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New Member
Mr Speaker
I will suspend the House briefly to enable the necessary arrangements for the next business to be made.
Speaker’s Statement
Mr Speaker
I have a short statement to make about the number of Members permitted in the Chamber. At its meeting this morning, the House of Commons Commission decided that, in accordance with Public Health England advice, it is now possible to safely increase the number of Members able to participate physically in the proceedings of the House. These changes mean that a total of 64 Members are now able to speak in the Chamber—almost double the original number. The changes include seven marked seats in the Under Galleries beyond the Bar of the House that have had new microphones installed to enable this.
I remind Members to sit only in the marked seats and to contribute only from those seats, as I do not want to disappoint them if they are not taken. I also remind Members that they must wear a mask when in the Chamber, other than when speaking. That is one of the steps that means we are able to allow more Members into the Chamber.
I am grateful, as I am sure all Members of the House are, for the quick work by the House service that has made these changes possible in response to the improving public health situation. I understand that many Members will be keen to attend the House in person to participate in debate. Although capacity in the Chamber has increased, it is still limited, and I must remind colleagues that I will suspend proceedings if I consider that the Chamber is becoming overcrowded. Nevertheless, I believe that every additional Member in this Chamber brings us a step closer to returning to normality, which I and all other Members wish to see.
Oral Answers to Questions
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
We are currently reviewing the application process for all personal independence payment claimants. Building on our covid response PIP 2 online service, whereby claimants can receive and submit their PIP 2 online, we are in the early stages of developing a new end-to-end application process and plan to test it later this year.
Matt Vickers
As we return to normality, what steps are being taken to ensure that PIP claimants are assessed promptly, so that those in need of support can access it as quickly as possible?
Justin Tomlinson
I am conscious that my hon. Friend has raised some specific cases directly with me. As we return to normality, we have received more claims than normal. We are working hard to get through those as quickly as possible, with average clearance times slightly up from 16 to 19 weeks. As face-to-face assessments start to return, those unable to be assessed through paper-based reviews, telephone or video assessments will be prioritised.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
At the start of the pandemic, we invested almost £1 billion in local housing allowance rates, and we have made £140 million available in discretionary housing payment funding for local authorities in England and Wales, to support those struggling with housing costs. We continue to work closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to support people to sustain their tenancies.
Nigel Mills [V]
I thank the Minister for that answer. Would he accept, however, that there are many tenants who, through no fault of their own, will be in significant rent arrears and therefore facing eviction in the next few months, and will he therefore work on a cross-Government basis to find a solution that means those arrears can be cleared over a sensible period and those tenancies secured?
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We continue to work very closely with the MHCLG to find long-term solutions to housing challenges. Work coaches are trained to identify people with potential housing issues and to provide tailored support, including referrals to homelessness services or debt advice. Discretionary housing payments are available, and the Government will make available a £310 million homelessness prevention grant for local authorities. However, I would of course be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss what further measures we may be able to take.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
With the end of the eviction ban imminent, more than half of claimants needing help with housing costs face a shortfall between the help available and their actual rent—£100 a month in the case of universal credit claimants. The Government always say that discretionary housing payments are the answer to these shortfalls, so can the Minister explain to us why discretionary housing payments have suffered a real-terms cut and will be lower this year than they were before the pandemic?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. We take this issue incredibly seriously. That is why we pumped an additional nearly £1 billion into the local housing allowance and have frozen it in cash terms for a further year, and why we have the two-week run-on of housing benefit, direct payments to landlords available, £140 million in DHPs, the homelessness prevention grant, work coach support and, of course, Money and Pensions Service support. We stand ready to support any tenant who needs that support to sustain their tenancy and prevent homelessness.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
The Government are delivering an unprecedented package of support, injecting billions into the welfare system. This includes a £20 uplift to universal credit and a one-off payment of £500 to working tax credit recipients, as well as rolling out our covid local support grant scheme, worth over £260 million to local authorities.
Michael Fabricant [V]
As a good Conservative, I believe in devolution, and I think local government is far better placed than national Government to provide emergency support. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree with me, and if not, why not?
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and I do agree with him that the Government do not always know best. Actually, very often local authorities are best placed to decide how to allocate local funding to meet local need. That is why we moved quickly to implement innovative schemes during the pandemic, including the covid winter grant scheme and the local welfare assistance scheme. I have to say that, in his own constituency, Staffordshire County Council has spent the £3 million it was awarded on some really innovative projects, including oil heaters, warmth packs and, of course, food to support vulnerable families during the school holidays, meeting our objective of ensuring that vulnerable families would stay warm and well fed over the winter.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
Hard-working, law-abiding families without indefinite leave to remain have not had as much support as others during the covid-19 outbreak because of the effect of the no recourse to public funds condition. Some of those families have been able to benefit from the job retention scheme, so how will they be supported after that scheme closes in September?
Will Quince
The right hon. Member knows that we are restricted, as per legislation, in what we can do in relation to the benefits system and those with no recourse to public funds. I know this is an issue that he cares very passionately about and has raised numerous times. I would certainly be very happy to raise this issue with the Immigration Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster)—and if we have a meeting, I will certainly invite the right hon. Member along.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
Since the start of the pandemic, the Government’s priority has been to protect lives and people’s livelihoods. In March, the Government announced that we were extending the temporary £20-a-week increase in universal credit for a further six months. It is right that the Government should now shift our focus to supporting people back into work, and we have a comprehensive plan for jobs to help us to achieve this.
Hannah Bardell
This Tory Government chose to cut the lifeline of the £20 universal credit uplift in October, at the worst possible time, clashing with the withdrawal of the furlough scheme which the Office for Budget Responsibility warned will lead to UK unemployment levels peaking, hitting young people particularly hard. Will the Minister apologise to those whom his Government have pushed into further poverty and ask the Chancellor to do the decent thing and keep £20 uplift and extend it to legacy benefits?
Will Quince
The Government have always been clear that the £20 increase was a temporary measure to support households affected by the economic shock of covid-19. I am pleased to say that there have been significant positive developments in the public health situation since the increase was first announced, including the hugely successful vaccine roll-out. I have to repeat that it is therefore right that the Government should now shift focus to supporting people back into work and to progress in work, and we have a comprehensive plan via our £30 billion plan for jobs that will help us achieve this.
Allan Dorans
The Trussell Trust reports that hunger in the United Kingdom is not about access to food, but about low incomes from the social security safety net, revealing that 95% of people referred to food banks in early 2020 were living in destitution, with just £248 a month on average to survive on after housing costs. Does the Minister recognise that removing the £20 uplift to universal credit later this year will only push more families into hardship and deprivation across the United Kingdom?
Will Quince
No one in this House wants to see anyone in this country reliant on a food bank, and the Secretary of State and I are working across Government to identify and tackle the root causes of food insecurity and poverty. In the meantime, we continue to spend over £100 billion a year on benefits for working-age people, and during the pandemic we have pumped an additional £7.4 billion into our welfare system to support those facing the most financial disruption. But I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is right that we now shift our focus to supporting people back into work, because all evidence suggests that work is the best route out of poverty, and we have a comprehensive plan to do this via our £30 billion plan for jobs.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
Since 2010 poverty has risen significantly in all parts of the UK, so much so that, despite having a job, one in eight workers are living in poverty under this Conservative Government. Given that the Government are adamant that they will make this cut to universal credit, which will affect people in work, should we understand that despite the Prime Minister’s levelling-up agenda, in-work poverty will continue to rise?
Will Quince
We take this issue incredibly seriously, which is why we have the In-Work Progression Commission, which is due to report back soon, and why we spend over £100 billion a year supporting people of working age through the benefit system and put an £7.4 billion into the welfare system over the course of the pandemic to support those facing the most financial disruption. But I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that he knows that the best route out of poverty is work. All the evidence suggests that that is the case; that is why all the efforts of this Government will be about, yes, ensuring that we have a strong, robust welfare safety net but also that the focus is on jobs, jobs, jobs—and through our £30 billion plan for jobs we will achieve that.
Jonathan Reynolds
I say to the Minister that work is the best route out of poverty but it has not been working for the last 11 years, and the evidence is there for all to see.
Many disabled people are worse off on universal credit than under the old legacy systems. Ministers know this because they were forced to introduce transitional protections and, when speaking in this Chamber, always urge people to use a benefits calculator when applying in case moving to universal credit would cost them money. Keeping the universal credit uplift would go some of the way, although not all the way, towards mitigating this unfairness, so if the universal credit cut goes ahead what is the Government’s proposed solution for these disabled people—or is this yet another area where the Government actually plan to level down?
Will Quince
The opposite is in fact the case. Many of those with a disability will be better off on universal credit, and it is important, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, that they go on a benefits calculator—one of the independent benefits calculators on gov.uk—and check their eligibility. Labour Members—and the hon. Gentleman is no exception —regularly come to this House and ask for many billions of pounds more to be spent on benefits after the pandemic. Let us be clear: that is exactly what the hon. Gentleman is asking for when he refers to the universal credit uplift. I have to say that we fundamentally disagree with Labour’s approach. It is an approach that under the last Labour Government left a generation trapped on benefits and in poverty, incentivised not to work, and left children growing up in workless households, and we know what that meant for their life chances. Work is the best route out of poverty, and that is why we have put jobs and supporting people into work at the heart of everything we do. The difference could not be clearer: Labour’s focus is on billions of pounds more on benefits and the Government’s focus is on jobs, jobs, jobs.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
It is not just the SNP, the Work and Pensions Committee and a range of stakeholders who are urging the UK Government to make the £20 uplift permanent, but 100 Conservative MPs in the Tory Reform Group and the one nation caucus. Is the Minister really saying that he disagrees with 100 of his own MPs who say it would be wrong to slash £1,000 a year from household budgets just as we are coming out of the teeth of this pandemic?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and welcome him to his place. Throughout this pandemic, this Government have consistently stepped up to support the lowest-paid, poorest and most vulnerable in our society. During the pandemic, the focus has rightly been on ensuring that people facing the most financial disruption got the support that they needed as quickly as possible, but all evidence suggests that work is the best route out of poverty. We had a jobs miracle before the pandemic, and with the help of our £30 billion plan for jobs, the support of business and creating the right environment, we will do so again. That is exactly why we shift our focus to supporting people back into work and to progress in work. We are doing that with the extra 13,500 work coaches in our jobcentres up and down the country and our £30 billion comprehensive plan for jobs.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
We are committed to cross-Government working to help prison leavers into work and to reduce reoffending. In support of the Prime Minister’s crime and justice taskforce, we are funding an additional 30 prison work coaches, bringing the total up to 200, to go into prisons after covid restrictions are lifted with a focus on both gaining employment and accessing benefits promptly, to remove excuses for prison leavers to return immediately to crime.
Miriam Cates
Northern College in my constituency is a resident education college that gives disadvantaged adults a second chance at adult education. Many students are former prisoners, but thanks to the college’s outstanding tuition and pastoral support, they go on to achieve educational success and secure well-paid employment. Sadly, the funding for such colleges is under threat, so will my right hon. Friend work with colleagues in the Department for Education to secure the future of Northern College and ensure that former prisoners continue to have access to this amazing opportunity to turn their lives around?
Dr Coffey
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. I will absolutely share her concerns on the specific college to which she refers, Northern College. As I say, the Government are committed to helping ex-offenders to re-establish themselves back into the community and into work. As part of the Government taskforce, though, I am very keen to help prisoners get the right job skills while they are still in prison so they can walk straight out of prison into the world of work. However, the elements to which she refers will continue to be important in ensuring that people stay in jobs and succeed in jobs.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
Analysis shows that prior to the pandemic, the poorest 20% of households saw their incomes increase by over 6% in 2019-20, even after taking account of inflation. Since the pandemic hit, we have strengthened the welfare system, spending £7.4 billion on measures such as the universal credit uplift, on top of additional support such as the coronavirus job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme. Her Majesty’s Treasury analysis has shown that the Government’s unprecedented support package means that working working-age households in the bottom 10% of the income distribution have seen no income reduction.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I am not at all surprised that the Minister’s answer bears little resemblance to the reality. Even pre-pandemic, 75% of children living in poverty lived in a household where at least one person worked. A recent NHS England-funded report found that around 700 child deaths could be avoided each year by reducing deprivation rates. Under this Government, work is no longer a route out of poverty. Why is that?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I know the passion with which she raises the issue. We have measures in place to tackle in-work poverty, and we intend to go further: whether it is our 13,500 additional work coaches in Jobcentre Plus up and down our country, kickstart or restart, or our £30 billion plan for jobs, it will help tackle in-work poverty through progression in work. In addition, we have the In-Work Progression Commission, which will report in the coming months on the barriers to progression for those in persistent low pay and, importantly, set out a strategy for overcoming them.
Kerry McCarthy
I have lost count of the number of times the Minister said all the evidence suggests that work is the best route out of poverty. We agree, in that the last Labour Government showed how it could be done, but under this Government it is simply not true, is it? As we have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), 75% of children living in poverty are in a family where at least one parent is at work. Getting a low-paid and insecure job is not a route out of poverty if parents cannot afford childcare and housing, and if their universal credit will be cut. What is the Government’s strategy for making sure that work does pay?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but the statistics show that full-time work substantially reduces the chance of poverty. The absolute poverty rate of a child where both parents work full time is 3% compared with 47% where one or more parents are in part-time work. That is why we are supporting people into full-time work wherever possible, for example through our comprehensive childcare offer. As I said, we had a jobs miracle before the pandemic, and, through our £30 billion plan for jobs and with the help of businesses up and down our country, we will again. Part of that is having a welfare system that encourages and incentivises work. With universal credit, that is exactly what we have.
Tony Lloyd [V]
In my Rochdale constituency, no ward has fewer than one in five children living in poverty. Some wards have over half of all children living in poverty, and the bulk of those have parents who are working. That is a scandal. What is also a scandal is that the Minister insists that work always pays and keeps people out of poverty. It does not. What can he say to my constituents to assure them that they will be part of a genuine levelling-up process, with money in their pockets and their children not living in poverty?
Will Quince
When the opportunity allows, I would be delighted to visit the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I would say to him, however, that a child growing up in a home where all the adults are working is around five times less likely to be in poverty than a child in a household where nobody works. That is why our relentless focus is on supporting and empowering people into work, and progressing in work. As I said, we have a benefits system with universal credit, unlike the system proposed by Labour, that incentivises and encourages work—that is the key.
Mr Dhesi
Over the years, Ministers have parroted the same lines over and over again on poverty, which is that work is the route out of it. Elements of the right-wing media have been trying to unscrupulously label hard-working people as scroungers from the welfare state, yet the true legacy of a decade of Tory Government is that the number of households in poverty where at least one adult is working increased by almost 2 million people. What are the Government going to do to rectify that unacceptable situation and ensure that hard-working Brits get a decent wage?
Will Quince
I have been absolutely clear. The evidence suggests that work is the best route out of poverty and that is why, through our £30 billion plan for jobs, we plan to make that happen. We increased the national living wage and have taken millions of people out of income tax all together. We continue to take action on the cost of living and the Secretary of State is looking at further measures we can take in that regard, such as, for example, our childcare offer. As I said, our plan for jobs will be game-changing and I hope the hon. Gentleman will get behind it. I will of course be very happy to meet him and businesses in Slough to see how we can make it happen.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
Youth unemployment is down compared with 2010, currently standing at 575,000 young people, and we have the second-highest youth employment rate in the G7, second only to Canada. We are conscious of the scarring effects of long-term unemployment, which is why we developed kickstart as the flagship of our plan for jobs. Since its launch in September, over 200,000 jobs have been approved and over 20,000 young people have started their jobs. As our recovery continues, we expect to see many more starts in the next few weeks and months ahead.
Matt Western [V]
I am afraid it is more damp squib than kickstart. An IT support and services company in my constituency started the much vaunted kickstart process on 15 September last year, with the expectation that it could recruit after 30 days. Eight months on, it still does not have anyone. Its conclusion: the scheme is pretty much a waste of everyone’s time and resources. Put simply, does this explain the fact that for every 25 young people who have lost their jobs over the past 12 months, kickstart has helped just one back into work?
Dr Coffey
It is fair to say that 20,000 people now have a salary coming in every week that they did not have before. I am sure that the employment Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies)—will be happy to look into the specific circumstances of the role to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Young people are not compelled to apply for kickstart if they are already applying for other jobs as well as part of their conditionality, but I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will look further into the matter if the hon. Gentleman provides the details.
Peter Aldous [V]
Suffolk’s gateway partnership has been very successful in promoting and rolling out the kickstart scheme, but to ensure that this initiative realises its full potential in supporting young people into work, it needs to be extended well beyond the end of this year. I would be most grateful if my right hon. Friend and Suffolk colleague confirmed whether she agrees with that conclusion and whether she is making representations to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for funding to be provided at the forthcoming comprehensive spending review.
Dr Coffey
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour, and, indeed, I commend Suffolk’s gateway partnership and have seen its success in my role as MP for Suffolk Coastal. There are no current plans to extend the kickstart scheme. We want to focus on delivering jobs for young people as soon as we can, and eligible young people will be able to start new kickstart jobs until the end of this year—December 2021. Like him, I am very keen to make sure that we fill the vacancies we have. We are starting to see our first graduates who are getting permanent roles and we need to evaluate what the best route is for beyond, in 2022.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
May I say that this is going to be my last DWP questions in this role and thank the Minister for the constructive way that she has developed the relationship? I will be handing—
Seema Malhotra
I am sorry, Mr Speaker, but I will be handing over to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), on whose behalf I ask this question.
Last month’s data shows kickstart helping less than 4% of 16 to 24-year- olds who have lost their jobs over the last year. The scheme is nowhere near matching the scale of the challenge and, even worse, the Department, as has just been confirmed, still plans to end the scheme just as unemployment is set to peak. Employers speak of delays of weeks for vacancies to be approved and then advertised. It is almost a year since the Chancellor announced kickstart. There is no excuse for long-term unemployment becoming a legacy of the pandemic, so when are things going to change, and will the Secretary of State now urgently review the December kickstart end date in line with calls by Labour, the Confederation of British Industry and the Youth Employment Group, so that employers can also plan ahead?
Dr Coffey
First, I congratulate the hon. Lady on her new role; I understand that she is moving into the shadow Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy team and I am sure that she will be a huge success there, too.
In terms of kickstart, in the last four weeks, we have achieved, on average, 400 starts a day. This is in line with what we are seeing with the opening up of the economy. Today, we are on the first element of step 3, and we expect the starts under kickstart to get going. On the plan for jobs, we want to make sure that we properly evaluate all the measures to make sure that they achieve the ultimate goal of ensuring that as many people as possible are in work by the end of this year.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
I can confirm that, as of 6 May, around 12,300 kickstart jobs had been made available for young people to apply for in the south-east of England region, and around 2,300 young people had already started in their new kickstart roles. Delivering the kickstart scheme at pace means that the DWP deal is still developing the tools to further break down the data on a more local level.
Layla Moran [V]
I thank the Minister for her answer. I agree that helping young people to get into work through this crisis is of paramount importance, but I was deeply concerned to hear, in a business roundtable organised by our local enterprise partnership, that that data is being gathered only at a regional level by the DWP. This means that the LEP and the councils cannot assess how well Oxfordshire is doing or measure the efficiency of any interventions that we might put in place to do even better. I thank her for her explanation, but can she give us any timeline on when we can have this data broken down to at least upper-tier council level? And can she meet me and officials so that we can understand how to ensure that young people make the most of this scheme?
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Lady for raising the issue of getting young people into work. As we heard from the Secretary of State, approximately 400 young people, on average, have been going into work per day for the past four weeks. I urge her to meet the Rose Hill youth hub, the newly launched DWP youth hub that covers her constituency and has been working with Oxford Jobcentre Plus from April, as well as Aspire, Activate and Oxford City Council. That will give her the insight that she needs about what is happening on the ground. She can also meet the local youth employability work coaches. We are breaking down the data as far as we can, but our priority right now is to get young people into those new roles.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
The Department is committed to delivering an improved benefits system for claimants who are nearing the end of their lives, and is working across Government to bring forward proposals following the evaluation. I remain committed to implementing the key areas identified as soon as possible.
Emma Hardy
I have a constituent with incurable mantle cell lymphoma who does not meet the definition of terminal illness. She has been refused the personal independence payment, she is one year off her state pension, and because she owns a property that her disabled son lives in, she cannot claim means-tested benefits. She is in a dire financial situation. How much longer will she have to wait for the rules on terminal illness to be changed?
Justin Tomlinson
I thank the hon. Member for highlighting this. I do not know all the details, but if she is willing to share them, I would be very happy to look into that specific case. It highlights why we have carried out this vital evaluation, supported by stakeholders. The key three principles of improving awareness, consistency and scrapping the six-month rule remain a priority for our Department.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
The new enhanced DWP youth offer has provided wraparound support for young people since September 2020, delivering employment and skills support and training through our youth employment programme, new youth hubs and additional youth employability work coaches. We currently have more than 110 new youth hubs operating digitally or physically, with at least one in every JCP district. We will have more than 140 physical youth hubs delivering face-to-face support as the covid restrictions are lifted further.
Mr Baker [V]
How is the Department encouraging businesses and other employers to sign up to these schemes so that we can create those vital jobs for 16 to 24-year-olds who might otherwise be long-term unemployed?
Mims Davies
We are doing it non-stop, as my hon. Friend will be pleased to know. The DWP Lords Minister —my noble Friend Baroness Stedman-Scott—and I regularly attend stakeholder and outreach events to promote kickstart to employers. Last week, I spoke to more than 90 employers at an event partnering with MyKindaFuture, a mentoring platform. The team in my hon. Friend’s local jobcentre are working with local employers to support those most at risk of long-term unemployment through the new opportunities they need. I am pleased to share with my hon. Friend that they recently helped a young man who was struggling with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to find a new kickstart job as a green keeper.
Karl MᶜCartney [V]
I have recently received correspondence from the learning and skills lead for automotive engineering at Lincoln College in my constituency, which is shortly due to hold Autoinform 14-19, a practical taster event that aims to allow young people to spend time in workshops with local employers and industry specialists looking at electric cars, acoustic vehicle alerting systems, diagnostic methods and the MOT test. One difficulty is securing schools’ buy-in with the scheme. How does my hon. Friend believe the Government can support organisations such as Lincoln College to ensure that we help as many young people into employment as possible?
Mims Davies
The DWP’s partnerships on the ground with local labour markets are key to these new employment opportunities. I am pleased that Lincoln JCP is working in partnership with the Network, a charity that aims to prevent young people from becoming NEET—not in education, employment or training—and engages with and connects to wider support. Customers will also benefit from a key partnership locally with the DWP, Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce and the Lincoln College Group, which have created many new opportunities for our young people within the new kickstart scheme.
Sara Britcliffe
The Government have brought in some brilliant measures to get young people into employment and I witnessed that at first hand on a visit to NORI HR. We are also hosting an education summit locally, and I welcome the support from our local training providers such as North Lancs Training Group, but can the Minister set out what measures are in place to help jobcentres and training providers to work together so that people are fully aware of all the opportunities available to them?
Mims Davies
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point, and I thank NORI HR for all its work. All MPs in this Chamber should take the opportunity to work with their local Jobcentre Plus team to support and promote kickstart. Locally, the DWP is working with employers such as NORI HR and also the Accrington Stanley community trust, which Members might have seen on “Football Focus” recently. The first cohort of employees started in March this year in a variety of kickstart roles including admin, sports coaching, youth work, site maintenance and leisure attendants. We are also working in partnership with the Hyndburn DWP youth hub to support our young people to be ready for these new kickstart roles.
Robbie Moore
Across Keighley and Ilkley, businesses care passionately about giving young people the skills they need for a successful career, and these include Byworth Boilers, an excellent business that offers apprenticeships to help local residents to take their first step on the career ladder. The desire from local businesses is there, but they often need Government help to turn this into a reality, so will my hon. Friend confirm how her Department is helping to give companies such as Byworth Boilers the chance to deliver for young people?
Mims Davies
I am more than happy to support Byworth Boilers and all the local employers, and to extend my thanks to the businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency and up and down the land that are putting forward opportunities to work with young people. I know that my hon. Friend works closely with the team at the Keighley jobcentre, who are in touch with many local employers including the Spoons Tearoom, Ideabean Software Technology and Superdrug, who are working together with the DWP to help to create new opportunities and progression for local jobseekers.
Dr Spencer [V]
I thank my hon. Friend for her response. Young people have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, given the high rates of unemployment in hospitality. Today I visited one of our local hotels, the Hilton Cobham, which has now fully reopened and is looking forward to welcoming the guests who enjoy Runnymede and Weybridge’s local attractions such as Thorpe Park, the Brooklands Museum and, of course, the birthplace of Magna Carta. Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the next step in lifting the restrictions and invite people to visit and stay in Runnymede and Weybridge, to go to our fantastic pubs and restaurants to eat, drink and be merry and to support—[Inaudible.]— economy and jobs?
Mims Davies
I think I got the point; we all love a bit of Thorpe Park. I join my hon. Friend in welcoming the wider return of hospitality in the travel and hotel sectors. This will be a vital boost to our economy and local jobs. In my hon. Friend’s jobcentre, we have new kickstart roles advertised in various hospitality areas including golf at Foxhills Country Club and Resort, sports and leisure through the RunThrough events team and social media opportunities with Little Olive Consulting, as well as vital local roles with Woking Borough Council and Surrey County Council.
Sir David Evennett [V]
I appreciate all that my hon. Friend is doing to help young people, many of whom will bounce back into work quickly and easily, but what dedicated support is available to help those who face more complex barriers to employment?
Mims Davies
My right hon. Friend is right. That is why we have our new youth hubs with work coaches dedicated to youth employability to support young people with complex needs. They are able to remove barriers and support young people into employment and, crucially, to continue that support for the next six weeks after they have moved into work. In my right hon. Friend’s area, the jobcentres are running crucial sector-based work academy programmes in social care, construction and security, as well as offering new kickstart roles to young people and working with the London Borough of Bexley, which is also a vital kickstart gateway.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
This Government have been clear that supporting people back into work and empowering them to progress in their role is the best approach to tackling poverty. Evidence shows that households where all the adults work are six times less likely to be in absolute poverty than households where nobody works. To help to fulfil our commitment to get people back into work, we are investing over £30 billion through—you guessed it, Mr Speaker—our ambitious plan for jobs, which is already delivering for people right across our country.
Mr Sheerman [V]
Are this Government determined to be known as the most heartless Government since the end of the last world war? If these Ministers look at this morning’s report from Save the Children, they will see that 4 million children in our country are in poverty, going to bed at night with no food in their tummy. What are the Government going to do about that? It is a disgraceful state of affairs, and it is particularly hitting the north of England and people in the towns of West Yorkshire. Is it not about time we secured good, well-paid jobs and affordable childcare for these people, and tackled the problem, which has got worse and worse since 2010?
Will Quince
I am disappointed in that question, and I certainly do not recognise the picture painted by the hon. Gentleman. This Government have stepped up to support people facing financial disruption throughout this pandemic, pouring billions of pounds more into our welfare system to support those facing the most financial disruption. Those were short-term, temporary measures—we know that—to support people during the pandemic. I hope he will agree that it is right that our focus should shift to supporting people back into work and to progress into work, because we know that the evidence suggests that work is the best route of poverty. We will achieve this with our £30 billion plan for jobs.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
We have introduced a substantial package of temporary welfare measures to support those on low incomes throughout the pandemic. We have paid out more than £100 billion in welfare support for people of working age this year and have consistently supported the lowest-paid families by increasing the living wage. This includes an investment of almost £1 billion into the local housing allowance rates, benefiting housing benefit and universal credit claimants alike. In addition, we have made sure that benefits retained their value against prices by raising benefits by a further £100 million from April 2021 in line with the consumer prices index.
Marion Fellows
The Trussell Trust reports that 62% of the working-age population referred to food banks were disabled, yet the Tories’ decision to deny people on legacy benefits the same £20 uplift as those on universal credit, which will be challenged in the High Court, continues to exclude 2 million disabled people, despite the extra costs they have faced during the pandemic. Will the UK Government finally provide the support that disabled people need, or will they continue trying to force people on to UC?
Will Quince
It is the policy of the Department not to comment on live litigation, so I will not comment on that aspect. I gently point out to the hon. Lady that we spend more than £57 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work reminds me that that is an extra £4 billion in real terms. That is support for people with disabilities and health conditions, and this is about 2.6% of our GDP.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]
Ministers have been asked many times about the lack of uplift to legacy benefits, and every response has been woeful. The Government are now being taken to court to correct this discrimination. Do Ministers not see that they are discriminating against millions of disabled people on these benefits? This needs to be sorted. Does the Minister agree that it should not take a judicial review to tackle this injustice?
Will Quince
I have a lot of time for the shadow Minister, but however many times she asks the same question she is going to get the same response. The Government have focused support on UC and working tax credit claimants because they are more likely to be affected by the sudden economic shock of covid-19 than other legacy benefit claimants. I am not going to comment on the live litigation, but I would say that legacy claimants can make a new UC claim and benefit from the £20 a week increase; the Government encourage anybody to go on gov.uk and use one of the independent benefit calculators to check carefully their eligibility before they apply.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
The nation is today uniting to toast an important milestone in the Prime Minister’s road map to recovery, with the long-awaited full reopening of the hospitality sector—thank God for that, given the rain we are suffering. The British public have stood up to the challenge of the pandemic and, while still being cautious, we need to get out there and spend our dosh. Let’s do our bit to support our communities, businesses and jobs, including more than 1 million workers who were furloughed and whom I hope we will now see back at work. As hospitality booms, I am sure that many more new kickstarters will be out there, able to hit the ground running.
Wendy Chamberlain [V]
Before the introduction of universal credit, single parents under the age of 25 received a higher rate of benefit payment in recognition of the increased costs of raising a child as a single parent, but that support has sadly not been extended to young single parents who are in receipt of universal credit. Does the Secretary of State agree with me and the assessment of One Parent Families Scotland that the omission amounts to a “young parent penalty”?
Dr Coffey
No; we took a sensible approach in having a differential rate for universal credit. Of course, if any of the hon. Lady’s constituents would like support to secure extra income via the child’s other parent, the Child Maintenance Service is there to help parents in such situations.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con) [V]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
I have regular discussions with a range of Ministers across the Government about how best to get young people into work and thriving. We are already incentivising employers to hire young people through the kickstart scheme, through which we pay wages and the associated national insurance contributions for six months. It is a job creation scheme for the young people who are most at risk of long-term unemployment, building vital experience throughout the pandemic and giving them the confidence and skills needed to thrive in their future workplace.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The kickstart scheme was launched with much fanfare but it has been a bit of a flop, not to mention a headache for many businesses such as METERology in my constituency, which has been given a total runaround by the Secretary of State’s Department. Recent figures suggest that if the UK Government maintain a rate of 400 new employees starting each day, they should hit their target of 250,000 new jobs in 625 days—that is two years—so what more are they going to do to ensure that kickstart can really live up to its hype rather than just be a slogan for the Chancellor’s naff hoodie?
Dr Coffey
The hon. Gentleman is being ungracious. We are still at step 3 of the road map to recovery. Dare I say that the Scottish Government are putting up a roadblock to recovery by pursuing the whole independence agenda when they should be focused on the economic recovery? If the hon. Gentleman has specific constituency matters to raise, he is welcome to do so. As we go through the steps, we will see even more kickstarters taking full advantage of the generous support, which will help them and employers alike.
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
We are the first G7 country to legislate for net zero and lead the world in sustainable environmental investment, with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and more, all of which address climate change. It was a pleasure to visit Airedale Springs, which is a great company that is doing good business but with due regard to climate change. That is our approach to UK pensions as we build back greener.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
Some 200,000 women who worked hard and paid their taxes all their lives have been underpaid their state pensions. It is an absolute scandal. I welcome the announcement that the DWP is trying to repay the money owed to these women, who have been so badly let down, but the repayments are being made far too slowly. Will the Minister confirm how many repayments were made last month and when the Department will finally speed up the process?
Guy Opperman
It is good to see that the hon. Gentleman survived the deputy leadership reshuffle.
The simple point is that the DWP formally commenced correction activity on 11 January this year, and I published a written ministerial statement on 4 February this year. We are clearing up a mess, the responsibility for much of which goes back to the changes made under the Labour Government in 2008, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware. Where underpayments are identified, the Department will contact the individual to inform them of the changes to their state pension amount and of any arrears payments that they will receive in accordance with the law.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con) [V]
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
As part of the Green Paper, we will be going further than the special rules for terminal illness evaluation to look at the principles of extending the severe health condition criteria to remove unnecessary assessments and reviews.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) [V]
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Lady for pointing out the great opportunities of apprenticeships. The kickstart scheme can lead to such an opportunity, and we will be explaining to young people the opportunities that exist through our youth hubs. On supporting people, we have our flexible support fund for people to get into work and to thrive in work. Our in-work progression report will be reporting soon and we will look at it closely to see whether it covers any of these matters.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Dr Coffey
My hon. Friend is right. The design of universal credit means that people will always be better off working than not working. It is important that people take advantage of extra hours that they may be offered in order to get that benefit, and we will continue to help people get into that type of job.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Mims Davies
Older workers can get help from their work coach if they need further qualifications or modern certifications. The DWP works with the Government’s business champion for older workers, providing outreach and advice for employers. We encourage all employers to reap the many benefits of recruiting workers who can bring a wealth of skills and experience to any workplace. I advise people to head to the JobHelp website, to look at the Department for Education’s digital toolkit, or to speak to their work coach about any support so that they can perhaps have the best part of their career in the final years of their career.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Justin Tomlinson
My hon. Friend highlights a vital issue, which is why we have developed a disability confident toolkit with stakeholders to provide comprehensive information and guidance for employers on autism and hidden impairments. I hope that his constituent’s undoubted talents will be unlocked shortly.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
I have explored this issue, which is a little bit more complicated than the hon. Lady makes out. We have been working with housing associations. I would be very happy to sit down with her and have a briefing on the matter with officials.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con) [V]
Justin Tomlinson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The SRTI—special rules for terminal illness—evaluation has been completed and will not need to be rerun through the forthcoming Green Paper.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab) [V]
Justin Tomlinson
The Government are rightly proud of providing record amounts of support for people with disabilities and long-term health conditions. Through our forthcoming health and disability Green Paper, we will work with stakeholders and those with real lived experience to make sure that we improve the services and support we provide.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
Justin Tomlinson
I thank my hon. Friend for being so proactive, along with about 50 other MPs who have already agreed to host health and disability Green Paper events to look at the key themes of advocacy, getting supportive evidence, the assessment process and the appeals process. It is the Government’s absolute priority to support those with disabilities and long-term health conditions.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Justin Tomlinson
I thank the hon. Member for raising that point. We have been improving guidance and sharing best practice with employers. We have also made changes to statutory sick pay for those who are either self-isolating or sick to remove the four-day wait. It is disappointing to hear how that specific employer has treated their hard-working employee.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con) [V]
Mims Davies
My hon. Friend knows the pain of the impact on the aviation sector, as do I in my nearby constituency. The DWP has a range of support for individuals who have been employed in this sector and are affected. The DWP rapid response service provides key help and advice for employers and their employees if they are facing redundancy. Our work coaches provide claimants with individual personalised support, utilising our plan for jobs, which includes SWAP—the sector-based work academy programme—for those currently displaced by the impact on the aviation sector. That can help to build confidence and transfer their very wide-ranging skills into other opportunities for the short or the longer term. I am pleased that many of them are working locally, vaccinating—
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
Dr Coffey
Ah, my favourite question on UBI. The answer is no. If the Welsh Government wish to use the extra money they receive through the Barnett formula to undertake other aspects, the question is whether it is within their legal powers to do so. I am conscious that we all want to make sure that food insecurity comes to an end, and that is why we are working across Government to tackle it.
Mr Speaker
I will now suspend the House to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Antisemitic Attacks
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Before I call the Secretary of State to respond to the urgent question, I have a short statement to make. I know that all Members will be deeply concerned by the footage of apparently antisemitic behaviour that appeared online yesterday. I understand that a number of individuals have been arrested in relation to the incident, but that no charges have yet been made. Therefore, the House’s sub judice resolution is not yet formally engaged. However, I remind all Members to exercise caution and avoid referring to the details of specific cases in order to avoid saying anything that might compromise any ongoing investigation or subsequent prosecution.
I call the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, who has three minutes to answer the urgent question from Robert Halfon.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on recent antisemitic attacks across the UK.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)
No one could fail to be appalled by the disgraceful scenes of antisemitic abuse directed at members of the Jewish community in the past week. In Chigwell, Rabbi Rafi Goodwin was hospitalised after being attacked outside his synagogue. In London, activists drove through Golders Green and Finchley, both areas with large Jewish populations, apparently shouting antisemitic abuse through a megaphone. These are intimidatory, racist and extremely serious crimes. The police have since made four arrests for racially aggravated public order offences and have placed extra patrols in the St John’s Wood and Golders Green areas.
During Shavuot, as always, we stand with our Jewish friends and neighbours, who have sadly been subjected to a deeply disturbing upsurge in antisemitism in recent years, particularly on social media. Like all forms of racism, antisemitism has no place in our society. A lot of young British Jews are discovering for the first time that their friends do not understand antisemitism, cannot recognise it and do not care that they are spreading it. British Jews are not responsible for the actions of a Government thousands of miles away, but are made to feel as if they are. They see their friends post social media content that glorifies Hamas—an illegal terrorist organisation, whose charter calls for every Jew in the world to be killed. Today, the world celebrates International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. Under Hamas, people are murdered for being gay.
Every time the virus of antisemitism re-enters our society, it masks itself as social justice, selling itself as speaking truth to power. This Government are taking robust action to root it out. We are leading the way as the first Government to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and calling on others to do the same. As a result, nearly three quarters of local councils have adopted it. I have written to councils and universities that are still dragging their feet. They will shortly be named and shamed if they fail to act. All Members of Parliament, bar one, have signed up to it.
We are also doing our utmost to keep the Jewish community safe through the £65 million protective security grant to protect Jewish schools, synagogues and community buildings. We are working closely with the Community Security Trust to ensure victims can come forward and report attacks to the police.
We recognise that education is one of the most powerful tools we have for tackling antisemitism. We are proud to back the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Anne Frank Trust, among others, to ensure that we challenge prejudice from an early age. With the last holocaust survivors leaving us, we are also ensuring that future generations never forget where hatred can lead through—I hope—a new world-class holocaust memorial and learning centre next to the Palace of Westminster. It is currently awaiting the outcome of a planning inquiry. Some of the opposition to it has only served to make the case for why it is needed.
Today, the Government and, I hope, the whole House send a clear message of support and reassurance to our Jewish friends and neighbours. We seek a society where the UK’s largest established religions can live safely and freely, and can prosper, as an essential part of a nation that is confident in its diversity but ultimately strong in its unity.
Mr Speaker
I am very disappointed. I said at the beginning that the Secretary of State had three minutes, and he went on to take four minutes. Unfortunately, I do not make the rules of the House, but I have to stick to them. We now go to Robert Halfon, who is participating virtually, with two minutes.
Robert Halfon [V]
In a 2018 House of Commons debate on antisemitism, I said the air had grown tighter for Jews:
“you feel very hot, you undo a button on your shirt and your mouth goes dry.”—[Official Report, 17 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 262.]
Sadly, after yesterday’s horrific incidents, highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—particularly the rabbi being beaten up in Chigwell in Essex—I fear that the air has become even tighter. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing) for her strong support against antisemitism.
Since 2018, the Community Security Trust has recorded the highest ever number of antisemitic incidents—more than 1,800 in 2019. In Harlow just a few days ago, swastikas were graffitied on walls in a public walkway. Thankfully, they have now been removed. Why, in the 21st century, must Jewish schools and synagogues have guards outside? The growth of antisemitism has happened for a number of reasons. There are too many of what Vladimir Lenin called “useful idiots”, whether they are some Labour party activists, condemned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and those who use the conflict in Israel as an excuse; the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen telling Jews to read negative articles about Jews; or the NUS giving moral equivalence to antisemitism and what it calls the liberation of Palestine. I remind the House that the so-called liberation is being conducted by Iranian-funded extreme Islamist terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
What protections and support are being given specifically to Jews and to the Community Security Trust? What are the Government doing to educate pupils about antisemitism so that this evil is wiped out? Will there be severe penalties for those found guilty of antisemitic behaviours? As a proud British Jewish MP, I never imagined that I would live at a time when I and the Jewish community would question whether Britain is a safe place for Jews any more.
Robert Jenrick
I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks today and his long record of supporting the British Jewish community and fighting antisemitism. We must ensure that this is a country where our Jewish friends and neighbours feel safe, and I am sure that the whole House will send a strong message today of support and reassurance to them.
The Government will continue to support the Community Security Trust—I join my right hon. Friend in praising its work. Partly funded by the Government and partly by philanthropy, it helps to ensure the security of 650 Jewish communal buildings and 1,000 events every year. It has reported to us a steep rise this week in antisemitic incidents—a 320% increase in a week. I am afraid that that is likely to rise further as there is always a delay in reporting. We will continue to support the trust and we will work with the Metropolitan police and police forces in other parts of the country, who are putting out extra patrols in the coming days to provide reassurance to Jewish citizens.
We will also support groups across the country, for example, the Union of Jewish Students, which does so much good work for Jews on campuses across the UK who suffer antisemitic attacks and abuse. We will keep on with that work as well as the educational work to which my right hon. Friend referred. In my opening remarks, I paid tribute to a number of the fantastic organisations, such as the Holocaust Memorial Trust, which deliver that day in, day out, and have continued to do so even during the difficulties that covid-19 posed.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
I commend the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for securing the urgent question. What we saw and heard in the footage from the streets of London yesterday was vile antisemitism and sickening, threatening mysogyny. Those who engage in that appalling, terrible behaviour should feel the full force of the law.
Time and again, we have seen these attacks aimed at the Jewish community. The Community Security Trust, which I also commend for its work, recorded 63 antisemitic incidents from 8 to 16 May. We send a clear, unequivocal message that that is not acceptable—not then, not now, not ever. I have been moved by the Jewish community’s sharing testimonies at the weekend. I have contacted the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Community Security Trust to make clear the absolute condemnation on these Benches for those terrible acts.
There is too often a completely unacceptable pattern: distressing scenes in the middle east—we on these Benches have called for a ceasefire—can lead to a minority of people attempting to whip up hatred between communities. There is often an upsurge in Islamophobic attacks, too. Those who do that do not in any sense represent those who seek to bring about peace in the middle east.
I understand that four men have been arrested, but I ask the Secretary of State whether anyone else is being sought. What more can be done, particularly in intelligence gathering, to prevent this kind of incident from happening again? What additional support is being given to places of worship and other key sites at this worrying time? Does the Secretary of State agree that, in response to those who seek to stoke division and hatred, we must stand united and send a message that they will never win?
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his strong words today, which will have been heard by Jewish communities across the country. The whole of the House of Commons is united in this regard. He is also right to say that whatever one’s views are on the current conflict in Israel and Gaza, that is no excuse whatsoever for the kind of antisemitic abuse or, indeed, anti-Muslim hatred that we are seeing on our streets right now. Tell MAMA, which reports the number of anti-Muslim incidents, has also informed us that there has been a rise in incidents directed against the Muslim community in recent days. Both are unacceptable, and both need to be tackled.
The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the police should be taking a lead, and we expect the police to be urgently investigating the issues that we have seen in recent days. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has spoken with the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, who has given assurances that the police will do everything they can to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. Further patrols are now happening in areas with larger Jewish communities in London, for example, and I know that other police forces in other parts of the country, such as Greater Manchester, are taking the same proactive approach. As I said in my opening remarks, the police have since made four arrests for racially aggravated public order offences, and have placed extra patrols in the St John’s Wood and Golders Green areas.
With respect to the incident regarding the rabbi in Chigwell, Essex police have announced that they are investigating the incident as a religiously aggravated assault, and have appealed for witnesses. They are engaging with the affected communities equally to provide reassurance, and I call on anyone who may have been a witness to either of those events or, indeed, others across the country to come forward as soon as possible.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the concern you have shown the British Jewish community today by granting this urgent question so soon. The fact that people feel emboldened to drive through Jewish neighbourhoods calling for the rape of women, or to march through the streets of London warning Jews that an army is coming against them, does not happen in isolation. It happens because antisemitism on campuses is ignored; because university lecturers who target Jewish students are not dealt with; because far-right holocaust denial content on online platforms is not dealt with; and because some people, some campaigners —including, perhaps, some in this place—place an emphasis on Israel and use emotive language that they do not use in relation to other conflicts, while giving Hamas, the terror tunnels and the murder weapons a free pass. That is why it happens: it does not happen in isolation, and enough is enough.
I thank the Secretary of State for what he has said today, but I urge him to go even further. It is great that we are putting so much money into holocaust education, but we have to go further in ensuring that every child in this country is taught about antisemitism, as they should be taught about Islamophobia and all racism.
Robert Jenrick
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. It is crucial that we ensure that young people uphold the values of this country and understand antisemitism. That is one of the reasons why we were the first country in the world to sign up to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition, which makes it abundantly clear that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. It is one of the reasons why we fund the Holocaust Educational Trust, and why we have now expended its remit from going into schools to going into universities as well. We also fund a range of other organisations.
It is also important to underline the point that my hon. Friend made: Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and those considering its activities or reporting upon them should make very clear the kind of organisation it is and the relationship that the UK has with it, which is that we do not engage with a terrorist organisation.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP) [V]
I, too, thank the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for having secured this urgent question, which offers us an opportunity to unite in unequivocal opposition to, and condemnation of, antisemitism. There is never any excuse or justification for it, and hatred expressed here helps absolutely nobody, anywhere. The events that have already been described were absolutely horrendous—vile, targeted antisemitism and misogyny—and our solidarity goes out to the Jewish communities directly targeted and to everyone across the country who has suffered such hatred. We support all steps to bring the perpetrators to justice and all initiatives to tackle antisemitism.
Finally, can I suggest that we also take this opportunity to condemn all forms of racism and religious hatred, whether it is antisemitism, Islamophobia, or the atrocious anti-Catholic bigotry witnessed this weekend during disgraceful disorder by Rangers fans in Glasgow city centre? It has absolutely no place, and there is absolutely no excuse for it. I am sure that Members across the House will agree that we all have a duty to call it out and condemn it.
Robert Jenrick
I thank the hon. Gentleman for those remarks. Like him, this Government have zero tolerance for all forms of racism, including antisemitism. We must do everything we can to ensure that where individuals do perpetrate these crimes, they are brought to justice.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con) [V]
I have been heartened by some of the comments made so far. However, it was frightening and horrible over the weekend to watch videos of people hurling abuse from cars; to hear about the rabbi who was badly beaten up; and to see pictures from the Arndale centre of yobs—from Bradford, I am told—intimidating shoppers and shouting antisemitic remarks. And it is dreadful that it is happening in this country. Of course, all racism, whether it be antisemitism, Islamophobia or anti-Catholicism, must be condemned, but my question is: what lessons have been learned about this? Some might say that all of this was predictable as soon as it was known that the march was going to happen. What lessons have been learned, and what new practices are the police going to put in place to make sure that this sort of thing cannot happen again?
Robert Jenrick
I, for one, never thought that I would see banners being held aloft on the streets of London, apparently with impunity, saying, “Death to Jews”, or individuals being able to drive for some time through neighbourhoods, broadcasting the kind of antisemitic bile that we saw over the weekend. That is disgraceful. It is wrong and we need to ensure that our police services are equipped to take action quickly and robustly when this happens again in the future. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will speak again to her counterparts so that they can ensure that where such instances arise in the future, action is taken as fast as possible, as we would expect with regard to any other racist or intimidatory incident.
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab) [V]
May I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for securing this urgent question? Like others, seeing racist posters, swastikas, a rabbi attacked and a racist convoy going through north London, I could see that the message was one of hate and, often, misogyny. This House is sending out a very strong message today denouncing this vile racism. But our message cannot just be for today. Tragically, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not go away, and we must be able to debate and disagree without Jew hate or Islamophobia taking over. What action is the Secretary of State taking beyond today, and beyond the brilliant work that the Holocaust Educational Trust is doing with young people, to inform and educate communities throughout Britain, including elected representatives, so that a discussion on an international conflict does not morph into a national expression of hate?
Robert Jenrick
I thank the right hon. Lady for her remarks and, of course, for her own record of standing up to antisemitism in the past. She is right to say that this is, sadly, just one of a number of incidents, and past incidents of this nature have flared up at the same time as conflict in the middle east. In 2014, for example, there was a significant spike in antisemitic incidents. Many members of the Jewish community are fearful that we will see a similar situation now. Indeed, some have said to me that there is greater intensity today than there was back then, perhaps fuelled by the rise of social media.
We need to ensure that we are rooting out antisemitism and doing so through education, working with all parts of society. That is one of the reasons that the Prime Minister and I have appointed Sara Khan as our independent adviser, who will tackle extremism of any kind and ensure that it cannot exist with impunity in plain sight. All parts of Government and civil society must play their part in that—not just central Government and local authorities, but charities, schools and faith groups the length and breadth of the country.
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con) [V]
I very much agree with the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). Many Jewish people in Southend were appalled at the disgusting scenes in north London over the weekend. I stand with them, and I am frankly bemused at how those events were allowed to happen in the first place. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is more important than ever that the Government continue to support the work of the Community Security Trust, which does such vital work to keep the Jewish community safe through the protective security grant? I know that money is tight, but will he ensure that sufficient funding is made available to the trust, to enable the Jewish community to worship safely and peacefully?
Robert Jenrick
The Community Security Trust has an absolutely essential role in supporting Jewish institutions such as schools, nurseries and places of worship—frankly, places that should not need to have security. As the father of Jewish children, it shocks me every time I take my children to synagogue or to their nursery to see individuals in stab-proof vests guarding the entrance to those places. That should not have to happen in this country, but it does happen today, and we will continue to support the Community Security Trust, giving it all the funding it needs to protect Jewish communities.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The whole House will stand in solidarity with Jewish people across the country in the face of vile antisemitism, misogynistic hate speech, violence and incitement. No one should be in any doubt that attempting to blame Jewish communities for the actions of the Israeli Government is appalling antisemitism and is wrong. The Secretary of State will know that the kinds of incident we saw over the weekend are also being fuelled by online antisemitism and extremism, and he will have seen the recent CST report on Google and antisemitic imagery. What more is he doing to tackle this awful online antisemitism?
Robert Jenrick
The right hon. Lady raises an extremely important point. The Home Secretary and the Culture Secretary are working closely on this issue. They are in contact with the providers to ensure that antisemitic and other hate speech is taken down quickly and that action is taken against the perpetrators. Of course, this is an issue that we will return to and debate when considering the online harms Bill, which I hope will play a role. My Department is also funding organisations that are taking action to put a counter-narrative on social media, to educate people about the harm that is caused by antisemitism and to ensure that people of all backgrounds—particularly young people—understand that some of the memes and graphics that are being circulated as we speak are deeply antisemitic and deeply offensive to communities and are fuelling the kind of hatred that boiled on to the streets over the weekend.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
We have seen vile physical and verbal assaults against Jews in the real world, but there is also a deep well of antisemitic content online and on social media, as the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said, which often goes unchallenged. Does my right hon. Friend agree that these clearly antisemitic messages cannot be allowed to continue? Memes are allowed to socialise and water down some of the horrific content online. Can he outline what action the Government will take against not just mainstream social media companies but smaller ones such as BitChute and Telegram, where some of the worst content is shared?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend raises a number of important points. It is not simply an issue of the large international providers; there are smaller ones as well. They all need to be subject to the regulatory regime that we are devising and will legislate for in the online harms Bill. We are taking action as we speak, and the Culture Secretary, the Home Secretary and I are working with those providers to ensure that harmful antisemitic content is seen, identified and removed as quickly as possible.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I would like to add our unequivocal condemnation of all forms of racism and hate speech, including the appalling antisemitic abuse recorded on the streets of London. The Secretary of State has already agreed that we must all actively condemn and confront all forms of inflammatory rhetoric by those with public platforms. Can he expand on how he sees the work of Government encouraging us here and the public at large to get to a place where we can stop such appalling racial abuse and misogynistic hate crimes?
Robert Jenrick
We are taking a number of actions in my Department, and we work with organisations right across society, including faith organisations, to ensure that those perpetrating abuse and discriminatory behaviour of this kind are brought to justice. We want to ensure that we have a tolerant society. We are proud of the diversity in this country, but we also want a united country in which all people feel comfortable and safe. That is why we are taking the actions that we are taking, and why we are working with our hate crime action group and a number of organisations all over the UK to raise awareness and to stamp out this kind of abusive behaviour where we find it.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
Today, Jewish people in my constituency and around the world will be gathering to mark the festival of Shavuot, and I wish them all a good and a safe Yom Tov. As the Member with the largest Jewish community outside London, I have been contacted by constituents scared to take their children to shul, due to the appalling scenes of antisemitism on the streets of the UK over the weekend. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that the Jewish community cannot be targeted due to the situation in the middle east, and will he reassure the community in Bury South and across the country that the police will deal with all instances of antisemitism with the utmost severity?
Robert Jenrick
I hope I can provide the reassurance that police forces across the country, including in Greater Manchester, are taking action to ensure that there are patrols and, where there are incidents, that they are investigated and individuals are brought to justice, where necessary. I was very concerned to see the intimidating scenes at the Arndale centre in Manchester, and I would not want to see those repeated. We want to provide protection to my hon. Friend’s constituents, and that is exactly what we will do.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC) [V]
Plaid Cymru has a long tradition of promoting peace over conflict and of standing alongside oppressed people. This includes calling for the human right of people in Palestine and Israel to be able to live in peace. The language we use in politics matters, and everyone seeking peace knows that words used irresponsibly can be twisted into weapons. This week, Jews in the UK have suffered hate speech, threats and acts of violence both on the streets and over social media. Does the Secretary of State agree that the online harms Bill provides an opportunity to protect not only individuals, but groups of people from hate speech that incites such violence?
Robert Jenrick
I think that the online harms Bill outlined in the Queen’s Speech will be an important weapon in our arsenal, enabling us to take action against the virus of antisemitism and other forms of hate speech where they occur online. That is absolutely critical; we find it in many other aspects of our life. That is one of the reasons we pursued the IHRA definition, and have urged institutions to sign up to it, such as councils, universities and, of course, Members of this House. There is more work to be done there, and a particular focus for this Government will now be in universities. Many have not signed up to that definition, and many have done so but not yet put it into practice. We need to see urgent change there.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con) [V]
I welcome and indeed echo the words of the Home Secretary at the weekend in urging the police to take the strongest possible action against those responsible for these horrific and totally unacceptable incidents of antisemitism. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that his Department will work closely with the Home Office to ensure that all those responsible will be held to account and face justice as soon as possible?
Robert Jenrick
Antisemitic crimes, like all those with regard to racism, are serious crimes, and we expect police forces investigating these issues to do so rigorously, robustly and swiftly, and for action to be taken against the individuals if they are found to require prosecution. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is working with the Metropolitan police, and has received assurances from them that they will be doing everything they can to bring these individuals to justice.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab) [V]
Last night, Jewish communities across the country began our celebrations for the festival of Shavuot, and I wish all of those marking it a chag sameach. The scenes of antisemitic and misogynistic abuse yesterday have been incredibly disturbing and have caused significant alarm and distress, coming off the back of a rise in hate crime incidents both online and in physical attacks on and desecrations of our places of worship. I have been heartened by unequivocal condemnations from across society, including by the Muslim Council of Britain and the Palestinian ambassador in the UK, as they recognise that all forms of racism and oppression reinforce one another, that they cannot be fought in isolation from each other and that we all have more in common than that which divides us. What support, therefore, will the Secretary of State provide to interfaith initiatives such as the Warrington Ethnic Communities Association and the Muslim Jewish Forum of Greater Manchester to help us build solidarity and co-operation across our communities, where a minority of extremists seek to divide us?
Robert Jenrick
I thank the hon. Lady, and wish her chag sameach as well. We are working with a number of different groups that help bridge the divide and ensure that there is greater understanding among different groups in society. There are many such groups, including Solutions Not Sides, and Streetwise with its Stand Up! programme. They are important, but we want other parts of civil society to step up too. The report that Sara Khan produced earlier in the year for the Prime Minister was significant, saying that there is more work to be done by schools, local councils and civil society organisations to take their responsibilities seriously now in rooting out extremism and encouraging a better understanding between different parts of society. That work needs to be done swiftly, and Sara Khan is now part of my Department, independently advising myself and the Prime Minister on how we can take that work forward.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.
Like many Members, I saw the scenes in north London unfolding on social media and obviously was completely appalled. While those events were unfolding the Metropolitan police tweeted:
“Officers are in the area and are engaging with those taking part.”
I do not wish to condemn the Metropolitan police for one misjudged tweet in the heat of the moment, but does my right hon. Friend agree that that tweet misses the mark entirely and does not take what happened yesterday sufficiently seriously? I welcome the arrests that have taken place, but does he agree with me and the Home Secretary that we need to see the strongest possible action against all those who took part in yesterday’s disgraceful scenes?
Robert Jenrick
Yes, I do. I am grateful for the work of the Metropolitan police, Essex Police and other police forces across the country in recent days and the work they will be doing right now providing reassurance to Jewish communities, but my hon. Friend is right that the correct response to an incident like this is not merely engagement; the Jewish community, like all of us in society, wants to see action against the perpetrators of those offences. That is now happening: individuals have been arrested and those crimes are being investigated.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]
I think we can all agree with the Centre for Holocaust Education on the importance of education in tackling antisemitism. However, given that a recent survey found that only 37% of young people know what the term “antisemitism” means, what more can the right hon. Gentleman do to ensure adequate funding is made available for education programmes so that future generations are aware of the history and causes of antisemitism?
Robert Jenrick
We have only to look on social media today to see that a very large number of our fellow citizens do not understand what antisemitism is, or else they would not be liking and sharing some of the memes and graphics, which are antisemitic and deeply offensive and are helping to fan the flames of the kinds of incidents we have seen in recent days. The Government are taking action in a number of respects, through the Holocaust Educational Trust, which the hon. Gentleman rightly praises, and the Antisemitism Policy Trust, which is doing work online, and through other works with the Holocaust education centre which we hope will be built near the Palace of Westminster and holocaust museums across the country, such as the Beth Shalom museum in north Nottinghamshire, so that we can raise awareness of these issues and help to debunk some of the myths.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
The antisemitism of the weekend has been inflamed by allegations originating with perhaps easily disproved campaigns concerning the al-Aqsa mosque, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Muslims worship there during Ramadan and Eid. My right hon. Friend has described a lot of what he is going to do, but what more can he do to stop antisemitic mistruths being used to drive a wedge between communities here in the UK?
Robert Jenrick
That is an extremely important point. As I have said, there is work to be done online and in our schools, and there is also work we can do through the creation of new museums and educational institutions such as the memorial that we hope will be built. There is also work for all of us just as citizens of this country, to call out antisemitism wherever we find it and see it, and ensure that there is no immunity—there is no safe space for it in the way that I am afraid many people feel there is today.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Antisemitism, and any other form of racism, is utterly abhorrent and must be swiftly dealt with. Many of us are strong advocates for the Palestinian people, to stop them being evicted from their homes and to demand an immediate end to the current bloodshed, but for racists who parade as allies of Palestine to use this tragedy to fuel antisemitism and misogyny is utterly condemnable. Is the Secretary of State concerned about the possibility of far-right organisations using this to stir further community tensions? If so, what steps will the Government take to address it?
Robert Jenrick
As I said earlier, when we have seen conflicts arise or intensify in the middle east in the past, that has led to an upsurge in hate crimes against both members of the Jewish community and members of the Muslim community. We saw that in 2014. I hope that we are not witnessing a similar situation today, although I think many would say that we are. We need to take concerted action now. That is why it is important that, with your support, Mr Speaker, we are having this debate; that the police provide the reassurance that they are on the streets of our cities in the places where there are Jewish communities; and that where there are incidents against members of the Jewish community or the Muslim community, action is taken very swiftly and in the strongest possible terms.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con) [V]
Having the second largest number of Jewish constituents in the country, I know that yesterday’s events caused great concern to many. The Community Security Trust told me this morning that it had recorded 63 confirmed cases of antisemitism over the weekend, with more cases expected. Most shockingly, that included a Jewish teacher being abused by pupils in the classroom. In the protests, we saw conflation of Jewish identity with Zionism, which ensures that British Jews are physically and verbally attacked for actions that occur in Israel for which they have no cause or control. In a comment echoed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), one constituent told me that many people are asking the same question as before the 2019 election; namely, is there a future for Jewish people in this country? Can the Secretary of State please advise my constituents if there is?
Robert Jenrick
Yes, there certainly is. As the father of three young Jewish girls, I am absolutely committed to ensuring that the British Jewish community feel protected, feel safe and feel that they can continue to thrive in this country. They are our longest-established religious minority. They have added so much to this country over the generations, and I hope that they will do so for many, many generations to come.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP) [V]
I thank the Minister for his statement. I am unashamedly a friend of Israel, and I condemn the antisemitic attacks in London over the weekend and welcome the police response that the Secretary of State referred to. However, does he not agree that headlines such as “Israel launches airstrikes on Gaza Strip after Hamas rocket attacks” may prevent readers from understanding that Israel launched rockets in defence and not first? Does he agree that no resolution will be found if the media continue to stir tension with biased reporting? Further, will he confirm once more, to make it very clear, that Israel has a right to defend herself, and that while we may ask Israel to enter into peace talks, we will never disregard her right to defend herself against any attack?
Robert Jenrick
Let me be perfectly clear: the UK Government believe that Israel has a right to self-defence. The UK Government believe that that must be exercised proportionately and with due regard to civilians. We will ensure, as far as we can, that both sides engage. If there is any route now to bring this to a peaceful resolution, it must be sought, and we are doing that at the United Nations and in every forum that is available to us. But we will also condemn any form of antisemitism that we see in this country. Jewish citizens are citizens of the United Kingdom. They are not in any way responsible for the actions of the Israeli Government, whether good or bad. They are citizens of the United Kingdom; they deserve our complete support, and they have it today.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) [V]
Yesterday, racists drove past the amazing Jewish community centre JW3 on Finchley Road in my constituency shouting antisemitic hate speech. I am very proud to represent an area with a sizeable Jewish community and several synagogues, but my Jewish constituents are now feeling unsafe in their own homes. Will the Secretary of State commit to ensuring that these hate crimes are punished, and will he provide additional resources to protect community centres like JW3, Jewish schools and synagogues?
Robert Jenrick
I thank the hon. Lady for her work. I appreciate that yesterday’s events played out partly in her constituency, and partly in the constituencies of the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), who would, I am sure, be speaking on behalf of his constituents today if he were able to. We must now ensure that residents of all those parts of London, and indeed elsewhere in the country, have the reassuring presence of police on the streets, and the knowledge that should these events arise again the police will be there to support them and to take action against the perpetrators. We will continue to provide support to the Community Security Trust and other good organisations that help to protect community centres, synagogues, schools and nurseries as far as we possibly can, and money is no object in that regard. Members of the Jewish community have our complete support in the months and weeks to come.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I am glad that Westminster North is home to a large Jewish community. It is also home to the largest Arab community in Britain. Many people, across party, work very hard to ensure community cohesion. That work was undermined desperately by the events yesterday: the spewing of vile misogyny and antisemitism by the convoy that drove through Westminster North, among other areas. The police have acted swiftly with arrests and reassurance patrols, but can the Secretary of State reassure me that that support will continue over the long term, not just over the coming days and weeks? Also, will he urgently review the capacity we have in local government and our civic institutions to build on the work of community cohesion and education, so we can ensure that nothing as vile as the events we saw this weekend will ever happen again?
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Lady is right to say that in London, as in many other parts of the country, relations between the Jewish community and the Muslim community are generally good, and inter-faith dialogue is generally strong. We have seen that very prominently in recent months, for example, in tackling covid-19, where both religious communities have come forward, been incredibly supportive and have worked together. I have seen that myself on many occasions. She is also right to say that councils have an important part to play. I have asked Sara Khan, as part of her work, to provide recommendations to us on how we can provide better advice to local councils on how to spot and tackle extremism; which groups they should not be interfacing with; and, where they do find extremists in their communities, what action they can take to root it out. Extremists should not be able to operate with impunity in plain sight in any part of this country.
Mr Speaker
I am now suspending the House for two minutes to enable necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Covid-19 Update
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on coronavirus. Since January last year, and especially since 8 December, when the world’s first clinically authorised coronavirus vaccine was given in Coventry Hospital, we have been engaged—all of us—in a race between the virus and the vaccine. As a nation, we have taken some huge strides forward and we can make careful further progress today, and we must remain vigilant.
I can report to the House that there are now fewer than 1,000 people in hospital in the United Kingdom with coronavirus, and the average number of daily deaths is now nine. This progress means we are able to take step 3 in our road map today, carefully easing some of the restrictions that we have all endured. People have missed the things that make life worth living, businesses have endured hardship and everybody has made sacrifices. While we can take this step today, we must be humble in the face of this virus. We have all learned over the past year that, in a pandemic, we must look not just at where we are today, but where the evidence shows we may be in weeks and months down the track. The vaccination programme can give us confidence, but we must be alert to new variants that could jeopardise the advances that we have made.
Today, I would like to update the House on the work we are doing to tackle variants of concern—in particular, variant B1617.2, which is the variant of concern first identified in India—so that we can protect the progress that we have worked so hard to achieve. There are now 2,323 confirmed cases of B1617.2 in the UK; 483 of these cases have been seen in Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen, where it is now the dominant strain. Cases there have doubled in the last week and are rising in all age groups. In Blackburn, hospitalisations are stable, with eight people currently in hospital with covid. In Bolton, 19 people are now in hospital with coronavirus, the majority of whom are eligible for a vaccine but have not yet had one. That shows that the new variant is not tending to penetrate into older vaccinated groups, and underlines again the importance of getting the jab—especially, but not only, among the vulnerable age groups.
In Bolton and Blackburn, we have taken the approach that worked in south London against the South African variant. We have surged in our rapid response team: 100 people so far, who visited approximately 35,000 people this weekend to distribute and collect tests. We have installed six new testing units, brought in more than 50 new vaccinators and set up two new vaccination centres, as well as extending opening hours and capacity at our existing sites. In Bolton, we have quadrupled the rate of vaccination. We carried out 6,200 vaccinations over this weekend, and it is brilliant to see so many people from the most vulnerable groups coming forward to get the protection, whether it is their first or second jab.
All in all, this is the biggest surge of resources into any specific local area that we have seen during the pandemic so far. It has been co-ordinated by Dr Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the new UK Health Security Agency, drawing on all the health capabilities, locally and nationally, that we have built in the past year. I thank everyone who is working so hard to make it happen, including everyone at the two local authorities; the rapid response team; all the volunteers, including those from St John Ambulance; and, most importantly, the people of Bolton and Blackburn for the community spirit that they are showing.
It has been really heartening, as I am sure the whole House will agree, to see the videos published over the weekend of people queuing up to get the jab. I say to anyone who feels hesitant about getting the vaccine, not just in Bolton or Blackburn, but right across the country: just look at what is happening at the Royal Bolton Hospital. The majority of people in hospital with coronavirus were eligible for the jab but had chosen not yet to have it, and have ended up in hospital—some of them in intensive care. Vaccines save lives. They protect you, they protect your loved ones and they will help us all get out of this pandemic.
This is not just about Bolton and Blackburn. There are now 86 local authority areas where there are five or more confirmed cases. The next biggest case of concern is Bedford, where we are surging testing. I urge everybody in Bedford to exercise caution and engage in testing where it is available.
I also want to tell the House the latest scientific assessment of this variant. The early evidence suggests that B1617.2 is more transmissible than the previously dominant B1117 variant. We do not yet know to what extent it is more transmissible. While we do not have the complete picture of the impact of the vaccine, the early laboratory data from Oxford University corroborates the provisional evidence from the Royal Bolton Hospital and the initial observational data from India that vaccines are effective against the variant. This, of course, is reassuring, but the higher transmission poses a real risk.
All this supports our overriding strategy, which is gradually and cautiously to replace the restrictions on freedom with the protections from the vaccines. The data suggests that the vaccine has already saved more than 12,000 lives and prevented more than 33,000 people from being hospitalised, and we are protecting people at a very rapid pace. Last week was the biggest week of vaccinations since the end of March. Some 36 million people have now had a first dose, and yesterday we reached the milestone of 20 million people across the UK having had their second dose.
I am delighted to see the figures released by YouGov today, which show that the UK has the highest vaccination enthusiasm in the world, with 90% of people saying that they have had or will have the jab. This was no accident. We began planning the campaign for vaccine uptake a year ago. I thank the huge range of people involved in promoting the benefits of vaccination, from Her Majesty the Queen to Sir Elton John, Harry Redknapp, Lenny Henry, Holly Willoughby, Lydia West and many, many others. Our campaign has been based on positivity and science, and I am grateful to everybody who has played their part.
I can confirm that from tomorrow we will be inviting people aged 37 to come forward, before expanding this further later in the week. It has been brilliant to see people’s enthusiasm when they have been invited to come forward, and we want to make it as easy as possible for them to show that they have had the protection the vaccine provides. I am delighted to say that, as of today, people can demonstrate whether they have had their jab, quickly and simply, through the NHS app.
Since January, we have been following a dosing interval of 12 weeks for second doses. Because of the extra protection people get from the second dose, particularly among those most likely to end up in hospital or dying, it is incredibly important that everyone comes forward for that second dose at the right moment. The approach we have taken aims to give the most vulnerable the strongest possible protection against this virus. Since January, that has meant getting the first dose to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. The research shows that this approach has saved about 12,000 lives.
Now, it is important to accelerate the second doses for all those most vulnerable to ending up in hospital or dying. Our vaccination strategy for all parts of the UK, including the areas of surge vaccination, will therefore stick by the clinical advice set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation: first, prioritise anyone over 50 who has not yet been vaccinated; next, second doses to those over 50 are vital—that will now be done on a schedule of eight weeks; and, then, follow the cohorts in priority order, and the age groups as we open them. This clinically approved approach is the best way to save the most lives, rather than jumping ahead with first doses for younger people. Although the JCVI of course keeps this under constant review, we are clear that its advice is the best way to protect those most in need of protection and so save as many lives as we can. The NHS will be reiterating this advice to all vaccination centres and all directors of public health, and I am very grateful to everyone, in the NHS, local authorities and in the whole system supporting this vaccination programme, for following it.
Today’s opening and step 3 marks an important step on our road to our recovery. We must proceed with caution and care, and bear down on the virus, in whatever form it attacks us, so that in this race between the vaccine and the virus, our humanity, science, and ingenuity will prevail. I commend this statement to the House.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. May I start by congratulating the Leicester City football team on winning the FA cup on Saturday? The winning goal from Tielemans was one of dreams. Leicester City fans boast that Foxes never give up and nor do I, so let me turn to the matters before us.
Yesterday, the Secretary of State warned on the television that the B.1617.2 variant could “spread like wildfire” among the unvaccinated, but does he accept that we could have avoided this? Our borders have been about as secure as a sieve, and the delay in adding India to the red list surely now stands as a catastrophic mis-step. One month ago in this House, I urged him to act quickly in response to this variant. The Wellcome Sanger Institute data today shows a rapid increase in this variant, to 30% of all sequenced cases in the UK, and that excludes cases from travel and surge testing. Alarm bells should be ringing, because although the Secretary of State offers reassurance that vaccines are effective, we have also heard Professor Anthony Harnden of the JCVI recently warn us that vaccines are “almost certainly less effective” at reducing the transmission of this variant.
I entirely appreciate that when questioned I suspect that the Secretary of State will not be able to give a cast-iron assurance about opening up on 21 June, and I am not going to try to push him into a corner; we all understand that we are dealing with uncertainties and we have to be grown up about these things. But we do need a plan now to contain this variant urgently. He is said to be considering local lockdowns. As he knows, I speak as a resident of long locked-down Leicester. Before he takes out his mallet to try to whack moles again, may I suggest a number of things for him to try first?
First, will he consider surge vaccination in all hotspot areas and go hell for leather to roll out vaccinations to everyone? I listened very carefully to what he said about vaccination increases in Bolton, and I hope that also includes Blackburn. Is he saying that everyone over 18 in those areas will now be eligible for vaccination? As he knows, that is something that public health directors on the ground have been calling for, and I hope we listen to them.
We have had these debates in the House before, and the Secretary of State knows that even if we drive up vaccination as high as it can possibly go among adults, there are still about 20% of the wider population—children —who remain unvaccinated, which means the virus can still spread. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US are moving to vaccinate children. Will he update us on what progress he is making on that front here? On children, the Secretary of State knows that in many secondary schools, mask wearing is no longer necessary. Will he assure us that he thinks that is the right response in the light of the data he unveiled today?
Secondly, the Secretary of State has announced extra surge testing, but he knows by now that surge testing must be backed up by proper sick pay and decent isolation support. That should have been fixed in the Queen’s Speech last week.
Thirdly, more venues are opening up today. Many will be spending a lot of time disinfecting surfaces, like we do in here, which is good and important, but we know so much more about this virus now. We know about airborne spread of the virus, so why are we not supporting venues more with ventilation? What are we doing to help supermarkets, shopping centres and larger venues where air circulates around the building to put in place covid-secure air filtration systems?
Fourthly, what the Secretary of State said about the NHS and the uptake of beds is welcome, but NHS staff, as he knows, are exhausted and fear another surge. What modelling has been shared with NHS leaders, and what are they doing to prepare for any surge in admissions?
Finally, the surge in this variant reminds us that we are not safe until everyone is safe. That is not a slogan; it is a fact. Some 3.3 million lives have been lost globally to this virus, and Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus from the World Health Organisation warns that we are on track for the second year of this pandemic to be far more deadly than the first. Only 0.3% of vaccine supply is going to low-income countries. Trickle-down vaccination is not an effective strategy for fighting this deadly virus. Not only do we have a moral responsibility to play our part internationally, but that also reduces the risk of new variants bouncing back at us and setting us back.
At this critical time, when we need to work internationally to defeat this virus, why are we the only G7 nation cutting its aid budget? How can the Secretary of State defend cutting our contribution to vital science and research projects? Given the total silence from the Government on President Biden’s support for the temporary lifting of patent protections to increase vaccine production, should we assume that the Government do not agree with President Biden?
Matt Hancock
Let me address the hon. Gentleman’s substantive questions. The first was about the surging of vaccines and testing into hotspots. We saw in south London earlier in the month and last month that that sort of surge testing can work. We had an outbreak of the South African variant in south London. We put in more than 200,000 tests, and we effectively managed to contain that outbreak. That is the approach that we are taking in Bolton and Blackburn, and we will also take that approach if we see a further spread in other areas of the country. We have been working very hard on that to ensure we have that capacity and can do that effectively. We do that, of course, hand in glove with the local authorities in question, which know the communities on the ground.
We are also making sure we have the vaccines available, but I want to be absolutely crystal clear about the approach to vaccination. The hon. Gentleman asked about vaccinating all over-18s in Bolton and Blackburn, but that is not our approach. I have looked into it in great detail, and we have taken clinical advice. The approach is to make sure that we get done as many second vaccinations as possible, as many first vaccinations as possible among the vulnerable groups, and then as many vaccinations as possible among those aged under 50 in the eligible groups. We have taken that approach because that is what is likely to save most lives. That second jab is vital. The first jab for anybody over 50 could mean the difference between life and death. The very strong focus is to get the vaccine to all those over 50 who have not yet taken the first jab. I am glad to say that reports from both Bolton and Blackburn suggest that uptake among people who are eligible, but who have not yet taken the jab, has increased since we saw the rise of the B1617.2 variant in those areas. It is effective in proving to people that the jab really does work to protect them. That is what the data shows.
The hon. Gentleman asked about children. I have been closely following the results of the clinical studies from Pfizer that show that the vaccine is safe and effective among children between the ages of 12 and 18. We have procured enough Pfizer to be able to offer that jab to children should that be clinically approved here, but given that we are at the stage of opening tomorrow to people aged 37, there is some time to go before we get to 18-year-olds. We are on track to meet the target of offering the vaccine to all those aged 18 and above by the end of July, so we have a couple of months before we need to make and operationalise a decision. We want to be very, very careful and sensitive about whether and how we offer the vaccine to children.
The hon. Gentleman asked about important wider measures. He mentioned ventilation. We have put in place guidance for businesses in terms of strengthening the rules around ventilation, and that, too, is important. He did a bit of a Captain Hindsight act on the Indian variant. He did not seem to mention that we put India on the red list before this variant was even deemed a variant under investigation, let alone a variant of concern. Indeed, we put India on the red list before countries such as Germany and Canada stopped flights from India. We have a strong policy of restrictions at the border and we will remain vigilant.
