justify a prosecution and the public interest favours it, why is that not contrary to the five commitments that the country has made legally?
The third point is the involvement of the International Criminal Court. We as a country ought to be prosecuting these offences, not the ICC. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, will know that the ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said last week in a letter to the British Government that the presumption against prosecution could
“render such cases admissible before the ICC.”
How have the Government reached such a different conclusion to that of the ICC’s chief prosecutor? Does the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, believe that the ICC has misunderstood the Bill? Is she confident that the consequence of the Bill will not be to replace one uncertainty with another, namely that our military personnel may well face long investigations and then long prosecutions in the ICC, which nobody wants? I believe it is incredibly important that our justice system and in particular our military justice system produces an answer to the problem that this part of the Bill seeks to address, but I am anxious that it will be ineffective in doing that, it will send out a signal that we are not complying with international law, and it will lead to more prosecutions in the ICC.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, and all other noble Lords for their contributions to a wide-ranging and—I certainly accept—thought-provoking discussion this afternoon. I have listened to the debate closely. We have covered extensive territory across the principles of the Bill. Before I turn to the individual amendments in the first group, I will address the range of Clauses 1 to 7 of Part 1, which a number of your Lordships would wish to remove. It may be helpful if I clarify the Government’s intent in proposing these provisions, and perhaps I should restate why there is a Bill at all.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
I have received two requests to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lords, Lord Naseby and Lord West of Spithead. I will call them in that order, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Naseby.
Lord Naseby (Con) [V]
My Lords, I spoke at Second Reading, where I said that our Foreign Office should release
“dispatches from our observers who watch war anywhere around the world.”—[Official Report, 20/1/21; col. 1231.]
I realise that Part 1 is absolutely the key issue of the Bill. I ask my noble friend on the Front Bench whether she will confirm that, when the Bill becomes an Act, in whatever form, it will be drawn to the attention of the United Nations, particularly the UNHRC in Geneva and the International Criminal Court, as well as all other relevant official bodies involved with alleged war crimes, wherever they may be?
I ask this because of current evidence that the UNHRC has not been fully briefed by Her Majesty’s Government concerning British military attaché evidence taken in 2009 in relation to the war in Sri Lanka. Therefore, there is a lack of evidence in the report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Sri Lanka, dated 12 January 2021. I thank the Minister for listening to this important but rather unusual dimension.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his contribution. I am not terribly well equipped to deal with the specific aspect of his comment and inquiry in relation to Sri Lanka and the apparent lack of evidence that he argues is the case in relation to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. I can certainly undertake to investigate that, and it may be a matter to which my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon might wish to respond.
As for drawing the attention of international bodies to the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill when enacted, I think—from the responses that we are aware of—that it has already attracted widespread comment from international organisations. I am sure that, as part of their public affairs monitoring, they all take account of legislation coming out of various countries. However, the noble Lord makes an interesting point, and I shall reflect upon it.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, taken together, many of the amendments that we have just discussed certainly seem aimed at emasculating and, indeed, wrecking the Bill. I have no doubt whatever that the Bill is necessary: it lances a long-standing boil and fulfils a promise to our military. The issue has proved too difficult to tackle, time and again, and it is about time that it was tackled. The Bill must go forward.
We need the Bill so much, and I think the amendments we have discussed should go. There are a number of amendments that will resolve the wrinkles, but is it not the case that we will touch on some of the things already discussed in later amendments, when there will be a chance to correct them?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his very candid assessment of both the situation that we seek to address and how the Bill seeks to do so. In my role as Minister for Defence in this House, I have certainly pledged to engage with your Lordships; it has been my pleasure to engage with a considerable number of you.
In my remarks on Clauses 1 to 7 of the Bill, I indicated that I am aware of the profound concerns of many Members of this House. I say to the noble Lord, Lord West, that it is my desire to continue my engagement. I shall listen very closely to the contributions during the rest of the debate on the groups of amendments that we are scheduled to deal with today. It is not a cosmetic interest; I understand the depth of concern, and, in reflecting on all the contributions, I shall consider whether some avenues are available to me to try to assuage some of these concerns.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, this has been an extraordinarily rich and challenging beginning to our consideration of the Bill. I thank the Minister, for whom I have the greatest respect—I know that she is concerned about all these issues—for her detailed response. However, there are some things that are still unclear and about which I have doubts, and I shall come on to those in a moment.
We have had a particularly enlightened debate, with huge depths of knowledge from the perspectives of law, military engagement and political practice. I totally respect all of that and listened to it with great interest. The bottom line is that we want to make things better for our Armed Forces, which do have our respect. I do not think that the Bill has all the answers. Many noble Lords—too many to name—have demonstrated that. We have heard about the challenging aspects of investigations, in the risk to the Armed Forces and legal structures, and much has been covered in this one debate. I wonder what else is to come.
I have been waiting for the Minister to answer all the many excellent points made by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton. The noble Baroness has been very eloquent, but I am left with some queries. I shall read the noble Lord’s questions and the Minister’s answers again carefully, but I am not totally convinced, for example, by her arguments about the proposals for public consultation. I really do not understand the reasoning behind that—and there are other aspects, too. The debate has left us all with much to ponder and decisions to take about future action. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 3. Anyone wishing to press this, or anything else in this group, to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Clause 2: Presumption against prosecution
Amendment 3
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
“Ability to conduct a fair trial
The principle referred to in section 1(1) is that a relevant prosecutor making a decision to which that section applies may determine that proceedings should be brought against the person for the offence, or, as the case may be, that the proceedings against the person for the offence should be continued, only if the prosecutor has reasonable grounds for believing that the fair trial of the person has not been materially prejudiced by the time elapsed since the alleged conduct took place.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause replaces the presumption against prosecution with a requirement on a prosecutor deciding whether to bring or continue a prosecution to consider whether the passage of time has materially prejudiced the prospective defendant’s chance of a fair trial.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, in this group I shall address Amendments 3, 5, 6, 17 and 28. This group seeks, in a variety of ways, to deal with a problem that the Minister identified in her helpful concluding remarks on the last group—namely, stopping the endless shoddy reinvestigations, because that is the real problem.
Since the year 2000 there have been 27 prosecutions in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defence gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which led to its ninth report, dealing with this Bill. The Bill team co-ordinator—I think that was his exact title—Mr Damian Parmenter, did not identify as the problem that the wrong decisions had been made in relation to prosecutions. He identified that the problem was with the reinvestigations, as did Mr Mercer in the other place and Judge Blackett. We need to address the issue directly, not indirectly. The question that I had asked and was waiting most keenly to be answered by the Minister was how the Bill dealt with this presumption—and answer came there none from the Minister, I would submit. If the issue is not the decision about prosecution but the endless process of investigation, this Bill does not deal with it.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB) [V]
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 6. Its purpose is simple—that the decision that the prosecutor makes takes into account the quality, thoroughness, independence and accountability of the investigation. It may be said—as appears from the Minister’s letter—that these matters are being looked at by Sir Richard Henriques in the review that he is conducting. No doubt the detail of all this can be gone into at that time—for example, how independence is to be safeguarded and accountability achieved. No doubt we will need to look at the position in other states. All that is for the future.
However, this Bill is being brought forward now. One matter that must be addressed now is that prosecutors, in deciding whether to continue, have to take into account the quality of the investigation in the respects I have set out in the amendment. I have put this forward based on my own experience of three cases that came before me when I was a judge. In the military context—and the civilian context is exactly the same—they pointed to the importance of thorough, well-resourced investigations.
The first case related to the deaths of 24 people in what is now Malaysia during the communist insurgency in 1948, which came back to the courts in 2011. That very unhappy series of events came back because the initial investigation was not thorough, a subsequent investigation was stopped before it was completed and, by the time the matter came before the courts, there was clear evidence that the original explanation of what had happened—namely, that these persons killed had been shot trying to escape—had been given by soldiers on instructions and that 24 people were killed in cold blood.
The second illustration relates to invents in Iraq and what happened in numerous cases, the most significant of which is the death of Baha Mousa. That is a paradigm example of how a poor investigation can be so terrible that it sometimes takes a very long time to see what went wrong.
The third and perhaps more surprising example is the conviction of Sergeant Blackman for shooting a member of the Taliban. When it originally came before the court martial, there had not been a sufficiently proper investigation of the circumstances, the stresses he underwent and his perception of the support he got from his command. That came out only afterwards and was one of the matters that, as appears from the judgment of the Court of Appeal, led to his conviction being reduced to manslaughter.
The thoroughness and independence of the investigation are critical in any decision to prosecute. A similar reflection can be obtained from ordinary cases; where things have gone wrong or there is a problem, it is the investigation. It is important that an investigation is fair—that is why it is listed—and thorough. And it should be fair in both senses: to the accused and to those who say a crime has been committed.
Independence is of equal importance. Any detailed consideration of the Malay case to which I referred and of the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the Blackman case shows how independence and accountability are also important. Therefore, what must be taken into account as a matter of principle—not of detail, that is for later—are these matters relating to the investigation. It may be said, “Well, things have got a lot better”. However, we all know that even the most well-organised body can make mistakes in the conduct of an investigation, and accountability and independence need to be of a very high level in certain types of case.
I am putting forward this amendment to show that this nation has regard to the covenant and the support it is necessary to give to our Armed Forces, but also to show that we must be seen to do justice, because the doing of justice is equally important. The quality, thoroughness, independence and accountability of the original investigation, if there has been one, or of the more recent one, should be at the forefront of the prosecutor’s decision.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD) [V]
My Lords, as I said in my comments on the first group of amendments, the vagaries of parliamentary procedure mean that in some ways the groups of amendments are being debated in a less than helpful order. I hope that this group of amendments and the suite of proposals will reassure the noble Lords, Lord West of Spithead and Lord Lancaster, and others who had any concerns that perhaps supporters of the first group might be seeking to eviscerate the Bill in its entirety.
This suite of amendments is intended to be constructive. I will speak predominantly to Amendment 17, in the name of my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford and myself, and Amendment 28. They are both about investigations. If the purpose of the Bill is to stop unnecessary investigations and investigations being brought many years later, these two amendments in particular seek in clear and specific ways to give substance to the Government’s stated aims.
Amendment 17 gives a very clear outline of what could be done in terms of investigations: how they should be taken forward and, after they are completed, moved to prosecution. We have not heard huge numbers of veterans saying they have been prosecuted many times, but we have heard concerns about people being investigated and never getting closure. Amendment 17 gives a very clear outline of how investigations could be dealt with.
Amendment 28, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, puts limitations on reinvestigation. That surely goes to the heart of what the Government say that they wish to do. If the Government really wish to have the best legislation to serve their own stated aims and fulfil the needs and expectations of current service personnel and veterans, could they please consider these amendments?
In your Lordships’ House, the Minister often feels the need to say that, however laudable the goals of the amendments are, they do not quite fit the approach that the Government want to take. If the Minister does not feel able to support the detail of the amendments, might she consider coming back with some government proposals on how investigations and reinvestigations could be dealt with in a way that would enable the Bill to do what it says on the tin?
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to contribute to this group. I am particularly grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, for the clarity with which he introduced these amendments.
I turn first to Amendment 3, which effectively seeks to remove Clause 2. That clause, the “presumption against prosecution”, is very powerful. I of course accept that this may not have the legal force it implies to some laymen, not least because of the other measures in the Bill, but it does indicate a very clear change of direction. If one of the aims of this Bill is to offer reassurance to our service personnel and veterans, this is a very powerful clause.
Amendment 3 seeks to delete this clause and effectively replace it with a guarantee of a fair trial. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said, this would happen as a matter of course. I have never met a service man or woman whose concern has been that they will not receive a fair trial in the United Kingdom. So, on the face of it, it does not seem to be a particularly good trade. Removing a presumption against prosecution from Clause 2 and replacing it with a fair trial does not send a particularly powerful message—but I do understand why it is being proposed.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton. He brings a valuable perspective to our deliberations. I welcome his contribution and agree with some of it, as will become apparent.
My position on this Bill is essentially that so clearly set out by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton in his speech on the previous group. I agree with him that this group contains a range of amendments that are aimed at the true source of the problem that the Government have in their sights. I agree with the points that he made, so there will be little point in repeating them. However, to repeat what I said at Second Reading,
“the Bill does not resolve the problem of repeated and prolonged investigations because the Government have chosen to frame the issue as a legal problem, when the truth is that it is a problem about the timeliness and quality of investigations.”—[Official Report, 20/1/21; col. 1207.]
I begin the meat of my contribution with reference to the letter that we received last week from the Minister—for whom I share the regard expressed by others in this debate; I thank her for the letter—seven paragraphs of which sought to persuade us that this Bill would not be improved by specifically addressing investigations and implied that doing so might be counterproductive and unhelpful. The letter even employed the word “danger”; I infer from that that she thought it might be dangerous too. Expecting that the content of her letter will serve as a template for her response to this set of amendments, I want to test its argument.
As we have heard, few criminal prosecutions arising from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or from recent overseas operations have in fact been brought against service personnel. None, as far as I am aware, is in the pipeline or anticipated. I encourage the noble Baroness to point to any criminal case that should not have been pursued, if she can identify one, as I suspect she can. Given that context, it is heroic on the Government’s part—to say the least—to attempt to justify the need for legislation against the legal process of prosecution when no history of unjustified prosecutions exists.
This is the more so because, when Ministers are asked what justifies this legislation, their consistent response is to point to a cycle of unjustified investigations into unjustified allegations against soldiers. This Bill will not stop that. In her letter of 26 February, the noble Baroness wisely does not claim that it will. Rather, while expressly accepting the need for continued improvement in investigations—I accept that significant improvements have been made—she sets out an argument for how the Bill might eventually improve them, to encourage those of us who are more inclined to argue for investigation legislation and prosecution legislation. This seems a rather odd argument, so I quote it. She says that
“while the Bill does not contain measures that would have a direct impact on the conduct of investigations … we have included measures in the Bill that may have an indirect impact.”
Surely it is better to legislate for steps that will directly impact the problem than to hope that, indirectly or incidentally, measures in the Bill, while not solving the problem, might in the course of time dilute it.
While I have great respect for the noble Baroness, as I have said, I regret that the paragraphs headed “criminal measures and investigations” in her letter do not provide a justification for this legislation, devoid as it is of any overt attempt to address the real problem. It is no answer to this criticism that, for further improvements to the investigative and prosecutorial process, we should wait for the outcome of the review by Sir Richard Henriques to
“complement this Bill in further reducing the uncertainty for Service personnel about investigations.”
In any case, is there not already a service report from last February, elements of which could have been included here and are not?
Further, it is difficult to be persuaded given what the Minister Johnny Mercer said in a Guardian podcast in 2019. This is not just any Minister—he is responsible for the passage of this Bill. Comprehensively, he set out the problems in that podcast, saying that
“one of the biggest problems … was the military’s inability to investigate itself … and the standard of those investigations … If those investigations were done properly … we probably wouldn’t be here today.”
When the noble Baroness responds, could she address the content of that podcast? At Second Reading I sought to tempt her to do so, but she did not. Can she explain why an explanation of the cause of the problem that was good enough for Johnny Mercer in 2019 should be ignored by your Lordships’ House today, and can she justify those seven paragraphs of her letter?
Also, the failings and imposition of shoddy further investigations on earlier investigations were not brought about in many circumstances by those set out in the letter from the noble Baroness; they were brought about by the arguments put forward in litigation that had its roots in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it was successfully argued that insufficient inquiries had been made into credible allegations of abuse at the relevant time. Had there been competent criminal inquiries within a reasonable period of time of the allegations, it surely would have been much more likely that the victims would have received justice and those who had been unfairly accused would have been fully exonerated within a reasonable period of the allegations.
This is a view held by many current and former members of the Armed Forces and one of the many reasons, as I understand it, why Judge Advocate-General Jeff Blackett has expressed serious concerns about the Bill. The Director of Service Prosecutions, essentially agreeing with the 2019 version of Johnny Mercer’s analysis, recognised that it is the lack of prompt investigations at the time that lies at the heart of the issue.
If the Government are not going to engage with the real problem when it is obvious and identified by a diverse group of people with expertise and experience in this area, it is the duty of your Lordships’ House to amend the Bill to do just that. That is what these amendments seek to do: they are designed to ensure prompt, independent investigations into criminal allegations. Their absence from the Bill is fatal to its purpose. The acceptance of these amendments is in the interests of victims and of our military. The experience that too many of them have gone through compels us to put in place a system where complaints are investigated properly and dealt with within a reasonable amount of time. That ought to be our priority.
Lord Boyce (CB) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Browne, on this because I agree with the thrust of his comments. The Bill sets out to make statutory provision about legal proceedings for our Armed Forces when they are or have been engaged in overseas operations, which, of course, is a very laudable aim. However, the Bill’s significant emphasis on the presumption against prosecution as a way of relieving some of the stress of legal proceedings is misplaced. It is the investigation and then the reinvestigation process that so wears people down. A prosecution may even be a form of relief when it comes.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt the noble and gallant Lord, but we cannot hear him very well. We shall come back to him later in the debate.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
Lord Boyce, we will come back to you later. I now call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]
My Lords, I spent four years at an earlier stage in my career as a prosecutor in Scotland. I was one of the Lord Advocate’s relatively small team of Crown counsel, known as his advocate deputes. For much of that time, the Lord Advocate was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. It is a real pleasure to see him taking part in our proceedings this afternoon. It was part of my job to take decisions under his authority as to whether or not a prosecution should be brought, and to conduct the prosecution if it was decided that it should proceed. I therefore have some insight into how these decisions are taken.
Of course, there are differences between my job then and what we are contemplating now. I was working in Scotland, under its own system of criminal law, about 40 years ago. While nothing much was actually written down then, there were some well-understood principles to guide us. Much of this was based on the fact that we were acting in the public interest. We had to balance the interests of justice against the accused’s right to a fair trial. Within those broad concepts, there was room for a variety of other factors that we would take into account, guided by common sense and what we had learned by experience.
That having been said, I acknowledge that in today’s world there is the need for a more formalised system of rules. That helps to achieve consistency in decision-making, and it helps to reassure the public that these important decisions are soundly based. In the context of this Bill, I acknowledge that “the public” must include service personnel serving or who have served in operations overseas. After all, reassurance to them is what this Bill is all about.
That brings me to Amendment 3, and afterwards to Amendments 5, 6 and 28. The wording of Amendment 3 does not come as any surprise to me. It relates to the ability to conduct a fair trial, and makes a proposition that hardly needs to be said. As the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton, said, this principle applies as a matter of course. I cannot imagine that the proposition would have escaped my attention had I been responsible for taking these decisions, but of course the real point of Amendment 3 is to challenge the presumption and replace it with something else which has equivalent force, removing the hard edge of presumption.
On the whole, I am uneasy about a presumption that applies after a particular time limit. Cases vary and the facts differ from case to case; what might be absolutely right in one case could be very unfortunate in another. There is a real difference, however, between the presumption in Clause 3, which uses the word “exceptional”, and the word “materially”, which is the key word in the amendment. It is a much softer alternative. I am uneasy as to whether it really is an adequate replacement for the presumption if the aim is to get rid of the presumption and replace it with something of equal force.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I will not seek to replicate the eloquence and experience of noble and noble and learned Lords, including noble friends who have spoken before me. Instead, I will take on the challenge of addressing the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, directly, because he is the person with whom I most disagree. From his comments in the previous group, I think he is particularly concerned about lawyers in this context. Perhaps he shares some of the concerns of his colleagues in the other place about warfare and a lack of warmth and respect for our Armed Forces.
I would like to reply to him in the following way in case it helps us develop some common ground in scrutinising this legislation. For pretty much the whole of my career as a human rights lawyer and campaigner, I have been accused—I would say falsely—of being soft on crime, soft on those suspected of crime and soft on those accused of crime. I would say that I am not soft: I just believe that people should be protected from false accusations and charges by due process, and that a miscarriage of justice—a wrongful conviction —delivers more, not fewer, victims. That has been my view, whether the person accused is in civilian life or in uniform, so I have not given up—nor have other lawyers in this debate or in the country at large—on the jealous protection of due process just because the people who are accused may be members of our military.
The concerns expressed by everyone on this group of amendments, and many on the earlier group, are about this part of the Bill addressing prosecutions—which have not been a problem—instead of investigations. That is why the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, wished that we could have got to the meat—the heart—of the debate sooner, but that is not in the natural order of things. Legislators, as opposed to Governments, are not in a position to do what is really required, which is to redesign and devote investment to a robust investigative system that is suitably independent, swift and resourced. Instead, we have these amendments, which probe what fair and robust investigations would look like to safeguard —I stress, safeguard—military personnel from the concerns that they have expressed over many years from the shadow that hangs over them. That is why the amendments are well put, if only in the first instance as probing.
The noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, said that he did not really see the value of Amendment 3, in the name of my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford—who spoke so ably earlier on—because it would replace Clause 2, which is about prosecutions being “exceptional”, with a new, perhaps more convoluted form of words, which he might think is trees and not wood, about the dangers of being “materially prejudiced” by the passage of time. “Exceptional” is not desperately helpful as a new test when prosecutions have been so truly exceptional up to now. Prosecutions have not been a problem. No one is suggesting that lots of vexatious prosecutions have been a problem but merely that people have been worried about them because of shoddy, lengthy and delayed investigations. The status quo is for prosecutions to be quite exceptional. We are not seeing very much by way of guidance to prosecutors in the current Clause 2, which says that such prosecutions, as part of a triple lock, should be exceptional.
Further, we still have a Human Rights Act, and this legislation has to be predicated on the fact that that will continue—certainly, CHIS legislation was tightly predicated on that proposition. There has been case law during the tenure of the Human Rights Act showing that, if it is necessary to do so to comply with human rights, “exceptional” can be read as something that is much more routine. If, as some of us believe, this legislation, unamended, would give rise to violations of victims’ human rights, “exceptional” in the current Clause 2 would have to be construed by courts as something that is quite possibly less than exceptional and therefore not the position that the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, would like. Amendment 3 as proposed by my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, is much more precise about what is sought to be avoided in the interests of the accused, which is a test that they not be materially prejudiced by the time elapsed. We are supposedly here to reassure armed personnel, who we know are very concerned about time elapsing, and their chances of a fair trial being prejudiced by that, because of the shoddy, delayed and repeat investigations that we have seen.
If I were serving in the military, I would take much greater comfort from protections in relation to these investigations in general, but, if we are going to look at provisions of this kind—which I do not support, because I do not support the presumption against prosecution—this concept of being materially prejudiced by the passage of time, through no fault of my own, should give far greater comfort to me as an accused than would the word “exceptional”, which could become devoid of content.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB) [V]
My Lords, when the Minister introduced this Bill at Second Reading, she said that she detected broad sympathy with its objectives. If she meant the objective of protecting our veterans against repeated and delayed reinvestigations for which there is no new or compelling reason, I am quite sure she was right. The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, mentioned Major Bob Campbell, as has the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, today. Major Campbell was investigated multiple times over 17 years in relation to the death of an Iraqi teenager—eight times according to the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, and 11 times according to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks—before being finally exonerated last year by an inquiry led by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett.
That multiplicity of investigations is something that surely no noble Lord would wish to defend, although the fact that the ICC prosecutor looked carefully at the case and decided not to proceed only because there had been a thorough investigation by the state should be a warning against any complacency that we can weaken our standards of investigation while still keeping the ICC at bay.
Amendment 28 seeks to attack the problem of multiple investigations directly by injecting an element of independent quality control into the investigations process. It would require further investigations to be conditional on compelling new evidence emerging and on an allocated judge advocate considering the totality of the evidence to be sufficiently strong. Like the Henriques review, which I welcome, Amendment 28 has the advantage of straightforwardly addressing the issue of repeated inconclusive investigations. I would, however, voice two reservations, with ICC-proofing in mind. First, is a judge advocate a sufficiently independent figure to apply the filter? Secondly, a high bar is set by the requirement of “compelling new evidence”, a bar which one would not normally expect to be surmounted without the conclusion of precisely the further investigation for which this test would be a precondition. Perhaps I might suggest “there is a compelling reason” as more realistic wording for proposed new subsection (2)(a).
Amendment 17 seeks to address slow investigations. Proposed new subsections (3) and (5) would put some time limits into the process. That, again, strikes me as a solution which, whether appropriate or not in all its detail, is at least directed to a real problem. Let us take the case of Baha Mousa, who died in British custody in 2003 after being hooded, deprived of food and water, and beaten, sustaining at least 93 injuries. The first round of prosecutions, to which the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton, referred earlier, was characterised by a closing of ranks and achieved only a single conviction, in 2007, on a guilty plea by a corporal to a charge of inhumane conduct. There followed a three-year public inquiry, led by Sir William Gage, which in its three-volume report of September 2011 made detailed findings about the circumstances of Baha Mousa’s death and identified 19 soldiers directly involved in his abuse. The Iraq Historical Allegations Team was tasked in May 2012 to review that report with a view to assessing whether more could be done to bring those responsible to justice.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
I believe that we are trying to reconnect with the noble Lord, Lord Boyce.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Lord should now continue and we will see how well we can hear him.
Lord Boyce (CB) [V]
My Lords, this Bill sets out to make better provision on legal proceedings for our Armed Forces when they are, or have been, engaged in overseas operations. This is a very laudable aim, but the Bill’s significant emphasis on presumption against prosecution as a way of relieving some of the stress of legal proceedings is misplaced. It is the investigation and reinvestigation process that so wears people down, and prosecution, when it comes, may even be a form of relief. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, alluded to this matter of waiting in the last group of amendments.
Anyway, we should bear in mind that, even when the presumption is in place, there is no total lifting of the threat of prosecution after five years. As the Minister has told us, this can still happen if the Attorney-General sees fit. Furthermore, there could be the spectre of an even longer investigative process if the case falls into the hands of the ICC. I know that the matter of the ICC has been well covered this afternoon, and that the Minister has sought to reassure us on this point, but I am afraid that I am not convinced. Nor it seems is the ICC, which apparently remains unconvinced by any assurances that the Government may have tried to make in defence of the Bill.
This is by the way, because, as I have mentioned, it is the investigation process that needs primarily to be addressed: to be sharpened up to ensure that it is not a fishing expedition, that there is value in pursuing the matter under consideration, that it is constrained in length, and that reinvestigations are launched only after the most careful judicial oversight. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has captured all this rather well, as indeed have other noble Lords. It is for these reasons and others that I support Amendments 5 and 28, to which I have put my name, and, indeed, other amendments in this group. I concur with much of what other noble Lords have eloquently said on the matter of investigations; I will spare your Lordships a repeat of all that has gone before in this group.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
My Lords, the problem of investigations—as well as of late and inadequate investigations—should be addressed and the process sharpened up. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, told us this a moment ago and I thoroughly agree with him. The problems have been very clearly outlined by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. I echo the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who emphasised that justice must be done based on thorough and prompt investigation. The noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton, is sure that investigations have improved in recent years; I hope that that is true.
I stress first of all the inherent difficulties of investigations into alleged conduct arising out of overseas operations. The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, believes that they should be timely and of quality—of course they should. In the United Kingdom, most crimes are investigated by one or more of the 45 or so police forces within their area of operations. Local police forces can readily pull in extra investigatory resources, including scientific investigations, if they need them.
By contrast, investigations by the military police may occur anywhere in the world. Co-operation by the civilian population or even the civilian police cannot be guaranteed. There are usually significant linguistic and cultural problems in the collection of statements from witnesses. It may be that a complainant—a foreign national—has his own axe to grind. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, reminded me, with the Baha Mousa case, of another problem, where the judge said in his closing remarks that there had been a closing of ranks; that is a problem with the natural desire of soldiers to support each other.
There can be security problems. When in 2005 it was decided that an inspection of a dusty Iraq village was desirable, a whole company or more of 200 soldiers was deployed to provide protection for the dozen or so sheepish lawyers who attended. I was not one of them: the MoD was not prepared to insure the silks in the case. There is no immediate access to the support that a civilian police force in this country might expect. It follows that delays are inherent and inevitable, but they are not desirable. Yet we can read the whole of this Bill and find nothing which deals with the essential preliminary to any prosecution: a thorough, prompt investigation.
This group of amendments suggests various pathways to ensuring that the length and efficiency of an investigation is controlled. Amendment 17, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Smith, sets out a practical route for putting the investigation under the control of the Director of Service Prosecutions. An investigator must, within six months of the complaint, provide a preliminary report to the DSP of the progress of his investigation. As may well happen informally in any event, the DSP may give guidance on the lines of inquiry which would be appropriate.
In my amendment, if, on an assessment of all the papers, the DSP sees no future in the investigation, he would have the power to terminate it then and there. If he orders the investigation to continue, there would be regular reporting to him of the progress of the inquiry, again with the possibility of him calling a halt. I have discussed this with the former Judge Advocate-General, Judge Blackett. He is of the view that control of the investigation is highly desirable but that the power to stop an investigation should rest with a designated judge, not with the DSP. A moment ago, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, suggested that this might not be satisfactory and that a more independent person should be involved in supervising an investigation. I am not really worried about what way one approaches it, but there should be control of an investigation to ensure that it is proceeding at a proper pace and in a proper direction. I think there was a modicum of support for that amendment even from the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton. Since the DSP has the undoubted power to decide not to prosecute on the conclusion of an investigation, I do not see any problem with the DSP controlling the steps leading up to the final report.
I have also added my name to Amendment 3 on the basis that, at the very least, in deciding whether to prosecute, the DSP should have in the forefront of his mind whether a fair trial has been materially prejudiced by delay or by the quality of the investigation. I have in the past made submissions in court that a fair trial is impossible through delay, pre-trial publicity or matters of that sort, but never with success. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, criticised Amendment 3 as too soft. I do not think so, if it is given a statutory formulation. It would be given weight as an important consideration for the DSP at the time of his decision whether to commence proceedings at all. I submitted earlier this afternoon that a presumption against prosecution is not the way forward. Whether a fair trial is possible should be an important consideration before the prosecution commences.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, once again we have all been struck by the quality of the debate, which has penetrated issues that are legitimately at the heart of the Bill. Noble Lords who have raised issues related to the Bill are rightly seeking clarification and reassurance about what different components of the Bill mean, and particularly where the whole issue of investigations lies in relation to it.
I will begin with Amendment 3, moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. The Government’s intention with the measures that we have introduced in Part 1 of the Bill is to provide demonstrable reassurance to our service personnel and veterans. It is not only a worthy aspiration but a necessary one. It is a demonstrable reassurance in relation to the threat of legal proceedings arising from alleged events occurring many years earlier on operations overseas. This has meant balancing the need to introduce protective measures for service personnel and veterans and remaining compliant with our domestic and international obligations.
On the one hand, the measures set a high threshold for a prosecutor to determine that a case should be prosecuted, as well as ensuring that the adverse impact of overseas operations will be given particular weight in favour of the serviceperson or veteran; on the other hand, as I have previously said, the measures do not and cannot act as an amnesty or statute of limitations, do not fetter the prosecutor’s discretion in making a decision to prosecute, and are compliant with international law. I believe that we have achieved this balance, this equilibrium, in the combination of Clause 2, the presumption, and Clause 3, the matters to be given particular weight. We are providing the additional protection that our service personnel and veterans so greatly deserve, while ensuring that in exceptional circumstances individuals can still be prosecuted for alleged offences.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
I am obliged for the detailed and very careful reply that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, gave, and I am particularly grateful to her for overriding instructions—that is the wrong word—given to her by the Government Whips. I am also appreciative of the very rich debate we have just had. I will draw attention to three particular interventions. First, my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton expressed the view that everybody subsequently expressed, including the Minister, that it is the lengthy investigations that we are trying to deal with here. Secondly, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, made the point that the real evil here is investigation and reinvestigation; and, thirdly, my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti said, “Look, this presumption that the Government are relying on about exceptionality will not provide much protection when you see the low numbers of prosecutions that have been given.”
I earnestly ask the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, to consider carefully the points that have been made in the course of this debate by everybody. I am increasingly concerned about the presumption. It does not do the trick, because it does not provide the reassurance that is required. It raises very problematic questions of international law, it does not deal with very many cases, and it risks bringing in the ICC. So it will not give the reassurance that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, are looking for. There were signs that the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, in supporting Amendment 28, might be beginning to support some of the proposals that we are making.
So I earnestly ask the noble Baroness to think again about this, because we are united in what we are trying to achieve, and the presumption in Clause 2 does not do it. Of course I beg leave to withdraw my amendment, but we will certainly return to these issues on Report, because this is the heart of the Bill.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
We come to the group beginning with Amendment 4. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Clause 3: Matters to be given particular weight
Amendment 4
Baroness Massey of Darwen
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the other amendments to Clause 3 in the name of Baroness Massey would delete the requirement to give “particular weight” in any prosecution decision after 5 years to a person having an impaired ability to exercise self-control or to exercise sound judgement whilst being deployed on operations overseas.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, again I am speaking as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and the amendments are again based on the views of expert witnesses who contributed to its report. I shall speak to Amendments 4, 7 and 8. They relate to Clause 3 and would delete the requirement to give “particular weight” in any prosecution decision after five years to a person having an impaired ability to exercise self-control or to exercise sound judgment while being deployed on operations overseas. The amendments would omit Clause 3(2)(a), (3) and (4). Their concern is similar to concerns in Clause 11 in relation to limitations on bringing proceedings under the Human Rights Act.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights report on the Bill explains in chapter 3 that:
“In domestic law the prosecution would take into account a person’s mental health as part of the decision as to whether a prosecution is in the public interest—and this is a factor that would currently already apply to prosecutions of members of the Armed Forces. Moreover, a person who is not fit to plead at the time of trial would not be assessed for the … mental element … of an offence. A defendant could raise a plea of insanity as a defence if at the time of the offence their mental condition was so impaired that they were unable to understand the act they were doing or that it was wrong.”
Paragraph 77 of the report states:
“The MoD should not be sending Armed Forces personnel on deployment who are unable to make ‘sound judgements’, who cannot ‘exercise self-control’ or whose mental health is so severely affected that the MoD does not consider that they should be responsible for their criminal actions. Moreover, if a member of the Armed Forces becomes unable to make ‘sound judgements’, can no longer ‘exercise self-control’ or where there are significant concerns about their mental health, then there should be adequate systems in place to relieve that person of their operational duties, remove them from the conflict situation (where appropriate) and give them the support that they need.”
The Joint Committee on Human Rights expressed concern at paragraph 76 that,
“the Bill does not provide any incentives for the military hierarchy to ensure that members of the Armed Forces who are mentally unfit to be deployed get removed from operational duties and given the support that they need. Instead it includes an impediment to prosecuting a person whose judgement may be impaired, who lacks adequate self-control or whose mental health may have been affected”.