The final point to which I wanted to respond was on the global moral responsibility to vaccinate everybody in the world. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we have a global moral responsibility. I argue that, thus far, the United Kingdom has done, and will continue to do, more than any other nation. It is about not just the huge sums that we have put into COVAX, but the way that we delivered the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine around the world. As of this morning, 1.47 billion vaccines have been delivered globally, 400 million of which have been the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. AstraZeneca has charged a profit margin and a margin for intellectual property of zero—no charge for intellectual property, no profit for AstraZeneca. Costs, of course, need to be met, but we have taken nothing for the money that we put into the vaccine’s development. This is the biggest gift that this country could give to the world. A total of 65% of those 400 million doses have been delivered into the arms of people in low and middle-income countries, including more than 150 million in India. On the COVAX facility, which is the biggest global effort to vaccinate in low and middle-income countries, it has delivered 54 million vaccines so far, 53 million of which have been done with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
This country can be hugely proud of the contribution it has made. It is far bigger so far than that of any other country. We took the view from the start that we do not need to change our IP rules, we do not need to change the law, we just need to get on and get the vaccine out to as many people around the world as possible, at cost. Everybody in this House should be very, very proud of what AstraZeneca and Oxford University have done with the support of the UK Government. That is how we save lives around the world.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
Many of the new variants come from abroad, so clarity on borders policy is essential. We now know that the first wave was largely seeded by people coming back from their spring holiday break in Italy, France and Spain, so will my right hon. Friend provide absolute clarity on the amber list? Should my constituents in Farnham, Godalming and Haslemere—indeed, all our constituents—go on holiday to countries on the amber list even when it is no longer illegal?
Matt Hancock
The answer is no. The official Government advice is very clear that people should not travel to amber or red-list countries or territories. People should not travel to amber-list countries for a holiday. What is on the amber, red and green lists is kept under review, based on the data assessed by the Joint Biosecurity Centre. Our priority is protecting the progress we have made at home. We will assess whether any new countries might go on to the green list every three weeks and, of course, we constantly monitor to check that the countries on the green list remain safe. If a country is not on the green list, people should not travel there unless they have an exceptional reason.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP) [V]
Covid cases in India began to soar at the start of April, so why were Pakistan and Bangladesh added to the red list at that time but not India? Was it because of the Prime Minister’s planned trade visit? After India was finally added to the red list on 19 April, the restrictions did not take effect until 23 April. How many people arrived from India in those days, trying to escape having to go into hotel quarantine? When I previously raised the issue of applying hotel quarantine to all travellers, the Secretary of State claimed that the current system was protecting the UK; does he now accept that the entry and community spread of the Indian variant shows that that simply is not the case and that having a negative test does not rule out the possibility that travellers are carrying covid?
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has stated that evidence shows that the B1617.2 Indian variant is up to 50% more infectious than the Kent variant and has advised that, as in Scotland, areas with rising numbers of cases should remain under covid restrictions. The Indian variant has been doubling every week despite lockdown, so why is the Secretary of State ignoring SAGE advice and opening up areas like Bolton that have exponential growth?
Thankfully, the Indian variant does not show significant vaccine resistance, but the Secretary of State must know that it is not possible to outrun the virus through vaccination alone. As those aged up to 35 are not eligible for surge vaccination, that leaves a large pool of unvaccinated people among whom the variant can spread. It will take two to three weeks before even those who receive a vaccine in the coming weeks are protected. Does the Secretary of State not accept that the variant is in danger of surging and that without local travel restrictions it will spread to other areas? It is good news that fully vaccinated people are not ending up in hospital, but just letting the virus spread among young adults could allow the evolution of yet another UK variant.
Matt Hancock
I answered those questions in response to the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth). The truth is that when we put Pakistan and Bangladesh on the red list, positivity among those arriving from those countries was three times higher than it was among those arriving from India. That is why we took those decisions and, of course, they were taken before the Indian variant became a variant under investigation, let alone a variant of concern. It is striking that the Scottish Government took the decision to put India on the red list at the same time as we in the UK Government did. It is all very well to ask questions with hindsight, but we have to base decisions and policy on the evidence at the time.
When it comes to how we are tackling the virus in the UK, the hon. Lady is quite right that it is good news—albeit early news—that the vaccines do appear to be effective against the B1617.2 variant. I am obviously pleased about the evidence we have seen but we are vigilant about that. I am glad that the approach we are now taking in Bolton and Blackburn worked against the South African variant in south London. We always keep these things under review, but I think that as a first resort, surge testing, going door to door, ensuring that we find and seek out the virus wherever we can spot it, and putting in the extra resources with the armed services who are supporting us, are the right approaches while we keep this under review. The numbers thus far nationally are still relatively low and, thankfully, we have a very good surveillance operation across the UK so that we can spot these things early and take the action that we need to.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree with Sir Patrick Vallance, who told my Committee that new variants will arise all the time and that border restrictions will only slow, not prevent, those variants that originate overseas? What level of vaccination protection do we need to get to in this country before my right hon. Friend is in a position to rescind the rather strange advice that he has just given to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) and allow people who have been tested three times and quarantined for 10 days to travel to places such as France and Spain?
Matt Hancock
Typically my right hon. Friend asks the most pertinent question, to which we do not know the answer. The level of vaccination that we need in order to withstand the incursion of new variants, even those that the vaccine will work against, depends on their level of transmissibility, and we do not know the increased level of transmissibility over and above that of B117, the previous main variant here in the UK, which was first discovered in Kent. This is an absolutely critical question, but unfortunately we do not know the answer to it yet.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Having reached this tremendous milestone today, and given the sacrifices that the British people have made through lockdown and the fantastic successes of the vaccination programme, will the Secretary of State listen to his own colleague, the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who said last week that, with the new variant, we must “isolate, isolate, isolate” every single case and its contacts? Will he finally commit to paying people’s wages to stay at home to self-isolate, and provide practical support in terms of accommodation and support for dependants if necessary? Otherwise, we will only go backwards.
Matt Hancock
I am afraid I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s characterisation of the situation, not least because the approach we are taking in Bolton did work effectively in south London. We are piloting new approaches to ensuring that we can support people to isolate, and some of those pilots are taking place in areas where we can see cases of B1617.2. We keep this under close scrutiny and review to see what works effectively.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
Part of our fight against covid, and indeed against future viruses, is to improve our domestic vaccine manufacturing capability. To that end, the Government are fast-tracking the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre at Harwell in my constituency. I will be visiting it in a few weeks, but could my right hon. Friend provide an update on the progress so far?
Matt Hancock
Yes, we are making significant progress with the onshoring of vaccine capability. It is about developing the vaccine, as the team in Oxford did brilliantly, but also about manufacturing it onshore, and boy, if there is one lesson we have learned from this whole thing, it is that we cannot just not care about where manufacturing happens. Having it onshore really, really matters, for resilience but also to ensure that it is close to the NHS so that the whole supply chain can learn and constantly improve. I am delighted that we are pushing forward with the VMIC project in the same way that we have brought onshore manufacturing supply in Teesside, in Livingston in Scotland and in the fill-and-finish plants at Wockhardt in Wrexham, at Barnard Castle and elsewhere. It is a big project and, frankly, a big opportunity for life sciences in the UK to ensure that we can do all this onshore, because in my view, the pandemic has shown that we need to.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP) [V]
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for his comprehensive answers. I know that he has regular discussions with the Northern Ireland Assembly Health Minister, Robin Swann. There has been a surge in the Indian variant in Donegal in the Republic of Ireland and in the maiden city of Londonderry in Northern Ireland. Can the Northern Ireland Assembly Health Minister call upon the UK for expertise from Westminster to assist us, which I believe will show once again that we are always better together with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Matt Hancock
I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. The UK fights this together. There are outbreaks also in Moray and in Glasgow, and I have been talking to the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Health about the action that is going on to tackle the outbreaks there. I talk frequently with Robin Swann, who is doing an absolutely brilliant job with the Health portfolio in Northern Ireland. The fundamental point is that the benefits of the United Kingdom working together are once more demonstrated by our ability to work together to tackle this variant.
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con) [V]
More than 20 million people have now received their second dose of the vaccine, an achievement that demonstrates the phenomenal pace at which we are delivering vaccine across the UK. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this incredible milestone demonstrates what our Union can achieve when we work together?
Matt Hancock
I have just waxed lyrical about the value of Scotland working with the UK Government and of Northern Ireland working with the UK Government, and my hon. Friend almost chastises me for not mentioning Wales. Of course working with Wales is incredibly important—look at the Wockhardt fill-finish plant. The number of people who have been vaccinated in this country with a product that is manufactured in Wales measures in the tens of millions, including me. We should all be very proud of that, and I look forward to working with my new Welsh counterpart, the Minister for Health in Wales, and making sure that we use all capabilities across these islands to get us back on the road to recovery.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Today sees the long-anticipated lifting of many of the restrictions on our life and social life. At the same time, this strain of the virus reminds us that we need to be cautious in how we mix and how we hug our loved ones. It is important that we have clear messages about interaction, so will the Secretary of State ensure that Government messages are clear, unambiguous and not mixed, as at present?
Matt Hancock
It is really clear that we are removing restrictions. I am delighted that we are able to remove restrictions, such as the absolute restrictions on close physical contact, and rely more on people’s personal responsibility. In order to do that, we are providing the best possible advice that we can, such as to hug, but cautiously. Everybody knows what that means: it means outside is better than inside, it means making sure it is in ventilated spaces and it means that those who have had the vaccine, and in particular two vaccines, are safer than those who have not.
It is incumbent on us all to communicate these messages from our scientists and to make sure that people understand them. I am pretty sure that the British public get that. Given how brilliantly people have responded to requests during the pandemic, I am highly confident that this approach will be successful and that people will be cautious, but enjoy the new freedoms that we are thankfully able to give.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I listened very carefully to what the Secretary of State said in his statement about people being able to prove that they have had the vaccination through the NHS app. I also listened carefully to what he said about the importance of the Union. Can I just draw to his attention something that I hope he can look at urgently? I have thousands of constituents who live in England, but who are registered with GPs in Wales and who receive their vaccinations in Wales. At the moment, it is not proving possible for them to register with the NHS app that they have had their vaccination. Can I ask him to urgently fix that for my constituents and those across our United Kingdom?
Matt Hancock
This is another example of where we work better together as one United Kingdom; we are working to solve this problem precisely. Coming from the borders with Wales, I understand this very clearly. Work is under way to ensure that there is interoperability between the data systems in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This situation was not foreseen when health responsibilities were devolved. I have been working with my counterparts in the three devolved nations on fixing it, and we have agreed to fix it. Getting these data to talk to each other is technically complicated, but that work is under way.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]
In their decisions on easing the lockdown, the Government have rightly emphasised the importance of being driven by data, but when Pakistan and Bangladesh were added to the red list, the data showed that daily infection rates were substantially higher in India. Will the Secretary of State admit that the decision not to put India on the red list at that time was influenced by the Prime Minister’s imminent visit to Delhi and the desire to secure a trade deal? Does he now recognise that that was a mistake?
Matt Hancock
If I just explain the data to the hon. Gentleman, I am sure that he will understand. The measures of the case rate per 100,000 are influenced by the amount of testing that is done in any country, and there is not nearly as much testing in Pakistan or Bangladesh as there is in India. As I said in response to the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), the rate of positivity of people coming from Pakistan was three times higher than that of people coming from India, which was at that time quite low. We have to be careful with the raw data, and we have to look at the underlying positivity. One of the advantages of testing everybody at the border is that we now effectively have a global surveillance system to understand the positivity of travellers from any individual country. As I said, the decision was taken on the basis of the fact that the positivity was three times higher from Pakistan than from India.
Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con) [V]
In Bolton we are battling the Indian variant, with the rate currently standing at 274 per 100,000. The heroes of Bolton jabbed 6,200 people this weekend. Well done to the Health Secretary and his Department. Will he pay tribute to the Bolton team—Councillors Greenhalgh, Baines and Morgan, Dr Lowey and Dr Wall? Will the Government commit to first-dosing the whole of Bolton before the end of May and getting the second dose out to more vulnerable groups at a similar pace? Finally, what would the Health Secretary like to stress to Boltonians as we open up today with the rest of the country?
Matt Hancock
There is one other person who my hon. Friend did not add to the list, probably due to modesty, and that is himself. He has worked incredibly hard over the last few days to get the message out to people across Bolton, and I am very grateful. My message to everybody in Bolton and Blackburn is: take these steps, but please take them safely. Get a test and get yourself vaccinated as soon as you are in one of the eligible groups. It is incredibly important that we get vaccinations to anybody over 50 who has not had a jab yet, so please come forward now. Anybody over 50 who has had one jab eight weeks ago or more should come forward for their second. Crucially, get a test.
I pay tribute to all those my hon. Friend mentioned. Councillor David Greenhalgh, the leader of Bolton Council, has worked incredibly hard, as have his whole team. We are working cohesively together, and I very much hope that with that effort, we can get this sorted.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [V]
Obviously vaccines are important, but so is testing. Six months ago to the day, the Health Secretary told us that the UK would open two new mega laboratories in early 2021 to double the country’s capacity for carrying out covid-19 tests. We were then advised that they would open in early spring. The one in Scotland was cancelled. The one here in Leamington remains surrounded in secrecy, non-disclosure agreements and private contracts for staff employed by private companies, some linked to Conservative donors. The Health Secretary will be concerned by the delay, I am sure, even if he does not have a financial concern in this project himself. Can he tell us what is going on, and can he confirm when the place will open and that staff will be employed directly by the NHS?
Matt Hancock
We have a PCR testing capacity in this country of many hundreds of thousands more than we use each day. The Leamington Spa project is incredibly important and the people working there are doing a magnificent job. Frankly, I do not think that the rest of the hon. Gentleman’s question deserves an answer.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I strongly share my right hon. Friend’s sentiment, which he expressed earlier, about his pride in the role that the United Kingdom has played in the global vaccine effort, through the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Of course, the Indian variant shows that we remain vulnerable while the virus is rampant abroad, so what further steps can we take in the global fight against covid?
Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point that we cannot stress enough. We all, especially developed countries, have a role to play in making sure that we get the vaccines around the world. The UK approach is focused on outcomes and on getting as many people as possible vaccinated globally. The best way to do that is to allow the work that we have done here—the research and the proving of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine—to be replicated and manufactured everywhere at cost. That is a better approach because it protects future intellectual property values and allows for the research money to go into new vaccines and variant vaccines. It does not undermine the system of intellectual property, which is the underpinning concept of all pharmaceutical development, yet at the same time it makes sure that we get people vaccinated around the world. This country should be incredibly proud that we have helped vaccinate over 400 million people, with many hundreds of millions more to come.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
On Saturday, my friends and I put on our trainers and walked 26 miles in Gower to raise a bucketload of cash for the fantastic breast cancer charity Walk the Walk. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cancer, I know only too well the devastating impact that the pandemic has had on cancer services. One of the key ways in which the Secretary of State can help with the Government’s goals to recover from the pandemic is by ensuring that we have enough well-trained and motivated NHS staff now and into the future. What discussions has he had with the Treasury to ensure a comprehensive, multi-year funding settlement for the NHS in the autumn spending review? Will he meet me and Macmillan Cancer Support to discuss this urgent matter?
Matt Hancock
I am always very happy to meet the hon. Lady, who works incredibly hard on this topic. I am delighted to say that the recovery of cancer services is going well and that in many of the centres, the rate of diagnosis, testing and surgery is above 100% of 2019 levels. That is very important. Of course, we are working towards the spending review. The NHS has a long-term baseline settlement, but on top of that we are putting extra money into the recovery that she rightly champions. I would be delighted to talk to her more about it.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The message today is all about the balance between celebrating the return of more freedoms today and in the future, and the need for caution, depending on the good sense of my constituents in Gloucester and those elsewhere. Will my right hon. Friend tell us how many of those recently hospitalised in Bolton as a result of the new variant had already been vaccinated; what more we can do to help spread the word to those who have not yet agreed to be vaccinated; and what role he expects pharmacies to play in testing as we go forward?
Matt Hancock
The best understanding that we have is that five of the 18 who were in hospital yesterday had been vaccinated once, and one had been vaccinated twice but it is not clear how recently. Therefore, the majority have not been vaccinated, but most of them could have been vaccinated. That is frustrating to see, but it is also a message to everyone. We monitor this closely and the latest information on those who have been admitted to hospital in Bolton over the weekend is similar: the majority are unvaccinated. It reinforces the message that people should come forward and get vaccinated, because that is best way to protect everybody.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
Before Christmas, it was the mutation—the Kent variant—mixed with the opening of the economy in York that caused a rapid spike of covid-19 infection, as people came to visit our city en masse and spread the virus through the hospitality sector, where still many workers are yet to be vaccinated. Here we are again, and who knows what will come next? A different variant—the Indian variant—with high transmissibility is about to be spread in a city that many people are already visiting, with more to come. We feel vulnerable. What proactive, preventive steps will the Secretary of State take so that we do not pay that heavy price again for the Government not acting fast enough?
Matt Hancock
The most important difference between now and then is, of course, that the vast majority of those who are vulnerable to ending up in hospital or dying of covid have had two vaccines. The vaccination uptake rates have been spectacularly high and the uptake rate of the second vaccine has also been incredibly high. That means that the protection afforded to those who have chosen to take up the vaccine is very high. The latest estimates show that having two jabs and waiting a fortnight or so after the second jab leads to around a 97% reduction in mortality. Of course, we will continue to drive and to open up access in order to find the final few per cent. of people, but the lesson of the last few days is that people who have not taken up the opportunity to be vaccinated should do so, because it is those people who have sadly ended up in hospital, and we do not want that.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
The Health Secretary can be proud of his role in the vaccination programme, and I welcome the further reduction in the age of eligibility. It may surprise my right hon. Friend, and indeed the House, that despite my appearance and general manner, there are still a few years yet to go, but I will be there, seized of the importance of taking up my vaccine. May I urge him to favour a surge in vaccination, rather than to flirt even momentarily with the idea of imposing local restrictions, which are not helpful and create a great deal of resentment?
Matt Hancock
I am glad to say that we will get to my hon. Friend before the end of July, no matter how young he is. I am pretty sure he is an adult in both actuality and attitude—crikey, I am getting myself into more trouble than I anticipated.
I understand my hon. Friend’s broader point, which is a call against local lockdowns, and we have had differences of view on that in the past. It is not where we want to go, though of course we do not rule it out. We have seen our approach work—it worked in south London —and we have this huge testing capacity, which we did not have in the autumn, of hundreds of thousands of tests a day. That capacity is expanding, as the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) articulated. We also have millions of lateral flow tests, which are simple and easy to use, and people get the result fast. With surge testing plus the vaccine, we have many more tools in our armoury than we did before.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]
I am very grateful in advance to the NHS Fife staff who will give me my second dose of the vaccine exactly 10 weeks to the day after my first one.
The Secretary of State indicated that probably a significant factor in the spread of the highly transmissible new variant is that people who could have been vaccinated by now chose, for whatever reason, not to accept the vaccine. In a number of cases, people have genuine concerns, but a major issue must be that people are declining the vaccine because they believe the lies deliberately and maliciously spread by anti-vax campaigners on social media. What further action do the Government wish to take against those who deliberately spread those lies for no other purpose than to put the lives of others at risk?
Matt Hancock
The anti-vaxxers have not had a very good time of it recently, and I am absolutely delighted that take-up is as high as it is. One of the reasons we have been able to take on the anti-vaxxers so effectively is that we have not danced to their tune. Instead, Members right across the House—I am looking around now and I see people in all parts of the House who have played their part in this—have put across the positive, science-based, objective, enlightenment values, if you like, of why the vaccine is the right thing. We as a House, as leaders of our national debate, have done that with one voice, based on the scientific advice. We have done it across the four nations of the United Kingdom with one voice. We have done it with scientists, with clinicians, with religious leaders—with all those who have a strong voice in this debate. Telling the positive story is the vital thing that we can do. Of course there may be those who do otherwise, but that is not for us—it is for us to tell the positive story.
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for playing his part in that by celebrating having his second jab. I am thrilled that he will have, in just a couple of weeks’ time, the maximum protection that one can get. He is helping not only himself and his loved ones, but all of us together to get through this.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con) [V]
I was going to ask the Secretary of State to confirm whether, for those vaccinated, there is effectiveness against the B16172 variant, and how many deaths in the UK from that strain have been recorded among the vaccinated. However, given that he has just effectively turned the amber list red, can I ask him what is the point of me having my passport anymore? Covid will always mutate and the vaccine will always have to keep up. We have managed to vaccinate 99% of the mortality risk cohort. When will this Government actually take a little bit of risk and allow people to get on with their lives again?
Matt Hancock
The red, amber and green lists reflect the risks that there are in other places around the world. The amber list means that people need to quarantine at home, the red list means that they need to quarantine in a hotel, and the green list means that we think it is safe to travel. My hon. Friend should get his passport out—he can get on a plane to Portugal or one of the other countries. The system allows for some careful foreign travel. However, my first duty is to protect the lives of people here in the UK, and the best way to do that right now is to make sure that we are cautious on international travel to protect the opening up here at home.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab) [V]
The Secretary of State will know that analysis of the data published by Public Health England shows that the spike in cases in Bolton so far is mostly confined to schoolchildren and young adults who are socially mobile and have not yet been vaccinated. There are valid concerns, therefore, that as lockdown eases today, it might lead to a rise in cases within unvaccinated cohorts across Salford, which borders Bolton. Can he confirm that he will act now to protect people in Salford by curbing any spread beyond surge hotspots and accelerating the vaccine roll-out programme in Salford not just for second doses, but for first doses for young, unvaccinated cohorts?
Matt Hancock
Yes, we are opening up vaccinations for those aged 37 tomorrow, and anybody in Salford who is in one of the eligible groups and has not been vaccinated should come forward. If you are in Salford and you were vaccinated more than eight weeks ago but have not yet had your second jab, please come forward. We now have a very good surveillance system in this country and we publish all the data from it so that we can all see the cases day by day. We can also see the impact on hospitalisations. I am glad to say that, thankfully, the almost inexorable link from cases through to hospitalisation and death that we saw in the past is now broken. The link is not completely severed, but it is much, much weaker because of the protection of the vaccine. Those are the things that people can do in Salford, and I look forward to working with the hon. Lady to get those messages out to everybody.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
The Secretary of State will know that my constituency of Hyndburn and Haslingden borders Blackburn with Darwen, and I thank the Department for having listened to colleagues’ call for extra support and resources through additional vaccines and surge testing. On a call this morning, Amanda Doyle, the integrated care system lead for Lancashire and South Cumbria, told us that one of the main concerns today is not a shortage of supply but the uptake of vaccines, so will my right hon. Friend join me in encouraging residents across Lancashire to come forward for their jab when eligible, and reiterate how important this is in protecting our local communities?
Matt Hancock
Yes, 100%. Just like people across Salford and Greater Manchester, people across Lancashire should come forward to get the jab if they are eligible. In some areas, such as parts of Bolton, we are going door to door with the jab; in the wider area, we are saying to people, “Come forward and get your jab. That is the best protection you can have.” Twice-weekly testing is also available to everybody now, so people should come forward and get their tests. The more regularly they get tested, the more they can help break the chains of transmission, and when they get their chance, they should get the jab.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Thanks to the Prime Minister’s delaying travel restrictions, an estimated 20,000 people arrived in the UK from India before restrictions were put in place. Can the Secretary of State inform the House how many of those arrivals were covid positive and were subsequently quarantined, and if not, why not?
Matt Hancock
We publish that data, so I refer the hon. Lady to the gov.uk website.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
The vaccination programme is one of the biggest and most successful civilian logistical exercises in our country’s history, and I thank the Secretary of State for his role in delivering it. It should open the way for our hospitality businesses to start operating at full capacity in due course, and for events, festivals and conferences to start, but there is still a lot of uncertainty about when this will happen. Will the Secretary of State publish a plan so that those two crucial sectors of our economy can reopen? It may take a while, but they need a plan and a timetable.
Matt Hancock
We are working on a plan for that with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and of course on the social distancing review that the Prime Minister is leading on. We are committed to making sure that we publish that well in advance of the decision on 14 June as to what the data show about step 4, which is currently planned for 21 June. Of course, we have set out four parameters for taking that step on 21 June, and the first three are currently in good shape. The challenge is the new variant, but it is far too early to be able to say anything about that specifically. We will look at the data up to 14 June and make an announcement on that date.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab) [V]
Covid restrictions are easing, but almost 5 million people are waiting to start NHS treatment, so now is not the time for a major reorganisation of the national health service. However, the Government’s plans for the future of the NHS and social care would embed a postcode lottery, allow for the deregulation of NHS professions and allow the discharge of vulnerable patients from hospital before they have been assessed for continuing healthcare. Public consultation on this has been woefully inadequate, so will the Secretary of State pause the entire process until after all covid restrictions have been lifted, and then carry out a full public consultation so that patients, NHS staff, care workers and unpaid carers can have their say?
Matt Hancock
On the contrary, the proposed reforms set out in the White Paper, which have come from the NHS itself, will help to deal with the backlog. They will help to make sure that the NHS is ready for the rest of the 21st century. They have been welcomed by the Health and Social Care Committee, and I am grateful to that Committee for its report last week, which welcomed those reforms while asking for further detail on a couple of other areas, which we will work with the Committee on.
I urge the hon. Lady to speak to her colleagues in the local NHS, and ask them whether they think that collaboration is the way forward; whether we should have greater interoperability; and whether we should have greater integration on the ground, and get rid of a load of the bureaucracy that is currently there in law. If she is not persuaded by her local NHS, by me or by the Select Committee, perhaps she should speak to her own Front Benchers, who also welcomed the reforms.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
As of last week, over 82,000 doses of the covid vaccine have been administered across the High Peak. It is an amazing achievement and I put on my record my thanks again to everyone who has made that possible. I urge the Health Secretary to focus on doing surge vaccinations and surge testing in those areas with growing numbers of new cases to put us in the best possible position, so that we can get rid of any remaining restrictions as soon as possible.
Matt Hancock
Yes, this is our planned approach. I am glad to say that the number of cases across the High Peak is very, very low. I am also glad to see that the vaccination rates across the whole of Derbyshire are really high—I was in Derbyshire just before the elections, and the rates are high and there is huge enthusiasm behind the project. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in making sure that that is what has happened.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]
Given that the so-called Indian variant is now a variant of concern and is linked to several outbreaks in schools, why have the Government just abandoned the requirement to wear face masks in secondary school classrooms? The Secretary of State is fond of claiming that he is following the science, but this flies in the face of scientific advice from SAGE, public health experts and teaching unions. It begs the question as to why he is getting rid of one of the few mitigation measures in schools that we know actually works when we have such a transmissible variant. No one wants to see face masks in schools for longer than necessary, but neither do they want children to lose out on face-to-face education because of virus outbreaks. Once community rates go up, school rates go up, so why is he needlessly putting education at risk?
Matt Hancock
The hon. Lady kind of answered the question in the question, when she said that everybody wants to see face-to-face education. The thing is that in a classroom setting, being able to see somebody’s face does have a material impact and, therefore, we do not want to have face coverings in school settings for longer than they are necessary, but we are prepared to have them in place where they are necessary. There is discretion for local directors of public health where there are significant challenges. It is something that we discussed, for instance, with the director of public health in Bolton and in Blackburn. That has been part of the discussions over the last few days. What the hon. Lady is asking for is a blanket approach, including in areas where the number of cases is incredibly low. The decision that we have taken, on balance—taking into account the education risks and the advice from SAGE and public health experts—
Matt Hancock
The hon. Lady shakes her head. We listen to the scientists and, crucially, balance both the public health advice and the impact on education. Therefore, we have a more localised approach, without the blanket approach that she recommends.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Today’s measures are very welcome in Aylesbury, with local pubs, restaurants, the museum and the cinema all eager to welcome back customers. Will my right hon. Friend reassure local residents that, as business and culture return to normality, so too will our health services, and that, over time, it will become easier once again to have face-to-face appointments with GPs?
Matt Hancock
Yes. My hon. Friend will no doubt have seen the letter sent out from Dr Nikki Kanani, who is the medical director of primary care for NHS England, reiterating the point that it is important to offer a face-to-face consultation for a patient who really wants one while also using technology where that is the most clinically appropriate thing to do. These decisions should be taken between doctor and patient together. There is no greater supporter than me of the use of technology in healthcare. I think it improves access no end. People do need to be able to go to the surgery if they so choose and see the right person—the clinically appropriate person. That is the approach that we are taking while making sure that we can use a system that allows people to access the right services in the right settings as much as possible.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
People will understandably feel angry that all the progress that everyone has worked so hard for by supporting the vaccines and following restrictions is now being slowed or potentially put at risk because the Government’s border measures have failed to prevent the spread of a new variant. Can the Secretary of State tell me whether it is true, as reported, that even by 7 April, 5% of people arriving from India had covid, apparently 50 times higher than the rate here; what that figure had risen to by 19 April; and how many of the 2,323 already identified new variant cases are people who travelled directly from India, and how many are people who caught it through onward transmission that was not prevented by the border measures?
Matt Hancock
As I said, the positivity rate for people travelling from India was relatively low at the start of April. We published the data of the positivity rates from the managed quarantine service. However, by the end of April, the positivity rate from India had risen, so we took the precautionary decision, even before this variant was deemed a variant under investigation, to put India on the red list. We did that before other similar countries, such as Germany and Canada, banned their flights. I understand the enthusiasm of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for pursuing this line of questioning, but we have to take decisions based on the evidence; we cannot take decisions based on evidence that arrives afterwards, which is what she seems to think we should have done.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
More than 70,000 people in Redcar and Cleveland have now had at least one jab, which is an amazing achievement so far. It is great to hear that the vaccines seem to be protecting against the Indian variant too. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Novavax vaccine, which is made in Teesside, will also be tested against the Indian variant and other variants of concern, and will he update us on when it will be made available as another great Teesside export?
Matt Hancock
Yes, Teesside is playing it part. In fact, earlier today I met Ben Houchen, the newly re-elected Mayor of Teesside, to talk about what more we can do to invest in Teesside—in the NHS in Teesside, and in life sciences, such as vaccine production, on Teesside. He is doing a fantastic job of taking the voice of Teesside right into the heart of Whitehall—as is my hon. Friend, of course.
My hon. Friend is quite right to raise this point about the Novavax vaccine, which is going to be manufactured on Teesside. Of course, we will study its impact against the new variants, but we have a high degree of confidence that the Novavax vaccine has a broad coverage. In fact, one of its attractions is that it has that broad coverage, not just against the variant that it was precisely designed to deal with but against a wide range of variants. That is part of the theory of the technology that underpins that particular vaccine. It is a very modern vaccine, it is very exciting, and it is terrific that it is being made on Teesside.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]
We are not safe until everyone is safe. Following President Biden’s announcement that the US Government will support an intellectual property waiver to help scale up the volume of safe and effective covid-19 vaccines globally, can the Secretary of State explain why the British Government are still blocking the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights—TRIPS—waiver at the World Trade Organisation?
Matt Hancock
Because we have a better approach. Our UK approach has led to the vaccination of 400 million people. The hon. Gentleman should take enormous pride in that. We have been able to do that while protecting the intellectual property rights that will lead to the development, for instance, of the new vaccines, the new technologies and the variant vaccines that are going to be necessary in the future. It is that combination of the protection of intellectual property rights plus the giving away of this vaccine at cost to the developing world—to lower and middle-income countries.
I reiterate the point I made earlier, which I hope the hon. Gentleman will take pride in: of the 54 million vaccine doses delivered through the COVAX facility, of which we are a major funder, 53 million have been of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, delivered with no charge for the intellectual property. That is the approach we should be taking. That is what we will do, and I urge everybody around the world to follow.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I do aim to try to take everybody, so can we have concise questions—and concise answers, Secretary of State?
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]
My right hon. Friend will be aware that London has a younger cohort and is full of communities from across the world, but many are hesitant because of the activities of pharmaceutical companies in the countries of their origin. Will he look at aspects of control to ensure that those communities can get the vaccine they choose to take, rather than attempting to force them to take vaccines they are extremely reluctant to take?
Matt Hancock
We have had a principle of saying that they come forward for the vaccine and get the vaccine that is there on the day, but of course we have nuanced that because of the changes in the clinical advice on the AstraZeneca vaccine. As we reach further and further into those who need encouragement to come forward, so we are willing to look at more and more creative solutions to tackle people’s hesitancy. As it happens, I was in Brent central mosque last week at Eid. It was absolutely wonderful to see the work they have done to make sure that people of all faiths and none can come forward. For many Muslim people it means that in Brent they can go forward to somewhere where they are very comfortable being vaccinated. It was brilliant, frankly, to see teams working in the mosque to vaccinate people of all backgrounds. The imam was vaccinated by someone with the support of a member of the Jewish community with me looking on, all organised by a Hindu administrator. It was modern Britain at its best. They have done thousands of vaccines and they have done great work. I know it is that sort of approach that my hon. Friend is looking for. If we can do more on the specifics of which vaccine, I am very happy to look at that. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I think we have just heard the skies opening above us. I am grateful we can now eat inside restaurants.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Hull Royal Infirmary is a tower block and the geography of the building has resulted in a higher number of covid transmissions in hospital, despite the excellent work being done by all NHS staff. I fear that covid cases caught in hospital will only increase with a more transmissible strain of the virus. Will the Secretary of State look urgently at providing Hull Royal Infirmary with the funding it needs to improve its building as we all learn to live with the virus?
Matt Hancock
As the hon. Lady knows, we are building 48 new hospitals over this decade. Forty of those have been set out, but there are a further eight slots, so she may want to work with Hull Royal Infirmary to bring forward a proposal. Of course, tackling infection within hospital is incredibly important work and always has been since the time of Florence Nightingale. It is even more important right now and I think it will be a higher priority over the years ahead. I am always very happy to look at all proposals.
Kate Griffiths (Burton) (Con) [V]
Today’s relaxation of restrictions is so welcome for all those who work in the hospitality industry. Pubs, restaurants and leisure facilities are all making huge changes to operations to welcome back customers, while also ensuring they keep everyone safe. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should support those local businesses, while ensuring that we play our part in abiding by the safety measures and exercising caution as we gradually return to a normal way of life?
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course. My hon. Friend puts it very wisely. As the Member of Parliament for Burton, which is famous for its beer and its pubs, she no doubt speaks for her whole constituency when she says that she welcomes the measures we are taking and the steps we are able to take today. People should take those steps with caution. Outside remains better than inside. It is harder in the rain, Mr Deputy Speaker, but it is still better to be outside if you can. Putting more down to personal responsibility is the right approach at this stage, with the low level of virus and the huge scope of the vaccination project. I am very grateful to her for her support in pushing that agenda.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State will be aware that in Glasgow we have seen an increase in the virus due to the so-called Indian variant. That means that although everybody in this House is celebrating the return to indoor hospitality, many Glaswegians have not been able to experience it today, which we bitterly regret.
Up until 6 o’clock yesterday, flights were still coming into the UK from India, and 20,000 people have arrived in the UK since the alarm was raised about that variant. Does the Secretary of State really want to look Glaswegians in the eye and say that that was decisive action that has led to their staying in tier 3?
Matt Hancock
The history as the hon. Gentleman describes it is, in fact, wrong. We put India on the red list and therefore required hotel quarantine before the variant was designated even as under investigation, let alone as a variant of concern. So yes, we did take pre-emptive action. Anybody arriving now who has been in India in the past 10 days must go to a hotel to quarantine.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
Although the incredible success of our world-leading vaccination programme has reduced the number of people in hospital with covid substantially, thereby relieving much of the pressure on the NHS, many of my constituents are still waiting longer for non-urgent NHS care. I am delighted that Blackpool Victoria Hospital is included in the pilot project looking at innovative ways to deliver services and reduce the backlog. Can my right hon. Friend reassure me that it will get all the resources it needs to remove the backlog as quickly as it possibly can?
Matt Hancock
Yes. Blackpool Victoria is a fantastic hospital and the team there has worked incredibly hard, especially over the past year and a half. I am delighted that it is part of the plan to work out how we can go even faster to get not just to the baseline 100% levels of activity in the equivalent month in 2019, but far higher than that, because we have to get through the backlog. The backlog is not just those who are currently on the waiting list, although too many are waiting more than a year and the waiting list is too long; there are also people who have not yet presented, but who we know are likely to have a problem. This is a huge challenge and I am very grateful to colleagues in Blackpool, who are working so hard not just to get through the backlog, but learn how best to get through it so that others can learn from them.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) [V]
The staggering success of the covid vaccination programme means that on current trends, sadly, non-covid viruses may well kill more people this winter than the coronavirus. Is my right hon. Friend confident that an effective flu jab will be available to address this year’s emergent strains of flu? What will he do to maximise uptake of the flu vaccine by vulnerable groups? What is the latest on a covid booster dose this autumn? Would the flu jab be given at the same time?
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend is quite right to ask all those questions. In fact, I met Simon Stevens and the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment about the matter this morning, because we want to ensure that the flu vaccine programme this winter is a success. We had the biggest flu vaccination programme in history last winter. We are currently trialling the co-administration of flu and covid vaccines—I am waving my hands because one goes in each arm. We are looking at that for the autumn as part of a booster programme for covid. A lot of work is under way in this space; I suggest that my right hon. Friend discusses it with the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, who is now responsible both for the covid programme and for the flu programme, in order to better tie them together.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I heard what the Secretary of State had to say about testing rates in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but according to Johns Hopkins University, the daily infection rate in Pakistan back in April was 4,500; in Bangladesh it was 7,000 and in India it was 100,000. Surely, if he were taking a precautionary approach, he should have placed India on the red list much sooner.
Matt Hancock
No. The statistic that is missing from that analysis, which was also missing from that of the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), is the amount of testing that is done in each country. We have to look at the positivity when an appropriate selected sample is tested. It is not possible to do that in many low and middle-income countries, so the best way is to look at the positivity rate of people who are travelling to the UK, because we test everybody. That is the most statistically appropriate way to assess the question that the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) rightly tries to assess, and it showed that positivity rates were three times higher in India.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The time limit in the Queen’s Speech debate following this statement will start at five minutes, but I am sure it will go down thereafter.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I look forward to welcoming my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State when he visits the vaccination hub in Bournemouth. Today’s partial liberation of covid restrictions will be welcome up and down the country, and not least in Bournemouth where hospitality and tourism are so important, but the development of yet another mutation in the Indian variant illustrates that until this pandemic is brought under control globally, other more deadly mutations may develop. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a shared global adversary? Will it be raised at the G7 summit, and when does he think our spare vaccine capacity can start to be directed abroad?
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend is right to praise the incredible efforts in Bournemouth, which I know he has played a very direct and personal part in delivering, and I look forward very much to visiting as soon as I can get down there—and, by the way, I agree with Sir John Bell that Bournemouth is a great place to go on holiday and I am sure my right hon. Friend agrees about that too.
On global support, of course as and when we have excess doses we will look to support countries around the world with those doses, but the number of doses that we can support around the world from our excess purchases is small compared with the spectacular support we have already given the whole world with the more than 400 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine that have been delivered at cost. The majority of Oxford-AstraZeneca doses have been injected in low and middle-income countries, and 98% of all COVAX jabs given so far have been that vaccine delivered on the back of British science, supported by the UK Government, Oxford university and AstraZeneca, doing this all without taking a profit. We should be very proud of that.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]
The wider the gap between the rich and poor, the bigger the difference in our life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. That has been laid bare over the last year: the UK’s high and unequal covid death toll has been driven by the rampant poverty and inequality that successive Conservative Governments have allowed to go unchecked. In January, the Prime Minister promised to implement Professor Sir Michael Marmot’s recommendations to address that and to build back fairer, so what discussions has the Health Secretary had with the Prime Minister on that, and will investigating the UK’s structural poverty and inequality be part of a covid inquiry?
Matt Hancock
I discussed this issue with the Prime Minister. The office for health promotion is intended to be able to tackle some of those issues, led clinically by the chief medical officer, to make sure we can strengthen the public health case around Government, because so many policies of Departments outwith the Health Department are critical in addressing the question the hon. Lady raises.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con) [V]
I thank the Secretary of State for yet again coming to the House to update us on the covid situation. The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and the whole Government must take great credit for the vaccination programme. The Secretary of State is surely right when he says we can defeat covid only if we have vaccinations, and we have been tremendously successful at that; I think we did 800,000 in one day last week. However, is it possible for us to increase that vaccination rate even more so we can defeat this terrible pandemic even earlier?
Matt Hancock
I hope so. The great limiting factor remains supply. We get them out as fast as we get them in; there is not a stockpile waiting. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of the programme: trusting the vaccine science and offering everybody a vaccine is the way out for all of us. If the Bolton example demonstrates that it is the unvaccinated who end up in hospital, we need to get that message to everyone. I would far rather be getting the vaccines out than having to undertake the sorts of local lockdown we had in the autumn; it is a far, far better approach, because we have these capabilities—the vaccines and the mass testing. That is the approach we are taking; my hon. Friend is right to highlight it, and he was very kind to say what he said about me.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) [V]
People are really grateful to GP surgeries for their role in the vaccine roll-out, but are very keen to be seen face to face by a doctor, where that is appropriate, and in a timely manner. What is the Department doing to make that increasingly possible, please?
Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend will no doubt have seen the note that went out last week from Dr Nikki Kanani about ensuring that face-to-face access is available to the appropriate clinician, and that the use of technology should be encouraged but should be a matter for a discussion between the clinician and the patient. For many people, it is more of an advantage. Personally, I use telemedicine, and it is much more convenient for me, as a healthy and busy 42-year-old, but for some people it is right to see their clinician face to face. That letter went out last week, and we obviously constantly keep this issue under review and monitor it carefully.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Last week, I met the Taskforce for Lung Health, which raised a concern about an increased occurrence of lung scarring in long covid sufferers. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the impact of this on potential resources for the health service?
Matt Hancock
We are of course worried about the impact of long covid, and the evidence is growing about the different impacts. The clinical advice is that there are a number of different syndromes that are, together, badged as long covid. For some people it has an impact, as the hon. Member says, on lung scarring; for some people the impact is more neurological. So we have to make sure that the services, the response and, indeed, the research are targeted at the different types of long covid. I am very happy to arrange a discussion between him and our clinical leaders on long covid, because it is a very important topic.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con) [V]
The Health Secretary may be forgiven, as he is one of the busiest people in the country at the moment, if he missed Tielemans’s strike from 30 yards and the VAR decision late on in the game, but 21,000 fans saw it live, and many of them were my constituents who were there to celebrate Leicester City winning the cup. Wembley of course holds 90,000 people and it was a test event, so when will we find out the results of the test event and the outcome for things such as the Euros in the future?
Matt Hancock
We will find out the results in the next few weeks. Of course, the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) may have been so cheerful in his opening remarks because he was there, and he saw Leicester triumph. I watched it, and I just thought how brilliant it was to see a live crowd again. It was not full— that is true—and no doubt it could have been filled, but it was not full because we are taking it carefully. I am working with my right hon Friend the Culture Secretary and the Minister for Sport—the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) —who I know found it extremely enjoyable to be able to go to a sports event as the Minister for Sport, which he has missed. We will assess the data that come out of it. Everybody who went is part of a testing regime. We will look at the results, as we will look at the results of the other pilots, such as the Brits and the snooker at the Crucible, and then make an assessment.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
The UK’s defences against incoming covid infections are only as strong as the weakest point. I am still awaiting a response from the Health Secretary about the Hounslow director of public health’s concerns about covid-infected seafarers being transported to Hounslow hotels by the shipping companies, with no quarantine, no prompt notification to local public health teams and no consistent infection control at the hotels. Travellers and staff at Heathrow are also raising concerns about weaknesses in the arrivals process. When will the Health Secretary convince this House that the UK’s covid defences are fit for purpose?
Matt Hancock
I pay tribute to the team who have put together the managed quarantine service, which has run remarkably smoothly for such a complicated operation. They are always very happy to hear feedback, and are constantly improving the system. I work very closely with the Home Secretary and the Transport Secretary on this. There have been remarkably few complaints about a system that has had to be put in place for significant numbers of people.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con) [V]
I thank the Health Secretary for his constant support in ensuring continuous vaccine supplies to the Baths Hall. We have, of course, been following the Prime Minister’s announcements closely in Scunthorpe. Will my right hon. Friend set out more detail on how the move toward some second doses after eight weeks will be implemented, especially for those who have already booked their 12-week appointment?
Matt Hancock
I am delighted that we managed to sort out the wrinkle that we had with the supplies of vaccine to Scunthorpe. It was a really good example of how this should work: my hon. Friend spoke up for Scunthorpe, and then the Minister got it fixed. I am very glad that we managed to sort that, and if there are any further problems, please do let me know.
We are inviting people who are over 50 and have a second jab booked 12 weeks after their first to rebook their vaccination from eight weeks after—not before eight weeks, because the effectiveness of the second jab strengthens for those first eight weeks. They can do that on the national booking system or through calling 119. We are texting those whose numbers we have to communicate with them. There is a whole process in place to get people rebooked wherever possible.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
People in Chesterfield are looking forward to getting back to the football stadium this weekend. I am not sure we will enjoy it quite as much as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) did this weekend; none the less, it is incredibly important to everyone. For that reason, they are understandably worried by the increase of the Indian variant, so it is important that we understand the decisions. I heard what the Health Secretary had to say about the reasons why he thought it was appropriate for India to be put on the list later than Pakistan and Bangladesh, but there will be those who think that the Prime Minister’s impending trip to India was a factor. We know there is an inquiry coming down the track. Will the Health Secretary confirm and clarify that there were no discussions, when the decision was made to put India on the red list later than Pakistan and Bangladesh, about the economic consequences, the Prime Minister’s trip or anything like that, and that it was purely health considerations that were in play?
Matt Hancock
These decisions are based on the evidence, and the Joint Biosecurity Centre puts forward the evidence for red-listing. In the first instance, the red list is there to stop new variants, but this variant was not a known variant under investigation. Because of the increase in the overall rates—the overall positivity—of people coming to this country, first from Pakistan and Bangladesh at the start of April, and then towards the end of April from India, we took the precautionary decision to put them on the red list. That is a matter of fact; I am happy to state that. The job now is to make sure we keep this all under control.
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)
The success of the vaccination programme has surpassed expectations, in part because of the very effective work that was done in tackling vaccine hesitancy at the start, but it is implicit in my right hon. Friend’s statement that, in Bolton and Blackburn particularly, there has been less success with persuading some people. What does he consider to be the model of good practice in persuading hard-to-reach groups? Where does he think that has taken place, and how will he roll it out in other areas?
Matt Hancock
I am incredibly proud that the UK has the highest measured rate of enthusiasm for taking the vaccine in the world, and especially that such a diverse nation has been able to achieve that record by taking this positive attitude and having people from Her Majesty down setting out the value of being vaccinated. I pay tribute to the comms team at NHS England and my communications team from across Whitehall, which have taken the lessons for how to get a positive narrative, especially on social media, and made sure we fought lies with objective truth. That has been fantastic.
On the ground, there are some really good examples. I mentioned my visit to Brent central mosque and I pay tribute to the people there. Some brilliant work has happened in Leicester; for instance, there was a vaccination centre right next to an area heavily populated by those of Somali background, but they were not going to the vaccination centre despite the fact that it was next door and so we set up a vaccination centre almost next door but where the doctors and clinicians are themselves Somalis. We then we saw a very sharp rate in the Somali vaccination rate. That is one example that I can immediately add to the elucidation of the answer to this question, but there are legion. People from around the world have been coming, via Zoom, to talk to some of our more innovative vaccination centres, be it at the mosque, at the Hindu temple in Neasden, which is doing brilliant work, in Leicester or, now, in Bolton and Blackburn, where I hope we can make some really significant progress. Frankly, this country should be proud of how people have pulled together to make this vaccination programme work.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Unbelievably, I am older than Will Wragg, marginally, so I have had my first jab. The second jab is a week Saturday—bring it on! Secretary of State, thank you for your statement today. We will suspend for two minutes.
Debate on the Address
Safe Streets for All
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
It is a great honour to open this debate on the Queen’s Speech. Protecting the public is the first duty of any Government, and from day one as Home Secretary it has been my No. 1 priority. The law-abiding majority deserves nothing less, and everything we ever do depends upon it: every time we walk down the street; every time we attend an event, a concert or a football match; each day when we send our children to school; and even when we are at home. Our democracy, our prosperity, our communities and our liberties all depend on an effective system of law and order. This Government have made great progress. Thanks to a massive recruitment drive, thousands more police officers are in our communities tackling criminality and protecting the public. With our backing, law enforcement has struck major blows against county lines drug gangs and organised crime. We have brought forward landmark legislation to better protect and support millions of domestic abuse victims and their children. We have overhauled terrorist sentencing and monitoring so that our outstanding police and security services can better address the threats that we face.
We are far from done. Criminals and terrorists do not stand still and neither will this Government. Our agenda is ambitious and I make no apology for that. We were elected on a clear manifesto promise to keep this country safe. We will build on the action that we have already taken.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State apologise for cutting nearly 22,000 police officers in the first place?
Priti Patel
The hon. Gentleman’s comment is irrelevant, as he failed to hear my first comment about protecting our citizens and about the investment that we have put into policing. That investment is getting stronger and it is growing; we now have more than 8,000 new police officers. Perhaps he would like to welcome the new officers in his constituency.
We are giving our brave police officers the support and the protection that they deserve as well as the powers that they need to tackle crime and criminality. We are also taking back control of the country’s borders with a fair, but firm immigration system, restoring confidence in the criminal justice system and making the punishment fit the crime, doing more to counter the full range of state threats posed to the United Kingdom and cleaning up the internet by making tech companies meet their responsibility to protect people, children in particular, from online harm.
Last Wednesday, we reintroduced the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which begins its Committee stage tomorrow. This Bill is essential for making our streets safe and, as we build back better from this pandemic, we must also build back safer. That is why this Government proudly stand with the law-abiding majority in backing our fantastic police. For well over a year, during an unprecedented emergency, police officers have been there, performing their duty, supporting their communities, and protecting all of us, day in, day out. Their contribution has been outstanding and must never be forgotten.
On top of what is already a demanding job for them, every day a police officer goes to work could be a day in which they have to face or to arrest an aggressive and violent offender, listen to a child describe a sexual assault, make a split-second decision of immense consequence or knock on a stranger’s door and tell them that their loved one has been killed. Even before the pandemic, it was high time for us to do more as a country to recognise their incredible sacrifice.
Through the Bill, we will put into law a requirement on the Home Secretary to report annually to Parliament on the police covenant. The new covenant sets out our commitment to enhance, support and protect those working within, or retired from, policing roles—whether paid or as volunteers—and also their families. It is designed to recognise the unique role played by our society by the police workforce and will initially focus on health and wellbeing, physical protection and family support. This Bill acknowledges the debt that we owe the police.
The vast majority of the public in the country have nothing but respect and admiration for the police, and yet our officers are subjected to abuse and violence. We will not tolerate that any longer. It is a disgraceful way to treat any human being. Any assault on a police officer is also an assault on the fabric of our society. It is not enough to respect and admire the police in theory. This Bill backs them with the full force of the law and the maximum penalty for thugs who assault an emergency worker will double to two years in prison.
Serious violence has a corrosive impact on our communities and there is an urgent moral imperative to tackle it. The police have a vital role and I am proud that there are now more bobbies on the beat. More than 8,000 new officers have already been recruited as part of our campaign to recruit an additional 20,000.
We have invested more than £100 million over two years to boost the operational response to violent crime. As a result of that work, more than 100,000 weapons have been taken off our streets. But as long as young lives are lost, families are left shattered and communities are gripped by fear, and we must do more. Every time someone carries a knife or a weapon, they risk destroying lives—their own and others’. Reoffending remains a significant problem, so the Bill will empower the police to take more proactive approaches, particularly in relation to known offenders, by introducing serious violence reduction orders. These targeted stop-and-search powers will tackle high-risk individuals and act as a strong deterrent.
Law enforcement is only part of the answer, though; we must also do much more to prevent violent crimes. The Bill will introduce a serious violence duty that will require the police, local authorities and others to work together to address problems in their areas. Importantly, it will undoubtedly save lives. When lives are lost, every single lesson must be learned, so the Bill will introduce a requirement for formal homicide reviews to be considered following adult deaths involving offensive weapons.
The right to protest peacefully is woven into the fabric of our country’s history. It is a right that this Government will always protect. That does not mean that the police should be powerless to intervene when peaceful protests are hijacked by chaos and disorder on our streets.
Before I turn to the measures that we are bringing forward, I must address some of the ugly scenes that we saw across London over the weekend. There is never an excuse or justification for inciting antisemitism or hatred against any community or faith. Some of the language—the chants and slogans—used by protestors and activists this weekend was unacceptable. In fact, it was racist. The streets of London, our great capital city, saw people waving antisemitic placards comparing Israel with Nazi Germany. There were violent chants of “Kill the Jews”, along with many other abhorrent chants and rhetoric that I will not repeat. All this was shamefully supported on social media—Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter were awash with antisemitic and abusive content.
All right hon. and hon. Members will have seen the footage of the convoy of cars driving down the Finchley Road. That was nothing to do with Palestine or Israel; it was pure and simple antisemitism that sought to intimidate, harass and frighten members of the Jewish community. I am sickened by the behaviours that were witnessed over the weekend. In an open and free society, we of course all have the right to express our views openly, but any free and open society must never turn a blind eye to appalling hatred, racism and antisemitism of the type witnessed over the weekend.
There is also never an excuse to exercise or direct violence towards our police. Six police officers were injured following Saturday’s protest because of the utterly disgraceful behaviour of a few. I stand by those officers, who sought to support the right to a peaceful protest while enforcing the law against a criminal minority.
In recent years, we have seen some protesters and groups use increasingly disruptive tactics that are a drain on the public purse and result in police forces having to move officers away from their regular responsibilities. Protesters’ rights must be balanced against the right of everyone else to go about their daily lives, so we are introducing a modest reset of the police powers for the effective management of highly disruptive protests. It will uphold the right to freedom of speech and assembly while ensuring that people can go to work, ambulances are unhindered and the free press can function unimpeded.
The Bill demonstrates the Government’s commitment to a criminal justice system in which the British people can have full confidence. Too often, the public could be forgiven for thinking that the rights of criminals trump the rights of victims. Sentencing is one of the few ways in which the public, victims and offenders see justice being done. We are delivering on our manifesto promise by toughening punishment for the worst offenders and preventing automatic early release for those who have committed serious crimes. We must also give offenders a fair start on the road to rehabilitation, so we will introduce community sentences that are both tougher and more effective when it comes to addressing the causes of offending. Our message to criminals remains simple: we will come for you.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
While my right hon. Friend is on sentencing and what is not in the Bill, I wonder whether she, with the Lord Chancellor sitting next to her, will give me this undertaking. Could we find a mechanism, through the Bill, to address the theft of pets, which has turned violent in many communities, including mine? It is not a joke—it is a serious set of offences and it is ill dealt with by the sentencing process and in law. Will she give that undertaking?
Priti Patel
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I think this comes back to the whole issue of criminality. The issue of pet theft is incredibly sensitive. It is emotive and absolutely distressing—there is no question about it. There is also a very serious underlying issue of violence. The types of tactics used demonstrate why this Government are right to be tough on criminals and criminality. Of course, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have established a taskforce and are looking at the appropriate measures that can be put in place. This Government are absolutely committed to dealing with this issue, along with much of the serious offending that I have already referred to.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Talking about violence and the safety of our streets, following Sarah Everard’s murder and the outpouring of solidarity from women across the UK calling for an end to all forms of violence against women and girls, is it not time for the Government to support the Our Streets Now campaign, which calls for public sexual harassment to be made a specific criminal offence?
Priti Patel
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I will come shortly to the issue of harassment and violence against women and girls. She refers to an important campaign. In fact, I have met some of the campaigners, who are very young and speak of the most appalling harassment, which we all agree is unacceptable. Along with much of our work—I will come shortly to our approach—these are important issues that we must not forget.
I have touched on criminality and the fact that this Government are absolutely robust and tough when it comes to punishment for the worst offenders. But I am also sorry that I have to remind the House that the Labour party has already chosen to vote against these measures. Labour voted against tougher sentences for child murderers, tougher sentences for sex offenders, the dozens of measures to crack down on knife and violent crime—the very crime that blights communities and leads to loss of life—as well as powers to protect emergency workers from assault, and the delivery of better protection for victims and witnesses in cases of violent and sexual offences.
Every time we give the Opposition the opportunity to stand on the side of the hard-working, law-abiding majority, guess what? They choose the wrong side. What message does that send out to our police, to victims of crime and to the British people? As the results of the recent British police and crime commissioner elections show, 70% of PCCs are now Conservative. People across the country rejected Labour’s political games and voted for the Conservative party—the authentic party of law and order in Britain—in those important elections.
Throughout my time in politics, I have seen at first hand how crime can devastate the lives of victims, their families and their communities. As the former co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on victims and witnesses of crime, and now as Home Secretary, I have often seen people suffer enormously—physically, emotionally and financially—as a result of their experiences. I have spent too much time with grieving parents who have lost their children to violence and violent crime.
Victims are at the very heart of the Government’s approach. We will ensure that victims are supported and have their rights recognised at every stage of the criminal justice system and beyond. We are investing record amounts in victim support and have published a new victims code based on 12 key rights for every victim of crime. Yet we know that there is more to do to transform the way in which victims are treated. We will enshrine the new victims code in law and hold agencies to account in delivering victims’ rights. The victims code is the culmination of two years of extensive work, including hearing directly from victims and victims groups. It gives us a comprehensive framework for effective legislation, and it is our intention to proceed without delay. Following a consultation later this year, we will publish a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny.
I want to see an institutional overhaul in the Government and society’s response to violence against women and girls. That was tragically and horrifically underlined by the death of Sarah Everard earlier this year, and that terrible, terrible case prompted an outpouring of grief and a sharing of experiences across the country from women and girls. Let me be crystal clear: no one—no one at all—should be made to feel unsafe when walking our streets. No one should feel the need to speed up when they hear footsteps behind them. No one should have to be on the phone or pretend to be on the phone to deter potential attackers.
I must also pay my respects to Kent police PCSO Julia James. My thoughts and the thoughts of everyone in the House will be with her family, her friends and her colleagues at what has been a truly awful time. Every decent person in our country is sick of abhorrent violence, abuse and harassment in our society. Our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 will strengthen our collective response to these horrendous crimes across the criminal justice system and society by strengthening protections for victims while ensuring that perpetrators feel the full force of the law.
For too long, the experiences of rape victims in the system have been insensitive, so we are carrying out a comprehensive rape review. It will rightly look at the entire experiences of rape victims at every stage of how the criminal justice system handles cases, from the police report to the final outcome at court. Everyone must learn and understand that complex and traumatic crimes such as rape must be handled with care and empathy, supported by effective processes that will give victims faith and confidence in our justice system. Further details of the review will be announced by my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor.
There is still more to do, and I am profoundly grateful for the extraordinary response we have received to our call for evidence on violence against women and girls. It will mean that the public will have their voices heard, because that evidence will directly shape two ambitious strategies. This summer, we will publish a tackling violence against women and girls strategy, which will outline the work across Government to prioritise prevention, support victims and survivors, and pursue perpetrators. It will be followed by a domestic abuse strategy, because the scale of the problem is striking.
Unlike most other types of crime, police-recorded domestic abuse-related offences increased between April and September 2020 as compared with the same period in 2019. The Government responded quickly during the pandemic and provided more than £28 million to domestic abuse services that had been affected directly by the pandemic. Meanwhile, our “You Are Not Alone” public awareness campaign has reached tens of millions of people.
We know that for too many, home is not a safe place. That tragic reality has been even more profound throughout the pandemic. Earlier this year we launched the “Ask for ANI” codeword scheme to provide direct support for victims of domestic abuse through community pharmacies. Almost half of UK pharmacies, including Boots pharmacies, are now signed up to the scheme, and that is more than 5,000 places. I thank those pharmacies for their support and the protection they are giving to women across the country. The scheme has provided support to women and men all over the UK, and at its peak it was being used on a daily basis.
I have outlined the ways in which we will make our streets and our communities safer, but someone—anyone—can be targeted, harassed, abused or exploited without leaving their home. That is why we are taking world-leading action to protect the public online, as well as offline. Our landmark online safety Bill will be a game changer in internet safety. It will usher in a new era of accountability for online platforms that will increase protection for children, crack down on racist hate crimes, prevent the spread of terrorist content and tackle online scams. Technology firms will be forced to report online child abuse on their platforms—a crucial change that will give law enforcement the evidence that it needs to bring perpetrators to justice. Companies that fail in the new duty of care will rightly face hefty fines. I also want to assure the House that the Bill includes measures to safeguard freedom of expression and democracy. Technology companies will no longer be able to arbitrarily remove content, and users will be given a right to escalate an appeal if they do.
This Government were also elected to improve the UK’s safety and security by taking back control of our borders and properly enforcing our immigration laws. We have already delivered on our promises on legal migration. Despite opposition from the open borders party opposite, we have ended free movement, introduced the British points-based immigration system and started to speed up the removal of those with no right to be in the UK.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Queen’s Speech made no mention of EU citizens’ rights, but more than 300,000 have still not had their settled status processed by the Home Office. What assurance can the Home Secretary give those people that their applications will be processed before the end of June deadline, and that if they are not, that they will not be subject to the hostile environment?
Priti Patel
I am actually grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention, because she gives me the opportunity to speak about the success of the EU settled status scheme, which has now given settled status to approximately 5 million people. The Government were mocked when we launched the scheme; we were told that we would never even reach 3 million. To answer her question specifically, intensive work is taking place across the country to reach some hard-to-reach communities, particularly because of the pandemic. Many of the outreach programmes had stopped, but we are now going back into communities and also reaching out to diaspora communities. We are also working with local authorities to reach out to communities, and children in particular, to ensure that their registration takes place. Extensive work is taking place in this area.
I was about to speak about our proposals to address the illegal side of migration. Illegal migration causes real harm and endangers the lives of those undertaking many dangerous and perilous journeys, more often than not in the hands of smugglers and people traffickers. The number of people crossing the English channel in small boats reached record levels last summer. People smugglers trade in human misery. Not only do these gangs exploit and hurt desperate people, but they are responsible for other illicit activities ranging from drugs and firearms trafficking to serious violent crime. They must be brought to task.
The House will recall that earlier this year I launched our new plan for immigration. It is underpinned by the principle that access to the UK’s asylum system should be based on need and not on the ability to pay people smugglers. Nobody thinking rationally could object to that. Our new Bill will help to deliver that plan, which will increase the fairness and efficacy of our system. It will better protect those in need of genuine asylum. It will deter illegal entry into the UK, break the business model of criminal traffickers and their networks, and save lives. It will also make it easier to remove people with no right to be in the country, including dangerous foreign criminals.
Those who come to the UK legally to work hard and contribute to our national life will always be welcome, but those who abuse that welcome by committing crimes will be deported. So far this year, more than 650 foreign national offenders have been removed from the UK; that means fewer foreign murderers, rapists and drug dealers on our streets. While those on the Opposition Benches will do everything they can to stop us, we will persevere, because this is what the British people rightly expect of their Government. This country and this Government have a proud record of helping those who face persecution, oppression and tyranny, and we will always stand by our legal and moral obligations to innocent people fleeing persecution.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but she touches on an important point relating to modern slavery. Will she say to the House whether that means an intention to reform the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to include supply chains and investments?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend makes an important point. He will see when the Bill is introduced some of the loopholes and the way in which even the landmark Modern Slavery Act is sadly being abused by criminal gangs and traffickers. There is an important point that we must address. We will continue to support those who flee persecution and those who become victims of gangs and criminals. Those important elements will be part of the legislation. We want to get it right because we must absolutely stop the level of criminality that is taking place. That very much speaks to the fact that the current system is not fit for purpose and justice is being delayed for those with genuine and important asylum claims. Judicial and court resources are overstretched and our new plan for immigration will address that.
The Bill will ensure that the system does not reward those who enter the UK illegally and through those appalling illicit means. Those who have travelled through a safe country where they could reasonably have claimed asylum, such as France or Belgium, are now inadmissible in the UK asylum system. For the first time, whether people enter the UK legally or illegally will have an impact on how their asylum claim is progressed, and on their status in the UK if their claim is successful. We will create a new and expanded one-stop-shop process so that asylum, human rights and any other protection claims are made and considered up front at the beginning of the process, ending the cycle of limitless appeals in our courts.
As I have made clear, the Government will do whatever it takes to protect the public, and that also applies to our national security. This year, we implemented the largest shake-up of terrorist sentencing and monitoring in decades. The Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021 gives the courts, the police, the probation service and the security services greater powers to protect the public. The public rightly expect that we are always looking for ways to strengthen our national security. That includes responding to the growing and evolving threats and risk posed by other states.
States that engage in hostile activity are becoming more assertive in how they advance their objectives and undermine our own. Their tactics are markedly different from those used by other adversaries. While the methods deployed by terrorists often rely on grabbing the public’s attention, states conducting hostile activity against us typically seek to operate in the shadows and remain hidden. We need to be constantly alert to espionage, political and electoral interference, sabotage, disinformation, cyber-operations and intellectual property theft. Though those acts fall short of open conflict, the consequences for our democracy and our economic security and prosperity are a real and present threat.
To address that, we will introduce a counter-state threats Bill that modernises and updates existing espionage laws, and creates new offences, tools and powers to detect, disrupt and deter hostile activity in the UK and actively targeted at the UK. It will also improve our ability to protect official data. Many of the Official Secrets Acts date back to the early 20th century, with their roots in the 1889 Act. They are simply no longer suitable for the modern world we live in. We will therefore reform the Official Secrets Acts of 1911, 1920, 1939 and 1989. Legislation will also include the creation of a foreign influence registration scheme. That is an important new tool to combat espionage and interference and protect research in sensitive subject areas.
On 13 May, I published a public consultation on the Government’s legislative proposals to counter state threats, which includes seeking views about the reform of treason laws. The response to this consultation will help to shape the new tools and powers so that they are comprehensive, effective and workable, and, importantly, will protect our national security along with our rights and our values.
As we emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, we are determined to build back safer. This Government will continue to deliver on the people’s priorities. The British public back the police and want to see more police officers in their communities, and we are delivering on that. They want us to take back our country’s borders, and we are delivering on that. They want us to ensure that criminals are properly punished for breaking our laws, and we are delivering on that. Where further action is needed to make our streets, our people and communities safe, we will take it. As Home Secretary, I am driven by a simple goal, which is to do the right thing by the law-abiding majority of our great country. That means supporting our police and others whose job it is to keep us safe, defeating the criminals and criminal gangs, securing our borders and removing those with no right to be here, protecting our national security, and taking the strongest possible action against those who wish to harm us. The measures that I have outlined today will help us to achieve just that, and this Government will always put the safety of the British people first.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
It may be helpful for colleagues to know that there will initially be a time limit of five minutes on Back-Bench speeches but I would expect that to reduce in due course.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
It is a privilege to open this debate for the Opposition at a critical moment for our country.
First, I would like to reiterate what I said during the urgent question earlier and to condemn absolutely the vile, antisemitic, sickening, misogynistic abuse we saw on the streets of London. That behaviour is never acceptable, and I hope that a strong message goes out from right across this House that we abhor it. I send best wishes for a swift recovery to the six police officers who were injured. I would also like to say that the thoughts of those on the Labour Benches are with the family of PCSO Julia James. I commend Kent police for the work that they have done on that investigation.
I give thanks, on behalf of all Labour Members, for the remarkable service that those on the frontline have given during this crisis. Our police officers, firefighters, emergency services, health and social care workers, shop workers, transport workers and local government workers—indeed, all those on the frontline—have shown incredible bravery and dedication in the face of a deadly virus. It has been sobering and it has been inspiring. I pay tribute, too, to all those who lost their lives to this awful virus in carrying out their duties. It is a devastating loss for so many families for whom life will never quite be the same again. Those who put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe are the best of us, and we thank them for their service.
We all rightly stood and clapped frontline workers, but the sound of applause does not pay bills. It is wrong —totally wrong—that this Government have time and again praised the work of frontline workers but refused to give them the fair pay rise that they deserve. This has been a time of national sacrifice and none has risked their life more than those who serve on our frontline. I have visited police stations and heard about our frontline officers putting themselves at risk to help others, not knowing who or what they will encounter when they are out on the beat. I have spoken to firefighters and heard about the sacrifices they have made, delivering food parcels and personal protective equipment, driving covid patients to hospitals, and, very sadly, moving bodies. Yet they face a threat to the collective bargaining body that protects firefighters’ rights. Again, Labour Members call on the Government to think again: to reward our key workers and, as a first step, revisit the deeply unfair pay freeze for those who have served so bravely during the pandemic.
As we consider the measures in this Queen’s Speech, it is clear that yet again, under this Conservative Government, there is no shortage of rhetoric but a clear commitment to action is missing. Talking tough and failing to act has been a trademark of this Government’s 11 years in office. Under this Government, victims have been failed and the public has been failed. Rape convictions have fallen to a record low, with just one in every 100 reported rapes even getting to a court. Fraud has rocketed, with 4.4 million victims in the last year. Hundreds of thousands of police records have been lost, and we still have no idea if they will all be recovered. Antisocial behaviour reports have soared by 5 million over the past decade. Assaults on police officers went up 40% during the lockdown, and court delays are now so bad that criminals are not facing justice in the way they should be. It is a litany of failure.
At the same time, the services that are so vital to preventing so many of these appalling acts from happening in the first place have been cut to the bone over the past 11 years. There has been a £1.4 billion cut in youth services, 750 youth centres have closed, and more than 4,500 youth workers have been lost. Mental health services are so stretched that people desperately in need of support are left abandoned, at risk to themselves and others. The Government’s total mess on probation services means that probation officers have one hand tied behind their backs and are doing their best to carry on the vital job of tackling reoffending. It is a shameful record.
The tough talk continued in this Queen’s Speech, but the reality is, frankly, different. In reality, this Government are soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime. The truth is that under this Government, criminals have never had it so good, and it is little wonder that the statistics are so dire with the huge cuts the Government have made to policing. We have seen police numbers plummet since 2010, with 21,000 officers lost across the country and police staff lost as well. We have had a Conservative Government for over a decade who were content to sit back and see violence rise and police numbers fall while the Home Office’s own research was showing them that the police cuts were linked to levels of crime. Of course, I welcome more police on our streets, but the Government uplift programme will not even replace the officers lost since 2010, and what about the police staff lost as well, who play such a vital role?
The harsh reality is that this Government’s failure has had a devastating impact on people’s lives. Rocketing antisocial behaviour, with millions more instances recorded, mean that lives, often of the most vulnerable in our communities, are made a misery. The violence on our streets and in homes, soaring right across the country, has had devastating consequences, taking and ruining far too many lives and causing unimaginable heartache for families. Let us be under no illusion: while rising crime affects everyone in society, it is often those who are struggling most in our communities who are hardest hit, with our poorest neighbourhoods disproportionately impacted on by crime. That is the record of this Government.
What we see in this Queen’s Speech is a warped sense of priorities. This is a Government who are more interested in preventing people from voting than they are in preventing crime. This Queen’s Speech should have focused on addressing rising crime, bringing perpetrators to justice and keeping people safe, but, sadly, what I see is a raft of proposed measures in this Queen’s Speech that, I fear, are about sounding tough but fail to rise to the scale of the challenge.
Let me turn to the measures that have been announced. On fire safety, we will, of course, look carefully at the role of the proposed building safety regulator, but the reality is that thousands of people continue to live in dangerous buildings nearly four years after the tragedy of Grenfell. Before Parliament prorogued, the Government, on four separate occasions, whipped their MPs to vote against amendments that would have ensured that remediation costs would not be passed on to leaseholders. Instead of listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), the Government chose to look the other way. I have met those who are still living in those buildings with dangerous cladding—very moving it was as well—and I can tell Ministers that what they want is action, not more words.
Let me turn to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, carried over from the last Session. Of course, there are some elements of that Bill that the Labour party not only supports but campaigned for. My hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch) introduced “protect the protectors” legislation to increase the maximum sentence for assaults on emergency service workers. The Home Secretary boasted at the Dispatch Box about increasing that to two years. The Government could have done that three years ago; when they were asked to do so by my hon. Friends, they would not do it. Indeed, we believe that the Government should now look at protecting the pandemic heroes and extend protections to shop workers as well as other vital frontline workers and social care staff.
We are also glad to see long overdue work on the police covenant. I put on the record my praise for the work of John Apter and the Police Federation, campaigning hard to deliver this much-needed change. However, we will be pushing hard to ensure that this is not a paper exercise but a real step forward for police that helps to protect their health and, vitally, their mental health and wellbeing.
Anthony Mangnall
Clearly the right hon. Gentleman was asleep during the local elections, when we won 10 more police and crime commissioners, showing that the general public view us as tough on crime. If he is going to stand there and say that we are not supporting our frontline workers when we said that we would be tougher on sentences, why did his party vote against that? Why did it not say that it would take the Bill to Committee and reform it, or at least come up with a sensible idea rather than carping from the side?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, just like I will listen to voters in parts of England, I hope that he will listen to the voters in Wales, where we won three of the four police and crime commissioners and a Labour Government achieved the best result in elections since the advent of devolution, showing that Labour in power actually works. [Interruption.] He scoffs at the voters of Wales. I think he should seriously look at the message that they are sending to him.
On the hon. Gentleman’s second point, on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, Government Members know perfectly well that they could have had a Bill that found consensus across this House. Instead, they chose to introduce divisive elements on protest and on discrimination against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities that made that impossible. He knows that, and Ministers know it too.
Indeed, there are measures in the Bill on death by dangerous driving, for example, championed by my hon. Friends the Members for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) and for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), who worked on a cross-party basis with the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). There is the part of the Bill on positions of trust, where we extend the scope of protections against those who perpetrate sexual relationships with young people under 18. Again, that had a cross-party genesis, with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) working with the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). That too could be widened, to include driving instructors and music tutors. I credit my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) for securing changes to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
There are some long overdue parts of the Bill that deal with disproportionality, such as the use of problem-solving courts, recognising remand of children as a last resort, and reform of the criminal records disclosure regime, but the reality is that those things go nowhere near far enough. I was challenged about what Labour would do. The Lammy review, which sets out 35 recommendations, has sat on the Government’s shelf since 2017. They need to implement it. [Interruption.] The Lord Chancellor knows very well that they are not implementing the 35 recommendations. I would be quite happy to go through all 35 with him.
On the Government’s proposed legislation on race and ethnic disparity, I am deeply concerned, since it now seems to be their position that structural racism does not even exist. With that view, we cannot trust this Government to bring forward measures so desperately needed to tackle structural racism. That lack of trust is shown in the way the Home Office has so badly mishandled the Windrush compensation scheme. [Interruption.] The Home Secretary shouts “Rubbish”, but I have spoken to the victims who have been treated so badly. I have spoken to people who have waited years for payments, forced to fight back against insulting offers, and people whose family members have passed away before compensation was received.
Now, the Home Secretary says “Rubbish”; these are her statistics. She promised to speed up the process. On 21 April, 1,417 cases were being processed. Five hundred of them had been ongoing for over a year, and others had been in the system for over two years. Those are the Home Secretary’s own statistics. That slow progress piles injustice upon injustice.
Let me come to the crackdown on protest. Where our existing laws are sufficient, it is wrong-headed and dangerous. The right to protest is a precious part of our democracy that should be treasured, not trashed. At the same time, the measures against unauthorised encampments would further discriminate against our Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities, in breach of the Human Rights Act and of the Equality Act.
Another area in which the Government’s poor record is matched by their lack of ambition is addressing violence against women and girls, which remains a stain on our society. The tragic death of Sarah Everard drew attention in the starkest terms to the desperate need for change that so many of us have long been calling for. As a society, and as men in particular, we must do better by listening to the outpouring of powerful testimonies, but—more importantly—by acting. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was rightly exposed for the shameful way in which it overlooked reforms that people have been crying out for, and I pay tribute to all those who have spoken up so powerfully: my colleagues my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon Central and for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), and all those across these Benches and the House who have said, “Enough is enough”.
There is deep anger and frustration about the scale of the challenge and the glacial speed of action. We have had several strategies announced in the past by the Government, and in the Queen’s Speech we have had the announcement of the violence against women and girls strategy, but with no timescale or proposed action. Today, Labour is proposing action, and we published our proposals this morning: a rape survivors plan, with support needed from start to finish; cases of rape and serious sexual violence fast-tracked through the system and a Minister tasked with the responsibility of driving change through; tougher sentences for rape, stalking and domestic homicide, including reviewing sentences for all domestic abuse; and a new law on street harassment. We need to ensure that all police forces have specialist teams of rape and serious sexual assault officers in place to support victims and drive up conviction rates; to remove the legal barriers that prevent any victim of domestic abuse getting the help they need, such as barriers to legal aid and no recourse to public funds; and a victims Bill with the victim at the heart of the system, supported through the process and afterwards. Let us see no more strategies and limited pilot schemes: let us see the action that is long overdue.
On the counter-state threats Bill, the warnings for action could not have been clearer: citizens poisoned on our own streets, attempts to subvert our democracy, and London becoming a laundromat for dirty money. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s report on Russia could hardly have delivered a more damning indictment of deep, systemic failings in the Government’s approach to the security threat posed by Russia, finding that the Government had “badly underestimated” the Russian threat and the response it required.
We thank our security services for the work they do, but they need more support. The Russia report concluded that previous changes in resourcing to counter Russian hostile state activity are not, or not only, due to a continuing escalation of the threat, but appear to be an indicator of “playing catch up”. We cannot keep playing catch-up, which is why we have long called for the recommendations of the Russia report to be implemented. It is why we have consistently criticised the actions of the Government of China against the Uyghur and on the security law in Hong Kong. We will look at this long-delayed legislation closely, and seek to work constructively to bring about the changes needed to guard against not just the threats of today, but the fast-emerging global threats to our democracy.
As we look at the UK’s role in the world, I want to turn to the new plan for immigration. I do not disagree that the asylum system is too slow: the reason for that is the Conservative party, which has run the immigration system for the past 11 years. The share of asylum applications that received an initial decision within six months fell from 87% in 2014 to 20% in 2019. That is the Conservative record, and we have seen an approach from Ministers that lacks both competence and compassion. There has been a huge surge in the number of dangerous crossings in small boats from France, but where is the comprehensive deal with France to deal with it? The Department for International Development, which was the very Department that addressed the causes of people being displaced from their homes in the first place, has been abolished. Safe routes such as the Dubs scheme have closed down; the Dubs scheme closed after just a few hundred children, when everyone expected it to help 3,000. That is not the way to tackle the issue or the heinous crime of people trafficking.
At the same time, we have seen people housed in overcrowded accommodation that represented a fundamental failure of leadership and planning at the Home Office, leading to a dangerous covid outbreak and putting vulnerable people, staff and neighbouring communities at risk.
From what we have seen of the plans so far, they will do next to nothing to stop people making crossings. They risk withdrawing support from vulnerable people, including victims of human trafficking. Nor do this Government show any sign of delivering the international agreements they require for their measures. Yet again, Conservative failure will be hard-wired into the system.
On the issue of borders, the lax measures against covid have been frankly negligent. The Government were late to introduce formal quarantining, they failed to have an effective home quarantining system, and they were late to introduce border testing and hotel quarantining —and even then, only 1% of arrivals actually stayed in hotels.
Like everyone across the House, I am deeply worried by the sharp increase in the covid variant cases in Bolton, Blackburn, Darwen and other parts of the country. Cases have almost doubled in the past four days. If there is one thing we have learned from this awful virus, it is its ability to spread rapidly.
We should never have been in this position. We have been warning the Government for months of the reckless risks they have been taking with their half-baked border measures. [Interruption.] The Home Secretary shakes her head, but she has been on video making clear her disagreement with the Government’s approach to the borders. We called a vote in this House in February on comprehensive hotel quarantining, but the Conservative party refused to back our plans, which would have given us the best chance of stopping strains reaching the UK. Instead, the variants first discovered in India, Brazil and South Africa have all reached the UK, with outbreaks occurring.
India was added to the red list only after cases had already been detected in the UK back in February. By 5 April, India was reporting more than 100,000 new covid cases a day, and neighbouring countries Pakistan and Bangladesh were added to the red list on 9 April. As cases rocketed in India, No. 10 kept saying that the planned visit by the Prime Minister, which was scheduled for 25 April, would go ahead. It was not until 19 April that No. 10 cancelled the trip to India—the same day that the Health Secretary announced that India would be added to the red list. That measure came into force on 23 April.
It has been reported that during that time of dither and delay, more than 20,000 travellers from India entered the country. The Prime Minister has serious questions to answer about the suggestions that he delayed adding India to the red list because of the planned visit.
Ministers must learn the lessons, act more cautiously now on the reopening of international travel, and make their border protections effective. Yet again, it is the same theme: Ministers talk tough but fail to take action to keep people safe. Sadly, that is the story of this Government: tough rhetoric; little effective action. At the same time, violence has been on the rise, affecting all our communities; neighbourhood policing has been cut to the bone; our democracy has been left vulnerable to hostile state action; and we have an immigration system devoid of compassion and competence.
What we needed was a bold vision for security in our country and safety on our streets. Instead, the legislative agenda set out in this Queen’s Speech merely repeats a pattern of failure, and it is the British people who are left to pay the price.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Given that I have a limited amount of time, I will try to make some progress.
There is much in the Queen’s Speech that I support and welcome. I welcome the statements of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is long overdue. I also welcome the introduction of the taskforce on violence against women and girls—a vital area in which it is clear that so many people need action. The Bill’s stronger sentences for child murderers, rapists, violent offenders, dangerous drivers, child abusers, memorial desecraters, house burglars, drunk drivers and knife carriers are all well overdue. It is to my right hon. Friend’s credit that the Bill is being brought through the House. Protection of the police is another important feature, with an increase in the maximum available sentence for assaulting an emergency worker from 12 months to two years. All those measures are vital, as are the new plans on immigration.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall)—the Home Secretary knows that I have spoken to her about this—on the need to allow people who have a legitimate reason to be here as a result of modern-day slavery to stay here for longer and to make their case. I hope that will be borne out in the legislation, which she knows we have spoken about.
However, I would like today to turn to something that is not in my right hon. Friend’s brief—but this is the debate on the Queen’s Speech, and it is in the Queen’s Speech—which is planning. I am going to make a point that I dare say one or two of my colleagues may do, which is that I have deep concerns about some of the Government’s proposed planning changes. I will mention some of the key issues.
We all know that we need more homes, but it is important to understand what type of homes and to think about how we treat some of our communities. It is the propensity of many local authorities in far too many areas to just dump down large tower blocks to meet their numbers, but those blocks are completely out of keeping with areas made up of family homes in which many people live. We need to think about that very carefully.
I am worried about the ability of the Government, which they will preserve for themselves in the new legislation, to override local plans or growth plans, and about the fact that we may lose any planning application in the process, which people will not, therefore, be able to oppose. That will take away powers—what are very small powers, in a way—from local communities. I want the Government to think again about that.
I also want the Government to think again about the general development management policies, which I think will draw an unprecedented amount of power to central Government, with their ability to dictate the areas that will see growth and the type of growth they will see. That will not be too welcome among our constituents, and I want my hon. Friends to think carefully about it.
Overriding residents in these new designated growth zones will be a real problem. Even now, in many places, the idea of building these out-of-keeping tower blocks is a major problem, but it is one that will grow even more because we will simply allow local authorities to do it.
The extended personal development rights are also a problem, because they will not only allow businesses to be turned into flats, but allow developers to build upwards —that is my understanding—without any commitment to local facilities such as schools and roads. That goes against the purpose of planning in the first place. I raise that point with my hon. Friends, and I hope that that will not be the case.
Finally, I hope that during this Session, the Government will address the issue of those poor leaseholders who live in flats that had cladding installed on them—cladding that was illegal at the time it was installed—that they now have to pay to get rid of. We need to resolve this. There are many poor leaseholders who are going to suffer huge bills for cladding that—little did they know when they bought or became leaseholders of those flats—was actually the wrong cladding from the word go. Developers need to ante up and pay for that, and the Government need to drive that forward.
However, I do welcome the Queen’s Speech overall. I welcome the Home Secretary’s excellent speech and her excellent promotion of her legislation. She will receive my response and my support throughout all that, but I do urge the Government to deal with the problems on planning and to deal with the developers over cladding.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP) [V]
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, albeit remotely. However, much of what is proposed in the Queen’s Speech is more about protecting this Government and their Ministers than about protecting the public. It includes rolling back the power of our courts to halt unlawful Government action, a clampdown on protest, ripping up the refugee convention and measures tantamount to voter suppression.
Yet when it comes to the big problems that we need to address to keep people safe, key questions are completely ducked. In particular, as we approach its 50th anniversary, there was not so much as a glimmer of hope that the Government might look again at the hopelessly dated Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and the utterly failed war on drugs. In reality, if we want safe streets, the Conservative party is the last place we should turn. Its relentless austerity obsession has hit policing, courts and prisons hard, and its Brexit obsession has excluded us from vital European justice and security measures, such as the Schengen information system II. On the contrary, it is this Government that we need to be kept safe from, as they seek to strip us of our rights and civil liberties. This is not a party of law and order, but a party that undermines the rule of law.
On Thursday, the Home Office was endangering the citizens of Glasgow with its stubborn, totally disproportionate and utterly intransigent attempt to dawn-raid two neighbours from Kenmure Street, despite it being absolutely apparent that it was never going to be able to effect that, thanks to the determined and peaceful community resistance. The timing and location of the raid, as well as the secrecy around it, were at best staggeringly insensitive and at worst deliberately provocative. It was a striking, but far from isolated, example of the Home Office at its aggressive worst, and light years away from the reformed institution that we have repeatedly been promised since Windrush. If the Home Office has listened and learned from those events, it will undertake no immigration enforcement activity in Glasgow without the express and advance knowledge of Police Scotland. Critically, such activity must be contemplated only if strictly and genuinely necessary for reasons of public safety, and if all alternatives have been exhausted.
The whole direction of travel indicated by this Queen’s Speech is deeply troubling, but it continues the trend of the past decade. Charities have been gagged from criticising the Government. The grave restrictions to legal aid introduced in 2012 continue to threaten access to justice and undermine the rule of law in England and Wales. We have lost the valuable rights and protections that we had as EU citizens. Human rights remain in the Government’s crosshairs, and now even the right to vote is to be undermined in moves that soon-to-be Baroness Ruth Davidson recently described as
“a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist”
and “for the birds”—indeed, she used some stronger terminology that I suspect is not parliamentary.
The policing Bill will see protest clamped down on, based on an obscure Law Commission consultation that barely achieved a double-digit response and did not make reference to protest a single time. Whereas previously we could look to the courts to protect Parliament against Prorogation and people against the Government overreaching legality—something the Home Office has a particularly bad track record on—the Government are now going after the courts and judges too, with their attack on judicial review.
This Queen’s Speech is spectacularly troubling and illustrates everything that is wrong with the broken British constitution, in which outdated notions of parliamentary supremacy mean that there is no such thing as protected rights, and an archaic Westminster system in which nothing is safe from a Government-stacked Parliament interested only in entrenching Government power.
In 2021, there are two incredibly significant anniversaries in the sphere of home affairs, which highlight everything that is wrong with what the Home Office is doing and failing to do. I refer to the refugee convention, which is approaching its 70th birthday, and the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is approach its 50th. First, on the Bill that will trash the refugee convention—what a contrast with the cross-party legislation that saw refugees voting in the Scottish Parliament election a little over a week ago—the Home Secretary seems determined to ride a coach and horses through long-established principles of international refugee law that have stood the test of time. She wants to raise the standard of proof required of asylum seekers above that set out in the convention, despite the incredible challenges of evidencing persecution in the country the asylum seeker has had to flee.
Instead of being granted refugee status, those accepted as being at risk of persecution will face a life in limbo for up to 10 years, with family reunion rights restricted, and will be left to languish without recourse to public funds. The less fortunate will already have been removed to an apparently unrestricted list of countries to have their claim assessed there, with no consideration of the risk of onward removal to a country of persecution. Many more will have to await decisions not in dispersed community accommodation but in horrendous institutional venues along the lines of Penally and Napier barracks. Surely the Home Secretary will have thought twice about that, given the shocking outcome of her deliberate decision to cram people into dormitory accommodation at the height of the pandemic, totally against the public health advice she was offered. She put people at risk and hundreds fell ill, but far from being apologetic, she appears to be doubling down.
The Home Secretary talks about clamping down on people smugglers, but the proposals have nothing to do with people smugglers. This is clamping down on refugees themselves and punishing victims of persecution because of how they arrived in the UK, making an example of them, making them miserable and ruining their life chances in an attempt to discourage others from following. It will not work, it will put the system under greater strain and it is utterly immoral. If every Government took the same pass-the-buck approach as this one, the international system of refugee protection would break down entirely. So I plead with Conservative MPs—sensible Conservative MPs—to persuade the Home Secretary to think again. If not, please stop talking about Britain’s proud history of welcoming refugees, because she will have trashed that history, along with the refugee convention.
If that is a disastrous proposal in this speech, the disastrous error of omission is the failure to reform the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 or even just acknowledge that review of it is urgent and essential. We are less than a fortnight away from that piece of legislation reaching its 50th birthday. The nature of the drugs trade and drug use has changed dramatically over that time, as has our understanding of it, but our legislative approach is stuck in the past. Across the UK more than 3 million people have taken drugs in the past year, and almost 30,000 young people have been drawn into drug-related gangs. Drug-related deaths are at record levels. Our most deprived communities are suffering most. The Government know all that but resist the required fundamental change in approach. Yes, there is important work to be done through investing in treatment and addressing the underlying issues that have led to drug use in the first place, but it can never be the complete answer while that out-of-date legislation remains in place. International best practice shows that there is a better way.
That international best practice has informed cross-party Committees, including the Select Committee on Health and Social Care and the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, calling for the Act to be reviewed and reformed. Both are clear: responsibility and policy should lie with the Department of Health and Social Care, not the Home Office. This needs a singular, focused, public health approach. Both say that safe drug consumption rooms should be implemented or at least piloted. They save lives and reduce harm; they assist in ensuring that those who need it most can access support and treatment; and they protect the public from antisocial and dangerous public injection and drug-related litter. Both Committees also say that there should at least be consultation about the decriminalisation of possession, because the international evidence shows that it leads to less problematic drug use and less harm as a result. These reductions flow from not just international best practice, but the experiences and insights of those working on the frontline here in the UK and it is a tragedy that the Government will not even debate this. Sensible voices from all parts of the House must push the Government to think again.
In conclusion, the Government’s failure to think again is all too typical of Home Office policymaking under the Conservatives, as exemplified by the Queen’s Speech. This is not policy based on evidence or best practice; it is a rehash of failed policies from the past. Nor is it policy that reflects the values or interests of this country; it is head-in-the-sand policy that helps only the drugs pushers and people smugglers. Nor is it policy in the long-term interests of the UK, never mind Scotland; rather, it serves the perceived short-term political interests of the Home Secretary and her Government. That is why we regret very much what is in the Queen’s Speech and what is strikingly absent from it.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, it was wonderful to see Her Majesty in the other place last Tuesday giving the Gracious Speech, announcing the Government’s priorities for this year, and I am grateful to you and to the House for giving me the opportunity to participate in this important debate. We have today reached step 3 of the road map out of lockdown, and as we recover from this dreadful year there seemed to be an added salience to this excellent Queen’s Speech. We will be judged on the success of this programme: on how quickly we can help people return to their normal lives, restoring their liberties, abolishing emergency powers and allowing them and their families the freedoms to go about their daily lives, free from government diktat. In essence, this means that we can reinstate some common sense and personal autonomy, without there being government instruction on every aspect of citizens’ daily lives and without the constant financial bail-outs.
Equally, the culture of the Government must change. It needs to change from one of preventing people from doing things to one of encouraging citizens to take their own action and decide what is best for them and their families. It is very good to see my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary introduce the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The timing of that could not be more urgent, after the completely unacceptable violent antisemitism we saw over the weekend. Regardless of people’s view on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is simply no justification whatsoever for antisemitism in our society. My right hon. Friend is also introducing one of the most significant overhauls of the asylum system in decades, which I wholeheartedly agree with. We need a fair, long-term system that will work for this country.
In essence, I believe that education ought to be the number one priority, giving everyone the best possible education at any stage of their life, as it opens up opportunity and careers that can improve their lives. It is the best route out of poverty and should be available to all. An important priority should be to expand support for children of all ages to compensate for their lost learning time during the pandemic. There is a huge programme in the Queen’s Speech to help to recover that lost learning, recognising that the disruption this year has had a major impact on our children’s learnings and lives, and including, importantly, catch-up classes in the summer.
The Government are committed to helping people to buy if they want to and they have committed to an ambitious target of 300,000 new houses by the mid-2020s. However, as a representative of one of the most important and unique areas of outstanding natural beauty, I am extremely concerned about some aspects of the planning Bill. It is the biggest overhaul to the planning system in 70 years. There are some positive proposals in the Bill and the planning system does need modernising. Home ownership needs to be an attainable aim, especially for young people. However, for areas such as the Cotswolds, there needs to be an absolute commitment to protect the AONB.
The proposal to abolish section 106 and the community infrastructure levy should speed up the planning process, and it is important that the money is retained locally so that the infrastructure can be built at the same time as developments. However, the algorithm to calculate housing need was a great concern to many of my constituents, as the Cotswolds had one of the highest proposed increased housing targets anywhere. There is a real danger, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said, that it will simply be replaced by a zonal planning system, foreshadowed in the White Paper, which will mean that all land will have to be designated as either growth for renewal or protected areas, and that could be enforced through the local planning system.
As I have said to the House before, the most important factor is not housing number, but housing mix. The proposals to simplify and speed up local plan making and retain neighbourhood plans where possible are welcome, and the design codes can be specified so it should be possible to protect our unique Cotswolds vernacular. I do not want building to be at the expense of our unique environment and wildlife here in the Cotswolds or anywhere else. I believe strongly that new builds should be sympathetic to the local surroundings and well designed so that they do not become the slums of tomorrow. Above all, they should be built to high environmental standards, such as insulation and electric vehicle charging points, as I set out in my 10-minute rule Bill.
To wrap up, I would like to quickly mention the electoral integrity Bill and giving votes for life. I would also like to welcome the internationally important landmark that is the Environment Bill. Wearing my hat as chair of the all-party group for shooting and conservation, I will be scrutinising carefully the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill for any possible effect on shooting.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before I call Yvette Cooper, I ought to say that the time limit for Back-Bench speeches will be reduced after the right hon. Lady’s speech to four minutes in an attempt to—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Yes, I realise that will be some disappointment to the whole House in respect of the speech we were anticipating from the hon. Gentleman. [Laughter.] I call Yvette Cooper.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am hugely grateful to you for not bringing in the four-minute limit straight away, otherwise I would have been gabbling particularly fast to get to my final points.
The purpose of the Queen’s Speech should be to help the country to recover from covid, to rebuild, to heal the scars, and to help people to get back on with their lives, building a fairer, stronger and safer country. I do not believe that this Queen’s Speech does that. For the Home Office, the particular priority is to make sure that we can come through the covid crisis in the first place, to reflect on the way in which the public health border measures simply have not worked in this crisis, and to look at what new framework we ought to have in future, so that lessons can be learned and that the same mistakes are not made again.
Looking back over the past 12 months, we had a period at the beginning of the crisis where for months on end there were no public health border measures in place at all and an estimated 10,000 people with covid came into the country, accelerating the pace and scale of the pandemic in a very damaging way. In summer, the mix of different controls in place still meant that there was a surge in autumn, because they simply did not work effectively. Now, despite all the huge amount of work that everyone has done supporting the vaccine programme and following restrictions, we have the deeply frustrating situation in which progress has slowed and been put at risk by the failure of the Government’s border measures to prevent the spread of the Indian variant across the country. Throughout all of this, we have seen a pattern. We have seen confusion over which Department is in charge of public health border measures. Is it the Department of Health and Social Care, the Home Office or the Department for Transport? It has been somebody different each time. We have also seen a lack of transparency. In particular, the Joint Biosecurity Centre has still not published any detailed assessments of India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh—the countries where red list decisions have been taken. We still do not know what data or evidence was drawn on to make those decisions, so all of us think that they were based on the timing of the Prime Minister’s trip to India. We need a new system that has proper transparency, proper accountability and proper clarity in place in order to make improvements for the future.
The Government have an opportunity in the Immigration Bill, which will be scrutinised by the Select Committee and in this place, to address public health border controls, and I urge them to do so. We cannot make the same mistakes again.
Let me briefly touch on some of the other Bills in the Queen’s Speech. We have had a full Second Reading debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Bill. I simply highlight that I hope to discuss further with the Home Secretary’s colleagues this week potential issues around the failure to have proper domestic abuse prosecutions under the common assault system. There is also a wider problem with the drop in the number of prosecutions. There has been a 30% drop in the number of prosecutions over the past five years at a time when recorded crime has gone up by 40%, which means that victims are not getting justice and that more criminals are getting away with it. I am really worried that, unless action is taken, there could be a crisis in the criminal justice system, because I do not see the measures being taken as part of this Bill to address the matter.
I welcome the possibility of the victims Bill. I hope that we will see that and be able to support it on a cross-party basis. The same is true of the online harms Bill. We have waited a long time for this Bill, so I urge the Home Secretary and her colleagues to get on with the legislation and accept that we will need to amend it. We will not get the perfect framework for regulating on online harms at the outset, but if we wait until we get that, we will be overtaken by events, with the scale of online extremism and online harms.
I am very worried about the voter ID Bill. Nearly half of women over 70 do not have a driving licence—I think those figures are higher in my constituency—and the additional hurdles that many of those women will face to be able to vote will not only make the whole system hugely discriminatory, but disadvantage people who have a right to vote and feel very strongly about it. Not since the suffrage have we seen the clock potentially being turned back on inequality in this way.
Anthony Mangnall
Does the right hon. Lady therefore disagree with the 2014 Electoral Commission report that suggests that we should have voter ID?
Yvette Cooper
I am really concerned about voter ID—I am. I do not think that it is the right way forward, because it will disenfranchise people. The differential impact on older women has not been properly taken into account or considered. Women could end up having to produce ID in order to get a free ID card. Where will they get that ID from? From my constituency, they will have to travel all the way over to Wakefield—we are talking about older women over 70—to meet the electoral returning officer to try to get an ID card. All sorts of additional hurdles will be put in the way of their right to vote.
Finally, I am surprised to find myself in partial agreement with the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) over the planning Bill. There are concerns about taking power away from local communities.
I hope that the Government will come forward with proposals on social care, particularly on valuing social care workers who have been on the frontline of this crisis and who are, too often, undervalued and underpaid. To do something positive about those workers would be an important way to take forward the legacy of the covid crisis.
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
I have no doubt that this will be an exercise in rushing through things for four minutes. I thank my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for her opening remarks and associate myself with what she said about the dreadful scenes of antisemitic abuse we saw on our streets. It is not acceptable, there is no place for it and I absolutely agree with what she said and support her in all she is doing to tackle it.
May I be indulged in congratulating the new police, fire and crime commissioner for Staffordshire, Ben Adams? I have known Ben for many years and know he will do an excellent job, but he steps into the very large shoes of Matthew Ellis, the previous police, fire and crime commissioner, who did extraordinary work in Staffordshire over the past nine years and to whom all of us in my county owe a debt of gratitude.
There was much in the Gracious Speech that I support, but I wish to note a few concerns. Let me start with the commitment in the Gracious Speech
“to provide aid where it has the greatest impact on reducing poverty and alleviating human suffering.”
I support that but, particularly in the world of modern slavery, there are too many examples of programmes that are being cut as a result of the reduction in UK aid. Will my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary look into that, and particularly at the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery? I have real concerns about the fantastic work that it does and the impact on it.
I will not repeat what has been said about planning reforms; I agree with much that has been said by my right hon. and hon. Friends.
On online harms, I brought in the internet safety strategy many years ago when I was the Culture Secretary, so I am delighted that it is in this year’s Queen’s Speech. I look forward to seeing the Bill, but I urge the Government to take action on access to pornography for under-16s as a matter of urgency. That would address many of the harms that we see in society today.
For the reminder of the short amount of time I have, I wish to speak about the proposals to deal with Northern Ireland and the legacy of the troubles. It is imperative that the issue is addressed, but I cannot overstate how sensitive it is. I understand and share the absolute desire to protect our veterans, but I also have an absolute desire to make sure that the victims of terrorism and other atrocities find out the truth. Some 90% of all deaths in the troubles were at the hands of terrorists, while 10% were at the hands of the armed forces and the police. Although the majority of those deaths were not crimes, some were, as we have seen, and it is quite right that we should find out the truth. We have to remember that these atrocities happened on the streets of the United Kingdom—we were not at war. In fact, every time we say that we were at war, we legitimise what the terrorists did. Our armed forces went in and it was only because of their actions to support the police on our streets that we were able to get the accommodation and compromises of the Belfast Good Friday agreement, but we have to make sure that there is support from the people of Northern Ireland and that the truth is found.
I simply do not have time to cover all the points that I wish to make. The 2014 Stormont House agreement is now seven years old. There is much in that agreement on which we should focus, but we have to have cross-community support in Northern Ireland for any proposals that are put forward. I intend to speak on this matter again. It is important that we get it right for the sake of the victims of the troubles.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab) [V]
After 11 years of harsh austerity and a year in which the covid pandemic has resulted in such a scale of human suffering, the Queen’s Speech should have been a paradigm-shifting intervention in which were established a new set of ideals upon which the future of our society was at least envisioned. Instead, it was crowded with little more than base, grubby political manoeuvres aimed at corrupting the electoral system and suppressing opposition. It failed completely to capture the spirit of the age.
The pandemic pressure-tested our society and exposed the appalling impact of a decade of gross underfunding of our NHS and social care sector. Covid has laid bare the millions who are in poverty and a social security system that has provided no security. Austerity fatigue and the pandemic are prompting a paradigm shift. The old neoliberal dominance of trickle-down economics, the market always knowing best and “private good, public bad” is under serious challenge. Even this Government have been forced through political expediency to synthetically get with the programme. That is why this Queen’s Speech is so full of rhetoric but so easily exposed as lacking in substance.
The pandemic has created a renewed sense of social solidarity. There is a greater feeling that we all stand or fall together and that everyone should have a right to a decent job, education, a home, health and social care, and an income to secure good quality of life. This should not depend on where people live or what their background is. There is a greater belief that the distribution of rewards in our society should be based on the social value of the contribution that a person makes to our community and not solely on its market value. The mismatch in the Queen’s Speech between these values of our age and what the Government propose is starkly exemplified.
There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech that will realistically ensure that the NHS receives the funding to cope with backlog of treatments or, especially, to deal with the impact of long covid. It maintains the pay cuts to NHS staff and public sector workers, forcing many into absolute penury. Social care reform is delayed yet again. We await the outcome of further discussions in the autumn but doubt whether anything productive will come from the Government.
There is nothing to give hope of a secure home to many people, nothing to address low pay and poverty on a scale that we have not seen for a generation, including the rising numbers of the homeless back on our streets and the renewed threat of eviction that is affecting so many of our constituents who rent their properties.
The existential threat of climate change is met with nothing more than press releases and, obscenely, international aid is cut and the Government fail to back Biden’s patent-waiving campaign to save lives as the covid pandemic ravages the global south.
This is a Queen’s Speech that does not just fail to meet the challenges of our times, but drags us back to mundane politicking, providing no sense of hope or direction at a time when our people are in desperate need, having suffered 12 months of tragic loss of life and 11 years of austerity pay cuts and the undermining of their public services. This Queen’s Speech is a grotesque disappointment and has failed the community yet again.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I would like to say that it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), but if he had been a television programme, it would have been followed by a public information notice saying, “If you have been affected by any of the issues in this programme, here is a helpline to ring.”
How on earth to address the dazzling cornucopia of welcome legislation in the Queen’s Speech in just four minutes? Let me just flag up some of the measures I particularly welcome. I welcome the measure on the best start in life, thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) and the exceedingly valuable work that has been put in, which the Government will now take up.
I will not repeat, but endorse the concerns about the planning legislation that virtually every Conservative Member has mentioned. We do not level up by levelling and concreting over the diminishing open spaces, particularly in the south-east of England.
I welcome the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill. The ban on animal trophies and provisions on pet theft, kept animals, cat micro-chipping and fur imports show that we do not need the European Union to promote some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, as we do and will continue to do in this country.
I welcome the draft online safety Bill. We need social media platforms to get serious about preventing abusive, extremist and bullying content. However, we also need to address economic harms and exposure to fraud and I ask the Government to look at ways of including that in the legislation.
I want to focus on one aspect of the Home Office measures: the much needed overhaul of the immigration and asylum system. I very much welcome the Home Secretary’s recent new plan for immigration. I have spoken about this before, because all we need, above all, is an immigration system that is fair, fast, flexible, family friendly and beneficial to the UK and to the many people escaping danger and persecution overseas. We have a proud record of helping and encouraging those who want to make a big contribution to the UK, but too often our immigration system is bureaucratic and complicated, as the Windrush situation showed. It takes too long and people’s lives are left in limbo; it does not treat people as individuals; and there are too many taking advantage of our openness and jumping the queue ahead of those with a genuine claim to come to the UK.
I have always supported tougher measures against those who have the money to fuel organised crime gangs facilitating dangerous passages across the channel or people smuggling through other routes. There need to be implications. I welcome the Home Secretary’s comment that if someone comes by an illegal route they are not treated on a par with someone who has applied legitimately and through legal means such as refugee agencies and refugee camps. It is just not fair otherwise. In return, we need an immigration system that is streamlined, affordable —not a revenue generator for the Home Office—and works quickly to get people to a place of safety sustainably and deals with those who do not have a future in the UK. We urgently need safe and legal routes and family reunification schemes to replace Dublin. I think this is a trade-off that gains the support of the public.
I specifically ask the Home Secretary to look at the plight of a group of young migrants who have come to Britain, represented by the excellent We Belong organisation, who find themselves in limbo: no fewer than 332,000 children and young people growing up legally in the UK without any formal immigration status who migrated here as children predominantly from Commonwealth countries and know only the UK as their home. We heard articulate witnesses before the Home Affairs Committee. They came here with their families and their immigration status has not been settled, which becomes a problem when they reach adulthood and want to go to university or get a job. They have to spend £2,593 in legal fees to apply for leave to remain and then to renew their status every 30 months over a 10-year period. These people are British. They want to be British. They are contributing and want to do so in a formalised way. We therefore need to do better by them. I welcome the fact that the Under- Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), met them recently. I hope that in the immigration legislation coming forward we can give them the settlement and surety that they deserve.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
As today’s theme is “Safe streets for all”, I start by paying tribute to Humberside’s former police and crime commissioner, Keith Hunter, who worked hard to develop the PCC role and reversed the post-2010 Tory and Lib Dem cuts in police numbers. I fear that Hull’s inner-city policing challenges may be less of a priority for his successor. There is little in the Queen’s Speech that will help us in Hull to combat antisocial behaviour which blights the lives of so many after the austerity decade in areas such as Orchard Park, Beverley Road and Princes Avenue.
As we face the economic challenges post covid and post Brexit, Hull people will be looking to the Government to make good on the promises of levelling up. After a decade of talk about the northern powerhouse and rebalancing the economy, we have little to show for it that has not actually been achieved through local effort. In fact, in those years, Tory Ministers blocked Hull getting rail electrification and imposed some of the country’s deepest public sector funding cuts on the city. Now, the various pots of levelling-up funding available, even to favoured areas, do not amount in scale to the sustained investment that would be really transformational —as seen, for example, in London’s Docklands in previous decades. These pots of money, which set towns against cities and regions against regions, do not even compensate for the funding cuts since 2010. In Hull we need investment but not the gerrymandering of the towns fund or the one-size-fits-all, made-in-Whitehall mayoral model of devolution that Ministers insist on. I agree with genuine devolution in principle, but we must let the people of Hull and the East Riding have their say on what they want devolution to look like for it to be meaningful.
I want to conclude with a couple of positive suggestions that I hope would command cross-party support. First, one step forward on levelling up for the most deprived areas would be to strengthen the Dormant Assets Bill that was introduced in Parliament last week and to use the £880 million of capital liberated for a community wealth fund to improve life chances, skills and the quality of life in neighbourhoods such as north Hull’s Bransholme.
Secondly, I welcome the promise in the Queen’s Speech to honour and strengthen the armed forces covenant, placing it in law and hopefully extending good work with veterans. However, working shoulder to shoulder with our armed forces this past year to get the country through the covid pandemic and roll out the vaccine has been our brilliant NHS and social care workforce. We should remember that by December 2020, nine months into the pandemic, some 850 NHS and social care staff had died from covid. Never again should these staff face the prospect of needlessly risking their own health, even their own lives, in the course of doing their job through a lack of PPE or failings in testing. The Home Secretary talked about the police covenant in her opening remarks. I hope that the Government will consider instituting a national health, social care and emergency services covenant on similar lines to the existing armed forces covenant—enshrined in law, fully funded and in place as soon as is practicable. These workers deserve much more than a hand clap on the doorstep on a Thursday night, a medal or, now, the prospect of a real-terms pay cut. They have been there for us—all of us—and now we need to be there for them.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
In the time available, I can touch on only a few matters relating to the Queen’s Speech. The return of the Environment Bill is very welcome. It is ambitious and important. I hope that we will proceed swiftly to that and to our chairmanship and presidency of COP26. I hope that we will go further in one matter, though—that is, air quality. I hope that it is possible to move forward swiftly to make sure that the PM2.5 levels are put in line with World Health Organisation standards. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), made warm comments about that on Report in the last Session and I hope that we can return to it.
The Building Safety Bill is critical. We know that it is a vastly important issue, but it is also important that we do not wait to deal with the issue of those leaseholders who are trapped now in houses and flats blighted by Grenfell-type cladding. We need to move more swiftly than purely legislation in relation to that.
On planning, we need to build more homes. We need to modernise our planning law, but we should not do that at the expense of proper, democratic involvement from communities who will be affected by the new proposals. We must get the balance right. Harold Macmillan built 300,000 homes within a system of checks and balances. We should be able to do the same and get the balance properly correct.
On criminal justice matters, the return of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is important. Much of it is good. We need to deal heavily and robustly with those who commit egregious offences, but I welcome the fact that, within the Bill, there are also provisions for a more sophisticated and nuanced set of sentences for those who, frankly, get into problems with the criminal justice system because of chaotic lifestyles and background difficulties, and who can be redeemed and turned around. A properly positive one nation conservatism, which I adhere to, will recognise both sides. We must protect the public but we must also encourage those who can change their lives and move forward. I hope that we can look at the details of this as we go forward.
The victims Bill is important, too. Not enough is said about victims in our criminal justice system. Certainly, the Justice Committee stands ready to engage in pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill with the Government.
Let me add two caveats. A proper criminal justice system involves the integrity and independence of those who administer it—we have that with our judiciary at the highest level—but it also requires consent. The jury system has ensured the consent of the populous throughout these times. We are right to modernise all our court procedures, but we should be careful about the idea of online juries. Provision may be appropriate in certain circumstances of urgency, but we should look carefully at the risk that they become, as some judges have suggested, spectators rather participants. Let us move with care.
On judicial review, the right of the citizen to challenge the state is critical—it is fundamental. We can, again, always modernise and review procedures, but the ability to hold the state and its actors to account should not be undermined at the end of the day, so I suggest that we should proceed with caution and moderation in those reforms. The outcome of the Faulks commission was sensible. I have no problem with looking at other issues, but I suspect that it would be wise not to rush on matters that are critical to the checks and balances that affect not only our system, but the relationship between the state and the citizen and individual.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
After the next speaker, the limit on Back-Bench speeches will be reduced to three minutes—but with four minutes, I call Alistair Carmichael.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am very grateful to you.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who made a very thoughtful contribution. He said a lot in four minutes, characterised by the fact that, of course, he knows what he is talking about, because he has not just a political understanding but professional experience of criminal justice. In particular, when he spoke of sentencing and how rehabilitation should be at the heart of our prison system, there was nothing he said with which I could disagree personally or politically.
When listening to the Home Secretary, however, it struck me that if we ever wanted to generate a bob or two, we could bring out a new parlour game called “Who said it and when?” because there were points in her speech when I felt that I could have been listening to just about any Home Secretary that I have heard speak at the Dispatch Box in the last 20 years. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard Home Secretaries stand there talking about “Cracking down on this” or “Getting tough on that”. It is always the rhetoric of toughness, whereas we know that, in fact, getting things right in criminal justice is often about doing things that are difficult—and difficult to explain in the tabloid press—but that are also right and effective.
We heard as much tonight when the Home Secretary talked about setting centrally driven targets in order to improve policing. Centrally driven targets will not improve policing; it is community policing, rooted in the community that it is there to serve, that will improve policing and produce the outcomes. We have heard this for decades: the rhetoric goes on, yet year after year our streets and communities become less safe for our people, and the rhetoric does not change.
I also discern in the Queen’s Speech an emerging pattern from this Government, and it is one that disturbs and concerns me. Yet again, I am afraid, the Conservatives have been pleased to style themselves in opposition as liberals, and perhaps even occasionally as libertarians, but they are increasingly authoritarian in government. The moves in the carry-over Bill in relation to the right to protest are misjudged and ill-conceived, and I think that, ultimately, they will be counterproductive.
The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst referred to the question of judicial review. Any Government who believe in the rule of law should have absolutely no difficulty putting the decisions that they have taken before the court. If those decisions are right and legal, they should have no problem in the courts; and if they are not right and legal, they should want to change them in any event.
Time is short and there is one point that I wanted to put on the record. I am in total agreement with the Home Secretary’s comments condemning the scenes on our streets and online in relation to antisemitism, specifically in London. I think I come at the Israel-Palestine question from a rather different point of view from that held by the Home Secretary, but even for somebody who is as staunch a supporter of the Palestinian cause as I am, there can be no place in this debate for what we saw, and we in this country help nobody in Palestine by evincing sentiments that are antisemitic. On that, at least, I hope there will be a measure of consensus across the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
It is very good to hear the right hon. Gentleman mention consensus in that respect. As a rabbi in my constituency was brutally attacked yesterday—many people may be aware of this—I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having just articulated what I would have liked to say myself if I were able to do so. I am delighted to tell him that Essex police have arrested two young men in connection with the attack on the rabbi, which was an absolute disgrace.
We now go to a limit of three minutes, I am afraid, and I call Caroline Nokes.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. You are right to point out that intolerance, harassment, racism and abuse, of whatever sort, are intolerable in this country. I am pleased to hear of the arrests that you mentioned.
I was also pleased to hear about many of the things that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary identified in her opening remarks. I was delighted to hear that she had met Our Streets Now, a really effective and energetic campaign group that is working so hard to see public sexual harassment made a crime. I very much hope that we will see real action on that, either in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill or in separate legislation.
Public sexual harassment affects not just young women, but children: 66% of young women aged between 14 and 21 have experienced it. Fourteen-year-olds—children—in their school uniforms being sexually harassed is not something that we should tolerate. It is not currently a specific crime, but it should be. Making our streets safer is not just about more street lights, more CCTV or more police on the streets. When I was a local councillor in 1999, more than 21 years ago, we talked about designing out crime, yet there are still young women afraid to walk on our streets. Relationships and sex education should not stop at 16, because it is crucial that in the sixth form our young people understand consent and what it means.
Of course, it is not just about making our physical streets safer. We also have to make the online space safer, so that comments such as the horrific ones we saw over the weekend can be tracked down by the social media companies that host them and action can be taken. I was delighted to meet the Football Association a few weeks ago to talk about racism in football and the harassment that players face online every single day. The FA used the analogy that the problem is not just in the chair, but in the computer. It is critical that we use our new online safety legislation to ensure that those companies bear the brunt of the responsibility to help police and law enforcement to identify the perpetrators and stamp such behaviour out.
I welcome the review of how rape victims are treated. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was correct to say that we need to overhaul the way in which we treat victims. I would argue that not just rape victims but all female victims of crime need to be empowered to have the confidence to come forward and report it, knowing that their case will be treated seriously by all law enforcement.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
So much of the legislation and policy that we discuss in this House is experienced by people through the filter of local government: it is experienced locally rather than through a national framework. Councils, which are at the forefront of dealing with so many of the challenges that we face, have stepped up, particularly in this last year of covid, and delivered on everything from supporting the vaccination programme and vulnerable people shielding to the Everyone In homelessness programme and so much more.
It is depressing to see that once again the Queen’s Speech reinforces the existing trend that councils are not rewarded for the service that they provide to their local communities. They are treated with indifference, stripped of the resources that they need and increasingly stripped of the vital defensive functions that they can fulfil in supporting their communities. They have lost core funding of more than £16 billion over the past decade; 60p out of every £1 that the Government provided a decade ago is no longer provided.
We have heard many times, from Conservative Members as much as from the Opposition, that councils’ defence of communities through their planning role is being seriously undermined, as we have already seen with permitted development, and will be undermined further. Where we want swift action from the Government, we have seen delays in everything from the protection of leaseholders to building safety four years after Grenfell, with no progress on social care at all—and so much more.
I want to spend a minute on community safety. Again, local government is very much at the forefront, from community cohesion in the light of the appalling events that we saw over this weekend to supporting safety on our streets and working with our local police. Sadly, county lines gangs and serious youth violence do not get the attention in this Chamber that I think they deserve. I am pleased that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will place a new statutory duty on local authorities and partners to prevent serious violence. I hope that the widest possible approach will be taken and that it will be fully funded, given that youth services, with their vital preventive role, have been stripped of 70% of their funding over the past 10 years.
However, despite all these unmet needs, the Government are giving priority to dealing with a problem that we all know hardly exists through the proposals to introduce a new layer of bureaucracy for voting that will cost councils tens of millions of pounds. I say to the Minister that this is not a problem that deserves our attention, and it is certainly not a problem that deserves the resources of local government. Can that money instead be devoted to where it belongs: community safety, and supporting young people into the diversion and prevention activities that we need to keep our streets safe?
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Before I start, I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. There is much to be welcomed in the Queen’s Speech, which comes after electoral success across the country, and I welcome to the House our new colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer). However, time is short, so let me press on.
I would be negligent if I did not start with an ask for my beautiful constituency of South Dorset. We hear much about levelling up, and I sincerely hope that that does not just mean in the north, much as it needs the investment. It is crucial that we in South Dorset attract jobs that offer a more secure future, not least because parts of the seat rank among the most deprived 10% in the country. The Government do not create jobs, but well-targeted investment does attract the private sector, which employs people to do the work. To this end, a panel of high-profile businessmen and businesswomen from Weymouth and Portland have drawn up a business plan with an ask of £250 million. Chaired by Portland port’s inspirational chief executive, Bill Reeves, the wish list includes a short relief road and moneys to repair the harbour and marina sea walls and Weymouth’s sea defences. Without these essential works, the Environment Agency is unable to give the green light to much-needed redevelopment around our picturesque harbour.
Secondly, I have noted that today’s debate is called Safe Streets for All. I give credit to, and thank, Dorset police for their endeavour in this regard. We all want our streets to be safe, but the reduction in police numbers and the changing nature of crime, with more online offences, have led to fewer bobbies on the beat. More are coming and more still are promised, which is welcome, but worryingly, the budget cuts and some hard decisions have resulted in the closure of around 50% of Britain’s police stations in the past decade. The physical presence of a police station is a deterrent, a source of comfort to the public, and a refuge of last resort. Call me a luddite, but for our streets to be even safer, these closures must be reversed as a matter of urgency.
I will touch quickly on Northern Ireland, where I served on three operational tours. I and many colleagues in this place, and thousands of veterans outside it, have been waiting patiently for a Government Bill that will prevent our former soldiers being chased to the grave. Regrettably, I do not see one: just more talk. This is simply not good enough, and I urge the Government to bring forward a Bill as fast as they can.
Finally, no more lockdowns, please. I think we are all fed up with being told what to do, when to do it, and with whom. Enough, Madam Deputy Speaker; enough.
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
The theme of today’s debate is safe streets for all, and with the events of the weekend, my thoughts turn in particular to those British citizens who happen to be Jewish. The rights and wrongs of the Arab-Israeli conflict will no doubt continue to be debated at great length, but what we saw at the weekend was not part of that debate. I am pleased to hear that arrests have been made, and I join the Prime Minister and Home Secretary in condemning the shameful racism that we have seen, which rightly has caused shock and disgust.
In Gedling, we have fortunately not seen such behaviour, but crime remains a general concern. I will continue to support the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, and I particularly welcome the increased sentences for those who assault emergency workers. Cases of burglary and antisocial behaviour fell during lockdown when many were confined to their homes, but there have been cases recently, and I pay tribute to the neighbourhood police team in Gedling for their efforts during a very difficult time. Thanks to this Government’s recruitment programme, there are now over two dozen more police officers on the streets of Gedling, and they are doing great work. Many have been assigned to Operation Reacher, knocking down drug dealers’ doors and making a difference to the lives of Gedling residents, a direct consequence of decisions made by this Government.
In her opening speech, the Home Secretary mentioned police and crime commissioners and I would like to add my congratulations to Caroline Henry on her election as PCC for Nottinghamshire. She was an excellent candidate and will be an excellent commissioner, and while, of course, I do not know her as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) I look forward to working with her during her term; she is bringing great energy and fresh ideas to the role.
At the heart of the Queen’s Speech was a restatement of the Government’s commitment to levelling up. On that theme, I look forward to working alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), who has just been elected leader of Nottinghamshire County Council and who I am sure will bring great leadership to the role. I send my best wishes to his predecessor, Councillor Kay Cutts, on her retirement; she can look back with pride on working and delivering for the people of Nottinghamshire. It has been a difficult year for Gedling’s businesses and I look forward to working with the officers and members of Gedling Borough Council to submit a high-quality bid for the levelling-up fund to help our high streets.
We must have not only safer streets, but safer elections in this country, and I look forward to exploring issues around security of the ballot when the electoral integrity Bill comes before the House. I believe that our voting procedures can be improved and it is possible, as Northern Ireland has shown, to demand identification to vote without affecting turnout.
I could address much more but do not have sufficient time. However, I look forward to considering the Government’s measures in further detail in this Session.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I first want to deplore the loss of the employment Bill. It was announced in the December 2019 Queen’s Speech but entirely omitted this time. The Work and Pensions Committee report on the Department’s response to coronavirus recommended last June that the Government should bring forward the employment Bill as soon as possible to increase legal protection for people in low-paid work and the gig economy, so last Friday, with the Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), I wrote to the Secretary of State asking whether the Government still plan to legislate in this area, and, if so, when.
In opening the debate the Home Secretary spoke about the online safety Bill, but there is a gaping omission from that Bill. In our pension scams report of last month, the Work and Pensions Committee recommended legislating against online investment fraud, but it appears that the Bill will address only user-generated content. We understand that online scam adverts are to be dealt with in a separate initiative, which, so far as I can tell, has made no tangible progress at all since it was announced two years ago. It will take perhaps a further two or three years before it delivers anything.
Campaigner Mark Taber gave evidence to the Select Committee. He found the compare-uk-bonds.co.uk fake comparison site on Google and reported it to Google in May. It stayed up until December. He has just heard from a recently bereaved woman who lost over £200,000 after finding that fake site on Google in September. Google should have acted in May, but did not. People think that if a site is on Google, it must have been vetted, but it will not have been. Google takes money from scammers and then also takes money from regulators to warn about the scammers we find on Google.
It is not just my Select Committee saying this: industry is saying it, and the Governor of the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority are saying that this Bill must legislate to deal with this problem. Martin Lewis, the money saving expert, said that
“the Government has stumbled at the first fence, by not including scams in the Online Safety Bill.”
In letting crooks and scammers continue to ruin people’s lives, Ministers are being abjectly soft on this appalling crime. They could still do the right thing and legislate in this Bill, and I urge them to do so.
In September 2018 I moved an amendment to the Offensive Weapons Bill in Committee to ban the purchase online of weapons that cannot lawfully be bought in a shop in the UK. I am pleased that that at least is in the online safety Bill this time.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con) [V]
I welcome the measures in the Queen’s Speech to support policing, which will not only secure safer streets for all, but go more widely across the country to cover rural crime. In Cumbria, we have seen the re-election of our Conservative police and crime commissioner, Peter McCall. I pay tribute to Peter, to our chief constable, Michelle Skeer, and to all of Cumbria police for their efforts to keep us safe, especially with the added challenges of the pandemic.
I very much welcome the Government’s plans to tackle rural, wildlife and animal-related crime. The Government have announced measures in this speech to improve animal welfare, both here and globally. As a veterinary surgeon, that is something I welcome strongly. The action plan for animal welfare contains much-awaited measures to recognise animal sentience in law and plans to tackle puppy smuggling, pet theft, ear-cropping in dogs and livestock worrying.
The plans to end live exports of animals for fattening or slaughter are welcome, but in parallel, we need to help the farming sector to adapt. We need to bolster the local abattoir network to reduce travelling times and distances so that UK animals can be born, reared and slaughtered locally. By promoting high animal welfare standards here in the UK, and by using animal welfare chapters in our free trade deals, we can be a beacon for the rest of the world.
It would be an excellent use of some of our international aid budget to help farmers in the developing world to farm and rear animals more sustainably. On that note, I welcome the comments last week in the Chamber from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor that the UK economy will be on a stable footing in the coming months. Accordingly, I urge the Government to reinstate the UK’s commitment to 0.7% of GNI being spent on international aid as soon as possible.
The Queen’s Speech also contains welcome measures to protect and support our environment through the Environment Bill. I strongly support the Government’s plans to focus on improving mental health support and provision in our country, which has come into sharp relief in the pandemic.
In addition, I welcome plans to improve connectivity, not only physically with buses and trains, but virtually with improved broadband and mobile phone coverage. The measures on the lifetime skills guarantee and flexible access to education are to be applauded. I look forward to working with the Government for the learners of Cumbria.
Our Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee inquiry on land-based education raised serious questions over Askham Bryan’s planned exit from Newton Rigg and Cumbria. I reiterate our call for the Government to confirm whether Askham Bryan is within its legal rights to sell the college and its assets. If it is, we are asking the Government to ensure that it does the right thing so that we can secure a long-term future for education in Cumbria.
In conclusion, I welcome the proposals in the Queen’s Speech. They are progressive and ethical, and I look forward to working with Government.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I would like to raise the issue of the planning Bill. I do so not to exacerbate the problems with the Bill on the Government Benches, but to merely point out that it will not achieve the Government’s intention to build 300,000 properties each year. The last year in which 300,000 properties were constructed was in the mid-1960s, when half those properties were being built by councils and housing associations. Without a real effort to build social housing, those numbers cannot be achieved. If we continue to rely on one of the most expensive forms of production in the world, reliant on crumbs from the developers’ table to get that number of units, then the hopes and aspirations of hundreds of thousands of people in this country will not be met.
There is a connection between the lack of social housing and the exponential increase in the number of people living in temporary accommodation. We have 100,000 children living in temporary accommodation right now. What does temporary mean? To me, it means maybe six months or a year. To the families in my constituency placed in temporary accommodation, we are talking about four, five or maybe six years, and possibly longer for those families entering such accommodation now.
Many people will have heard me mention that there is a code of guidance, which states that temporary accommodation should be provided to families who are homeless, that it should be provided in their home borough, and that it should allow people to continue in their work and children to continue at their schools. But as constituency MPs, we know—particularly those of us in London—that that is not happening. People are being sent hundreds of miles away, breaking their families, their support structures, their work and their education, with enormous social impact.
I say to the Government, not as a partisan message: please consider introducing a formal legal regulator for temporary accommodation—an Ofsted of housing, if you like, that will ensure that local authorities live by the existing code of guidance. Only if councils know that there is a regulator about to come in will they try to address the problem that they have. If we wish to support those families, but also to reduce the spend and the consequences of the shocking temporary accommodation that families are currently living in, we need a regulator to be there to watch.
Imran Ahmad Khan (Wakefield) (Con) [V]
This Queen’s Speech is unique in the aims and objectives that it seeks to achieve and the challenges that it faces. Covid-19 has demonstrated the need for a strong and flexible police force that not only seeks to make our streets safer but supports local communities and the most vulnerable. I welcome this Queen’s Speech, which assists in ensuring that our police are better equipped to achieve both those objectives.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is a vital vehicle through which those ambitions will be realised. It will overhaul our justice system to ensure that our police and courts have the tools and resources necessary to tackle the most heinous of crimes. Extending whole-life orders for the premeditated murder of a child is but one example of a tougher stance when it comes to sentencing those who commit the most appalling crimes.
New legislation will also be brought forward to further support victims and provide the tools necessary to tackle cyber-crime and prevent online harms. A draft victims Bill will be introduced to strengthen the rights of victims through the establishment of the new victims code. The draft online safety Bill will protect internet users, especially children, and ensure that companies are responsible for their users’ safety online.
This array of legislation will ensure that punishments for crimes are proportionate and representative of their severity. It will ensure that victims of crime are properly supported and that individuals are protected in their communities and online while our inalienable rights are defended.
Alongside new legislation, additional funding has been made available to ensure that sufficient officers are recruited. Police funding has increased by £636 million this year, meaning that total police funding is up to £15.8 billion for the financial year 2021-22. That means that West Yorkshire police, which is proudly headquartered here in Wakefield, will receive £511.9 million this financial year, compared with £484.5 million last year. I welcome that increased budget and look forward to more officers being recruited to patrol the streets of Wakefield.
In conclusion, while I welcome the introduction of the Nightingale courts to deal with the backlog of cases, and the modernisation of courts to deliver swifter justice, more must be done to ensure that people have permanent access to justice regardless of where they live. Wakefield is the largest city in the country without a magistrates court inside its boundary, meaning that my constituents are forced to travel out of the city to access justice. I applaud the Home Secretary and her—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has run over time.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate today, just as it is a great pleasure to welcome a new Conservative police and crime commissioner to Lancashire. The people of our county have once again put their trust in this Conservative Government, and I know that our new PCC, Andrew Snowden, will deliver for them. I also want to take a moment to thank all the officers and police staff who have worked tirelessly to keep us safe during the pandemic and to enforce the covid rules. Lancashire is incredibly lucky to have you.
Across Hyndburn and Haslingden, people want to feel safe when they go out. They want the streets to be secure and the police to be in their neighbourhoods tackling crime and protecting the public. That is why the Government are working through a legislative programme that is tough on criminals, keeps our streets safe and delivers on the public’s priorities, in marked contrast to the Opposition. But rather than dwell on the many and varied shortcomings of the Opposition, I want to raise just two points on which I would be grateful for some engagement from the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland).
The first is the question of self-funding through council tax, which now makes up an average of 34% of police funding. In some parts of the country where there is a larger and wealthier council tax base, PCCs are able to raise funds more easily through the precept and therefore recruit more police officers. However, some areas with lower tax bases that cannot do that as easily also have more areas of deprivation and therefore more policing need. Currently, the system allows for areas with a lower level of need to raise more funds for officers, but the central Government funding formula that has been used over many years does not reflect this. I believe that any changes to the funding formula must reflect social and economic factors if we are to deliver on our levelling-up agenda.
My second point is more technical and relates to the provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983, particularly sections 135 and 136. Section 135 allows the police to enter a home and take someone to a place of safety so that a mental health assessment can be done. The police must have a warrant from a magistrates court allowing them to enter the home. An application for a warrant must be made by an “approved mental health professional”, who must also accompany the police to the home. This section is used in a pre-planned way and allows the police to look after people who could be a danger or who are unable to look after themselves. So a person can be removed from an address under section 135, but not under section 136. Would my right hon. and learned Friend consider an amendment to the Mental Health Act to give the police the extra flexibility to allow people who are a danger to themselves or others to be placed in a secure and caring environment quickly so that a mental health assessment by a professional can take place? I would really appreciate some engagement from him on those two points.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab) [V]
This Queen’s Speech was supposed to be part of levelling up. Instead, I am sure that it has come as a shock to many that this Government are intent on destroying our democracy. In the time available to me, I want to focus on just one aspect of the Queen’s Speech, as highlighted by the United Nations. On 6 August 2018, the UN stated in its report on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance:
“Once they are in government, nationalist populists often deploy a range of tactics to disenfranchise groups…These might include, for example…imposing specific photo identification and other requirements that disproportionately exclude marginalized groups from voting.”
It is clear for all to see that this Tory Government’s plans for voter ID will result in voter suppression, and it is incumbent on us as a country and as a Parliament to take back control. The public are not blind to this Government’s attempts to roll back democracy, and they are challenging them at every opportunity, whether it is the proroguing of Parliament so that a few Ministers can make decisions, or giving themselves Henry VIII powers to limit the powers of the courts, or even the recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which includes draconian powers on where, when and how people can protest. This Government have rolled back democracy at every step, but people have still been on the streets fighting them. And let us not forget the procurement contracts awarded without parliamentary oversight.
This is all happening in plain sight, but be assured that, slowly but surely, we will take back control from this authoritarian nationalist Government. Even those on the Minister’s side of the House have spoken out. The former Brexit Secretary, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), has said that this is a
“solution in pursuit of a non-existent problem”.
We are currently faced with a Government who seek power just so that they can give their mates millions of pounds of public money. The Government want to make millions for their mates while those who are just about managing have to go to food banks or are fired and then rehired on worse terms and conditions. This is not a fair way to live; it is unfair.
We should be modernising voting and expanding the franchise. We should allow votes at 16, enable people to vote at train stations and other places of convenience and explore online voting. It is time to start including, not excluding, the electorate. Britain’s democracy belongs to all of us, not just the rich and the millionaires. We must take back control and defend our democracy.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
I would say that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), but it is a complete load of nonsense to suggest that we are subduing democracy in any way. If she looked at the Electoral Commission report of 2014, she would note that it very sensibly suggested voter ID. Indeed, in Northern Ireland, votes have not been supressed; they have continued and been allowed, and it has been a very successful roll-out.
I welcome the measures outlined in the Queen’s Speech, which sets a clear and bold agenda for this parliamentary Session. In the time allowed, I would like to draw attention to a few points. First, on rail and bus reform, at long last we are to see a White Paper that will join up our trains, buses and boats. Hopefully, it will be delivered on time so that I can go back to my constituents and tell them how they can traverse the area more ably.
Secondly, the skills and post-16 education Bill will enable further education colleges, such as South Devon College in my constituency, to help people in every age group have the opportunity to innovate, create businesses and retrain. That is hugely important.
Thirdly, I completely welcome the procurement Bill, which I hope my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) will have a significant hand in, given his previous work on this subject. By addressing procurement, we will not only save taxpayers’ money but put it where it needs to go more effectively.
Like other Members, I would like to speak about the planning Bill. It will come as no surprise that I am, at present, heavily against it. We need to entrench ourselves in localism. The Conservative party has stood for localism. We must listen to what local residents want for where we develop. That means following neighbourhood plans and addressing the issues relating to building on brownfield sites, ensuring we protect our green spaces, ending land banking, and building in an environmentally friendly way. Those are the things that the people of Totnes and south Devon want to see done. Of course, they want affordable homes and homes that they can rent. All of that can be achieved, and I look forward to the opportunity to helpfully reform the planning Bill when it comes to this place.
Of course, today is for talking about crime and safer streets. I congratulate Alison Hernandez, our police and crime commissioner, on her re-election—how lucky we are in Devon and Cornwall to have her re-elected. She has a firm agenda of not only keeping Devon the second-lowest crime area in the United Kingdom, with an ambition to make it No. 1, but introducing schemes such as the councillor advocate scheme, putting new officers on our streets and delivering a safe environment for all people, whether they be residents or visitors.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
In a striking opening comment in the Queen’s Speech debates, the Prime Minister remarked that genius can be found everywhere in our country—of course, you and I know that that is especially true in God’s own country, Madam Deputy Speaker, but we will draw a veil over that. He also said that opportunity is lacking throughout the country. We arrive, then, at the central thrust of the Queen’s Speech: the idea that we should level up. There are two things to say about that. The first is that we have to will the means as well as the ends, and the Government have failed to do that, as I will describe in a moment or two. Secondly, we have to analyse why the country needs levelling up in the way that the Prime Minister described.
Three aspects of the Queen’s Speech address the levelling-up agenda, and none of them works for Yorkshire. First, the Prime Minister wants infrastructure, but he must then explain why seven times as much is spent on transport in London as it is in parts of Yorkshire. Infrastructure takes decades to introduce, and people in our area and elsewhere will feel that it is jam tomorrow and that no difference will be made now.
Secondly, there is the idea of education and skills. But then the Prime Minister has to explain why, over the past 10 years, the Government cuts to school funding in my constituency were 16 times higher than the cuts in his constituency.
The final point that the Prime Minister makes is about IT, which he says is the way forward. The fact of the matter is that in my constituency and other parts of Yorkshire, the broadband speed is less than half of what it is in his constituency. For all those reasons, we can understand how it came about that output per worker in our area is half the level that it is in London, that wages in my constituency are £300 a week less than they are in the Prime Minister’s, that there are twice as many top jobs in administration and management in his constituency than mine, and that children born today in my constituency—according to his Social Mobility Commission—face a future that is much more difficult than it is in other parts of the country.
The Prime Minister climbed his way to the top by arguing for a turbocharged inequality, and now he is trying to paper over the cracks of the very inequality his party helped to create. This Queen’s Speech does not address the central problems facing my community and many others I try to speak for in this House every day—it papers over the cracks. We require a Government who will transform our country, create a rupture with the way in which this British establishment has ruled our country for the past two to three generations, and build a fairer, more just and more democratic society.
Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)
It is now more than 40 years since the first reclaim the night protest in Leeds in 1977, when women marched in response to being told to stay at home because of the Yorkshire ripper’s murders. Little has changed in who we focus our attention on when men commit such heinous crimes. With the tragic death of Sarah Everard just a few months ago, women were again told to stay at home for their safety. The focus remains on what women should do to protect themselves, rather than on men and their criminal actions and behaviours.
Street harassment, verbal or physical, against all women is at an epidemic level. In 2018, Plan International UK found that 66% of women had experienced unwanted attention or sexual harassment in a public place. Those figures increase for trans men and minority genders, who are twice as likely to be victims of a violent crime as cis people, according to the Office for National Statistics. The focus for too long has shifted attention away from men. We must ask why men are harassing, abusing and being violent towards women and girls.
Violence against women is a social problem that is indelibly rooted in masculinity. Reshaping masculinity at a young age through education is an obvious approach to reducing aggressive, violent forms of masculinity that are inextricably linked to violence against women. There is disappointingly little evidence of attempts to do this, beyond a number of programmes in the United States. One of the more successful of those is the Boys To Men youth programme, which claims to empower all people to notice and intervene in potentially harmful situations before they become violent. The importance of early educational interventions to prevent untreated minor harassment from progressing to more serious harassment or physical violence is clear. A further US study showed
“a developmental pathway via the adolescents’ development of antisocial behaviour”
to male-to-female personal violence perpetration.
Nearly 45 years after the first reclaim the night protest, and just months after the death of Sarah Everard, it is clear that women continue to feel unsafe on our streets. Radical action is needed and it is needed now. We must tackle the root cause of this harassment and violence on the streets. For preventive action, we must develop legislation that makes misogyny a criminal offence, and increase our awareness of and improve education about aggressive masculinities. In short, we must take action to change men’s behaviour and actions, and not simply focus on what women need to do to keep themselves safe.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
A number of people have withdrawn from this debate, so, unusually, I am going to increase the time limit to four minutes. I know that normally the time gets shorter for people at the end, but on this occasion there will be a little longer for them.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I begin by thanking the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary for the work that they do to make our streets safer, the commitment they show to the victims of crime and their determination to start bringing justice back into the justice system. Imprisonment for life for child murderers, keeping the most serious offenders behind bars for longer and the £4 billion extra over the next four years for 18,000 additional prison places are incredibly encouraging steps and signify a direction of travel that we should all welcome.
However, I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary will forgive me if I use this opportunity again to encourage the Government to go further. Ensuring that we have a justice system that more consistently delivers justice is one of the main reasons I got involved in politics. The harsh reality is that, right now, if any of my friends and family were the victims of a serious crime, even with our planned reforms, I doubt very much that they would get what I would consider to be justice.
I have talked before in this place about the intellectual snobbery that exists towards people who think that those who commit serious offences should spend a very long time in prison. On the Justice Committee, there is an endless supply of well-meaning witnesses, who come to tell us about the reasons why people should not go to prison or should spend less time there. There is a whole swathe of lobbying and campaigning organisations that want prison reform, and they are right that there is more that we can and should do to improve rehabilitation —I know the Justice Secretary speaks very powerfully about his commitment to do that in the upcoming Bill—but failings in one area do not excuse inaction in another.
The absolute priority of the justice system should be to deliver justice for victims. In my experience, first and foremost, people want to see those who have raped, abused, maimed or murdered their family members locked up for a long time, and at the moment our justice system is not delivering that frequently enough. The highest starting point for the sexual assault of a child under 13 is six years, with a range of just four to nine years, and every year dozens of child rapists are sentenced to less than five years in prison. I would ask anybody to look in the eye a parent of a 12-year-old who has been sexually assaulted, and tell them that the perpetrator could be out of prison before their child has even reached adulthood and say that that is justice. I can tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that if somebody raped my niece or nephew, traumatising them and potentially robbing them of the joy of intimacy in their personal lives forever, only that person spending most of the rest of their life in prison would satisfy me.
Across the board, I believe that we need—and, importantly, that the public support—a wholesale recalibration of criminal sentencing in this country. I think the term “life sentence” in itself is offensive to victims, implying as it does that in some way being on licence is anything like being in prison, or even close to what it is like living the real life sentence of being traumatised by a serious crime.
The Government are acting decisively. By reducing Labour’s early automatic release, in one simple step we will be delivering a huge increase in the time spent in prison by serious offenders, and I welcome that, but we remain some way off widespread confidence in our justice system, which can only come from increasing the sentences themselves. The Home Secretary and this Justice Secretary have my full support in delivering on this agenda, and I ask them to keep listening to victims and families, who would be criminalised if they sought justice on their own terms. The law requires them to ask the state to provide justice for them, and the state must not let them down.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab) [V]
This Queen’s Speech displays a hostility towards democracy and the rule of law, with a planning Bill that shifts power from elected local government to developers, which is a recipe for poorer-quality homes, the ruination of townscapes and fewer affordable homes; a voter registration Bill that aims to disenfranchise millions because, in the Conservative party’s opinion, they tend to vote the wrong way; a freedom of speech Bill that will curtail and proscribe the freedoms of universities; a proposal to hand the power to decide the date of the general election, for party advantage, to the Prime Minister; a renewed attempt to prevent public bodies considering human rights and international law in purchasing, procurement and investment decisions; and, four years after Grenfell Tower burned, a building safety Bill that does not begin to address the malpractices that tragedy exposed.
Three Bills in particular subjugate the individual to the state: the police Bill, the judicial review Bill and the borders Bill. We are familiar with the police Bill—the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Parts 3 and 4 are a sustained attack on civil rights, curtailing free assembly and free speech, and criminalising a way of life and the ethnic groups who pursue it. This weekend, The Times carried a provocative article that advocated ending both the requirement for local authorities to create Traveller sites and the ethnic minority status of Gypsies and Travellers. That just encapsulates the policy of this Home Secretary.
The borders Bill seeks to create two tiers of asylum seekers, the lower of which—those with temporary protection status—will have fewer rights and harsher treatment than now. That is likely to be in breach of the 1951 refugee convention, but this is a Government who do not worry about obeying the law. The recent Faulks inquiry into judicial review saw little to criticise in the system of legal MOTs that has developed over decades, and which mature Governments see as a means of road testing their decisions and powers. The Lord Chancellor spurns the judgment of his own independent review and presses on with a far more aggressive attempt to clip the judges’ wings. He wants to change the law before he has even seen the outcome of his review of the review.
There are shocking omissions here, too: no proposals for social care and no Bill to end no-fault evictions. Areas such as Hammersmith are in the bottom league for levelling-up funds, despite having some of the poorest communities in the country and having suffered the deepest austerity cuts in the past decade. There is nothing here to stop private companies such as the greedy US conglomerate Centene having free rein to buy up GP practices across England. These are examples of bias, self-interest and neglect at the heart of Government policy, but it is the trampling on civil liberties and constitutional rights that will make this otherwise forgettable Queen’s Speech notorious.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
There is much to welcome in the Queen’s Speech that will make our streets safer, but in the short time that I have today—although I recognise that I have an extra minute—I want to strongly welcome the focus in the Gracious Speech on online safety. Life on the internet should mirror what is and what is not acceptable offline. Very few people would abuse someone standing in the street, so why do it online? The draft Online Safety Bill signals a step change for tech responsibility, bringing fairness and accountability to the online world. Placing children’s safety at the heart of this legislation is absolutely right.
In the UK, more than 10,000 offenders are caught every year involved in grooming and downloading indecent images of children. That 50 years ago we put a man on the moon, but in the third decade of the 21st century we cannot even prevent the uploading of toddlers and babies being abused is beyond me. It is shameful that it has to be this Government to bring forward legislation to protect children from online paedophiles. It is partly because the platforms themselves pay only lip service to protection.
If left unchecked, a hostile online environment can spill into concerning real-world actions. This has been made clear in the degree of antisemitism seen both online and offline in the past week. I was appalled by a briefing that I received from the London Jewish Forum, which provided evidence of antisemitism both in professional settings and on university campuses. The current conflict in the middle east has triggered new spikes of antisemitism both online and offline in this country.
As it currently stands in the draft Bill, only the largest and most popular platforms will be required to act on content that is harmful to adults. That risks the most harmful content just moving to less prolific sites. Parliament must protect the most vulnerable and ensure that the Bill compels all platforms, regardless of their reach, to remove harmful content and include robust digital policing.
I also hope that this Bill will give Ofcom the powers it needs to hold the platforms to account. I welcome the decision to include elements of economic crime within the scope of the Bill. I am proud that City of London police, based in my constituency, is the national lead for economic and cyber-crime. Sadly, fraud is the fastest growing area of crime in the UK, with City of London police currently receiving more than 800,000 reports a year. The inclusion of fraud in the Bill will provide much-needed encouragement, particularly for online retailers and auction sites, to take responsibility for protecting users and implementing counter-fraud strategies to prevent malicious content.
Our digital safety is just as important as our physical safety. I welcome the Bills outlined in this Queen’s Speech, which I think will make us all safer and—equally importantly—make us feel safer, whether we are online or walking in the street.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
Diolch, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I place on record my personal thanks to our incredible police and emergency service workers, who have shown selfless service, bravery and professionalism throughout the pandemic? All of us, including our fantastic key workers, deserve to feel safe on our streets, yet violent crime has increased across every police force over the past 11 years by a whopping 116%. Shockingly, this Government have still failed to reward staff with a pay rise.
Even with those horrific numbers, I am under no illusion that violent crime is the only issue that our police forces throughout the UK face. The key local problem that I receive the most abuse for on social media, and that I feel most powerless to tackle under this Government, is the increase in antisocial behaviour taking over the streets of Pontypridd and Taff Ely. For so many people who live in my constituency, especially in Beddau, Tonyrefail, Church Village and Rhydyfelin, antisocial behaviour is destroying communities. Many people now feel scared to go outdoors alone late at night.
The behaviour can range from vandalism, graffiti and fly-tipping to aggressive car chasing designed to intimidate and belittle those who live in our local communities. Judging by the strength of feeling conveyed in the messages in my inbox, residents have just about had enough, and I know that they are not alone. Although my local force, South Wales police, has been fantastic in its response to antisocial behaviour as well as to the wider pandemic, ultimately its resources are overstretched.
This Government need to understand that the solution to solving the crisis in order to keep our streets safe is not a simple one. The coronavirus pandemic has had an enormous impact on young people, who have not been able to go to school, take their exams or see their friends for months at a time. It is undeniable that young people across the country have made huge sacrifices to support the fight against covid-19. This is not an issue that we should politicise; Governments of all political persuasions across the devolved nations have had to make difficult decisions in the context of the pandemic and, sadly, young people have been particularly affected.
When we speak about keeping our streets safe for all, we need to be clear that the solution is not simply to infiltrate our streets with a heightened police presence. A minority of people in my area are undoubtedly engaged in serious forms of antisocial behaviour, and there are real instances of intimidation, alcohol and drug abuse, rallying in car parks and violence. It goes without saying that that is completely unacceptable, but the vast majority of young people I know have been exemplary, even when they have faced cancelled exams, home schooling and uncertainty about university places.
Of course it is vital to ensure that police have the powers and resources that they need to tackle criminal and threatening behaviour, but we also need to ensure a multi-agency approach to support young people through this difficult time. Crucial to tackling the issue, particularly in rural communities such as mine, is regulating the role of social media platforms, which may often directly or indirectly encourage young people to participate in dangerous behaviour. This Government claim to be committed to tackling online harms, yet their online safety Bill fails and falls extremely short of the mark. Far from being bold, the legislation in its current form could allow social media companies to simply buy their way out of regulation by paying fines instead of facing criminal sanctions.
When we speak about keeping people safe on our streets, we need to talk about crimes big and small. Quite rightly, the light is often shone on the most aggressive or violent crimes that take place across the country, but we must also remember that smaller, more frequent disturbances such as antisocial behaviour have a massive impact on wellbeing in local communities such as mine. If the Lord Chancellor feels that I am overplaying the impact of antisocial behaviour on my area, I am sure that residents across Pontypridd and Taff Ely would welcome his visit with open arms as a chance to prove the extent of the issue.
Ultimately, this Queen’s Speech has utterly failed to address preventive services or approaches to tackling antisocial behaviour. If the Government are at all serious about keeping our streets safe for all, I wholeheartedly urge them to work across the devolved nations, partnering with police forces and local authorities to take action now.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones).
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and the wee donkey”
is one of many memorable quotes from Ted Hastings in “Line of Duty”. The TV show has gripped the nation and given the public an insight into how organised criminal groups operate. In the show, a young man with Down’s syndrome is taken advantage of—far-fetched to some viewers, yet that is the reality faced by our police forces. These criminal groups are exploiting young and vulnerable people. The men at the top are cowards who use children to do their dirty work. These men often target children in care, who they see as easy prey.
I am sure most Members know that these networks are referred to as county lines. They work across police and local authority boundaries. Drug networks are no longer just about big cities; they frequently operate in towns and villages. The National Crime Agency estimates that there are well over 700 county lines across England and Wales, but it admits that the true number is difficult to determine. St Helens is one of those towns. Many Members will have had briefings from their local police forces. I am personally aware of parents whose vulnerable children have been coerced into the drugs trade. The damage it does to families and communities is truly heartbreaking. Local authorities, police commissioners and forces are bound by boundaries, but criminal groups are not concerned with boundaries. They have one priority: drug pushing. These criminals are doing well from cross-boundary working, and they do not believe that the police and the Government can keep up. It is the duty of Government to prove them wrong. It is a national problem that requires a national commitment to resource and resolve.
I will now turn to the issue of children and vulnerable people caught up in this trade. Children—that is what they are and that is how they should be treated—are not hardened criminals. They are exploited children. The cowards who criminally exploit children are no better than the evil individuals who sexually exploit children. Both should face the same shame and punishment for the damage they have caused to our children and our society. These young and vulnerable people need help and support.
Often, it is children in care who are exploited. Children in care are the children of our nation. Collectively, we all have a duty to look out for them. It is the Government who are ultimately responsible for these children, yet we in the Chamber must hold the Government to account for that duty. Children in care face a deteriorating situation due to a lack of Government funding. It really is no surprise that criminal groups are managing to target these children with relative ease. Youth services have been cut to the bare bone over the past decade of austerity. Children are being left to the mercy of hardened criminals.
To stop county lines, a new national strategy will be necessary. Police can and have closed many lines down, yet they need help. Children should be valued. The Government must provide better funding for children in education, public health, and youth and social services. There is no denying that county lines represents a huge challenge for the Government and police. The criminal cowards have adapted, now the Government must do the same. The Government have the power to change and to answer these problems, and resolve the issue for these children and society as a whole.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
The first duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe. I welcome the measures announced in the Queen’s Speech that will strengthen our UK security protections, including the Telecommunications (Security) Bill and the counter state threats Bill. However, we must also protect citizens from internal threats from criminals in our own country who seek to cause harm. I therefore welcome the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will increase punishments for the most serious crimes.
Even less serious crimes can blight people’s lives. Over recent weeks, I have had numerous reports of antisocial behaviour in the areas of Stocksbridge, Deepcar and Ecclesfield that is causing residents significant anxiety. It was reassuring to meet our outstanding local police officers to discuss their plans to tackle these crimes. The additional £636 million boost to police funding this year and thousands of new recruits will have a big impact on local policing, including reinforcing Deepcar police station in my constituency.
The measures in the Queen’s Speech will improve the detection, prosecution and punishment of crime, but we also need to increase our efforts to stop people from becoming criminals in the first place. The emergence of the Everyone’s Invited platform has highlighted the frightening number of sexual abuse crimes being committed against women and girls. The Government recently released a report on the relationship between pornography use and harmful sexual attitudes and behaviours, and it concluded that there was “substantial evidence” of an association between viewing pornography and harmful behaviour towards women. Women and girls in this country will not be safe until our children are protected from the destructive effects of pornography.
I welcome the laying out of the online harms Bill in the Queen’s Speech and its publication in draft, but even if it passes swiftly through Parliament, realistically we are perhaps two or more years away from the protections being enacted. Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, which would enforce age verification for access to pornography sites, is ready to go, so I urge the Government to implement that legislation now. Even if doing so is only a temporary measure until the passing of the online harms Bill, can we really wait any longer to provide protection for our children?