Service personnel are trained to deal with complex situations, and there are undoubtedly high-stress situations in combat. Due account must be taken of these complexities as part of any decision on whether to bring a prosecution. However, it should not be part of a statutory barrier to bringing prosecutions when they are in the public interest.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights does not consider that there is any solid basis for including additional requirements that could risk granting de facto impunity to those who have committed crimes on the grounds that the perpetrator lacked sound judgment or could not exercise self-control beyond the threshold already established in criminal law. For that reason, the committee recommends deleting Clause 3(2)(a), (3) and (4). I beg to move.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]
My Lords, the question is when this condition intervenes. It would be one thing to send a person over to a foreign assignment with that condition at that time, but there must be a risk that the impetus of foreign work in certain conditions would bring about these conditions in the person in question. There is therefore a real question as to whether or not the matter of the investigation discloses that the person in question became subject to that condition as a result of his being in the operation abroad. It does not necessarily mean that a person is sent into the work with that kind of condition. I would have thought that that distinction was quite important since the idea of the clause seems to be that they look to see whether or not the conditions under which the military man or woman has been working have produced these results, so far as their mental health is concerned.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]
My Lords, in principle I am quite concerned about overprescribing matters to be taken into account, because I would want all prosecutors in relation to all suspects to have a very broad discretion to take into account all sorts of adverse factors in fairness to a potential accused. None the less the Minister, who is the most gifted and reasonable advocate, says that part of the purpose of the Bill is reassurance—presumably even if that is a psychological comfort rather than an actual legal one, because I am sure that all relevant factors are currently available.
The Minister also talks about balance and equilibrium. In that spirit I am concerned, given that it is said that prosecution after five years is now going to be wholly exceptional, that no factors are listed in the Bill that militate towards that exceptional prosecution. Why not? Surely that would be the balanced thing to do in the spirit of equilibrium. Why is there no mention here of issues such as covert operations, witnesses and indeed victims of war crimes potentially having been incarcerated, or the crime being particularly undetectable because of collusion by people within an operational cohort or even at a higher level? It seems strange as a matter of good law to have put in the factors that militate against prosecution, which we are told is to be exceptional, as two parts of the triple lock, but to have given no guidance at all as to the exceptional circumstances. With that in mind, I can only agree with the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which is such an important committee for both Houses in performing their role in relation to human rights, and with the remarks of my noble friend Lady Massey.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness. I am grateful to her for, dare I say, reaching out during the last group of amendments and attempting to reach some common ground. I think we are seeking to achieve similar things, albeit coming from very different perspectives, since I was a practitioner, as it were, in the past. I looked very carefully at the amendment and, for fear of being damned with faint praise by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, there are aspects that I absolutely understand.
As ever, though, the problem has just been hit on the head by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, and that is the application. It is one thing to say that people who are suffering should not be put into a war zone, and that is absolutely right. However, the application matters when you are already in a war zone—a distant FOB—and within a small group with no ability to blow a whistle and stop the war in order to be withdrawn from the situation, along with the gradual deterioration of the condition over a period of time. This will not necessarily be seen by those around you because they are suffering similar things. It is not quite as easy to put into practical application during operations, which is why we need to be careful.
When I was training to become a bomb disposal officer, I knew absolutely what I was letting myself in for. Having served on operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, most recently in Afghanistan while I was a Member of Parliament, it is not always possible to see these deteriorations. It is important to realise that a medical or psychiatric condition may or may not be recognised at the time. Prosecutors are already required to have regard to any significant mental or physical ill-health or disability as in some circumstances this may mean that it is less likely that a prosecution is required. Clause 3 simply seeks to ensure that such considerations are put on to a statutory footing within the unique context of an overseas operation.
I recognise that I come at this from a different angle and I can see the precise way in which noble and noble and learned Lords are looking at the Bill, but I will go back to the comments I made earlier. This is also about sending a message. By putting this on to a statutory footing in the Bill, it will send a clear message to members of our Armed Forces that the Government and Parliament understand that we are asking them to do extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances. This would be a recognition of that.
Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I also speak as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights which produced the report on this Bill, and it is what is in that report which will influence the brief comments that I shall make. I support what my noble friend Lady Massey has said.
I accept fully that it is most unlikely that the Armed Forces would send someone abroad who was not capable of making sound judgments. The issue, as evidenced by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, just now and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, is whether people in a war zone, in very difficult and dangerous circumstances, might develop a condition where their judgment was not as sound as when they were sent there. However, my understanding is that soundness of judgment is something that underlies all prosecutorial decisions in the criminal law of this country anyway, so I am not clear as to why we should treat soldiers differently from the way that the law normally works.
I can do no better than to quote from paragraph 79 of the JCHR report:
“The mental health of a defendant is already borne in mind as part of the prosecutorial decision as to whether it is in the public interest to bring a prosecution. We do not consider that there is any solid basis for including an additional requirement that could risk granting de facto impunity to those who have committed crimes on the grounds that the perpetrator lacked sound judgement, or could not exercise self-control, beyond the threshold already established in criminal law. For this reason, we would recommend deleting clause 3(2)(a), 3(3) and 3(4).”
The key words in this are
“beyond the threshold already established in criminal law.”
If we believe that the threshold in our criminal law is adequate, we do not need this extra provision. That is the basis on which I will support what my noble friend Lady Massey said at the beginning of this debate.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, has withdrawn, so I call the next speaker.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]
My Lords, we stand foursquare behind our troops and we want to work with the Government to build the broadest consensus possible on the Bill—tailored to supporting our Armed Forces members and safeguarding human rights. The amendments in this group aim to probe an understanding of what particular weight a prosecutor must give when considering a prosecutorial decision related to alleged conduct during overseas operations. As we have heard, Amendment 4 would remove the requirement on a prosecutor to consider the adverse effect on the person of the conditions they were exposed to. Amendment 7 would remove the requirement on the prosecutor to consider any exceptional demands and stresses, while Amendment 8 would remove the definition of any adverse effects, including making sound judgments or considering mental health.
The amendments are based on concerns raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights which stated:
“We do not consider that there is any solid basis for including additional requirements that could risk granting de facto impunity.”
If mental health is already considered by prosecutors, as indicated by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, why do the Government believe it necessary to include it in this Bill? As the Minister will see, these requirements have not been considered by prosecutors before. Also, as my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer asked in the previous group, why have the Government not included a requirement for prosecutors to give weight to the quality and duration of relevant investigations? The Armed Forces Judge Advocate, General Jeff Blackett, has said:
“Clause 3 is engaged after five years. It seems bizarre to me that in deciding whether to prosecute, you have a post-five-year test, but not a pre-five-year test.”
Why have the Government drafted Clause 3 in this way? What independent legal advice was given in relation to the drafting of the clause? Vexatious claims are a serious problem, but we fear that the focus on a presumption against prosecution misses the point: it is the current cycle of investigations. We can see that from how the Government have failed to give particular weight to the quality and duration of the investigations in this clause.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, once again, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and all other contributors to the debate for a fertile discussion. At the risk of sounding repetitive, I shall probably repeat some of the themes to which I have already referred.
In relation to these amendments, I would comment that we ask a huge amount of our service personnel. We send them to undertake high-threat, high-risk operations in defence of our country and its people. They do their duty in the clear knowledge that they may be injured, maimed or even killed. That is the unique nature of their job and is what sets them apart from the rest of us. The Government believe therefore that it is absolutely right and reasonable to require that in return we ensure that a prosecutor, when coming to a decision to prosecute, must give particular weight to the unique circumstances of overseas operations and the adverse impact that these may have on a service person’s capacity to make sound judgments and on their mental health at the time of an alleged offence. This will be in addition to considering the existing evidential sufficiency and public interest test.
Let me make it clear that this is intended not to excuse bad behaviour by service personnel but to ensure that prosecutors give full recognition to the significant difference in the circumstances surrounding an alleged offence committed on operations overseas as compared, for example, with situations where the alleged criminal conduct occurs in a domestic, civilian setting.
Although differing views to the attitude of the Government have perhaps been expressed in the debate, as far as I could ascertain, contributors acknowledged that the conditions referred to in the Bill could indeed be personal impairments that might attach to Armed Forces personnel in the course of their operations overseas. That is why the prosecutor must consider the presumption against prosecution in Clause 2 and determine whether the case meets the exceptional threshold. The prosecutor must also, as required by Clause 3, give particular weight to matters that may effectively tip the balance in favour of not prosecuting.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the mover, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, again I thank the Minister for her concern and detailed response. Many wise comments and questions have been made. I appreciate what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, is saying about lack of sound judgment developing under stress in adverse conditions in conflict situations. The point that I wanted to make was that I agreed that that would happen, but part of what I was saying was that people needed support to come to terms with that, which could take a very long time.
My noble friends Lord Dubs and Lord Tunnicliffe gave a response. The question that my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti asked on why Clause 3 has been drafted in this way is important. In response to the Minister’s final comments, I should like to read what she said. It is difficult to be persuaded that prosecutors would find it difficult to understand the condition and environment in which service personnel are working. It is fairly obvious to most people that those circumstances are difficult. However, I should like to read what she said, and read the full debate, and discuss with colleagues what action we want to take next. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 10. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Amendment 10
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
“(3A) Where the consent of the Attorney General is sought under subsection (2) or (3), the Attorney General must prepare a report containing his or her reasons for granting or withholding consent, as the case may be, with reference to sections 1 to 3 of this Act, and must lay a copy of this report before each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Attorney General to lay out their evidence and assessment as to why they granted or refused consent to prosecute.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
There are three amendments in this group, Amendments 10, 11 and 12, which deal with the question of the need for the consent of the Attorney-General before a prosecution covered by the presumption goes ahead. This is an important but quite short series of issues; in effect, the Bill is adding in the consent of the Attorney-General as the third part of the triple lock, before prosecution is brought against military personnel in respect of overseas operations. Therefore, the consent will be required only when a prosecutor has decided that a case where over five years have gone by is exceptional, and the Attorney-General’s consent, or lack of it, will be of real significance only when he or she does not give it.
The consequences of the Attorney-General not giving consent are, in my view, threefold. First, it may well give rise to suggestions that the issue has been politicised. Secondly, the Attorney-General is very frequently involved in making or overriding decisions made in relation to operations overseas. For example, the Attorney-General will often give instruction and advice in relation to conditions of detention. It is worth reading the evidence given by Nicholas Mercer to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, where he described the involvement of the Attorney General’s Office in decisions that he had been involved in as a lawyer when, in foreign theatres of war, the use of force was involved. As such, my second point is that the Attorney-General may well have been involved in decisions that affect that theatre of war. From my own experience as Solicitor-General, I can tell you that that was indeed the case.
My third point is that, if the Attorney-General is going to override the prosecutor’s view that a prosecution should be brought, he will inevitably be increasing the risk that the matter is referred to or taken up by the ICC—because it will see a case where the prosecutor thinks that the prosecution has an over-50% chance of success and the public interest allows it, yet the Attorney-General has not allowed it to go ahead. Fourthly, if the Attorney-General is overriding the view of the prosecutor, which is the only time when this would be significant, questions will arise as to whether that puts the United Kingdom in breach of a whole range of international obligations—the Geneva convention, the United Nations Convention against Torture, Articles 2 and 3 of the human rights convention and the Rome convention, which is the International Criminal Court statute, in effect.
As such, our amendments first require the Attorney-General to give “reasons” as to whether he is giving or withholding consent, and laying them before Parliament. Secondly, Amendment 11 proposes that he must consider whether refusing consent will
“increase the likelihood of the International Criminal Court exercising its own competence”.
Thirdly, Amendment 12 proposes that he must consider whether his refusing consent would constitute a “breach of international law”. These amendments are laid by way of probing. We have real concerns about this provision and that it will not provide added protection but will instead give rise to very significant legal risks. I beg to move.
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, these amendments seek to make the Attorney-General and the Advocate-General for Northern Ireland more accountable in relation to what we might call “late prosecutions”, and in particular more accountable to Parliament. The obligation in Amendment 10 provides for a report to Parliament in the event of either the granting or withholding of consent for such a prosecution. I accept what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said—that there may be more interest in circumstances where the Attorney-General does not consent to a prosecution.
Amendment 11 provides that the Attorney-General should give consent if there is an increased likelihood of ICC involvement. In Amendment 12 he or she must give consent if not doing so would lead to a breach of international law. Normally, advice from law officers to the Government is not disclosed to Parliament—nor even is the fact that advice has been sought—so to some extent these amendments are a bit of a novelty.
I have considered a number of lawyers’ views about whether the courts, as opposed to Parliament, could be involved in reviewing a decision by the Attorney-General either to consent to a prosecution or not to consent. The balance of view seems to be a cautious yes, although the courts would be expected to exercise a so-called “light-touch review”. In other words, it is unlikely that the courts would quash a decision of this sort.
I was most interested to hear what the noble and learned Lord said about these amendments because, on reading them, I was not quite sure what would be in the report proposed for receipt by Parliament. What would the law officer have to say? Would he or she simply cite public interest, gravity of offences and reasonable prospect of conviction in the event of a decision to prosecute, and presumably the opposite in the event of a decision not to prosecute? I suppose there might be some reference to the length of time between the acts concerned and the decision to prosecute. Of course, he or she would not be expected to give detailed reasons on the strengths of a particular witness or worries about one aspect of the evidence, or something of that sort. I am not sure what Parliament is going to do with that information, but I accept that accountability to Parliament is generally desirable.
As to the obligation under Amendment 11 in relation to the ICC, my understanding of the ICC—and I have attended one of its conferences in Rome—is that it is a court devoted to the macro rather than the micro, as I said when referring to the evidence of Major Campbell. It is also concerned mostly with offences at a high level.
Such prosecutions are often quasi-political—and I do not mean that in a pejorative sense. I recall that the perceived political element of the court was such that a number of countries walked out of the conference in Rome in the first few minutes as a protest at the alleged political element. Of course, the Rome statute is one to which the United States of America is not a signatory.
In one sense, the failure to prosecute or a decision not to prosecute by the Attorney-General must mean that there is an increased likelihood of ICC involvement, although I am not sure how that can be assessed. I entirely support our involvement with the ICC, but there are often complex reasons, including the availability of resources, which determine whether or not there are prosecutions. Our general support for the ICC as an institution should not be diluted in any way, but I am not sure that fear of ICC involvement should mean that the Attorney-General cannot come to the conclusion he or she thinks appropriate in these circumstances.
Similarly, the question of a putative breach of international law seems to me to be rather superfluous. There is an obligation, as I understand it, on the part of the law officers, as Ministers, to comply with the Ministerial Code. That obligation includes an obligation to obey the law, including international law. I do not want to revisit the difficult territory covered by the internal market Bill, but my understanding of the Ministerial Code, and I am on record as saying as much in your Lordships’ House, is that the obligation includes international as well as domestic law—although sometimes international law may not be as easily ascertainable—so I am not currently aware of the need for this extra obligation.
I acknowledge that these amendments are essentially probing, so that Parliament can understand better the process by which the Attorney-General would be involved in so-called late prosecutions. I share the interest of the noble and learned Lord in how the process might work generally, but I am not for the moment persuaded that any of these amendments is either appropriate or necessary.
Finally, I am uneasy about the alleged political component of the Attorney-General’s involvement. I think the role of the Attorney-General in this sort of circumstance is pre-eminently not a political one, but it is ironic that the involvement of Parliament in some way that is envisaged by these amendments could, in fact, run the risk of some important boundaries being crossed.
The Deputy Chairman of Committee (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, has withdrawn from this group, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, that was quite interesting, actually, because of course these amendments are trying to create some sort of accountability for the Attorney-General. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, was going to say something about the Attorney-General being rather more political than in the past, because of course the office of Attorney-General has been sadly undermined in recent years, particularly last year with the Attorney-General’s quick defence of Dominic Cummings’ unlawful behaviour. That was, I fear, just one example, and the fact that she then so quickly rowed back from her position to a position of it being only her political decision and not a legal opinion shows how easy it is for an Attorney-General to step over that increasingly faint line. In that, I think that she mistakenly excused illegality in the name of political expediency. We, of course, cannot become complicit in that, so I was extremely pleased to sign the shadow Attorney-General’s Amendments 10, 11 and 12.
I am concerned that this triple lock in the Bill can actually lock justice out. Even if the power of justice is strong enough to overcome the first two locks, we have to trust the Attorney-General to make the right decision on the third lock, which of course would be very difficult. The Attorney-General therefore has to publish their reasons when making decisions, because these decisions should be made according to normal standards of administrative propriety and should rightly be subject to judicial review. Where the reasons for the decisions are irrational, unlawful or irrelevant, they should be able to be overturned. Where the decision is purely politically motivated and has no foundation in facts, the law or the interests of justice, equally it should be overturned. These amendments are essential to ensure that this is the case.
Such important decisions as those envisaged in the Bill must never be made on a whim or be purely political. Justice has to be done and be seen to be done. I would just like to add that various noble Lords have suggested that some things are impossible to understand if you have not experienced warfare or action of that kind. Of course, that is absolutely true, but we are not talking about a lack of sympathy for service personnel; we are talking about criminal acts. That is the basis of what this law is about; it is not to do with whether we have sympathy or not, it is about criminal acts, and it is important to remember that.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer and to the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Jones, from whom we have just heard, for tabling these amendments. They have cemented in my mind concerns that I expressed at Second Reading about the role of the Attorney-General as the third lock in the architecture of this Bill.