Family breakdown is another factor in criminalisation. A quarter of all prisoners have been in care and 76% had absent fathers. If we really want to take crime seriously, we must reform family policy to strengthen family life, so I am delighted by the Government’s commitment in the Queen’s Speech to give every child
“the best start in life”.
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) for her outstanding and persistent work in that policy area.
I welcome the proposals in the Queen’s Speech. They will make my constituency of Penistone and Stocksbridge and the whole UK a safer place to live, work and raise a family.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) [V]
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is a Bill of two halves. Many of my Labour colleagues had a hand in the development of much-needed new laws on the police covenant, assaults on emergency workers, the Lammy review and the extension of whole-life orders, but whole sections of the Bill have been hastily drafted and it will introduce some of the most draconian measures this country has ever seen to impose disproportionate control on free expression and the right to protest. In particular, the Bill targets some of the most vulnerable and marginalised people in this country.
Successive Tory Governments have decimated our public services over the past 11 years. They have totally lost sight of the need to address the causes of crime, with the predictable consequence of the rise in violent crime in every single police-force area of England and Wales. The Government are making a habit of creating legislation for a problem that they have invented or exaggerated while overlooking the real and difficult issues. The problems in my constituency, like many others, are not protest but serious violent crime, knife crime, county lines drug running, gang culture, violence against women and girls and persistent antisocial behaviour. To tackle all that, we need visible community policing.
After a decade of police cuts, Bedfordshire will finally get some more police officers, paid for by council tax increases, but nowhere near as many as we need or were lost because of austerity. For many years I have been telling the Government that the funding formula for Bedfordshire police does not work. The force covers not only rural areas but large and growing urban conurbations and a main airport. Successive chief constables of Bedfordshire police and the former police and crime commissioner have said that the funding formula is not fit for purpose and needs to be urgently reviewed.
The force has made great strides in tackling violent crime and serious organised crimes. Such improvement was possible only because of an urgent funding grant. There is an overflow of intelligence about crimes that is not currently being developed because of the lack of resources. The force has had to find many millions in savings while the demands on it because of violent crime, sexual offences, domestic abuse, burglaries, fraud and cyber-crime are ever rising. Instead of tackling those things, the Government want to crack down on critical dissent—they are not being tough on crime or on the causes of crime.
The Queen’s Speech shows that rather than soundbites, policies are needed to come up with an effective preventive strategy. Bedfordshire police know how to bring crime levels down. They need a sustained level of increased funding. The bottom line is that until the funding formula is fixed, the streets of Bedford and Kempston will not be as safe as they could and should be.
Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)
First, I want to put on record my thanks to all those who work in our public services, from the NHS to the police, from social care to local government, and from education to public health. The people who work in our public services have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. Despite struggling against a backdrop of a decade of Tory cuts and underfunding, they have performed heroically in their efforts to save lives, protect people and support communities. The past year and the covid-19 pandemic served only to underline how essential well-funded public services are to protect and promote good health, address inequalities, educate the next generation and keep our streets safer. They are the lifeblood of a decent society and an essential element in enabling individuals and communities to develop and meet their potential.
The Queen’s Speech gave the Government the opportunity to acknowledge the importance of properly funded public services and to undo the damage their austerity agenda caused. Although there are some welcome proposals, such as the online safety Bill, the Queen’s Speech does nothing to address the damage caused by a decade of cuts, or reverse the Government’s long-standing ideological refusal to invest in our public services. It does nothing to address the crisis in social care, to reverse the savage cuts inflicted on local government, to meet the challenges facing our NHS, to help our struggling schools or to tackle crime.
While the Government chase causes like electoral fraud, they are seemingly happy to ignore the real concerns that my constituents live with. In 2019, there were only four convictions for electoral fraud in the whole of the UK, yet in the month of February, we had 600 antisocial behaviour incidents in Coventry alone.
The much-cherished model of community policing, carefully nurtured and supported under Labour, no longer exists. Indeed, I can cite numerous examples of where crimes occurred, but no action was taken because some residents no longer see any point in contacting the police, or live in fear of reprisals if they report crimes in their neighbourhoods. In many places, residents frequently observe thefts, street violence and drug dealing, to name but a few offences, but feel powerless to do anything about it. That is not good enough.
However, I am pleased that in the west midlands we have returned Simon Foster as our Labour police and crime commissioner. He is committed to employing an additional 450 community police officers throughout the west midlands, as well as fighting for the resources that we need. Of course, that will not deal with the problem in its entirety, but it will demonstrate to our residents that the only party willing and capable of giving the resources that the police need is the Labour party.
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
I cannot speak in any debate on making our streets safer without first thanking all the police officers and PCSOs of Burnley and Padiham police, who do a brilliant job of keeping us safe. I also want to put on record my enormous congratulations to Andrew Snowden, our brilliant new police and crime commissioner for Lancashire. I have known Andrew for quite a while, and he has the drive, passion and determination to tackle the issues that matter most to residents, not just antisocial behaviour in our towns, which he will tackle, but rural crime. I am really pleased that he is already looking at doubling the rural task force that Lancashire police have set up.
There is so much in the Queen’s Speech for us to be optimistic and pleased about. I am privileged to be a member of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, which starts in earnest tomorrow. The Bill is particularly welcome. I have yet to meet anyone who thinks we should continue with the automatic release of violent and sexual offenders halfway through their sentence. Not a single person has told me that they think that is a good idea.
Our emergency service workers—we have stood up in this House and praised them time and again—deserve the protections that we can offer them, so doubling the sentence for people who assault them is welcome. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) said, we also need to focus on the more bread-and-butter crimes: the rural crime issues that I just spoke about and which our PCC is looking at, such as speeding cars on our roads and fly-tipping on our country lanes. That is what our residents want us to be focused on, because that is what blights our communities.
However, we are also a nation of fair play and of doing the right thing, and for too long our immigration system has not matched that. As such, the new plan for immigration brings in that sense of fair play for people who follow the rules and do the right thing. No more of people throwing up new human rights concerns 24 hours before deportation that are spurious and meaningless: now, we will reward people who follow the safe and legal route of coming to the UK when they need to, as well as tackle those who try to prey on people’s fears and get them to spend thousands of pounds in the hope of a brighter future, only to lead them down dangerous routes.
My message to the Government on the Queen’s Speech is that there is so much—on crime, on policing, on immigration, and on online harms—that we can be proud of, but let us not lose sight of those bread-and-butter crime issues, such as fly-tipping and speeding cars, that our residents want us to be focusing on every day that we are in this place.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
I start by congratulating Dr Alan Billings on his re-election as Labour’s South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner. Against a backdrop of immensely challenging circumstances, he has delivered on a range of initiatives to improve policing in this region, including the recently launched campaign to urge anyone experiencing domestic abuse to seek help and support. I also pay tribute to South Yorkshire police and support workers, and to all our frontline workers, for their dedication to duty during our recent covid troubles.
A decade of funding shortfalls has left our police forces cut to the bone. The Home Office police core settlement has remained at the same level it was back in 2010, meaning a cut in real terms, and this is being felt on our streets: the number of police officers has fallen by a staggering 20,000 since 2010. By comparison, between 2000 and 2010 under a Labour Government, the number of police officers rose by 40,000. The Government’s target of recruiting 20,000 more police officers would just scratch the surface, after a decade of severe underfunding has left our streets less safe. I was surprised earlier today to hear the Home Secretary talk to us—boast, really—about the rape strategy, and tell us how no delays would hold this up. I remind the Home Secretary that the rape review was announced over two years ago, and no action has been taken on it since. I urge her to hold sure to her word.
Since 2010, knife crime across the UK has risen by a staggering 50%, and in South Yorkshire it has nearly doubled. Despite repeated promises, the Government have continually failed to get a grip on this issue, which is still leaving too many families grieving. We urgently need a national strategy of early intervention to get knives off our streets. Roughly a fifth of knife crime offenders are aged between 10 and 17, so schools and local organisations have a vital part to play in educating children on the dangers of knives from a very young age. My friend and newly elected Labour councillor, Safiya Saeed, has done commendable voluntary work in this area over a number of years. Using funding from the South Yorkshire violence reduction fund, Big Brother Burngreave engages with young people on the streets and from referrals from social care and schools who may be at risk of falling into knife crime, and runs weekly activities ranging from football matches to mental health workshops. Initiatives such as these could save lives.
However, at the heart of all this is the need for more resources: not just more police officers on our streets, but funding for a range of schemes such as amnesty bins and early intervention through schools and local authorities. We cannot sit back and watch as more and more young people lose their lives in these tragic circumstances. There has been enough talking on this issue: we need action, and we need it now. The first responsibility of a Government is ensuring the safety of their citizens. However, while violent crime is rising, the Government are not rising to the challenge. A decade of funding shortfalls and the lack of a coherent strategy to tackle knife crime has left our streets less safe. Instead of warm words and empty promises, we need urgent and comprehensive action to get a grip on these horrific crimes, which shatter families and our communities.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
May I take this opportunity to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Anum Qaisar-Javed), congratulate her on her recent by-election win, and wish her predecessor well in the Scottish Parliament?
I welcome the opportunity to speak in today’s debate on the Queen’s Speech, on the topic of ensuring that our streets are a safe place for all. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans), that is a fitting subject, as the debate follows the tragic murder of Sarah Everard, a woman who was simply walking home following a night out with friends. If we are to ensure that the streets are a safe place for all, women must feel secure walking them. We did not then, and we do not now.
At the time of Sarah’s murder, I called on the UK Government to use deeds, not words, to tackle gender-based violence and finally ratify the Istanbul convention, yet despite signalling their intent to do so on several occasions, the Government have failed to stick to their word. The rights of women enshrined in the convention are fundamental and would prevent violence against women, protect victims and enable the prosecution of offenders. However, as a result of the UK’s failure to ratify the convention, it is not legally bound by its provisions, letting down women, girls and domestic abuse survivors in Scotland and across the UK. I therefore urge the Minister to use this Queen’s Speech to take us one step closer to safe streets for all by ratifying the Istanbul convention as a matter of urgency.
The debate also follows the religious celebration of Eid. At a time when many across the country marked the end of Ramadan, this Government and their Home Office took the decision to send enforcement officers into Pollokshields in Glasgow to take part in a despicable raid to deport two of its residents. The people of Glasgow, however, had a different idea and gathered in numbers successfully to stop that inhumane practice continuing. Raids of that type are a clear infringement of basic human rights and must be condemned in the strongest possible manner. The SNP and the people of Scotland have repeatedly condemned the practice due to its inhumane approach.
In Glasgow, we welcome refugees and we celebrate the diversity of our wonderful city, turning out in numbers to prevent those men from being deported during a global pandemic, but if we are to make the streets safe for all, that must mean everyone, including refugees and asylum seekers. The Home Office must act immediately to halt its hostile home raids and work to develop an immigration system based on dignity and respect.
A Queen’s Speech is the hallmark of a Government and how they take care of the most vulnerable citizens in society. As we approach the 70th anniversary of the refugee convention, we witness this Government ripping apart the basic, fundamental rights of refugees and asylum seekers; and as we witness 50 years of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, it is completely absent from the debate on the Queen’s Speech, with not even a mention of its failure to tackle the war on drugs. My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) has already alluded to many of these points, but the threats to the legal profession, the attacks on the justice system, the overhaul of the judicial review process, the clamping down on protest, and voter suppression are just some examples of this Government’s priorities.
I have only a few seconds left, so let me say that this Queen’s Speech is a measure of this Government, and if they will not act, they should give Scotland the power to do so. On immigration, asylum, refugees and drugs, we do not have the powers in Scotland; this Government do, and they must act.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing to me to speak in this important debate.
This Tory Government talk about bobbies on the beat, but they fail to take the tough decisions needed to address their dismal management of the criminal justice system. Under the Conservatives, criminals have never had it so good. Over the past 11 years, we have witnessed this Conservative Government slashing police officer numbers and preventive services, and withdrawing neighbourhood policing. They are soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime. Their policies will have no impact on crime, and nor will they keep the good people of Newport West safe if cases take years to be heard and victims do not get the support they deserve.
This Queen’s Speech does nothing to address the years of cuts that central Government have made to police forces throughout England and Wales. Attacks on emergency service workers have increased by 50% over the past five years, with violent crime rising by 116% and the number of violent crime suspects down by 26%.
We all know that the last year has had a devastating impact on our public services, and the courts system is no different. Indeed, I have raised this issue directly with the Lord Chancellor, who, like all good Welshmen, was very courteous in his response. I want to say a special thank you to all the public sector workers who work in the justice system—from court clerks to county court judges, they have all worked tirelessly to make sure that justice is done. I fear, however, that Ministers think that we are as blind as Lady Justice. They must think that we did not see the long backlog of criminal cases that was present even before the pandemic. They must think that we have not noticed that, rather than taking steps to ensure that the justice system flows smoothly and operates fairly, they have simply put up barriers for the people I represent in Newport West and across the country.
Black and minority ethnic people make up a far larger percentage of those arrested for and charged with crimes than they represent in society. Sadly, that number keeps increasing. What steps is the Lord Chancellor taking to address this discrimination?
I want to take this opportunity to express my sympathy for and solidarity with the families of Moyied Bashir and Mohamud Hassan, two young men from south Wales who tragically lost their lives well before their time. Mohamud lost his life shortly after spending time in police custody, and Moyied died shortly after his family called the police for assistance. I am aware that an investigation is ongoing, so I will not say any more, but I am keen to work with Ministers and the relevant authorities, as well as the families, to ensure that nothing like this can happen again.
Sadly, Mohamud is not the only person to die in the care of the state. Recent research by the Howard League shows that deaths in prisons are up 42% in England and Wales from the previous year. Four hundred and eight people died in prison custody in the year to the end of March 2021—a significant rise compared with the 287 who died during the previous 12 months—including 79 people who lost their lives through suicide.
There is a high number of deaths in south Wales’s overcrowded prisons. I understand that it is never popular to invest in prisons, but people do not deserve to die well before their time, especially those to whom the state owes a duty of care. In Wales, it is our privatised prison, HMP Parc, run by G4S, that has the highest proportion of deaths. Will the Lord Chancellor tell the House about this Government’s plans for prison privatisation? Will more prisons be handed over to the private sector? If so, what steps will he take to ensure that the high number of deaths among prisoners is not repeated in any other prisons? If that is not the case, when can we expect Parc to be taken back into public hands? We need to know what steps Ministers will take to ensure that this unacceptable death toll is tackled, and tackled now. Will the Lord Chancellor tell me what mental health support is available to prisoners and at what stage support becomes available? Surely a prison sentence should not become a death sentence.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) [V]
I want people out there to know that being an MP does not stop that feeling of utter despair at times, and that is the best way to describe how I feel when I look at what the UK Home Office has planned. Much of it will not impact on me personally, particularly while I am elected, but it still affects me personally, because like so many people, I find it almost unbearable to live under a Government who care so little about people’s civil liberties; who care even less about the human rights of people who come to us desperate for refuge; and who, instead of celebrating different cultures and ways of life, punish those who are simply trying to live those lives.
It is, however, possible to take a human rights approach and actually mean it. There are political parties that people can believe in. In Scotland, refugees and 16 and 17-year-olds can now vote. We are opening voting up to more people. This Tory Government will require people to have photographic ID or lose their vote. Barriers and voter suppression are not what we expect from the so-called bastion of democracy.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will allow vehicles to be confiscated from Gypsy Travellers for pretty minor offences in England and Wales, even if the vehicle is their home. In Scotland, we produced an action plan in conjunction with Traveller communities, and in case the Home Secretary is wondering, the purpose is to improve lives.
In the UK, there will be longer jail terms for those who topple statues honouring chattel slave owners than for those subjecting other human beings to modern-day slavery. Under the SNP, a move away from soft versus hard justice and a focus on smart justice has led to Scotland having the lowest reconviction rates in 21 years.
The SNP will shortly establish a new £100 million fund to focus on the prevention of violence against women and girls. I ask for the umpteenth time: when are this Government going to ratify the Istanbul convention? On that note, as Labour colleagues have asked, when is the review by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) going to be implemented?
Of course, our two Governments see things very differently. The shameful dawn raids that have started again in Glasgow shone a light on the difference between callous and compassionate government. I thank the peaceful, sober and tidy people of Pollokshields for the way in which they conducted themselves as they showed two of their neighbours that they are welcome in Scotland. I echo the condemnation that we have heard of antisemitism and all forms of racism and discrimination, including Islamophobia and anti-Catholicism, which have never gone away but have reared their truly ugly heads again recently.
I abhor the plans to clamp down on people peacefully demonstrating. The right to do so is a cornerstone of any democracy. I may not need to demonstrate outside the UK Parliament, because I can speak my mind inside, and I plan to stop being an MP only when Scotland is independent and we therefore have no need to demonstrate in England. But even if independence was happening next week, I would not leave this Parliament without fighting for the right of every person on these islands to protest. Right now, the people of Scotland must have the right to protest policies that impact on their lives over which we have no control, and we must be allowed to protest at the seat of power, and that means this Parliament.
I end by paying tribute to the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaigners, who are to be banned from doing as they did so brilliantly, so eloquently and so peacefully before the pandemic—that is, demonstrating across the road in Parliament Square. They came here to get support and they got it. They came here to raise awareness and they did. They came here to be seen and heard, and they were, but if this legislation goes through and the proposed exclusion zone is brought in, they can come here no more—to their Parliament to protest their Government to protect their rights—and that is all kinds of wrong.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]
The Queen’s Speech was another opportunity for the Government to provide proper funding for our public services and make our streets safer, after a decade of cuts which has led to rising crime across the nation. Once again, this Government have failed to grasp that opportunity.
The Secretary of State opened this debate by stating that
“no one… should be made to feel unsafe when walking our streets.”
Well, the fact is that the Home Secretary talks a good game, but her rhetoric does not match up with the reality. Indeed, last year, research by her own Department named the falling number of police officers since 2010 as a “contributory factor” to the rising number of murders in Britain, alongside drugs and terror attacks. In 2019, the current Metropolitan Police Commissioner was forced to admit that there was a link between violent crime on the streets and police numbers, particularly in relation to rising knife crime.
The Government have said they will provide 20,000 new officers by 2022. However, that will only serve to plug some of the hole left by the 21,000 police that were cut between 2010 and 2019. Furthermore, it will mean thousands of new and inexperienced officers being out on duty, which is far from a like-for-like replacement. It is little more than taking with one hand and giving with the other. We can only assume that the decision to return the police force to numbers similar to those of more than a decade ago is an acknowledgement by this Government that police austerity has failed. Indeed, there is a direct parallel between the fall in police numbers and violent crime rising in every police force over the past 11 years, with violent crime up by 116% and the number of violent crime suspects down by 26%.
This Government’s failed approach has had a direct impact on police and crime figures in my own constituency of Stockport and right across Greater Manchester. Recently I met representatives from Stockport Council, Greater Manchester police and Stockport Homes to discuss incidents in the local community. My special thanks go to the brilliant antisocial behaviour team at Stockport Homes led by Sinead and Clare. At the time I was reassured by the measures that had been put in place at a local level. I pay tribute to the hard work of Superintendent Marcus Noden and Inspector Ian Ashenden of Greater Manchester police’s Stockport division, as well as the entire team at Stockport police, for supporting our community. I am also grateful to the teams at Stockport Homes and Stockport Council for working alongside my office in supporting victims of antisocial behaviour.
But the brutal truth is that many of these organisations are facing an uphill battle, with many budgets having been pared down to the bone, and these shoestring budgets are being stretched even further in the face of rising crime. To take just one example, research by Greater Manchester police revealed that Stockport ranks second in the region in vehicle nuisance incident logs relating to off-road bikes. Despite this, since 2010 the Government have cut the grant they provide to Greater Manchester by £215 million, and as a result we now have 2,000 fewer bobbies on the beat on our streets and 1,000 fewer support staff. This is nothing short of scandalous and is compounded by the fact that the Government support to Stockport Council has been slashed, further harming community drives to cut crime.
We cannot overlook the impact that Government cuts have had on community groups and organisations across the country, including youth services, mental health services, our probation service, and other preventive services. Cutting these services has clearly had a significant effect on crime. Our communities should no longer be blighted by this Government’s chronic underfunding of police and community programmes: they deserve far, far better.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
I mostly welcome the Government’s commitments to tackling crime and to addressing violence, particularly violence against women and girls. The review of the criminal justice response to rape is long overdue, and some say that rape has effectively been decriminalised.
To find effective solutions we must fully understand the problem, and accurate data is key in tackling the causes of crime, protecting the public, providing justice to victims, and rehabilitating offenders. Data must be accurately sex-disaggregated in order to fully understand the impact of all crimes on women and girls. In order to combat sexism, we need to count sex, and in order to combat discrimination against other groups, there is a need to record separate and additional data. The offending patterns of men and of women show the highest differential of all, so we need to monitor the sex of victims and of perpetrators of all crimes. For example, the proportion of women among those prosecuted in 2019 was 2% for sexual offences, 8% for robbery, and 7% for possession of a weapon.
We all want to live in a society that is respectful and tolerant and strives for equality. Gender reassignment is rightly a protected characteristic and we must respect the privacy of transgender people, but in order to protect everyone when it comes to official records of offences, particularly against women and girls, we need accurate records of the biological sex of the victims and the perpetrators of crime, in addition to data on the gender identity of victims and perpetrators. Why then are police forces recording the self-identified gender of victims of suspected offenders and not their biological sex? I understand that at least 16 regional police forces now record suspects’ sex on the basis of gender identity, following the advice of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Data based only on self-identified gender does not give accurate data on which to build a violence against women and girls strategy, nor to effectively plan services that support all victims and target all perpetrators whatever their sex or however they identify.
If police records are not robust and correctly disaggregated by sex, we end up with unreliable and potentially misleading data in reporting. For example, the BBC asked 45 regional police forces in the UK for data on reported cases of female perpetrators’ child sex abuse from 2015 to 2019. The data received indicated that there was an increase of 84%. Data corruption means that we cannot tell whether this large increase is due to an increase in female offenders or those identifying as women, and that detail matters.
Women make up 3% of the arrests for all sexual offences. The number of women convicted for these crimes is so low that the misrecording of the sex of the perpetrator skews the data very quickly. Where offence categories are very rarely committed by women, the addition of just one or two people can have a significant impact on data. For example, a biological man convicted of attempted murder and other offences at Birmingham Crown court in 2017 was recorded as female, thus falsely elevating the number of females convicted of attempted murder that year in England and Wales by around 20%. We need to know what action the Government will take to ensure correct police record keeping and prevent the potential corruption of data on crimes and their impact on women and girls.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
It is an honour to close this debate on behalf of the Opposition. We have had some powerful speeches from those on the Opposition Benches. I will come to those on the Government Benches in a moment, but on justice, I mention the speeches of my right hon. Friends the Members for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) and for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), my hon. Friends the Members for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin), for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), my hon. Friends the Members for Stockport (Navendu Mishra), for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), and for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), from whom we have just heard.
On the Government Benches, the Secretary of State would do well to think hard about what was said by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and his remonstrations on remote juries and judicial review in particular. He would do well to listen to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on pet theft—I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman will be supporting the Opposition amendments on that issue. He would do well to listen to the concerns of the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) about violence against women and law enforcement.
But I want to concentrate on those outside the House. Last October, a woman in her twenties spoke to the BBC about the most traumatic day of her life—the day she was raped. It was not only the violation she suffered that day that caused her distress, but what came after. Instead of quickly punishing her attacker, the state made this woman wait three years before her case came to court for the very first time. When she finally arrived, finally hoping to get justice, she was told that her case would be delayed yet again. It is no wonder she told the BBC that she felt she had been “let down constantly”. It is no wonder she now wishes she did had not reported it in the first place, and it is no wonder she now wants to move on with her life. She said:
“I have to take my anti-depressants and stuff like that…to feel a little bit better”.
That is just one voice among the tens of thousands of victims being let down by this Conservative Government—just one victim in the record-breaking 57,000 criminal cases facing delays, and just one victim compared with the 773,000 victims of sexual assault or rape last year. Only 1.4% of those cases will result in the suspect being charged.
Under the Conservatives, rapists and other criminals have never had it so good. Convictions for rape, robbery, theft, criminal damage, arson, drug offences and fraud have all fallen to a 10-year low under this Government. The total number of convictions has collapsed from 570,000 in 2010, when Labour left office, to 338,000 in 2020, after a decade of Conservative rule. More than a million victims dropped out last year before trials began, including more than one in four of all criminal cases and nearly half of all alleged rape victims. Victims of crime are being locked out of court and left in the cold because of delays that this Government created.
The backlog in the Crown court is at a record high of 57,000 cases, and it sat at 39,000 even before the pandemic began. The pandemic made the backlog worse, but it was created by the Conservatives closing half of all our courts in England and Wales between 2010 and 2019 and allowing 27,000 fewer sitting days than in 2016. All the measures Labour called for to keep delays down during the pandemic were ignored. Mass testing in courts—forget it. The roll-out of Nightingale courts to the number that was called for by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service—no chance. Temporarily reduced juries so that more trials could continue in a way that was safe—ignored. What have we been left with? A court system that punishes only victims and lets criminals get away with murder—literally.
This Government are failing victims on every front. More than a quarter of all crimes are not being prosecuted because the victims are dropping out of the process entirely. That means that 1 million victims every year are being failed by the very system designed to protect them. On top of denying justice through delays, this Government have so far failed at the simple task of enshrining victims’ legally enforceable rights. The Conservatives have promised a victims Bill in almost every Queen’s Speech since 2016 and in the past three manifestos, but five years on, their Bill still has not appeared in Parliament. This Government are all style and no substance, all talk and no walk.
Where the Tories fail to step up, Labour has stepped in. Victims do not need warm words; they need a Bill, and that is why we drafted one. Labour has its victims Bill published, brought to Parliament and ready to go. Instead of publishing a Bill in draft, the Government should work with us to implement the victims Bill immediately. That will finally enshrine the rights of victims of crime and those who suffer persistent anti- social behaviour.
When rapists run free and victims suffer the indignity of being denied justice, the Government have made their twisted priorities clear. The British public value democracy, accountability, the independence of the courts and the right of the public to challenge the Government when they break the law. This Government do not share those values. Judicial review is a key part of our constitution. It is the only way that members of the public and organisations can challenge the Government and other public bodies when they act unlawfully. Even after their own panel advised against making the widespread changes to judicial review that they desire, the Government’s plans are being pushed ahead.
Why have the Government announced a further consultation exclusively on the use of ouster clauses when their own review explicitly said that they should not do that? Why is the Ministry of Justice prioritising messing with our constitution when it is presiding over a victims crisis and record court delays? This Secretary of State really has skewed priorities. Get on with solving the crime against women, victims and girls. Stop fiddling around with judicial review. Stop joining with colleagues to play games with our democracy, the right to vote and IDs.
Victims’ rights need to be further up the Secretary of State’s list of priorities. That is why today we published a Green Paper on ending the epidemic of violence against women and girls. We plan to make misogyny a hate crime—will the Secretary of State do it? We will increase sentences for rapists and stalkers—will he do it? We will create new, specific offences for sexual harassment and sex for rent—will he do it? We will reverse the Government’s record low conviction rates for rape—will he do it? We will remove legal barriers that prevent victims of domestic abuse from getting help when they need it through legal aid—will he give legal aid back to those who have suffered domestic abuse? We will bring in new custodial sentences for those who name victims of rape and sexual assault. We will train teachers to help identify, respond to and support child victims of domestic abuse. We will repeal the rape clause for social security claims and introduce binding national indicators to hold the Government to account. That is a comprehensive plan.
My question to the Government is simple. Violence against women and girls is a stain on our society. We cannot wait to act anymore. Will the Government work with us to implement our Bill and end this brutality? If they do not, they will force more victims of rape, domestic abuse, assault and violence to give up hope. As Helen Keller said:
“Women have discovered that they cannot rely on men’s chivalry to give them justice.”
Women need legislation. Why will this Secretary of State not act?
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)
It is a pleasure and an honour to wind up this day of debate on the Gracious Speech, with particular regard to keeping our streets safe. It is important to start my remarks by paying warm and deep tribute to all the dedicated public servants in the criminal justice system who have done so much to keep the wheels of justice turning. I think of the court staff in our Crown courts, our magistrates courts and, indeed, in our other jurisdictions who have worked tirelessly to make sure that, almost alone in the western world, we have kept our system going. We have been able to deal with a huge number of cases not just in person, but remotely. That is the result of investment in technology and in extra staff to assist the judiciary to carry out its important work. I also think of all those incredible public servants in our prison system—prison officers, probation officers and support staff—who went more than just an extra mile. It is almost difficult to explain some of the sacrifices that staff made during the height of the pandemic to make sure that they could safely do their job and save lives, which is what they did, in our prison system. I think the whole House will join me in paying warm tribute to them for the work that they have done, which has allowed us to recover and, indeed, to rebuild and to work in a better way to make sure that justice is delivered.
There were many excellent contributions in this debate. Members from all parts of the House made some thought-provoking points. I want to pay particular tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe), for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) and for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken). The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn made about places of safety under the Mental Health Act 1983 is an important one, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and I take very seriously. I will look at the issues that she raises with regard to that statutory operation. Through good operational practice, I know that more and more mental health trusts are working sensitively with patients to make sure that those provisions need not be triggered, but I will take up the matter further with her at her request.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich, as he always does, including in his work on the Justice Committee, stood up eloquently and strongly for the victims of crime and for his constituents.
I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster who, quite rightly and with some eloquence, talked about online harms and how the work that my colleagues in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport are doing with regard to strengthening the law will make us a world leader in dealing with the sad menace of online child abuse, which is every bit as evil and pernicious and has as many victims as abuse does offline.
I was particularly interested in the contribution of the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), who spoke well about county lines. She made some powerful points about the fact that these lines stretch into our towns and smaller communities just as much as they do into our cities. She rightly acknowledged the work that the police are doing to disrupt and indeed to end quite a lot of this activity. I particularly agreed with her point about unaccompanied children and the abuse of children by those responsible for that organised crime. She will be glad to know that, increasingly, the police take a far more delicate and sensitive approach to the way in which children are safeguarded as a result of the abuse. In other words, not every child will be, or should be, a defendant. In fact, very often, the opposite should be the case. The work of protection and safeguarding is vital if we are to cut off the abuse and the grooming that goes on, which is every bit as pernicious as other types of grooming that we see in other types of criminal activity.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) made, I think, one of the most important points in this debate: that family breakdown, sadly, remains a key driver of crime in many, many cases. Her support for the Government’s radical policies on early years intervention and development is warmly welcomed. The work being done by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), which is supported across Government, will yield real and generational change when it comes to our understanding of early years development and of how, sadly, in too many cases, the experiences of early years can be a predictor of, first, school exclusion and then later a descent into crime.
I think all of us in this House understand that those interventions need to be made, and doing it better will solve problems that all too often become problems my Department has to deal with. I cannot emphasise strongly enough that the Ministry of Justice cannot solve these problems alone; it is a cross-governmental and, indeed, cross-agency approach that will truly help to turn the tide when it comes to the drivers of crime.
I am proud to be part of a Government who get that, and through the criminal justice taskforce, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, we are working already to make the sort of interventions that can reduce reoffending. Indeed, such interventions—whether it be the £70 million in increased offender accommodation on release from custody, the £80 million in increased drug treatment support, or the roll-out of community sentence treatment requirements that I believe will give sentencers a much deeper and richer choice of sentences—will, I believe, make a difference in the long term.
I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham), who speaks so strongly for residents in his community in Lancashire. He taps in and understands their concerns, hopes and fears, and I believe that he represents them with passion and eloquence.
With the greatest of respect to Labour Members, some of the observations they made would have carried, in my submission, more conviction had they supported the Second Reading of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. That was an opportunity for Labour Members to match their warm words with deeds. They failed to take that opportunity. They failed to support the balanced measures we are taking on sentencing and, indeed, the wider approach we are taking to improve the way in which the criminal justice system responds. It was a more than disappointing moment; it was in many ways a bewildering moment, because Labour Members at one time said that we were not going far enough, and then in the debate said that we were going too far. Now I really do not know where they are, or perhaps they do not know where they are. [Interruption.] Oh, I will come to the amendments when we come to debate the Bill in greater detail.
Let us remind ourselves of the key purposes of the Government’s approach to the reforms we are making. The first is to better protect the public whom we serve. That has to be at the heart of what we are doing, particularly in making sure that Labour’s policy of automatic early release is progressively ended. The second is to increase public confidence in our system of justice. Those of us who spend a lot of our time talking to residents on the doorstep and working with them will constantly be struck by the gulf that sometimes exists between those of us who are close to the system and those who feel there is a disconnection between what is happening in our criminal justice system and what is happening in our communities.
Why are these things important and why is this disconnection of great importance? Because I firmly believe, as do the Government, that safer communities are stabler ones, and that the more stable a community becomes, the more able it will be to grow and flourish economically, culturally, socially and, indeed, spiritually. That is what I regard as true levelling up, which is why the criminal justice policies of this Government are a crucial part of that agenda.
I am conscious of time, but I will make this observation. The Bill that we have brought back in this second Session is but the latest stage in a number of measures that we have taken in the last two years to improve the approach we take to criminal justice. In that time, two counter-terrorism Bills that strengthened sentencing for the most serious terrorists and improved the way in which we supervise them on licence have been enacted.
Last September, I published the sentencing White Paper. As a result of that, we ended automatic halfway release for serious violent and sexual offenders serving seven years or more. Indeed, we increased the range of sentences that are now referrable to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient. On top of that, we have committed £4 billion to making progress on the delivery of 18,000 additional prison places across England and Wales. That is vital, and it comes on top of an additional £315 million to improve the condition of our existing estate.
When it comes to supporting victims, I say this to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy): we are taking action. Not only are we going to advance the victims law but we have published the revised victims code, which came into force last month and was supported by all parts of the sector. We have invested just under £151 million in victim and witness support services, including an extra £51 million to support rape and domestic abuse victims. Of course, the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 that this Government pushed for has been passed—with support, I accept, from all parts of the House.
The right hon. Gentleman sometimes reminds me of the bad prosecutor: he might have a few good points, but he over-eggs the pudding with a poorly presented case. With the greatest of respect to him, that is what happened tonight. I commend the Government’s programme on law and order to the House.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(David T. C. Davies.)
Debate to be resumed tomorrow.
Ukraine
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the situation in Ukraine. I will let the Minister get to his seat before we get into it. It has been some time since the House debated this issue, and we have even been given an extra nine minutes this evening to do so, although I do not intend to detain colleagues any longer than is absolutely necessary. I should declare an interest as a holder of the order of merit, which was kindly awarded to me in 2019 by President Zelensky as a friend of Ukraine.
It would be remiss of me not to remark on the fact—although I appreciate that this is not the Minister’s territory as far as his portfolio goes—that as we debate the situation in Ukraine right now, there is a blazing conflict in the middle east between Israel and Palestine that cannot have failed to shock Members of the House and members of the Government, not least the bombing of a building containing the offices of the Associated Press and al-Jazeera. But I will leave that there for now, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I applied for this debate some time ago, when the escalating situation on the Russia- Ukraine border was the big military news story at the time. We have seen an intense build-up of personnel and heavy equipment on land, air and sea and, contrary to what some believed to be a major drawback from the border by the Russian side, that border is still heavily militarised and the drawback is nowhere near what some seem to think it is. Indeed, the situation right now on the contact line in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine remains as bad as it has been since the conflict started. Just this year alone, since the end of December, 37 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 74 have been wounded, some of whom have probably died as a result of their wounds.
It is also worth remembering that Ukraine is one of the most infested places on earth as far as landmines are concerned. I pay particular tribute to the work of the HALO Trust, which does an incredible job of de-mining in Ukraine, although not just in Ukraine. The Minister would expect me to speak up for the funding that his Department provides to the trust for its work there and elsewhere, such as in Syria. It is vital that the cut to international aid funding should not result in a cut to efforts to de-mine what is a European country, as is all too often forgotten.
Before I come to what is happening in 2021, I want to take us back slightly. The House will know the 2014 background, understand the Maidan revolution and know of the non-military, non-kinetic warfare that is being besieged on Ukraine, its Government and its people by its larger neighbour the Russian Federation. I was extremely privileged, although somewhat depressed, to visit eastern Ukraine a couple of years ago. I was pleased to have that visit facilitated by the former UK ambassador, Judith Gough, who I think is now in Stockholm. I saw for myself the misery, destruction and poverty that the war has brought upon free European citizens who deserve the right to choose their own path, and not to have one foisted on them militarily by their neighbour.
Since coming back from that trip, I have kept up contact with people I met—politicians, civil society groups and members of the public—in the capital and the east, to stay in touch and ensure that as a parliamentarian I am as informed as possible. Their worry, concern and anxiety right now, today, is higher than they have ever felt it since the days when the conflict broke out.
When we look at the current military projection from the Russian Federation to the borders of Ukraine, although there has been a very small drawback, the war rages in the east, the illegal annexation of Crimea continues and a blockade is now taking place against the sea of Azov. I ask the Minister to be frank at the Dispatch Box in telling the House whether that blockade of the sea of Azov and the Kerch strait represents a breach of the UN law of the sea and of the agreement between Kiev and Moscow on how the sea of Azov should be managed.
As I am sure the Minister would expect, I want to talk a little about the Government’s response. I criticise the UK Government day in, day out—that is my job as an Opposition politician—but I think that their support to Ukraine, particularly but not just in military terms, is one of their better outfits, shall we say. I know that that really matters in the capital of Ukraine; it has my support, for sure, and that of anyone who wants stability and peace in the country and the wider region.
However, I have to come to sanctions policy and to the red herring that is Nord Stream 2. I am afraid that we have had debate after debate and question after question in the House about the Government’s position on Nord Stream 2, which seems to be, “It’s nothing to do with us, guv.” Indeed, I remember that when Alan Duncan was Minister for Europe, that was exactly the position that he would answer written questions with, although I am not sure whether it made it into his diaries: that the matter was not seen as a priority or an immediate threat and was therefore nothing to do with the United Kingdom Government.
That is a false position to take. Although the UK has left the European Union, it is still the case—not least by dint of the UK’s position as a NATO member state, and a founding member state at that—that European security matters. Nord Stream 2 represents an enormous threat to European security and European stability, so I would like the Government to show some muscle. Right now, what I can see is that the only person standing in the way of Nord Stream 2 as it is supposed to operate is the leader of the German Green party, Annalena Baerbock. If she and her party are successful in forming part of the coalition after the federal elections in September, they may well represent a halt to the project.
I can see you getting nervous, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will pad this out so that you can intervene at the appropriate time, which I think is about now.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I was saying, I hope she is successful for that reason and many others, but I would like to know what the Government’s position on this is now. Has it changed? Has it evolved? Given the Salisbury incident that happened a few years ago alone, how on earth can the Government continue with a head-in-the-sand attitude and approach to Nord Stream 2? We owe ourselves better than that, but we certainly owe our fellow Europeans, not least our friends in Ukraine, a bit more than that too.
I also wish to mention Russia Today, because the war against Ukraine has not just been one of military hardware, foreign fighters, bullets and shells, although they have been a part of the most tragic consequence of it; the information war being fought against Ukraine, not just in Ukraine, but around the western world, is another facet to this hybrid conflict. I would like to know why the Government can correctly sanction a TV news presenter in Russia who is speaking Russian to a domestic Russian audience but will not sanction the head of RT, the global editor in chief, Margarita Simonyan, who I am sure is frantically writing out a public statement about me as she hears this. Why will the Government not sanction the head of the outfit that is being used to pump out dangerous disinformation in this country and elsewhere, given that they recognise that this is a threat to our own security and the collective security we stand in as far as NATO, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and much else is concerned? Can we get a more robust and targeted sanctions policy that goes after those who want to sow disinformation, discord, falsehoods and lies and ultimately help continue the propaganda war, as RT does so brazenly?
Let me come to numbers. The war in Ukraine has killed more than 14,000 people, most of them innocent civilians. It has displaced more than 1 million Ukrainian nationals within their own land. I am not sure whether the Minister has had the chance to go to eastern Ukraine to see the impact that the war has had there, but it is a somewhat sorry place. Although I know we will do all we can to help rebuild it, the tragedy of this conflict will go on for many years to come, and that is before we even get on to the situation in Crimea, where a part of Ukraine that was illegally annexed is currently illegally occupied. Human rights abuses are the day-to-day norm there, and Crimean Tatars, some of the oldest peoples in the continent of Europe, are targeted, harassed and imprisoned for the crime of flying the Crimean flag. I would like to hear from the Government what more we can do, now that the Ukrainian Government has launched the “Crimean platform”, to support Crimean Tatars, who are so brazenly and hellishly targeted by Russian forces in Crimea.
In a call a few weeks ago, organised by the chair of the all-party group on Ukraine, the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), we talked to some Ukrainian MPs from across the political spectrum. I mentioned this earlier, but I will say it again: the anxiety is very real. The threat of a full-on military incursion of some description has not gone away—it just might not happen in the spring. That threat is very much there. I know from talking to those Members of Parliament that they do not want their country to be constantly ignored as a country that is at war, a country that is chopped up and annexed by its neighbour; they want to be contributing to the big challenges that we face today. In my own city later this year we will host COP26. That is what Ukrainian citizens want to be focusing on: climate change, data policy, international crime—all the things that any sovereign European Government should want to focus on.
We on these Benches support entirely the independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, sometimes known as the bread basket of Europe or the gates of Europe. It is an old country—a proud people and a proud land with a complicated history. It has had a long association and friendship with people here in the UK; indeed, the Donbass region that is currently the subject of war was founded by a Welshman, and the connections with Scotland are long and well known. I do not doubt at all that the Government are a friend of Ukraine; I just think they could be a better friend of Ukraine, and what is the job of the opposition if not constantly to try to edge the Government into a better place than they might otherwise be?
So I want to hear from the Minister about the sanctions policy the Government follow, because it strikes me as somewhat patchy. I want to hear from the Minister—and I am sure he will tell me—about the planned visit by the Royal Navy later this year. I want to hear from the Minister, although we are not part of the formal peace talks process, about the UK’s diplomatic engagement with France, Germany and other countries to bring that about. And I want to hear from the Minister a positive change in the Government’s position on Nord Stream 2, because this will rapidly pose a threat here; if the Minister and the Government think that the cash generated from that project will not be used against us, that is a rose-tinted naiveté that in fairness I do not believe for one second the Minister would be guilty of.
This is a dangerous time for the Ukrainian people. They have suffered enough. The conflict that goes on—the frozen conflict, as it is sometimes known—can escalate, and that would be in nobody’s interests. I am sure all of us want to see peace and prosperity, and all of us accept that it is not easy, simple or plain. In that spirit, I invite the Minister to not just be a friend of Ukraine but to be a better friend of Ukraine, as I know he wants to be. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.
The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) for securing this debate and pay tribute to him for all the work he does in this place on behalf and in support of Ukraine. I understand he is a vice-chair of the all-party group on Ukraine, and, indeed, being recognised by Ukraine is no small achievement; the hon. Gentleman referred to his receiving the very distinguished award of the Order of Merit, and he is to be commended for that.
It is important that all Ukraine’s friends continue to show unwavering support for the country. Principally, that means standing with Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression and provocation, as well as supporting reforms and Ukrainian institutions. I should have said at the outset that I am here because the Minister responsible for Ukraine is travelling, so I apologise if I cannot go into all the detail that the hon. Gentleman wants, but I assure him that we will do our best to get the relevant responses that he requires.
As we set out in the integrated review, Ukraine forms part of our efforts in the eastern European neighbourhood and beyond to deter and defend against the full spectrum of threats emanating from Russia. The UK Government remain resolute in our commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We want Ukraine to be secure, stable and prosperous, and we want Ukrainians to be able to define their own future.
We are one of the few international partners that offer Ukraine a full range of military, security, economic, political and governance support. We are at the heart of the international community’s engagement on Ukraine, launching the Ukraine reform conference series, deepening NATO’s partnership with the country, shaping international sanctions against Russia and leading the efforts in the United Nations to hold Russia to account.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have also deepened our bilateral ties with Ukraine, particularly through our political, free trade and strategic partnership agreement, which was signed in October by the Prime Minister and President Zelensky. The agreement provides the foundation for a deeper strategic political and trading relationship. It is a framework for continued co-operation on human rights, the rule of law and democracy. It offers opportunities to strengthen cultural ties and links between our people, building on existing UK programmes such as Chevening as well as the John Smith Trust.
I want to go into a little more detail about our work with allies, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, aimed at deterring Russian aggression and de-escalating tensions following Russia’s recent military build-up near Ukraine’s border and in the illegally annexed Crimea. The Government maintain regular senior-level engagement with our allies, working together through the UN in New York, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Vienna, and also directly with the Government of Ukraine. The Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs have been in touch with their Ukrainian counterparts to assure them of our support for and solidarity with the Government and people of Ukraine, for which we have been thanked by President Zelensky.
Russia’s troop movements last month yet again illustrate Russia’s appetite to provoke and destabilise. Although the Russian Defence Minister announced on 22 April that Russian troops would return to their bases, we continue to monitor the situation closely and we have been clear that Russia’s threatening behaviour is completely unacceptable. In the event of further escalations, we will explore counter-measures with our allies.
Our vocal support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is backed by our long-standing defence engagement. Our military support is delivered primarily through Operation ORBITAL, the UK’s training mission to Ukraine. Since launching that in 2015, we have trained over 20,000 members of the Ukrainian armed forces. In 2019, we expanded Operation ORBITAL to include naval co-operation and last year, we launched the UK co-ordinated multinational maritime training initiative. As the hon. Gentleman will know, last summer HMS Dragon visited the Black sea, including the ports of Odessa in Ukraine, Batumi in Georgia and Constanţa in Romania. Her deployment reflected our support for regional allies and partners and our commitment to regional security and maintaining freedom of navigation, to which the hon. Gentleman rightly referred.
On that point, we are closely monitoring reports of the Russian decision to close parts of the Black sea surrounding illegally annexed Crimea.
This is the latest example of destabilising activity in the region, following the build-up on the border. We have called on Russia not to hinder passage through the Kerch Strait. That is something we are monitoring closely. We will, of course, take the appropriate action should our calls not be heeded. HMS Dragon’s deployment reflects our support for all the regional allies and partners in that region.
We are also one of the biggest supporters of the OSCE’s special monitoring mission to Ukraine. That plays a crucial role in providing impartial reporting to the international community on the conflict in eastern Ukraine. We are one of the largest contributors to the mission both financially and in terms of personnel, and the Government reaffirmed our commitment to it in our recent integrated review. We also remain supportive of Ukraine’s NATO membership aspirations, in line with the 2008 Bucharest summit declaration. Ukraine achieved enhanced opportunities partner status nine months ago, the highest level of partnership with NATO available. That offers a framework for engagement as Ukraine moves forward with the reforms that are a precondition of its membership pathway.
Hostile Russian activity is not the only challenge we are helping Ukraine face. As the hon. Gentleman referred to on a number of occasions in his speech, we are a friend of Ukraine. That is reflected by our support since the beginning of the pandemic. We have provided legislative assistance to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health. We have supported Ukraine to maximise the effectiveness of Government public communications on covid-19. We are also working with civil society organisations to enhance oversight of covid-19 procurement. We have tailored our programme of support this year in defence, economic development and governance reforms to support the recovery from covid-19. Furthermore, Ukraine stands to benefit from the £548 million that the UK Government have committed to the COVAX vaccine initiative, which will contribute to the supply of at least 1.3 billion doses of covid vaccines this year for up to 92 low and middle-income countries. We are also funding the World Health Organisation to train mobile teams to administer vaccines in Ukraine.
Covid-19 and Russian aggression aside, there is another battle going on in Ukraine: the fight against corruption and internal vested interests that seek to hinder vital reforms, which is why we continue to support Ukraine’s reform programme, a commitment the Prime Minister reiterated to President Zelensky during his October visit. I am proud that under our leadership of the G7 ambassadors’ support group in Kiev, we have co-ordinated international advocacy for fighting corruption, strengthening the judiciary’s independence and supporting Ukraine in its implementation of an ambitious reform programme.
Our close bilateral relationship with Ukraine also means that we can be a critical friend, including on matters of internal reform. For example, we have expressed our serious concerns about corporate governance in Ukraine following the recent dismissal of the CEO from the state-owned energy company Naftogaz. We have reiterated to the Ukraine Government that it is crucial to foreign investor confidence that corporate governance of state-owned enterprises is transparent, free from political interference and consistent with international standards. We are also using our programme funding to support economic and governance reforms that fight corruption, improve the business environment, and increase Government accountability. Last year alone, we allocated £14 million in official development assistance and other funding in support of programmes that support prosperity, resilience and stability in Ukraine.
I will try to answer a couple of the points that the hon. Gentleman raised. He asked whether Russia Today should be able to broadcast in the UK, and what the latest update is. We all have our doubts about the objectivity of the reporting of RT through its UK television channel, which remains a tool for propaganda for the Russian state. As he will appreciate, broadcasting regulation is a matter for the independent regulator.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
I am grateful to the Minister for taking my intervention. It is important to be accurate about what I said: I was not looking for RT to get sanctioned, closed down, or anything like that. Any suggestion of closing down a TV channel makes me instinctively wince. What I did ask was whether we can have a targeted sanction against the individual who is the global head of RT, Margarita Simonyan. I am in no doubt about RT’s objectivity: it does not have any at all.
Nigel Adams
The hon. Gentleman is right, and I apologise if I strayed down a different path to the one that he raised. However, he will understand that it is not appropriate to speculate about individuals who may or may not be sanctioned. We continue to consider designations under the global human rights sanctions regulations; speculating about individuals, as I know the hon. Gentleman knows, could very well reduce the impact of designations should they occur.
He mentioned the Crimean Tatars, and rightly so. We are very concerned about the ongoing human rights abuses experienced by ethnic and religious minorities in Crimea. The Crimean Tatars face regular harassment and risk arrest, detention, and threats to seize their property. The UK has contributed £700,000 to the UN human rights monitoring mission that monitors and documents human rights abuses on the peninsula, and provides human rights expertise to promote the right to a fair trial for political prisoners in Crimea. We are also working with Ukraine on the development of the international Crimean platform, to ensure Russia continues to be held to account for the illegal annexation of Crimea and its actions in the region.
I think that the hon. Gentleman also mentioned the carrier strike group in his remarks. We will visit more than one fifth of the world’s nations with the carrier strike group when it sails, and it will also participate in NATO exercises such as Exercise Steadfast Defender and provide support to NATO’s Operation Sea Guardian and security operations in the Black sea. He also referred to Nord Stream 2. We have continuing and significant concerns about Nord Stream 2 and its implications for European energy security and, of course, for the interests of Ukraine. We must work together to reduce reliance on any single supplier, and we call on the EU to ensure that Nord Stream 2 fully complies with the EU gas directive to help avoid monopolistic practices by Gazprom. We would also like significant volumes of gas transit through Ukraine to be preserved, recognising the importance of tariff revenue for the Ukrainian economy.
Ultimately, our work with the people and Government of Ukraine, as an honest friend and an ally, is to support the democratic choices and rights of the Ukrainian people. It is in support of individuals and institutions, working for a Ukraine that is free from external interference and that works in the interests of all its people, rather than those of a few corrupt and self-interested individuals. It is important work, which I believe we should all support.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Plant Health etc. (Fees) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
Draft Plant Health etc. (Miscellaneous Fees) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2021
(2 years, 11 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we begin, can I remind Members to observe social distancing and to sit only in the places which are clearly marked? I also remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn in Committee unless you are speaking. Hansard colleagues would be most grateful if Members sent their speaking notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Plant Health etc. (Fees) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the draft Plant Health etc. (Miscellaneous Fees) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2021.
Victoria Prentis
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. The two statutory instruments make amendments to fees for plant health services. The draft Plant Health etc. (Fees) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 amend the Plant Health etc. (Fees) (England) Regulations 2018 to extend the current regime of charging for plant health import checks to apply also to checks carried out on consignments from EU member states, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
It is normal Government policy to charge for many publicly provided goods and services. The standard approach is to set fees to recover the full costs of delivery, which ensures that businesses bear the costs of any measures to prevent harm that they might otherwise cause by their actions or non-actions. We should remember that most serious plant pests and diseases that arrive and spread in this country do so via the commercial trade in plants and plant produce.
The Government have worked closely with individual operators and industry bodies including the Horticultural Trades Association, the Fresh Produce Consortium and the National Farmers Union on developing our approach to dealing with imports from the EU. To give businesses time to adjust to the new arrangements, the fees for documentary, identity and physical checks on higher risk goods and for documentary checks on other goods will not be applied until June, even though checks have been carried out since 1 January. Fees for identity and physical checks on the remaining regulated goods from EU member states, Switzerland and Liechtenstein will be applied from March 2022.
Under the 2018 regulations, there is a single combined fee for a documentary and an identity check, reflecting the fact that both were previously carried out on 100% of consignments. The frequency of the identity check is now linked to that of the physical check. A commodity subject to 50% physical checks will now get 50% identity checks, so it is appropriate that we should lower the associated fee. The draft regulations separate the identity check fee from the documentary check and amend the fee to avoid over-recovery.
I am afraid that we had to rectify a minor technical drafting point in the draft regulations, which was discovered by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs after they were laid before Parliament. There is a correction slip that ensures that the published version does not contain the minor drafting point. The instrument we are looking at is therefore entirely accurate. The draft regulations apply to England only. The Scottish and Welsh Governments are following the same phased approach for inspecting EU consignments and applying fees to recover the costs of those inspections.
The draft Plant Health etc. (Miscellaneous Fees) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2021 amend the Plant Health (Fees) (Forestry) (England and Scotland) Regulations 2015 as well as the 2018 regulations. The two sets of regulations set fees for the pre-export and export certification services required to comply with third country entry requirements relating to plant health controlled material. All businesses that use those services are charged a fee to recover the cost of delivery. The Northern Ireland protocol means that Northern Ireland remains in the EU plant health regime, so all movements of regulated plants between Great Britain and Northern Ireland must meet EU third country requirements, including being accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate. If the related fees were not amended, they would apply to movements of regulated plants between England and NI, so the amendments provide an exemption from the payment of fees for pre-export and export certification services for goods moving from England to NI.
The regulations apply to England only. Scotland has made parallel legislation and Wales plans to do so. The amendments introduced by the instrument do not include any policy changes. The instrument ensures that the current policy for intra-UK trade is maintained and that services for phytosanitary certification should not be an additional financial burden to businesses when moving goods within the UK internal market. I commend both sets of regulations to the Committee.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Hosie.
Here we are again, this time with two statutory instruments. I note that one has already been discussed by the Lords, who spent some 45 minutes debating it. I suspect we will be quicker, but there are some important questions to ask. As ever, the substance has been explained carefully and eloquently by the Minister, and the Committee will be reassured to hear that we will not oppose the regulations. We do have questions however.
I start by drawing attention to the strong comments from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, on which, if memory serves me correctly, the Minister has served. The members of that Committee are not an incendiary group under normal circumstances, but they say in point 41 of their report:
“It is disappointing, however, that the Department did not provide some analysis of the expected financial impact, given that the businesses affected did not have to pay these fees in the past, and that the Department found it necessary to phase in the fees to give businesses time to adjust. We regard this as poor legislative practice and note that DEFRA has previously not provided financial information when this would have assisted Parliamentary scrutiny: both the Agriculture and Fisheries Bills were introduced into Parliament without Impact Assessments.”
“Poor legislative practice” is a definite yellow card offence for DEFRA in my view.
More importantly—this is the serious point—what will be the actual additional cost to industry, and inevitably to consumers? I am grateful to the Horticultural Trades Association for its advice. I was told that the industry is worth more than £24 billion in GDP, supports more than 568,000 jobs, and raises around £5 billion in tax revenue for the Exchequer each year. The HTA was very diplomatic in its representations, saying that it was
“disappointed that the Government have not carried out an impact assessment on the implications of fees on our sector”.
The HTA estimates that the costs run into the thousands and request that the introduction of import inspection fees for ornamental horticulture be delayed until 1 January 2022. I would be grateful for the Minister’s view on that and, more particularly, the Department’s assessment of the costs, if any assessment has been made. If it has, what is it? If, as I suspect, none has been made, that is definitely a second yellow card as far as I am concerned.
If the horticultural sector has an issue, so do those at the Agricultural Industries Confederation, to whom I am again grateful for their advice. The AIC represents the agri-supply industry, which has a farmgate value of over £8 billion. It is concerned that fees will apply per consignment—the same cost for a truck load or a single bag—which could disproportionately affect decisions on small sales and the flexibility of choice. The confederation notes that most imported seed comes from the EU and that
“the seed industry has had to take on new costs following EU exit”,
and it highlights a number of non-tariff barriers. I hope the Minister will bring those comments to the Prime Minister’s attention, because he memorably claimed that, as a consequence of his agreement, there were no non-tariff barriers. He was completely wrong of course. The AIC says that
“non-tariff barriers include a generally increased cost of haulage due to haulier concerns over potential delays”
and that
“exporting GB seed now requires a phytosanitary certificate, an Orange International Certificate, and to be International Seed Testing Association sampled; seed exported from the EU into GB requires the same”.
The Prime Minister may live in a fantasy world where none of this exists, but our businesses do not, so can we have a proper assessment of the costs?
Of course, there are potential benefits. Biosecurity matters to us all. As my noble Friend Baroness Hayman pointed out in the Lords, the Royal Horticultural Society tells us that UK imports of live plants have increased by 71% since 1999, so there may well be advantages in having extra checks—although is an accidental by-product of our changed relationship. What work has the Department has done to assess the best level for checks to be made, as well as the relative costs and benefits? Who knows, for instance, whether moving material from Oxfordshire to Cambridgeshire has attendant risks? They do some strange things down in Oxfordshire. Is Holland to Kent riskier than Cornwall to northern Scotland? Does anyone know? I suspect not, but we now have additional checks, which is probably good, but we also have extra costs, and no one seems to have assessed the relative benefits.
Baroness Hayman also asked what the Government are doing to increase public awareness of the plant health and biosecurity risks. I would appreciate the Minister’s view on that. My noble Friend also queried the capacity of ports to carry out inspections, and I echo that query. We have discussed border control posts before; what assessment has been made of capacity and what additional resources have been provided to ensure effective and timely delivery of the new checks?
I noted that in the debate in the Lords, Baroness Gardner noted that Amateur Gardening has stopped attaching free seed packets to its magazines that head over the Irish sea. She said that continuing the practice would cost £1 million in the necessary health checks and certification, which is astonishing. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the case? In his reply to the debate in the Lords, the Minister spoke of
“a UK plant health post-transition period operational readiness board”,—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 April 2021; Vol. 811, c. GC221.]
which is said to meet weekly. Will the Minister tell us more about that? How will all this work with the devolved Administrations? Who is involved? Does the board issue minutes? The Minister clearly leads an exciting life, and we would like to know more.
Let me turn to the second instrument, which deals with the complexities introduced by the Northern Ireland protocol. Again, we do not oppose it, because we do not want unnecessary obstacles placed on the movement of materials within the UK. We recognise that without those changes there would be additional costs to businesses carrying out trade within the UK, but it does prompt a question, because that material will presumably come from the EU into GB via NI, bypassing the checks we already discussed. That makes it clear that none of this is about biosecurity. Will the Minister confirm that?
In conclusion, we all want strong biosecurity, but there is inevitably a trade-off between how often, when and where checks are made, and the costs incurred. The measures are not driven by those considerations; they are driven entirely by the need to sort out the mess created by the Government’s inadequate and rushed agreement on our relationship with the EU. Horticulturalists, readers of Amateur Gardening and the agri-supply industry are all being left to pick up costs.
Victoria Prentis
I do lead an exciting life, never more so than when on the JCSI, which I have enjoyed serving on for many years. I am pleased to be able to answer the hon. Gentleman’s points. I refer him, politely, to the schedules to the statutory instrument, which set out the fees for individual categories of commodities, and will give him a pretty good idea of where those fees will be placed.
We continue to provide support to help businesses. We ran an extensive communications campaign, provided one-to-one support to the largest traders, hosted webinars for thousands of small businesses and provided £84 million to expand the customs intermediary market before bringing forward these SIs. We have listened to the concerns of industry to ensure that the new requirements are practical and proportionate, as well as risk-based. The import controls on plant health EU-regulated goods are being phased in over 14 months from 1 January this year, in order to minimise disruption wherever we can.
Daniel Zeichner
I am sure we have all read the schedules in detail. As fascinating as they are, they do not come to a conclusion about the overall cost. There may be an indication of the individual licensing costs, but we need to know how much is done to get any sense of the overall cost to industry.
Victoria Prentis
I will come on to that in due course. Briefly, I reassure the hon. Gentleman, while I am on the subject, that we carried out extensive consultation and work with industry before bringing in these fees; we discussed a great deal with the trade and had a formal consultation throughout 2020. The British Society of Plant Breeders and the Agricultural Industries Confederation, which he mentioned, were both fully involved with this.
Information on fees was published on gov.uk and the plant health portal in December last year, and DEFRA emailed all businesses that we had contact details for through our arm’s-length body, the Animal and Plant Health Agency. That was followed up in March this year with a more detailed breakdown of the new fees, which was also added to the portal.
On the impact assessment, the answer is simply that the result of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2019 was of course that we left the single market, and the amendments in the draft instruments reflect that change. They arose as a direct consequence of the terms of the 2019 Act and do not in themselves reflect any change in plant health policy. We have therefore not felt it necessary to provide an impact assessment formally. However, we carried extensive consultation with industry, as I think was proper, during the course of last year to prepare for the draft instruments.
Physical inspections of high-priority plants and plant products will move from places of destination to border control posts from 1 January next year. Physical inspections of lower risk plants and plant products will start from March next year. We are doing and have done a great deal of work to get ready for January 2022. We will identify any ports or authorities with residual concerns and ensure that any response is pragmatic, tested and can be operationalised. On the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about biosecurity, we acknowledge the difficulties facing those who export regulated goods to the EU or move them to NI, and we will continue to engage with the European Commission to ensure that we develop helpful, practical arrangements that take into account biosecurity to contain the threat.
As I described, the draft instruments make necessary amendments to our fees and charging regime and ensure that trade between England and NI is not subject to additional costs. I therefore commend both instruments to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
DRAFT PLANT HEALTH ETC. (MISCELLANEOUS FEES) (AMENDMENT) (ENGLAND) REGULATIONS 2021
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Plant Health etc. (Miscellaneous Fees) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2021.
Ministerial Correction
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Housing, Communities and Local Government
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Luke Hall
In total, approximately £25 billion has been transferred from Government to businesses through covid support grants during the pandemic. Across South Yorkshire, that amounts to more than £487 million in support for businesses through local authorities, and more than £177 million for businesses in Rotherham.
[Official Report, 13 May 2021, Vol. 695, c. 386.]
Letter of correction from the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall)
An error has been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford).
The correct response should have been:
Luke Hall
In total, approximately £25 billion has been transferred from Government to businesses through covid support grants during the pandemic. Across South Yorkshire, that amounts to more than £487 million in support for businesses through local authorities, and more than £77 million for businesses in Rotherham.
Vaccination of School Staff
Written Statements
Emergency Alerts Service
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
The Government will introduce a new emergency alerts service across the UK later this summer as part of the Government’s continued work to improve our resilience in the event of emergencies. Emergency alerts would inform people of serious emergencies, either nationally or in their local area, which could affect them by broadcasting information directly to their mobile phones.
Emergency alerts would only be used to warn and inform the public in emergency situations when lives are at risk. It is anticipated that this could include public health emergencies, severe floods, fires, industrial incidents and terror attacks.
Messages will always include details of the impacted area, situation, actions for people to take and a link to further information not transmittable in the alert message such as maps and images. This capability is already used around the world in countries such as the United States, New Zealand and Canada, and has been shown to help save lives.
Ahead of introduction, the Government are working in partnership with the devolved Administrations to ensure that all relevant emergency responders across the United Kingdom have access to the capability.
The Government are also working with the charity and voluntary sector to ensure that the needs of the elderly, vulnerable, young people and those with disabilities are fully considered as the new service is delivered.
The new service will be secure. Alerts can only be sent by authorised governmental and emergency services users. Emergency alerts cause the phone to vibrate and emit a unique noise making them difficult to ignore and to mimic or spoof. Emergency alerts are broadcast from cell towers in the vicinity of an emergency, meaning that no personal data is collected and the service will never be used for commercial purposes. As part of its development, there will be a series of public trials of the system where we will send out live test alerts to the phones of people in Suffolk (25 May 2021) and Reading (15 June 2021).
Should the public trials prove successful, the Government will send out a national welcome message to the whole of the UK later this year.
During the pandemic, the Government communicated direct to the public via text message when we asked people to stay at home to protect the NHS and save lives. This new alert builds on that capability, but by broadcasting from cell towers, the new emergency alerts messages would be quicker and delivered instantaneously to all recipients.
Public testing will allow us to check the effectiveness of the system and ensure that members of the public are familiar with the new system and know what to do should they receive an alert in future. There will be localised public information campaigns ahead of each test to inform people about the look and feel of the alert and what they should do when they receive it. There will also be a nationwide public information campaign ahead of the full national launch of this new capability.
To ensure that as many people as possible receive emergency alerts in future, we would encourage people to make sure that their phones have the latest manufacturer’s software updates downloaded.
[HCWS33]
Contingencies Fund Advance
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
I hereby give notice of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy having drawn an advance from the Contingencies Fund totalling £3,380,663,000 to enable expenditure on covid-19 support packages for business to be spent ahead of the passage of the Supply and Appropriation Act.
The funding is required for the Restart Grant scheme.
Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £3,380,663,000 will be sought in a main estimate for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £3,380,663,000 has been met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
The cash advance will be repaid upon receiving the Supply and Appropriation Act.
[HCWS29]
Covid-19: Use of Industrial Development Act 1982
(2 years, 11 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 October to 31 December 2020, including expenditure by DEFRA in earlier quarters not previously notified. £957,000,978 All expenditure of assistance provided by Her Majesty’s Government from 25 March 2020. £1,651,946,560 Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy £943,967,558 Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, including expenditure in earlier quarters not previously notified £13,033,420 First quarter 2020 (1 January-31 March) NIL Second quarter 2020 (1 April-30 June) £39,179,062 Third quarter 2020 (1 July-30 September) £2,532,544 Fourth quarter 2020 (1 October-31 December) £1,321,814 Total reported for the first time in this fourth quarter report £13,033,420 Contingent liability of assistance provided by the Secretary of State from 1 October to 31 December 2020 £11,746,523,334 All contingent liability of assistance provided by the Secretary of State from 25 March 2020 £61,188,652,244
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-employment 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 fourth quarter of 2020, from 1 October to 31 December 2020, in accordance with the Coronavirus Act. It also covers, for the first time, coronavirus-related spending of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The written ministerial statement covering the third quarter of 2020 was published on 9 March 2021.
Spend under the Coronavirus Act2020
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 October to 31 December 2020, the following expenditures were incurred:
Expenditure by Department
Actual expenditure of assistance from 1 October to 31 December 2020 provided by:
First inclusion of Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spend under the Coronavirus Act2020
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. This requirement is fulfilled by the table below. Expenditure by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is being included for the first time within this fourth quarter report.
Actual expenditure of assistance provided by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2020, by quarter:
Contingent liability under the Coronavirus Act2020
[HCWS30]
Forensic Science Regulator: Appointment
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I am today announcing arrangements for the appointment of the Forensic Science Regulator. Following an open competition conducted in accordance with the Governance Code on Public Appointments, I have decided to appoint Gary Pugh OBE. He is a forensic scientist who has previously held a number of senior leadership posts in forensic science in the UK, including the Director of Forensic Services in the Metropolitan Police Service and leader of national governance boards and operations. His three-year term of appointment commenced on 16 May.
This appointment comes at an opportune moment, with the Forensic Science Regulator Act receiving Royal Assent last month. This means that for the first time the Regulator will have statutory powers to help drive up quality standards in forensic science.
I should like to record the Government’s appreciation of the former Regulator, Dr Gillian Tully CBE, for her contribution towards the regulation of quality in Forensic Science in England and Wales.
[HCWS31]
Rough Sleeping Initiative Update
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)
On Saturday, the Government announced the allocation of an additional £203 million to 210 areas—representing 281 local authorities—across England to tackle rough sleeping and provide support for people living on the streets. No one should have to sleep rough and that is why the Government have committed to ending rough sleeping. The Rough Sleeping Initiative is a key part of that mission.
The allocations can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rough-sleeping-initiative-2021-to-2022-funding-allocations.
Rough Sleeping
During the last 12 months we took unprecedented steps to protect rough sleepers from the pandemic and in the longer term. By the end of January, we had supported over 37,000 people since the pandemic began, with over 11,000 people currently being supported in emergency accommodation and over 26,000 already moved on into settled and supported accommodation. Figures published in February show that the number of people sleeping on our streets on a single night in autumn fell by 37% compared to the previous year.
This is a significant achievement, but our work continues, and we are proud to confirm allocations for the fourth year of this flagship programme.
Rough Sleeping Initiative 2021-22
The Government are announcing a total of £203 million of funding through the Rough Sleeping Initiative 2021-22. I am pleased to tell colleagues that this is an 81% increase from the £112 million provided last year.
The Rough Sleeping Initiative, initially launched in March 2018, seeks to reduce the levels of rough sleeping by working with local authorities to provide specialist services, tailored to local circumstances, to help vulnerable people off the streets. To date the programme has been a success, with a 2018 impact evaluation finding that there was a 32% reduction in rough sleeping in areas which received the Rough Sleeping Initiative funding in 2018-19, compared to the number it would have been had the Rough Sleeping Initiative not been in place.
The Rough Sleeping Initiative 2021-22 will build on past successes, providing ongoing support to those who need it and a route into settled accommodation. This year, it will also provide additional resource to continue supporting work to protect people sleeping rough from the covid-19 pandemic.
This year’s Rough Sleeping Initiative has expanded to cover 281 local authorities in England, an increase from the 270 authorities funded in 2020-21. It will provide funding for 14,500 bed spaces and 2,700 full time equivalent staff to deliver interventions to support those on the street, as well as helping local authorities and other providers transition to longer term preventative support.
Saturday’s funding announcement is just one part of the £750 million that this Government will be spending this financial year on homelessness and rough sleeping, and demonstrates our continued commitment to end rough sleeping.
[HCWS34]
Safe To Be Me: A Global Equality Conference on LGBT Rights
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)
The UK is a global leader for equality at home and abroad, driven by a fierce belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to succeed at whatever they wish to do and to love whoever they want to love. We proudly support, defend and champion the rights of LGBT people all around the world.
Now, more than ever, is an important time for us to come together and build back a better world, one where all LGBT people feel safe.
That is why the UK Government will deliver their first ever global LGBT rights conference. “Safe To Be Me: A Global Equality Conference” will take place from 27 to 29 June 2022, marking the 50th anniversary of the first London Pride.
The conference will bring together countries, international civil society and businesses to improve the rights and freedoms of LGBT people around the world. We will address three key challenges: supporting decriminalisation and legislative reform to advance equality and legal protections for LGBT people globally, tackling violence and discrimination, and improving access to public services.
The event brings together two ongoing international commitments the UK holds: co-chair of the Equal Rights Coalition alongside Argentina from 2019-2022, and hosting the Council of Europe’s European LGBTI focal points network annual forum alongside Cyprus.
We will be organising a series of virtual events that bring together our key international partners, Starting with an event on 18 May 2021 to mark this year’s international day against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia (IDAHOT). The 2021 IDAHOT+ forum will be an important moment to discuss a range of important issues including LGBT-inclusive healthcare and business advocacy. It will also be the beginning of a year-long partnership with Cyprus, our friend in Europe and the Commonwealth.
Additionally, as co-chairs of the Equal Rights Coalition, the UK and Argentina will launch the first strategy of the Equal Rights Coalition, and its five-year implementation plan, at a virtual meeting in July this year. This comprehensive strategy will increase international action to advance freedom and defend the rights of LGBT people. We want to ensure that everyone can live their lives free from the discrimination and violence that persists today.
To drive this work the Prime Minister has appointed Lord Herbert of South Downs as his special envoy on LGBT rights. In this role, Lord Herbert will champion LGBT rights in the UK and abroad.
The Government are committed to ensuring that LGBT people can be safe and free to live their lives as they wish, here at home and supporting them around the world. These events will be the next important step to ensuring we build a world where it is truly “Safe to be me”.
[HCWS32]
Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
My Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now begin. Some Members are here in person and others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. I ask Members in the Room to respect social distancing. If the capacity of the Committee Room is exceeded or other safety requirements are breached, I shall immediately adjourn the Committee. The time limit for the first debate is one hour.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps and Local Authority Enforcement Powers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Bethell
That the Grand Committee do consider the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps and Local Authority Enforcement Powers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.
Relevant documents: 52nd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Session 2019–21, and 48th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, Session 2019–21 (special attention drawn to the instrument)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, we are here today to discuss the regulations allowing the move to step 2 of the coronavirus road map, a decision which not only allowed us to reclaim some normality in our lives but set the platform for today’s move to step 3. Getting to this point has taken remarkable perseverance and resolve; I am hugely grateful to everyone involved in getting us there. We are clearly not free of coronavirus yet and, while we have met the first four tests that have enabled the move to step 3, the disease still poses a clear and present threat.
The Prime Minister’s address last week clearly highlighted the threat from variants of concern and we must remain cautious and vigilant. We are putting in place measures to combat variants. The evidence so far suggests that the vaccine is effective. I am heartened to hear that teams deployed to Bolton over the weekend were well received and reported a positive atmosphere—a result of strong community engagement and an effective communications campaign conducted in the area. As the Prime Minister made clear on Friday, while we progress further along the road map today, we must continue to exercise caution and common sense because the choices we have to make in the coming days will have a profound effect on the road ahead.
It has been a year like no other but we are taking significant steps forward to regaining our freedom. It is this combination of the public’s dedication, our world-leading vaccine programme and the unrelenting hard work of our health and care workers that has allowed us cautiously to unlock the country.
The road map seeks a balance between our social and economic priorities and the need to save lives and avoid another surge in infections. The decisions to move to step 2 and 3 were both informed by the latest scientific evidence and based on the assessment that all four tests set out in the road map had been met.
The tests are as follows. First, the vaccine deployment must continue successfully. We continue to make great progress in vaccinating the most vulnerable, having offered a first dose to the nine priority cohorts, which included everyone aged over 50, front-line health and care staff, residents in care homes for the elderly and those deemed clinically vulnerable. As of 15 May, more than 36.5 million people have received their first dose of an approved vaccine and another 20.1 million have received their second dose. In total, a staggering 56.6 million Covid vaccine doses have now been administered in the UK.
On test 2, the evidence suggests that the vaccine continues to be effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths. Public Health England reports that the UK Covid-19 vaccination programme has so far prevented more than 12,000 deaths in those aged 60 and above. Furthermore, it is reported that 33,000 hospital admissions have been prevented in those aged 65 and older.
On test 3, we need to determine that infection rates do not risk a surge in hospital admissions, which could put undue pressure on the NHS. Currently, hospital admissions continue to fall and case rates among the over 60s are also declining. The NHS emergency alert level has been dropped from level 4 to level 3, mirroring how the NHS was operating in the summer of 2020.
On test 4, our assessment is that the risks have not fundamentally been changed by the variants of concern. We will continue to monitor variants closely as we ease restrictions and the Government will not hesitate to take firm action as necessary and where needed to protect lives and livelihoods. Having met these four tests on 12 April 2021, we were able to take the next cautious step in easing restrictions. Today we are debating this move to step 2, as set out in the regulations agreed by the House on 25 March. They were as follows.
The first was the reopening of non-essential retail, personal care and indoor leisure, including hairdressers and gyms, and additional outdoor settings, including the hospitality sector and attractions. Outdoor hospitality is no longer required to provide a substantial meal alongside the serving of alcohol, although there is the requirement for table service. As well as ordering via table service, if the venue sells alcohol, payment must be taken at the table or another outdoor location wherever possible. Further to this, the early closures imposed on pubs and restaurants were removed.
Step 2 also allowed the resumption of indoor childcare and supervised activities for children, provided they are not in private homes, and includes indoor sport, and parent and child groups of up to 15 people. It also allowed wedding ceremonies for up to 15 people, with wedding receptions permitted outdoors for up to 15 people in the form of a sit-down meal. This has changed again from today, with up to 30 people being able to attend weddings and other life events, and the capacity limit at funerals is removed. Furthermore, smaller outdoor events, such as fetes, literary fairs and fairgrounds can restart, as can the use of self-contained accommodation for single households or bubbles. Finally, social restrictions remain the same as those in place from 29 March, with the rule of six or two households allowed to mix outdoors only.
I thank the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for its crucial and tireless work in scrutinising all the secondary legislation that the Government bring forward, and I acknowledge the committee’s report on the wider steps regulations, which are amended by the regulations that we are debating today. I am pleased to say that we have already implemented responses to some of the issues the committee raises, through the regulations that we are debating today, and we have brought forward more amendments as part of the separate step 3 regulations.
It is unfortunate that there was a delay in debating these regulations. However, the content of each step received the prior approval of Parliament during the extensive debates on 25 March, and it was essential to bring these measures in quickly once it had been determined that the four tests had been met. As ever, no restrictions should be in place longer than is necessary, and it remains extremely important that decisions on the road map steps are informed by the latest evidence.
By way of closing, I just say this: as we journey through the road map we are making great progress but will maintain caution; we are not out of the woods yet. New variants are a risk—we remain in a global pandemic. Events in India show the heartbreaking and devastating impact this disease can cause. We must all remain vigilant; it is vital that people continue to follow the restrictions in place to minimise the risks to themselves and others—hands, face, space, fresh air and take up the offer of a vaccination as soon as it is offered.
We hope that the continued successes of the vaccination rollout, and our increased testing capabilities alongside falling infections and hospitalisations, will allow us to continue to lift restrictions. In light of the most recent data and advice from the Joint Biosecurity Centre, we have not only moved to steps 2 and 3 but the UK Chief Medical Officers and the NHS England national medical director were recently able to announce that the UK alert level should move from level 4 to level 3. This is another positive sign on the road to recovery. We must continue the cautious approach and be guided by the latest data and scientific evidence before moving to step 4. However, considering all that we have achieved to bring us to this point today, there is reason for cautious optimism. I commend these regulations to the House.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister. The debate takes place as we take the next step out of lockdown, but it also comes as concern rises about the impact of the Indian variant. Getting the balance right between getting back to normal as soon as possible and understandable caution about the risk of opening up too soon will always be an incredibly difficult judgment. But the Government’s record of vacillation and delay over key decisions does not inspire confidence, and the delay in placing India on the red list is at least questionable, given the rate of Covid cases in that country at the beginning of April.
The SAGE meeting on 13 May pointed to the multiple fast-growing clusters of the B16172 variant, most noticeably in the north-west of England, with transmission faster than that of the B117 variant most prevalent in the UK. SAGE concluded that it is a “realistic possibility” that the Indian variant is
“as much as 50% more transmissible”
and warned:
“In the areas where numbers of infections are increasing rapidly under the measures”
then
“in place, an even faster increase can be expected if measures are relaxed.”
Of course, today, they have been so relaxed. SAGE warned that if the Indian variant
“were to have a 40-50% transmission advantage nationally compared to B.1.1.7 … it is likely that progressing with step 3”—
which we are doing today—
“would lead to a substantial resurgence of hospitalisations.”
SAGE concluded:
“Progressing with both steps 3 and 4 at the earliest dates could lead to a much larger peak.”
It is therefore legitimate to ask the Minister why, in view of that, we are going ahead with step 3 today. What factors will be taken into account in respect of a decision to go ahead with step 4? What will the Government use as metrics to decide whether tougher restrictions need to be imposed nationally or locally? As we will not know until mid-June at the earliest the full impact of step 3 on hospitalisations and deaths, does the Minister agree that decisions on further steps out of lockdown must be considered after this information becomes available?
SAGE also pointed out that
“increasing regional vaccination in areas where it is prevalent could dampen growth in infections”.
Why do the Government seem to have been so slow to respond to health bodies in the north-west which wanted them to approve an emergency vaccination programme? The Minister may have seen reports today that health officials in Bolton have fast-tracked vaccination to residents as young as 17. What is the Government’s view on that?
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, these regulations were laid on 7 April. It is ironic that we are discussing them today, as we start moving to step 3. If they had been discussed earlier, the facts on 9 April might have been raised to help us keep all local areas safer. On 9 April, Bangladesh had the South African variant but not the Brazilian variant but was put on the travel red list. Pakistan had neither the South African nor the Brazilian variant on that day but was put on the red list. India had both the South African and Brazilian variants and the emerging Indian variant but was not put on the red list. On 9 April, cases per 100 million on a seven-day rolling average were 21 in Pakistan, which was put on the red list, and 43 in Bangladesh, which was put on the red list. India had 84 cases per million—four times as many as Pakistan—but was not put on the travel red list.
Why, with more cases per million and with both the Brazilian and South African variants present, and the emerging Indian variant, was India left off the red list on 9 April? If the Government had followed the data, it would have been put on the red list. However, the Government were following a date—24 April—so that the Prime Minister could go on a trade mission. Dates, not data, yet again, will cause problems for individuals, families and businesses. In the period between 9 April and putting India on the red list, 900 people a day entered the country—nearly 20,000 people. They could have been carrying the South African, Brazilian or new Indian variants.
One can only assume that this was yet another abject failure of government to act with speed and good judgment to secure the nation’s borders and keep people safer. When trade deal trips trump the public health and safety of individuals and businesses, you have to ask when a government Minister will take responsibility and resign. By not putting India on the red list and by following a date and not data, the Government have put businesses and individuals at risk of illness, death and bankruptcy. It is time now for an independent inquiry to learn lessons and to put in place secure border restrictions to ensure that people stay safe and what we see in Bolton is not replicated in any other community in this country.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his thorough introduction to these regulations. These amendments were necessary at the time, and therefore need approval, albeit retrospectively, as we go into step 3 of the journey. But journeys are rarely irreversible, and the road map may at some stage, at least in part, have to be reversed.
What analysis is being conducted of the effectiveness of the various regulations and restrictions so far? We cannot wait for the eventual inquiry to produce its results; we need to know now what has been effective and what has not.
Step 2 saw the opening of non-essential retail and gyms. Personally, I have always thought that gyms had to be a risk if the virus was around, but I would like to see some analysis of whether gyms have been responsible for carrying Covid. As the Minister knows, I really do not understand why non-essential retail could open and galleries and museums could not. Can we have some analysis of that? It would be useful, in case we have to return to level 2-type restrictions.
Can the Minister give us an indication of where the Government really stand on the importance of continuing to work from home if one can work from home? For instance, what guidance has been given to civil servants? It is important for our town centres that people return to the office. Are we really to wait until step 4 before that happens?
On travel, my understanding was that having an amber code for a lot of countries meant that those who wished to travel there and were prepared to quarantine on their return could do so. But we now hear the Foreign Secretary say that people should certainly not take holidays in amber-list countries. Understandably, the travel industry is unhappy about this and would like firm guidance on the Government’s position on foreign travel.
Finally, I read over the weekend that the Government are in talks with airport operators about how to deal with travellers coming in from red-list countries. Surely, at this stage, to be in talks with the authorities is fairly ridiculous. The stories from Heathrow about the intermingling of travellers are quite terrifying. Can the Minister give us some indication of when talks might turn into action?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.
Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, nothing I shall say to the Minister is addressed personally to him; he is not in charge of this.
On 21 April, a devastating report was published by the Hansard Society and the Constitution Unit about the marginalisation of the House of Commons under Covid. Although it was specific to the Commons, it applied to Parliament as a whole. Of the five ways in which powers have been undermined, I just want to deal with those in paragraph 2, headed “The erosion of parliamentary control: regulations”. It says:
“Over 400 Coronavirus-related Statutory Instruments … have been laid … All have been subject to little or no scrutiny, a situation described as ‘totally unsatisfactory’ by the Commons Speaker … An unusually high share of Covid SIs have been subject to the ‘made affirmative’ scrutiny procedure—meaning they became law before being scrutinised, and require only retrospective … approval”.
This is such an SI. The report continues:
“This mechanism, which severely undermines accountability, has been described as ‘addictive’”
by those who watch us. It goes on:
“The government’s casual approach to the scheduling of debates on SIs means they have often been in force for weeks before MPs could consider them … Frequent errors that need to be corrected, the lack of Impact Assessments, and discrepancies between law and guidance have all compounded scrutiny problems … for the wider public”.
This is such an SI, as it corrects errors in another: No. 364. As the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, it was made at 10.30 am on 9 April, laid before Parliament at 1 pm on 9 April and was in law on 12 April. It was debated in the Commons on 26 April for 24 minutes. People would have been lonely in the room because, as far as I can see, only two people spoke. On 17 May, it was in the Lords.
The preamble to this SI is essentially a two-fingered salute to Parliament. It is about time the Commons got off its knees, and the Lords should encourage it to do so. I shall develop this theme further on Thursday in the debate on Covid and the Lords.
Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]
My Lords, it is of great concern that we are moving today not to step 2 but to step 3 of the road map, while the more transmissible Indian variant is spreading—Professor Whitty expects it to become predominant in the UK. I make no apology for repeating the concerns of other noble Lords. While the vaccine will provide a high level of protection to those who have received it, unvaccinated people could now be at high risk of serious disease and the NHS again of being overwhelmed.
The Prime Minister finally put India on the red list on 19 April, a few days before he was due to fly to India to discuss the trade deal he so desperately needed after Brexit. Many commentators believe the two facts are linked. Will the Minister give a clear answer to the following questions about India?
Why was India not put on the red list on 2 April, at the point when it had the same level of incidence as Pakistan and Bangladesh? By 9 April, cases in India were four times higher than in Pakistan, yet the Government waited another 10 days to act. During those three weeks’ delay, around 20,000 people came here from amber-listed India. Do the Government know whether they all quarantined for 10 days, as required, and had the necessary tests?
When red-list powers were announced in mid-February, the Government said they could be implemented in hours. Why, then, did they wait four days before implementation, allowing 900 people per day to come in from India without red-list restrictions? Why, when travellers arrived from India, were they forced to mingle at immigration with hundreds of people coming in on flights from other countries? Why have the Government not insisted on dedicated arrival facilities for passengers arriving from red-list countries? What support is being given to those people arriving from India who find it difficult to quarantine?
Why have the Government not learned that the characteristics of variants of concern are not the only reason to put countries on the red list? The cases in India had been rising exponentially for weeks before 19 April. There were more than 100,000 cases a day in India on 5 April, and the cemeteries were overflowing. Why did the Government not act when that level of cases was being reported?
The BMA and several scientists are seriously concerned about the further lifting of restrictions while this highly transmissible variant is spreading. It is one of the Government’s own tests. In Scotland, the First Minister has postponed the easing of restrictions in the south of Glasgow and in Moray, where cases of the Indian variant are growing. Will the UK Government do the same?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who has made some extremely important points. I thank my noble friend for setting out the purport of these regulations, applaud his work ethic and say that what I shall say, just as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said, is no personal reflection on him.
These regulations are part of the road map setting the way out of lockdown, which I support; the approach is correct. I would like some reassurance from my noble friend. As we are out of the eye of the hurricane, it is about time we saw these regulations in advance of them becoming law. We are looking at these some 37 days after they became effective. Frankly, it is just not good enough. It is about time that we started to see these ahead of their becoming law rather than in the rear-view mirror, as has become the case. There may have been a time when that was justifiable, but that time has now passed.
I will take my noble friend up on some of what he said about the Indian variant. I am sure that we will look at this whole issue of why action seemed slow in relation to India when it was not so slow in relation to Pakistan and Bangladesh. It seems strange. Are flights still arriving from India in any way, as I have heard is the case? That might not be true. Could my noble friend also provide some reassurance about our border controls, which seem all too porous? People from countries where there is a known risk mingling with other travellers when they arrive is, frankly, amazing and needs to be stopped forthwith. I cannot understand why that is happening.
My noble friend the Minister spoke about action at the weekend in Bolton, which I certainly welcome. Could he tell us whether similar action has been taken elsewhere, in other communities where there is clearly a threat from this variant, such as Blackburn, Bedford and so on? Could he indicate where that is the case? If he is unable to provide a detailed list—there might be many areas that this applies to—perhaps he could undertake to write and put a copy in the Library.
In short, while the vaccine programme has been highly successful and the Government certainly deserve praise for it, it is not the sum total of what is happening. We have to look at the whole position. The position at our borders is worrying. The Minister himself said that one of the four tests, quite rightly, is whether there are variants of concern. He said that this test was being satisfied. He said later in his speech that new variants are a risk. Frankly, one of those statements has to be right; I suspect it is the latter. I would welcome the Minister taking that point up as well. I have these concerns and look forward to hearing from my noble friend on these points.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD) [V]
My Lords, as has been said, even by recent standards the timing of this debate is particularly ironic. On the very day that we move to step 3 of the easing of lockdown restrictions, here we are debating the move to step 2, which happened five weeks ago. To make matters worse, given the much more transmissible Indian variant, which the Health Secretary Matt Hancock said at the weekend could “spread like wildfire”, this easing now feels fraught with risk. I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, just said about the need for us to scrutinise regulations in advance.
The Indian variant has caused great anxiety in recent days. For many people it feels as if, just when the sunlit uplands were coming into view, they are being snatched away by a new variant when more efforts could and should have been taken to avoid it. The Sunday Times reported this weekend that at least 20,000 passengers who could have been infected with the new variant were allowed to enter the UK because the Prime Minister delayed imposing a travel ban from India. I add my voice to those of other noble Lords asking whether the Minister can explain why India was added to the red list only on 23 April, three weeks after the announcement of a ban on flights from Pakistan and Bangladesh, both of which had lower case rates than India.
The combination of moving up the steps and the Indian variant makes having an effective test, trace, isolate and support system ever more critical. I place particular emphasis on the last two words—isolate and support—which is where things are still breaking down. The major problem reported by local resilience forums is that people are still not self-isolating and will not until they get their income paid. It is those on zero-hours contracts, those doing jobs that you cannot do from home and families living in multigenerational households who need the support most. People do not want vouchers; they want their earnings reimbursed. Reimbursing earnings is substantially cheaper than running the test and trace functions and, if a serious case of Covid occurs, the cost to the NHS.
I end by asking what planning is under way for a third wave, especially for paediatric care, given that as more adults are vaccinated it is possible that a variant may affect much younger children than in previous waves. Both the USA and Canada are reporting much higher cases in children than before and are starting to vaccinate children in the 12 to 15 age range. What plans are being developed for vaccinating children in this country?
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, today signals a historic move in the Government’s approach to tackling the Covid-19 epidemic—a significant move away from detailed government regulation and restrictions; a return to personal responsibility; a renewed emphasis on individual choice; and an “up to you to decide” policy rather than the Government legislating over the intricate details of every aspect of social behaviour. While this is welcome to the population at large, to government and, in particular, to the libertarian instincts of many politicians—not least the Prime Minister—it raises a number of important questions for government.
Having decided to go ahead with a move to phase 3, the Government are in practice demonstrating their belief, driven by the evidence, that vaccination levels have now reached the point where we have decoupled the number of people in our country being infected with Covid-19, in particular variant B1617, from those who would require hospitalisation or become ill with long Covid, leaving those who, if infected, will have increased resistance and can be treated at home with improved medication to counter the illness. If the Government are absolutely satisfied that, yes, we have reached that point, we are right to take our foot off the restrictions and move to an era of personal responsibility. If not, this is the most serious risk the Government will have taken during the epidemic, and the scientific evidence they rely on will rapidly lose public confidence.
On the one hand, the evidence is strong that the time is right for phase 3. Since the winter peak, we have seen a reduction of 96% in those requiring hospitalisation. With test and trace, free lateral flow tests now available and improved medication, many will agree with the Government that the time is right. Yet, with variant B1617 potentially 40% to 50% more transmissible than the UK variant, step 3 could lead to a large resurgence of cases. Many scientists are arguing that we need more time to assess the impact this surge is having on transmissibility, infection and severity of illness.
However, my major concern today, shared by my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft and others, continues to be the transport policies: international travel and the mixed messages regarding holidays and business visits; the traffic light system; the time allowed for a massive influx of people from countries signalled to face future restrictions just days before they come into effect; and inadequate border control measures when they fly here. It is not surprising to learn that the mayor has today indicated that in London there were some 400 recent cases of the Indian variant, of which 100 were associated with travel.
I call on the Government to provide clearer and more effective travel policies, to review the policies they have set and to continue with clear restrictions on international travel. The weakest element of our overall policy since the first lockdown has been our travel policy. For all my strong support of the vaccination policy and the work the Government and my noble friend the Minister have done, especially this year, our policies on transport have been unclear, often poorly timed and, frankly, ineffective. We have encouraged tens of thousands of people back to this country on crowded flights after announcing impending travel bans.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, once again we meet to approve a statutory instrument that has already come into effect. As others have said, it relates to the easing of lockdown by moving from step 1 to step 2 on 12 April, but is being discussed in your Lordships’ House on the day England moves to step 3. Irony is not dead.
Can the Minister explain why the travel regulations, a 92-page document, were replaced and published last Friday evening to come into force today? We also had the amendment to shift us into step 3 published only on Saturday morning. Why was this done so last minute? The Prime Minister confirmed the move days before, and the amendment could have been ready to go. We say again: this is not a way to make the law or for Parliament to scrutinise it. On these Benches we have been asking for more than a year why there is not more planning about the publication and presentation to Parliament of these SIs.
I also note that the steps legislation is due to expire on 30 June. I ask the Minister now: what arrangements will be put in place in the event that the Government have to extend these regulations in light of the Indian variant beyond the end of June? With all the Minister’s rightful warnings about having to take action if needed, surely this is a clear case of being able to plan, publish and debate it earlier. I also ask the Minister about the following comments from the JSCI:
“The preamble to these Regulations contains a statutory proportionality statement in respect of the Steps Regulations but not in respect of the Enforcement Regulations.”
The department responded
“that no statement is required for the amendment of the Enforcement Regulations made by regulation 3, because it does not impose a restriction or requirement under section 45C(3)(c). The Committee believes there are arguments either way … the Committee notes the Department’s approach and accordingly reports regulation 3 for requiring elucidation, provided in the Department’s memorandum.”
Can the Minister comment and tell us when that elucidation will be available?
My noble friends Lady Tyler of Enfield, Lady Walmsley and Lord Scriven all asked why the Government have been so slow to add India to the red list. On these Benches we have raised the importance of controlling our borders effectively, first in January and February 2020, in relation to why the UK did not follow World Health Organization advice and enforce quarantine from countries with Covid. We saw the consequences of that with Covid coming in and spreading fast in our communities, causing the first lockdown. So, with a year’s experience, why did the Government not add India to the red list on 2 April when Pakistan and Bangladesh were added? Was it anything to do with the Prime Minister hoping to go to India and then having to cancel his trip at the very last minute? And why do we hear today on Radio 4’s “The World at One” that there is still no guidance for airports on passenger separation once landed and while queuing to go through the checks?
Tim Hawkins from the Manchester Airports Group said that it was still awaiting government guidance. He said that it would expect to put red-list countries into a separate process but there is an element of mixing at certain points at the moment. Last week we heard that Border Force was instructing people to get used to long queues as there would not be extra staff at the passport and Covid check desks. This is intolerable; because of government inertia, there is no guidance, no extra border staff, and people arriving from red list countries are still mixing with those from amber and green countries. That includes up to four flights a day from India into the UK. If the Indian variant is 50% more transmissible than the Kent variant, we risk rapid spread beyond those coming in from those red-list countries. Quarantining and self-isolation are vital to effective management of transmission and what the Prime Minister has called whack-a-mole.
Directors of public health and scientists from SAGE and alternative SAGE continue to ask for better support for people having to self-isolate. In particular, we on these Benches ask the Government to pay the earnings of those self-isolating, as happens in a number of other countries that achieve a much higher success rate of self-isolation. Local authorities report that the administration of the £500 grant has been so rule-bound it is almost impossible for people to claim it. That is not good enough, especially when the vast majority of people who really need it—who need to pay the rent and put food on the table—cannot manage 10 days without their regular pay cheque.
Finally, while it is encouraging to hear that tracing is now primarily in the hands of the experts in local resilience forums, can the Minister assure the Committee that they are being given explicit extra funding to be able to carry this out? Their roles are vital in controlling Covid because without effective test and trace, isolation and quarantining, this Government’s actions will not keep people safe.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
It is regrettable, as my noble friend Lord Rooker said with a certain amount of robustness, that yet again the House is being asked to retrospectively approve significant legislation that impacts on individual liberty, well-being and livelihoods, five whole weeks after it came into effect and after it was further amended, on the day when a new lifting of restrictions is taking place—I suppose we will get to discuss that some time in the next month.
The regulations state that
“the Secretary of State is of the opinion that, by reason of urgency, it is necessary to make this instrument without a draft having been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House”.
Nothing in the regulations or in what has been said by the Minister today justifies using the emergency procedure to introduce previously announced policy changes at the 11th hour. We are now well over a year into the pandemic and, while we encourage the Government to be proactive and driven by data, that does not prevent or exempt them from following parliamentary procedures. The Minister will be familiar with this repeated complaint.
The countrywide road map for lockdown lifting announced on 22 February advised that England would enter stage 2 on or after 12 April. This date was confirmed at a government press conference on 5 April, yet these regulations were not laid before Parliament until 9 April, coming into force three days later. While that is definitely an improvement on the three hours’ notice that we have had for some regulations in the past, there is simply no excuse for the Government’s continuing indifference to the importance of parliamentary scrutiny.
We have so many errors in the regulations given to us; that is another reason why they need to be subject to proper scrutiny before they become law. According to the Explanatory Memorandum, alongside the stage 2 easements the instrument also makes
“minor drafting changes to remove superfluous wording and to amend references”
in the original steps regulation. I am not sure that these are minor. The Minister will be aware that the JCSI report raised a number of serious concerns about these regulations: first, because of their unusual or unexpected use of enabling powers; secondly, because of defective drafting; thirdly, because they required elucidation; and, fourthly, because they failed to comply with proper legislative practice. Frankly, you would have thought that after a year the Government would have got used to all this, that they would be experts and certainly that they would not be making mistakes in the drafting of legislation.
That is quite a sad list of failures for one statutory instrument whose purpose is to see us safely opening society following lockdown. In one instance, the regulations are so unclear that the Joint Committee said that the law being laid down was unsatisfactory in terms of the rule of law. If a committee of legislative experts is unsure what is or is not meant by certain regulations and does not believe that they give sufficient certainty and clarity, how will the rest of us fare, and how can an average person expect to understand them? This is deeply unfair on those required to enforce the rules and on the businesses grappling to comply so that they can safely resume trading. I fully expect the Government’s use—or misuse—of the emergency procedure and the impact of defective drafting to be covered by the inquiry, but I sincerely hope that the Government will get a grip on this now, especially given the continued threat posed by new variants and the risk of a third wave, which many noble Lords mentioned.
Noble Lords will be well aware that the steps regulations have been further amended, with provisions to move England into stage 3 coming into force today. It is therefore important that the Minister addresses those changes, especially given the growing concern about the B16172 Indian variant in the UK and calls from leading experts to postpone the planned easements. I will not repeat the information given by other noble Lords, because that has been very well covered. However, can the Minister confirm how many people to date have been hospitalised with the Indian variant of concern and how many of those had been partially or fully vaccinated? Over the weekend, the Health Secretary suggested that many coronavirus in-patients in Bolton had not been vaccinated, despite being eligible. I would like the Minister to address how that is being tackled. He has already mentioned that, and I know that my honourable friend Yasmin Qureshi, the MP in Bolton, has been very active on this. Surge vaccinations have been introduced in many hot-spot areas, with some bringing forward second doses and others extending eligibility to younger age groups. Can the Minister confirm whether that is happening and what is the JCVI’s position on this?
It is clear that it was a mistake to delay adding India to the travel list and not to implement a comprehensive hotel quarantine policy. This morning, the Health Secretary, Mr Hancock, said that people should not travel to amber countries except for essential reasons and “certainly not” for a holiday, because of the risk of coronavirus. This is not what the regulations state. The Minister needs to confirm whether the regulations will be updated to reflect the Health Secretary’s comments or whether this is yet another case of the Government’s mixed messaging.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I am enormously grateful to noble Lords for their thoughtful, at times passionate, but at all moments detailed and challenging points. Rather than dwell on the regulations themselves, I will address the three key themes that have been raised in this important debate.
The first theme I will address is that raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and others on the presentation of the regulations themselves. I completely acknowledge the specific points made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I fully acknowledge the power of scrutiny, the consideration that noble Lords give to legislation and the benefits of that scrutiny, but I do not accept the implication of the noble Lord’s comments that there has in some way been a grand injustice or that these regulations have in any way undermined the power of the policy behind them.
I gently remind noble Lords of the immense complexity of the policy we are trying to apply in these regulations. They are extremely legally delicate and subject to judicial review. It is therefore quite reasonable that legal colleagues wish to spend as long as they possibly can getting them right. The environment in which they are drafted has been fast changing, as this debate has very clearly illustrated. They often require a very large amount of cross-government consensus and collaboration, which in itself brings in delays and a certain amount of complexity.
Given all those considerations, I pay tribute to the officials, the clerks and the legal support, who have done a heroic job tabling these regulations. It is of course up to the House of Lords itself to determine the sequencing of House business. I am afraid it is above my pay grade to comment on that, but when the inquest is finally done I think that the regulations will be a huge testimony to the thoughtfulness and effectiveness of our democratic processes. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, that the regulations are tweaked at the last minute to accommodate the changes in the situation we face. That is why they are sometimes laid at the last minute. I remind noble Lords that the House of Lords Constitution Committee is looking at processes around emergency legislation. My noble friend Lord True and I have given evidence to that committee. I very much look forward to its recommendations.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, asked about learning on the job, as it were, and what we are putting in place today for our future pandemic preparedness and to prepare for any potential third wave. I assure her, my noble friend Lord Moynihan and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, that we are doing a huge amount to put in place new systems, institutions and practices. The launches of the UK Health Security Agency and the office of health promotion have been brought forward to ensure that we have the institutional resilience to meet any future pandemics, and to bring the learnings from the handling of this epidemic in real time. They are already making huge strides in the institution-building and management systems necessary to upgrade our arrangements.
The investment in diagnostics is remarkable. Last week, I visited Leamington Spa, where I stood by a machine that could do 13,000 tests in one go. It reminded me of the days last March when we were struggling to do 1,300 tests in a day. In terms of our outbreak management, we have learned a huge amount from the success of Project Eagle in containing both the South African and Manaus variants, although the escape of the Indian variant demonstrates how a highly transmissible variant is something that even the best systems cannot fight.
To the noble Lord who asked about the stay-at-home protocols, I clarify that the guidance as of today is that people should continue to work from home wherever possible, but we look forward to a moment when we can have a general return to the offices.
We are looking at ways of dealing with new variants by potentially introducing booster shots in the autumn, introducing VoC vaccines through other providers and investing in therapeutics and antivirals. A huge amount of work is going into every level of our pandemic preparedness.
Let me tackle head-on the key issue of the India variant and our travel arrangements, which several noble Lords raised. On 8 April, we had the benefit of more surveillance, more genomic sequencing and more analysis of the infection rates in the UK than any other country. It is easy to imagine that all that data, which is so impressive to look at in retrospect, somehow gave a clear projection of what was going to happen, but at that date the India 2 variant with which we have now become so familiar had not been ascribed as a variant of concern. There were in fact three variants in India, all of which were competing with each other, none of which we had here in the UK—we therefore could not analyse them hands-on—and the anecdotal evidence from India was extremely unclear, whereas we had a lot more information on the presence of the South Africa and Manaus variants in the other neighbouring countries.
At that time, it was right that we invested in our red-list capacity, and I pay huge tribute to the officials managing the managed quarantine system, the airports and transport partners running an extremely efficient travel system, and the hotel and transport partners doing so much to ensure that the system for both red and amber-list countries is as good as possible. The red-list system has been an incredibly impressive mechanism for containing variant spread. It has grown dramatically since launch to contain a very large number of travellers each day. No other similar country has quite such an effective system in place. It continues to be an effective way in which we can maintain flights in and out of the country—something we are extremely reluctant to turn our backs on.
On ongoing travel, to clarify for my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft, it was not legal to travel until step 3 was brought in. It is now lawful, but it is not advised. Whatever was heard on the radio this morning, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that we are not in talks with airport operators—we have been in daily contact for many months, running a complex and detailed managed quarantine scheme, and I pay enormous tribute to both Heathrow and the Border Force for the incredibly impressive arrangements that they have in place. I say to my noble friend Lord Bourne that, yes, there are still direct flights to India and Pakistan. It is actually better to channel passengers from those countries in direct flights to avoid what has become known as the Maldives hop and to avoid mingling wherever possible.
My noble friend Lord Bourne asked about the VoC map, which is available on the department and the Sanger institute websites, and I would be glad to send a map.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I pay enormous tribute to those in Bolton who have done an enormous amount to upgrade the vaccination of local people there. I remind her that the priority is still very much to get the most vulnerable vaccinated—those who are older or with pre-existing morbidities. That is more important than getting young people, who are relatively low-risk with regard to the virus. The priority is to get those who have had a first jab and convert them into having a second jab, because it has emerged that, with the Indian variant, the second jab is all the more significant.
In conclusion, the good news is that the vaccine does seem to work. The Indian variant is highly transmissible, but the vaccine is protection for all people against severe illness and death. We should give thanks for that, but we are not counting our chickens quite yet and we remain extremely diligent and determined to contain any other variants that may come along. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
My Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now resume. 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. The time limit for this debate is one hour.
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Cash Searches: Code of Practice) Order 2021
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Williams of Trafford
That the Grand Committee do consider the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Cash Searches: Code of Practice) Order 2021.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, in moving this order, I shall also speak to the following draft instruments: the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Search, Seizure and Detention of Property: Code of Practice) Order; the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Cash Searches: Code of Practice) Order; the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Recovery of Listed Assets: Code of Practice) Regulations; the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigations: Code of Practice) Order; and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigative Powers of Prosecutors: Code of Practice) Order 2021.
The Government are taking wide-ranging action to crack down on crime and make our communities safer. One important part of that mission is our drive to stay one step ahead of criminals seeking to move, hide or use the proceeds of their illegal activities, and seeking to frustrate attempts by law enforcement agencies to recover them. The Criminal Finances Act 2017 was introduced to amend the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and significantly improve the UK’s ability to effectively trace and recover the proceeds of crime. The Criminal Finances Act has not been fully commenced in Northern Ireland. The reserved aspects of that Act—the counterterrorist financing and tax evasion provisions—were commenced, but the devolved provisions, primarily those pertaining to asset recovery, are outstanding.
Noble Lords may recall that the Assembly was dissolved during the passage of the Criminal Finances Bill, meaning that it was not possible to secure a legislative consent Motion. It was decided that the devolved provisions should remain in the Bill. At that time, we signalled our commitment to the central principles of the Sewel convention by openly stating before Parliament that we would not commence provisions on matters devolved to Northern Ireland without the appropriate consents having been obtained. Following the reconstitution of the Assembly, and in the absence of a mechanism to seek legislative consent in retrospect, the Justice Minister agreed that the outstanding powers should be commenced and—after engagement with the Northern Ireland Executive Committee and the Justice Committee and advising all Northern Ireland Assembly Members—asked the Home Secretary to commence the relevant provisions. We plan to commence the powers on 28 June this year.
I am pleased to introduce the draft instruments that we are debating, which form part of the package of legislation required to complete commencement. These draft instruments will each bring one of five distinct codes of practice into force. Each of the five codes of practice has been revised to reflect the extension of Criminal Finances Act powers to Northern Ireland. Some further minor amendments have also been made for clarity.
The first draft instrument brings into force a code of practice providing guidance for UK-wide agencies exercising reserved functions in Northern Ireland. That code governs powers of search, seizure and detention of property located in Northern Ireland to preserve it for confiscation. While it applies only to Northern Ireland, the code is issued by the Home Secretary because it relates to reserved bodies and their functions in Northern Ireland.
The four remaining instruments before the Committee bring into force revised codes of practice to provide guidance on search powers for recovering cash, powers to search personal assets, and investigatory powers. Three of the four remaining codes are issued by the Home Secretary and one is issued by the Attorney-General and Advocate-General for Northern Ireland specifically to provide guidance to prosecutors in the exercise of investigation powers.
The new powers that give rise to the revised codes of practice were debated extensively by both Houses during the passage of the Criminal Finances Bill. They are: the extension of various powers to officers of the Serious Fraud Office; a change to the definition of cash for the purposes of cash seizure and forfeiture powers to include gaming vouchers, fixed-value casino tokens and betting slips; the creation of new powers to seize, detain and forfeit certain personal assets; a broadening of the use of disclosure orders, which may now be sought in support of a money laundering investigation; and the introduction of unexplained wealth orders, which require certain persons to explain the origin and legitimacy of any assets that appear disproportionate to their known income.
Codes of practice must be revised, or new ones brought into force, when certain changes are made to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. That Act mandates that the Secretary of State must publish a draft, consider any representations made and modify the draft in the light of such representations, prior to laying revised codes. The draft codes of practice we are debating were subject to a nine-week public consultation spanning from the end of last year to the beginning of this year. Information on the consultation can be found in the Explanatory Memoranda that accompany the statutory instruments. Additional codes of practice have also been publicly consulted on and revised by the Northern Ireland Department of Justice.
To be clear, this debate does not concern the powers themselves. Rather, we are here to debate the codes that provide guidance about the use of those powers. The revisions that the Home Office and Attorney-General’s Office have made to the codes are technical and minor. The draft codes of practice largely replicate the published versions, as debated and approved by both Houses in 2017 and 2018.
The Proceeds of Crime Act and its subsequent amending legislation are complex. The codes of practice are therefore required to aid law enforcement officers’ understanding of the appropriate and proportionate way to utilise their powers. Additional record-keeping requirements imposed by the codes ensure that the public and judiciary can scrutinise the circumstances in which the powers are used, or are intended for use.
Certain powers governed by these codes of practice are intrusive; they may involve significant interference with individuals’ rights to privacy and peaceful enjoyment of their property. That is not to say they are not justified, but it is clearly right that we provide guidance on the exercise of those powers to safeguard against improper use. The codes of practice achieve this not only by clarifying the circumstances in which the powers may be exercised but by ensuring a consistent application of those powers. That is of vital importance given the broad range of law enforcement agencies to which the powers apply. When new powers are introduced the codes must be revised and scrutinised to ensure that the safeguards within are up to date. That is what these draft instruments and these debates provide.
These five draft instruments are necessary to deliver the Government’s objective to bring outstanding provisions of the Criminal Finances Act 2017 into force in Northern Ireland. We are determined to use every possible tool to trace and recover the proceeds of crime. The draft codes that we are debating ensure that those powers are used effectively, not only to deprive criminals of their ill-gotten gains but to help prevent further offending, therefore supporting our efforts to protect the public. I commend the instruments to the Committee.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these instruments, which stem from the Criminal Finances Act. The Minister will no doubt recall that I spent a fair bit of time trying to encourage more and faster steps during the passage of that Act. However, today’s instruments relate to the codes of practice for enforcement, and I wish to speak around that more generally rather than on the particular extension to Northern Ireland.
The codes are important because they give guidance on how officers exercise their functions, and are of interest to persons who may be the subject of the powers. While I have little sympathy for wrongdoers, functions must be exercised lawfully and proportionately. There may also be parties inadvertently dragged into scope. I therefore have no quarrel with the content of these instruments as such, but there are surrounding matters of interest and I am taking the opportunity of the time available for this debate to see whether the Minister can provide some more information.
My first point is that the code of practice will be of use only if it is backed up with a proper and robust training package by the NCA’s Proceeds of Crime Centre. The Home Office’s Asset Recovery Action Plan of July 2019 stated that the Government would conduct an independent review of the Proceeds of Crime Centre by March 2020. Earlier this month, the Government released a statement of progress on the economic crime plan, which states that this review has been completed and its recommendations are being implemented. The fact of that follow-up is good, one supposes, but the review has not actually been published and requests for its release under the Freedom of Information Act have been rejected. Therefore, it is not possible to know what the recommendations from the review that are being implemented are, what the background to those recommendations is or how effective they will be, because the information is not published. Given the centrality of the Proceeds of Crime Centre to ensuring effective training on the code of practice, will the Government make public that review and put a copy in the House of Lords Library? If that is not being done, can the Minister explain why not and what other information is available to Parliament?
My second point relates to the first: these powers will also be effective only if the UK has properly resourced financial investigators and law enforcement to investigate and prosecute for proceeds of crime. Again, there is an unpublished review, in Sir Craig Mackey’s independent review into law enforcement capabilities for tackling serious and organised crime and the cost of implementing the 2018 serious and organised crime strategy. The Government published the executive summary of Sir Craig’s review in March 2021, but that summary does not cover one of the key areas of the review’s terms of reference: the funding for law enforcement to tackle serious and organised crime. That is despite the fact that the review was specifically commissioned in 2019 in the context of the comprehensive spending review. Again, requests for the report or a summary of its recommendations on those matters to be released under the Freedom of Information Act have been rejected.
The Government have committed in their economic crime plan to develop a sustainable long-term resourcing model for economic crime reform. As part of that they have announced that they will introduce an economic crime levy, which they expect to bring in £100 million per year. The consultation closed in October last year and we are still waiting for its results. They have also made a one-year £63 million settlement with the Home Office to tackle economic crime, but the director-general of the NCA said in 2019 that the UK needed a £2.7 billion investment over three years in tackling serious and organised crime, which was estimated to cost the UK at least £37 billion a year. Without serious funding, these codes of practice will surely be used a lot less than they might be.
Will the full review be published? If not, why not? What further information will be given to Parliament? Without publication of the reviews, one is left to postulate that the content is embarrassing, but right now the embarrassment is in the extent of organised crime, and that ultimately it falls as a cost on society and the individual, yet the numbers indicate it should be possible to recover far more.
Finally, the code of practice lays out how law enforcement can use unexplained wealth orders, among other investigative tools. However, recent case law, the Baker judgment, has exposed significant gaps in the legislation for implementing unexplained wealth orders and exposed how, without greater protection against costs, law enforcers are unlikely to use these tools against wealthy, litigious kleptocrats, if at all. It has been suggested that there might be additional reforms, such as allowing production orders to be used before an account freezing order needs to be made. Is that reform something that the Government intend to pursue?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Dodds.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
My Lords, I begin by saying that I fully support the SIs that the Minister is proposing. I welcome her detailed explanation of the purpose of the regulations and that they will allow the full commencement of the Criminal Finances Act provisions in Northern Ireland at long last. This will unlock better outcomes against organised criminality, protect our economy and reduce harm in those communities that are particularly affected by organised crime gangs and paramilitarism, which has bedevilled many communities in the area that I had the great privilege to represent for many years in north Belfast.
The Criminal Finances Bill, as the Minister said, received Royal Assent back in April 2017 and has been fully commenced in England, Scotland and Wales. The fact that it has not been fully operational—the reserved matters have been, but the devolved issues have been disrupted and delayed by the previous suspension of devolution—is a matter of deep regret. We certainly saw the fall of this legislation, which proceeded in the other parts of the United Kingdom, as a major disadvantage to the collapse of devolution. It has led to a disparity in powers available to authorities in other regions of the United Kingdom in the fight against serious organised crime—and my goodness we need it in Northern Ireland perhaps more than anywhere else.
The Justice Minister in Northern Ireland has rightly said that she wants to see this introduced as quickly as possible, and there have been widespread calls, including from Members of the Assembly, for the commencement of the powers, particularly in relation to the new unexplained wealth order, account freezing and forfeiture provisions. We do not want Northern Ireland to have a weaker regime than other UK jurisdictions. It is therefore welcome news that these SIs have been laid.
It has been frustrating, as I say, but I hope that we can now look forward to the forces of law and order and the NCA having all the tools at their disposal to tackle organised crime gangs. As the Minister said, this will not just deal with those who have been directly engaged already but act as a severe deterrent to others. When I was an elected representative for north Belfast, time and again residents would ask me, “How is it that so-and-so around the corner is driving an extremely fancy car and is able to go on foreign holidays? We’re all here looking at this, we know what’s going on and the police seem powerless to act.” It was a severe problem and still is today.
The unexplained wealth orders in particular are extremely welcome and will go a long way to tackling paramilitarism and organised crime. When people do not see clear action taken in the face of obvious wrongdoing, it erodes confidence in law enforcement agencies’ ability to deal effectively with the problem. I hope that this will really give the police and others the tools they need.
There was a recent documentary on Northern Ireland television—I do not know whether it was shown on the mainland as well—about the Northern Bank robbery, one of the biggest bank robberies in the history of the UK, when £26 million was stolen by the Provisional IRA back in December 2004. Many millions of that money are still unaccounted for. People have been searching out how it has been used to finance all sorts of nefarious activity. It would be really good if some of these powers were used to track down that money and seize some of those assets from those who should not have them and are using them for nefarious purposes.
The extension of the National Crime Agency to Northern Ireland was, of course, resisted in the usual quarters, but it is playing a vital role in disrupting and dismantling organised criminality in our Province. Increasingly, protocols have been agreed with the PSNI to focus the National Crime Agency on major-impact disruption, and it is important that this does not lead to a diminution of activity towards smaller groups, particularly where the criminal finance element does not meet the threshold for some of the powers afforded by today’s code.
I believe that there is scope for the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland to examine the potential for a new assets-recovery agency, in line with the recommendations of the Independent Reporting Commission and the Policing Board, to better capture the economic harm and proceeds of crime held by paramilitaries. There is a need to continue to focus all the time on how we can increase the effectiveness and targeting of tools to enhance outcomes against these groups. If we cut off their finance, we will go a long way to putting them out of business. It is one of the greatest priorities we have in Northern Ireland. Make no mistake: some of these groups are still very active as crime gangs and drug gangs across Northern Ireland. I welcome the Northern Ireland Justice Minister’s intention to establish new offences of participating in and directing organised crime, as well as aggravated offences.
I very much welcome this very positive step forward. It is overdue, but at least come June we will be at the point where these powers are available in Northern Ireland. That is very good news indeed for the people of Northern Ireland.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the explanation of these instruments, all of which are important in the fight against crime and criminality, and to ensure that the ill-gotten gains from crime do not fuel further levels of criminality in our society. Like the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, I welcome these prescribed codes because they will enable the Minister for Justice in Northern Ireland and those involved in tackling crime and criminality, such as the National Crime Agency, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Assets Recovery Agency, which was subsumed into SOCA, to do their job more effectively. We are fed up of seeing these criminal gangs feeding off their ill-gotten gains at the expense, in many instances, of deeply marginalised and vulnerable communities, particularly in urban areas.
The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, referred to one of the greatest acts of criminality—the Northern Bank robbery, about which there was a documentary and a BBC Sounds drama in recent weeks. Two of the people abducted lived quite near me, and were my constituents when I was a Member of the other place and of the Northern Ireland Assembly. They vividly told me what happened to them on that night, when they were imprisoned in their own homes and the husband was taken away to the Northern Bank to participate in the robbery of his own place of employment. Like the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, I agree that these new codes of practice should be used to find out how and why that money was stolen, where it is being used, how it has been disbursed and in what ways it is strangulating our society in Northern Ireland.
All these instruments are very important for the recovery of cash obtained under illegal circumstances. I have already referred to Northern Ireland; that is my starting point and, I suppose, my end point. I note that the revised code is required due to the commencement of outstanding provisions in the Criminal Finances Act 2017 in Northern Ireland, which grants additional powers to law enforcement and prosecution agencies that are already available in England, Scotland and Wales. All these codes have been amended to reflect the commencement of new powers in Northern Ireland. The Minister for Justice has been looking for these enhanced powers, which could not have been enacted earlier because of the lack of functioning political structures in Northern Ireland for three years. Thankfully, those were reinstated in January last year with the launch of New Decade, New Approach.
While I support and underline the importance of these prescribed codes, I would like the Minister’s reassurances that they were subject to an equality impact assessment. If not, why not? Are they human rights compliant? As others have mentioned, it is important that the prescribed codes themselves, in their guidance and in the powers, are proportionate and that they reflect good human rights practices. I am also in absolutely no doubt that many communities in Northern Ireland, particularly in urban areas but also in rural areas, have been left in a perilous state because of the actions of paramilitaries and gangsters who have tried to escape these rules in order to pursue and perpetuate their ill-gotten gains. That, I believe, must be stopped.
The National Crime Agency and the Assets Recovery Agency have important powers that need to be used proportionately and assertively. The Serious Organised Crime Agency concentrated on international crime, which was and is important, but it changed the threshold for crime detection. As a result, many others involved in paramilitary activity and gangsterism in Northern Ireland have escaped the net. It is important that those issues are looked at.
While I agree with these rules, it is important that we look at this in the all-Ireland sphere, because many of the paramilitary operations, with their gangland assets and ill-gotten gains, operate on an all-Ireland basis. They also operate through drug trafficking. Many drug barons operate in the south of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. There needs to be a greater level of co-operation. What efforts can be made with the Irish Government to look at this as an all-Ireland operation to tackle such crime, using these prescribed codes?
I am very happy to support these instruments because I believe that we and the Government must have the intention and power to deal with drug trafficking, money laundering and bank robberies on an all-Ireland basis to free our communities from the danger of paramilitarism and racketeering.
Lord Paddick (LD) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining these statutory instruments. My noble friend Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted has raised important issues relating to the operation of the legislation more broadly, but as far as these SIs are concerned, the first relates to the code of practice covering cash searches under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which needed to be revised as a result of the powers extended by Section 22 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017. Although these new powers were brought into effect in Great Britain shortly after Royal Assent, as the noble Baroness explained, the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly in February 2017, until its reconstitution in January 2020, prevented the Home Office seeking the approval of the Northern Ireland Assembly to commence the relevant provisions of the 2017 Act in Northern Ireland. The Home Office has now secured that approval, hence this and the other four SIs.
Although this SI and the others being debated simply bring Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the United Kingdom, and there is a good reason why this was not possible before, there is one aspect of this first SI on which I seek further information from the Minister. The Explanatory Memorandum says that the codes of practice require
“an officer who is contemplating using the powers to consider the impact on the community in their use, balanced against the public interest and the benefit … the powers would add to the case.”
For me, who has no knowledge or experience of Northern Ireland, that still has particular resonance for Northern Ireland. Could the Minister explain further what the impact might be of the use of these powers in the light of the circumstances in Northern Ireland? Is there a potential for the use of these powers to be particular sensitive against the background of the Province? The noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, mentioned that there was a protocol between, I think, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the National Crime Agency. Is this further evidence of such sensitivity? The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, wondered whether there was a diversity impact assessment and a human rights assessment, again suggesting that there might be particular issues in Northern Ireland that are not as relevant to the rest of the United Kingdom.
The second SI relates to revised codes of practice relating to the investigative powers of prosecutors to cover unexplained wealth orders, interim freezing orders, disclosure orders, extending the powers of members of staff of the Serious Fraud Office, detained property and frozen funds investigations. These are again the result of the Criminal Finances Act 2017 amending powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. As with the other SIs, other than drafting changes and responses outside the scope of the SIs, there were no responses to the public consultation. In addition, I understand that the Home Office has invited representations from the Attorney-General’s Office, Her Majesty’s Treasury, the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland and the Scottish Government, in accordance with the Proceeds of Crime Act, and each organisation has confirmed that it is content.
The third SI relates to revised codes of practice for investigations concerning the use of general asset recovery investigation powers in Chapter 2 of Part 8 of the Proceeds of Crime Act, as amended by the Criminal Finances Act 2017, now that these provisions are being enacted in Northern Ireland. These are codes of practice for officers and other persons exercising their functions under POCA, as opposed to those for prosecutors contained in the second SI.
The fourth SI relates to the need for a revised code of practice in connection with the search, seizure and recovery of certain listed assets, such as precious metals and stones, watches, art works, vouchers and postage stamps, as opposed to the first, which relates to cash, gaming vouchers, fixed-value casino tokens and betting slips.
The fifth SI relates to a revised codes of practice in connection with the search, seizure and detention of property, such as cars, jewellery, electric goods and clothing, that is often of high value and can be easily moved, hidden or sold during a confiscation investigation following a criminal conviction. As with all these SIs, the need for the change is the result of the enactment of changes to the Proceeds of Crime Act made by the Criminal Finance Act 2017 that were delayed in Northern Ireland as a result of the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly. As a result, with the exception of the community impact concerns, we are content with the orders.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, as we have heard, these orders are being brought forward to reflect the extension of the Criminal Finances Act provisions to Northern Ireland. I say right at the start that I fully support the orders and welcome the fact that they are with us this afternoon.
I recall our extensive debates in the Chamber on the Criminal Finances Act. It is about tackling money laundering and terrorist finance, among other things, and being able today to bring forward these orders to apply to Northern Ireland is very welcome. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, that it was regrettable that the Assembly was suspended and we could not get them in place earlier, but now that it is up and running again, it is welcome that we are able to do so today.
I very much agree with the noble Lord that the measures will deal with criminality—that is really important—and act as a deterrent to others who are thinking of getting into criminality or paramilitarism. It is very important we are seen to give a strong lead there. I endorse the remarks of my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, in her support for these measures and what she hopes will be their positive effect. It is really important if they can help track down those funds from the Northern Bank robbery. I saw the documentary; I have not heard the stuff on BBC Sounds, but will have a look for it. It is important that we recognise what the money that was stolen there has been able to finance.
I do not know Northern Ireland as well as either the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, or the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, but I have been there many times and I have many friends who live in the Province. I think that it is absolutely right, no matter what community you come from, to look at the effect that this sort of activity will have on marginalised communities and on all communities, on their prospects. If we can stop people being dragged into this sort of behaviour in future, that is a really good thing, and all communities will benefit from that. I very much welcome that.
I also endorse the comments from my noble friend Lady Ritchie. It is important to work with the Government in the Republic as well, because there are cross-border issues there. That is a very important issue.
The order updates the codes of practice. I am aware that Naomi Long has asked for these powers to be extended; she actually asked for that in June 2020. My only regret is that we have not been able to do this sooner, which I suppose is because of the pandemic and everything that has been going on. The sooner we get these powers in place, the better.
I have a couple of questions, although nothing of any major significance, because many points have already been raised. It is very good to get the orders in place, as I say, but can the Minister confirm the reasons for delay, given that the request was made in June 2020—nearly a year ago now? Is the delay because of the pandemic? It is quite unusual to bring in legislation to be retrospectively consented, three years after the Bill became law. I know that that is because the Assembly was suspended; I am delighted that it is up and working now, and we hope that we never again get a situation when it is not up and running. It would be useful to understand that.
What is the Minister’s opinion about how the legislation works in the rest of the United Kingdom? It has been in place for three years now—has it been good? I have seen a number of reports of when unexplained wealth orders have been granted against individuals. Will the Minister tell us a little about what she thinks the effect of the law has been? What additional training and oversight has been put in place to help officers and others to ensure that they can actually enact this legislation and use the power that they have been granted properly and forcefully so it can have the effect that we all want it to have?
With that, I fully endorse the orders before us today and look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. So many questions were asked that I can hardly keep up with them.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, asked about training for law enforcement, which is a perfectly reasonable question, because of course the powers will apply to them. The powers will largely be exercised by asset recovery specialists, who require little to no additional training; this includes officers of the NCA and the Serious Fraud Office. Our operational partners have a strongly embedded practice of supporting one another in our asset recovery endeavours. That can involve referring all aspects of the case to other agencies with particular expertise to ensure maximum proceeds of crime are removed from the system.
Noble Lords may also be aware that accredited financial investigators, individuals who support the traditional law enforcement agencies to disrupt economic crime, are trained, accredited and closely monitored by the Proceeds of Crime Centre in the National Crime Agency. Accredited financial investigators are subject to continuous professional development requirements and have their accreditation reviewed every two years. To ensure that recruitment, retention and training of financial investigators is robust and effective, an independent review of the current training provided by the Proceeds of Crime Centre—or POCC—was commissioned. It was completed in 2020, and we are working with the NECC and wider stakeholders to develop a comprehensive plan for reform. That will ensure that the training offered to our financial investigators is among the best. To that end, we intend to have a multiagency approach to the reform of POCC, and progress will be overseen by the multiagency strategic asset recovery group of Ministers.
The noble Baroness is also right to make the point about resourcing; we understand those concerns and it is important that agencies have the required resources to implement the new powers, which is why a proportion of the proceeds of crime recovered by law enforcement agencies is reinvested into the system under the asset recovery incentivisation scheme. The more an agency recovers, the more it receives to be reinvested in law enforcement capability. It is also important to recognise that, although powers are necessary to keep pace with criminals’ ever-changing modus operandi, these new powers will not necessarily demand additional resource. For example, existing resource that may have been used exclusively to address criminal cash five or 10 years ago may now be better deployed across cash forfeitures and forfeiture of funds held in bank accounts.
The upcoming economic crime levy will also be used to drive reforms to the sustainable resourcing of economic crime and could be used to fund an uplift in financial investigative capacity. On the SOC review, it has always been our intention to publish its key recommendations and we did so on 16 March by releasing the executive summary. The full report will not be published because of its sensitivity, but we have made it available to the appropriate partners.
An impact assessment has not been prepared for the instruments because we have considered the overall impact of commencing the Criminal Finances Act in Northern Ireland rather than preparing separate assessments for each statutory instrument in this package. On what has delayed it, the EU exit statutory instruments —of which there were many—have to a large extent been impacting absolutely everything we have done for the last couple of years, so that is the answer.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, is right to ask how the Act is working; I think it is working well. The Criminal Finances Act has been vital in dealing with just the sort of people that the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, spoke about—those driving around in big cars and you wonder where the heck they ever got the money from; that is absolutely right. On the utility of the regulations in Northern Ireland, the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, asked whether we are going to bring in new legislation. Clearly, we will keep them under review, which is very important, and update legislation where necessary.
In Northern Ireland, civil recovery investigations enhanced by the use of unexplained wealth orders, where appropriate, could play an integral role in tackling organised criminality and, as the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, said, paramilitarism, which is a key priority for the law enforcement agencies represented under the Organised Crime Task Force and the Paramilitary Crime Taskforce. Indeed, the Independent Reporting Commission recommended that the powers in the Criminal Finances Act were commenced in Northern Ireland as an utmost priority. Stripping criminals who are linked to organised crime and paramilitarism of their proceeds of crime can prevent those engaged in criminal activity benefiting financially or materially. This, in turn, will discredit them and prevent funding of other illicit activities.
On the thresholds that the noble Lord asked about, noble Lords may recall that the Criminal Finances Bill originally specified that only property valued in excess of £100,000 could be the subject of an unexplained wealth order and that that was then lowered to £50,000 after the Government tabled an amendment following representations from the devolved Administrations that the value of property varies considerably depending on where it is held in the UK. Having a value threshold as a qualifying criterion is considered to be a necessary safeguard against what is essentially an intrusive investigatory power.
I underline the point that I made to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that the statistics demonstrate that the Proceeds of Crime Act powers are having a good impact. However, as I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, they are of course always kept under review.
I think I have answered all the points that noble Lords put to me and, with that, I beg to move.
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigative Powers of Prosecutors: Code of Practice) Order 2021
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
That the Grand Committee do consider the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigative Powers of Prosecutors: Code of Practice) Order 2021.
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigations: Code of Practice) Order 2021
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
That the Grand Committee do consider the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigations: Code of Practice) Order 2021.
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Recovery of Listed Assets: Code of Practice) Regulations 2021
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
That the Grand Committee do consider the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Recovery of Listed Assets: Code of Practice) Regulations 2021.
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Search, Seizure and Detention of Property: Code of Practice) (Northern Ireland) Order 2021
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
That the Grand Committee do consider the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Search, Seizure and Detention of Property: Code of Practice) (Northern Ireland) Order 2021.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)
My Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now resume. 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. The time limit for this debate is one hour.
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2021
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
That the Grand Committee do consider the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2021.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Order 2021, which was laid before the House on 25 March, be approved.
I am grateful for the advice provided by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which has helped to inform the order before the Committee. The proposed amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which I shall henceforth refer to simply as the 1971 Act, follows the ACMD’s self-commissioned advice published on 29 April last year about benzodiazepines.
The draft order before your Lordships relates specifically to three of those benzodiazepines: flualprazolam, flunitrazolam and norfludiazepam. Due to their potential harm and the evidence of the prevalence of these drugs in the UK, the ACMD recommended controlling all three substances under class C of the 1971 Act. The ACMD also concluded that these three benzodiazepines should be scheduled under Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 because, as confirmed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, they have no recognised medicinal use in the UK. This is the first proposed addition to control further benzodiazepines under the 1971 Act since the control of 16 benzodiazepines in May 2017, which are also controlled under Class C of the 1971 Act.
Benzodiazepines are associated with a high dependency rate and severe withdrawal symptoms from even short-term use. Furthermore, their combined use with other recreational drugs—in particular opioids and other central nervous system depressants—is associated with an increased risk of mortality and contributes to a significant number of drug-related deaths each year. Data provided by the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths showed that in England between 2006 and 2015, there were 5,740 benzodiazepine-related deaths. Of these, just under 4% recorded benzodiazepines as the only compounds implicated in the cause of death, which may indicate the frequency with which they are associated with polydrug use.
I can provide some further background on the three benzodiazepines covered by this order. The first is flualprazolam. The ACMD’s report states that as of March 2020, there have been 12 flualprazolam-associated deaths in the UK recorded by regional statistical agencies. It also states that the European Monitoring Centre for Drug and Drug Addiction issued a report on flualprazolam in March 2019. This detailed deaths with confirmed exposure to the compound in 24 reported cases in Sweden and two in Finland. In eight of these cases, flualprazolam was cited as a contributory or possible contributory factor.
I move on to flunitrazolam. It is likely that the potency of flunitrazolam is greater than that of the already highly potent flunitrazepam, or Rohypnol, which is controlled as a class C drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. A small number of seizures were made at the UK border between October 2014 and 2019. The ACMD report highlighted that small-scale seizures of a mixture of tablets and powder had also been notified in Germany in 2016 and Denmark in 2017.
I move now to norfludiazepam, which has been identified in the UK twice, both in 2017: once from a police seizure and once by the drug identification provider TICTAC. Small-scale seizures also took place in Germany in 2016, Sweden in 2017 and Norway in 2018. There has also been anecdotal reporting of the use or purchase of norfludiazepam by PostScript 360, a charity that provides treatment for withdrawal from benzodiazepines.
As well as the recommendation for control under the 1971 Act, the ACMD also recommended that the three benzodiazepines be placed in Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 and part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs (Designation) (England, Wales and Scotland) Order 2015, as these drugs have no known medicinal use in the UK. Subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament of this draft order, it is intended that a further statutory instrument, subject to the negative resolution procedure, will come into force at the same time as this order, being 28 days after the date the Order in Council is made. This further instrument would make the amendments to the 2001 regulations and the 2015 order.
Parliament’s approval of this order to control flualprazolam, norfludiazepam and flunitrazolam under class C of the 1971 Act, and the scheduling of these under Schedule 1 to the 2001 regulations, as per the recommendations of the ACMD, would make it unlawful to possess, supply, produce, import or export these drugs except under a Home Office licence for research. The maximum sentence for possession of a class C drug is up to two years in prison, an unlimited fine or both, while for supply it is up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both.
We know that illegal drugs ruin lives and have a corrosive effect on society. It is clear from the advice we have received that these benzodiazepines can cause serious harm, and that is why we are taking this action. I hope I have made the case to control them, even though I have not managed to pronounce them very well, and I commend the order to the Committee.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, I support this measure and congratulate the Minister on her very clear explanation of the reasons for it, and on her pronunciation, which I will not attempt to follow.
I am pleased to see that the Government have accepted the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs on this matter. As has just been stated, the arguments in favour of it are straightforward in relation to the potential of these compounds to cause harm, the evidence of their prevalence in the UK and the absence of any clinical need for them. Benzodiazepines all have similar effects, but some—including, the evidence suggests, some of these—are more powerful and addictive than others. There are already more than enough licensed for clinical use and there is no clinical need for more.
As the Minister knows, I shall also take the opportunity as the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence to draw attention to the scale and severity of this problem in the UK. These three drugs are obviously very relevant to that matter. In 2018, 11.5 million adults had one or more prescriptions for drugs that can create dependence. Research suggests that at least half experience withdrawal symptoms but only 3% of the population have access to withdrawal services. It is likely that these figures are now higher following the pandemic.
There are large financial as well as personal costs involved. Overprescribing—that is, unnecessary prescribing —of these drugs is estimated to cost between £320 and £642 million annually, and the costs and problems associated with withdrawal probably make that figure much higher. Of course, the personal misery is unmeasurable.
I acknowledge the work of the chief pharmacist Keith Ridge and his team, who are overseeing implementation of the Public Health England recommendations on prescribed drug dependence, but this is going very slowly. We need more urgent and timely action from the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England given the millions who are taking benzodiazepines and other drugs of dependence beyond what is clinically necessary.
I understand the time and cost it will take to set up new services but recognise that it would be quick and relatively inexpensive to set up the helpline we have recommended. This will benefit patients and clinicians alike and, at last, begin the process of putting appropriate services into place. Will the Government set up the helpline in the near future?
In conclusion, I very much welcome this measure but also note that millions of people are suffering and millions of pounds are being wasted. It is time that the Government acted decisively to stop this. I know that these issues are not the Minister’s responsibility but I would be very interested in her comments and in her addressing these concerns to the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it has taken some time for some very simple action to be taken on benzodiazepines. I first recommended this action in 2003 in the House of Commons and was ignored. I do not want to take issue with the Minister—I hope she does not feel that I am—but there is a concept which she and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, raised, which I want to disagree with. It is about the unintended consequences of it, and it is not nit-picking, because of where the logic comes from.
Part of the justification for the proposal to the Committee—I entirely endorse the merits of agreeing it today—was that these three benzodiazepines have no identifiable health benefit. That rather misses the point, because even if they had a health benefit, the use of benzodiazepines in the illicit-drug-using and problematic-drug-using communities is prodigious. It can of course take place elsewhere, and there is a huge market for the resale of prescribed drugs; the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, alluded to that. That same market is particularly problematic when it comes to problematic users, by which I mean users whose drug dependency is such that it dominates their entire life and leads them into forms of behaviour that damage others. That is distinct from those who suffer misery by themselves in their own home, which can be through illegal drugs but which is far more often through the misuse of prescribed drugs. That latter category of people do not tend to buy the drugs illegally; they simply get them through perfectly legal prescriptions. However, there is a huge market in the sale of all products, some of which are obtained technically illegally—they are prescribed and then sold on—while others are in the entirely legal market, such as these three particular benzodiazepines.
Part of the dilemma we have and part of the weakness in the system in this country is that the ACMD logic still ties in with what criminal justice sees—and criminal justice still has a tendency not to want too many things to have to regulate and criminalise, because it means more work—as well as with health, and particularly public health, which has had an obsession with the perceived positive benefits of a cocktail of drugs, defined as one drug being used to counteract another drug. That is precisely the kind of use that drug addicts have for benzodiazepines. In my experience, I do not know anyone who has a heroin addiction, for example, who does not also use benzodiazepines. The two go together, although not usually literally together. So the public health input has often been to say, “Things are better out there, because it will help people’s health”. I think that is fundamentally wrong.
Our inability to get on top of drug treatment in this country is partly because criminal justice takes too much of a lead in this. That is not the Minister’s fault, although it is her problem, because she then has a responsibility. I happen to be Lord Mann, of Holbeck Moor in the City of Leeds, and I hope that the Minister will at some stage—I would be happy to accompany her—look at the managed prostitution red light district on Holbeck Moor. It is a health disaster and catastrophe and very unpopular with members of the local community, as I know from listening to them. I in no way purport to represent them; that is for the far more illustrious Members of the Commons. However, the notion of a managed red light district is precisely the kind of problem that has led to so much time being taken to make benzodiazepines illegal.
The Minister is right to bring this forward, but I think we need to knock heads together more, particularly in public health, which is silent too often. It is precisely why usually primary care, although it can be hospitals, has been allowed to overprescribe things that are actually a danger, either through overuse by the individual or misuse by others who get hold of them, sometimes by purchasing them. Benzodiazepines really fit that model in terms of the kinds of markets that are there.
I commend the Minister for this, but there is a great opportunity for this Government to take a leap forward in getting the public health agenda aligned with the criminal justice agenda. For all sorts of reasons, the Government are well positioned to do this in ways that other Governments were more fearful of. I hope that the Minister will look at that. It is not enough simply to make this illegal, because the same people will still be buying it, whether it is legal or illegal. We also need to try to get to the root causes and look at how health does or does not deal with it, and then the country will literally be a healthier place.
Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, this SI has been prepared by the Home Office, and this instrument brings three benzodiazepines—forgive me if I cannot pronounce them, but I can send the details—under control as class C drugs under Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, owing to their potential harm and evidence of the prevalence of these drugs in the UK. This order controls these three compounds as class C drugs under the 1971 Act, following advice from the ACMD published on 29 April 2020, owing to the potential for these compounds to create harm and evidence of these drugs in the UK. The Home Office will issue a circular with legislative guidance primarily for the police and courts. The Government will continue to update their messaging on the harms of these substances, including through their information and advisory service online.
Can the Minister explain what fines and prison sentences will be given to individuals who breach these orders?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)
I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. Lord Paddick?
Lord Paddick (LD) [V]
My Lords, I have to get used to Grand Committee not being able to unmute me and having to do it myself, unlike in the Chamber. However, we shall go now.
I thank the Minister for introducing this order, which brings three benzodiazepines under part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Misuse of Drugs Act, owing to their potential harm and prevalence in the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, quite rightly highlighted the issues associated with similar drugs that are legally overprescribed. As the noble Baroness mentioned, these drugs are related to Rohypnol, the so-called date rape drug, and to Xanax and Valium—well-known anti-anxiety drugs that are highly addictive, or, as the Minister called it, resulting in high dependency. In addition to their potential use to sedate victims by perpetrators of sexual offences, they are respiratory suppressants that can lead to the shutting down of the respiratory system and death, particularly if taken in conjunction with alcohol or similar drugs.
Of course, we on these Benches take a harm-reduction approach to the misuse of drugs, and the fact that one of these drugs has resulted in 12 deaths in the UK is of concern. Can the Minister give any more details of the circumstances of these deaths? Were they people with mental health issues who were self-medicating? Were they people who had taken these drugs in combination with other drugs or alcohol recreationally? Or were they drugged by others?
I ask these questions as there are concerns that the lack of mental health services for those suffering from anxiety and the extended waiting times for people to receive treatment, together with the stigma of suffering from poor mental health, may be driving people to seek substances such as these as a means of immediate relief from their symptoms, without seeking professional medical help. Pushing people into seeking drugs where there is little or no quality control and where the amount of active ingredient contained in each pill can vary enormously can lead to accidental overdose, with disastrous consequences.
Can the Minister point to any research that demonstrates the efficacy of moving psychoactive substances such as these from being covered by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 into being included as class C drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971? How less likely are people to take these drugs as a result of this sort of order? Does the Minister not agree that, as far as most young people in particular are concerned, it makes little difference whether a drug is illegal under the Psychoactive Substances Act or the Misuse of Drugs Act, and that even the classification of the drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act has little impact on the attitudes of those who misuse drugs towards different substances?
Is it not time for an overhaul of the whole approach to the misuse of drugs, adopting a health-based, harm reduction approach based on educating people, particularly the young, as to the effects and dangers of different drugs, rather than an emphasis of police and other criminal justice system resources on criminalising the misuse of drugs that often have only a minimal effect? Diverting resources away from the so-called war on drugs and into effective mental health provision to reduce reliance on drugs, into drug treatment for those addicted, and into education on the effects and dangers of drugs misuse would be a far more effective way of dealing with the issues that this order is intended to deal with.
Is this order no more than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic that is the drugs-misuse crisis in the UK? The Government’s failure to have any lasting impact on the supply side of the illegal drugs market surely suggests that the focus should now shift to the demand side, reducing the demand for controlled drugs through adequate mental health provision, education and treatment of addiction. We do not oppose the order, we just ask: what evidence is there that it will be of any benefit?
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I am very happy to support the order, which, as we have heard, is in response to advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Clearly, where drugs cause harm, they must be classified and action taken. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, these drugs combined with alcohol can prove fatal in many cases because of the effect they have on the body, and can often lead to suicide.
I recall that when my noble friend Lord Mann was in the other place, he did a lot of good work on the issue of drugs in his constituency and many times spoke up about it. To tackle this, it is no good us just adding more drugs to lists, saying that this cannot be done here or that is criminalised there; there must also be the preventive approach, which the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, talked about. We must have both: legislation that says that if you take, sell or use these drugs, those are criminal offences, and, at the same time, a health approach so that people understand. There is an absolute drugs crisis, as my noble friend said, with people taking these drugs with other substances. Unless we can provide people with the support they need to get off drugs, we will not deal with the problem, as with any addiction.
I hope the noble Baroness can respond on that. Does she have any information on what has happened to drug treatment services during the pandemic? What support have we been able to give to people who find themselves in difficulty? The Health and Social Care Select Committee found that funding for treatment had fallen 30% in the three years up to 2019. We must reverse that cut and increase funding. We can say that whatever we like is illegal, but unless we have in place the process to get people off the substances, we will struggle. We have all seen the corrosive effect on individuals, their families and communities—the damage done to them by drugs. As my noble friend Lord Mann said, these are often prescription drugs that are then sold on to other people, but drugs are corrosive.
I will leave it there. I fully support the order but, as many noble Lords have said, there must be another prong to our attack on this process, and that is the health-based proposals many of them talked about.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It is worth stating at the outset that there are benzodiazepine medicines which can be prescribed by clinicians and have specific uses, but today’s focus is on illicit benzodiazepines.
As the noble Lords, Lord Mann and Lord Crisp, said, this is often about polydrug use. These tend to be drugs used not just in isolation, and deaths tend to occur when polydrug use is being practised. I totally take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, that the criminal justice system approach to drugs must be aligned to public health. When people have got themselves into illicit drug use, you do not want to criminalise them; you want to get them off the drugs that they are on.
The noble Lord, Lord Mann, made quite an interesting point about managed red light districts not working. I can think of a clear analogy: drug consumption rooms do not work. They are illegal. They exist in Scotland, but they do not work.
The point by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, about support for those dependent on prescribed medicine is an important one. There is the Talk to FRANK website, which everyone will have heard about. I know that NHS England and NHS Improvement are leading a programme of work in response to the recommendations in Public Health England’s Dependence and Withdrawal Associated With Some Prescribed Medicines: An Evidence Review. The recommendation for a time-limited dedicated national helpline and website has been carefully considered as part of this work. They are also drafting a commissioning framework to help commissioners to optimise the prescribing of dependence-forming medicines, as well as providing support to patients experiencing dependence on prescribed drugs and symptoms of withdrawal. That framework is expected to be published later this year.
Anyone who develops a problem of dependence on medicines should seek help from their GP in the first instance. They might choose to go to a different GP from the one who prescribed the medication, if indeed the medication was prescribed.
The latest prescribing statistics I have are from the ACMD’s 2020 report, which states:
“Prescribing of benzodiazepines by General Practitioners in the UK has been discouraged and has fallen progressively in recent years … from 16.3 million in 2015-16 to 14.9 million in 2018-19”—
that is still huge. It goes on:
“In 2017-18, there were 1.4 million adults in England and Wales who received one or more benzodiazepine prescriptions.”
Public Health England undertook an evidence review of prescribed medicines, which was published in 2019. It concluded:
“Longer-term prescribing is widespread.”
The review covered adults and five classes of medicines, including benzodiazepines, Z-drugs, gabapentinoids, opioids for non-cancer pain and anti-depressants, and some 41 recommendations came out of that.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, talked about education. He is absolutely right: education is vital. He asked about reform of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We keep drug controls under review but do not intend to reform the laws on drugs at this point in time. Drug legislation is part of the Government’s wider approach to preventing drug misuse, and education in schools is key to promoting healthy living, treatment and recovery and stopping the supply of certain drugs.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, also asked me about the specifics of each case where there was death. I do not have the specifics to hand but, as I said in my opening speech, benzodiazepines are often taken with other drugs and alcohol. With that, I finish and beg to move this statutory instrument.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)
That completes the business before the Grand Committee this afternoon. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.
House of Lords
Introduction: Baroness Black of Strome
Arrangement of Business
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now begin. Some Members are here in the Chamber, 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.
Official Development Assistance: Landmine Clearance
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Northover
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether their financial support for landmine clearance will be reduced as a result of the overall reduction in Official Development Assistance.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, we have prioritised our aid to be more strategic and remain a force for good across the world. On landmine clearance, this will mean a reduction in financial support compared to the previous financial year. However, we remain a leading donor in the sector. The United Kingdom’s demining work will continue to save lives, limbs and livelihoods across the world, supporting those most in need and, importantly, delivering on our treaty commitments.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I am sure the Minister will note that the first Oral Question of this Session is on the cut to ODA, something which is not in keeping with the aims of the integrated review and which is opposed on all sides of both Houses. Does he agree that clearing landmines is essential for development and for meeting the STGs? One of the countries most affected is Angola, where Princess Diana brought the issue to the world. Will the Government maintain their support there, and elsewhere?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, first, I welcome the Lord Speaker to his new role. This is the first Question that I am answering with the new Lord Speaker on the Woolsack and I am sure I speak for the whole House in wishing him well for this Session. The noble Baroness rightly raises the important work of demining, particularly in the context of the integrated review. It very much remains a priority. She specifically mentioned Angola. UK funding is key in supporting the Angolan Government’s demining strategy and we have seen success already, including the clearance of landmines in an area constituting about 3,700 football pitches and life-saving education being delivered to more than 86,000 people. Angola will continue to be a country of focus.
Baroness Goudie (Lab) [V]
Can this issue be on the table for the G7, the G20 and COP 26, because landmines are everywhere? We see that they are going to be left in Gaza. We know that in other areas, such as Yemen and Syria, when people do the clear up, they find more landmines. Although there is the protocol, we must ensure that landmines are no longer allowed to be used in any dispute or any war. We absolutely have to ensure this. Can we have an undertaking that this can be put on the agenda?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, what I can say to the noble Baroness is that we will continue to focus on this important work. We have seen the importance of leadership in this respect. The UK will use our commitment, and the presidency of the 2008 cluster munitions convention, as an opportunity to bring more focus and more support to this important priority.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
I am certain the Minister will agree that we are the world leaders in landmine clearance. Does he also agree that the soft power and good will that we build with countries where we show such leadership manifests in trade benefits? This is therefore a huge own goal if it is not reversed.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, notwithstanding the reduction, I agree with the noble Lord that we remain among the leading donors, but we recognise the large gap between donor funding and the resources required. We are now investing in research into innovative financing options—for example, exploring the use of social impact bonds and public/private partnerships—to meet that funding gap. I assure the noble Lord that it remains an important focus, not just in soft power but because we save lives by the investments we make.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, conflict and its legacy, such as landmines, disproportionately affects women and girls. Cutting support to these and other programmes is undeniably going to make life harder for women and girls around the world. While full impact assessments of the cuts were not carried out, there was an equalities impact assessment. Will my noble friend the Minister commit to publishing this, in line with the Equality Act 2010?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is quite right that an overall assessment was done. I will take the specific requirement to publish back to the department. It is certainly our intention to ensure full transparency when it comes to this issue.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD) [V]
My Lords, as Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, while in Kiev, announced funding for mine clearance in Ukraine. As Prime Minister, last year, he decried giving as much aid to Zambia as Ukraine—the latter being vital for European security, he said. Now, contrary to the integrated review’s humanitarian causes and security priorities, the Government are cutting their support in this area. The Minister has said “priority” three times in his responses to this Question. What are the priorities and are any priorities safe from any cuts?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the broader issue of ODA, the noble Lord will be aware of the seven areas prioritised by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. The noble Lord also mentioned Ukraine, and, again, our work there has cleared more than 1.5 million square metres, the equivalent—I am using football analogies today— of 210 football pitches, and educated people as well. While there have been reductions—I was very upfront in my original Answer—we are focused on continuing our work in this important area, as one of the world’s leading donors.
Baroness D'Souza (CB) [V]
My Lords, echoing the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, there appears as yet to be no published information on the impact assessment of the reduction of ODA programme funding. Will the cuts affect priority projects, such as HMG’s announcement at the G7 Foreign Ministers’ gathering last week to provide education for an additional 40 million girls? Furthermore, as has already been mentioned, does the fact that no legislation was brought forward in the Queen’s Speech to reduce the statutory commitment of 0.7% of GNI to 0.5%, resulting in an approximate £4 billion loss, indicate that HMG are having second thoughts?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the issue of legislation, as I have said before from the Dispatch Box, we remain fully aware and cognisant of our obligations both under law and to this House. Let me assure the noble Baroness that we remain committed to £400 million of funding for girls’ education, and we look forward, with Kenya, to hosting the global education summit in July this year.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, let us come back to the original question by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. The UNDP argues that landmine clearance is a multiplier. These cuts are going to have a huge impact beyond simply removing landmines. They are going to affect economic activity in countries that are the priority of this Government. Can the Minister tell us what impact assessment this Government have made of these cuts on their own priorities, and when they will publish it?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I have already alluded to the importance of transparency in our decisions, and I assure noble Lords that in all the decisions that have been taken across the board in the reduction—I have never shied away from the fact that it is a reduction—in our overseas development assistance, we have applied the criteria quite specifically but also looked at programmes to ensure their continuity and, importantly, scaling up as the economic conditions will allow for.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as set out in the register as an ambassador for the HALO Trust, whose activities include essential mine clearance in Afghanistan and other countries. The United Kingdom aid budget has been cut by one-third, whereas HALO support from the United Kingdom Government has been cut by two-thirds. Why?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, as I said in my Answer, we have made reductions, which I have not shied away from. But with the HALO Trust, among other key partners, we have an important relationship, and we continue to work with the HALO Trust quite specifically. Overall, as we have assessed over a four-year period, we will be spending over £146 million in this area, including over £21 million this year.