In response to comments made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, about how, if it is such a problem, we have a problem with the role of the Attorney-General in the constitution per se, I would say not quite. We know that the Attorney-General wears different hats—sometimes legal adviser to the Government and sometimes to Parliament—and sometimes acts in a separate role in relation to the public interest. Those hats are capable of being worn at different times. No doubt it takes a bit of skill to get the balance right, but in normal, civilian prosecutions, I suggest that an Attorney-General is very unlikely to have been giving legal advice on, for example, the investigative process; they would be very unlikely to have given advice directly to the police on the search that gave rise to the prosecution.
This is not the case in war and conflict, where the Attorney-General, as legal adviser to the Government, has undoubtedly been involved in the rules of engagement; they have quite possibly given very detailed advice on those rules and, as my noble and learned friend said, on matters concerning detention and so on. To make potentially the same person who advised on the legality of an operation the third lock on whether alleged criminality should be prosecuted seems to me unlikely to give confidence—the word “reassurance” has been used a lot—to anybody, whether that be civilian members of the public or military personnel. After all, this could be an Attorney-General who advised on the operation or one from a party that was very much opposed to the operation before it came into government. I have real concerns about the politicising of these prosecutions. One has only to think about the controversies in recent conflicts around the world to see that potential damage to public confidence, including among members of the Armed Forces on the front line and their families.
If the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, will forgive me a quick word, there was a little having of cake and eating it in his remarks. He referred—I do not think as a criticism—to the ICC as quasi-political. Given these various hats, someone might well say that of the senior law officer involved in these matters who sits in or comes to Cabinet, including war Cabinets. In terms of accountability, to give this role to the Attorney-General is to give it to a political person who is appointed directly by the Prime Minister—quite possibly, as I say, the Prime Minister who authorised an operation—and for that all to be in the shadows. The Attorney-General’s original advice on the legality of the conflict and perhaps specific operations is currently in the shadows and now the Attorney-General’s veto of the independent prosecutor’s decision will quite possibly be in the shadows as well. That is highly problematic.
I am grateful for these amendments, which I think are probing. In any event, I think the Attorney-General should not be involved in this way at all. It seriously risks politicising already very delicate matters.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I am particularly interested in her point about the Attorney-General not only offering advice on the potential conflict but being put in this position as well.
These amendments firmly caught my eye. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, outlined in his opening comments some of the challenges of overseas operations in a military context and politicisation—although in my mind all conflicts are political in one form or another. I immediately looked to see what historical examples there were of advice being published by the Attorney-General. There are not many. If we were to continue the theme of overseas operations and look back to probably the most controversial one of recent years—from 2003—the Attorney-General’s advice was certainly not published for that. Nor, I understand—though I am happy to be corrected—was it even given to Cabinet at the time. It is worth remembering how times change. There now seems to be an eagerness to publish the advice of the Attorney-General that was not there in 2003.
My instinct is that giving reasons goes against the grain of the constitutional principle regarding law officers’ advice: law officers do not confirm the facts or publish their legal advice or principles. I think that that is an important principle that enables frank advice to be given. If we accept that, an exception would create a slippery slope that could extend to other areas. There is also the reality that the sorts of information that the reasoning would be based on could have security implications, so should not be disclosed and would largely have to be omitted anyway. Lastly—I am no expert and this is a genuine question for noble and learned Lords in the House—I think that a judicial review, based on ordinary public law grounds, would surely be a sufficient check on decisions such as these.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
My Lords, the role of the Attorney-General in giving consent to a prosecution has been much discussed in the past. Following on from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, I note that the Law Commission reported in 1998, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, when she was Attorney-General, conducted a consultation following the controversy over the legality of the Iraq war. The precise result of that consultation is not clear. I am interested in the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that the role requires a fresh review; I agree with that.
In the context of this Bill, it is a simple question: in what circumstances is it appropriate for the Attorney-General to second-guess the decision of either the Director of Public Prosecutions or, in this proposal, the Director of Service Prosecutions? The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, also made an important point by referring to the conflict of interest that would arise if the Attorney-General has advised on the conduct or legality of an operation, or on the treatment of prisoners, and the issue is, for example, the way in which prisoners have been treated.
I remember that Lieutenant-Colonel Nick Mercer, when he was the senior legal adviser to the group in Iraq, advised that the way in which prisoners who had been taken were being treated—they were made to kneel with a sack over their head and their hands bound behind their back—was a breach of the European convention. He was howled down by the Ministry of Defence for voicing such an outrageous view—one that was subsequently upheld in the European Court of Human Rights.
If the presumption against prosecution survives, the DSP starts with a curb on his discretion, as we have discussed. If he thinks that the circumstances of a case oblige him to ignore the presumption against prosecution, his decision will be based on his judgment, first, whether there is sufficient evidence on a balance of probabilities to result in a conviction and, secondly, whether it is in the public or service interest to prosecute. If Amendment 3 were to be successful in any form, he would also have to take an overall decision on whether the possibility of a fair trial had been compromised by delay.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, this has been perhaps a narrower debate in relation to interesting legal issues but none the less, once again, productive and fertile. I realise that these amendments are the product of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thoroton, who has applied his considerable legal gifts to their drafting.
As has been explained, Amendments 10, 11 and 12 to Clause 5 seek to place a requirement on the Attorney-General to report to Parliament with the reasons for granting or withholding consent. The requirement in Clause 5 is that the consent of the Attorney-General for England and Wales, or the Advocate-General for Northern Ireland, has to be given before a case of an alleged offence committed by a serviceperson more than five years earlier on an overseas operation can proceed to prosecution. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, asked what the Attorney-General was doing in this Bill. We have introduced the consent function because it is important for service personnel and veterans to be confident that their case will be considered with care at the highest levels of our justice system.
The Attorney-General is left to discharge that obligation independently. As the Committee is aware, requiring the consent of the Attorney-General for a prosecution is not unusual. She already has numerous other consent functions, including for the institution of all prosecutions for war crimes offences under the International Criminal Court Act 2001—nor does it mean that the Government have any role to play in a decision on consent. It is a constitutional principle that, when taking a decision on whether to consent to a prosecution, the Attorney-General acts quasi-judicially and independently of government, applying the well-established prosecution principles of evidential sufficiency and public interest. I seem to remember that on Second Reading my noble friend Lord Faulks articulated that position very eloquently, and I think that it is generally understood.
We feel that it is not appropriate for the Attorney-General to comment on any individual or ongoing investigation or prosecution. I am aware of no statutory requirement anywhere else for the Attorney-General to report in relation to individual casework decisions. We do not believe, therefore, that it would be appropriate to introduce such a requirement in the Bill. As I have said elsewhere, preserving the independence and discretion of the prosecutor is vital to the Part 1 measures. Without this, we cannot ensure that cases are treated fairly, nor can we prevent the ICC from stepping in. Adding a measure to the Bill that would require the Attorney-General to make a public statement before Parliament about specific prosecutions would quite simply interfere with that discretion. That would be an unusual and, I suggest, unwise innovation. Interestingly, critics of the Bill have expressed concern that giving the Attorney-General a role in Part 1 risks introducing politics into what should be a criminal justice process. Indeed, the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Chakrabarti, voiced these concerns. We do not agree that this is true for the Bill as drafted, but I pose the question: surely these amendments risk that precise outcome. Certainly my noble friend Lord Faulks confirmed that apprehension.
Amendments 11 and 12 would require the Attorney-General to make a prediction about whether the International Criminal Court will exercise its competence in a particular case, make a judgment about whether a prosecution would
“lead to a breach of international law”,
and then compel her to act in a certain way. I think that even the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, would agree that both these amendments would be an unprecedented extension of the normal consent function that the Attorney-General has in relation to the prosecution of offences. The International Criminal Court is an independent body, and it would be inappropriate for the Attorney-General to speculate about or pre-empt decisions that the International Criminal Court might make. Again, my noble friend Lord Faulks commented on that. The phrase “international law” is included in Amendment 12 but is undefined. It is not clear which international laws the amendment is attempting to incorporate into the Bill.
In my opinion, we should allow the evidence that has been produced to the prosecutor, and the public interest, to speak for itself in each individual case, considered by an independent prosecutor, using their discretion. We should not force the Attorney-General to potentially compromise his or her independence in a particular case by adjudicating on these other matters. For that reason, I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
I am obliged to everyone who participated in the debate and to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for the care with which she answered the questions raised.
As the debate went on, I became increasingly concerned about the involvement of the Attorney-General. I am a very strong believer in the necessity for a Minister in the Government who has functions to protect the rule of law in the way in which the Attorney-General does in the Government of the United Kingdom and the Lord Advocate does in the Government of Scotland. In relation to the criminal justice system, including for the military, it is critical that the Attorney-General is, and is seen to be, politically independent of the Government in a way in which the current Attorney-General, Suella Braverman, did not seem to be in relation to the Dominic Cummings question. There are also questions over the Lord Advocate in Scotland in relation to the redaction of Mr Salmond’s evidence to the constitutional committee.
What is being proposed here is, in effect, a circumstance in which the Attorney-General will override the view of a prosecutor. If the Attorney-General agrees with the prosecutor on bringing a prosecution, and the decision will only come to the Attorney-General once a decision has been made to prosecute, he or she will be overriding that decision. If the provision is to remain in the Bill, only if the Attorney-General or the Advocate-General explains why he or she is doing that will there be a sense that politics has not intervened. Only if he or she gives reasons that stand up to scrutiny will a sense of political involvement be removed.
I completely accept that my proposal is novel and would not constitute formal advice, and I accept the point made by a number of noble Lords that it would break with precedent. However, it is so important to preserve the evident independence of the Attorney-General. I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said to the Joint Committee on Human Rights that in performing this function, the Attorney-General would be acting entirely independently of government. If he or she says no to a prosecution that a professional prosecutor has said should go ahead, they should explain.
I will of course think carefully about what noble Lords have said in this debate but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 14. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Clause 6: “Relevant offence”
Amendment 14
“( ) An offence is not a relevant offence if it amounts to—(a) torture, within the meaning of section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (torture); or(b) genocide, a crime against humanity or a war crime as defined in section 50 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001 (meaning of “genocide”, “crime against humanity” and “war crime”).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides that the presumption against prosecution does not apply to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide or torture.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the amendment stands in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, and my noble friend Lord West. It provides that the presumption against prosecution does not apply to war crimes, crimes against humanity or torture.
I am an instinctive supporter of our Armed Forces and the civilians who support them. I always was, but as Secretary of State for Defence and then Secretary-General of NATO, and with the heavy responsibilities that both posts impose, my regard and admiration grew and was magnified. In those posts, it is a huge responsibility to bear in the duty of care, not only to the staff who work for and to oneself but in carrying responsibility for the safety and security of those who we and they seek to protect. In the light of those factors and the fact that I have had personally to make the decision to deploy forces into danger overseas, I was almost automatically in favour of legislation that would have prevented vexatious investigations and prosecutions that make life a misery for so many of those we send to defend the country’s interest.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]
My Lords, I support Amendment 14 for all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, has given. But I also wish to speak to Amendment 36 in my name, which would add torture to the list of statutory offences in Schedule 1, and to Amendments 37 to 45 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, which broaden the list of exceptions to include genocide and crimes in breach of the Geneva conventions.
In effect, what we are seeking to do is to provide the Government with an alternative to the approach taken by Amendment 14, which would place these exclusions in the body of the Bill—and in that way be more secure—and not in the schedule. For what it is worth, I should explain that I got in first with my Amendment 36, but I certainly do not claim primacy for my approach. I was seeking to fit in with the structure of the Bill, and it did not occur to me to deal with these issues in the rather more skilful way proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson.
My particular interest, for the reasons mentioned at Second Reading, is to ensure that torture is not a relevant offence for the purposes of the Bill. It is all very well—if I may say so with great respect—for the Minister to say that the Government take that offence very seriously. But the case for excluding it is compelling—as indeed it is for the other offences on this list. The risk, if this is not done, of our armed personnel being prosecuted in the ICC has been addressed by others, including the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. However, I wish to emphasise the nature and strength of our international obligations and the importance of adhering to them and of our being seen to do so.
The torture convention stands out as an instrument which places torture carried out by public officials or others acting in an official capacity, such as those in our armed services, at the very top of crimes abhorred by the international community. Of course, the same could be said of genocide, although the rather primitive genocide convention lacks the teeth that the torture convention provides. Lord Bingham of Cornhill, as the senior Law Lord presiding over the Appellate Committee of this House, said in one of his judgments that the nature of the prohibition of torture requires the states that are parties to the convention, as we are,
“to do more than just eschew the practice of torture.”
Condemnation carries with it the obligation to punish acts of torture wherever and whenever the perpetrator is found within our territory. There is no time limit on this obligation. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, said earlier today, there is no exemption for this offence.
The idea that there should be a presumption against prosecution, making it exceptional for proceedings to be brought, as Clause 2 provides, simply cannot be reconciled with our obligations under Articles 4 and 5 of the convention to establish jurisdiction over and punish the torturer. These obligations are not qualified. They are not in any way reduced or softened by the passage of time. The plain and simple breach of the convention, which that provision amounts to unless torture is excluded from its reach, would be very regrettable, to say the least. It is certainly not the example we should be setting for other signatories of the convention which may be less concerned to uphold it than we are or have legal systems less strong than ours. We should uphold the convention, not undermine it, as the Bill seeks to do. I am sorry to put it that way, but, quite frankly, that is what is happening here.
There is another point, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. One of the innovations in the torture convention was the concept of universal jurisdiction. All states that signed that convention have a duty to establish jurisdiction over an offender. We recognised our obligation to do this in the case of Senator Pinochet. We will be doing members of our armed services a great disservice if, by declining to prosecute them here by applying this presumption, we expose them to the risk of being prosecuted by other contracting states anywhere in the world that are more alert to their obligations under the convention than we would be. Let us avoid that risk, as the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, seeks to do.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, I support this amendment, to which I have added my name. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, not least as, like him, I had the privilege of serving as an advocate depute, as Crown counsel, under the authority of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern.
As others have done, I begin by saying that the Armed Forces have my unequivocal support and admiration, not least because they often put themselves at risk of their lives in the interests of this country. More particularly, in recent months they have demonstrated precisely the flexibility and capability that have enabled us to deal with the problems caused by the coronavirus.
I can be brief because I shall speak only to Amendment 14. In doing so, I accept and adopt the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, authoritative as it was because of his previous responsibilities as Secretary of State for Defence and Secretary-General of NATO. It is clear that the purpose of this amendment is simple: to remove the presumption against prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and torture. I accept that the Bill does not prevent prosecution, but I believe that a presumption against it is misconceived.
In support of that, I pray in aid the executive summary of the Bill produced by the authoritative Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law on 19 January 2021. I begin with a direct quote. It says that
“murder, torture and other grave war crimes face substantial legal barriers before there can be a prosecution. ... The Bill undermines our obligations under the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention Against Torture.”
Further, it says that the Bill weakens the United Kingdom’s reputation for decisive action against war crimes and increases the likelihood that British soldiers may be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court. We heard, in the introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, of this amendment, the particular interest that the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is taking in this legislation.
I have great difficulty in understanding the Government’s position on this matter. I have tried. I listened to and, indeed, read again the speech of the noble Baroness at Second Reading. She was kind enough to extend the opportunity to me and others to discuss particular issues connected with the Bill. I have read, too, the letter that the Government produced.
Respectfully, one difficulty is the fact that there is opposition such as I have described. I have no recollection, in the proceedings on the Bill so far, of any noble Lord speaking enthusiastically in support of the provisions that we seek to remove. That opposition consists, for example, of the Joint Committee on Human Rights—as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, has just told us—General Sir Nick Parker, Elizabeth Wilmshurst and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank. I would add to that panoply the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, because, in the latter part of his speech on the first group that we discussed today, quoting the perceptive remarks of Mr John Healey, Member of Parliament, in the other place, he made the case against the Government’s provisions as eloquently as I have heard. If this were a piece of civil litigation, it would be easy to argue that all the authorities favour the amendment. I favour the amendment for this reason: it is necessary for both reputation and regulation, and I shall vote for it.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds [V]
My Lords, I understand the stated rationale for this Bill and I state at the outset that I have enormous respect for the noble Baroness the Minister, but I am struggling. I am not a lawyer, but I would like to focus on a couple of specific questions. I understand the difficulty with vexatious and untimely litigation, which is a curse, but legitimate litigation, however inconvenient, is surely the blessing of a free and civilised society that honours international law and a rules-based system in more than words.
The basic reason why I speak in support of Amendment 14 is that I fear the law of predictable or conscious consequences more than the law of unintended consequences. I ask the Minister to explain clearly this anomaly, which I cannot get my head around: this Bill, as currently drafted, will make it possible for an incident of torture or murder not to be prosecuted while a sexual offence committed in the same incident would be subject to prosecution. That suggests to me either that the reference to sexual offences is arbitrary or that torture and crimes against humanity and so on should also be admitted in the same category.
I understand the assertion that the Bill does not prevent prosecution, but we are dealing with law, not just with assertions of what may or may not be possible—it is what is written in the body of the Bill. I have said that I am not a lawyer, but I support the Armed Forces—my first career was at GCHQ in Cheltenham, providing direct support to our forces, not least during the Falklands conflict—and, despite not being a lawyer, I know that torture is absolutely forbidden in both domestic and international law and that no bars to prosecution are possible.
As Field Marshall Lord Guthrie pointed out more than once, these restrictions in the Bill cannot stand unchallenged. He said:
“By introducing a statutory presumption against prosecution and statutes of limitations, this bill undermines the absolute and non-derogable nature of the prohibition of torture and violates human rights law as well as international criminal and humanitarian law.”