Lord St John of Bletso (CB)
My Lords, with more and more dependence on agriculture and sustainable food supply in southern Africa, can the Minister give an assurance that the UK will continue to support not just landmine clearance but landmine prevention?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I can give the noble Lord that assurance, and that is why we need to ensure all international conventions are signed up to by other countries. But also, importantly, in country, it is not just about the clearance but about the education, so that once the countries are back on their feet and able to sustain their own position, they are able to ensure the prioritisation of keeping land clear of mines as something that they give specific focus to.
Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I should make it clear that I attended the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, and I have also observed the clearance of cluster bombs and ammunitions in south Lebanon, where I saw the teams working first-hand. The consequence of the Government’s reduction in funding is that land will no longer be useable by villagers, and children and women, particularly, will have their legs burned off or be killed because they cannot farm and cannot go out and collect water. Surely it is a monumental tragedy when we are cutting the money when, otherwise, we would be saving more lives. How can the Government go on with this?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I appreciate the noble Lord’s personal insights into the experiences, and I have certainly seen the value of our demining work across the world. But these are challenging circumstances; noble Lords are fully aware of the challenges we faced on the domestic front. However, that is why we are investing in research, including, as I said earlier in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, on scoping new ways of working to ensure that we can identify where the gaps are and then plug those gaps, including through innovative financial mechanisms. The research of those particular programmes will be completed in May, and I look forward to engaging with noble Lords in that respect.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the second Oral Question.
Eating Disorder Services: Referrals
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Bull
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the change in referrals to eating disorder services since April 2020.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, eating disorders are serious, life-threatening conditions. We recognise eating disorder services are facing increased demand from children and young people, with 719 urgent cases starting treatment in the fourth quarter of 2020-21. That is why we made £10.2 million of additional funding available to mental health charities, including those that address anorexia, at the beginning of the pandemic, we convened a cross-government ministerial group to publish a mental health recovery plan and we are holding a ministerial round table on eating disorders.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, Q4 data on waiting times released last week showed, as the Minister said, 719 patients starting treatment for urgent cases of eating disorders, but this compares to 353 at this time last year. At this point in 2020, 18 people awaited urgent treatment, and 543 awaited routine treatment; those numbers are now 130 and 1,404. While much has been said about the pandemic’s role in driving this spike, most studies into young people’s mental health over the last year were not designed to detect eating disorders so, beyond anecdote, the reason for this increase, and therefore the best way to address it, is not clear. What will Government do to better understand this sharp increase? Does it represent broader and lasting behavioural changes among young people? Will the Government closely monitor the impact of their obesity strategy on referral rates, given that some of the planned measures—calorie labelling on menus, for instance—are shown to exacerbate existing eating disorders and increase the risk of their development in the general public?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, undoubtedly, the increase in referrals is something of concern. It is something we are monitoring closely, with the round table and the ministerial group dedicated to looking at this. That shows the seriousness with which we regard it. The reduction in the impact of community services, which is the best way of addressing these kinds of issues, has undoubtedly had an effect on urgent needs. During this period, there has also been a large increase in the number of young people who have started treatment, which is encouraging. If the noble Baroness has evidence that measures such as nutrition information on packaging has an effect on anorexia, I would welcome correspondence from her.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness has said, we know that eating disorders among children and young people have increased during the pandemic. There is a very welcome increase in the grant of £11 million from the grant in 2018-19. Despite this, total spending by CCGs on children and young people’s community eating disorder services increased by just £1.1 million, from around £54 million in 2018-19 to £55 million in 2019-20. This increase is cancelled out if you adjust for inflation, and this means that total spend flatlined in real terms. What are the Government going to do to ensure that this money is spent on what is growing into an epidemic of eating disorders and the suffering they cause?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right that community eating disorder services are critical. They are the backbone of our measures to address these difficult cases. But money for the treatment of eating disorders comes from many different pots. During 2021, a total of 10,695 children and young people started treatment, which is up from 8,034 children in the year before. So, clearly, resources are getting through to cope with a large number of people, and that is an encouraging sign.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
Is the Minister confident that all referrals to a community eating disorder specialist can be managed without excessive travel on the part of the individual and their family and that, where necessary, local in-patient services are available right across England?
Lord Bethell (Con)
The noble Baroness refers to a perennial issue in any national health service, which is the inevitable concentration of expertise in some hubs where there is particular specialist knowledge. But she is entirely right that we should try to avoid excessive travel. That is why community eating disorder services are so important, because they bring the treatment as close as possible to the people who are suffering.
Baroness Fall (Con) [V]
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, is quite right to raise this important issue today. Young people have had their lives turned upside down over the last year, their plans put on hold and their prospects blighted and, with a sense that they have lost control, it is hardly surprising that we have seen a huge rise in mental health issues. Can the Minister give us an indication of the waiting rates at the moment, especially for those diagnosed as urgent cases? Is it his view that we have enough practitioners? If not, does he have any plans to discuss the need for more training and a recruitment drive?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend puts it extremely well. Young people have been under huge pressure during the pandemic. It is a huge tribute to the young people of Britain that they have borne it so well. I do not have to hand the statistics on waiting lists that she asked for, but I would be glad to write to her with the details. We are recruiting right across the NHS at the moment; it has been an extremely successful recruitment round, and those kinds of recruits will go to services such as those dealing with eating disorders.
Baroness Parminter (LD) [V]
My Lords, to return to calorie labelling on menus in restaurants, as raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, there is limited evidence for its efficacy in reducing levels of obesity, but there is clear evidence from the Royal College of Psychiatrists eating disorders faculty—and anecdotal evidence from my daughter and others—that it can be responsible for triggering those with eating disorders. Can the Minister respond to what the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, asked for and confirm that, should the Government introduce this labelling on menus, they will review its impacts not just on reducing levels of obesity but on those suffering from eating disorders?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the eating habits of the nation have changed considerably in recent years. The amount of food that people eat that has been prepared by others has risen dramatically, and many people have no idea what is in the food they are eating. That is why we have moved to bring in calorie labelling on food that is delivered and in restaurants. I am acutely aware of the concerns of the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Bull. We are committed to engaging with eating disorder charities, Beat and other key stakeholders, and to listening very carefully to their concerns on this.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked.
Social Care: Person-centred Dementia Care
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Browning
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that future reforms to social care consider person-centred dementia care.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, we want a society where every person with dementia—and their families and carers—receives high-quality, compassionate care from diagnosis to the end of their life. The Government are committed to sustainable improvement of the adult care system and will bring forward proposals in 2021. We are working closely with local and national partners such as the Alzheimer’s Society to ensure that our approach to reform is informed by diverse perspectives, including those with lived experience of the care sector.
Baroness Browning (Con) [V]
My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register as an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society and as a carer. This is Dementia Action Week. I am grateful to my noble friend and urge him that, as people with dementia are by far the majority of users of social care, the promised reforms deliver person-centred care to enable people with dementia to live in places they call home, take part in activities they enjoy and live their lives safely with meaning, purpose and connection with others.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for raising Dementia Action Week, a time to celebrate the contribution of those who care for people with these conditions. I know from my own experience the incredible importance of personalised care and of being able to have loved ones at home for as long as they can safely and reasonably be cared for there. My noble friend puts the experience of living with dementia for families and carers extremely well. I entirely endorse her sentiments.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab) [V]
Does the Minister agree that person-centred care for dementia sufferers must include support for those who care for them? Since today’s survey by the Alzheimer’s Society says that carers are at breaking point and 95% of carers say that their caring has affected their physical or mental health, how and when is that support to be provided? Will support for carers be an essential element in the proposals for social care reform when they eventually appear?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I completely acknowledge the pressure the pandemic put on both formal and unpaid carers. That is why we put £6 billion into local authorities, to help support them in the care they gave to carers. However, I acknowledge the concerns of the noble Baroness about the pressure of the last year and reassure her that the full spectrum of social care will be considered in the forthcoming review.
Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]
My Lords, Alzheimer’s disease has been described as a future epidemic. Without a known cure, research into causes of and treatments for Alzheimer’s and other dementias is vital. At the last election, the Government committed to a dementia moonshot, which would double research funding to over £160 million a year. Can the Minister say when this funding will become available?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, according to the briefing before me, the 2020 dementia challenge commitment to spend £300 million on dementia research over five years has been delivered already, with £344 million spent over four years. However, I am happy to clarify that point with the noble Baroness, just to ensure that I have got my briefing correct.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, one cruel aspect of dementia is how the condition gradually eats away at a sufferer’s individuality. In the context of this disorientation, with individuals forgetting who they are, one key to clinging on to personhood is family and friends. Can the Minister ensure that any Covid inquiry looks at the specific problems of those with dementia in care homes, who were deprived of any visits from relatives and forcibly isolated from familiar faces, robbing them of the resilience to fight the virus? Will he consider that, as a quarter of those who died of Covid had dementia, this one-size-fits-all approach to protecting the vulnerable did not work and makes person-centred dementia care all the more important?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I am afraid it is beyond my reach to define the terms of the inquiry, but I entirely endorse the noble Baroness’s depiction of the very cruel dilemma we have faced over the last year: between safety—the preservation of life—and the care, love and consideration we owe to older people, particularly those with dementia. It has been a horrible and extremely uncomfortable dilemma. I pay tribute to those in social care who have sought to navigate it as thoughtfully as they could, but there is no doubt that it has been a horrible moment.
Lord Laming (CB) [V]
My Lords, as we have heard, dementia is a cruel illness because it strips away both individual personality and memory. Does the Minister agree that, learning the lessons of this past year, we must in future do everything possible to reinforce the message to each sufferer that they are loved for who they are, a unique person, rather than for what they are, just another patient with dementia?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I entirely agree with the extremely touching way the noble Lord put that. To take a glass-half-full approach for a moment, I have been struck in the pandemic by the huge amount of public support for the protection of those who are older and vulnerable, including those with dementia. It has been a very touching feature of the national response to the pandemic that the country has come together to protect the most vulnerable, and I think there has been a national rethink about how we relate to those in that condition.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, we know that the costs for families of caring for those with dementia can be long-lasting and catastrophic, as the Commons Health and Social Care Committee has emphasised in setting up a new inquiry, and from our excellent Economic Affairs Committee report on social care, which found that the typical cost of an individual’s dementia care is £100,000. According to the Alzheimer’s Society, two-thirds of this cost is currently being paid for by people with dementia and their families, either in unpaid care or in paid-for private social care, in contrast to other conditions, such as heart disease and cancer, for which the NHS provides care free at the point of need. People with dementia should not bear the sole responsibility for saving and paying for their care. When will this Government address this key parity of esteem issue, end this disparity and protect people with dementia from the catastrophic costs of care?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the Prime Minister has made it very clear that he is committed to bringing forward proposals to address this issue before the end of the year. He stands by that commitment. I look forward to the kind of cross-party and cross-society collaboration that will be necessary to address that massive generational challenge.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
My Lords, as someone who knows the demands of caring for a close relative with dementia, I ask the Government to ensure that there are enough high-quality short-term placements for person-centred dementia care to give carers the chance of an occasional break. Given that person-centred care is at the very heart of the care provided by our hospices, do the Government have any plans to review the sector’s long-term financial situation and move it on to a more sustainable footing?
Lord Bethell (Con)
I pay tribute to those who deliver person-centred care. The noble Lord referred to hospices, and I am extraordinarily touched and impressed by the way in which they delivered on an enormously difficult task during the pandemic. We debated earlier the financial arrangements around hospices and the delicate state of their finances. We continue to be in touch with the industry and will take whatever measures necessary to ensure its financial stability.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister explain what plans the Government have to invest in socially rented supported housing for people with early dementia? It is very clear that this would reduce short-term admissions to acute hospital beds, which will be necessary in order for us to meet the challenges that the NHS faces with current waiting lists. If the Government have no plans for considering this kind of supported housing, which many people who can afford it purchase for themselves, can the Minister assure us that he will ask the Government to consider this issue?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness puts the case for supported housing social care for those with low levels of dementia extremely well. It is slightly beyond the purview of the Department of Health, but the case she makes is strong. I would be glad to go back to the department and find out if any measures are taking place.
Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)
The noble Baroness is muted; she needs to unmute.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
I think we will have to move on. I call the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB) [V]
My Lords, I hope I am unmuted. The impact of Covid has reinforced the evidence that early detection and intervention can help defer the worst impacts of dementia and significantly help with the quality of life of those affected, their families and carers. Can the Minister reassure the House that this will be given priority in the long-awaited social care Bill?
Lord Bethell (Con)
The noble Lord hits the nail on the head. Our entire response to the pandemic has taught us that early intervention and diagnostics are absolutely critical, and that is at the very centre of not only the NHS Long Term Plan but the departmental priorities for the years ahead. This can indeed make a huge difference to the treatment of and prognosis for those with dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and we are very much focused on taking that forward.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked. We now move to the next Question.
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Anelay of St Johns
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what their priorities are for the Commonwealth in their capacity as Chair-in-Office preparing for the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to be held in Rwanda.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the UK looks forward to the gathering of the Commonwealth family in Kigali and to a smooth transfer of the Chair-in-Office role to Rwanda. As my noble friend knows, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting has been postponed a second time because of the pandemic, and we remain as Chair-in-Office. We will continue to pursue the shared priorities which leaders set out on fairness, security, sustainability and prosperity at CHOGM in 2018.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)
My Lords, delegates at this month’s meeting of the Commonwealth Women’s Ministers Action Group committed to putting women’s issues at the very top of the agenda for the next CHOGM. Do the Government support that proposal? What are the Government doing to support the reform of laws in those 35 Commonwealth countries which still give husbands some form of exemption—a “get out of jail free” card—from prosecution when they commit criminal sexual offences against their wives?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I assure my noble friend—I am sure she is already aware—that we have put the issue of gender-based violence at the centre not just in terms of planning the handover to Rwanda but at the heart of the work we are doing within the G7 and our presidency, and we will continue to do so. In terms of our own commitment to fighting gender-based violence in the Commonwealth, preventing sexual violence and girls’ education, they will remain priorities during our continuing role as Chair-in-Office.
Baroness Helic (Con) [V]
My Lords, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2013, heads agreed to work
“to improve the monitoring and documentation of cases of sexual violence in armed conflict without fear of reprisal and empower victims to access justice”.
Can my noble friend tell the House what efforts have been made for this commitment to be renewed and treated as a priority for the Commonwealth nations?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, in part I think I have already addressed my noble friend’s question. The issue of sexual-related conflict and preventing it across the world remains a key priority alongside, more broadly, gender-based violence and girls’ education. This is all part of addressing the core challenges we face, not just within the context of the Commonwealth but across the world.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB) [V]
My Lords, I hoped that the Commonwealth would be recognised for its even-handed condemnation of the abuse of human rights—but this is not so. We stridently condemn human rights abuse in China or Myanmar but are comparatively silent when Muslims in India are called “termites” by the Indian Government, laws are passed to deny them citizenship and forced conversions take place in Pakistan. Today, the common ethos of the Commonwealth is common hypocrisy. Will Her Majesty’s Government take urgent steps at the meeting in Rwanda to reverse this trend?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, if I could give a personal reflection—as someone who is Muslim by faith, Indian in origin from my father’s side and Pakistani in origin from my mother’s side—I assure the noble Lord that this remains a priority for myself and stress the equality and rights of every citizen across the Commonwealth, irrespective of faith, creed, sexual orientation or any other definition. It is important that we stand up for all citizens across the Commonwealth and for equal rights.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that specific actions are needed—as called for by CHOGM in 2018—to provide 12 years of quality education for girls in particular, as this will be the surest way to work towards both global social justice and greater equality? If so, what specific actions will Her Majesty’s Government support and pursue?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government have already supported girls’ education through £200 million of funding for nine Commonwealth countries. We are holding the global education summit with a Commonwealth country—Kenya—in July this year, and these issues will remain key priorities. It is a priority for our Prime Minister.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, the London CHOGM made a commitment to meet the SDG charter to end modern slavery, which affects 16 million people, or one in every 150 citizens in the Commonwealth and throughout Africa. The Government have already invested some £15 million in the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery, but will they now use the extended period as Chair-in-Office to strengthen the resolve of their Commonwealth partners where, at the last count, only 29 out of 54 had national guidelines on identifying victims of slavery and to carry forward the London commitment as an essential priority at Kigali?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that this will remain a key priority during our continuing role as Chair-in-Office, including during our handover discussions with Rwanda.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, as Chair-in-Office, the Government set a number of priorities following on from the last CHOGM. Can the noble Lord tell us what assessment they have made of progress on these priorities in preparation for the next CHOGM—particularly the priority of ensuring the decriminalisation of homosexuality across the Commonwealth? There is a key role for civil society, so will this include a commitment to fully support the Commonwealth Equality Network?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, it is not often that I say “Yes, yes and yes” to a Member of the Opposition, but I do so in this particular instance. We have prioritised this. Three countries have decriminalised homosexuality. We continue to work across the board. Yesterday, as the noble Lord will know, we announced both our commitment to hosting an LGBT conference and the appointment of my noble friend Lord Herbert of South Downs as the PM’s special envoy on LGBT rights and the important role of civil society. The noble Lord and I have discussed this matter extensively; I know that he has been a champion of it. It demonstrates the strength of this House that we are seeing progress in this very sensitive but important area.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. Does my noble friend accept that the enormous Commonwealth network never sleeps and that, despite the regrettable postponement again of the Heads of Government Meeting, vigorous Commonwealth connectivity continues at all levels and has in fact been intensified greatly over the past year or by Zoom technology? Does he also accept that the Commonwealth is a major transmitter of Britain’s soft power as well as a growing source of our security? Further, although my noble friend himself has been thoroughly assiduous in everything to do with Commonwealth matters, does he accept that a good deal more could have been done during Britain’s chairmanship and should now be done not just to fulfil communiqués but to strengthen the institutions of the Commonwealth family?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the personal note that my noble friend raises, having just come out of Ramadan and having been in Rwanda during Ramadan, I fully appreciate the importance of day and night work on the important agenda of the Commonwealth. However, we have published what we have achieved, including our progress on the important issues of Covid-19, girls’ education and cyber—which is demonstrable of the prioritisations that we agreed in 2018.
Baroness Prashar (CB) [V]
My Lords, I commend the Minister and his team on the work that they have done in their capacity as Commonwealth Chair-in-Office. However, does the Minister agree that hosting COP 26 will be a good opportunity for the UK to engage the Commonwealth and set an ambitious agenda? Can he tell the House what steps he and his team are taking to ensure that the Commonwealth is fully involved in COP 26?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, we are doing just as the noble Baroness suggested. We are engaging directly with different regions of the Commonwealth on the important priorities in the lead-up to COP 26.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister is absolutely correct that the Prime Minister regularly expresses a firm commitment to girls’ education; he did so again last week. Given that that is the case, why on earth are the Government cutting the budget by hundreds of millions of pounds?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Lord will know, we have committed £400 million to girls’ education this year, and we will continue to bring added focus during the Global Education Summit later this year.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl)
My Lords, quite rightly, the integrated review stressed the importance of global rule-making. Will the Government use CHOGM to pay particular attention to the sourcing and trading of precious and rare metals and gemstones? This is one area where trading security and fairness are often overlooked.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
The noble Baroness raises an important point. I will certainly write to her on the specific work that we are doing in that respect.
Viscount Trenchard (Con) [V]
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that our leadership of the Commonwealth provides an excellent platform for global Britain to encourage a common approach to free trade, especially in agricultural products, which would do so much to boost development in the poorer member countries? Does he wish to see a commitment in principle to a zero-tariff, zero-quota Commonwealth free trade area, to be introduced in stages over time?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I cannot go into the specifics of my noble friend’s suggestion, although it is a practical one and I will certainly reflect on its importance. We are signing a raft of free trade agreements across the globe, including with Commonwealth friends and countries. I assure my noble friend that we will use our continuing role as Chair-in-Office to ensure that the ambitions to enhance trade and co-operation and boost intra-Commonwealth trade—for example, through the Commonwealth Connectivity Agenda—remain key priorities. We have set an ambition, which we hope to achieve, of $2 trillion of trade between Commonwealth countries by 2030.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked.
Ballymurphy Inquest Findings
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, some years ago I met the Ballymurphy families and I was appalled, obviously, by their story. Ten innocent civilians died, including a priest, a mother of eight and a veteran of World War II, and 57 children were left without a parent. Since these events of over half a century ago, all Governments, including the one of which I was a member, have let these families down. I applaud the families for their resilience and determination in getting to the truth of that terrible day in August 1971.
The conclusions of Mrs Justice Keegan are clear: those who lost their lives were innocent and posed no threat. Their deaths were without justification and their fundamental right to life was violated. That these families have had to fight for so long for the truth is a profound failure of the criminal justice system, and we must learn from this dreadful story. Other families in Northern Ireland are still fighting for answers. As Northern Ireland Secretary, I initiated three public inquiries and spent many hours trying to resolve this very difficult issue of the legacy of the past, including going to South Africa to look at their truth and reconciliation process. There is no simple answer, but the Government must ensure that there is the widest possible consultation on legacy, including with all the Northern Ireland parties, the Irish Government and especially, of course, with victims and their representatives.
I fully appreciate that the Government have apologised for this tragic event but, frankly, they should go further. The Prime Minister should have delivered the Statement himself in the Chamber of the House of Commons, like his predecessor David Cameron did on the Bloody Sunday inquiry. He should now travel to Northern Ireland to meet the families personally. After 50 years, they deserve no less.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
My Lords, first, I associate myself with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, who has long experience of the situation in Northern Ireland and this particular case. Given the long and bitter history of the Ballymurphy killings and Operation Demetrius, which was the genesis of the events of 9-11 August 1971, I agree also that the Prime Minister’s apology appears somewhat graceless and inadequate. Sending a stereotyped collective letter, rather than making a public statement and apology in Parliament, falls short of the sensitivity and compassion required following such a clear and stark verdict.
It has taken almost 50 years to get to this point— 50 years during which, as the verdict confirms, the victims were slandered and vilified, including by the most senior members of the Armed Forces. As the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, pointed out, Mr Johnson’s predecessor, David Cameron, whatever his faults, came to the House of Commons and made a sincere and unqualified public apology over the Bloody Sunday report. This event surely required nothing less. Once again, it reveals a dangerous lack of understanding of or consideration for the raw wounds left by the Troubles and the delicate path Northern Ireland is now treading as a result of the Prime Minister’s reckless haste to get Brexit done without adequate concern for its impact on the Belfast agreement.
The Ballymurphy killings were among a larger number of deaths that occurred during Operation Demetrius, when the Army was systematically rounding up terrorist suspects for internment without trial. Internment, a deeply controversial sanction, was made worse by poor intelligence leading to innocent, non-violent members of the nationalist community being targeted—often brutally, according to reports—by soldiers who perceived almost anyone as a potential terrorist. Not surprisingly, for such a draconian course of action, it was resented and provoked demonstrations and, in the heightened tension this created, the Army reacted by firing living ammunition and, as is now confirmed, killing innocent citizens. Despite the fact that loyalist paramilitaries also perpetrated acts of violence, it appears that Operation Demetrius was focused entirely on the Catholic community. Paddy Murray, the solicitor who represents the families of nine of the 10 victims, has said that following the verdict further legal action is being planned.
Before the verdict, the Government appeared determined to press ahead with legislation to limit the scope for future prosecutions on crimes related to the Troubles. The Secretary of State trod carefully around the issue in the other place on Thursday but, nevertheless, made it clear that the Government are still planning legislation. He talked about finding a solution that can work for “families in Northern Ireland”, but if the Government are really committed to finding a solution that works for families, does the Minister agree that the victims of Ballymurphy, and indeed of all the atrocities committed during the Troubles, and their families must come first? They must have confidence in any process that is established going forward; otherwise, the peace and reconciliation that everybody wants for Northern Ireland will be more difficult to achieve.
I remind the Minister of the key principles set out in the Stormont agreement. These are:
“promoting reconciliation … upholding the rule of law … acknowledging and addressing the suffering of victims and survivors … facilitating the pursuit of justice and information recovery”
and that the agreement is
“human rights compliant … balanced, proportionate, transparent, fair and equitable.”
Can there be any justification for setting these aside? Are the Government reassessing their position on any limitation? Is it possible or acceptable to exempt veterans from prosecution without denying recourse to victims of terrorism? Is there any support for the Government’s approach within the Province? Is it helpful or necessary to introduce this into the mix at a time of such volatility and uncertainty? Without clear cross-community support for any government proposals, will the Government accept that pressing ahead would be insensitive and unwise, and should not be imposed?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Bruce, for their comments and their points. As is now apparent from the inquest verdict from Mrs Justice Keegan last Tuesday, we can all agree that the deaths of 10 entirely innocent people in Ballymurphy over three days in August 1971 was one of the most appalling events of all the years of the Troubles. It was a new and particularly dark low, the results of which may have—or are likely to have—exacerbated further incidents in subsequent years. Noble Lords will have read the Statement. In normal times in the House, I would be repeating it. A Statement such as this, one of such gravity and sensitivity, deserves as much.
I start by emphasising that my thoughts are with the families of the Ballymurphy victims. It is sobering for me to consider that I was 15 in 1971. The deaths left no fewer than 57 children—as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy said—without a parent, with all the tragedy, the loss of loved ones, and the permanently changed lives that stemmed from this. I want to put on record again today the Government’s acknowledgment of the terrible hurt that has been caused to the families of the victims: Francis Quinn, Father Hugh Mullan, Noel Phillips, Joan Connolly, Daniel Teggart, Joseph Murphy, Edward Doherty, John Laverty, Joseph Corr and John McKerr. The events at Ballymurphy should never have happened. The families of those who were killed should never have had to experience the grief and trauma of the losses, or the decades of waiting for last Tuesday’s verdict.
The noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Bruce, raised issues around the Government’s apology to the Ballymurphy families. I start by saying that it cannot change what they have endured. The PM, on behalf of the UK Government—the state—has apologised by writing to the families. He has also spoken to the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister. My right honourable friend in the other place, Brandon Lewis, also apologised in his Statement last Thursday and, today, I add my own heartfelt apology, as I address the House.
The results of Mrs Justice Keegan’s report and the apologies given will be followed by action to prevent others who have lost loved ones, from all communities, whether civilians, paramilitaries or solders, continuing to go through the same lengthy and traumatic experiences. To answer the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, that is why the Government are committed, as spelt out in the recent humble Address, to address the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland. We are doing so in a way that allows all individuals or families who want information, including those from Ballymurphy, to seek and receive answers about what happened during the Troubles with far less delay and distress.
Again to answer a question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, it is important that we do this with all parties involved in Northern Ireland, from the parties themselves to civic society and victims organisations, to ensure that we bring everybody along with us in what is being proposed.
Lord Caine (Con)
My Lords, having met the Ballymurphy families a number of times, I commend their dignity and tenacity and express the genuine hope that the coroner’s conclusions, which are clear, provide them with some comfort. On the past, given that the Stormont House agreement, which I helped to negotiate, is now nearly six and a half years old and that its legacy sections have yet to be implemented, is it not right that we look at possible alternative approaches that protect those who served and provide better outcomes for victims and survivors of terrorism? Finally, does my noble friend agree that, while we do not defend the reputation of the British Army by defending the indefensible, as in this case, the vast majority of those who served did so with courage, professionalism and restraint and all of us owe them and the RUC a huge debt?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I agree with my noble friend that the current system is working for no one, failing to bring satisfactory outcomes for families and placing a heavy burden on the criminal justice system, leaving society in Northern Ireland hamstrung by its past. But we must never forget, dismiss or ignore the past. We must find a way forward to move beyond it, which is why the Government want to deliver a process that will, as I said earlier, allow all individuals or families who want information to seek and receive answers about what happened during the Troubles. On my noble friend’s point about the Armed Forces, the UK Government are committed to delivering on their commitments to Northern Ireland veterans.
Baroness O’Loan (CB) [V]
My Lords, can the Minister tell the House why the Statement and press release issued by the Northern Ireland Office do not state that nine of these 10 victims were shot dead by the Army and that three of them were shot as they went to the help of people who had already been shot? In the 10th case, because of a massive failing by the state, the coroner could not attribute responsibility. Given the families’ response to the coroner’s finding and that this country proudly proclaims its respect for and adherence to the rule of law, surely we must continue to use our resources positively and in the interests of truth and justice, rather than in trying to prevent future prosecutions and abandoning the various agreements made between the UK Government and Ireland, supported by the political parties.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I agree with the noble Baroness that it is important to get to the truth and provide justice. With regard to her earlier points, questions arising from the deaths of the victims at Ballymurphy are a matter for the coroner and should be directed to her office.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, if something is wrong, it is wrong. What happened in Ballymurphy in 1971 was wrong. My noble friend is aware that, in that year, 171 people were killed in Northern Ireland, including 60 members of the security forces. I suspect that there was no closure or truth for the vast majority of them. Should the Government now provide resources to the existing, established and acceptable security forces so that, if fresh evidence is available, they can pursue it, rather than spending hundreds of millions of pounds on setting up new organisations that will take up to 15 years just to complete their case work?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I take note of my noble friend’s points about the 171 people who were killed that year. Today, our focus should be on the Ballymurphy victims, but my noble friend makes a wider point, which is that, looking ahead, we must also focus on all victims of the Troubles. The Government are clear that any system to deal with the legacy of the past must be fair, proportionate and focused on reconciliation to deliver for all those affected by the Troubles.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
My Lords, the report is clear, and our sincere sympathies are with the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives needlessly in the terrible events of August 1971 in Ballymurphy. Can the Minister also assure the grieving families of the many hundreds of victims who are forgotten and were never named that their loved ones will also receive recognition, even an acknowledgement or perhaps even an apology from the political spokespersons of the terrorist groups, some of which are in government in Northern Ireland today? Can they expect justice as a result of the forthcoming proposals on legacy? Will the Minister guarantee that the representatives of victims are fully consulted before the legacy proposals are brought forward?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that consultations are continuing with civic society and victims organisations to help us do what we have set out in the Queen’s Speech. As the Government have said, we will bring forward legislation in this Session to address the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland. I hope that those points reassure the noble Lord.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, the events at Ballymurphy were a stain on the UK Armed Forces. Our sympathy goes out to the families who have had to wait so long to prove the innocence of their lost loved ones. More broadly in the context of resolving the contentious issue of historic investigations and prosecutions, will the Minister confirm that the Government see no moral equivalence between our servicemen, who left barracks daily at the risk of their lives, with the intention of ensuring the safety and security of the people of Northern Ireland and their property, and the terrorists, who left home with the intention of killing and maiming citizens of Northern Ireland and those protecting them?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The Government want to find a way forward that provides information for all those caught up in the Troubles, helps families to get the answers that they want and lays the foundation for greater reconciliation and a shared future for all communities. As I said earlier, we must not dismiss the past but find a way forward on reconciliation because we must think about the future and young people in Northern Ireland. We must find a way not to dismiss the past, but to secure the future of Northern Ireland, which is very bright.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I welcome the full apology given by Her Majesty’s Government to the families of those killed in Ballymurphy. Fifty years is a long time to wait for justice and this verdict. I pay tribute to them for their fortitude and determination. Truth and justice must be possible for everyone but, sadly, there are too many victims in Northern Ireland who will never have justice, particularly those who saw many of the IRA terrorists given royal pardons or on-the-run letters by a former Prime Minister. Does the Minister agree that there is now an imbalance of legacy trials against our state forces, the vast majority of whom did their best to protect people? Maybe it is time for Her Majesty’s Government to announce their own public inquiries into unsolved terrorist atrocities.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
Well, it is clear that certain court cases that have been brought forward have been unsatisfactory. As the noble Baroness alluded to, we are talking about events that happened 40 to 50 years ago, so it is extremely difficult to find admissible evidence that is helpful. But I go back to the point that, in bringing forward issues on legacy, as we have pledged to do, we must do our best to get to truth, find justice and get the information that victims’ families want.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, I know Ballymurphy rather better than I would wish. The Statement says that the Army made terrible errors. The 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment showed itself to be out of control and without any proper discipline, both in Ballymurphy and a few months later in Londonderry, on Bloody Sunday. I was 20 at the time, a probationary officer at university. I could have told you that then. Now it is 50 years ago—the same distance away as the Boer War was when I was born. This is tragic, but it is time to move on from this terrible, shameful disgrace, and from the many hundreds of murders committed by terrorists. For instance, we will not be able to convict Gerry Adams for his involvement in the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, a mother of 10, or those responsible for many other victims—police, Army and civilians—of the IRA and loyalist terrorist groups. Is it not now time to draw a line in the sand?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
Well, my noble friend makes a point, to the extent that those who were killed and injured during the Troubles came from all communities and also included many members of the security forces. The state must hold itself to the highest standards and acknowledge where its role has fallen short of these standards. As I said earlier, I hope that the PM’s apology and my comments today make it clear that we are not afraid to do this, and that all sides must look at their actions and work together to enable Northern Ireland to move forward. This is why the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has committed to working closely with the Irish Government, Northern Ireland parties, civic society and the wider community, in the weeks and months ahead.
Lord Dannatt (CB) [V]
My Lords, I was serving in Belfast in August 1971, when a badly thought-through policy of internment was enacted. Many people died that month, including soldiers, paramilitaries and, tragically, innocent civilians such as the 10 in Ballymurphy. Given that the collapse of the recent trial of soldiers A and C showed that prosecutions for alleged offences committed decades ago are likely to fail because of the lack of admissible evidence, and that the same would probably occur if any prosecutions were to follow the Ballymurphy inquest findings, will the Minister comment on the proposal for a qualified statute of limitations for all alleged offences connected with the Troubles that were committed before the signing of the Good Friday agreement in April 1998—policy that was proposed more than 10 years ago in the Eames-Bradley report and successfully followed by the Dublin Government in 1924?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I alluded earlier to the recent court case regarding soldiers A and C, so I will not go over that again, but I take note of what the noble Lord said. The Government are very clear that, as I said earlier, the current system for dealing with the legacy of the Troubles is not working for anybody, particularly the bereaved families, such as those who lost loved ones in Ballymurphy in 1971, as the noble Lord said, whose grief has been compounded by the long and difficult process of waiting for answers for so many years. Every family who wants them deserves answers about what happened to their loved ones, so, to answer the noble Lord’s question, the Government want to deliver a way forward that will provide information about what happened during the Troubles.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I have met the Ballymurphy families on many occasions and have always been impressed by their sincerity and tenacity to find out the truth about why their loved ones were murdered. Will the Minister ensure that the Prime Minister meets with the families to discuss their quest for truth as to why their loved ones were killed? Will he also ensure that the proposed legacy legislation reflects the Stormont House agreement and ensures that there will be no amnesty for those who committed acts of murder, irrespective of whether they were military or paramilitary, in our society?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I will certainly pass the request from the noble Baroness further up the ladder to the Prime Minister. The Government are looking closely at the report which has come from Mrs Justice Keegan. There are some 700 pages and, given that it came out last Tuesday, time is required to look at it carefully.
Baroness Goudie (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I associate myself with the comments made by my noble friend Lord Murphy and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. The coroner’s report emphasises the end of a legacy in Northern Ireland’s past. It is vital that the Government have a clear policy on this with timelines, as they currently have no policy and are failing. They must consult with all the families and those giving support, and the groups in Northern Ireland. Again, I emphasise that there must be a timeline, otherwise we will never see the end of this. This is not a situation for totalitarianism: the Government do not know best.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I can understand that the noble Baroness would like me to give a timeline today. I am unable to do that, but I can reassure her that, despite it being 50 years ago that the awful events in Ballymurphy took place, we pledged in the recent Queen’s Speech to bring forward details regarding legacy in this session.
Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]
Like my noble friend Lord Murphy and other Members of the House, I met the Ballymurphy families years ago. I was impressed by their determination in the face of intolerable grief and sadness. What is puzzling is why the Prime Minister did not himself meet the Ballymurphy families. Surely the right thing would be not to leave it to other Ministers but to go to Belfast, meet the families in person and express his apologies face to face.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
As I said earlier, the Prime Minister has written to the Ballymurphy families to apologise directly for the events that unfolded between 9 and 11 August 1971, and the Secretary of State also apologised as part of his Statement to the Commons on 13 May. Both did so on behalf of the UK Government and I repeat that apology today. But whatever the nature of the apology, it can do nothing either to reduce the suffering that the families have endured or to lessen the sincerity of our sorrow.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB) [V]
My Lords, it is shocking that this coroner’s finding has been delayed for 50 years. Do the Government acknowledge the insuperable difficulties for the Crown Prosecution Service in preparing cases for trial about the Troubles in Northern Ireland that will achieve clear outcomes due to the passage of time? Does the Minister agree that a decisive lead to seek a wide politically agreed solution to this dreadful legacy is now the only realistic one?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
Yes, indeed—the noble and gallant Lord makes a very important and sobering point about the delay. It is fair to say that it was further delayed by Covid, but we are talking about 50 years here and I am not making light of that; it is too long. I assure the noble and gallant Lord that, as I have said before, we are determined to bring Northern Ireland forward and to address the legacy matters. It is complex and sensitive. It is not easy, but we are determined to do it.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, it is surely right that a historic wrong that occurred during the Troubles 50 years ago in Northern Ireland is acknowledged and that the names of innocent victims are cleared of wrongdoing, which is what the inquest found. This was a time of extreme conflict, and injustices occurred on both sides. Unless there is powerful and compelling new evidence, it heaps injustice on injustice to charge British soldiers who are now reaching the autumns of their years for acts committed under orders so long ago. Does the noble Viscount account agree with me that some kind of commission to achieve peace and reconciliation on both sides of the conflict is a more constructive way forward in these very difficult matters?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
It is true that there are a lot of challenges and difficulties because of the time that has passed, and the noble Lord makes some extremely good points about those challenges. As I said earlier, this is a very sensitive, challenging and difficult matter. I reiterate that, in order to go forward, we must continue to bring with us as many groups as we possibly can in Northern Ireland, to liaise with the Irish Government, and to bring on board victims’ groups, civic society and the rest in what we need to do.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, will the Government learn from the reception of this apology—the rightful and understandable upset of the families of the innocent Ballymurphy victims, who heard that it was going to be delivered from journalists and who were not consulted on its contents—which was not delivered by the Prime Minister personally, in future apologies relating to events all around these islands? Will they take further steps to support the families of the Ballymurphy victims and acknowledge their disappointment at the way the apology was delivered?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I believe that I have already addressed, in several answers, the matter of the apology.
Queen’s Speech
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bates
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of your Lordships’ House, I thank Her Majesty for her gracious Speech. I am greatly honoured to be called on to open today’s debate on the Motion for an humble Address. I am delighted to be joined by my noble friend Lord Goldsmith, who will deliver what I am sure will be an excellent summing-up. Given the wealth of experience represented on all sides of the House, both my noble friend and I look forward to a spirited and well-informed debate.
Today, I will outline the Government’s plans regarding communities, welfare, transport and the environment, which are at the heart of our agenda as we bounce back and build back from the pandemic. The Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic was focused on two things: protecting lives and protecting livelihoods. To protect lives, we have secured access to more than 400 million vaccine doses and established the largest testing infrastructure in Europe. The vaccine is now available to everyone over 38 years old. To protect livelihoods, the Government have provided an unprecedented level of financial support for businesses and individuals, protecting more than 9 million jobs with the furlough scheme, while helping millions of businesses to stay afloat. Today, we embark on the next phase of cautiously easing national lockdown restrictions, including overnight stays between households and the reopening of hotels, pubs and restaurants indoors.
Building back better from the pandemic means delivering decent, safe and well-designed homes for everyone in our country. That is why the gracious Speech includes a planning reform Bill. It will simplify and modernise the system, embracing digital tools to allow people to visualise and engage with local plans. It will provide a quicker, simpler planning process, speeding up the delivery of the homes that the country needs. It will give a new focus to environmental protections, streamlining environmental impact assessments. It will ask every local area to produce its own design code to reflect its unique identity. It will ensure that developers pay for their fair share of affordable housing and infrastructure, which is why we are exploring a simpler, faster and more transparent infrastructure levy.
We must also take measures to ensure that those homes are a safe and secure environment to live in. I have been horrified by the testimony at the Grenfell inquiry, which highlighted where corners were cut and lives unnecessarily put at risk. That is why the landmark building safety Bill will bring about once-in-a-generation improvements to building safety in this country. The House may recall my remarks to the construction sector last year, when I said that that my goal as building safety Minister was to make it raise its game and thus put myself out of a job. Those noble Lords who wish to see that day come to pass may wish to consider supporting this legislation. The Bill will establish the new building safety regulator, with clear duties and responsibilities for building owners and managers. It will improve accountability and responsibility, ensuring that residents are able to raise concerns and that building owners are held to account.
Our commitment to fairness in the housing market includes securing a fairer deal for future leaseholders. For too many, the dream of home ownership has been soured by leases imposing crippling ground rents, additional fees and onerous conditions. People’s homes should be theirs to live in and enjoy, not an income stream for third-party investors. That is why the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill will put an end to ground rents for new leasehold properties, as part of the most significant changes to property law in a generation.
Last Thursday, we launched the Commonhold Council, an advisory panel of leasehold groups and industry experts which I will chair, to inform the Government on the future of commonhold ownership. This follows recommendations made by the Law Commission to simplify and expand the commonhold system. It will pave the way for millions of homeowners in England to take greater control over their homes, with a greater say on their buildings’ management, shared facilities and related costs. Together, these reforms put us on a journey to give more security to millions of existing leaseholders across England, making home ownership fairer, simpler and cheaper.
The Government also want to deliver a better rental sector that works for tenants and landlords. We will bring forward a White Paper in the autumn detailing our broad package of reforms. This will include more detail on how we will reform tenancy law to abolish Section 21 no-fault evictions; measures to improve security for tenants in the private rented sector, empowering them to hold their landlord to account; and measures to strengthen the repossession grounds for landlords when it is fair and reasonable to do so. We will also outline proposals for a new lifetime deposit model, easing the burden on tenants when moving, and continue to deliver on the social housing White Paper proposals, including implementing the charter for social housing residents, and to legislate on social housing regulations as soon as practicable.
As we look towards our future, we know that people are worried—for themselves, for the people they love and for their communities. We have always been honest that we will not be able to protect every job and every business. Nevertheless, this Government have done everything we can to protect our communities through this difficult period. We provided over £7 billion of extra support through our welfare system in 2020-21. We increased local housing allowance rates for universal credit and housing benefit claimants, so that they covered the lowest 30% of local rents, and we will sustain this cash increase this year. We introduced the Covid Winter Grant Scheme, now the Covid local support grant, with almost £270 million to support vulnerable households with the costs of food and other essentials. In 2021-22, we are extending the temporary uplift to the universal credit standard allowance for a further six months, giving working tax credit claimants an equivalent one-off payment of £500, and we have maintained our commitment to older people through a generous basic state pension, now worth over £2,050 more in cash terms than in 2010, thanks to the triple lock.
The Government’s commitment to building back better after the pandemic also means building back greener, and 2021 will be a landmark year for environmental policy. In November, the UK will be hosting the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. With that global leadership position, alongside our new-found independence from EU environmental laws, now is the moment to put a spotlight on this critical work.
The Environment Bill we are bringing forward is a pivotal part of delivering the Government’s manifesto commitment to create the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on Earth. We will legislate to set long-term, legally binding targets to drive environmental improvements such as in air quality, resource efficiency and waste reduction. A new independent office for environmental protection will provide scrutiny and advice, investigate complaints and take legal action where necessary. The Environment Bill will also give new powers to local authorities to tackle air pollution in their areas and make it illegal for large UK companies to use key agricultural commodities cultivated on illegally deforested land.
Twenty twenty-one will also be a monumental year for animal rights, with our recently published Action Plan for Animal Welfare. The plan will set out our intention to recognise animals as sentient beings through the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill. We will strengthen existing enforcement against animal abuse and ban the import and export of endangered animal hunting trophies. We will make further improvements to farm animal welfare in transport and slaughter, and support farmers in sustainable food production. We will also take action to prohibit the unsuitable keeping of primates as pets, raise standards in zoos and conserve animals in the wild. Shortly, we will bring forward a kept animals Bill to tackle puppy smuggling and ban the keeping of primates as pets. Later in the Session, we will bring forward an animals abroad Bill to tackle issues outside the United Kingdom.
Improving our transport infrastructure is a key part of our agenda to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to succeed. The Government intend our railways to be the backbone of a modern, affordable and green transport network. We will publish a White Paper with proposals to transform the railways and deliver for passengers, ending the complicated franchising model and creating a simpler, more effective system. We also intend to deliver better bus services for England through our national bus strategy, with more frequent, cheaper and reliable services, integrated services and ticketing, and 4,000 new zero-emission buses.
I believe that Her Majesty’s gracious Speech affirms this Government’s commitments to build back a better future for our country, levelling up opportunities across the United Kingdom; to make every part of our country a great place to live and to start a family, own a home and start a business; and to ensure that no community and no person is left without hope or opportunity. These are ambitions I am sure every part of this House shares. Over the course of today’s debate, my noble friend Lord Goldsmith and I look forward to hearing your Lordships’ valuable insights on the measures I have outlined, especially of course in the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to today’s debate on the gracious Speech. I particularly welcome my noble friend Lord Coaker and the noble Lord, Lord Morse, and look forward to their maiden speeches today. I should begin by declaring a couple of interests: as chair of Rothamsted Enterprises, part of the Rothamsted agricultural research institute; and as a member of the South Downs National Park Authority, which has planning as part of its statutory remit.
Today’s debate takes place against a backdrop of two global environmental emergencies: the rise in global warming, already heading beyond the 2% irreversible ceiling; and the fall in biodiversity, which is declining faster than at any time in human history. Both require international leadership to achieve buy-in from the world’s economies and to save our planet from its own man-made destruction. We will have the opportunity later this year, at the Convention on Biological Diversity conference in China and then at the COP 26 event in Glasgow in November.
Already, President Biden is leading the way but we must play our part too. Sadly, as the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, acknowledged recently,
“to speak with authority internationally, the UK needs to get its own house in order.”
He then admitted:
“This is not the case at the moment.”—[Official Report, 13/4/21; col. 1149.]
This is true. A leaked report from Defra recently revealed that there is still no plan to deliver on the Government’s carbon emissions targets, while the recent Public Accounts Committee report concluded that Defra does not have
“the clout to lead the rest of government”
to deliver their environmental programme. Can the Minister set out what steps Defra is taking to raise its game and prepare government for the huge challenges in the year ahead?
Of course, we welcome the arrival of the Environment Bill to the Lords—as they say, third time lucky. It has been described as a flagship Bill but its history is one of downgrade and delay, causing huge frustration among all of us who have been waiting for this robust new legislation to set environmental targets that are truly meaningful. But now we have the opportunity and we will want to work across the House to make this a landmark Bill of which we can all be proud.
In particular, we want to strengthen the environmental targets in the Bill to make them comprehensive, measurable and legally enforceable. We want to ensure that the office for environmental protection has the powers and independence it needs to hold the Government to account. We will be tabling a range of amendments to reverse the decline in biodiversity, clean up our rivers and oceans, restore peatlands and afforestation, and set WHO limits for air quality.
In the meantime, we welcome the Government’s new announcement on tackling the discharge of sewage into rivers—only weeks after they voted down a similar amendment we supported in the Commons. I hope the Minister will confirm that this spirit of listening and compromise will run through our consideration of the Bill.
We also welcome the announcement of the new animal welfare legislation. Again, this has been a long time coming and the proposals seem based largely on Labour’s recently published Animal Welfare Manifesto. As ever, the devil will be in the detail and we will scrutinise those Bills with great care, undoubtedly with the support of the many animal welfare charities which share our ambition to be a world leader on these issues.
If we are to deliver on climate change and biodiversity, concerted government action across departments will be required. Clearly, transport has a huge role to play in cutting our carbon emissions, which we need to achieve, as it represents 22% of the 2019 UK total. That is why we were so disappointed at the lack of ambition on transport in the Queen’s Speech.
In its sixth carbon budget, the Climate Change Committee made it clear that:
“A comprehensive … package will be needed to deliver the … commitment to phase out new sales of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030.”
It recommends that, in addition, diesel heavy goods vehicles should be phased out by 2040, with clear alternatives identified now. It identifies that a comprehensive recharging and refuelling infrastructure will be needed to support clean fuel for cars. It recognises the urgent need for aviation and shipping strategies to deliver net zero, and urges an essential rethink to “reduce travel demand” and focus on public rather than private transport—including, of course, a bold vision to reverse the millions of miles of bus routes lost across the country. Where is the legislation to deliver all of this?
The Government have flagged up that a transport decarbonisation plan is in preparation. But where is the urgency? The Government have signed up to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035, which is only 14 years away. Where is the urgency that will drive this forward?
We support the extension of High Speed 2 from Crewe to Manchester but it is clear that lessons need to be learned from earlier mistakes. Can the Minister say what steps the Government will take to increase consultation as part of this project? Will the Government support new railway stations in the smaller towns around Crewe and Manchester? How will the Government ensure that the extension is developed with more sensitivity to its environmental impact, particularly on ancient and modern woodlands? Does the Minister accept that this project should be one small part of a government investment in rail capacity to address the climate change crisis and better connect our towns and cities?
Planning and housebuilding also have a crucial role to play in protecting biodiversity and delivering our net-zero obligations, so we will need to be reassured that the application of biodiversity net gain principles to new developments will trump the pressure to build on land at any cost.
Local people know what is best for the size and character of their community, but these proposals will prevent them from objecting to inappropriate developments in their own street or neighbourhood. Instead, their involvement will be limited to consultation on the area’s local plan every few years. As the Local Government Information Unit has said, the proposed changes
“leave local government with the political liability on planning whilst depriving them … of the powers to manage it effectively.”
We believe that these proposals are a developers’ charter: removing powers from local representatives and handing them to Whitehall-appointed boards of developers. It does not address the scandal of planning permission already having been granted for an estimated 1 million homes that are yet to be built. It does not require all new-build homes to meet the stringent energy and sustainability standards that are crucial to meeting our climate change obligations. It does nothing to address the growing housing crisis our country faces.
Young people have been hardest hit by the Government’s failure to build the homes we need, especially social and affordable homes. However, there is nothing in this Queen’s Speech that captures the scale and urgency of the housing challenge or which provides any consolation for young people priced out of the housing market.
So many young people cannot afford to buy their own home because they have been forced into insecure, low-paid jobs; and it is getting worse. The lesson from the pandemic is that 11 years of government failure have left our country ill prepared for a job and welfare crisis. A recent report from the Trussell Trust shows that 700,000 households now need to use a food bank, with a 49% increase in children being supported, and 95% of people referred to food banks are described as “very deprived” or “destitute”.
We have to end the insecurity and lack of opportunity in the economy by tackling the jobs crisis and replacing universal credit with a fair and compassionate system that offers security for all. But there is nothing in the Queen’s Speech to address this. In fact, the Department for Work and Pensions is not mentioned once. Where are the plans to protect workers and create jobs for the future? What happened to the employment Bill, which would have protected workers from exploitation and created new jobs for the future? Why have the flaws in the Kickstart scheme not been addressed?
This Queen’s Speech fails to meet the key challenges of our generation. Coming out of the pandemic, we have the opportunity to build something better: a fairer and more equal society, with well-paid jobs, delivering a greener economy built on strong environmental principles. Sadly, we must conclude that this gracious Speech fails to address this ambition or meet the challenge.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his opening speech, and I look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. As the Minister’s speech highlighted, today’s debate covers a cornucopia of issues. But hanging over all of them is the climate and ecological emergency which threatens every area of our lives and requires a response with every policy lever at the disposal of our Government.
Last week, in another context, the Minister for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, reminded us of Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi’s wise words when he warned that the future is decided by what you do today. That is both instructive and alarming because, while the Government are happy to promise the world tomorrow, in this Queen’s Speech today they propose to do nothing, in effect, to tackle the climate crisis.
In the year that we host what may turn out to be the most critical conference in the struggle to contain global warming, the Government’s legislative programme is silent as the grave on the subject. That matters, because every year we delay taking the required action ensures that the measures we will have to adopt in the future will be that much more difficult. The Government need to wake up to the fact that the one thing we do not have is the luxury of time.
Carbon Tracker, an NGO expert in this field, has calculated that, at the current burn rate, the world will exceed its carbon budget within 15 years and that, if we burn all the fossil fuels in known reserves, the world will have no prospect of keeping within its Paris targets. Yet still our financial institutions continue to finance exploration for new oil and gas reserves which, if exploited, can bring us only to catastrophe. However, in this Queen’s Speech the only legislative proposal relating to any aspect of the energy sector is the draft downstream oil resilience Bill, which seeks to provide resilience for the oil sector rather than the planet.
It is astonishing. It would be easy—but, I suspect, unproductive—to spend the afternoon criticising the Government for their lack of action, so I will try to be a little more constructive instead and suggest some ideas for the Government to take up.
First, they could introduce the climate and ecological emergency Bill proposed by a civil society coalition with cross-party support, which asks the UK to take responsibility for its fair share of greenhouse gas emissions, actively restore biodiverse habitats in the UK and set and implement a strategy to tackle the climate and ecological emergency.
Secondly, the Government would be very welcome to take forward my green finance capital requirements Bill, which would properly price the macroprudential risk that further fossil fuel exploration and exploitation poses to the entire financial system, not to mention the planet as a whole.
Thirdly, they should bring forward a new energy Bill to set the framework for the smart and resilient generation and distribution systems that will be needed, as we place ever-increasing demand on the electricity sector. This framework will need to be capable of facilitating the expansion of decentralised and community power generation and providing the incentives to deliver the innovation to expand our energy storage capacity.
In 2013, when Ed Davey, as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, piloted the last Energy Act through Parliament, 40% of electricity was generated from coal and just 7% from wind. Last year, coal accounted for just 1.3% of power generation and renewables accounted for well over 40%. We need similar radical thinking today further to transform our energy sector and to allow zero-carbon fuels, such as green hydrogen, to play their full role in decarbonising industry and the heavy transport sector.
We also need significantly to reduce wasteful and unnecessary energy consumption in transport and buildings. On transport, we welcome plans to improve and decarbonise bus services, but we have concerns about how the money will be deployed, which my noble friend Lord Bradshaw will say more about. This Queen’s Speech should have gone much further and set out a clear route map for the wider decarbonisation of the transport system. It should have announced the restoration of differential vehicle excise duty, depending on vehicle emissions, and introduced steps to make electric vehicles affordable to those on middle and lower incomes, including measures to ensure that motorists are not fleeced by on-street charge point operators, where electricity costs can be up to six times higher than for those who can charge their vehicles from their domestic electricity supply. It should also have abandoned the consultation on reduced air passenger duty and instead introduced a ban on fossil-fuel-powered domestic flights between points where the train journey is less than two and a half hours. This would both reduce emissions from domestic flights and incentivise the development of non-fossil fuel aviation.
My noble friend Lord Stunell will speak in more detail about the Government’s failure to tackle emissions from buildings. I simply note that, despite all the hype about building back better and a manifesto commitment to invest £9.2 billion in the energy efficiency of homes, schools and hospitals, the Queen’s Speech and the Prime Minister’s accompanying letter had literally not one word to say on tackling greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, which represent 19% of total UK emissions.
We propose a green buildings Bill that would require all new buildings to be built to the zero-carbon standard, with the energy component rising to Passivhaus standard by 2025. All existing homes in the social sector would be required to reach at least energy performance certificate band B by 2025 and all other homes and non-domestic buildings to reach the same band by 2030.
An effective planning framework will also be critical in tackling climate change and biodiversity loss, but the proposals for the planning Bill have nothing to say on either issue, instead riding roughshod over local democratic decision-making. If the Government actually want to see more houses built, they need to recognise that it will not be achieved by stripping powers from local authorities. The facts are clear: we have never succeeded and will never succeed in delivering the 300,000 homes annually that the Government have set as a target without a significant municipal housing programme so, instead of curtailing local authority powers, as the Government propose, they should restore their ability to finance, build and maintain large-scale social housing programmes in their communities.
In line with the Government’s climate policy, the planning Bill should also have at its heart a requirement for all planning decisions to have regard to the 2050 net-zero objective. We will be happy to assist the Government with an amendment to this effect when the Bill comes before Parliament.
The Queen’s Speech should also have set out new commitments to protect and enhance biodiversity and improve land use to reduce climate impacts. While we look forward to the long-overdue Environment Bill coming to our House, there is no mention in the Queen’s Speech of biodiversity or the major shifts in land use that will be required to reduce the carbon footprint of agriculture, which is currently responsible for about 10% of our greenhouse gas emissions. There is no Bill to provide for the protection of peatland, and there is no clarity about whether the environmental land management scheme will be used to transform land-use practices to tackle climate change or whether they will simply sustain business largely as usual.
There is no doubt that the Government face many complex and challenging issues but, reading this Queen’s Speech, you would be hard put to believe that it represents the programme of a Government who have set themselves some of the most demanding climate objectives of any country on earth, so I have this nagging worry: do they really mean what they say? Do they really have the stomach for the difficult decisions that are required or are these climate commitments to be as fleeting as the 2019 manifesto pledge to
“proudly maintain our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GNI on development”?
Will these climate commitments evaporate as easily into the dark winter nights that follow COP 26, accompanied with the same sort of excuses: “The circumstances have changed” or “We are doing more, in any event, than others”? Will we squander our global leadership on this issue just as casually and with as little care for the consequences to others as we have done on overseas development aid? I hope that my cynicism is misplaced, but if the Government are to dispel such concerns, they will have to move rapidly from the realm of targets to the sphere of action.
This brings me back to Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi, who chose his words advisedly. He told us that the future is decided by what we do today, not by what we say today or the distant targets that we set today but by the actions that we take. By that standard, this Queen’s Speech falls tragically and woefully short.
Lord Carrington (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. I, too, enormously look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse.
I welcome many of the measures outlined in the gracious Speech, particularly the opportunity to consider the Environment Bill, which forms part of a trio of measures—including the Agriculture Act and the energy White Paper—moving from the environmentally damaging basic payment scheme to sustainable farming and the enhancement of the environment.
However, the Agriculture Act and the Environment Bill are enabling legislation and, therefore, lack sufficient detail to allow land managers the tools to plan a forward business strategy. Despite this regrettable deficiency, farmers and land managers are doing their best to prepare by carrying out capital audits, improving soil structure, mitigating methane, researching carbon offsetting opportunities and investing in forestry and trees.
However, without detail, much of this preliminary work, which is often done at considerable expense, is totally at their own risk. For instance, in the case of soil condition, methane measurement, carbon sequestration and wider natural capital audits, there appears to be no agreement on the recommended measuring tools and standards. Surely this is fundamental to the success of environmental legislation. We need to know more about regulatory standards and financial incentives as a matter of urgency.
In the Environment Bill, there are many areas that need further thought. For instance, the only reference to trees is in Clause 100, which covers tree felling and planting, except that there is no further information on tree planting. Surely this is the opportunity to place the new English tree strategy in the Bill. The planting and maintenance of woodland are central to policies on climate change and carbon capture, and much more, but further commercial realism is required for planting at scale in England to succeed, due to the likely devaluation of land and farm income by switching from farming to forestry. Although grants largely cover the cost of establishment and early maintenance, there is no current return to the grower. I therefore urge the Government to investigate the reintroducing of basic annual payments for up to 25 years that existed under the farm woodland scheme of the 1980s. That was successfully brought in to counter the huge loss of elm trees by incentivising the creation of new woodland.
On biodiversity net gain—BNG—which is central to the Bill, farmers and growers should be in prime position to provide developers with BNG. However, pressure on land use needs to be carefully considered, as environmental policies must recognise the importance of food security. Details of how the BNG market will work are scarce. The measurement—again—and financial benefits are very unclear, but the likely cost of implementation will undoubtedly be high. We await the updating of Defra metrics. Other issues, such as what happens at the end of the scheme, how tenant farmers can be involved and taxation, all need resolving before BNG can be effective.
The Bill needs also to address the issue of field drains, which impact on farm productivity, flooding and much more. In many instances, field drains benefit net zero and are very important in underwriting domestic food security. This issue should also be in the Bill, as it is not really something that should be dealt with under the Agriculture Act or the environmental land management schemes.
Finally, I believe that public education is key in just about every aspect of the Environment Bill and climate change in general. I urge the Government to review and update the national curriculum as required to achieve this, as use of knowledge and behavioural change are cheaper than remediation.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and I look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. My entry in the register of interests tells of my family business in agriculture and horticulture. In Holbeach, we have an outlier of the University of Lincoln in the form of the National Centre for Food Manufacturing and a food enterprise zone.
I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Goldsmith is to sum up this debate. We are all looking forward to the Environment Bill; it will be interesting legislation which I think is seen by the whole House as important. I also welcome the secondary legislation following on from the Agriculture Act, which was taken forward with such great aplomb by my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble, who has now been promoted and who we look forward to seeing in his new role. I welcome my noble friend Lord Benyon on his return to Defra, where we served together as Ministers in the coalition.
I have a further interest, however, about which I wish to speak. I have become the chairman of the visitor economy group of the Midlands Engine APPG. This is a really interesting group; your Lordships will be hearing later from the co-chairman of the Midlands Engine APPG, the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. I want to raise the visitor economy because, although it is relevant to a whole range of government departments, it is essentially community based and, much to my surprise, is a key sector. It is in the top five sectors of significance as an employer and of value. It is, however, fragmented into many SMEs. The proposals for a national skills fund and lifelong training through the skills and post-16 education Bill will greatly assist this fragmented sector of our economy.
As I have said, the visitor economy is a significant area of employment. In the Midlands region as a whole, it accounts for nearly 10% of employment. In some districts, it is double that—in East Lindsey, Derbyshire Dales and Staffordshire Moorlands, it is 20%—while it is even higher in towns such as Skegness, Mablethorpe and Bakewell, where seasonality can be a real challenge. Last week, we as a group of parliamentarians met Nick de Bois of VisitEngland—some noble Lords will probably remember him as a Member of another place. Much is going on. English Tourism Week starts next weekend; Coventry began its year as our City of Culture this past weekend; and Birmingham is looking forward to the Commonwealth Games in the summer of next year. It is not just about the seaside or the open air; it is about cities and the attractions they have to offer. Of course, it is also about place—the need to be local—and about communities. In Lincolnshire, the destination management organisation works well with local authorities, including those with towns funding such as Skegness and Boston, and the Greater Lincolnshire enterprise partnership.
Put all this together and we see that the visitor economy can be fully part of the engine for bounce-back and building back better. That is why I look forward to this Session of Parliament and the measures in the Queen’s Speech, which have been so ably spoken to by others.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans [V]
My Lords, I too look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, but I want to start by congratulating the Minister on introducing the leasehold reform Bill.
Ending ground rents—or, as one person called it recently, the serfdom charge—in new developments is an important and positive reform, and I will welcome this opportunity to be mostly congruent with the Minister, after been being on opposing sides of the Fire Safety Bill. While this is a great victory for future leaseholders, existing leaseholders, particularly those in developments affected by the building and fire safety scandal, nervously await their fate.
During the previous parliamentary Session, those Members, including myself, who sought to amend the Fire Safety Bill to protect leaseholders were told that Her Majesty’s Government would address our concerns in the building safety Bill, which I was pleased to hear announced in the Queen’s Speech. There is an urgency to this crisis. Bills of debilitating proportion are already being handed to leaseholders, bankruptcies have occurred, and, tragically, so have related suicides. This is a financial and a mental health crisis that is growing worse every passing day that it is left unaddressed. I therefore urge Her Majesty’s Government to move with haste to bring forward their building safety Bill, so that we can finally provide leaseholders with peace of mind.
Having said that, I want to get this Bill right. The pre-legislative scrutiny committee for the building safety Bill crucially raised the absence of any measures in the Bill to pursue developers for inadequate historic works. While ACM cladding was legal prior to 2019, there are now numerous documented cases where this was fitted not to regulations, without requisite firebreaks or adequate compartmentalisation measures. During this injustice, the six-year limitation preventing legal action is conspiring to force leaseholders into bankruptcy, rather than what the Government have always claimed that they want to do: to get those responsible to pay for remediation. I was grateful for the Minister’s assurances during debate on the Fire Safety Bill that Her Majesty’s Government were
“committed to developing stronger avenues for redress”,—[Official Report, 28/4/21; col. 2369.]
and I hope to see this in the revised Bill. The £2 billion levy on developers is, frankly, derisory, particularly when they are essentially receiving £5 billion in subsidy to fix their own defective developments—a net taxpayer subsidy of £3 billion.
I would like to see some strong action from this Government. Now that we are out of the EU, perhaps they could look at excluding developers who fail to remediate their own buildings from applying for public contracts. The Government should also look seriously at extending the forced loan scheme to include other historic, non-cladding related, fire safety defects, given that they were estimated by the Institute of Residential Property Management at between £26,000 and £38,000 per lease. These bills alone still have the propensity to bankrupt leaseholders.
Finally, I turn to the proposed changes to planning laws. Too often, those with disabilities and their families struggle to find suitable homes and are forced into inaccessible and unsuitable homes. The latest figures from the housing association Habinteg found that, outside London, only 1.5% of homes planned over the next decade will be suitable for wheelchair users, despite the ageing demographic shift. Many leading housing associations have called for the mandatory baseline for all new homes to be raised to category 2—broadly the same as the lifetime home standard. I hope that the Government will move forward and publish their responses to the accessible homes consultation, so that parliamentarians know that they intend to make our housing stock more inclusive and prepare it for the challenges of the future.
Lord Snape (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate; I hope he will forgive me if I concentrate on other matters in the Queen’s Speech. Like other speakers, I welcome the prospect of the maiden speeches from my noble friend Lord Coaker and the noble Lord, Lord Morse.
I was interested at the way in which the Minister glibly waved aside the future of franchising in the railway industry. I have spent the last decade listening to Ministers at the Dispatch Box telling me how wonderful the system was, yet it is to be abolished in one sentence. What exactly is to replace it? The Williams report, which has been around for some time, is unique in that it will actually be published, unlike the 30-odd other reports into the future of the railway industry over the past few years, and I welcome that. The obvious question is when; I hope that the Minister can tell us when he comes to reply.
One thing lacking in the Queen’s Speech is any detail about the future of the eastern leg of HS2. I hope that the Minister will agree that, if we are to—in the phrase used in the Speech—“build back better” through our transport industries, HS2, particularly its eastern leg, will properly be built. However, I fear that what will happen is what we are seeing at present. The Treasury, which, I suspect, is not madly enthusiastic about the prospect of HS2, will tinker at the edges. We are seeing that tinkering at present—a platform less at Euston; rather than one Bill to take the eastern leg forward towards Leeds and beyond, two or three short Bills for short stretches of HS2. Do we never learn? When it is eventually built, as I hope it will be, it will therefore cost far more than building it in one swoop, which would be the intelligent way forward. We never seem to learn that lesson. Teams with experience in electrification and railway building are continually disbanded and reformed. We then wonder why, in the case of the Great Western electrification, the posts and masts cost more to install than previous electrification schemes in this country and certainly far more than such schemes in other parts of the world.
I also look forward to seeing the Williams report’s findings on fares. I did a random exercise this morning. An elderly gentleman, with a senior citizen’s railcard, who is not used to travelling by rail, might decide to travel from Solihull to London Marylebone. This non-regular traveller would find 15 different tickets between the two stations. If he wanted a single ticket, he would have a choice of paying between £7.90 to £100.80. He would be unlikely to pay £100.80, but it is a listed single fare between Solihull and London. If he decided to come back, he would have 16 different fares, varying from £21.80 to £124.60. I think that is crackers and I suspect that most other people who look at the railway fare structure think so too.
If he decided to travel on different trains he would pay different fares, which is why there are so many. If he decided to come back in the rush hour it would cost him more, but if he came back before 4 pm he would get a cheaper fare. That is provided he stuck to Chiltern Railways, which is the operator between Solihull and London Marylebone. If he decided to use the west coast main line and came back on an Avanti train, which has the franchise for that line, he would find that the rush hour leaving Euston starts at 3 pm, although if he got the underground to London Marylebone it does not start until 4 pm. This sort of lunacy has gone on for far too long and the Government really ought to do something about it.
It is not just the fares and HS2. There are lots of other aspects of our railway industry that the Government ought to look at, such as the electrification of the Midland main line. Are we going to get the go-ahead from Corby? Good luck to the people in Corby; it is remarkable that we are going to provide a half-hourly electric train service to London from Corby, a town that did not have any railway at all 30 years ago, because it was closed down. Yet cities such as Sheffield, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby are to be served only by diesel or bi-mode trains. It is lunacy and I hope that the Government can do something about it.
While I welcome some aspects of the Queen’s Speech, there is a long way to go.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I too look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. I will speak to the three animal welfare Bills which were mentioned in Her Majesty’s most gracious Speech: the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, the kept animals Bill, and the animals abroad Bill. These three Bills hang under the Action Plan for Animal Welfare, also recently published, which has over 40 reforms across five different workstreams—a large undertaking, but I welcome it.
However, I am disappointed that the protection of children, both physically and mentally, will not receive such a strong commitment. Many will not benefit from the protections they require and deserve. It is a sad fact that 40% of children have viewed unsuitable images on the internet, yet the Government are dragging their feet on providing the necessary stringent protections for children.
I digress, so I will now return to my main purpose. The first of the five themes of the animal welfare action plan is “sentience and enforcement”. Not many weeks ago, we debated the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill, which increases the maximum prison sentence for cruelty to animals from six months to five years. This brings the UK into line with many countries with which we trade internationally and was long overdue. There have been many debates in this Chamber about animal sentience. Like many others, I signed a petition against the revolting practice of ear cropping, which has no useful purpose whatever and is purely cosmetic. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill is short, and solely about the setting up of a committee to look at the possible effects of government legislation on animals as sentient beings. Who sits on the committee, its remit, and the way it reports are solely the purview of the Secretary of State. I will have more to say on that at Second Reading.
The second theme is “international trade and advocacy”. During the passages of the Agriculture Bill and the Trade Bill, many of your Lordships raised the issue of trade negotiations with countries whose animal welfare standards are inferior to our own. If we are to continue to be a global leader in this field, we must protect endangered animals abroad, including the elephant. Having spoken many times on the Ivory Act, I am frustrated in the extreme that it has not been implemented. Can the Minister give us a reason why this has not happened—apart from the antique ivory lobby—and a timetable for when the Act will be implemented?
The third theme is “farm animals”. Currently, some farm animals are exported for fattening and slaughter. This transportation is distressing for the animals, completely unnecessary and must be stopped as a priority. Similarly, the use of cages for laying hens and farrowing crates for pigs must be phased out as soon as possible. The meat from pigs raised in farrowing crates abroad should no longer be imported into the UK. Effective and clear food labelling is essential to ensure public confidence on animal welfare. The Government must also look at the length of journeys within the UK from farm to abattoir. Many of these journeys are extremely long and distressing. A network of effective abattoirs close to rural communities is essential.
The fourth theme is around “pets and sporting animals”. My colleagues and I have spoken many times about the smuggling of puppies. There has been an increase in the demand for dogs and puppies during the lockdowns and I fear that many new family pets are the result of puppy smuggling. These puppies have been separated from their mothers far too early and will go on to have problems in their adult lives. There are incidents of adult pets being stolen to order, with an increase of 170% in dog thefts in 2020. This can have a devasting effect on a family who have lost a beloved pet. I welcome a crackdown on such practices, with stiff sentences being passed on perpetrators by the courts.
Lastly, the welfare plan covers wild animals. This section seems to be somewhat limited to prohibiting keeping primates as pets and cracking down on illegal hare coursing. Will the Minister consider widening this section? Currently, hare coursing is rising at an alarming rate. with evidence of links to organised crime. Again, can the Minister give the House a timeline for when legislation will be implemented to effectively regulate hare coursing?
Many of the Government’s proposals are to be welcomed. However, as always, the devil will be in the detail. There is unfortunately little actual detail in these proposals and no detail at all on the Kept Animals Bill or Animals Abroad Bill; hopefully, they will be published shortly. We see warm words but little actual commitment.
In the meantime, I welcome the welfare plan and the three Bills and look forward to the Minister’s response to my questions and those of others.
Lord Ravensdale (CB)
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I very much look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. I declare my interests as a director of the cross-party group Peers for the Planet and an engineer and consultant working for Atkins. I also bring to the attention of the House that I am co-chair of the Midlands Engine APPG. So it was most welcome for me to hear the focus of the gracious Speech on levelling up. I would like to build on the remarks of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, who made some excellent points about the visitor economy in the Midlands, and to focus on the opportunities for a green recovery to level up the Midlands region.
As we emerge from the shadow of the pandemic, we need to build back better, greener and faster. With their unique strengths, the regions have a great opportunity to be at the forefront of this change. Data from the Midlands Engine shows that gross value added per capita in the Midlands is nearly £22,000, or 9% of the England minus London average. If this gap were closed, it would add an extra £76 billion each year to the UK economy—£76 billion. That is the scale of the opportunity here. Playing to existing regional strengths, the green recovery can be a key part of closing this gap.
The Midlands was at the forefront of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. The new thinking that led to these epochal events is perfectly symbolised by the painting “A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery” by Joseph Wright of Derby, who was himself a key figure in the Midlands Enlightenment. The painting depicts a lecturer giving a demonstration of a mechanical model of the solar system to an awe-inspired audience, their illuminated faces emerging from the darkness of ignorance and superstition into the light of reason. The region now has the opportunity to continue this historical thread by leading the way with a new, green industrial revolution.
One in four energy and low-carbon jobs in England is based in the Midlands and the sector is worth almost £27 billion to the region. It is home to nationally and internationally leading projects, assets and research in low-carbon transport, fuel, heating and energy. The Midlands Engine is the first pan-regional partnership to propose a plan for delivering this and will issue its plan for consultation within the next few months. Can the Minister say what plans the Government have to work with the regions on such initiatives, supporting existing regional strengths to enable a clean economic recovery?
Innovation will of course be vital in meeting our net-zero targets. The Government already have a desire to increase the R&D intensity of the economy to 2.4%, but additional focus is needed on how deploying research funding can help to level up the economy. If the Midlands receives its fair share of this funding, it will equate to a £2.3 billion increase in R&D spend in the Midlands, providing the potential to create tens of thousands of jobs. Crucially, R&D will bring in skills and wider investment from industry, which will boost the productivity of the Midlands and help the Government meet their targets for levelling up. I highlight here the fantastic universities and research assets that we have in the region.
Some thinking is required on the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, ARIA, to ensure that its spend is constructively deployed in aid of the levelling-up agenda, rather than defaulting to research capacity in the south-east. I look forward to returning to this when the Bill comes before the House.
There is a fantastic opportunity here to use the green industrial revolution, along with existing regional strengths, to level up the Midlands, which is home to 11 million people. A year ago, the Chancellor vowed to do “whatever it takes” to support households and businesses through the Covid crisis. If the Government are serious about delivering levelling up, they should make a similarly unambiguous commitment to do whatever it takes to level up the regions. A shock to expectations can in itself produce the momentum required to level up our economy.
Lord Coaker (Lab) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, I stand humbly in this historic Chamber today. I am humbled by the warm welcome of my fellow Peers and the support of all the officers and staff; I wish to thank each and every one of them. I am truly humbled by the enormity of the honour that I feel—a pride that I know is shared by my family, my friends, and so many of my former constituents in Gedling, whom I was proud to represent for 22 years, the people of Nottingham City, the people of the county of Nottinghamshire and beyond.
As I stand here discussing this Queen’s Speech on the theme of communities, voices from my past are calling out to me. I can hear my 94 year-old father, a former Metropolitan Police officer, saying, “Don’t forget neighbourhood policing.” I can hear the man I was named after, my uncle, who is buried in a war grave dated 6 June 1944 in Ranville, in Normandy near Caen, saying, “Never take democracy and freedom for granted.” I hear the voices of Nottingham school pupils, many from disadvantaged backgrounds and growing up in poverty, whom I taught for some 20 years, saying to me, “Make sure every pupil succeeds, whatever their ability, and that we end the academic/vocational divide.”
I can hear the pleas of the many former constituents of mine who needed help with claiming their welfare benefits when the state often made it incredibly difficult for them to do so, when their only crime was poverty. I can hear the voices of young people, including my own grandchildren, demanding that we save the planet for them, if not for ourselves. I can hear so many voices, including me as a younger man, an idealistic socialist standing on the miners’ picket lines or ferociously protesting on behalf of local councils and communities for a better deal. All of them, including the younger me, are calling out: “Vernon what are you going to do with this privilege and this honour you have?”