Making torture an excluded offence under the Bill would, I think, have the double benefit of first, avoiding what Lord Guthrie rightly called the “de facto criminalisation” of the offence and, secondly, keeping the UK in line with the rules-based international order that we claim to uphold.
Genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes are similarly forbidden in law. Amending the law as proposed in the triple lock would make the UK the only country in the world to have deliberately legislated to restrict the Geneva conventions. Where does this place us in a world to which we claim to be an example of law and civility? Most oddly to my mind, however, as a signatory to the 1998 Rome statute, which enables the International Criminal Court to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes when a Government are unable or unwilling to do so, the Bill will make it possible for British soldiers to be prosecuted in the Hague—that is, before a foreign court. Really?
I strongly support the amendment not just because of the legal questions, but because there is a strong moral case for it. I recognise that the last time I made a moral argument in this House during the internal market Bill, it was dismissed by another Minister with the words, “We will not be listening to moral strictures,” but there is a moral case here. The church that I represent stands with victims of torture, and I think that our nation has done hitherto and should continue to do so. Our reputation as a country that is committed to the rules-based international order matters more than I think we sometimes realise. This amendment would further incentivise the UK to maintain the highest standards on the battlefield. It is this that differentiates the civilised from the uncivilised in combat.
If the Government will not accept the amendment, I would be grateful if they could explain rationally, legally and consistently, and perhaps even morally, why these anomalies are acceptable.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow a West Country SIGINTer. I will speak to Amendment 14 in support of my noble friend Lord Robertson and the noble Lords, Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Campbell of Pittenweem. It is extraordinary that the presumption against prosecution applies to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and torture. These crimes have a special place in the rubric of human rights unacceptability. In its current form, this legislation would seem to decriminalise such crimes by members of the Armed Forces if they are reported after five years. This cannot be the intention and serves the interests of no one. Indeed, in their attempt to protect the military, the Government will in fact damage our Armed Forces and cause our international standing serious harm, as has been said by all of the previous speakers.
If the Government say that the threat is more apparent than real because this will not happen, that will not wash, as the very strong perception remains, and that in itself can be damaging. As has been said before, there are a number of things about this Bill where the perception is almost more important than the fact. There should be no doubt in people’s minds about the commitment of the UK Armed Forces to adherence to international law in relation to war crimes. If their enemies believe they are not, they will feel that they have a right to be unconstrained in their behaviour against our people.
The Government initially seemed to understand that it is in the interests of all for allegations of torture to be investigated fully whenever they might arise. I have to say that I do not understand why they have changed their position. If war crimes are excluded from this, as has been said by a number of speakers, there is also an increased likelihood of UK service personnel being brought before the ICC. In debate on the International Criminal Court of 2001, it was made very clear that accusations of crimes mentioned would be tried by British courts, and we put huge effort into making sure that would be the case. It would be a disgrace if inadvertently, by reducing the scope for prosecutions in this country, we were to increase the scope for prosecutions in the Hague and possibly, as has been said, elsewhere in the world. That does not help our servicemen and women. I believe strongly that this amendment would ensure that that will not happen and I will vote for it.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB) [V]
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord West, I speak to Amendment 14. I strongly support this amendment. Torture, genocide and other crimes identified in the laws of conflict should never be subject to doubt that they are not fundamental to the way in which our Armed Forces are expected to operate, no matter how stressful or dangerous the situation they are exposed to on operations overseas. A dangerous ICC charge of not upholding such international law could arise.
Government reasoning for not including torture and war crimes, as is done for sexual crimes, seems to be that there might be some discernible range of tortures or crimes in the Geneva conventions which could be taken into account by the prosecuting authority—bearing in mind the stresses of active overseas operations—before reaching a decision to prosecute. If that is the case, surely it could be applied to consideration of a discernible range of sexual crimes, which the Bill seeks to eliminate from any consideration. Whether it is sexual crimes or torture, degrees of criminality surely can arise. If so, that should not be some explanation, reason or excuse for not prosecuting; neither should be singled out for different treatment. Torture and war crimes should be grouped with those of sex and treated as crimes always to be prosecuted.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I support Amendment 14 and have considerable sympathy for the other amendments in this group, so I will speak generally about these issues. Like all the previous speakers on this group, I believe that this Bill, as presently drafted, undermines our obligations under the Geneva conventions and the UN Convention against Torture, which explicitly require that serious international crimes, such as torture, genocide and crimes against humanity, are investigated and prosecuted. I am deeply concerned about this Bill because it promotes the growing, dangerous idea that the UK can simply set aside international obligations in law. Its entry into force will be yet more evidence of what Theresa May called the abandonment of the UK’s moral leadership on the world stage, and will add to the risk of more prolonged investigations of our Armed Forces, not fewer.
The Government have excluded a number of sexual offences listed in Schedule 1 from the scope of the Bill. During the Bill’s passage through the other place, the Government were asked on several occasions to explain why crimes such as torture and genocide remain within scope of the Bill, while offences of a sexual nature are excluded. In response, the Secretary of State and the Minister for Defence People and Veterans argued that violent and lethal acts are sometimes justified during combat, and these activities can expose service personnel to allegations of torture or other war crimes, whereas sexual violence can never be justified. The Minister repeated that explanation and expanded upon it at Second Reading.
I struggle to understand this explanation or to grasp why this distinction has been made. The best I can do is to summarise it in this way: the argument seems to be that the very nature of war or conflict justifies special rules to protect those engaged in conflict from allegations that they have breached the laws designed, sometimes solely but at least in part, to prevent just war and conflict from being used as an excuse for the perpetration of the most egregious crimes. This argument simply cannot be allowed to prevail.
The use of torture, like sexual offences, can never be justified. The legal definition of torture describes it in terms of the “intentional” or “deliberate” infliction of severe pain or suffering. In short, these acts are clearly distinct from legitimate use of force during combat. It is surely our duty to ensure that no British service personnel will be engaged in a situation which would put them at risk of credibly being accused of conduct meeting any of the relevant definitions of torture, genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.
In the event of a rare, credible allegation of such behaviour being levelled at British service personnel, they should be effectively investigated and, where there is sufficient reliable and credible evidence, prosecuted. That is my understanding of our obligations and what we should be seeking to support with no conditionality.
Ministers who deny that the triple lock will weaken our stance on such crimes dismiss these arguments with the rhetorical equivalent of a wave of the hand, even though a large and diverse coalition of military, legal and other experts have sustained their view that it will do exactly that. As your Lordships’ House has heard from every previous speaker, they can explain comprehensively why that is the case.
I have one final point and I make no apology that it is a point which has already been made by every one of the preceding speakers. What is effectively a de facto statute of limitations on the prosecution of crimes makes it much more likely that British soldiers will be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, which acts only where countries are unwilling to prosecute their own citizens. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, explained very clearly at Second Reading and repeated today that this not only makes investigation and possible prosecution by the ICC more likely, but also subjects them to the possibility of such investigations and prosecutions by any number of other jurisdictions.
There are three very specific public warnings of the risks of investigation and possible prosecution by the ICC. In addition to the letter to Ben Wallace, which has been referred to on a number of occasions, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court warned that if a proposed presumption against prosecution were introduced, it
“would need to consider its potential impact on the ability of the UK authorities to investigate and/or prosecute crimes allegedly committed by members of the British armed forces … against the standards of inactivity and genuineness set out in article 17 of the Statute.”
The Office of the Prosecutor also stated in the final report Situation in Iraq/UK published in December 2020, that it will continue to monitor the development of the Overseas Operations Bill and its impact, and may revisit its decision not to take action against the UK for war crimes committed in Iraq in the light of new facts or evidence. The increased risk of investigation or prosecution by the ICC also applies in respect of other past and future overseas operations.
We should all, Government and Parliament, remember that we have a solemn commitment to our Armed Forces given on ratification of the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court, that no member would ever be at risk of appearing in The Hague. If this Bill in its present form becomes an Act of Parliament, it will be a deliberate breach of this commitment and the ultimate irony is that it will expose our armed forces in the future to long and possibly repeated investigations.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]
My Lords, the Minister, who has dealt with our concerns so graciously all afternoon, will probably realise that we now come to the winter of our discontent. It is here that I hope—if I may say so, with great respect—that she will consider even more carefully what is being said.
I support Amendments 14 and 36 in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead. He made the point—we hear it quite often in your Lordships’ House—that an undertaking from the Government to take seriously—to say that it is the intention of the Government—is not in itself a sufficient replacement for statute where something as vitally important as this is concerned.
Torture does not work—you hear what you want to hear—but it is also abhorrent, and, as the right reverend Prelate just said, it is immoral and uncivilised. We need for that reason to set an example which will protect our service men and women from possible torture if captured. I hope the noble Lord, Lord West, will forgive me if I quote a little further from what he has written:
“What is quite clear, and it was inculcated in us from day one of warfare training, is that ‘there are no circumstances in which torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment can ever be justified’; it’s a principle that all members of our military must, and do, abide. We must be wary of creating a perception and certainly not a reality that this is not the case.”
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I do not know whether I am proud to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and all the other moving speeches that I have heard or devastated that I feel that I need to. The arguments are clear and compelling and have been made from across your Lordships’ House. I need not repeat them save to remind the Minister that the warning from the chief ICC prosecutor is a very serious matter indeed and not something that any of us can be proud of. I therefore note in particular the speeches of my noble friends Lord Robertson and Lord Browne of Ladyton, former Defence Secretaries and one is a former Secretary-General of NATO. I have not always agreed with them on every matter of human rights disputes but the Minister and all your Lordships will know that their comments would not have been made lightly.
It was also important that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, reminded us of the universal jurisdiction over torture. I must therefore support not just Amendment 14 from my noble friend Lord Robertson but all noble Lords who are attempting to limit the reach of the Bill and prevent the presumption applying to war crimes, genocide, torture and crimes against humanity.
I say without hesitation to noble Lords who are not speaking in this group and who perhaps spoke in the past about what members of our Armed Forces would expect and whether we should feel comfortable looking them in the eye, that I have never met a member of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces who has attempted to justify any of those grave offences—quite the opposite. So much of their honour and their vocation is about believing in the rule of law and human rights internationally and putting their lives on the line so that grave offences of that kind are defeated elsewhere in the world and ruled out.
I return to the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds about sexual abuse. The Minister said very clearly on an earlier group that sexual offences had been singled out in the Bill because, in her words, the Government wanted to be clear that that kind of behaviour is never acceptable. Clearly, as a matter of domestic and international law, the offences touched on in this group—war crimes, genocide, torture and crimes against humanity—are never acceptable either. So there is a complete illogic about including sexual offences but not these other very grave matters.
The Minister will say that this is not a statute of limitation, it is just presumptive. I am afraid that that will not wash with large numbers of the public nor, crucially, elsewhere in the world, including, it would seem, with the chief prosecutor of the ICC. Furthermore, even if it were impossible for these offences ever to be perpetrated by Her Majesty’s forces in future, we have been told repeatedly that this is as much about reassurance and the signals that we send as it is about the letter of the law. Well, reassurance is a two-way street. It is of course about protection for our Armed Forces, but it is also about sending signals, not just to our Armed Forces but to our allies and friends—and to our enemies, including enemies who, I am sorry to say, might at some point in future have members of Her Majesty’s forces in their custody. That is perhaps the moment when these grave crimes become a matter of even closer concern than they are the rest of the time.
I say to the Minister, for whom I have a great deal of respect—I think she is a very gifted advocate but also a reasonable person, and one of the most decent members of the Government—and to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, as a law officer, who I think may be in his place, that this group of amendments, perhaps more than any other, should be responded to at the close of this evening’s debate with at least an offer to consider them. It would be unconscionable for something like this group not to be reflected in the legislation when it passes. And the legislation will pass, because of the Government’s mandate and majority. The Minister will remind us at various stages that the Bill was a manifesto commitment, but it was not ever a manifesto commitment to open the door, send a signal or give reassurance in relation to war crimes, genocide, torture and crimes against humanity.
People deserve advocates—even alleged wrongdoings deserve the most gifted and fearless advocates, and everyone should be so lucky as to have such a gifted advocate as the Minister—but we do not deserve the rotten law that is about to be made, exposing our Armed Forces, and humans all over the world, to lines that should never be crossed.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the debate on Amendment 14 will now resume. I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Robertson and Lord Browne of Ladyton, and my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem have made powerful speeches with which I totally agree. I will confine myself to looking more closely at the nature of the offences we are discussing.
The United Nations convention on genocide of December 1948 came about as the result of campaigning by Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term in 1943 after witnessing the horrors of the Holocaust, in which every member of his family except his brother was killed.
Article II of the convention defines genocide as an act
“committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
The acts include
“Killing … Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group … Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
No one in this country has ever been accused of genocide.
It is different with war crimes. I watched a corporal in the British Army plead guilty to a war crime in the Baha Mousa case, namely torture. He was acquitted of murder and received a sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment.
War crimes are defined as grave breaches of the Geneva conventions—
“acts against persons or property protected under the provisions”
of those conventions. They include wilful killing, torture, wilfully causing great suffering, unlawful deportation, the taking of hostages and other acts. To suggest that, where there is evidence sufficient to found a conviction on any of these matters, a prosecution could be avoided by a presumption against prosecution, is grotesque: “rotten law”, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said a moment ago, and I totally agree with her.
The thought that, if the DSP had decided there was sufficient evidence that a prosecution was in the public and the service interest, the Attorney-General could nevertheless block a prosecution, holding their hands up and saying that it was not a political decision, is equally demeaning. As the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, put it, it is a disgrace that it should be included in a Bill to be passed by Her Majesty in Parliament.
The picture is that there is somebody in government who has decided as a matter of policy that he or she could not block the prosecution of sexual offences with a presumption of prosecution. Why? What is the justification for selecting that category of offences when we have the types of offences not excluded? It is an arbitrary choice, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds put it. Why is there this anomaly? I look forward to the Minister’s reply. It is a mistake, is it not? I certainly hope so.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB) [V]
My Lords, the purpose of these amendments is familiar by now: to ensure that our service personnel are protected from the risk of prosecution in the International Criminal Court. To anyone who believes that this risk is illusory or negligible, I recommend not only the legal opinions variously expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope, by former Judge Advocate Blackett and by the Joint Committee on Human rights, but the 184-page final report of the outgoing prosecutor of the ICC, dated 9 December 2020 and entitled Situation in Iraq/UK.
The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, has already mentioned this report, so I will refer to only two things in it: the conclusion that there was a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes including torture were perpetrated by British forces in Iraq between 2003 and 2009, and the last words of its final page, an ominous warning that the prosecutor’s office would in the future consider
“the impact of any new legislation on the ability of the competent domestic authorities to consider new allegations arising from the conduct of UK armed forces in Iraq”.
The prosecutor’s words are reinforced by the recent letter referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and echo the Australian Brereton report of November 2020—which I mentioned at Second Reading—which pointedly observed of this Bill:
“There is a large question as to whether such a law would meet the requirements of Article 17 of the Treaty of Rome.”
Of the approaches we are offered in this group, I prefer Amendment 14, on two grounds: first, as my noble and learned friend Lord Hope has pointed out, because of its less vulnerable position in the body of the Bill; and, secondly, because Article 14, if I am not mistaken, maps more precisely on to the jurisdiction of the ICC. It applies to war crimes as broadly defined in Section 50 of the ICC Act 2001 and Articles 5 and 8.2 of the Rome statute.
Amendment 39, by contrast, would exclude from the presumption against prosecution only war crimes falling within Article 8.2(a) of the Rome statute: grave breaches of the Geneva conventions. That would leave within the scope of the presumption against prosecution the 26 categories of war crimes in international armed conflict that are listed in Article 8.2(b). Therefore, under Amendment 39 there would appear to be at least some risk of ICC intervention in any case that could be brought within those categories.
That was the dry contribution of just another lawyer to a debate that has seen the case for these amendments advanced with astonishing force on the very highest military, legal and political authority. The contrary case seems to be made only weakly in the Minister’s letter of the other day. Like other noble Lords, I admire the Minister greatly, and for that very reason permit myself to wonder whether the Government will really persist in opposing these amendments.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, it is very unusual for a Green to be among the majority. I will take great delight in that.
I cannot compete with the erudition and rationale of noble Lords who have spoken already, but I will draw attention to the fact that the Government are trying to create this triple lock against prosecution as a safe harbour for military criminals—regardless of how serious their crime—and then, out of nowhere, the Bill says, “Ah, well, these protections apply to any crime, but not sexual offences.” I am fascinated to find out the real reason for excluding sexual offences in this way. Five years after their offence, a murderer, a torturer and a thief all get protected, but an accused sexual offender gets prosecuted regardless. Even if the murderer, torturer or thief actually did it, they can get off, but an innocent person accused vexatiously of sexual offences would be prosecuted. It really does not make sense to make this exception of one category of offences.
It is not just rape; the list in Schedule 1 includes things such as
“possession of extreme pornographic images”,
“outraging public decency” and any offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, such as Section 71, which criminalises sexual activity in a public lavatory. A soldier could have consensual sex in a public toilet, kill their partner and face the outrageous prospect under this Bill of being prosecuted only for having sex in the toilet—they might be protected from the murder charge.
Likewise, the Bill singles out slavery, but only slavery for sexual exploitation—take as many slaves as you like, after five years you will probably get away with it, but you might get prosecuted for any slaves who are sexually exploited.