I say to them, as I say to all noble Lords—this is something we all share, whatever our party background—that I will stand up and speak out, as others have already done on these and other issues, through this House as a proud, working Labour Peer. I say to the Minister that I am no cynic about these things. I know that change has occurred and will occur. However, if the pandemic has shown us anything, it is the power of the state, both at local and national level, to act swiftly and decisively for the benefit of all communities in every region. Why does the state not act with the same level of urgency now for the sake of our communities? I do not want another Peer to be raising in 30 years’ time exactly the same issues of poverty and inequality in our communities as I am.
I wonder what Lord Stanley of Alderley would think. He spoke of the need for a Notification of Poverty Bill, in which he raised many of the issues we still discuss today concerning the working poor. That was in 1935. In discussing welfare and all these other issues, it cannot be right for 2.5 million people to rely on food banks, 980,000 of them children. It cannot be right for over 6 million people to depend on universal credit to survive. It cannot be right for 14.5 million people in our country, including 4.3 million children, to live in relative poverty. It cannot be right for life expectancy, health outcomes and so on still to depend on where you live and where you come from.
It cannot be right for 793 million people across the world to face starvation and for so many of our elderly not to have the social care they need and deserve. We have to act with greater urgency. The cry from communities and the demand from those who were on the frontline during the pandemic, often the poorest paid, is that they want something different. Indeed, is that not the cry from every community? My task, through the vehicle of the Labour Party, will be to play my part, however small, saying that my vision is, “It does not have to be like this”. The state needs to act, and I say to the Minister that that is how this Queen’s Speech will be judged.
To quote the great Romantic poet, Percy Shelley:
“…to hope until hope creates
From its very own wreck the thing it contemplates”.
What inspiring words. My hope, my vision, is to do all I can for a fairer, more equal society. To those voices of my past and present, I say, I have heard you. The power of our words needs to ring out across our nation. The dream of a better future is one we all have to make a reality, and as soon as we can.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, what a heartfelt and moving maiden speech. My noble friend’s dad and family, watching today, will rightly be so proud.
In 1976, a very young Vernon Coaker started teaching, and that very first classroom set him on the road to here today in your Lordships’ House. That class was 5C. They were tough kids, many struggling to read, with little appetite for authority or school. He recognised then that education would help them, but only so far; real change, the ability to make a difference, not just to those kids in that classroom but to his community and to his country, could come only through Parliament and government. Vernon won Gedling in 1997. It was a marginal seat and he held it, against the odds, at election after election. He was able to do that because he came from—but, crucially, always remained part of and at the heart of—that community.
He is also a principal research fellow in modern slavery and human trafficking at the University of Nottingham, taking the responsibility he had as a Home Office Minister and continuing that engagement and responsibility. I am sure that he will bring his thoughtful and analytical approach, as well as his strong sense of social justice, to debates in this House. Vernon, welcome.
Turning to today’s debate, I want to focus on not the adversities of climate change but the solutions. At this point in history we have not just an opportunity but an obligation to solve the problem of climate change. It is us who can take hold of the lid of Pandora’s box and firmly close it. We want to and can do this through decarbonisation—driving the removal of carbon dioxide from the UK’s economy. Decarbonisation involves two simple actions. First, the Government must invest in renewable energy; secondly, we must reduce and ultimately stop the extraction and use of fossil fuels. These two simple actions, taken together, are the best way to set the future of our planet back on the right track.
Currently, 79% of the UK’s energy comes from fossil fuels. The Government have taken steps to decarbonise the economy. The 10-point plan for the green industrial revolution has made some progress towards decarbonisation, particularly in its uptake of offshore wind energy. However, the steps have been half hearted at best. This Government have seen a regression on the policies that would promote the use of renewable energy. For example, the renewables obligation scheme that created more than 23,000 generating stations and generated 25 gigawatts of energy was closed in 2017, ending its benefit to the renewable energy sector. The feed-in tariff, a policy designed specifically to increase investment in and uptake of renewable energy, has been all but abolished. This has led to uncertainty in Britain’s domestic solar panel industry, reducing Britain’s opportunities for success in the renewable energy and business sector.
As an alternative to this bleak continuation, the Labour Party has a green new deal and has the potential to restore the country’s economy through new business deals and opportunities. Clean energy lies at the heart of the Labour Party’s green new deal and it has the golden touch of creating high-quality, skilled new jobs for people up and down the nation—from solar panel technicians to data scientists, to green financial investors. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, we urge Her Majesty’s Government to work across the political spectrum to deliver.
David Attenborough, who has been named COP 26 people’s advocate, stated:
“We have one final chance to create the perfect home for ourselves and restore the wonderful world we inherited.”
COP 26 is the conference at which we will ultimately decide which path humanity takes. Let us take that right path.
Lord Howard of Rising (Con) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, on—as the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, said—such a heartfelt and moving speech. I also look forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Morse, later. I declare an interest as the owner of rented accommodation and farmland.
Her Majesty’s Government plan to publish a consultation on reforming tenancy law to abolish Section 21 no-fault evictions. It is impossible to do this without introducing rent controls, which historically have never worked and would do immense damage to the rented housing market.
A recent example is Berlin, where controls were introduced in 2020 to maintain rents at 2019 levels for five years. The result was that the number of new rental properties coming on to the market fell by almost half; the scheme is ending after less than two years. There were other factors, but they do not alter the fundamental, which is that freezing rents caused the supply of rented accommodation to dry up.
To state the obvious, landlords let premises in order to get rent; it is preferable to have the income. Landlords ask tenants to leave only with very good reason because replacing a tenant is an expensive and laborious business. You have to advertise the property. There are lawyers’ fees, letting agency fees and fees to check gas and electricity. You must comply with emission rules, and there are almost always redecoration costs. The longer the same tenant stays in place—so avoiding these costs—the greater the benefit to the landlord.
It is blindingly obvious that only a tiny minority of tenants are asked to leave, even by rogue landlords. Removing Section 21 would massively reduce the value of rented properties and be a slap in the face for all those aspiring individuals who have put their savings into rented property—especially those who have taken out a buy-to-let mortgage. Some 90% of all landlords are individuals, nearly half of whom own only one property.
Before the 1988 Act, the average discount for tenanted properties was between 40% and 50% of vacant possession value. At a stroke, by introducing sitting tenancies, the capital value of the present tenanted sector will have nearly halved. In the case of landlords with buy-to-let mortgages, the security for these loans may no longer meet the loan-to-value requirement, with the consequent financial hardship.
Rented premises are well protected by law. If there are problems with the property that the landlord will not deal with, a tenant can complain to the local housing officer, who can compel a landlord to make changes. A gas certificate is needed every year. An electrical installation condition report is required every five years or for each new letting. An energy performance certificate is required. Deposits are now limited to five weeks’ rent, which is unlikely to cover a bad tenant’s damage. Given the massive incentive to prolong tenancies and the continuing drive towards improvements to rented property, it would be counterproductive to introduce a measure that will reduce the availability and quality of rented accommodation and will cause financial hardship for many.
There are many other arguments against the abolition of Section 21, for which there is no time today. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will think carefully when reviewing the abolition of Section 21.
Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]
My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my relevant interests as a member of Kirklees Council and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I listened to the gracious Speech with eager anticipation, then read the Government’s more detailed explanation of their intentions. I was to be disappointed. There was the slick headline of “Build Back Better” and a sub-heading of “Public Finances”. I looked in vain for any mention of local government finances.
The Conservative Government have a cunning plan, it seems. First, cut grant funding to local government by 60%—£16 billion in cash terms—forcing deep cuts to the fabric of local places. Then, accuse councils of closing these selfsame services. The trump card of levelling up is then played, where central government comes to the rescue by carefully selecting additional funding for a few cash-strapped areas. Meanwhile, more councils are on the verge of issuing Section 114 notices—the equivalent of bankruptcy. A positive change to local government funding is one major missing element.
Another is the absolute failure to reform social care funding. This matters to local government, as 57% of council tax income is spent on social care. Council tax—a regressive tax—is being forced to bear the burden of the Government’s failure to deal with the challenge of social care funding. Each year since 2016, the Government have added the adult social care precept to council tax, resulting in a 13% rise to council tax bills. As council tax rises, so potholes increase, to the extent that even the Conservative-led County Councils Network is complaining publicly about the £400 million cut to local roads maintenance even after the pothole fund has been taken into account.
The two major Bills outlined in the gracious Speech that affect local government are the planning Bill and the building safety Bill. It is, I suggest, disingenuous to state in the “Key facts” section on the planning Bill that
“only … 3 per cent of local people engage with planning applications”,
when the majority of applications are, of course, of a minor nature. People are concerned about the changing nature of the place they live in, whether it be the loss of green fields, pressure on local facilities, traffic congestion or air quality. Neighbourhood planning showed that people will engage positively when given the opportunity. Sadly, the principle behind this Bill is that local voices need to be excluded in the interests of development companies—the same development companies that have failed to build 1 million homes for which there is a current planning permission.
The building safety Bill is to be welcomed in that it is the major response to the Hackitt review and the Grenfell inquiry. It will, I hope, put right the decades of regulatory failings in the construction industry. Unfortunately, it will fail to respond to the cries of anguish from leaseholders who are trapped in tower blocks where flammable cladding has to be removed and where the costs of other fire safety defects are being passed to leaseholders. These costs amount to tens of thousands of pounds. It is a scandal of growing proportions, and the Government have an absolute duty to put it right. Are they committed to fulfilling their responsibility in this regard?
Councillors of all parties and none have at their heart a passion to improve their local place. They are the people who can truly help level up. They need the tools to do so. Starving councils of funding and essential powers will seriously hamper any hope of significantly growing and improving the opportunities and prosperity of both people and places. With that, I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Morse.
Lord Morse (CB) (Maiden Speech)
I very much appreciate the opportunity to address your Lordships for the first time in this debate and follow the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I am very grateful for the welcoming and helpful attitude I have encountered on all sides, most particularly from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, Convenor of the Cross Benches, and from his secretary, Kate Long, as well as the doorkeepers and all those who have helped guide my uncertain steps as I find my way around this place. Please keep going.
I am a Scottish chartered accountant. They are the humorous, interesting, original ones. After a career in public practice and three years at the Ministry of Defence as defence commercial director, I was Comptroller and Auditor-General and chief executive of the National Audit Office for 10 years. Since leaving the NAO, I have become chair of two London hospital trusts—Hillingdon and London North West. I am lost in admiration for how they both responded to the Covid crisis. I am very proud of them.
At the NAO, I was responsible for auditing central Government and published approximately 600 reports over 10 years, assessing the efficiency, effectiveness and value for money of Government’s use of public resources across a whole spectrum of public sector activity. The largest single area for these reports was the NHS, followed by major projects in transport and defence, and welfare and benefits. Many of the projects and programmes I examined I looked at more than once, and they still continue today—High Speed 2 and Crossrail being two notable examples in transport, and universal credit in welfare.
Let me briefly mention a few of the lessons I learned over 10 years, which I hope are relevant to this debate. In the context of major projects and programmes, including transport ones evidently, considerations of efficiency and effectiveness are often outweighed by the political agenda, which can demand eye-catching but often overoptimistic announcements about the costs, timescales and benefits of the project concerned. Unfortunately, the sugar high of publicity passes all too quickly and is replaced by reality and, quite often, years of highly visible and avoidable underperformance follow. In this context, the independence of the Civil Service in raising concerns about public value is of great importance. Civil servants need to be able to do their job without risking career damage.
In the area of welfare and benefits, the Government need to make sure they understand, from the ground up, the harsh realities of life for people with low or no income before legislating or making benefit rules which can affect those people’s lives so fundamentally.
Finally, I learned that, over time, Governments are judged not just by policies or announcements but by their perceived competence, evidenced by the results delivered to and experienced by the taxpayer and the citizen, who have, after all, underwritten the whole enterprise. It is worth while getting it right first time.
I look forward, in conclusion, to expanding my experience and knowledge in the service of your Lordships' House.
Lord Kerslake (CB) [V]
My Lords, it is an enormous pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Morse, in this debate. I warmly congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech. It will not surprise the House that I particularly endorse his comments about the Civil Service.
Most of us will know him from his decade as Comptroller and Auditor-General of the National Audit Office, which he stepped down from in 2019. However, the noble Lord, Lord Morse, had a long and distinguished career before that at the Ministry of Defence and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He brings a forensically sharp mind and a fearless willingness to speak it. His passion, as Comptroller and Auditor-General, was to improve the way the public sector did things. However sharp his criticisms might have been sometimes—and they were—it was always clear to me, as head of the Civil Service, that he had its best interests at heart. His subsequent actions in becoming chair of two trusts demonstrates this. We are very fortunate that he has joined us in this House.
Before going on to comment on the Queen’s Speech, I should declare my interests as chair of Peabody, Be First and Stockport Mayoral Development Corporation, and as president of the Local Government Association. My other interests are listed in the register. These interests are very relevant to what I will focus on in my short speech—the Government’s proposals on planning.
The Government’s legislative programme contains the usual mix of the good, the bad and the very bad, as well as one frankly disgraceful omission, namely, the lack of any plan to respond to the growing crisis in social care. The planning Bill, if it follows the proposals set out in the White Paper, will fall into the “very bad” category. This is not to say that everything in the White Paper is bad. We certainly need to simplify the local plan process, improve design and increase the use of digital technology. However, it is based on a completely erroneous view that the way to more and better housing is yet another reform of our planning system.
As someone who is passionate about the need for more housing, and chair of three organisations that are collectively responsible for building thousands of new homes a year, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that planning is not the main problem. Of course, a few schemes take longer to get approved than they should do, and some councils are better than others. But, in the round, the Local Government Association’s figures tell the real story: nine out of 10 planning applications are approved by local planning authorities, and there are more than 1 million application permissions from the last decade that are still to be built.
In his independent report, Oliver Letwin also found that the planning system was not the main barrier. Viability, infrastructure, grant rate for affordable housing, delivering zero carbon and developer caution on build-out rates for larger sites are much the bigger issues. Yet, based on a completely incorrect understanding of the true barriers to building new homes, the Government plan to remove a basic democratic right of local councils to make decisions on individual applications, and to replace it with a zonal system and a single national infrastructure levy.
The comments by former Prime Minister Theresa May in the other House are worth noting. She said that the proposals
“would reduce local democracy, remove the opportunity for local people to comment on specific developments, and remove the ability of local authorities to set development policies locally … the White Paper proposals would also lead to fewer affordable homes, because they hand developers a get-out clause … I fear that, unless the Government look again at the White Paper proposals, what we will see is not more homes, but, potentially, the wrong homes being built in the wrong places.”—[Official Report, Commons, 11/5/21; col. 39.]
I could not have put it better myself.
There is still time for the Government to listen and take a different path on this. I sincerely hope the planning Bill that comes forward retains the sensible parts of the White Paper and ditches the rest. If not, both Houses will have a lot of work to do.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, what a privilege it is to hear the maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Morse, and my noble friend Lord Coaker. I look forward to many more debates with both noble Lords.
Although this debate covers welfare, there are no Bills concerning the welfare state nor, for that matter, employment, pensions policy, health and safety, child maintenance or anything else within the DWP’s core remit. Yet challenges abound. The pandemic has exposed the impact of poor working conditions, low pay and job insecurity. They could have been addressed in the flagship employment Bill announced in the 2019 Queen’s Speech, which promised to:
“Protect and enhance workers’ rights”.
Had action been taken pre pandemic, maybe things could have been different, but we still have no sign of that legislation, just endless promises to level up. Can the Minister tell us where the employment Bill is? When will Ministers legislate to ensure all gig economy workers have basic rights and protections? When will we see action to ensure everyone has access to decent statutory sick pay and adequate in-work benefits?
Young people have been hit hardest by this pandemic. The unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year-olds is now 14.3%—575,000 young people out of work. This needs urgent action, something like Labour’s jobs promise to end long-term unemployment and our promise to ensure furloughed workers who lose their jobs get intensive support as soon as they need it.
The Government’s answer is Kickstart, which Ministers claim has created 195,000 jobs. However, figures suggest that fewer than 20,000 young people have actually started work. I have some questions for the Minister, though I accept he may have to write to me. Is the target still to reach a quarter of a million young people? What is being done to deal with the awful regional disparities? Why end Kickstart in December when so few young people are in jobs and the target has not been met? Both Labour and the CBI have called for an extension. Will Ministers think again?
The pandemic has also hit older workers. ONS figures show employees aged 50-plus were more likely to report working fewer hours than usual or not working at all, with the biggest effects among those 65-plus. Resolution Foundation research shows that older workers who lose their jobs tend to take longer to get back into work and, when they do, they are likely to earn substantially less than previously. This will hit them now and in retirement. The Government’s answer is the restart scheme, but that will not start until at least July, and it will use payment by results. How will the Government ensure that providers properly invest in those participants, such as older workers, who may have a lower chance of getting a job? What new support will be given specifically to skill and upskill older workers in new and growing industries?
Another major gap is around disability. The Queen’s Speech brief said:
“The Government will bring forward a Health and Disability Green Paper”
and that
“The National Strategy for Disabled People will set out practical changes for disabled people that remove barriers and increase opportunity.”
That is all well and good, but the disability strategy has been delayed for months, having been promised in the previous Queen’s Speech. When will it be published? Are the Government satisfied that the consultation was adequate, given all the protests, and are they really still committed to reducing the disability employment gap?
Finally, there is poverty, which was raised so powerfully by my noble friend Lord Coaker in his cracking speech. As he said, government figures now show that 4.3 million children—equivalent to some 31% of all UK kids—were in poverty last year. Three-quarters of them live in a working household. Since the pandemic started, we have seen food insecurity increase and food bank use reach its highest ever levels. This should shock us to our core.
What have the Government done? In March last year, they announced an extra £20 a week in universal credit as a temporary uplift, effectively acknowledging that it was not enough for families to live on. Disgracefully, this was withheld from those on legacy benefits, most of whom are sick, disabled or carers. The Budget extended that by six months, but it will now be cut at the end of September, something we will fight vigorously. The furlough scheme and the self-employment income support scheme will both end at the same time. Is the Government’s plan that workers who lose their jobs when furlough ends will be pushed on to universal credit at a rate £20 per week less than today?
In this country we have a crisis of poverty, a crisis of unemployment, a crisis of low pay, a crisis of insecure work and a crisis for disabled people, yet the Government could not find room for a single piece of legislation to tackle these problems. How very disappointing.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, it was a great pleasure to hear the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. I would characterise them as forcefully illustrating what value this House can bring in speaking out for freedom and against injustice, exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said, and, equally, for efficiency and effectiveness and exposing the Government’s legislation and policies to the test of meeting not only the broad principles we are looking for but their practical application as well. We are all grateful to both noble Lords and look forward very much to their future contributions.
I will briefly talk about two things. First, in relation to the planning Bill, I declare my interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. I do not entirely share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, on that Bill. Clearly, Oliver Letwin’s report was right that it is not just all about planners and their speed, but they should not be absolved from the difficulties that those who are developing and delivering sometimes have in pre-commencement planning conditions and the like. A great deal of it is about diversity of supply and the delivery processes. This planning reform Bill will do very well if it focuses on that. For example, simplifying the processes of levying on developers for infrastructure is necessary, but a single infrastructure levy may not be the right answer because it must meet both the broader infrastructure objectives in an area and the infrastructure and social obligations of that development. These two things cannot be readily and easily merged into one infrastructure levy.
While I support the zonal development system, I do not think for a minute that it necessarily takes away the democratic involvement of local planning authorities. It is perfectly possible for planning authorities and the democratic process to be delivered through local plans in a zonal system. Indeed, given the importance that local plans will acquire as a result, it may encourage many more people to be involved in the plan-making stage, as at the moment they very often do not get involved and take an interest in plans only when planning applications come forward, which are largely predetermined by the structure of the local plan.
Secondly, I will mention the environment. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, is absolutely right that it must be at the heart of not just every fiscal event but every legislative programme. Given the urgency of the issue, every Queen’s Speech should be about how we meet our climate change objectives. Perhaps my noble friend will say something in responding to the debate about how we will do this, not just by setting targets and hoping that there will be the necessary transformations in production and consumer behaviour, but by putting the incentives in place between those two things. In the year ahead, we must set out, for example, how our carbon emissions trading scheme will incentivise a net-zero regime. Phasing out free allowances, increasing the auction reserve price and perhaps raising the carbon support price will take us to the point where the incentive structure gets us to net zero on the timescale required.
However, frankly, if we do it, but nobody else does, it will not succeed. We need not just the European Union to do it but the United States. We know that China is considering it, but we need them all to work together or we will end up with carbon border adjustments, which are a major source of trade friction and conflict. Not least—as the noble Lord, Lord Oates, is looking at me—we need a development programme which is sufficiently well resourced to fund decarbonisation in the developing world and developing economies as well. In this year ahead, we therefore need COP 26 to be a negotiation which delivers on an aligned structure of carbon taxation/pricing/emissions trading, which must be consistent internationally or it will fail. I look forward to that in the year ahead.
Baroness Worthington (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his speech opening this debate and congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, for their powerful maiden speeches. I look forward to their future contributions. I draw attention to my interests as co-director of the Quadrature Climate Foundation and co-chair of the Peers for the Planet cross-party group.
As noble Lords have previously noted, we are facing the interrelated and urgent threats of global climate change and biodiversity loss. We should not, however, make the mistake of seeing the growing climate risk as merely an environmental issue. Human society has arisen and thrived during a period of relative climatic stability, but we have changed this. We are now entering a period of instability. We have rendered our planet less safe; like an alcoholic who has damaged their body through excessive consumption, our addiction to fossil fuels has rendered our unique home prematurely fragile. The effects of our continued reckless use of the planet’s resources will touch on all aspects of our society and economy. We are gambling with the youth of today’s future, and they are rightly demanding that we do more.
Within the Government’s Queen’s Speech, it is regrettable that not more is said on the subject. I do not, however, agree that we need a new climate change emergency Bill. We may not need legislation at all to meet many of our decarbonisation goals. I say this because Part 3 of the existing Climate Change Act was designed to give future Governments the powers that they need to take action to tackle sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, public consultation is all that is needed in order to use secondary legislation to, for example, reach 100% sales of electric vehicles by 2030 or to bring agricultural sources of emissions into a carbon cap and trade regulation that would create much-needed clarity and incentives for carbon-friendly farming. I urge the Government to use these powers now and consider whether they need to reinstate the information-gathering powers in Schedule 4 to the Act, which were subject to a sunset clause.
It is welcome that, we hope, the Environment Bill will be finalised this Session. However, the Bill is not new and lacks the specific long-term targets that will give it power, such as passing the Climate Change Act without the carbon budgets and long-term target. I am afraid that, as it stands and without clarity on the policies that tackle the reasons why existing targets are not being met, it will therefore be ineffective.
I am particularly concerned by the treatment of air quality. Just six clauses devoted to this most pressing of challenges for the Government, at every level, is not dealing with it effectively. As the coroner recently confirmed, polluted air has the capacity to kill and preys on the most vulnerable in society—the young, the old and the poor. I am told that the Government have many of the powers that they need to crack down on the sources of the problem. Why, then, have we not made more progress? I support a much more comprehensive approach, consolidating and updating existing powers and reorienting to be more specific about the goal. We should be completely eradicating sources of airborne pollutants that cause harm to human health—those that arise within our borders and are, therefore, within our control. This goal would have the triple benefit of solving air quality, helping to meet our climate goals and rejuvenating our towns and city centres.
This is a short speech and I am glad to be back in the Chamber after a considerable absence. I look forward to engaging in this Session. I conclude with the suggestion that the Government take a close look at the recently passed climate change law in Spain. Over a decade ago, the UK led the world in legislating to protect the world from a looming climate catastrophe. But just a few days ago, Spain stole our crown, passing a Bill with a set of clear and unequivocal regulations, including: outlawing the sale of vehicles that emit carbon dioxide by 2040 and their circulation on the streets by 2050; limiting all new coal, oil and gas extraction projects; and stipulating that, within two years, all towns or cities with more than 50,000 residents must have a low-emissions zone, such as those in place in Madrid and Barcelona.
I believe that we can and should be doing more. We need a global race to the top, with countries competing to reinvent our economies, so that we no longer pollute our lungs, skies, rivers, seas and soils. I support the Government in all the efforts they take to make this a reality.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate both of my noble friends Lord Coaker and Lord Morse on excellent maiden speeches. I am privileged to know both well and know that they will make valuable and valued contributions to the work of your Lordships’ House. I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests, particularly the reference to my relationship with St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and BioRISC, a research initiative that has set itself a challenge to provide cutting-edge evidence-based information about existing and emerging biological security threats and interventions.
I will make three brief points. The first draws on BioRISC’s work and advice. Biodiversity continues to decline at an unprecedented rate, as shown by the 2019 ground-breaking report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and the 2020 report Global Biodiversity Outlook. Our natural environment underpins the delivery of clean air, water and food production, as well as promising solutions to the climate crisis. We have been reminded over the past year of the inextricable link between human health and the health of the natural world.
Public investment on environmental policies has had, at best, mixed success, as illustrated by the failure of many agri-environmental schemes which, despite costing billions, are accepted as having achieved little in preventing the dramatic decline of nature on farmland. This is unsurprising since, typically, their design and implementation have not been informed by the best available evidence from a wide range of sources. In medicine and public health, not using the best available evidence would be unconscionable, but it appears to be acceptable in this space. Does the Minister think that existing processes consistently use the best available evidence on the effectiveness of actions to inform decision-making and, if not, what mechanism will the office for environmental protection deploy to ensure the transparent use of the best available evidence, enabling scrutiny by experts and members of the public, to ensure that taxpayers’ money for our environment is spent cost-effectively?
Further, and also about evidence, six years after receipt of the completed report of the Government’s own Lead Ammunition Group recommending that lead ammunition be phased out, on 23 March, the Environment Minister Rebecca Pow announced plans to do just that. The fifth sentence of Defra’s press release is:
“A large volume of lead ammunition is discharged every year over the countryside, causing harm to the environment, wildlife and people.”
It accurately summarises the extensive harmful consequences of its use, which makes a compelling case for regulation as soon as possible to protect human and animal health and to enable us to move towards a greener and safer future. But, inexplicably, it goes on to announce the commissioning of
“an official review of the evidence to begin”
that day,
“with a public consultation in due course.”
Information on the impacts of lead ammunition on wildlife, the environment and human health has been known for years. The LAG report was informed by a comprehensive review of all available evidence. Given the Government’s view that extensive harm is being caused today, why have they commissioned a further evidence review?
Yesterday, speaking on the BBC’s “The Andrew Marr Show”, America’s climate envoy John Kerry said,
“I’m told by scientists that 50% of the reductions we have to make (to get to near zero emissions) by 2050 or 2045 are going to come from technologies we don’t yet have.”
UK FIRES, a major research programme funded by BEIS through UKRI, and comprising six leading universities, a consortium of UK-based industries and several policy advisers, in its report, Absolute Zero, published in November 2019, told us the same and set out the first description of the delivery of zero emissions in the UK with today’s technologies. The report informed the Council for Science and Technology’s letter of 20 January 2020 to the Prime Minister on whole systems and was the topic of a debate in your Lordship’s House on 6 February 2020.
The primary recommendation of Absolute Zero, reflected by the Council for Science and Technology, is that the Government should create a delivery authority to guarantee compliance with the Climate Change Act. It reminded us that the London 2012 Olympics were delivered on time and on budget by such an authority which, interestingly, adopted a principle of using no new technologies to guarantee risk-free delivery. The delivery authority would need to be substantive and enduring, able to hold accountability for delivery across different government departments and through to 2050, and necessarily an exemplar of the whole-systems approach recommended by the CST to co-ordinate across the government departments charged with emissions responsibility in different sectors.
The Institute for Government, in its report Net Zero: How Government Can Meet its Climate Change Target, said, at page 9,
“Government should also assess gaps in delivery capability and consider creating the net zero equivalents of the Olympic Delivery Authority to tackle infrastructure challenges, such as housing retrofit and renewable heat.”
Do the Government plan—
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I remind the noble Lord that the advisory speaking time is five minutes.
Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet.
Last week, in a speech setting out the Government’s objectives for COP 26 in November, Alok Sharma, chair-designate of the meeting, was very clear that
“the science is getting starker”
and:
“Whether we like it or not, whether through action or inaction, we are now choosing the future.”
It was another in a series of powerful speeches from Government Ministers setting out a commitment not just to our net-zero targets but to the need for our recovery from the immediate crisis of Covid to be one that underpins our resilience against the longer-term and even more deadly crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.
In that speech Alok Sharma also highlighted the need for urgency in taking action and the crucial nature of what we do in this decade in influencing the future globally, echoing the words of many others, notably those of Professor Dasgupta in his review and the Climate Change Committee. So it was disappointing, as others have said, that there was little sense in the gracious Speech of the necessity of moving on from ambitious words to practical policy action—to act, to quote the mantra of the Government’s Project Speed, in ways that are “faster, greener and better”.
We need to put a green lens on all policy decisions and a green thread through all legislation from all departments. This is not just Defra business and it cannot be dealt with through the Environment Bill alone. For there to be a coherent strategy, the interactions between different departments, different Bills and different policies need to be understood and integrated. I hope the Minister will reassure me that this will be a particular consideration in relation to the impacts of the proposed planning reform Bill on many areas of climate and environment policy. Perhaps I could ask him for some words of encouragement and even government support for my Private Member’s Bill relating to the planning aspects of onshore wind.
We need to use all the levers that we have—the hidden wiring of government, to use the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy—not only to achieve net zero in nature recovery but to improve health and well-being, cleaner air being an obvious example; to bring new jobs and skills, from innovative energy sources to retrofitting heating systems; and to drive our economic recovery post Covid in a way that is both sustainable and fair. The Government’s levelling-up agenda is a key opportunity to align innovation and infrastructure, jobs and skills training with an overall environmental goal.
The need for this type of approach is clearly demonstrated in the challenges posed by decarbonising homes and other buildings. Despite buildings being responsible for up to 23% of UK emissions, there was only passing reference in the gracious Speech to the much-heralded heat and buildings strategy. The record of successive Governments in this area is lamentable, the recently withdrawn green homes grant being only the latest in a series of failed schemes. So how do the Government plan to ensure that we have the infrastructure, finance and skills to meet the projected need to install 600,000 heat pumps by 2028? Will the Government now commit to bringing forward the future homes and buildings standards from 2025? If they do not, we face the prospect of a million homes being built that we already know will require expensive retrofit in the near future.
It is well understood that finance is a crucial lever for meeting our net-zero goals, yet there are no concrete plans for delivery in this area. The report by the noble Lord, Lord Stern, on economic recovery and growth, commissioned by the Prime Minister in preparation for the G7, proposed putting a strong price on carbon, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 and strengthening international co-operation on tax and climate finance. Can the Minister indicate whether the Government will be taking forward these recommendations, particularly at the G7 meeting?
As many contributors to this debate have said, this Government are strong on rhetoric but what we need now is action and, above all, leadership that brings strategic vision, systemic change and an urgent focus on delivery. Without such leadership, we are in danger of moving from the ravages of Covid to the even greater perils of unchecked climate change.
Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]
My Lords, I intend to speak about buses. The Government’s recent proposal, Bus Back Better, is a welcome spotlight on an industry that has not been the subject of significant legislation since 1985. The proposals have been broadly applauded by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Women’s Institutes and the APPG representing county councils, all of which have been calling for action to halt the decline in bus services, particularly in rural areas. The expectations raised by the proposals are high. I received through my door on Saturday a brochure from the CPRE appealing for money to press the case for the 56% of small towns it investigated that are becoming transport deserts or are close to becoming so.
I want to examine how the Government are proposing to spend the money available—some £3 billion—and the likely outcomes. It is proposed that much of the money will be spent on purchasing new hydrogen or electric buses. A modern diesel bus built to Euro 6 standards costs the operator about £250,000. In terms of amenity and comfort, these will be very good and the emissions standards very high. An electric bus costs around £450,000 and a hydrogen bus £560,000. An operator buying one of these new buses is expected to pay the base cost of a new Euro 6 vehicle plus 25%, with the Government covering the balance of 75%.
That is not an attractive deal for the operator, who will lose the premium that he now receives for operating a low-carbon bus and the fuel duty rebate, which together account for 20p per kilometre. In Scotland there is provision to meet the cost of this ownership gap, and I urge the Minister to make inquiries north of the border because I am afraid there will not be any orders for new buses without some movement on the part of the Government. There will have to be some sort of green bus service operator grant. If the department’s object is to reduce immediately the amount of diesel oil being burned, a very modest infill of rail freight electrification would achieve that by removing a large number of HGVs from the road.
How much of the available money will be spent on new buses and how much on the ambitious programme of service improvements? Organisations such as the CPRE are anticipating hourly services from small towns, giving access to jobs, hospitals, shops, leisure facilities, education facilities and other amenities throughout the day. There is the question of timescales, with bus improvement plans beginning in October, when many newly elected councils will not meet to consider the matter until July. There are competition issues to be resolved, and the role of the traffic commissioners. Some highway works will be necessary, as well as some new bus priority measures.
Many local authorities are desperate to make the new arrangements work. There is much to do, and I ask that sufficient time is allowed for the House to examine these welcome proposals in detail.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con) [V]
My Lords, I first congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on their excellent maiden speeches.
We should never have too many expectations of a Queen’s Speech, as the reference to “other measures” is often the precursor of most of the legislation that we actually consider and pass. This year, the Speech was certainly quite limited in its extent, so trying to find proposals with a specific aim was difficult—especially in the field of transport, the subject I wish to talk about.
The record of promises in this area is not a happy one. Looking at the previous Speech at the beginning of the 2019 Session, we were told of specific government intentions to provide minimum levels of service on railways during strikes. A Bill was promised but did not appear. Legislation to cover airline insolvency and the repatriation of passengers in such circumstances was to follow after a review. The review reported, and we await something further to occur. Bus services were to be improved as part of the Government levelling up transport connections throughout the country. The Bus Services Act 2017 was to be updated to meet this new initiative to improve future provision, especially in the north and the Midlands. In April this year we were still awaiting legislation which the Government Minister Rachel Maclean then indicated might be brought forward “in due course”.
Of course, the references to transport in this Queen’s Speech included a further reference to levelling up and the need to transform connectivity by rail and bus. This should be welcomed, and organisations such as Transport for the North and Transport Network have done so. But, quite rightly, they have asked to see more action than mere words. Rural areas in particular need assurances that future needs will be better served, especially as we try to meet environmental challenges by discouraging the overuse of polluting vehicles. With our record of implementing measures announced at the beginning of a Session, I hope that we will actually see some early results this time.
I do not want to criticise too much; I know how difficult it is to move on in this sphere of activity. The way in which our land transport is controlled and financed is very complicated. Attempts to reduce bureaucracy and encourage investment have not always been straightforward. I hope my noble friend will use the opportunity of his wind-up speech to flesh out a bit more exactly how the levelling-up process for infrastructure will be taken forward. Will we get a firm commitment to an integrated rail plan which gives strong backing to the full HS2, including the vital eastern spur connecting Leeds, and development of the northern powerhouse rail networks? What might be contained in the much-heralded Statement that we are to hear on Thursday?
The development of a successful public transport system is a critical element in satisfying the Prime Minister’s ambitions to level up. I am confident that we will see some clear assurances and action, and I am sure my noble friend will indeed offer these. But apart from the rather general contents of the gracious Speech, I am also pleased that there is evidence of progress in other areas of the Department for Transport’s responsibilities. Following the work of an inquiry into UK lower airspace—which I had the privilege of chairing—I was delighted when speedy legislation followed to reorganise this and bring the United Kingdom’s control of its air corridors and facilities and the work of the CAA post Brexit up to date. I also commend the enthusiasm of my noble friend and his ministerial colleagues, especially the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, who have done so much in relation to environmental improvements in the transport industry and vehicles. This country is building a deserved reputation for leadership in the construction and distribution of green vehicles and in meeting future needs through electric battery manufacture and innovation, including taking forward hydrogen as a new power source. Sales of electric and hybrid vehicles have taken off in the UK in an exciting way.
Cleaning up transport—whether it is cars, lorries, trains, ships or planes—is a worthy and urgent aim that we simply cannot delay. Covid-19 has changed much of our use of and attitude to transport. I hope that things will reverse so that expectations can be met as before, but we must be prepared to re-examine all areas of transport to both meet future needs and benefit from new ideas and new ways to provide our services.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Pendry, has withdrawn from the debate, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow two such fabulous maiden speeches, and I look forward to working with both noble Lords. There is much to welcome in the Speech, but there is much that still seems to be about rhetoric rather than action, as many noble Lords have said. It is probably no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am going to confine my remarks to food.
I want to give the House a few facts. These are not suppositions or the ideas of radical NGOs; these are facts and figures drawn up by the IPCC, the Treasury, Defra, the FAO and reputed world experts. It is like looking at climate change targets 30 years ago. Some 34% of emissions globally come from our food system, and it accounts for 30% of all our anthropogenic emissions. Food and drink account for 25% of the footprint of every individual in the UK, and 50% of all habitable land is used for agriculture. It is the driver of 80% of deforestation worldwide and an identified threat to 24,000 of 28,000 species, as documented by the IUCN—the International Union for Conservation of Nature. According to our own Professor Partha Dasgupta, whose report was commissioned by the Treasury, 80% of land-use related biodiversity loss is attributed to biomass extraction, of which the primary products are food and crops. Unless we change our eating and food waste patterns, we will need to double our agricultural production in the years ahead just to stay where we are. The point of all this is what it adds up to, and this is absolutely incontrovertible: even if all other sectors that noble Lords have referred to reduced their emissions to zero tomorrow, we would still overshoot the 1.5-degree target that we are all aiming to achieve at Glasgow and around the world. We must take this on board.
I understand as well as anyone does that food is a real mess, and I have spoken about this. It is in every department, it is extremely complicated, it does not fit into a box and it does not easily subscribe to a target. It is not like saying that we will stop having fossil fuel-powered cars by 2030 or 2040; it is very difficult. But however messy and difficult it is, we can no longer duck this. We cannot ignore it and we have to take it on board. It is the most important thing that we all consume, and it is the one thing we cannot do without. We can all rage about cotton T-shirts causing environmental damage and we can do without so many of them, but we cannot do without food.
What worries me in this gracious Speech is that food really does not get much of a look in. We have the Agriculture Act coming through at the moment, and I welcome the ELMS as much as anyone, but I just want to see how it will work. The gracious Speech makes reference to the food strategy written by Henry Dimbleby, which I have been an adviser on. I am a huge supporter of this because it will help our diets and our comeback from Covid, and it will stop us being such an unhealthy nation and, to some extent, start to work against climate change if we implement it. But noble Lords cannot assume that 34% of global emissions can be dealt with by one White Paper produced by one individual. That is crazy. This must be rethought. I am also really worried that it says that the Government’s response is to consult. I know that they are meant to do this within six months, but it is my understanding from people I know that Defra is commissioning a whole other ball game to try to look at these facts. They are there, and we know them. We have to go much further.
We cannot leave the question of climate change merely to a food strategy, however good it is. Bloomberg News said—it is a ridiculous quote, but I will read it out anyway— last week:
“There is no escaping that beef is a climate villain.”
Some 14% of human-driven emissions come from livestock production.
We are not alone as a country in doing this. It is not something that should be political, but I would welcome a chance to work on it. It can be done. It needs to be seen as a whole, and in the light of the spectacular benefits it will bring us. We went into Covid as an unhealthy nation eating rubbish food. Every single bit of rubbish food is a result of bad farming practices. When you eat a cheap chocolate mousse, you are actually probably destroying the habitat of an orangutang in Indonesia. The same things are true right across the board: if we fix the food system, we fix an incredible number of other things. I really hope that the Government will step up to this and not see it as a party-political issue, but something from which we will all hugely benefit.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD) [V]
My Lords, it is always a tremendous pleasure to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, speak. It is a particular pleasure to be able to follow her, because she speaks from such a depth of knowledge and has such good practical sense. I associate myself with all her remarks today.
I will touch on three Bills in my short contribution. First, I will welcome, when it gets here, the Environment Bill. It is long overdue and has many important provisions and powers. It also, however, has some notable gaps and I will mention just one. It talks of public enjoyment of green space, but there is no actual provision of it in either the Bill or the planning White Paper. There needs to be a duty to create new public green spaces, especially in urban areas. The value of parks has been well highlighted by the pandemic as a necessity for physical and mental health, but it goes deeper than that. A good town or city plan must include green space.
The press release accompanying the planning White Paper merely says:
“Valued green spaces will be protected for future generations”—
in other words, those spaces that already exist—
“by allowing for more building on brownfield land and all new streets to be tree lined”.
However, the planning Bill must make powers and provision for new parks, playgrounds, sports fields, greens and allotments. The fact is that developers will get money for all of the new houses, but unless there is a requirement on them to provide green spaces, they simply will not do it. That needs to be firmly written into the Bill.
Let me take the example of allotments. Sadly, since the Allotments Act 1925 was repealed, waiting lists for allotments in most towns and cities have become longer and longer. Waiting lists of up to 400 people are not uncommon. One member of the National Allotment Society put it vividly when he said, “We will get a burial plot sooner than an allotment.” The pandemic accelerated the demand and, with the combination of healthy outdoor activity, local fresh food production, communities strengthened through shared interests and even biodiversity improvements, allotment provision should surely be a No. 1 issue for new-build areas. The definition of infrastructure for levy purposes must therefore include green spaces of all kinds.
I thoroughly agree with my noble friend Lady Pinnock, who made a powerful speech on this issue, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, that it looks like the planning Bill will cut local people out from being able to make representations on individual developments. They might be able to make representations on the overall local plan, but that is far from the same thing. There will be storms of protest when people realise what this Government have done to their rights.
I must mention how astonishingly crafty, or misguided, is the section on protests in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. “Kill the Bill” protests have already shown the strength of feeling against this part of the Bill, and young people especially are right to fear for the future of our democracy. As the effects of the lack of democracy begin to bite—I just mentioned the example in the planning Bill—I imagine that protests will spread to Tory heartlands and across all age groups. Freedom of speech and assembly and freedom to protest have always been at the heart of British democracy, but now this Government are seriously proposing to hand to the police the authority to decide which protests can go ahead and which cannot. I am not sure that this is a power that the police even want to have.
It is clear that for a protest to be effective, it needs to be noisy and, often, disruptive. However, there are already many laws and safeguards to ensure that a protest cannot be violent or disruptive, and if it is, it is already against the law. I urge the Government to rethink this part of that Bill, because it will come back to bite them. In some ways, of course, I hope it does. However, we as a House have a duty to make sure that we remove this provision from the Bill.
Lord Colgrain (Con)
My Lords, I add my warmest congratulations to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on their excellent maiden speeches and I welcome them to the House. I declare my interests as set out in the register. I will speak principally about the passage in the gracious Speech that refers to the Environment Bill.
The Government deserve much credit for their ambitious tree-planting targets and for their success in implementing them so far, despite the delay in the detail being forthcoming in the environmental land management scheme programme, as highlighted earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. There is no doubt that when the fine print has dried on this document, there will be an even greater take-up of the schemes on offer and an even greater hectarage of planting undertaken. Furthermore, in the light of the Nature for Climate Fund intending to provide significant funding for the creation, restoration and management of woodland, and of the English Tree Action Plan this spring, there is every reason to have confidence that we can move on from the current figure of 13% woodland cover in England towards the 30% enjoyed on the continent. This is to be celebrated in the week of the launch of Her Majesty’s green canopy project.
Nevertheless, I ask the Government to consider two further courses of action that would be most helpful to the supporters of silviculture. The first relates to the importance attached to, and the value of, coppicing. Not only does such regular harvesting provide the opportunity for a new generation of carbon capture—arguably more so than from mature stands, which begin to die back at a certain age—it also has substantial benefits for woodland flora and fauna and goes a long way towards mitigating some of the concerns expressed in the latest report from the Woodland Trust. Will the Government consider increasing the level of grant available specifically for coppicing? It is better properly to manage existing healthy woodland rather than to devote too much resource to the planting of new woodland, particularly given that in certain parts of the country the likelihood of successful planting and cropping of hardwoods is much reduced where the populations of deer and squirrels are uncontrollable.
The second course of action that I ask the Government to consider is the wider application of carbon credits to woodland, not just for newly planted woods—which is currently the case—but for existing woodland that is actively managed in an approved fashion. In the context of the Government’s net-zero ambitions, the use of carbon credits in a wider application across both agricultural and silvicultural assets seems to be an obvious government tool for achieving net zero. If you create a commercial, actively traded commodity, you will get a market response—preferable, in my view, to merely qualifying for grants. It would be an easy contributor to both climate and environmental concerns.
The gracious Speech also contains details on the Government’s determination to improve the energy performance of the housing stock. With new builds, this requires straightforward legislation. With older buildings, particularly in rural areas, however, it is not straightforward.
The current proposals regarding energy performance certificates place a totally unrealistic level of expectation on the shoulders of landlords. The proposal to increase from band E to band D by 2025 is out of step with reality. Increasing the level of expense paid by the landlord from £3,000 to £10,000 to demonstrate an attempt to comply with the new regulation will not solve the problem. Many old buildings can never reach these energy-efficiency standards, no matter how much money is thrown at them.
If the consequence of government policy is to make landlords sell tenanted buildings because they cannot comply with the new regulations, the problem is merely moved to the private owner-occupier sector, without a solution being found and with targets for emission reduction being missed. It would be much better to undertake a more detailed consultation with interested parties, to see where workable and responsible exemptions can be identified. To that end, I applaud the Government on publishing an EPC action plan but urge that it is followed up with some alacrity.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests in several environmental charities as listed in the register. I am very glad that the Environment Bill is finally going to be with us in this House, as was announced in the gracious Speech. It was first promised in July 2018, so we have been waiting quite a while. I hope the Minister can assure us that it will receive adequate time in your Lordships’ House, even though the Government are keen to get it onto the statute book before COP 26, because the Bill still needs improvement.
The state of nature amendment, which was well aired in the other place, needs to return to provide for statutory measurable targets and interim targets for biodiversity to match the statutory targets we have for climate change, and to enshrine in law a commitment to a 2030 target to halt and reverse biodiversity decline. The Environment Bill also needs to provide overdue statutory protection for ancient woodland. It is a disgrace that, in reality, ancient woodland has only permissive protection, as provided by planning guidance. We need similar protection at a statutory level, as is currently given to sites of special scientific interest, and I intend to put down an amendment to that effect. We also need a statutory basis for the England tree action plan, the publication of which—as I understand from the Minister, who very kindly saw me last week—is imminent. For the England tree action plan to fulfil its name, we need it to be actioned, and a statutory basis would mean that that would be more likely. I would also like an assurance that the Bill will give proper priority to native woodland and does not end up overfocusing on commercial forestry.
Perhaps the most important thing, as we see the Environment Bill proceed through this House, is to help the Government join up two very important pieces of legislation in the Queen’s Speech. The planning reform Bill is not yet published, and I share the suspicions of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch. Rumours abound that it will designate land in a topdown way as either to be developed or to be protected, and it will leave local communities powerless to do anything to stop inappropriate development, other than making sure the damaging development looks lovely in accord with the local design code. That is not very much; you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. If the planning Bill is not to counteract completely the protection provisions of the Environment Bill, we need in statute measures to link and harmonise these two pieces of legislation.
The Environment Bill needs to give a legal status to local nature recovery strategies, for example, so that plans, planners and indeed developers have to take account of them. We need to enshrine this in statute, as I tried to do during the passage of the Agriculture Act. I hope noble Lords who supported me in that will join with me again, in trying to bring forward a land-use framework for England. The planning Bill sounds as if it will have an oversimplistic binary approach to land use: land is either worth protecting or worth developing. The reality is that the demands on land are multiple and growing: biodiversity, conservation, carbon sequest-ration, flood-risk management, other climate change mechanisms, water quality, food production, timber production, physical and mental health to name but a few. Land needs to be multifunctional and deliver a whole range of public and private benefits. We need a land-use framework to help optimise the use of land, which is a very scarce resource. We need to make sure that we recognise that a much more sophisticated and complex set of decisions needs to be made nationally and locally about land—far more complex than the Government’s oversimplistic planning White Paper envisaged.
I hope that the Minister can tell the House what co-ordination measures will be put in place between the Environment Bill and the Planning Bill, and whether the Government will introduce a land-use framework for England.
Lord Best (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare my housing interests as on the register and will use my time today to address the housing issues raised in the gracious Speech. If we did not know it before, we certainly know after the Covid experience that the widest divisions, the greatest inequalities in our quality of life, are found in our housing circumstances. For those of us in a comfortable home, maybe with a nice garden, the pandemic has been infinitely more bearable than for our fellow citizens in cramped, overcrowded, insecure, poor conditions. We can appreciate more than ever the space indoors, the access to green space outside and the security that comes from owning our home. For so many others, life during Covid has been made utterly miserable by accommodation where there is no room to play, no room to work, and by the impossibility of home schooling and the insecurity that comes from the threat of losing even the poorest quality flat because earnings from an insecure job may be lost.
Covid has revealed the impact of acute shortages of affordable housing, not least in the huge numbers of children living in temporary accommodation, which has followed the halving of social housing—of housing association and council housing—from a third to just 17% of all homes, and the hazards of our dependency on a fragile private rented sector. Does the gracious Speech contain the ingredients to fix these problems, which are causing such damage to our physical and mental health while undermining the wider economy?
Government have provided excellent Covid-related emergency help by enabling local authorities and voluntary bodies to secure accommodation for those sleeping rough, by restoring part of the recent cuts in the benefits for housing help, and by requiring landlords to postpone evictions, but the nation’s underlying housing problems remain. The Queen’s Speech mentions forthcoming measures to enhance tenants’ rights and to support leaseholders. I look forward to the Bills introducing these helpful changes, but the Government’s main proposition for ending housing shortages—thereby stabilising prices and improving affordability, as well as reducing homelessness in its different forms—rests on reforms to the planning system to make it quicker and easier to gain planning consent. The downside of this would be the much-reduced opportunity for input by local communities and their local planning authorities. I understand the Government’s frustration that local opposition can delay new home building, but objectors fearing the worst have often been proved right.
The Government hope to prevent their new arrangements being abused, and instead to improve design and quality by strengthening the rules governing the behaviour of the notorious volume housebuilders. However, it seems unlikely that these planning reforms will achieve a big increase in housebuilding and, disastrously, they could mean fewer affordable homes. Planners have already been releasing land on an extensive scale, but house prices are still rising faster than incomes. The LGA estimates that enough land has been allocated to develop over 1 million homes that have not yet been built. We know from the seminal report from Sir Oliver Letwin that the main reason the housebuilders take their time is so that the speed of sales is slow enough to maintain high house prices.
Sir Oliver called for the nation to take back control of housing development from the oligopoly of major housebuilders to ensure that this country’s precious land resource fulfils society’s needs. He advocated local authorities setting up development corporations to acquire larger sites, paying landowners a reasonable price, underpinned by CPO powers, and then producing master plans that would meet local needs, with plots parcelled out to several housebuilders and to social housing providers, with green spaces, community facilities and so on. Coupled with a real increase in the grants that enable social landlords to make their homes truly affordable, the Letwin proposals for capturing land value for the public good could represent the fundamental change that is so badly needed.
Sadly, the Queen’s Speech suggests that the Government are not yet ready to take the really robust action needed to address the underlying causes of this most pressing national need. Any reassurance from the Minister that there is more to come would be greatly appreciated.
Baroness Eaton (Con) [V]
My Lords, I add my welcome to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse.
I support the Queen’s Speech, which has announced bold and innovative measures to deliver our national recovery from Covid-19 and create new opportunities for all. As a vice-president and former chairman of the Local Government Association, I know that councils are committed to working with Government to help shape and deliver the proposals, so that local communities are empowered to deliver meaningful change.
In the brief time allocated, I shall focus my remarks on levelling up, devolution, the environment, adult social care and building safety. First, I welcome the Government’s commitment to investing in local areas through their upcoming levelling up White Paper. Councils will be key to achieving this ambition, and I know they are looking forward to working closely with the Government to help deliver on this commitment. With the right funding, freedoms and powers, councils can work with partners to drive improvements in public health and economic growth. They can revive town and city centres, build more homes, improve our roads and equip people with the skills they need to succeed, so that no one is left behind.
As a member of the APPG for devolution, I think this is a good opportunity to remind the House of the group’s most recent report, which successfully demonstrated how devolution could play a part in levelling up opportunities and inequalities. As we look to the future, the British state needs to be reimagined to manage the burden on central government and turbocharge the powers of local areas to deliver on both national and local priorities. With this in mind, can the Minister confirm whether the levelling up White Paper will take forward the Government’s commitment to devolution?
I also welcome the Government’s ambition for the environment, including the reintroduction of the Environment Bill and the 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution. Councils share this ambition and want to work with the Government and business to establish a national fiscal and policy framework for addressing the climate emergency. Councils can play a significant role in supporting national government to create green jobs. They can use their role as local leaders to bring together the skills and low-carbon agendas to unlock growth in their areas. The LGA’s report on local green jobs estimates that, across England, there could be as many as 1.8 million direct jobs in the low-carbon and renewable energy economy by 2050.
I want to touch on adult social care. While it was promising to see the Government commit to bringing forward proposals on social care reform, councils urgently need a clear timeline and a commitment to new funding proposals. These should provide sustainable support to people of all ages who draw on social care to live the life they want to lead. The LGA and councils are keen to work with the Government and with other stakeholders on a cross-party basis in order to achieve this.
I support the building safety Bill. As well as the crucial issue of fire safety, we should use this Bill to reduce the pain, loss of life and financial burden associated with falls in the home. I declare an interest as vice-president of RoSPA. This is not a party-political issue. Enshrining British Standard 5395-1 in law as part of the building safety Bill would save lives. It would also give much-needed relief to our NHS, which has to deal with more than 300,000 accident and emergency admissions every year because of falls on stairs. Will the Minister for building safety meet with RoSPA to discuss this proposed amendment to the Bill on stair design? This is a vital issue which the Government should address as part of its agenda to keep people safe in the home.
In closing my remarks, I commend the Government’s legislative agenda to the House. As its response to Covid-19 has demonstrated, local government does deliver and can be trusted. I therefore look forward to national and local government working together to truly level up and build back better.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol [V]
My Lords, along with others in this House, I welcome the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. I remember making my own maiden speech in the debate on the Humble Address in 2019, though of course in rather different circumstances. When I gave that speech, we were looking ahead to 2020 as the year of climate action. Instead, the impact of Covid-19 has understandably been the focus of global activity. However, the situation for our planet is becoming more urgent, not less. With another year of action now lost because of Covid-19, we need meaningful global, national and local agreements on the climate and biodiversity issues more than ever before.
Your Lordships will be well aware of the reasons: mass deforestation, ocean acidification, wildfires, unsustainable farming practices, excessive use of harmful fertilisers and pesticides, and unabating plastic pollution, to name just some. Other noble Lords have named others. Our planet and its ecosystems are delicate. Each organism has a valuable role and purpose. As Covid-19 has so painfully revealed, we cannot continue to violate this symbiotic community with impunity.
Our political life is similarly symbiotic. Let me explain. While it is true that we cannot simply legislate our way out of this crisis, we must do more to attempt to keep the global average temperature below 1.5 degrees centigrade and bend the curve on biodiversity loss. I will not speak in depth now about the forthcoming Environment Bill, given that there will be the opportunity to do so in the coming weeks, but I will record my desire to see an increase in its ambition. I and other right reverend Prelates look forward to working with colleagues across this House to ensure that the legislation addresses ecological degradation and biodiversity loss as an integral part of addressing the climate emergency. Furthermore, I welcome the spirit of the climate and ecology emergency Bill and the urgency with which Members in the other place are trying to draw attention to these issues. Both Bills are long overdue and much needed.
However, to go to back to political symbiosis, what is really needed is a fundamental change of perspective. Rather than an environmental policy, we need every policy to be environmental. We need to join up our thinking and ensure that every department and every sector of society is making efforts to combat rising global temperatures. A proper agreement to protect our planet will affect every single sector of every single society—our private and public sectors, our businesses, our farms, our waters, our schools, our cities and our homes. It will affect every individual and until we understand our collective responsibility, we will not have the impact that is needed.
I want to speak briefly about the work that the Church of England is doing. While it is an intrinsic human instinct to care for our environment, people of faith in particular are mandated to care for the planet because creation is a gift of God. We acknowledge that we have not always acted on this belief—to our shame, rather the reverse—but now the Church of England has committed to achieving net zero by 2030, a decision made by synod last year as a bold statement of intent.
As an example of our action, to achieve net zero we need to decarbonise all our heating. This is as true for our churches and cathedrals, our clergy houses and church halls, as it is for the rest of society. My diocese was the first to declare a climate emergency and commit to net-zero carbon by 2030. As part of that work, we have calculated our baseline carbon footprint and found that the largest portion of emissions—38%—is from our school estates. We have started working closely with head teachers and estates managers to explore options for decarbonisation.
We have also hugely benefited from the green interventions of Bristol City Council. One of our flagship schools and largest emitters, St Mary Redcliffe, has already benefited from the installation of solar panels and full LED lighting. It will soon gain from linking into the Bristol heat network, after which the school will be carbon neutral. This partnership with a local authority shows the real, positive impact that local government can have on meeting both its and our net carbon targets so, following the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, I record my thanks to Bristol City Council for its work on this.
To develop that work nationally, I eagerly await the Government’s heating strategy to understand what help will be given to transition from fossil fuel-based systems. In addition, laid on the local and national plans but supporting them, we need an ambitious global plan to be agreed at both the CBD COP 15 and COP 26—one that puts nature and the planet firmly back on the road to recovery by 2030. While nations rightly rally to eradicate the Covid-19 virus, we have another and even greater crisis on our hands: the loss of biodiversity and—
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt the right reverend Prelate, but will she bring her remarks to a conclusion?
The Lord Bishop of Bristol [V]
Indeed. However, unlike Covid-19, this pandemic is not limited to one or two species. It requires urgent action from us all.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. I am also a director of Aldustria, of Wessex Investors and its associate companies, and of the Green Purposes Company, where I am also a trustee.
I want to talk mainly about the environmental side of things but I was particularly struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said in his maiden speech: that we must never take democracy for granted. He illustrated that, if I am correct, by referring to his uncle, who lost his life on the beaches of Normandy. I want to restate that because we have in this Queen’s Speech a piece of legislation—the electoral integrity Bill—that takes not just a page but a whole chapter out of the Republicans’ playbook in the southern United States, which is around restrictions of the franchise. That Bill crosses the red line in terms of restricting the franchise in this country and I hope either that the Government will withdraw it or that we will defeat it on Second Reading in this House. I feel that strongly about it and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is absolutely right about defending democracy. This House must make sure that that is done.
I come back to the environment. COP 26 is coming up later this year, as we know. I used to be in corporate business; it was tough but somehow predictable. It had its systems that worked. I went through processes, either with people who reported to me or the board that I reported to, where we would set a strategy; we then had budgets and then we had to do stuff—we actually had to make it happen. In this topsy-turvy world of Parliament, it somehow does not work that way. We might say, “Right, we’re going to set a target”, and then that we will do strategies. The timetables that were absolutely rigid in corporate life sort of slip in the parliamentary sense. One thing I would never have said in a board meeting was: “Never mind about that—just look at my past performance. Look how well I’ve done in the past.” If I had said that in one of my board meetings, those there would have looked at me with incredulity. They would have said: “How naive are you, Robin? Forget that—it’s not about the past. That’s banked, so it’s about what you do in the future.”
In this country we have a great track record, yes, through various Governments. What we do not have is a plan to meet those targets that are some way in the future and which we need to meet. What are we waiting for at the moment? We are waiting for a hydrogen strategy and for Her Majesty’s Treasury’s review of net zero. We are waiting for the heating and building strategy and for the transport decarbonisation strategy, which I am sure my esteemed colleague and noble friend Lady Randerson will talk about later on. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw already did. We do not know when those strategies are going to arrive and yet we have six months until we are on the international stage in Glasgow, at COP 26, to lead the rest of the globe in meeting this crisis. I ask the Ministers and the Government: when are the strategies going to be delivered, let alone the actions? We need them.
When it comes to biodiversity, we are waiting for a nature strategy. I congratulate the Treasury on the Dasgupta report, but when will we have a government response to that? There is the 25-year environment plan that Michael Gove brought forward: I would give it 10 out of 10, except that the National Audit Office gave it a scathing report last year. Regarding COP 15 in China, I can get nothing out of the Government about who is going to represent us at that conference to ensure that we approach the biodiversity crisis in the same way as we intend to approach the climate one.
In my last few seconds, I want to talk about one other area: the marine. I am absolutely delighted that the Government have chosen to bring the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, back into Defra. It is absolutely excellent. He had a report, I think it was last year, about higher-level marine conservation areas. When is that going to be implemented? I hope that he will do so. We are great at putting protection around our overseas territories—I think there are 40 million square kilometres of marine zones—but what about our own coastline? We need to have that right as well, so what about protection for those areas? Lastly, Defra has had a consultation out on remote electronic monitoring. When are we going to hear the answers?
Marine, biodiversity and climate change are all key areas. Let us get on and do stuff.
Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I agree with almost every word of his speech. It is also a pleasure to welcome my noble friend Lord Coaker and his maiden speech, which was heartfelt and delivered against the background of a thunderbolt. He is very welcome in this House; it is just slightly alarming that I was already in this House when he was pointed out to me as a promising young new Labour MP, and now he has made it to the House of Lords—well done.
I also welcome the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Morse. To be honest, I had not worked out who he was until he spoke—I thought he might be a retired policeman—but, in practice, I now remember that his is the name at the end of a number of trenchant, important and constructive reports on the way in which the machinery of government works. He is also very welcome here.
I must register my disappointment at this legislative programme, particularly the absence of three important Bills and the inadequacy, as we understand it at the moment, of at least two of those that are on the list. First, there is no social care Bill. This Covid crisis has thrown up, and shown to the whole population, the inadequacy of present system of social care in this country, particularly for the elderly. We need a new plan, a new injection of money and a long-term move to a proper social insurance method of dealing with us in old age. That is absent, despite the promises.
Secondly, there is no employment Bill. The situation in the labour market post Covid is grim and made grimmer by the long-term undermining of the status, security and prospects of much of our labour force, with the disintegration of different parts of the labour market. We need a comprehensive employment Bill that provides employment rights and a major training and retraining programme.
Thirdly, I deplore the absence of an energy Bill. We have bits and pieces of what make up an energy strategy but not a full energy Bill, and I will come back to that in a moment.
Two Bills that are on the list that are inadequate in their present form or what is likely to be their form. I welcome the fact that the Environment Bill is coming back to us, but in many respects it is still an inadequate Bill. In particular, the structure of the institutions is not clear, which regulator has what powers is unclear and the clear commitment to deliver what is set out for us very clearly by the Climate Change Committee is not really made a responsibility for the totality of government. That Bill needs significant strengthening.
The other Bill, which does not yet exist but has been rumoured, is the planning Bill. What has been said about it suggests to me that we might be moving the planning system in entirely the wrong direction, in a way that not only does not deliver public support but does not deliver more environmentally sustainable housing and other buildings or the social demands for housing, which the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kerslake, and others were talking about. It is a Bill to try to increase the amount of development, but it does not make it subject to either public accountability or the social need for housing for the poorest in our population, in particular.
I return to the energy side. We have a clear plan, put to us by the Climate Change Committee, for how we will reduce energy in our system. It is a combination of what we do in energy supply, transport, housing and other construction and industry. However, we need much more than that: we need the means to deliver it. We need new investment institutions for green investment and the manufacturing sector to support it. We need new planning processes that recognise net zero and put it centre stage. We need a new highly trained, high-status workforce to manage and operate our new green sectors. We need new sorts of regulators to deliver this, and we need investment in R&D to deliver new forms of green technologies and solutions. None of that is provided in the legislation promised in this gracious Speech. I hope that we can put some bones on it in the next few months, but, at the moment, I will be rather critical of what is before us.
Lord Broers (CB) [V]
I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on their impressive maiden speeches; they will clearly make powerful contributions to our deliberations.
I wish to address what is described in the Queen’s Speech as a transformation across the union of
“connectivity by rail and bus”.
I will briefly address the extension of 5G mobile coverage and gigabit-capable broadband. I support what others have said on these issues, including my noble friend Lady Hayman, the noble Lords, Lord Bradshaw and Lord Kirkhope, and others. These capabilities will of course be vital if we are to remain economically competitive as a nation and maintain a high quality of life for our citizens.
However, to be economically competitive, we will have to build and maintain more of this infrastructure ourselves, with our own industrial capability, than we do at present. We need to stop buying most of our infrastructure from others and to recognise and support our own exceptional abilities to innovate and engineer the technologies of the future.
In addition, to meet our climate change targets, transport, especially by rail, bus and aviation, will have to be transformed. Debate remains about which technologies should be used. The same can be said for heavy freight trucks, earth-moving equipment and other heavy-duty industrial equipment. Electrification will be extremely difficult here because it is unclear whether batteries can be developed to be capable of economically powering the vehicles and equipment for these heavy-duty applications. The mining of vast quantities of lithium for batteries is already threatening the environment, and large quantities of carbon dioxide are already being emitted in battery manufacturing, offsetting the reduction gained from electric propulsion. In addition, green electricity will have to be used to charge the batteries of all electric vehicles before the benefits of electric propulsion are fully realised.
It may be better to use hydrogen in heavy-duty applications. We are already introducing hydrogen-powered trains, produced in Germany, and buses are to follow. Hydrogen may also be used as an aviation fuel, offering the possibility of long-range carbon-free flight. Needless to say, much has to be done before this becomes feasible. At the moment, hydrogen costs much more than diesel and aviation fuels, and excessive quantities of carbon dioxide are emitted in its production.
Deciding which approach to take is fraught with unknowns, but it is clear that, in all cases, we will need carbon-free electricity and heat. This can be achieved with wind and solar power, backed by nuclear power, as has been done in France, although with a different combination of renewables. Electrolysis can then become the primary means of generating hydrogen. All forms of nuclear power plant produce both electricity and heat, and high-temperature gas reactors are especially suitable for hydrogen production because they produce high-temperature heat. This combination would completely avoid the use of fossil fuels and the accompanying need to capture and store CO2, a technology that is far from being demonstrated at the vast volumes required. Batteries would be used for cars and to meet other relatively low-energy needs, and hydrogen would be used for rail, bus and other heavy-duty applications, including aviation.
We have the skills to produce much of what would be needed to follow this path; let us ensure that we enable our industries to provide it. It is comfortable to say that we should pursue all alternatives for reducing carbon, but we have neither the resources nor the time to do so. We now need to make focused, strategic choices and then establish the project-management framework to deliver them, as we have in coping with Covid-19. I say “Hear, hear” to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on this issue.
Before finishing, I will say a brief word about 5G communications, where we find ourselves once again at the mercy of others because we lack the ability to provide our own equipment. Here, and with semiconductor chips—my speciality—I suggest that we collaborate closely with international partners, especially the Americans. The Biden Administration are working with all of their leading industrial companies to address these issues at scale, and they should welcome our participation.
Lord Fairfax of Cameron (Con) [V]
My Lords, I too commend the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on their maiden speeches, which were excellent in their different ways. I declare my interest, as set out in the register, as a shareholder in an electric vehicle company.
On the Environment Bill, the gracious Speech and the Government’s accompanying briefing contain many admirable goals, but there is little mention of the realistic true costs or challenges involved in reaching net zero. As we know, the Government’s central target is to achieve a 78% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over 1990 levels by 2035, which will mean a 58% reduction over the next 14 years.
I will look at two key sectors; the first is electric vehicles. The Government have now said that there should be no new internal combustion engine vehicle sales after 2030. I draw attention to a few points regarding this stipulation. UK car manufacturers have recently called for this deadline to be put back five years, against a background of electric vehicles currently representing less than 10% of new car sales. The CEO of Vauxhall Motors recently said that owning a car after 2030 might become the preserve of the rich. It is also estimated that 1 million charge points will be needed by 2030, against a current background of a third of UK homes not having off-road parking. How will the national grid cope with the accompanying increase in electricity demand?
I turn to homes. It is estimated that about 20 million homes will need to be converted from gas to heat pumps; in other words, about 1 million heat pumps will need to be installed each year by 2023. Who is to pay for all this? If it is individuals or the taxpayer, then they must be told the likely cost by the Government. Several noble Lords have commented that the Government are strong on rhetoric. I would adopt the recent words of the chairman of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee:
“Making 19 million homes ready for net zero Britain by 2050 is an enormous challenge that the Government appears to have not yet grasped.”
Realism must be injected into the Government. A much better understanding of cost, pace, scale, and the feasibility of skills development, is desperately needed for net zero.
In debates on Scottish independence, the Government rightly ask the SNP to be honest about the true economic cost of an independent Scotland. Should the Government not be equally honest with the UK population and taxpayers about the real economic costs and practical challenges of net zero? I hope that they will, but if they will not, people may reasonably ask whether they are hiding something.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the Public Services Committee on which I sit, so ably chaired by my noble friend Lady Armstrong, published its first report, A Critical Juncture for Public Services: Lessons from Covid-19, in the autumn of last year. That juncture was about the importance of recognising the effects of the pandemic on communities as well as on public services. I will focus on two parts of those communities: the charity sector and unpaid carers.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, charities have faced a double whammy, with a huge increase in demand and a vast drop-off in their income, as charity shops, street collections and fundraising events stopped overnight and led to reduced donations by the public. On the plus side, there were huge innovations. Things which would have taken months were organised overnight and rigid rules became relaxed. Process was replaced by greater trust and collaboration. The intimate knowledge that voluntary organisations have of their clients and users suddenly became a thing of value, and charities report being consulted by local public services about the best way to provide those services. This acknowledgment of the special skills, knowledge and experience of local charities must not be allowed to retreat and slip back into the old meaning of consultation with the local voluntary sector. All too often that has meant post hoc consultation, telling the sector what it is to do once policies have been decided, instead of very early involvement. If the failure of track and trace means anything, it is surely that you must rely on local networks and local knowledge, rather than a top-down approach.
Across the United Kingdom, local community organisations, often working closely with local authorities and primary care providers, have recruited volunteers to support those who are vulnerable by organising food banks and helping in vaccination centres. This volunteering response to the pandemic has the potential to create a legacy that will make civil society stronger. Local authorities in the charitable sector want these good experiences to inform their relationships going forward, but this will need support by local authorities, which are so cash-strapped that many can fund only the very highest level of need and are unable to fund the vital preventive work and early warning systems at which charities are so good. Voluntary organisations are very good value, but they are not cost-free. They need support so that the public duty ethic can flourish, as we have seen it do during this last year.
When it comes to public duty, there is no better example than that of unpaid carers. Until the Government set out concrete measures for social care reform, the reality for millions of families is that they have no choice but to take on more and more care for their older or disabled relatives, costing them their livelihoods and relationships, and at the expense of their own physical and mental health. Unpaid carers could not be clearer that they are worn out and overwhelmed; 81% have been providing more care for relatives during the pandemic and 64% have been unable to take any breaks at all for more than a year. A huge majority have seen their loved ones’ health deteriorate.
Without the United Kingdom’s millions of unpaid carers, our health and social care systems would have collapsed in the last year. While the Government have committed to social care reform proposals being brought forward, we have been hearing this for far too long and further delays cannot be tolerated. We need to see detailed plans for reform which ensure that unpaid carers get the practical and financial support that they need to care.
The NHS White Paper failed to mention unpaid carers at all. Support for them must be a core part of the health Bill which we will be scrutinising over the next year. We must see a duty on the NHS to have regard to unpaid carers, to promote their health and well-being, and to ensure that they are identified, supported, and included across the NHS and social care. That is a goal to which everyone should be committed. Social care can work only if unpaid carers are visible, recognised and counted.
Finally, I remind the Minister that we are still waiting for the Government’s response to the consultation on carers’ leave and need to see, as soon as possible, concrete plans about how this will be taken forward.
Baroness Parminter (LD) [V]
My Lords, I add my welcome to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse.
We face a climate and nature crisis, yet this Government are not on track to meet their fourth or fifth carbon budgets and have failed on almost all the global targets to reverse losses in wildlife and the natural environment by 2020. We needed the gracious Speech to offer up new plans to deliver for our environment, protect our rights to environmental justice and ensure that all of government aligns with climate and biodiversity goals.
Despite some welcome steps, the gracious Speech is not sufficiently transformational. The Environment Bill should include a legally binding target to halve the decline of biodiversity by 2030. Doing so will drive action across government to restore nature and encourage other nations to raise their nature ambitions in advance of COP 15. Your Lordships must amend the Bill to include such a target and to strengthen measures to tackle waste and to improve resource efficiency and air and water quality, if we are to deliver the scale of environmental improvements that future generations need.
This Defra Bill also risks being undermined by other departmental plans, as other noble Lords have mentioned. The planning system should create great places for people to live and contribute to nature recovery, but the Project Speed planning proposals and recent decisions on extending permitted development rights and excluding major infrastructure proposals from biodiversity net gain run counter to that. The Government must do far better in encouraging co-ordination between departments to deliver climate and biodiversity goals.
The Queen’s Speech comes at a time when the clock is ticking for environmental action to protect our planet. All of us, not just the Government, must act. As citizens, we must transform how we travel, what we eat and how we heat our homes—in short, live sustainable lifestyles. Some 59% of the measures in the climate change committee’s recent pathway for the sixth carbon budget contain some element of societal behavioural change. Securing those changes requires public engagement, yet the one climate assembly in the UK to build consensus on how to do that was initiated not by the Government but by six Select Committees in the House of Commons.
The Government must provide more opportunities for participation in environmental decision-making alongside better education and communication. Doing so is part and parcel of delivering our right to environmental justice. Worryingly, the Queen’s Speech points in three ways to a Government determined to undermine that right—a right established in the Aarhus convention, to which the UK is a signatory.
First, as proposed, the office for environmental protection, which will hold public bodies to account on environmental law, is insufficiently independent of the Government and has limited remedies, including no powers to fine. This means that we have weaker sanctions to hold the Government to account now than when we were members of the European Union. I wish the body well, but it is even blocked from advising the Government on planning proposals contrary to environmental legislation in the way that the climate change committee did so effectively recently on the impacts of allowing a new coal mine in Cumbria.
Secondly, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill proposes measures that could curtail peaceful environmental protest, despite the police already having powers to limit protest to ensure safety, as my noble friend Lady Miller rightly said.
Thirdly, the judicial review Bill could neuter environmental groups seeking to hold the Government to account. Only last week, three climate activists applied for a judicial review to challenge the Government’s support for continued North Sea oil and gas production. Maintaining the right of citizens to challenge the Government of the day to deliver the climate and environmental goals that we must deliver is a fundamental cornerstone of British democracy.
The threats in this Queen’s Speech to our right to environmental justice, alongside insufficiently transform-ational initiatives to deliver for our environment, show a Government not yet fully committed to putting climate and biodiversity goals at the heart of all their agendas.
The Duke of Somerset (CB) [V]
My Lords, this Queen’s Speech proposes many Bills. Some are controversial, and some will have a long-term effect on sections of the population. One such Bill is the flagship Environment Bill, because the Government seem determined to push on with achieving net-zero carbon—and rightly so. This is laudable, but we must also consider the practical and downside effects.
Let us take energy performance certificates, which currently apply to rental properties. I declare my interest as an owner of such places, and hope that this does not bar me from pointing out the flaws in the scheme. First, why only rental properties, which account for 20% of the housing stock? Can the Minister confirm that all houses will be subject to the higher criteria by 2025?
Secondly, the Government propose increasing the landlord cap to £10,000 spend every five years. This is a huge percentage of capital and rental value, and will, as many agencies, and the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, have pointed out, lead to a rush of sales as landlords realise the unpalatable economic effect on their investment. This will have an exacerbated effect in rural areas. Where will farm workers move to when their landlord informs them that he can no longer physically or economically improve the energy efficiency of his traditional home so can no longer legally let it?
The flaw is in the assessment methodology, where unchangeable physical criteria such as solid wall construction and off-gas heating automatically downgrade the result because the formula was designed for modern buildings. The conflict between energy costs and carbon reduction must be reassessed urgently, long before the 2025 rules come into force. There is equal concern about the damage done to heritage buildings in attempts to retrofit crude efficiency patches in order to continue letting them.
The Government are pressing on with banning the sale of diesel and petrol cars by 2030. That is splendid but, again, the practical consequences appear to be being overlooked. That date will be here in nine years, yet working charge points are way behind schedule and the £20 million fund will not ensure that these points are installed in sufficient numbers. So who will supply and pay for them? Where will the electricity be generated, given a peak demand forecast of a 10% increase on present use? I was interested to see today that the Services Committee has commissioned a demand survey for such things on the Parliamentary Estate.