It staggers me that the Government have chosen this specific exemption to their messy triple lock. Of course I support it, but we must have those other exemptions as well. I ask those noble Lords who have spoken so strongly on this issue: where were they during the spy-cops Bill, when we heard criminals—police spies and police agents—being given immunity from all these crimes? In any case, it all loops back to the obvious conclusion that this Bill is ridiculous. It creates obvious and unacceptable injustice and needs to be scrapped entirely.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB) [V]
My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 14 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Robertson, Lord Alton, Lord West and Lord Campbell, and Amendment 36 in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead. In doing so, I apologise for not having spoken on Second Reading, due to an inadvertent mistake over timing.
I back the amendments not out of any objection to the Bill as a whole. The Bill’s objectives are laudable ones of giving protection to our service personnel against vexatious inquiries and prosecutions. However, the Bill as drafted actually increases those risks rather than reduces them. I oppose these defects, which the amendments seek to remedy on the grounds of both practicality and principle. The practical problem is a very obvious one. While the Bill places limitations in time in our domestic law on the pursuit of inquiries and prosecutions, it does not and cannot impose such limitations with respect to our international obligations under the Rome statute, which established the International Criminal Court and which Parliament ratified and gave effect to before its entry into force. The Rome statute, in whose negotiation we participated fully—I was myself involved to a modest extent when I was the UK’s Permanent Representative to the UN in 1995—contains no such limitations with respect to the crimes identified in the statute. The risk is therefore, as many other noble Lords have said, that our service personnel could be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court even though we had declined, under the provisions of this Bill, to take any action.
That is no theoretical risk. Quite recently, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court decided not to pursue cases against our personnel on the explicit grounds that we had domestic legislation to deal with the alleged offences and had demonstrated our willingness to use it. This could therefore be a case, I fear, of being out of the frying pan and into the fire if we do not take steps to remove from the scope of the Bill the extraordinarily serious offences set out in the Rome statute.
The argument of principle in favour of these amendments leads on from the practical argument. The International Criminal Court is an important part of that rules-based international system which the Government have argued, quite correctly in my view, that it is in our national interest to sustain. In recent years, the Government have done a good job in doing precisely that against the intemperate onslaughts of the Trump Administration against the International Criminal Court. Here, however, we are being asked to legislate in a way that could put us in contradiction with our obligations under the Rome statute. That clearly is not a sensible or principled thing to do. At worst, it could lead to British service personnel being prosecuted unnecessarily in the ICC, which would inevitably lead to an outcry in this country, possibly challenging the basis of our membership. Less dramatically, it will be seen by the critics and opponents of the International Criminal Court around the world—in places like Russia and China, and the US in some parts of the body politic—as a weakening of our support of the court and as undermining its authority. For both the reasons of practicality and principle, I hope that the Government will, before we get to Report, reconsider these flawed aspects of the Bill and remedy them.
Baroness Blower (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to listen and to speak, however briefly, on Amendment 14, which is clearly the vehicle for correcting one of the significant flaws of the Bill. I acknowledge that I have no military experience and but limited knowledge of the law in comparison to many noble Lords in this House.
As other Members of the Committee have said, this amendment is necessary as it provides that the presumption against prosecution will not apply to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide or torture. As others have said in this debate, it would restore our obligations under the Geneva conventions, the UN Convention against Torture and the Rome statute to investigate and prosecute grave breaches of humanitarian law.
I am indebted to the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, on whose material I have drawn to make these few remarks. It says that,
“although rare, abuses by the military do happen”,
and that
“The UK has a long and proud reputation of decisive action against war crimes … We do not protect British troops … by hiding from the truth or acting with impunity.”
On Second Reading I quoted Martin Luther King Jr, who famously said that
“the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”.
Sally Yates, the US Deputy Attorney-General appointed by President Barack Obama in 2015, added a caveat to this quote, saying that it does not get there on its own. That is why we have international and humanitarian law.
This amendment would correct what is clearly a flaw in this Bill as originally drafted. I cannot possibly rise to the erudition of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, or my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. But I insist that it must be seen in the Bill that there can be no presumption against war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide or torture in terms of prosecution. For this reason, I fully support this amendment.
I ask the Minister, who is clearly much admired in your Lordships’ House, to outline once more why she feels that such a presumption is appropriate and why it does not send a very bad signal that undermines the trusted nature of our legal system and our international reputation. As has been said by so many Members of the Committee, it has the potential to open our military personnel up to proceedings in the International Criminal Court—which is absolutely not where we wish to be.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD) [V]
My Lords, unlike the first group of amendments, this group—particularly Amendment 14—has very broad support across your Lordships’ House. That is scarcely surprising because one of the very clear omissions from the Bill was precisely the group of crimes so eloquently outlined in the opening remarks by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen.
It is clearly right that one of the exemptions from the presumption is sexual violence—that is fine—but it is a glaring omission to leave other war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and genocide off the face of the Bill. Indeed, it has been raised at every stage of the Bill. It was raised on Second Reading in the other place and many times on Second Reading in your Lordships’ House. I have only one question to ask the Minister: how can she and the Government justify this omission?
As Members across the Committee have said, it is so important for the reputation of our country that we abide by the rule of law and the conventions which we have signed up to and have so often led. As a country, we pride ourselves on supporting certain values, including opposing torture, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is inconceivable that we should say that this is anything that the Armed Forces or we as a country should condone.
My only sense from the Minister, in private meetings and her response to the debate at Second Reading regarding having sexual offences going against presumption but not other war crimes, was that there would never be a case on the battlefield when use of sexual violence was sanctioned. That seems to suggest that genocide, torture or other war crimes could be sanctioned. Surely that is not what the Minister meant or what the Government mean. Were there ever to be a case of torture or genocide—God forbid—surely we should be leading the way in ensuring that it is investigated and prosecuted. The reason it is so important to have this in the Bill is precisely to demonstrate our commitment to upholding human rights and not falling down any cracks.
I am absolutely sure that nobody would willingly commit any of these crimes, and I do not think that very many cases would ever even be investigated, but the amendments need to be in the Bill to ensure that we are not resiling from the conventions that we have signed up to. The noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, who I do not think has participated on this group of amendments, earlier prayed in aid Major Bob Campbell, who had said that he would not be taken to the ICC, and it might have been better to be in front of the ICC than subject to protracted and repeated investigations. The reason that service men and women and veterans from the United Kingdom have not been taken to the ICC is precisely because of our respect for international law.
Why are the Government creating a piece of legislation that leaves such a large hole and potentially damages our reputation? It would be much better to amend the Bill, to have it include war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and torture, and ensure that if anyone were accused of such a crime, it would be investigated and prosecuted if necessary and there would not then be a stain. A great problem is the sense that there is a shadow hanging over somebody and the feeling of “If only it hadn’t been for that presumption” or “Because of that presumption, we are now being taken to the Hague”. Surely that is not a position the Government want to leave anybody in.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, this has been an incredibly instructive debate. Every single speaker has spoken in favour of Amendment 14 in a debate that has lasted an hour, and they could not have been more diverse in their experience: lawyers, military people, senior politicians. We have had the whole range, and they have all spoken in favour of Amendment 14.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, predictably this debate surrounding Clause 6 and Schedule 1 has given rise to the passionate, informed and powerful advance of arguments, which I was expecting. I have listened to the sentiment and emotion that have accompanied the articulation of the arguments and I would have to be completely mute not to hear the force of those emotions. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, indicated, the Minister has come to her winter of discontent—an apt description because the debate around this part of the Bill has encapsulated the major areas of anxiety and concern.
As I set out earlier, Clause 6 details those offences that are excluded from the measures in Part 1 of the Bill. Those are set out in Schedule 1, including offences committed against a member of the regular or reserve forces. All the excluded offences listed in the schedule are sexual offences. I shall come to that in a moment; a number of questions have been posed about it but it reflects the Government’s strong stated belief that the use of sexual violence or sexual exploitation during overseas operations is never acceptable in any circumstance.
The exclusion of sexual offences from Part 1 does not mean that we will not continue to take other offences such as war crimes and torture extremely seriously. I realise that some may dismiss these as mere words and feel unconvinced. I should say that the presumption against prosecution still allows the prosecutor to continue to take decisions to prosecute those offences, and the severity of the crime and the circumstances in which it was allegedly committed will always be factors in their considerations.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, asked why we have not excluded torture offences from Part 1 measures and why we have excluded sexual offences. In the course of their duties on overseas operations, we expect our service personnel to undertake activities which are intrinsically violent in nature. They fight, they use force, they may use lethality, and they may detain. All these activities are predictable in an overseas operation. What is not predictable, and has no place in an overseas operation, is committing a sexual offence. However, the other activities to which I referred can expose service personnel to the possibility that their actions may result in allegations of, for example, torture. If the prosecutor, having received the results of an investigation, considers that there is no case, he will not prosecute, but if he considers that there is a stateable case, Part 1 of the Bill will not prevent prosecution of torture. That is why we have made the distinction between the two different characters of crime: one that you would never expect to find in an overseas operation, and one that could arise because of action that may have been taken in good faith by Armed Forces personnel believing that it was legitimate and proportionate.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, on the strong emotions which this part of the Bill has elicited, I am aware that certain interpretations have arisen, with the suggestion that the continuing commitment to upholding international humanitarian and human rights law, including the United Nations convention against torture, is somehow undermined by the Bill. I submit that this is a misconception, which I am happy to address and correct.
The UK does not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture for any purpose, and we remain committed to maintaining our leading role in the promotion and protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. It is worth remembering that, whenever a prosecutor currently makes a decision to prosecute an offence, including offences under the International Criminal Court Act, they must consider the public interest factors in the prosecutor’s full code test, in addition to making a judgment about the strength of the available evidence.
The public interest factors include the severity of the offence, the level of culpability of the suspect, the circumstances of and the harm caused to the victim, and the suspect’s age and maturity at the time of the offence. There is no suggestion when exercising this existing discretion that our prosecutors are not acting in compliance with international law, and we consider that the same is true when they will, in future, be required to take into account the measures in Part 1 of the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and other noble Lords raised the matter of the International Criminal Court and the recent letter, which I have read in detail. It is interesting that the letter postulates that where the effect of applying a statutory presumption be to impede further investigations—the Bill does not do this—or to impede prosecution of crimes, because such allegations would not overcome the statutory presumption, the ICC would want to monitor what was happening. This is a perfectly legitimate position for the ICC to adopt. Given that this was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Robertson, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, Lord West and Lord Browne of Ladyton, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, it might be helpful to note here the relationship between the UK and the International Criminal Court. Some of your Lordships may be unaware of what the current relationship is, which suggests to me that something arising out of the blue would, frankly, be beyond credibility.
In accordance with International Criminal Court procedures, a preliminary examination would first need to be initiated by the Office of the Prosecutor to decide whether to take that step. In practice, in the event that the OTP was to raise issues with us about a possible investigation, that would trigger a long and very detailed preliminary examination of the situation, within which we would be consulted at each step of the way, for the OTP to determine whether it was necessary to open any investigation. That means that we would have many opportunities to prevent UK service personnel from being prosecuted at the ICC. We would be able to show that the UK national system was both willing and able to conduct investigations and prosecutions, thus rendering unnecessary the ICC’s jurisdiction over UK service personnel. I offer that additional information in the hope that it will provide some reassurance that these activities are not all operating in silos. There is a co-operative and positive relationship with the ICC.
Amendment 14, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, seeks to add wording to Clause 6(3) to explicitly exclude further offences from being a “relevant offence” under Part 1. These are torture, under the Criminal Justice Act 1988, and genocide, a crime against humanity or a war crime under the International Criminal Court Act 2001.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, made a very powerful submission in support of Amendments 36 to 45, which in combination would have a similar effect by ensuring that torture offences contained in Section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, under the law of England and Wales, and the offences of genocide, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva convention contained within the International Criminal Court Act 2001 as it applies in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, were listed as excluded offences in Schedule 1. These amendments would amount to a comprehensive list of very serious offences to be excluded from the application of the measures in Part 1. The noble and learned Lord advanced his case cogently and with purpose, as one would expect, and others did likewise in their support of the amendments.
I am fully aware of the deep concerns that have been expressed that the Bill does not exclude these offences, and I have already set out the Government’s reasoning for excluding only sexual offences from the coverage of Part 1. I believe the perception has arisen that the absence of crimes from Schedule 1 has been equated with the non-prosecution of such serious crimes because it is assumed that the Bill will bar such prosecutions. However, I reiterate that the severity of an alleged offence will continue to be an extremely important factor for a prosecutor in determining whether or not to prosecute.
I realise that my response may be regarded by your Lordships as inadequate, so I will endeavour to provide some concluding thoughts. I have argued that the measures in Part 1 will require a prosecutor to give additional consideration to some specific matters—most importantly, the unique context of overseas operations. However, quite rightly, these measures will not prevent the prosecutor determining, having considered all the circumstances of the case, that it is appropriate to prosecute. The presumption in Clause 2 may be rebutted where it is appropriate for the prosecutor to do so.
The Bill as drafted ensures that the Part 1 measures will apply to a wide range of offences. That is to provide reassurance to our service personnel that the operational context will be taken into account, so far as it reduces a person’s culpability in the circumstances of allegations of criminal offences on historical overseas operations. I believe that we can take this approach in the knowledge that the prosecutor retains their discretion to make the appropriate decision on a case-by-case basis, including in respect of the most serious offences.
The Government have felt that, with the exception of sexual offences, all other crimes should be covered by the measures in Part 1. However, I am in no doubt as to the strength of feeling expressed by the Committee, which was neatly encapsulated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, because I did not find too many supporters speaking up for my side of the argument. I undertake to consider with care the arguments that have been advanced and to explore if there is any way by which we can assuage your Lordships’ concerns. I hope that, in these circumstances, that will persuade the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, to withdraw his amendment and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, not to move his.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)
I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead. I will call them in turn: first, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)
Excuse me, Lady Chakrabarti, the Minister has not completed her speech.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I apologise for the confusion.
There was a further amendment: Amendment 15. It deals with Clause 6(6), which is the delegated power provision. That provision is there to ensure that the Government are able to respond to new developments and fresh concerns that may emerge in relation to potential offences in future overseas operations without the need to seek primary legislation every time a change is required.
Legislation that confers such a power to amend the list in the schedule to an Act is not unusual. Schedule 1 lists the offences excluded from the requirements set out in Clauses 2, 3 and 5, and the power is limited to amending this list of offences, so it has a very narrow scope. It is also not unusual that any exercise of the power to amend the schedule to an Act be subject to the affirmative procedure before any regulations can be made.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Tunnicliffe, have been supportive of this amendment. Its aim seems to be to further narrow the scope of the power in response to the concerns raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.
I believe, however, that the concern over the power contained in Clause 6(6) has possibly arisen from the wider concerns regarding the requirements set out in Clauses 2, 3 and 5. I have tried to allay these concerns, and I have detected a growing acceptance that the Bill does not represent an absolute bar to future prosecutions of serious crimes. The delegated power will allow future Governments to adapt Part 1 of the Bill according to the lessons they may learn from overseas operations in future. To limit the scope so that offences can only be added to Schedule 1, as the amendment would wish, could have an impact on the Government’s ability to implement the lessons learned and adapt to what is likely to be an evolving operational landscape.
The power already has a very narrow scope and its use will still require the express approval of both Houses of Parliament. In these circumstances, I urge noble Lords to not move this amendment.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for what I can call only a predictably clear and gracious response. Because the Minister has agreed to reflect on this evening’s debate and consult her colleagues thereafter, I will just press her for a moment longer on the distinction between sexual offences and torture in particular, not with a view to further back and forth this evening but in the hope that it might influence her discussions with her colleagues.
The last 20 years have taught us that when torture is practised as a weapon of war, sexual torture is often one facet of that torture. It is not a nice thing to discuss. The other side of the coin is that of false allegations and clouds hanging over innocent and brave members of Her Majesty’s forces. Our Armed Forces, when overseas, can be as easily subject to false allegations of sexual offences as to false allegations of torture or any of the other offences that are not barred from the presumption against prosecution in the Bill.
If this is not about false allegations, there must be, as I understand the rationale, some kind of thinking, perhaps at the Ministry of Defence or elsewhere, that because our Armed Forces are engaged in violence, there is some kind of fine line, or borderline, between the violence in which we understand they are engaged and torture. If that is the case, I find it very troubling indeed. Are we back in the Bush White House? Are we back with the legal advice that it is not torture when it is enhanced interrogation, for example?
It seems to me that international law and our own ethical and legal norms are very clear on the distinction between the kind of violence that is sadly necessary in war situations and genocide, crimes against humanity and torture. There is not a borderline against torture, and that tacit acceptance of a grey area is just the kind of thinking that got people into such difficulties on both sides of the Atlantic over the last 20 years. So I humbly ask the Minister, in the spirit of genuinely trying to improve this, to examine that distinction between sex and torture, and sexual torture and other forms of torture, in particular, when she goes back to her colleagues in the department and elsewhere.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)
Does the Minister wish to respond?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
Yes. I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness said, and I undertake to look at her contribution in detail.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for a very clear exposition of how one can get around some of these difficulties. I am delighted that she is going take this back and look at it, but I ask her to ask her officials: what are the benefits for the UK of excluding these from the list? What are we gaining by that? I used to find quite often, when I was standing at the Dispatch Box for three years, that when I prodded in that way, I would find that there were no benefits, but that they were defending their position wonderfully. I am not asking for an answer now, but can she prod that to see what benefits we actually get by not having those listed?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
Again, I undertake to look carefully at the noble Lord’s remarks.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I too thank the Minister for her gracious reply and for her willingness to take this matter away and reflect on this and other debates. I am glad that she recognises that, among the 800-odd Members of the House of Lords, the Government could not mobilise one single Member of the House to come and defend the position on this amendment. I am not surprised, and I can see the difficulty that she has in putting forward the argument.
I listened to see whether I could be persuaded by what she said—after all, some of the officials who used to work for me may still be there and producing the rationale for her this evening. However, to say simply that there is no bar to prosecution for war crimes, torture and crimes against humanity is to state only the technical argument. The fact is that the Bill gives a presumption against prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture, and that is what is going to be noticed, not the technical argument that there is no actual bar. There are barriers or, as the chief prosecutor of the ICC said, conditions laid down which will be well noticed.
Perhaps I may also say that when the Minister goes back to the Ministry of Defence and faces those who want to take a stand here, it might be worth avoiding the mistake that we make all too often in foreign relations, which is mirror imaging—looking at an issue through our eyes. In this case, if those who want to take a hard line would look at this issue through the eyes of the torturers, the war criminals and those who would perpetrate torture and crimes against humanity and see what sort of signal they are getting from the United Kingdom and its legal system, that would paint a different picture from the rather Panglossian view that just been put forward.
I feel strongly about this, more strongly than I have felt about many other things, because I feel for my country. I feel for its reputation and the credibility of our standing in the world and our reputation for adhering to agreements that we have come to. So all of us hope that the Minister will go away, think and expect others in the department and the Government to think again. On that basis, I am willing to withdraw the amendment, but I have no doubt that we will come back to the issue at later stages of the Bill.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)
We come now to the group beginning with Amendment 16. Anyone wishing to press this amendment or anything else in the group to a Division must make that clear in the debate.
Amendment 16
“Compliance with the Belfast Agreement 1998
Nothing in this Part is to be construed in any manner that is non-compliant with the Belfast Agreement 1998.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, and the amendments to page 8, line 12 and page 26, line 16 in the name of Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick, ensure that the bill cannot be interpreted in a way that undermines the Belfast Agreement 1998’s requirement for the Government to complete incorporation into Northern Ireland law of the European Convention on Human Rights, with direct access to the courts, and remedies for breach of the Convention.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, in moving Amendment 16 I will speak also to Amendments 25, 33 and 69 in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain. The purpose of these amendments is to ensure adherence to the Good Friday agreement, as there is a fear among human rights organisations that this legislation could undermine the very essence of the agreement, which is central to the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland and relations within the island of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain. The major fear centres on the fact that the overseas operations Bill would limit direct access to the Northern Ireland courts and remedies for breaches of the European Court of Human Rights in relation to proceedings in connection with overseas operations. I have been contacted by the Committee on the Administration of Justice in Northern Ireland and Rights and Security International. They feel strongly about these issues.
Amendments 16, 25 and 33 have been tabled to ensure that the Bill cannot be interpreted in a way that undermines the requirement in the 1998 Belfast agreement for the Government to complete incorporation into Northern Ireland law of the European Convention on Human Rights, with direct access to the courts and remedies for breach of the convention. On a similar basis, Amendment 69 has been interpreted in a way that underlines the requirement in the 1998 Belfast agreement that, again, the Government should complete the incorporation into Northern Ireland law of the European Convention on Human Rights, with direct access to the courts and remedies for breach of the convention. It is important to emphasise that the Belfast/Good Friday agreement provided that—I shall quote directly:
“The British Government shall complete incorporation into Northern Ireland law of the European Convention on Human Rights with direct access to the courts and remedies for breach of the Convention.”
There is a fear that, as currently drafted, the Bill risks undermining the provision in a number of ways, hence the necessity for these amendments. I hope that the Minister will see their benefit and will consider accepting them tonight.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am pleased, as always, to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, in support of her amendment, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and my noble friend Lord Hain, who is of course a former Northern Ireland Secretary.
I need not repeat the point about the importance of the Belfast agreement—it is well known to everyone in your Lordships’ House—or explain the matters that the noble Baroness in self-deprecating fashion referred to as “technical”. These are not of course just technical matters, because the Belfast agreement is an international treaty. However, I will pre-empt any doubts that some sceptics may have about the importance of these rather neat amendments.
The Belfast agreement is not just about what happens in Northern Ireland but about the law and the values in relation to all communities in Northern Ireland and indeed on the island of Ireland. That is why it is so important that, even though the Bill is about overseas operations—not about operations in Northern Ireland itself—it is about the law and the values as they apply to people who may seek redress in the Northern Ireland courts, even if it is in relation to overseas operations in which they served or potentially argued they were otherwise victims.
I urge noble Lords to take these amendments extremely seriously, not least in the context of the group we have just heard about. The Minister and I may disagree about such things as whether I am right or wrong in my plain view that many aspects of the Bill violate the ECHR, but at least these amendments would allow where possible any wriggle room to be used for interpretation so that we do not fall foul of that precious agreement that has been so vital to maintaining relative peace for such a long time.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]
My Lords, these amendments are designed on the assumption that provisions in the Bill might be contrary to the human rights convention and, of course, the Human Rights Act. I regard it as 110% essential that the Belfast agreement is fully respected and implemented. I have therefore supported this amendment on the view that, since a question has been raised about it, it is right that it should be thoroughly checked and that, if necessary, these amendments should be inserted to make sure. I have my doubts as to whether it is necessary but I am all in favour of it being checked in detail by those who drafted the Bill, to make sure that, whatever happens, the Belfast agreement is not damaged in any way by the provisions in the Bill.
Baroness Suttie (LD) [V]
This has been an interesting and important short debate. It has previously been made clear that the Bill does not deal with matters relating to Northern Ireland, but I trust that in her concluding remarks the Minister will none the less give full responses to the many important issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, this evening. I believe that it is equally important that the Minister acknowledges that these amendments stem from several very real fears and anxieties.
The first of these fears is that, in their actions and behaviour over recent months, the Government have given cause for concern that they are seeking to water down or reinterpret the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. In her response to these amendments, I hope that the Minister can give some firm reassurances this evening that this is not the case. The second anxiety at the heart of these amendments is that it is somewhat unclear that the Government remain fully committed to the balanced and well-considered approach to legacy issues as set out in the Stormont House agreement. Given that it is now well over a year since New Decade, New Approach was published, can the Minister update the Committee this evening on the Government’s approach to legacy issues in Northern Ireland?
Given that the Minister is not from the Northern Ireland Office, I suspect that she may not be able to give a full response to my question on legacy, so I would be extremely grateful if it would be possible to receive a letter setting down in detail the answer to that question and arrange a meeting to discuss these matters on legacy in more detail.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the Good Friday agreement is central to the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland. We all have a vital role to play in safeguarding the Good Friday agreement and building on its promise, and we must ensure that this Bill, or any other Bill, protects it. However, the Government have demonstrated a reckless approach to the Good Friday agreement. We need only to consider their actions with the internal market Act, which threatened the agreement and resulted in resounding international criticism, including from the new President of the United States.
The Good Friday agreement is one of Labour’s proudest achievements in office. The courage of the people and communities in Northern Ireland made peace happen and has allowed an entire generation to grow up free from conflict. We must build on it, not weaken its foundations. The amendments in this group aim to ensure that the Bill cannot be interpreted in a way that undermines the Good Friday agreement’s requirements for the Government to complete incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into Northern Ireland law.
Rights and Security International has said that the Bill risks undermining the agreement as the presumption against prosecution
“extends to criminal offences which are also considered violations of the ECHR, such as torture … Under the ECHR, there is a procedural obligation to … prosecute and punish”
these acts, and the Good Friday agreement
“requires that this procedural obligation be incorporated in the law of Northern Ireland.”
Does the Bill make it harder for breaches of the ECHR to be prosecuted? Rights and Security International has also said that the six-year longstop impacts on
“the Good Friday Agreement’s requirement that the UK ensure direct access to the courts”.
Have the Government received independent legal advice on the impact of the Bill on the Good Friday agreement or carried out their own impact assessment of the Bill on the agreement?
When considering Northern Ireland, we must also remember that the Bill does not cover operations in Northern Ireland as originally promised. Last month, the Leader of the House in the other place said that
“the Government will introduce separate legislation to address the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland in the coming months in a way that focuses on reconciliation, delivers for victims and ends the cycle of reinvestigations into the troubles in Northern Ireland”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/2/21; col. 496.]
However, it is now exactly a year since the Northern Ireland Secretary made a statement promising the same. What is causing the delay? When will it be published? The Good Friday agreement must endure, must be strengthened and must continue to guarantee peace. Whether it is in this Bill or any other, the aims must be supported, not undermined.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, Lady Suttie and Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for their contributions. These amendments seek to ensure that the Bill cannot be interpreted in a way that undermines the Belfast agreement. As they all indicated, the Belfast agreement was, of course, an incredible achievement, and the Government remain fully committed to the agreement and the constitutional principles it upholds, including the institutions it established and the rights it protects. The agreement has been the foundation for political progress, peace and stability in Northern Ireland over the last 22 years, and it will be protected going forward.
I listened with interest and care to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and I reassure him that nothing in the Bill could be interpreted as undermining the commitments contained in the Belfast agreement, and nothing that would diminish the essence of the protections that the Human Rights Act currently offers to the people of Northern Ireland. My noble and learned friend may be aware that the UK has already fulfilled the commitment under the agreement to incorporation by enacting the Human Rights Act 1998, which provides for direct access to the domestic courts to vindicate convention rights, and the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which provides that the Northern Ireland Assembly can legislate only in a way that is compatible with convention rights and that Northern Ireland Ministers must act compatibly with the convention rights. I would say that the measures in this Bill are considered to be compatible with the convention rights.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I thank all who participated in this short but timely and important debate: the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Suttie, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and the Minister.
The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, underlined the importance of an international treaty, the importance of the Belfast agreement in terms of the laws and values relating to communities in Northern Ireland, and the need for the courts in relation to overseas operations. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, wanted to make sure that the Belfast agreement was respected in the Bill, and the Minister seemed to indicate that that was the case, although I have certain doubts and I want to reflect further on this.
The noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, raised important issues about the need for a balanced approach to the agreement. The fact that the Belfast/Good Friday agreement was balanced allowed people in Northern Ireland to enjoy relative peace, which needs to be built on, and provided for those political institutions, which are thankfully working. She and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, raised very important issues to do with legacy matters.
The Secretary of State in the other place made a Statement on 18 March 2020 that basically said that the Government were abandoning the Stormont House agreement in favour of other issues. We have never seen that legislation, but I urge the Minister and her colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office to adhere to the Stormont House agreement because it gives the best resolution for legacy issues in Northern Ireland.
In her very gracious comments, the Minister said that the Government were fully committed to the Belfast agreement. Like the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, I question that because we saw attempts to unravel it through the passage of the UK internal markets Act and we have seen further attempts to unravel the Northern Ireland protocol and undermine the agreement by others in the Government. I simply ask at this stage that those issues be properly dealt with through the UK-EU mechanisms already available and not through unilateral approaches. I take the basis from the Good Friday agreement itself; the principles of consent and agreement are vital for everything.
The Minister said that nothing in the Bill would diminish human rights in relation to overseas operations. Quite frankly, I would like to go away and reflect on that before considering whether to bring back amendments on Report. I remind the Committee that the commitment to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights is not qualified by events in Northern Ireland, hence the need for these amendments. Again, I emphasise that it is important that the Bill as drafted would limit direct access to the Northern Ireland courts and remedies for breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to proceedings in connection with overseas operations.
In view of that and of the fact that the Minister in her albeit gracious comments has not adequately addressed the issue, while I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 16 this evening, I will further reflect on bringing my amendments back on Report.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, we now come to Amendment 18. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Amendment 18
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
“Time limit for commencing proceedings for minor offences
After section 60 of the Armed Forces Act 2006 insert—“60A Time limit for minor offences(1) A person may not be charged in respect of a minor offence carried out in the course of overseas operations after the end of six months beginning with the day on which the offence is alleged to have been committed. (2) In this section—“minor offence” means—(a) any offence committed by a member of a regular or reserve force which would be in the jurisdiction of the Service Civilian Court if committed by a civilian; (b) any offence capable of being dealt with at a summary hearing under section 53 or 54;“overseas operations” has the meaning given in section 1(6) of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021.””
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, this is a self-contained point rather outside the mainstream of the other issues that we have been dealing with, but an important amendment trying to provide a degree of certainty to military personnel engaged in overseas operations. The amendment seeks to provide that, where a minor offence is committed that would be triable within the Armed Forces criminal justice system, there should be a six-month time limit from the date the offence is committed for bringing proceedings. So, after six months have elapsed from the date of the offence, if no proceedings have been brought it cannot be prosecuted. This provision mirrors Section 127 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 and reflects the sensible proposition that, in relation to minor offences, you should know where you stand.
I am not sure whether the drafting has precisely achieved this; I would be interested in the Minister’s views on whether we need to make any changes. However, I am absolutely sure that the principle is sound: in relation to minor offences, there should be a shortish time limit of six months, so that the system is not cluttered up with old offences of a certain lack of severity. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, whose name is next on the list, has withdrawn so I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
My Lords, I have little to say in respect of this amendment. I believe that summary offences should be dealt with summarily, and that is what this amendment seeks to achieve.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, it is interesting that we conclude our consideration of Part 1 of the Bill with a genuinely interesting proposition from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, so neatly encapsulated by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford.
The amendment seeks to introduce, via a new section to be inserted in the Armed Forces Act 2006, a six-month limitation period between an offence being committed or discovered and any proceedings being brought, where certain conditions are satisfied. As I understand the proposal, the amendment would create a six-month limitation period for all offences capable of being dealt with at a summary hearing under Section 53 of the Armed Forces Act 2006. It is worth observing that this category of offence includes a large number of matters that are specific to a military context.
Section 53 covers, for example, the offence of being absent without leave, under Section 9 of the Armed Forces Act 2006; the offence of disobedience to lawful commands, under Section 12; the offence of contravention of standing orders, under Section 13; and the offence of disclosure of information useful to an enemy, under Section 17. These, and many more offences like them, are vital to maintaining discipline and operational effectiveness in the Armed Forces. The amendment proposes that none of these should be capable of leading to punishment after six months. With the greatest respect to the noble and learned Lord, I think that that is unwise.
During any investigation, it is not always clear at the outset what the charge will be, but this is made harder for investigations on overseas operations, particularly where the injured person or witness is a local national. As I have already set out in response to other investigation-related amendments, investigations on overseas operations are subject to greater complexity than those conducted back in the UK, and delays can occur. However, placing what is actually quite a short time limit on investigations is unhelpful. In my view, we should not be seeking to do anything that would fetter the investigative decision-making of the service police. A time limit in these circumstances would do just that.
Even the most minor offences take on a greater significance in an operational environment and, if we reflect on some of the offences to which I have just referred, I think your Lordships would understand the import of that. A minor offence is not necessarily a simple matter that can be dealt with quickly by a commanding officer, and minor offences committed against local nationals can have a disproportionate effect in an operational setting.
I think that this amendment is modelled upon the provisions that exist in relation to summary-only matters in the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, which is why I find it problematic. The Magistrates’ Courts Act codifies the procedures applicable in the magistrates’ courts of England and Wales. This legislation is not written to accommodate the extraordinary demands made of a system operating in an operational context where, as I have already said, delays can sometimes occur as a result. Applying civilian timescales to an operational context is therefore not appropriate.
I appreciate that the amendment has been offered in good spirit by the noble and learned Lord. I thank him for the breadth of thought in investigating that aspect, but I urge him to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
I am grateful to the Minister for her very careful reply. I understood her to make two particular points: first, that six months may be too short, particularly in an overseas operational environment and, secondly, that it may not be appropriate in dealing with certain sorts of military offences, for example, disobedience to orders, particularly in an overseas context.
I hear what the noble Baroness has said and I will think very carefully about two things. First, does one need a longer period and, secondly, should one exclude certain specifically military offences? However, if it were possible, I would be keen to find a way forward on this because although the points she makes have some degree of validity, I also think that for comparatively minor offences it is disproportionate for military personnel still to be investigated for some months or even years after the comparatively minor offence has been allegedly committed. Of course I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 19. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Clause 8: Restrictions on time limits to bring actions: England and Wales
Amendment 19
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that a court can disapply the civil longstop if the same equipment or cause of negligence results in injury or death in overseas operations as in the UK.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
We move on to a different part of the Bill, which seeks to impose more rigorous time limits for bringing civil actions, whether in accordance with the ordinary law of tort or contract, or under the Human Rights Act. Although I am slightly oversimplifying, the Bill essentially seeks to impose a six-year unextendable deadline for bringing civil claims in respect of the conduct of the military, except where knowledge occurs after the six years, in which case there is a further 12-month extension. This is in contradistinction to the normal position whereby a claim would be brought not arising out of overseas operations where the court would have an ability to extend the time for bringing a claim if it were equitable to do so.
In these amendments, we focus on two particular circumstances. First, where a claim is being brought by someone within the military against, in effect, the Government for a breach of human rights or a tortious claim, we take the view that we should not be providing additional limitation hurdles in respect of military personnel bringing claims against the MoD—for example, for the negligent provision of defective equipment. I should be interested to hear why the Government think that there should be such a limitation. As a subgroup, primarily dealing with military personnel but able to deal with others also, if, in relation to an identical claim that had occurred in the UK, somebody could bring a claim and have the limitation period extended if it were equitable to do so, we cannot see any reason why in identical circumstances such a claim could not also be brought, even though the circumstances or damage arose in the course of overseas operations.
For example, if the Ministry of Defence provided defective equipment to a soldier and, as a result, the soldier suffered serious injury in an exercise on Salisbury Plain, why should a soldier who suffers precisely the same injury while on an overseas operation because of the negligent provision of defective equipment by the Ministry of Defence have a shorter and harsher limitation period than the soldier who was injured in precisely the same circumstances for precisely the same reasons in an exercise on Salisbury Plain? For example, they were both injured not necessarily because of the activities of enemy insurgents against them but because all the forms of transport provided were defective in a way that was the fault of the Ministry of Defence. The injury would have occurred whether one was driving along a road in Wiltshire or a road in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is unfair that there should be different limitations for precisely the same sorts of injury.
Two questions arise on this group of amendments. First, why should there be different limitation periods for the military bringing claims against the Ministry of Defence? Secondly and separately, even if there is a reason for that, why should there be a different limitation period for precisely the same injury, the only difference being that it was caused in the course of overseas operations rather than at home, for example? We are aware of the problems that have arisen in relation to many claims being brought—and many failing—arising out of overseas operations. We are all aware of those circumstances, but we are very concerned that, in trying to deal with that multiplicity of claims, the Government are unfairly depriving military personnel of their legitimate right to protect their rights against the Ministry of Defence.
It is very important that the limitation period be fair for claims by military personnel because, for a whole variety of reasons that those engaged in the military will be aware of, there may be very good reasons why a member of the military takes a long time to discover either that they could bring a claim or that they are in an emotional or mental position to bring a claim because of their experiences. We think these provisions are very detrimental and unfair to military personnel and require amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD) [V]
My Lords, at this time of the evening it would be very easy simply to agree with everything the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, has just said and be happy to move on, but that would do a disservice to our service men and women and veterans, because the points these amendments speak to and the words the noble and learned Lord has just uttered are extremely important. It is surely appropriate that we treat our service personnel and veterans with respect, and that they should not be disadvantaged because they have been service men and women.
Clearly, incidents and dangers can happen in the field of battle that will not be legislated for in a conventional civilian sense, but there might be other issues—hearing loss, for example—associated with having been in the Armed Forces which become clear only later. It seems very strange, as the noble and learned Lord has pointed out, that people should have different rights according to whether the problems arose while based in the UK or on overseas operations. Can the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, who appears to have taken over from the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, say what work the Government have done in looking at the potential ramifications of this limitation?
This Bill has been put forward by the Government as something supposed to help our service men and women, but this limitation seems to limit their rights. I know the Minister will have been told that it is very important that cases are brought swiftly and issues are dealt with promptly, that it is in everybody’s interest to do so and that delaying things is in no one’s. But neither is curtailing people’s rights.
The Royal British Legion sent a briefing picking up in particular on the Armed Forces covenant, quoting the point:
“Those who serve in the Armed Forces, whether Regular or Reserve, those who have served in the past and their families, should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services … In accessing services, former members of the Armed Forces should expect the same level of support as any other citizen in society.”
Assuming that Her Majesty’s Government still support the Armed Forces covenant, can the Minister explain how the proposals in Part 2 of the Bill live up to its commitments? Can he tell us what additional thoughts the Government might be willing to have on looking again at this limitation?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton, has withdrawn from the debate, so I call the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 29 in support of my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe and the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Boyce and Lord Stirrup. The de facto six-year time limit for claims being brought against Ministers and the MoD arising from active service abroad seems at first sight far from protecting our people, but rather reducing the rights of individual service personnel. Those injured as a result of negligence during overseas operations, unlike in the UK, will have less protection under the law. Veterans and service charities, as was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, are very worried and have been taking quite a lot of notice of this. The British Legion and other charities are very concerned.
To keep this short, it seems that the Bill seeks to protect the MoD from claims by our servicemen, rather than trying to look after them. Again, I am absolutely sure that that is not the intention, and this amendment tries to rectify that problem.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB) [V]
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 29 and I support this important safeguard for service personnel. As has been mentioned, not all disabilities are immediately self-evident. Medical advances and associating clinical problems with mental or slowly developing illnesses are helping to explain and track the trigger to events not just in the recent past, but over periods measured in years, not months. Should a claim be considered, it should not be dismissed on some arbitrary timeline. Justice for service personnel, both serving and veterans, demands that their interests should be protected.
The changes made in the past decade, replacing the tried and tested Pensions Appeal Tribunal, which had its origins in 1919, with new arrangements, have been the cause of much anxiety at times. Indeed, I put down an annulment Motion to a major tribunal revamp in 2008 that sought to disband the Pensions Appeal Tribunal of England and Wales and move all its military pension and disability work into a civilian social entitlement chamber. This was widely condemned by those with experience of this type of work, by the Royal British Legion and other charities which help with the preparation and submission of such claims. My Motion was debated and, happily, the Government then agreed that the Pensions Appeal Tribunal work should be given its own separate chamber in the restructured tribunals.
So it is not only that claims by service personnel and veterans should not be arbitrarily time-limited: as important is that the tribunal arrangement in place to deal with claims is respected and trusted, as was the former Pensions Appeal Tribunal, with its long experience and proven track record in this field. I hope the Government will acknowledge the importance of that, as well as Amendment 29.
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, the scheme of this part of the legislation creates a long stop of six years, subject to date of knowledge provisions which provide for an additional one year. It also specifies certain additional factors to be taken into account under the provisions of Section 33 of the Limitation Act 1980.
Lord Boyce (CB) [V]
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 29 and the subject of a six-year time limit being imposed by the Bill on those who have been engaged on overseas operations in their ability to bring any grievance against the MoD. This would have the perverse effect of limiting individual service personnel’s rights by restricting their access to legal remedies for harms caused by their employers, while it would not apply to their counterparts not engaged on overseas arrangements. Surely it must be beyond argument that such a situation should not be allowed, and I thus support Amendment 29.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, who is next on the list, has withdrawn, so I call the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 29, to which I have attached my name. Its purpose is to ensure that service personnel are not debarred by time from pursuing claims against the Government for harm suffered on overseas operations. Of course, the purpose of the Bill is to provide reassurance to those very personnel that they will be to some degree protected against malicious proceedings, so it seems rather perverse that the Bill should also seek to prevent them gaining redress for harm that they themselves suffered. The Government have asserted that such an outcome is not their intention, and of course I accept that. However, the question is not the present Government’s intention but the potential consequences of the Bill as worded. It seems that one consequence might well be to deprive a number of serving personnel or veterans of their right to pursue a claim against the Government.
Part of the Government’s response to this concern is to stress the small numbers involved. They say that some 94% of service personnel and veterans who brought claims relating to events in Iraq and Afghanistan did so within six years. Are we then to assume that, had the proposed timescale been applied to them, the Government believe that it would have been acceptable for the other 6% to lose the opportunity to pursue their cases? The Government also say that the vast majority of cases relate to events in the UK, not to overseas operations. That may be so, but to argue that only a small number of service personnel would suffer injustice does not seem a respectable position for a Government to take at any time, let alone in a Bill that is supposed to provide support and reassurance to those people.
This timescale is very different from the one proposed in Part 1. The latter, as I observed earlier, does not introduce a significant legal watershed. Complaints can still be brought to prosecution, subject to certain tests that ought to be applied with or without the Bill. The time limit placed upon complaints brought by service personnel or veterans is of a very different character. It is not a high bar—it is an impassable wall. In support of this absolute limit the Government have prayed in aid statements from the courts about the need for limitation periods in civil litigation to ensure legal certainty and finality and to avoid the need to adjudicate on events so far past that memories and evidence become too unreliable. Of course I see the sense in that, but why six years? Upon what empirical data is such a time period based?
I listened very carefully to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, but since the expiry of the proposed time limit would have such dramatic legal consequences, there seems to be a powerful argument for a much longer period in this case. That which is proposed in the current Bill is too short, too disadvantageous to serving personnel and veterans, and should be reconsidered.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
My Lords, like my noble friend Lady Smith and others, I am concerned that there should not be a different principle of limitation for service personnel for injuries received as the result of overseas operations as opposed to those injured while they are serving in the United Kingdom. However, I want to also speak up for the civilians in the country where the overseas operations took place.
I am not naive about this. I very much recall a court martial in Colchester, in 2005, for which a lady was brought from Iraq with a complaint that a British soldier had stripped her naked in the street and had caused her huge embarrassment. She went into the witness box, took the oath on the Koran and then turned to the judge and said, “Now I have taken the oath on the Koran, I have to tell the truth. I made it all up.” There were many complaints that were made up at that time.
At the time of the Baha Mousa trial, Mr Phil Shiner was wandering around trying to infiltrate our discussions, and he always had someone taking a note of the evidence as it emerged, which he subsequently misapplied. I am very glad that he was struck off by the Law Society.
That, however, should not prevent, in an appropriate case, a claim for damages going forward if it is equitable to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, expressed with considerable authority the complexity of this area of law and the difficulties that exist in any event—never mind in overseas operations.
There are valid claims. I put in a Written Question on 2 June last year. The Answer told me that, since 2003, there have been
“1,330 claims for damages relating to alleged misconduct … The claims … focus predominately on alleged unlawful detention but many incorporate allegations of mistreatment”.
The Ministry of Defence has paid out £32 million in respect of these allegations, and says that it does not pay out without consideration and finding the claim valid. It meets the bill, which does not fall on the soldier in question.
The practice of the court is not to extend to extend limitation periods easily, and that is a particular concern where valid claims are coming forward. When the court considers whether to extend the limitation period, it investigates all the circumstances. It is very difficult for a poor person in a foreign country to bring a case, and as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, pointed out, it is not easy to extend the limitation period. Date of knowledge is frequently an issue. Sometimes it almost seems as if when a court hears an application for an extended limitation period it will be granted on the nod. But that is not the case: it is a difficult thing to argue. I am, therefore, in favour of these amendments, and I look forward to seeing how they appear on Report.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Stewart of Dirleton) (Con)
My Lords, I begin by addressing Amendment 29, which seeks to carve out claims from service personnel and veterans from the limitation longstops in the Bill. I have to be clear from the outset: such a carve-out would amount to an unjustifiable difference in treatment between different categories of claimants and would therefore be likely to be incompatible with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.
A carve-out would also have very limited practical impact. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, anticipated the statistic that I am about to quote. Analysis of previous claims has indicated that the vast majority of claims—around 94% of relevant claims brought by service personnel or veterans in connection with overseas operations—have been brought within six years, which is the period of the longstop.
In answer to the noble and gallant Lord, it must be the case that many of the remaining 6% will come under the state of knowledge provisions, whereby the period of limitation will commence at the point at which the individual has become aware of their condition. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, adverted to this in her submission when she spoke about hearing loss, a condition that might well become manifest outwith the period of six years from the point at which it had been incurred or commenced. The same might equally be said for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, my noble friend Lord West of Spithead, the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Craig of Radley, Lord Stirrup and Lord Boyce, and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, all of whom supported this amendment. I am also struck by the fact that I am supported much more by the military than I am by the lawyers on this amendment, which suggests that it must be right.
I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, for his detailed reply. In relation to carving out the military claims against the Ministry of Defence, as proposed in Amendment 29, I understood his answer to be that it is discriminatory. I find that hard to believe because the effect of the Bill is to treat soldiers on overseas operations as different from other soldiers. Therefore, it is simply a question of judgment as to which sub-category is acceptable and which is not. He then said that the other reason for resisting it was because it would not affect very many people. That is not much of an answer—do the right thing; do not deprive people of a claim that they would otherwise have.
Ultimately—and this is no criticism of the Minister—his answers were unconvincing because the purpose of this part of the Bill is not to stop military personnel bringing claims; it is to stop claims, of the sort identified by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, brought by non-military personnel. Whether one thinks that that is right or wrong, it is clear that the Government did not intend this effect on military personnel. They should be consistent in the way they deal with it and reassure military personnel by getting rid of this distinction.
Amendment 19 and the ones associated with it would provide that if the same thing were to happen on Salisbury Plain, soldiers should have a claim, whether it was brought in relation to overseas operations or not. There is absolutely no reason that that should not be given effect to. The alleged suggestion that it might be difficult to work out, with no examples given, was—with respect—rather unconvincing. Of course I will withdraw my amendment, but I think I will return to this on Report.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, finally, we come to Amendment 20. Anyone wishing to press this to a Division must make that clear in the debate.
Clause 11: Court’s discretion to extend time in certain Human Rights Act proceedings
Amendment 20
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
This amendment deals with the factors that the court must have regard to when it considers whether or not to extend a limitation period under the Human Rights Act. The new Clause 7A(2) that the Bill would insert into the Human Rights Act states:
“The court or tribunal must have particular regard to ... the effect of the delay in bringing proceedings on the cogency of evidence adduced or likely to be adduced by the parties”.
More detail is then given before it says that the court or tribunal must also have regard to
“the likely impact of the proceedings on the mental health of any witness or potential witness who is ... a member of Her Majesty’s forces.”
Those factors would, no doubt, be considered in the ordinary course of the exercise of the discretion, irrespective of whether they were put into the Bill.
The wording in the Bill is “particular regard to”. Is it intended that these particular factors should be the main ones that the court has regard to, or is it intended to change the law in any way, in relation to the exercise of the discretion? I do not dispute that the factors that are set out would be relevant, but I think the drafting is unfortunate, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s explanation of how he thinks it is intended that the exercise of the discretion will work.
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I will be brief. I am conscious that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, does not have much regard to what lawyers say on this Bill, so I will bear that in mind as well. I understand the amendment, but there is a query in my mind as to whether he would prefer a “must not have regard”, or the omission of “particular” so that the clause simply has “the court or tribunal must have regard to”.
I have some sympathy for “must have regard to” rather than “particular regard”, because I accept from the noble and learned Lord that there is a possible suggestion that this would be the trump card rather than one of the factors. But it is appropriate that those matters should be specifically drawn to the attention of a court by the Bill, given its overall philosophy. It is probable that those matters would be taken into account. The law of limitation in relation to the Human Rights Act is still developing. It is rather unclear, but this seems to me to be consistent with the philosophy of the Bill, so I do not agree with the total removal of these provisions as the amendment suggests.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)
The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD) [V]
My Lords, not being a lawyer, I shall take the approach taken by the lawyers and be very brief in my comments. I have the same question as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer: what is the purpose of “particular regard” in this respect? There is a time limitation already. Is the “particular regard” intended to truncate the ability to bring proceedings even further, so that if there is a suggestion that somebody’s memory has been impeded by overseas action, it makes it even less likely that proceedings can be brought?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, I am again grateful to those noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate. The Bill introduces three factors that the courts must consider and pay particular regard to when deciding whether to allow Human Rights Act claims connected with overseas operations to proceed after the one-year primary limitation period has expired. We feel that these factors are an important part of the Bill, because they ensure that the unique operational context in which the relevant events occurred is taken into account by the courts when considering limitation arguments in claims connected with overseas operations.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, pointed out very early in his submission, the courts will do this already; the courts will have regard to these things. Part of their consideration of whether to allow a claim to proceed beyond the primary limitation period includes assessing whether the claim is, in the language of statute,
“equitable having regard to all the circumstances”.
But our position is that putting these three factors on the face of the Bill will provide a guarantee for service personnel and veterans that appropriate consideration will always be given by the courts—whether that is for Human Rights Act claims or for personal injury and death claims—to these significant points, which are different from those which would apply in peacetime.
We believe that in situations where claims are connected with overseas operations, the courts should pay particular regard to the reality of these operations: the fact that opportunities to make detailed records at the time may have been limited; that increased reliance may have to be placed on the memories of the service personnel involved; and that, as some personnel may suffer from mental ill-health as a result of their service, there is a human cost to them in so contributing.
This is what the additional factors that the Bill introduces seek to do. They consider the extent to which an assessment of the claim will depend on the memories of service personnel and veterans; the impact of the operational context on their ability to recall the specific incident; and the likely impact of the proceedings on their mental health. We believe that it is right that the operational context is at the forefront of the mind of the court when considering whether to allow claims beyond the primary limitation period. Noble Lords will know that we are also introducing these factors for personal injury and death claims, and we must ensure that Human Rights Act claims connected with overseas operations are treated in the same manner.
Particular emphasis was placed on the word “particular” in the course of this short debate. I undertake, in light of the submissions made in the time available, to consider the terms of the drafting and to weigh the suggestions made by noble Lords in relation to that particular adjective in the context of the provision. I will look at any connotations that might flow from it and might be adverse to the intention of the Bill. At this stage, however, I urge that the amendment be withdrawn.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for taking part in the debate. May I specifically exclude the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, from the lawyers to whom I do not pay regard. The House pays great regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, has to say on every topic. I express my gratitude to the Minister for answering, as ever, with great care and regard to the questions that were asked.
What was in my mind in advancing this amendment was having some indication as to the extent to which the Government intend to change the approach that would otherwise be applied by the court. In particular, would these factors referred to in proposed new subsection (2) be intended, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said, to trump other factors? I will very carefully study what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, said, but I do not think that he quite answered that. It may be that the way forward in relation to this is to have a further discussion with the noble and learned Lord to see whether he can give further assurance, either in correspondence placed in the Library of the House, or maybe on Report, if we cannot reach agreement on this. I am grateful to him for the answer that he gave. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.