Electric vehicles are not a panacea. A lithium ion battery, giving a 250-mile range, takes 20 tonnes of CO2 to manufacture. Batteries also need rare-earth metals, which cause environmental degradation in their mining. So, I wonder, are the Government turning their back on hydrogen cell vehicles when hydrogen is probably the cleanest fuel and the most suitable fuel for HGVs and trains, and should be developed in tandem with EVs? Once again, an infrastructure lacuna appears.
Today’s debate topics include welfare. Does this include the welfare of harmless foreigners caught up in the Government’s aggressive war on immigration? From asylum seekers in Glasgow to those looking to find work legally being detained at Gatwick and taken to Yarl’s Wood, this confrontational posturing to exclude anyone not deemed useful to this country is very unattractive and creates bewilderment and fury. Of course, it will be reciprocal, and the EU will react tit for tat by coming down on Britons living out their retirements in Spain and France when they do not have their paperwork in order in time.
Brexit may be done, but that should not mean punishing well-meaning people so harshly. Who came up with the 90/180-day rule for non-workers, which will impact on people’s lives so unnecessarily? Surely a gentler formula that looks after the welfare of all citizens could be found. Petty aggression from Border Force officers—such as confiscating phones, crowding detainees into holding rooms at risk of Covid and ignoring offers to buy an immediate return ticket—are unacceptable actions in a civilised society. The Home Office rules explicitly allow non-visa holders to attend job interviews, so why this humiliating and traumatic treatment? Welfare? What welfare?
Baroness Redfern (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak during this debate and to support Her Majesty’s gracious Speech, with today’s important focus on communities, welfare, transport and the environment. I also congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on their excellent maiden speeches.
I support the levelling-up fund, the future high streets fund and the towns fund. They will culminate in driving forward the regeneration of towns and delivering long-term economic and productive growth. They will play an important role in supporting our country’s economic recovery by bringing forward public investment to create jobs and boost confidence in towns, as well as by levering in investment from the private sector to improve everyday local life. As we have been reminded, many places have been left behind for too long, demonstrating the need for cultural identity, strong viable communities and enabling people to feel good in their surroundings.
The end of the common agricultural policy provides a framework for how we choose to manage and improve our land for increased food production and our horticultural sector, all while balancing our support for managing nature and the environment. Brexit helps us to create and exploit our own opportunities and decisions on what is right, particularly to deliver the highest standards of animal welfare while promoting our values in our worldwide trade deals. Importantly, it provides the UK with an opportunity to improve food labelling for meat by requiring that products containing meat be labelled British only if the animals were born, bred and slaughtered in the UK. Also, food produced outside the UK but processed in the UK should not be classed as British.
I welcome the increased protections to eradicate cruel practices for all animals: in particular, ending the export of live animals for fattening and slaughter; the banning of battery cages for laying hens, of sow stalls and of veal crates; and an end to the terrible welfare conditions found in puppy farming—many are transported in poor conditions often at a too-young age. Tougher penalties are needed to stop heavily pregnant bitches being illegally brought into the UK to dupe buyers into buying UK-bred puppies.
Businesses are our wealth creators and the Government have been on their side, with the undeniably unprecedented £352 billion package of support during this pandemic and further measures to make the lives of small business owners across the country easier as they seek to recover their businesses and livelihoods after the pandemic.
Much has been made of the current planning system in England. With a full overhaul, the reforms will give communities a greater voice from the start of the planning process. Local plans will be protected, making planning much more straightforward and accessible, with protected areas to include heritage and outstanding natural beauty sites. However, we must ensure the greater use of our brownfield sites. The target of 300,000 homes per year, together with the proposed future homes standard, will ensure that all new homes from 2025 will produce at least 75% fewer carbon emissions than those built to the current standard.
The Government’s economic recovery will be a green recovery, which I welcome, and ensure that the UK remains on track to meet its net-zero target. This was demonstrated by the early announcement of £8.8 billion of new infrastructure, decarbonisation and maintenance projects—including a £3 billion green investment package. This could help support around 140,000 green jobs, upgrade buildings and reduce emissions.
A green light has been given to eight freeports in England, with the commencement of the first one this year and further freeports planned in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This helps strengthen economic ties across the union, as a growing clustering of businesses leads to economic advantage and can play a large part in rebalancing economic equality across the UK and boosting international trade.
Finally, there are much-awaited measures to revolutionise how we recycle and reduce air pollution. But we must secure long-term resilient water supplies and wastewater services which protect nature, improve biodiversity and, importantly, lead to a reduction of sewage discharges from storm overflows into rivers. We must also not forget the protection of our peatlands, which are our biggest terrestrial carbon store and home to some of our rarest species. As only 13% of our peatlands are in a near-natural state, we cannot delay any further.
Brexit done, we need to build on it by being bold in rebuilding our economy post pandemic to benefit all in the UK. It is all about place.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
The title of the Government’s energy White Paper is Powering Our Net Zero Future. It addresses the need to staunch our emissions of carbon dioxide in view of the advancing crisis of climate change. It proposes that, by 2050, we should double our generating capacity for electricity, while reducing our overall energy consumption to two-thirds of its present level. This is a gross underestimate of our requirements for electricity and power.
According to a widely accepted analysis, the electrification of transport would require a 75% increase in generating capacity. The decarbonisation of the economy will create numerous additional demands, some of which I will mention later. The only source that could meet such demands is nuclear power. Therefore, I believe we should embark without delay on the necessary infrastructure projects to create this supply and exploit it.
An alternative opinion has been offered by the FIRES report, which is the work of a group of academic engineers. FIRES is an acronym that stands for “Future Industrial Resource Efficiency Strategy”. The report argues that we have run out of time. It proposes that the only way we can hope to meet the 2050 target of net zero emissions is by a radical regression which would entail abandoning much of the technology that accompanies our present state of affluence.
According to that report, we would have to immobilise ourselves by forgoing our present means of transport, including automobiles and aircraft. International shipping would also need to be much reduced. Building construction involving steel and concrete would need to be severely curtailed, and we should cease to eat red meats. Such a curtailment of economic activity involving a further abandonment of manufacturing would lead to mass unemployment and the immiseration of much of our working population. It is an appalling prospect to contemplate.
As evidence of the lack of time, the report talks of the 30-year period covering the time from the inception of a new technology to its realisation in a fully operational system. One can point to the length of time it has taken to design and complete the third generation of nuclear plants, such as the European pressurised water reactors, or EPRs, at Olkiluoto in Finland, Flamanville in Normandy and Hinkley Point in Somerset. However, there are convincing recent and historical counterexamples suggesting that such projects can be accomplished far more rapidly. In fact, an EPR reactor which is virtually identical to that at Hinkley Point has been constructed at Taishan in Guangdong province in China. Work began in 2008 and, in spite of numerous reported setbacks, it began full operation in 2018.
One might also consider the post-war experience in Britain in establishing our civil nuclear industry, which, at the time, embodied a wholly new technology. Britain’s first nuclear power station at Calder Hall in Cumbria was opened officially by the Queen in October 1956. The construction had begun in 1953 and its design work could not have begun much before 1952 when Churchill called for the construction of the plant. There should be ample time between now and 2050 to revive our nuclear industry.
We should now consider some of the uses of the enlarged supply of electricity which would be required for domestic heating and to power numerous industrial processes. Steel, which is currently manufactured in coal-fired blast furnaces, could be made in electric arc furnaces fed by both iron ores and scrap metals. Hydrogen and ammonia, which would be among the predominant vectors of energy, should be produced by high-temperature electrolysis of water, the heat and electricity for which should be provided by nuclear reactors.
Provided that the hydrocarbon fuels are created in a manner that does not add to the burden of atmospheric carbon dioxide, there should be no need to forgo the use either of the internal combustion engine or jet engines. The technology for the direct air capture of carbon dioxide, which is energy intensive, already exists. It could be deployed on a large scale to provide the carbon component of the fuels.
Portland cement, which is used in concrete, has become a major element in modern building construction. Its manufacture emits large quantities of carbon dioxide and it should be greatly reduced. However, a reversion to the use of lime mortar in brickwork could be mandated, since the setting of the mortar reabsorbs the carbon dioxide that has been emitted in the reduction of the calcium carbonate limestone to quicklime. Bricks that are now fused inseparably by a sand and cement bond could be reused extensively, as they are in much of present-day domestic building.
The time is not available for me to describe such a scenario in more detail, and to realise it will require energy, imagination and government initiatives. At present, all three of these ingredients are in short supply.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)
My Lords, I too join other noble Lords in welcoming the maiden speeches from the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. I look forward to their participation in this House.
I am a novice in this area so feel slightly trepidatious in speaking about the environment and transport, but that is what I am going to do today. I express disappointment, along with other noble Lords who know a lot more about this, at the lack of a transport decarbonisation strategy. It is particularly disappointing to find the lack of a coherent strategy to tackle aviation emissions. I know this issue was close to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, so I hope he will touch on it when he winds up.
CO2 has a lifespan measured in centuries. Today’s emissions will combine with those that have accumulated since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Yet, nearly a quarter of a century ago, Kyoto did not want to tackle it, instead leaving it to the UN agencies responsible for the aviation sector to attempt to find some sort of consensus. We know how difficult it is to get consensus at the UN—I would not look there if we really want to make progress. I understand that the only goal adopted by the UN aviation agency, ICAO, is to keep net emissions from international aviation at or below 2020 levels, mainly through the use of carbon offsetting and reduction, not through tackling the heart of the problem: excessive recreational and business flying and the overuse of distant supply chains.
Inexplicably, we have left international aviation and shipping emissions in the UK out of the five-yearly carbon budgets. One can only assume that that was because they fell into the “too difficult for now” category—and that is for a Government with an 81-seat majority. Given that technology has shown that we do not need to leave home to engage with a large part of commerce, that businesses have found that having executives jet over from London to New York for a three-hour meeting is not vital to success, and that consumers are discovering the merits of staycations, now would appear to be the ideal time to reduce aviation emissions permanently.
Tackling them in domestic legislation is important. We have left the EU emissions trading system, so an ambitious plan to set clear targets in law would be appropriate. I would call it a “levelling down” for the climate. I say this because in the UK we have a particular problem with overusing aviation as a means of transport. It is mainly people on higher than average incomes, who fly about 50% more than the average for other advanced economies. While emissions in many sectors are falling, UK aviation represents around 10% of total CO2 emissions, compared to 2% of global emissions. I urge the Government to come forward with a strategy to tackle this and to announce bold targets to reduce air travel and transport before COP 26.
Inevitably, one element of this issue is airport expansion and here, the greatest challenge is Heathrow, arguably the biggest emitter of CO2 in Europe. We have to ask ourselves why we should allow a never-ending expansion of this particular airport. The economic case for a third runway, which was always weak, has now become untenable. Even the Supreme Court ruling last year that the expansion strategy was legitimate was based on previous, less stringent climate targets and invites reconsideration. The noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, will know all about this; it is very much his interest area. When the courts point to Parliament and effectively say, “We cannot solve the problem; it is for the Government in Parliament to change the law”, the public rightly expect to see such action reflected in the Government’s programme—the one we are discussing here.
In 2009, when the Labour Government pushed through Heathrow’s third runway, our determination as a nation to tackle climate change was less developed. Now that we know about the damage to the environment caused by aviation, we need to tackle it through legislation. However, here, the chance to do so has been missed again. If, when the third runway’s inevitable public inquiry is concluded, it finds against expansion, will the Government act to stop it? They cannot avoid their responsibility. If we have to have “long grass”, let it grow over the north-west third runway at Heathrow.
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)
The noble Lord, Lord Deben, has withdrawn so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
As a daughter of Nottinghamshire, I applaud the warmth and passion of my noble friend Lord Coaker’s splendid maiden speech. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Morse, on his important speech. I shall focus on the climate emergency and declare that I am a member of Peers for the Planet.
However, first, outside of my five minutes, I hope your Lordships will allow me to say a word about the contribution to sustainability of my noble friend Lord Rogers of Riverside, who is barred from membership of this House through absence. He is, in fact, gravely ill and would not have left of his own volition. As he cannot make his own valedictory speech, I just want to say that as president of the All-Party Group on Design and Innovation while I was vice-chair, his distinguished and conscientious contributions were invaluable in furthering the case of sustainable design and architecture. That is quite apart from all his other extraordinary achievements, both public and professional.
I am concerned that the Government have not integrated their environmental policies throughout departments. They have announced some good policies, not least the undertaking on 20 April to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by 78% by 2035, compared with 1990 figures. In an excellent debate in your Lordships’ House, several questions about how the commitment would be implemented, notably asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the mover of the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, went unanswered. My noble friend Lord Whitty asked which Cabinet committee would oversee implementation. I ask that question again.
There are other signs of a lack of embedding the essential aim of net-zero carbon throughout government policy and programmes. My noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch referred to the Public Accounts Committee’s criticism of the Treasury. This is the department that commissioned the seminal Dasgupta report. Do the different branches talk to each other? Do they require environmental impact assessments? Why is the Treasury—and, for that matter, the Ministry of Defence—exempt from Defra’s environmental principles? A key department is obviously Environment but, as has been said, we have not heard what its plans are to meet the carbon emission targets.
The United Nations published a report last week charting the large and increasing contribution of methane gas to global heating, and proposing means to reduce it. What are the departments’ plans to deal with this environmental hazard, notably in agriculture?
The authoritative Energy Transitions Commission says that we shall need to increase our production of clean energy by two to two-and-a-half times to meet the demands of transport, industry, buildings and so on. How is this to be managed without intolerable cost? How can it be done without legislation to reform the grid? Where is the promised energy Bill?
Then, there is the specific question I have often asked about domestic gas heating in blocks of flats. Here, we are far below Germany, France and the Netherlands in the installation of heat pumps. Domestic gas boilers are a very large source of carbon, because most building emissions come from homes and the majority of these are gas-fired. Residents of blocks of flats are numerous—some 20% of homes are flats, about 4.7 million in total—and on average they are far from the wealthiest, so a programme to enable them to exchange their boilers, perhaps on a building-wide basis, will need to be devised and funded. Following the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, I ask: what is it to be?
In general, my questions to the Minister are as follows. What are the structures to ensure that all government policies and programmes contribute to arriving at zero carbon by 2035? Which posts are tasked with monitoring this and how is it co-ordinated at Cabinet level? What is the accountability structure within departments? It needs to be in job descriptions at specific levels, so that performance in the outcome of reducing carbon emissions is measured, incentivised and censured or rewarded accordingly. Finally, the legislature has a right to know what these structures are and to be reassured that they are as developed and effective as the targets themselves. I look forward to the Minister’s answer.
Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]
My Lords, the 2021 Queen’s Speech includes an emphasis on levelling up, research, development and innovation, and the environment. This was always going to be a crucial Queen’s Speech post Brexit and in the midst of the awful Covid-19 pandemic. The skills and post-16 education Bill proposes a lifelong learning entitlement, which is very close to the recommendation of the CBI, of which I am proud to be president, for more people to develop higher-level skills throughout their working lives. It is also in line with the recommendations of the Centenary Commission on Adult Education, of which I was a member, which reported in November 2019. CBI research shows that nine in 10 people will have to acquire new skills by 2030. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, mentioned the Kickstart Scheme and a request to the Government made by the CBI that this be extended by six months until June 2022. Will the Government please agree to this, to enable more young people to take part in and benefit from this excellent scheme? The noble Lord, Lord Oates, quoted Mahatma Gandhi. One of my favourite sayings of Gandhi is: live as if you are going to die tomorrow and learn as if you are going to live for ever. Enabling lifelong learning for our nation is crucial.
I was privileged to chair the B7 last week. The B7 feeds into the G7 next month. One of our members said, “Thank God for digital in this pandemic”. What would we have done without digital today? We would not have been able to hold this Hybrid Sitting of the House in which we are all taking part. With more digitisation, however, comes more vulnerability. Therefore, the online safety Bill is crucial in dealing with cybersecurity. The product security and telecommunications infra-structure Bill will deal with gigabit coverage. Will the Government confirm that, having earlier committed to 100% national broadband coverage by 2025, they rolled back their commitment to 85% in the spending review in November? Surely this pandemic has shown more than ever that we need 100% gigabit broadband coverage. Does the Minister agree?
The Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill—ARIA—is great news to enhance the UK’s R&D capability. Do the Government also agree with the CBI’s recommendation that we should create clusters around the country, with universities at their heart? The best example is the Cambridge cluster. Initially a tech cluster, it now also encompasses life sciences, with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine being manufactured by AstraZeneca, which is headquartered in Cambridge. Do the Government agree that we need to do much more to help businesses and universities work together on research, development and innovation, which in turn would power forward our nation’s productivity?
The Queen’s Speech contains a lot, but some important things were missing; for example, the reform of business rates. Business rates reform is fundamental to the levelling up agenda and to reviving our high streets and stimulating business investment, let alone encouraging greener buildings. Surely the Government agree that we need a full reform of business rates, which is long overdue.
The Environment Bill is a positive milestone to us building a greener United Kingdom. Businesses are looking for the legislative measures needed to reach the net zero emissions target following the Government’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution. It appears that the Bill does not provide for this. Will the Government confirm that? Furthermore, the planning Bill is a key element of the Queen’s Speech. Do the Government agree that modernising the planning system must be done in lockstep with the vital task of decarbonising homes and buildings? I was privileged with the CBI to chair the heat commission along with the University of Birmingham, of which I am proud to be chancellor. The commission highlighted that one-third of greenhouse gas emissions comes from heat. Half of that comes from buildings. We need to convert our 29 million houses in the United Kingdom from gas boilers to either hydrogen boilers, heat pumps—as the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said—or community heating if we are to reach net zero by 2050. To do this, the heat commission recommended the creation of an Olympic-style delivery body, including green finance, and there is a proposal that this delivery body could be the national centre for decarbonisation of heat, which is located in the West Midlands and of which the University of Birmingham is a member. Do the Government agree with this approach?
This is a watershed year for the United Kingdom to show global leadership, in hosting not only the G7 but COP 26 in November. There is, therefore, an urgent need for legislation to speed up the race to net zero. The Prime Minister said at the B7 last week that the race to net zero is not a zero sum game. In true Boris style, he also said: “Green is good.” Kwasi Kwarteng, our new Secretary of State for Business, says that his priorities are the acronym ENZI, standing for enterprise, net zero and innovation. Thankfully, the Queen’s Speech is full of ENZI.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the gracious Speech and will take this opportunity to draw together some strands on the environment, transport and communities. I warmly congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on their outstanding maiden speeches. I refer to my entries in the register. I am a member of the Church of England Rural Affairs Group, vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities, president of National Energy Action, and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Water. I also had the privilege of chairing the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in the House of Commons between 2010 and 2015.
I will focus on the role of farming in the rural economy, market towns and the hinterland of rural communities. I am an enthusiastic advocate of the Government rural-proofing all their policies on health, social care, education and transport, so that they are fit for purpose in a rural setting. Rural communities must have good access to banking and post offices, access to cash so that the elderly, young families and others can pay their bills, affordable housing and good transport, as well as fast-speed broadband and good mobile connectivity.
I would like to consider the challenges to rural areas in the context of the planning Bill and ask my noble friend whether the Government will end the practice of building in inappropriate places, especially flood plains. Will they use more natural flood defences and sustainable drains? We all know that Flood Re does not apply to houses built after 2009, so how will the Government protect existing developments from the consequences of building on flood plains and ensure that future developments are flood-proof? Will the Government use the planning Bill to finally implement the recommendation of the Pitt review in 2007 to end the automatic right to connect for major new developments?
I turn to the Environment Bill and its link and relationship to the Agriculture Act, in particular the fact that details of the environmental land management schemes and current pilot schemes are very sketchy. We must ensure that the link is recognised and made between the active farmer and those taking the economic risk, as well as the importance of livestock farming in upland areas and issues relating to common land. I recognise that farmers have a role to play in tackling climate change, for example carbon sink—capturing and storing carbon in that way—but, for a sustainable farming future for the whole of the UK, tenants must be able to benefit from the new schemes, not just landlords. I add a note of caution on banning the live trade of animals, which is already heavily regulated and very limited. We must consider the economic consequences of losing a very considerable market and losing market share to other countries, such as New Zealand, particularly at this time of year with the sale of spring lambs to France. The loss of that market would have a huge negative impact on hill farms in the north of England and elsewhere in the United Kingdom—I am thinking of Perthshire. Imagine the consequences of losing flocks through such a loss of market.
I also recognise the role of framework agreements and partnership committees with EU parliamentarians under the UK and EU trade and co-operation agreement, as well as working with the devolved Administrations in setting and implementing agricultural policy and environmental law in all the jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. We must be ever-vigilant about animal health and welfare and ensure that the Government make good their excellent commitment to a level playing field on environmental standards. The Government have repeatedly said that they are committed to ensuring that food imports meet the same high standards of production as foods produced here. I hope that that will continue to be the case in the legislation set out before us.
I pause for a moment to consider the future challenge of mental health in the farming community, particularly in rural communities. I pay tribute to all the charities involved.
As well as broader issues in the Environment Bill, in view of the fact that landfill sites are full to bursting, should we be exporting our waste to Holland, Denmark and Turkey or looking to expand the opportunities for energy from waste at home? Can my noble friend confirm that the Environment Bill extends to the marine environment and that the Government will use that opportunity to ensure that offshore wind farms in the North Sea are environmentally safe and friendly. Finally, given the rule of the OEP, how will the Government guarantee that it operates independently? How will its relationship with its opposite bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland work?
Lord Stunell (LD) [V]
My Lords, there have been many excellent contributions to the debate today, including those of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. I am sorry to add yet more to the Minister’s workload at the wind-up, but I can at least start by welcoming the announcement that the building safety Bill will come before your Lordships’ House this Session. I urge the Government to give this Bill every priority to achieve that. Can the Minister confirm that it will be published before the fourth anniversary on 14 June of the Grenfell Tower fire? The residents and survivors have waited long enough.
As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans reminded us, Ministers gave repeated pledges during the passage of the then Fire Safety Bill that a comprehensive scheme to deliver necessary initial finance for remediation work on defective high-rise residential blocks would be in the new Bill. We on these Benches will be holding the Government to account for those pledges. Will the Minister undertake to publish an early draft of the scheme of remediation and compensation that they propose, and to engage with your Lordships’ House and leaseholder organisations at the earliest practicable moment?
The gracious Speech also highlighted the urgency of climate change and the November COP 26 session, which will be hosted by the United Kingdom. The Government have set what I am sure the Minister would describe as “world-beating” targets for carbon reduction for the UK right the way through to 2050, but the gracious Speech was notably silent about how they plan to hit those targets. One thing is certain: a wholehearted partnership will be needed between central and local government and between Governments of all sorts and industry, as well as civic society, to get anywhere near successful outcomes.
Industry is rightly wary of targets that are boldly announced by this Government. Industry always needs to see hard evidence of long-term planning and investment by the Government before it can take the risk itself of investing time and money in the learning of new skills, and the investment in training and in plant, that is needed to deliver those targets on time. The experience of the green homes grant last year—announced completely without consultation with just three months’ notice and cancelled after six months, leaving 40,000 applicants in the lurch—has undermined whatever appetite industry might have had for running the risk of being left stranded again by yet another government initiative.
To achieve zero-carbon success, the Government will have to take the lead in joining up the dots of both policy and investment. For a start, the long-delayed heat and building strategy and the net-zero strategy must be published. We have to know what the rules will be. The Government must endorse the Construction Leadership Council’s retrofit strategy to upgrade our 20 million existing homes and, alongside that, there must be sustained and substantial government investment in long-term financial support and incentives. Until that happens, business plans, investments and skills training will remain in limbo, and the idea of hitting any targets a mirage. The gracious Speech is silent on all this. Surely if the Government want to exert maximum leverage on their international partners at COP 26, they would surely be wise to get the infamous Whitehall grid of announcements into alignment with that outcome in November.
Finally, will the Minister agree to take back to his department and the Cabinet Office the message from your Lordships’ House, coming from every side in this debate, of our genuine concern that the unique opportunity to build a strong international consensus in Glasgow is being weakened by every day of delay in making public their plans for the future?
Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]
There is very little new on transport in the Queen’s Speech, apart from promising a Bill for HS2 from Crewe to Manchester. As my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch said, there was a distinct lack of ambition for the transport sector in the Queen’s Speech. So, at the start of this new Session, it is time to review the purpose, benefits and likely outcome for HS2, and to ask again whether it is needed at all.
According to cost engineer Michael Byng, to whom I pay tribute for his professionalism and work in checking the cost of HS2, the latest cost estimate is £158 billion. Many would think that some of that could be better spent on improving the regional lines in the Midlands and the north, which need about £100 billion more to meet their levelling-up needs. HS2 costs have risen tenfold over 10 years, and it is time to bring to account those who have promoted it and withheld information from Parliament and the public since 2015-16.
I welcome the very powerful maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Morse. The National Audit Office has of course regularly investigated HS2’s costs and programme overruns. Quotes about its reports include:
“Ministers have no idea how much HS2 will end up costing”
and:
“The high-speed rail project is running wildly over budget and will not deliver good value for money”.
My worry, which I am sure the noble Lord will share, is why the Government ignore such advice and comments.
So I suggest that we go back 10 years, when there was a comprehensive campaign of cover-up to Parliament of the true costs and delays. At a Commons Select Committee hearing on phase 1, the DfT’s Permanent Secretary, Bernadette Kelly, when asked why her department had not given the Select Committee the latest and highest estimate, said that if they had done so, Parliament would probably have cancelled the project.
In January 2017 the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who was then Transport Minister, arranged a meeting for Michael Byng and me with an official from HS2, a man called John Stretch, and an official at the Department for Transport called Mike Hurn, to discuss the budget for phase 1. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, expressed surprised that Mr Stretch declined to provide a detailed, measured estimate in support of the costs that he was tabling. Later, during a meeting at the Oakervee review, of which I was deputy chair for a bit, HS2 directors admitted that they had no budget for measuring the work, despite having spent £11.4 million on cost consultants.
It was very odd that during 2018-19 Nus Ghani MP, the Minister of Transport, and Mark Thurston, chief executive of HS2, both stuck to the £55.7 billion figure when all the evidence led to new chairman Allan Cook’s stock-take of £88 billion, which of course left out quite a few elements of HS2 that would have taken it up to £100 billion. More recently I have received documents alleging that the Said Business School’s Professor Bent Flyvbjerg confirmed his earlier advice, given in 2015-16 to the then Leader of the Conservative Party, who of course is now Prime Minister. The forecast cost is supported by a presentation given in January 2018 by Jeremy Harrison, then director of risk and assurance at HS2, in which he stated that the total value of contracts for the entire project—without risk allowance—exceeded £80 billion. So the Prime Minister and other Ministers knew of this £80 billion figure in 2015-16. One has to ask why the Minister, Nus Ghani, and the chief executive, Mark Thurston, said three years later that the budget was still £55 billion.
The latest cost increase will be at Old Oak Common at the London end, where Michael Byng has finally costed the station at £7.1 billion, compared to a cost estimate from the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, of £1.67 billion. This is only a fourfold increase in costs—I suppose that is all right for HS2—but it does not include the cost of passenger disruption for trains using Paddington station, which will have its train and seat capacity halved for four years during the building. It is very clear that many DfT and HS2 officials and Ministers, with the honourable exception of the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, have misled Parliament over years.
The NAO has stated that lessons need to be learned—
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I remind the noble Lord of the five-minute advisory speaking time.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
I am grateful for the reminder, but a Bishop was recently allowed to carry on for six minutes and 40 seconds, so may I finish?
Doug Oakervee has stated that pressure from the construction industry persuaded him to recommend that HS2 went ahead. This need could have been met equally well by regional upgrades in the Midlands and the north, so I suggest that HS2 be stopped now and the relevant officials and Ministers held to account for misleading Parliament.
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (CB)
My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst.
Lord Haselhurst (Con) [V]
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. I thought their maiden speeches were admirable.
In view of what we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I feel it necessary to go down a rather different path. The Government are commendably engaged in levelling up, with emphasis on the north and the Midlands. There is no question that these parts of the country need jobs and houses. In such a large-scale exercise, a vast and efficient train network is essential. To my mind, HS2 is a vital part of that if we are to transform in an upward direction the economies in parts of the country that have lagged behind.
Furthermore, the Government should put it beyond doubt that HS2 phase 2b will proceed. The east Midlands not having the benefits of the West Midlands and east of the Pennines not having the benefits of west of the Pennines is unthinkable. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, said he thought the Treasury had severe doubts, but perhaps he should remember that part of the Treasury being moved up to the north-east might bring about a change of opinion.
In terms of better rail services, it should not be forgotten that levelling up is long overdue in parts of the south and east. I point to the Anglian region—reminding your Lordships of my interest as chair of the West Anglia Taskforce—where the east coast ports have a great strategic significance for our country. The freight conveyed from them, largely by rail, needs to be assisted by increasing the capacity of the Ely junction, a proposal which I think is subject to public inquiry at the moment. The West Anglia Main Line is only a two-track railway, its third and fourth tracks having been removed after the recommendations of Lord Beeching some 60 years ago. That two-track railway has to support increased frequency in north-east London, the needs of Stansted Airport—the third London airport—and the expanding biomedical campus at Cambridge. Not all these things can be done on a two-track system in a way that satisfies any of the customers.
Liverpool Street station, which is the London central terminus for the West Anglia line, is an admirable Victorian structure but has very little scope to become a modern railway station meeting the needs of passengers, and it is now severely congested. There is now the possibility—or has been the possibility—that Stratford might also be a destination for trains on the West Anglia line. But the only space left that could possibly accommodate an extra platform at Stratford is more likely to be used, I am told, as an entertainment venue. The congestion already on the line makes it very difficult to encourage freight to be taken on the West Anglia line and off the roads which, otherwise, it has to use.
I look forward to learning how the promised railway White Paper assesses these and all the many other competing demands that I know exist. I suggest it might be helpful to have a clear, visible and comprehensive rail plan to take us forward, setting out all desirable improvements, what each might achieve and at what cost. It might also show how an entire project could be divided into sequential sections, some of which might attract local authority and private sector development. My hope is for nothing less than a railway revolution that will help to galvanise our economic regeneration throughout the country.
Baroness Benjamin (LD) [V]
My Lords, two important issues that need to be high on the Government’s priority list are the environment and children and young people’s well-being. If these issues are not addressed urgently, the consequences are dire. I was pleased to hear both mentioned in the gracious Speech, but the policies do not go far enough.
The planting of trees is just one way of making an impact on climate change, and I am honoured to have been appointed an ambassador for the Queen’s Green Canopy to encourage the planting of trees all over the UK in celebration of Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee next year. It is great that Defra is involved with this initiative, but the Government need to do much more by working across departments on a coherent strategy, as it will take an army of planters to reach the Government’s goal of 30,000 hectares of trees a year. When the Government are considering areas where trees can be planted, are they also looking at local employment levels? Will there be a training and skills component to it to ensure that planting is successful? Currently, most trees are being planted by the devolved nations, so England needs to up its game massively, and the Treasury needs to release the funds to make this happen, because in the last financial year, only 1,956 hectares of trees were planted with government support.
The announcement of a skills Bill is welcome, but what is being done to put climate at the heart of under-16 education, encouraging children to develop an interest in gardening and consider a career in horticulture? Perhaps the Minister will let us know whether this is on the cards. We now know that children in communities across the UK have suffered disproportionately during the pandemic. We do not yet know exactly what impact this will have on their future. What is certain is that the Government owe it to the younger generation to put them front and centre of their plans, because childhood lasts a lifetime.
Play is something I have been long associated with. It was great to see play mentioned in the SNP’s election promise to renew every playground in Scotland, and to hear the call by the Association of Play Industries for the Prime Minister to match that pledge because of the big decrease in play areas over the years. It is shameful that parents are having to resort to crowdfunding to save their local playgrounds, as reported in an article in the Guardian. A report from the University of Reading also confirmed the importance of playgrounds, with its finding that, away from home, the most common place for children to play is in a playground or green space. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will encourage local authorities to maintain and improve playgrounds and green spaces for the nation’s children to enjoy?
I declare an interest as vice-president of Barnardo’s. It has long called for a family hub in every community. The goal should be to provide a safety net long before families reach crisis point. Will the Government make funding available so that every community can have this vital resource for a community centre to act as the family hub?
The harm that happens to children online does not stay online. Children who are groomed on chat forums and apps often go out to meet their abusers, in person, in the community. We therefore need alternative activities for children so that they are not reliant on the online world. We need safe places, such as youth clubs and community centres, for young people to congregate and interact safely, under supervision, because today many children find themselves victims of crime. They may see someone they know murdered and have to deal with the unbelievable trauma that that entails. Will the Government start to open youth clubs across the country to help stop children and young people resorting to joining gangs, which lead them down county lines, on a path of knife crime and drug abuse, with sometimes fatal consequences?
The gracious Speech contains some welcome signs that children’s needs are now being taken seriously but, as always, much will depend on the funding available and the Government’s willingness to be ambitious on behalf of those who need us most. To ensure that this happens, will the Government respond to the call, by me and others, for a Cabinet-level Minister for Children, whose role will be to co-ordinate policies that affect children—our future?
The Duke of Wellington (CB)
My Lords, I speak on the environment—one of the themes of today’s debate—and, in particular, the urgent need to improve the quality of water in our river systems. The gracious Speech includes a commitment to “set binding environmental targets”. I imagine that this mainly refers to carbon emissions, but I suggest that Ministers should be more concerned about the shocking amounts of raw sewage, plastic and other domestic products that are daily allowed to enter our rivers.
I wonder whether the Minister watched “Panorama” on BBC1, five weeks ago. The programme was entitled “The River Pollution Scandal”. I think it is required viewing for Ministers and officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The programme is not easy to watch, as it shows, in a most revolting way, the amount of untreated, raw sewage discharged into rivers and the used domestic products that now cover the beds of the Thames and other rivers.
In the previous Session, there was a Private Member’s Bill in the other place tabled by the right honourable Member for Ludlow, Philip Dunne, which sought to limit these discharges and prohibit certain plastic products entering the sewage system. Unfortunately, the Government were not prepared to accept or take over Philip Dunne’s Bill. I have therefore tabled a similar Private Member’s Bill in this House and have been allotted 12th position in the ballot, but I would much prefer to persuade the Minister and his colleagues to amend the Environment Bill so that it has the same intent and rigour as Philip Dunne’s Bill.
On the day after the Queen’s Speech, Defra announced that it would table amendments in this House to place three additional legal duties on the Secretary of State: to publish a plan by September 2022 to reduce sewage discharges, to report to Parliament progress on implementing the plan and to require water companies to publish annual data on these discharges. I say to Ministers as politely as I can that this is far too little and shows no sense of urgency. We have two Ministers—the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, in this House, and Rebecca Pow, in the other place—both of whom care passionately about the environment.
If a farmer allows a cupful of silage effluent or other farm waste to drip into a ditch, he will find himself in trouble with the Environment Agency, but water companies are allowed to release millions of gallons of raw sewage into rivers every year. There was a piece on Radio 4 on Saturday about Ilkley in West Yorkshire. The locals have calculated that on more than 100 days a year, raw sewage is discharged into the River Wharfe. The water company’s response is that it plans to reduce the discharges by 20% over five years. I cannot believe that any Member of your Lordships’ House thinks that this is good enough. Will the Minister state whether he thinks that the situation in Ilkley is acceptable?
On my way here this morning, I read with great interest a press release from Ofwat, the water regulator, entitled:
“Water sector to plunge £2.8 billion into the green recovery”
I thought that it might have pre-empted my speech but, sadly, when I read further, I found that only just over 5% of this sum is to be devoted
“to help eliminate harm caused by storm overflows”.
Surely this is an insufficient reaction to the seriousness of the situation.
I conclude by asking Her Majesty’s Government to think again. Should cleaning up our rivers not be a higher and more urgent priority? I ask my fellow Members of this House to support appropriate amendments that we intend to table when the Environment Bill reaches us.
Lord Jordan (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I want to talk about the proposed building safety Bill referred to in Her Majesty’s gracious Speech. In doing so, I declare an interest as vice-president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.
Following the tragedy at Grenfell, the Government’s response in bringing forward further legislation is welcome, and this House has rightly spent much time debating and discussing fire safety. However, I draw the Minister’s attention to another area of building safety as crucial and urgent as fire safety. Is he aware that a person in this country is 234 times more likely to be hospitalised from a fall in the home than from a fire, and that almost one-third of a million people attend accident and emergency each year because of falls? Unsurprisingly, the majority of them are elderly people, given that 12 million people in the UK are now over the age of 65. Most Members of this House will know someone who has had a fall in this way and be aware of the consequences that falls can have. As well as the physical injuries caused by a fall in the home, it will often be a catalyst for a longer decline in health from which many never recover. The cumulative cost of this, in terms of the pain and suffering inflicted on individuals and their families and the cost to the NHS, which is estimated at £4.4 billion, is unacceptable.
The Government’s building safety Bill offers an opportunity to make a significant contribution to ending the reputation of the home as the most dangerous place in Britain. RoSPA’s concern for safety in the home has led it to work with representatives of the housebuilding industry, and together they have developed a new framework for safety in the home, called Safer by Design. Among other things, this framework calls for the adoption of British Standard 5395 on stair design, which is backed by industry as being commercially and technically viable and creating a radically improved safety outcome, with 60% fewer falls on stairs designed to this standard.
The Government have an ambitious housebuilding programme and I am sure that they are equally ambitious that when houses are built, the safety of the occupants is seen as essential. I can tell them that “safer by design” was crafted to fulfil that ambition. Their involvement in the project would signal a clear intention to make the home a safer place.
I urge the Minister and his colleagues in the other place to use the Building Safety Bill to demonstrate their direction of purpose by first addressing the critical issue of staircase safety. This would require that the new British Standard not only be in this Bill but be made mandatory. Many lives would be saved as a result, and it would also prevent Britain’s best builders being undercut by those in the industry who are prepared to sacrifice safety in pursuit of profit. If the tragedy of Grenfell has taught us anything, it is that measures designed to secure people’s safety must not be optional. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on their excellent maiden speeches. I draw attention to my entry in the register, in particular my presidency of BALPA, the pilots’ union. I am addressing what is fundamentally a transport issue to the Minister. I realise that he is not a transport Minister, so all I am going to ask him to do is to say that he will pass my comments on to the Transport Minister and ask her to respond to me in writing. That is as much as I could really hope for.
The subject I want to raise is the problem of what is called the potential airline insolvency Bill. This issue has been around for two or three years. It comes to the fore when an airline such as Monarch goes under, and then it disappears from the headlines and people forget all about it—until the next tragedy happens.
In March 2019, the Airline Insolvency Review published its full report. We are now two years and two months on from that. Just over a year ago, before the Covid shutdown, I table a QSD asking for a report, and the then Minister what had happened and what was going to come forward. First, the review called for arrangements to be put in place to finance the cost of protecting customers. Everyone will remember that when an airline goes bust, you suddenly have customers all over the world who need to be brought home. Secondly, it proposed that the airlines themselves should fund a financial package that would cover these eventualities and the cost of repatriating passengers. Thirdly, it said that some legislative cover was needed for all of this. It is not only passengers who are affected; people often forget that staff are also affected. If an airline goes bust, the staff are just left with the administrators; they do not even get their wages paid. Of course, in the case of airline pilots, they could not only have no wages; they could be on the other side of the world. There are severe difficulties. The suggestion, which I think very sensible, is a kind of US chapter 11 situation whereby an airline could keep flying for a short time in order to bring passengers back and get a sensible wind-down.
This is not an area of great controversy. I do not think that the party opposite would find any difficulties with this; indeed, the vice-president of BALPA is the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, with whom I have a very good relationship. I would therefore like the Minister to put to his colleague that this is exactly the sort of Bill that could be introduced in the Lords, that would be unlikely to cause any great problem here and that could then be sent down the Corridor. It is something we need, particularly at the moment, when the aviation industry is in dire trouble.
It will take some time to get it out of that trouble. There are a lot of problems, which I am not going to go into, associated with reopening the industry. Certainly, the transatlantic routes need opening up, because that is where the principal finance comes from. I would be grateful if the Minister took that on board.
I make one other observation before I close. It is now two years since the Government promised a workers’ rights Bill to look at basic problems such as the gig economy and employment regulations. This is another issue that has not been addressed in the gracious Speech. Will the Government look at introducing not a complex but a simple Bill to sort out some of the manifest injustices and to correct the law as it has been applied according to successive court judgments? There needs to be some tidying up in this area as well. I hope that the Minister will be able to write letters to get other people to do the work to address the two suggestions I have made.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB) [V]
My Lords, I am deserting foreign affairs today in favour of the environment because of the importance of climate change to all of us. I also declare my interest as a farmer and NFU member, especially because my family is committed to rewilding and biodiversity—amid the hailstones in west Dorset. Here, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, on his achievements as a Minister; he has done really well and I look forward to the Environment Bill. I welcome my noble friend Lord Morse to the Cross Benches; and I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who is a great campaigner against modern slavery.
Today I will focus on this Government’s international policy on the environment. The Covid pandemic is teaching us some urgent lessons about sharing the world’s resources. These lessons apply as much to poverty reduction and climate change as they do to vaccines. In fact, the two are closely entwined through the Covid fund and through climate finance, which is becoming the major concern of environmentalists in a world of chronic indebtedness.
The UK’s COP 26 January statement says that developed countries must come forward with an ambitious post-2020 climate finance pledge list to achieve and surpass the $100 billion a year goal. The noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said on 28 April that we would be doubling our international climate finance to £11.6 billion by 2025 and that we would commit at least £3 billion of it to protecting the natural world. These are impressive figures. The Government are right to be proud of them and of the UK’s record; but what do they mean in practice?
Alok Sharma says we need to drive up global collaboration. Are we doing this? Are we sharing green technology and providing expertise in, for example, east Africa and Nigeria, which have become priority areas? All our trade agreements must surely reflect this necessity and become spurs of action against climate change. How will the Government end their support for fossil fuels overseas? Can the Minister give examples? He will know that much of eastern Europe has long been dependent on brown coal and coal-fired power stations. I saw two of them outside Pristina in Kosovo, smoking away. Will the UK put climate finance into finding alternative sources of energy in the Balkans? My noble friend Lord Broers points the way with hydrogen.
Then, on our own doorstep, we have the Cumbria project, a genuine dilemma for this country, which is setting an example to others. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned incentives and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said that we need more imagination. Surely, we now have politically to decide to phase it out, even if it takes years to achieve. How else can we hold our heads up?
The noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, has said that
“The UK is the first major donor nation to commit to making its entire ODA portfolio compliant with the Paris Agreement.”—[Official Report, 28/4/21; col. GC 559]
This is a remarkable claim, even if the amount of ODA has fallen, and I hope that the Government can stand by it. However, does it mean that even less is going into other forms of aid? The poorest countries are not the culprits. Someone has worked out that the entire carbon consumption of sub-Saharan Africa is less than that of one small country in Europe. What we should be concerned about is the proportionately far higher cost of climate change in the LDCs than anywhere else. They know this, but we are slow to realise it.
Let us not characterise ourselves as good Samaritans handing out money to developing countries. Global Britain need not remain a nation of shopkeepers and consumers, making money out of the poor, importing cheap products, condoning corruption and, in many cases, failing to meet environmental labour and human rights standards. We now need to look outwards to spread more ideas on green technology, alternative fuels, diversification and the engagement of the private sector. We have an obligation to share our resources, just like our vaccines, spreading common knowledge and helping other countries to develop their own climate change strategies.
Finally, I am glad to see that Parliament is now taking climate change seriously. The IDC has launched an inquiry about climate change in time for Glasgow. There are at least three other Commons committees and a new one in the Lords following climate change, so all government departments will have to cope with their recommendations.
Baroness Mallalieu (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, brought us passion and poetry, and the noble Lord, Lord Morse, is going to bring formidable financial expertise. I welcome and congratulate them both. I would like to focus on rural communities, for which I had hoped to see more in the gracious Speech but sadly did not. In doing so, I remind the House of my rural and farming interests as set out in the register.
As we know, farming, which of course manages and maintains our landscapes which we all revere, faces a seismic change with a reduction in farm support, the need to find new markets, new overseas competition, potential additional cost burdens imposed by climate change and animal welfare legislation. All of that is against a background of reduced profitability and an ageing population. The threat to the future of the traditional family farm, especially in the uplands, has never been greater and without a government focus to help keep them in business, and help with increasing productivity and diversification, we are going to end up with industrial-scale farming in their place.
We are getting a planning Bill. More houses are clearly needed and some of them have to be built in rural areas. But if we are not to destroy rural communities and their different, special way of life, then that Bill has to show sensitivity to local decisions. New housing in small communities can work well when local people have the final say on where it is to go, how it looks, and if it has a meaningful, affordable element—but not when 200 executive homes are tacked on to a village with no additional infrastructure, adequate transport or suitable roads.
Almost exactly two years ago, a Select Committee of this House, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, and containing a number of others, including myself, who have spoken today or are about to speak, published a report on the rural economy. That report recognised the changes and challenges, which are now a reality, but also the opportunities by which the digital revolution, properly encouraged, could transform the rural economy, reverse years of underperformance under successive Governments and improve the quality of life for the nation as a whole. We saw how that could happen ourselves in places where local authorities, planners and a number of rural-minded LEPs—of which there were, sadly, few—could help bring about dynamic new enterprises with locals and newcomers working together yet retain that special and different sense of community.
Our central recommendation was for an urgent, effective rural strategy underpinned by better rural proofing of legislation and delivered through a locally based approach. Two years have gone by and the response so far has been disappointing, to put it very gently. I will give four examples.
In late 2019, the government promised £5 billion for full-fibre broadband everywhere by 2025. In spring 2020, those figures were cut to £1.2 billion and 85%, with no commitment to bring rural areas up to urban standards.
Fourteen recommendations related to the much-hyped UK shared prosperity fund, which was promised way back in 2017. A full consultation was promised in 2018, but no full open consultation has yet taken place.
The first report by Defra on rural proofing has been published, but it deserves no more than three out of 10. In a number of Bills, no such exercise appears to have been performed at all. In others, simply adding the words “and rural” seems to have been considered enough. This was clearly set out in a letter dated 17 March from the noble Lord, Lord McFall, to the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, in the respective jobs they then occupied.
Above all, our most central and urgent recommendation for a comprehensive rural strategy was rejected by the Government. Instead, they said that they would be producing their own vision. Two years later, we are still waiting, and I cannot see any sign of it in the gracious Speech. Can the Minister tell us when rural Britain can expect to see that vision become a reality?
Baroness Browning (Con) [V]
My Lords, I too welcome the maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, with whom I served in the House of Commons, and the noble Lord, Lord Morse—I served for many years on the Public Accounts Committee, and I am sure that his future contributions will be much valued in the House of Lords.
I will focus on community and welfare. Cohesive communities thrive when vulnerable minorities do not fall through the safety net. I welcome the Government’s support for rough sleepers. When Covid struck last year, we all felt a sense of relief when we saw how quickly rough sleepers were accommodated. It seems right to build on that now. I welcome the announcement of £203 million this year, including for 2,700 support staff.
Dealing with rough sleeping is not just about providing a much-needed roof. Support for mental health, addiction and all areas of life is needed to help get people off the streets. The Government are to be commended for their action, as well as for the initiative in the gracious Speech on drug addiction. In particular, I welcome the Government’s support for both treatment and recovery; this will not just stop at the distribution of methadone.
In his opening remarks, my noble friend briefly mentioned one or two benefits. I want to speak about disability benefits for those of working age—in particular, personal independence payment, or PIP, and employment and support allowance, or ESA. Next spring, Scotland plans to give disabled people more choice as to how they can apply for disability benefits. This will be by phone, email or online, and there will be support and more information about their entitlement. The assessment will involve people who are qualified and specialists in the disability they are assessing. I believe that the Government should do the same and not take time before doing it.
At present, we know that, of the people who apply for personal independence payment and are refused, more than 70% win on appeal. This is a formidable process which can take many months while appellants wait without any money. Not everyone can use a computer or use online. This is often said of older people, but it also applies to some younger people.
Coroners have also identified that the difficulty that some disabled people have had in applying for disability benefits has been so dire that it has contributed to their death. Some 82 deaths are recorded where the benefit has been terminated. It is no wonder that the charity Sense believes that 61% of disabled people feel that they are second-class citizens.
As a Member of Parliament for over 18 years, I was able to support people in need of disability benefits, but I too have struggled with some of the cases I have supported recently. Letters are sent with helpful telephone numbers and, when you ring them, it is just an automaton replying, always just directing you to the website. Nobody is there to give help—so how people with disabilities are expected to cope, I really do not know.
But these things are important and serious. Disability, however it occurs, can be a disease that degenerates. Mental health itself is not an exact science. Terminal illness should not be based on an arbitrary six months. Over nine months? Then the answer is no. The Government have the power to change this, like Scotland has, and I hope that they do.
Lord Mawson (CB)
My Lords, my colleagues and I have spent the last 14 months operating at the sharp end in challenging communities across the country. We can see in detail what is happening outside the Chamber. We have been taking the principles and learning from the last 36 years of practical work in challenging communities in east London, and in the Olympic Park, into challenging communities initially in the north of England, and now nationally, through the Well North programme. With local people and public and business sector partners, we have created innovation platforms in towns and cities across the country, which focus on practice at the front edge of the issues that this Queen’s Speech addresses. I declare my interests.
I welcome the focus in the Queen’s Speech on levelling up in health, innovation, skills and infrastructure, and the attempt to bring together funding streams and create a more integrated approach. This is the right direction of travel. However, some of us have been here before and the proof of the pudding will be in the detail and implementation. The UK has not always had a good track record of translating Bills into effective, transformational programmes. My colleagues and I have the grey hairs to prove it. We have tried before to bend other funding schemes developed by our Civil Service, which has often failed to grasp the practical realities at the front end.
Looking at the levelling-up fund and more broadly, I ask the Minister the following questions, in a spirit of willingness to help him and his colleagues learn from real, practical experience on the ground, gained over many years. First, are the Government going to be a learning organisation? Have they looked at what has worked well and what has not in previous regeneration programmes? Can the Minister share the insights that his department has learned from its experience of running previous programmes, when putting together the levelling-up fund and other build back better programmes? We all now need to get very interested in practitioners, not talkers and commentators.
Secondly, is there sufficient focus on joining the dots in the integration of funding streams and services, and bringing together other partners, for example from health, education, and the private and social sectors? Are we willing to learn from best practice in the place-making space? My colleagues and I are working with some of the largest businesses in the country, and the public sector, in precisely this space. We are happy to share our practical learning and point to the blockages that are preventing real change in some of our most challenged communities.
Thirdly, is there sufficient focus on change and innovation, and entrepreneurial approaches to transformation, in projects that deliver quality and excellence in our most challenged communities? Many Civil Service processes, we have noticed over the years, are great at putting old men in new clothes. Little changes: real learning and transformation rarely happen. Our inner cities are littered with previous short-term three-year government and lottery-funded programmes that came to very little because they were not built on and did not take the long view. Does government understand that pumping money into some situations can drive perverse decision-making? Are this Government serious about moving beyond business as usual? It is a sign of madness to repeat the same processes and expect different results.
Fourthly, as the taps are turned on and money is spent, is government going to be interested in the people question this time? Will we be looking at the leaders, backers and bidders and their practical track records? Will we learn from the best? Will we be concerned about the individuals who will be responsible for these programmes and plans—not just process, strategy and plan? The modern entrepreneurial world is all about people and relationships before structures; does our Civil Service understand this? Can we learn from the UK’s Covid vaccine programme—the best in the world, because key people with key skills and experience were empowered to get on with it? How can we learn that lesson?
I ask the Minister to consider all of these points when considering the large shared prosperity fund, which will replace the EU structural funds. Could he ensure that the voluntary and social enterprise sectors are not precluded from being invited to bid for these large-scale government programmes, as well as public bodies? In some parts of the country, the Government might want to ask themselves: are the public sector and local government actually up to the task? Do they have the necessary skills and insights to do transformation—or are the limitations of local government and the public sector, and the calibre of their people and their limited insights and skills, actually preventing transformation and the development of a more entrepreneurial culture?
There is a lot to play for. My colleagues and I want to support this Government at this important time, but the devil in the detail really matters.
Lord Touhig (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Coaker and the noble Lord, Lord Morse, for two excellent maiden speeches. I have known my noble friend Lord Coaker for many years, and we collaborated in recent times as members of the Council of Europe. I have also known the noble Lord, Lord Morse, for many years, and, when I served on the Public Accounts Committee in the other place, I greatly admired his leadership of the NAO.
Some years ago, when I was MP for Islwyn, I became the president of a charity called Access, working to support disabled people and their families in the south Wales valleys. I learned a lot about our disabled fellow citizens. Most strikingly, one Saturday, the group invited two able-bodied supporters to sit in wheelchairs and invited me to push one of them up and down Blackwood high street.
Although I did not realise it at the start, they were educating me. As I walked up and down and people stopped me to talk, I immediately sensed that, for some—perhaps too many—there was unease about the person in the wheelchair. Not one person who stopped and spoke to me spoke to the person in the wheelchair. It then struck me: had I also been like that in former times? Had I passed and ignored wheelchair-bound people? I tell the story because, in today’s Britain, we are told that the new mantra is “levelling up”—but our disabled fellow citizens would say, “Level up by all means, but first notice me. Don’t ignore me. I have the same rights as you; I have human rights”.
Like many colleagues, I support the Disabled Children’s Partnership, a coalition of some 80 charities. Its January survey, The Longest Lockdown, revealed that
“disabled children are not receiving support for their disability or medical condition via health services or their school placement. Parents report a detrimental impact on their child’s disability”
and reduced levels of informal and formal support. Families say that delays to routine health appointments had a “negative impact” on their child’s condition, causing anxiety, behavioural problems, sleep loss, loneliness and depression.
Its March survey, The Loneliest Lockdown, focused on the impact that Covid had had on the mental health and well-being of disabled children and their parents and siblings. It revealed that disabled children endured “serious mental health issues” during lockdown and that a high proportion of families were socially isolated—almost 50% of disabled children had not seen a friend for a month, either online or in person.
To be fair, the Government advised that service providers should continue to deliver and prioritise different support, such as respite care and therapies. However, advising services to continue does not mean that families get them. The reality is that parents are consistently saying that these services are not reaching them.
On mental health, the Government have recently announced a £79 million package of mental health support but have not allocated any of it specifically for disabled children and their families, despite the over-whelming evidence that they have felt a disproportionate impact from Covid and therefore require tailored interventions. It begs the question of why. Perhaps the Minister can tell us.
This brings me to the promised national disability strategy. In the 2019 manifesto, and highlighted in the previous Queen’s Speech, the Government promised a national disability strategy. They promised to transform the lives of disabled people, ensuring that they have access to opportunities and can achieve their potential. They promised that it will be ambitious, supporting disabled people in all aspects and phases of their lives. They promised to publish the strategy in 2020. Alas, it was delayed, we were told, due to coronavirus.
We are now told that the Government will publish the strategy this spring. Time is running out, and I echo my noble friend Lady Sherlock in asking: can the Minister tell us when the strategy will be published? Can he assuage our fears that it will have insufficient focus on children? It is vital that it addresses the issues faced by disabled children and their families. Even before the pandemic, the system was in crisis, with people having great difficulties. Too often, families can get the support that they need only once they get to a crisis point. It is important that the strategy provides great support for children and their families, but it is time that we had some answers. Disabled children and their families are not second-class citizens. They deserve better, and they deserve some answers now.
Baroness Thornhill (LD) [V]
My Lords, this has been a wide-ranging and fascinating debate, and my contribution will focus solely on one aspect of the much-heralded planning reforms: public engagement, or the lack thereof.
I am certain, judging by the controversy stirred up by the release last August of the Planning for the Future White Paper and a wide range of ongoing consultations, that this will be one of the most contentious Bills of this Queen’s Speech. There will be ample time to dissect the Bill when it eventually comes before us, but I have huge concerns that the Government are taking neither the public nor their own MPs with them on this important journey to solve our housing crisis, and thus they are probably doomed to failure.
I have noted in the press over the last week that MPs from the shire counties are already organising to oppose these reforms. The Government have already caved in to these MPs by scrapping the algorithm that produced the new targets, so they got some reduction in their targets, while urban areas saw theirs increased. In Watford, ours have been tripled in recent years, resulting in our oven-ready local plan having to be scrapped and started again.
In my former position as an elected mayor, development was a very real and constant worry. Sadly, development management meetings were usually acrimonious, with the anger and bewilderment of the public evident. Their main cry was: “Why don’t you just say no?” As we all know, councils cannot “just say no” to government policy, yet, as was shown in the recent local elections, councillors of different parties and in different parts of the country are being punished at the ballot box for what is seen by their electors as overdevelopment.
Planning by appeal is not a sign of good governance, but it gets you on the side of the voters, with cheers at the planning committee, only for hopes to be dashed as inspectors overturn the decisions on appeal. Currently, about a third of appeals go in the developers’ favour, which in the Government’s eyes means that too many schemes are being refused that should be approved. Presumably it is to avoid that there are also plans to penalise local planning authorities when they lose appeals.
The planning reforms will further dilute democratic involvement. We believe that they are being introduced precisely because public engagement is difficult and challenging, and so the Government are finding ways of bypassing it altogether without actually saying so. Where are the plans to change this confrontational narrative and to press the need for more homes and for more appropriate housing, such as social housing, supported housing and homes for the elderly?
The reforms will mean that the future focus of local engagement in planning will be at the local plan-making stage, so communities will not be able to influence applications as they do now. Good councils already do this up-front consultation, so there is plenty of evidence that, while working closely with communities in the early stages can be positive, it does not preclude massive protest when a detailed application eventually goes in. It is doubtless this that has led to the Government’s presumption in favour of development in the zoning proposals. There is ample evidence that zoning has not worked in planning previously, so where is the evidence that it will work now?
Development within growth zones will receive automatic outline consent, while renewal areas will have presumption in favour of development. As a result, there will be no opportunity for either public consultation or assessment by local authority councillors or officers. According to the White Paper, public involvement will be limited to
“detailed matters to be resolved”,
rather than on a particular building or development and whether it is appropriate in its local context. This, alongside proposals for faster decisions on planning applications, and further expansion of the controversial permitted development right, leaves far less room for local input into individual decisions and is an erosion of democracy within the system.
Finally, development is always bound to be controversial. People are never likely to be thrilled that the attractive fields that their garden backs on to are to become a housing estate; nor that low-rise town centre offices are to be demolished to make way for something much taller. But, as things stand, we have a broken national conversation about development in which local authorities, planners and councillors feel as though they are everybody’s scapegoats, whether for building too little or too much. If the Government are serious about solving our housing crisis, they must first convince the public that there is one. That key issue is ignored in this Queen’s Speech.
Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, like others, I congratulate the two noble Lords who made their maiden speeches in this debate. I will start my remarks where the noble Lords, Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Clark of Windermere, concluded on day one of this debate on the gracious Speech. I refer to the controversy surrounding Newton Rigg College near Penrith, where I studied myself. As chair of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, I considered it inappropriate publicly to man the barricades on this matter; rather, I have been busy behind the scenes, including keeping the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, up to date with my concerns. However, now that the Cumbrian campus has publicly been placed on the market, with a view to unilaterally expatriating the proceeds to Yorkshire, I feel free to express my personal feelings and anger, shared by so many other Cumbrians.
Together with the chief executive of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, I was a witness at a hearing of the other place’s EFRA Committee on 23 March this year. In the same session, there were two witnesses from Askham Bryan College, neither of whom was either the chair or vice-chair of the governors. The committee’s questioning was skilful and forensic, led effectively by the honourable Member for Brent North, Mr Barry Gardiner. My LEP colleague and I spoke relatively little. I left the hearing stunned by the college’s evidence and its inadequacy and shortcomings, and was more or less completely bemused by it all. Since then, I have revisited the evidence, which was recorded, and have given it careful thought. It correlates with what I know has been happening on the ground and with Askham Bryan College’s behaviour, which has been evasive, disingenuous and inconsistent, including gagging its employees.
As noble Lords will know, FE colleges are charities, but they are not required to register with the Charity Commission; rather, their principal regulator is the Department for Education. None the less, their charitable purpose is paramount. However, in the face of what appear to be considerable financial difficulties, Askham Bryan College’s prime purpose seems to have morphed into one of preservation of itself to the exclusion of everything else, in a manner which specialist legal advice—which I have seen—suggests may be unlawful and certainly seems to me to disregard a number of the Nolan principles.
All this is very similar in a number of respects to what happened some years ago in the case of the Kids Company. That was a real scandal, and this is equally so. It is as simple as that.
I conclude with three pleas. First, I say to the Minister and the Government: this FE college is part of the nation’s system for delivering education and training, and the Government are the college’s principal regulator and guardian of the public interest. Their prime concern must be the integrity of the system and proper administration of the provision of FE, skills and training to everybody in this country, not just to those in Yorkshire. They should not emulate Pontius Pilate and weakly stand by wringing their hands. They should take a grip.
I say to your Lordships: one of our roles as parliamentarians is to identify abuse, bring it to public attention, place it under public scrutiny and stamp it out. As I have said, the EFRA Committee’s hearing on 23 March has been recorded and is available. I urge your Lordships to view it and form your own conclusions. I believe that something very wrong is going on.
Thirdly, I would say through the House and via Hansard to the media—I speak as an ex-Minister in the then DNH who had considerable involvement with the media, as an ex-chairman of the Communications Committee of your Lordships’ House when we produced an important report on investigative journalism, as chairman of a local newspaper group for more than a decade and now a director of Full Fact and the Public Interest News Foundation—that you the media, both local and national, because this is not a parochial issue, are part of the wider system of checks and balances in which our system of government and administration is set. I know a scandal when I see it. Go out, investigate, form your own conclusions and then tell truth to power. That is what you are for.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow.
Lord Thurlow (CB) [V]
I welcome the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, and congratulate them on their inspiring maiden speeches.
Today, I wish to concentrate on aspects of leasehold reform and planning. I first declare ownership of two rented flats, as stated in the register. In addition, like the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, I welcome a building safety Bill, particularly following the Grenfell tragedy, apparently accelerated by the French cladding. I read that when the French manufacturers became aware of the unacceptable fire risk of their product, they banned its sale in France for high-rise housing but, as I read to my disbelief, they continued selling the cladding in the UK. If this is true, it is a disgrace. Seventy-two people died, and the fact that some executives from the French company refused even to attend the inquiry speaks volumes. The Government should seek redress. The new Bill must have regard to the need for a building standards agency to test foreign-designed or manufactured materials with special care.
On leasehold reform, I welcome many of the proposed changes. The concept of lifetime deposits for lower-income renters is a blessing. There will be a difficult debate on how this will be policed without the unaffordable extra costs of professionals defending those tenants from spurious dilapidations claims. Another welcome feature is the opening up of the registers of rogue landlords and rogue agents to greater transparency. This was discussed and requested when the Bill was debated in this House not long ago, but I am afraid that layers of confidentiality, concealing the rogues, was counterproductive to the its wider objectives, so I commend the Government for admitting this and promising to make such registers of bad landlords and their agents more transparent.
However, I do not welcome the proposed abolition of no-fault evictions. Without repeating his comments, I echo the warnings from the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, about the serious fallout that this policy could have on the supply of properties to rent, to say nothing of the impact of the value disruption.
Reform of the current leasehold ground rent system, on the other hand, is long overdue and I welcome reform. Unfortunately, it appears to have taken the unethical behaviour of some housebuilders and their recommended solicitors to bring this issue to the fore. I do not condemn leasehold tenure in principle at all, but the Law Society’s recommendations in its recent report on commonhold provides an opportunity to completely overhaul the structure of ownership where freehold is not practical. Providing lease renewals and new leases for terms of hundreds of years is something that I support if it can incorporate the practical necessity of redevelopment when required. It achieves the objective of preventing landlords from financially milking their tenants from time to time. Long leaseholders who need extensions to satisfy mortgage providers, and indeed to maintain a reasonably saleable unexpired term, will also welcome this measure.
I turn to the proposed planning reforms and the opportunity that they provide to utilise brownfield land—land that requires remedial treatment to remove contamination and render it safe. There is lots of it sitting in plum locations throughout England that would be ideal for new housing. CPRE research has found 21,000 registered contaminated sites covering more than 50,000 acres, with capacity for more than 1 million new homes. Last year’s planning White Paper expects these brownfield sites to be utilised fully before more edge-of-town development on greenfield is considered, but that was buried on page 32, which was not encouraging. The difficulty is that the cost of cleaning up these sites often exceeds their market value following remediation. However, we must not turn a blind eye and ignore these urban eyesores that blight our towns and cities.
I am in full agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, in my disappointment at finding no reference to reforming business rates. What a missed opportunity that the very recent debates on non-domestic rates have not followed through into the Queen’s Speech. We were told that a fundamental review is currently under way. This matter has become urgent as the health of hundreds if not thousands of SMEs is at stake. I ask the Government to please publish the review soon and follow it swiftly with a Bill. I look forward to the forthcoming debates on these subjects.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on their excellent maiden speeches. I will focus on the provision of homes. I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, the representative body for housing associations in England.
I welcome wholeheartedly the Government’s recognition in the Queen’s Speech of the importance of housing and their plans to bring forward several Bills on it, but I have some real concerns, which I know are shared by many others in this House and elsewhere, that this legislative programme does not truly represent the ambition on housing that this country needs. I hope that the House will soon debate the building safety Bill, a critical piece of legislation needed to ensure that a tragedy like the Grenfell Tower fire can never happen again, but there has been yet another missed opportunity to provide certainty for leaseholders and charitable housing associations by bringing forward the up-front funding that is so desperately needed for immediate building safety works.
We were reminded just in the last few weeks of the stark reality of this crisis following the recent fire in a block of flats in Poplar that is still wrapped in unsafe cladding. The truth is that, despite the best efforts of many building owners, many people continue to go to sleep every night in homes with building safety concerns. They also often face the short-term and long-term personal and financial impact of huge building safety bills for errors that were not of their making.
While the Government have provided much-needed funding for some remedial works, we are still far short of a complete solution. For instance, there is still no money available for social housing providers to undertake remedial works on properties where tenants live. Social housing providers are charities; they do not make a profit but are now facing costs in excess of £10 billion to do these works.
Just two weeks ago, the Financial Times reported that the number of affordable homes built by four of the largest housing associations in the country will be reduced by 40% because of the mounting financial pressure of building safety. There is a housing crisis, and we need more homes. We also need those existing homes with faults to be made safe as quickly as possible. Does the Minister acknowledge that the only real solution is for the Government to provide up-front funding for building safety works and then recoup these costs from those responsible?
The Government’s planning Bill may become a second threat to the construction of much-needed affordable housing in England. I strongly support the Government’s ambition to make the planning system more transparent and to speed up the process of development. However, their intention to change current mechanisms, such as Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which has delivered a significant number of affordable homes over many years, is a grave worry.
Can the Minister give the House more detail on the Government’s new proposed mechanisms for funding affordable housing and will he assure us that this new system will result in greater numbers of affordable homes, not fewer? I was also disappointed not to see the Government bring forward legislation on the social housing White Paper, which had been expected. Can the Minister confirm when the Government will bring forward this legislation?
Similarly, we were promised a White Paper on renters’ reform. I had hoped this would lead to effective legislation to provide security for private renters, for example, by changes to Section 21 and no-fault evictions which leave renters in a very precarious position. The Minister said in his opening that it is hoped to introduce it in the autumn. I hope I have got that right. Can he confirm that it will cover these issues?
Other noble Lords have regretted that there was no mention of social care, and I share these concerns. It is a huge gap in the Queen’s Speech. Can the Minister say anything at all about what the Government’s plans are?
As housing associations look to the long-term future, more clarity over their role in helping the Government achieve their decarbonisation net-zero target would also have been welcome. As I have raised before, the housing association sector is central to our efforts to meet our net-zero targets by building greener homes and making existing homes more sustainable. I hope the Government will heed the words of the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, on this issue. This is a vast exercise that housing associations have the skills, scale and ambition to undertake. In making future spending decisions, I hope the Government will consider the support the sector needs to reach its potential as a central partner to the country’s ambitions to tackle the climate crisis.
Finally, I will close by touching on levelling up. Safe, affordable and good quality homes can be at the centre of place making and drive forward prosperity. Will the Minister assure us that the Government will closely consider the role of housing and housing associations as they look to deliver this agenda? As community anchors that exist to serve and respond to people and places, housing associations stand ready to deliver the much- needed change these towns and regions deserve.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]
My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register of interests. There is much to commend in this Government’s Queen’s Speech. I will comment on the proposals for the planning and building safety Bills.
I welcome the building safety Bill and would ask that, either in this Bill or the planning Bill, it is made compulsory for all new builds or buildings being converted for residential use to have at least two staircases for means of fire escape. Perhaps American-style external fire escapes could be made compulsory for all conversions where there is only one internal staircase.
I also make a plea for a safety regime for all short- term lets, such as those on Airbnb and Booking.com. This is currently an unregulated area. These types of lettings are meant to be for up to 90 days a year only, yet in most cases they are professional businesses operating throughout the year and there does not appear to be any means of regulating standards or safety requirements. As local councils do not know who or where they are, a register would help. They go uninspected and are potentially an accident-in-waiting. Surely all short-term lets should meet minimum safety standards such as fire safety doors, smoke alarms, heat detectors, fire escape lighting and maps. I call upon the Government to include them in the remit of the building safety regulator and the Bill.
I worry, however, about the Government’s proposals to reform the planning process with fast-tracked planning and removing the right of an individual to object to an application. It is just too easy to blame the process when, as the Local Government Association has stated, nine out of 10 planning applications are granted, yet over 1.1 million homes do not get built by developers despite having planning permission. It is not the system’s fault, but the developers, who are so often over- ambitious in cramming too much on to a site or chasing greater profits at the expense of the quality of living accommodation and space. I know of a site in Kensington, where the developer had three live planning permissions, yet was seeking a fourth. In Kensington and Chelsea alone, it was worth just sitting on land as the value increased and the demand for houses did also, creating a suppliers’ market. The Government need to remove such incentives. They also need to ensure that we do not find the new planning process becomes a developers’ charter to build high and without quality, leaving the ruination of our streets and landscapes, littered with poor-quality homes as this Government’s legacy.
Lastly, I know that many of these builds will rely on people using online resources and portals—for example, the planning regime. However, not everyone is online. Many do not have the skills or the kit to navigate the technology needed to join in. We need to ensure that the Government’s agenda does not preclude people from participating. Digital exclusion is a real issue if we move everything online, and often forgotten by those in front of a computer or a smartphone screen when drafting the necessary legislation.
I also support the views expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, about providing for children’s needs.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB) [V]
My Lords, my interests are as recorded in the register. I would like to congratulate new Members on their excellent maiden speeches.
I shall comment on Her Majesty’s gracious address, as far as the Government’s policies on agriculture, the environment and rural issues are concerned. Let me state from the outset that I applaud their intention to introduce a Bill on animal welfare and look forward to the debate on it, and on the imminent Environment Bill. Both are of crucial importance and present an opportunity for this country to set new global standards. This is of particularly import in view of hosting COP 26 in November. As a country, we are proud of our commitment to high standards of animal welfare—it is one of our global claims. The intention to raise welfare standards for farm animals will, I am sure, be welcomed by the public, and elements of the Bill will also be supported by farmers provided that the trading field is level.
I am aware of the substantial work that has been done by Defra to design an enhanced animal welfare element of the ELM scheme. To reward farmers, willing to go beyond the norm and improve their facilities and standards, is a big step forward. However, if this is overlaid by further legislation that will apply to all farmers, significant additional costs will be incurred that are unlikely to be compensated for by government support through the ELM scheme.
I have a similar concern about the Environment Bill. We absolutely have to embrace the measures proposed in the Bill, to improve biodiversity and resource efficiency, the quality of air and water, to reduce waste and pollution, to limit abstraction, and so on. These are essential and worthy ambitions, but it is inevitable that these measures will lead to cost increases for farmers and land managers, and these could be substantial in some cases.
In addition to these two topics—animal welfare and the environment—we have the overarching challenge of climate change, as articulated by many Peers today and very convincingly, by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, in this debate.
There are only two sources of income that farmers and land managers will have access to for ensuring that they successfully deliver on these ambitions: the public funding through ELMS and the rewards in the marketplace for the food that we produce. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the public goods that we can and need to deliver to achieve real success in meeting government objectives will soon drain the Treasury commitment within the current agricultural budget. No values have yet been determined for the various elements of the scheme, but the ambition and the list of desired outcomes continues to increase. Can the Minister inform us whether the Government are regularly reviewing the potential cost of funding ELMS as our ambitions increase, and whether the department is doing this in conjunction with the Treasury?
Moving to the marketplace and the potential for the market to reward farmers for the higher standards that they will be committed to deliver, this was raised as a matter of serious concern in debates on the Agriculture Bill and subsequently on the Trade Bill. The Government’s decision to establish the initial Trade and Agriculture Commission was very welcome, and the confirmation in the Trade Bill that this would be given a statutory role was finally agreed after much debate and negotiation. The TAC delivered its report as commissioned earlier this year, yet so far the Government have not responded to its recommendations. Can the Minister confirm when this response is expected? Also, when can we expect progress in establishing the new TAC on a statutory footing? The Trade Secretary is making very good progress in negotiating trade deals. These deals must be urgently scrutinised by the non-existent TAC to ensure that they do not undermine the high domestic standards that we aspire to on the environment, climate change and animal welfare.
I very much supported the Government’s post-Brexit promised land ambitions for our countryside. The vision is an exciting one, but to extend the Old Testament analogy, the country is likely to flow with substandard imported milk and honey, fruit, vegetables and meat if those are not subject to the same high standards. How counterproductive would it be if our investment in even higher standards led to a fall in domestic production and did not result in any net national benefit due to an increase in lower-quality imports? The delay in establishing the TAC is becoming a real concern.
Finally, I fully endorse comments made in this debate on concerns about planning policy and the importance of the levelling-up agenda regarding rural areas and how the Government intend to address this.
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Morse, and my noble friend Lord Coaker on their wonderful maiden speeches. We look forward very much to hearing more from them. I must confess that I was a bit jealous, as never in this House have I made a speech which has been greeted with a clap of thunder. It sets a new standard for all of us to see what we can achieve.
The fundamental question at the heart of this debate is: what does it mean and what does it take to build better for the communities of the future? Many noble Lords have answered that question this evening with great sophistication and power: good jobs, lifelong skills, decent incomes, accessible, affordable housing for all ages, robust local services, reliable transport and a safe, clean, beautiful place to live in. These are basic rights and requirements, but they are without the reach of many people in this country. Yet the opportunity is staring us in the face. After the unparalleled last 15 months, there is a real appetite and a real sense of urgency for change.
There has never been a better time for the Government to tackle the long-term, fundamental, systemic problems which face this country: for example, the failed housing market, which is geared towards the developer; and a disjointed, vulnerable social care system, which is financially ruinous for many families and yet does not guarantee good quality or choice of social care. What an opportunity for a Government to turn to the country and say, in a paraphrase of another time: “We have the tools, we can do the job, we have shown that we can act fast, we can inspire innovation on an unparalleled scale, we can find the money for what we need to do, because the people expect us to do better and to do differently, in a way which is safer, fairer and more efficient.”
I am very disappointed that the Government seem not to have been able to grasp that. I am sad to say that I find that the Queen’s Speech fails on three basic tests. The Minister opening the debate today gave us a catalogue of reasons for delay. I do not think that is good enough. The first test is about honouring promises. There was nothing on social care, of course, but the charge sheet on housing is much longer. Housing has become almost totemic in its significance as a place of safety and distress, and increasing homelessness looks even more likely when housing subsidies are withdrawn.
Many noble Lords have said that there is nothing about accelerating social housing, only the statement that the Government will continue to legislate on the social housing proposal White Paper proposals and will legislate as soon as practicable. The White Paper was three years in the making and that was four years ago. There is nothing on renters’ reform. That was promised 17 months ago. There was no mention of a White Paper. Reform seems to be receding. There was nothing on landlord registration. That was promised 13 years ago in the Rugg review. There was nothing on the scale of leasehold reform that we were anticipating. Yes, ground rent reform is important, but it is the low-hanging fruit of leasehold reform. When can we expect these Bills? I welcome the building safety Bill, of course. I hope the Minister has answers to the many questions raised on it.
The second basic test is that policies should at least agree with each other. The two Ministers at the Dispatch Box this evening are at odds with each other. The new planning Bill is virtually incompatible with the Government’s targets for a greener and healthier economy. The Justice Minister has promised leasehold reform while the Housing Minister presses ahead with permitted development which will, for example, remove the rights of leaseholders, who will have storeys built above their heads while losing their rights to object.
The third test for a Queen’s Speech is that it should at least find support among its own friends. I think the planning Bill has more enemies than friends already. One speech from the other place last week says it all. It
“would reduce local democracy, remove the opportunity for local people to comment on specific developments, and remove the ability of local authorities to set development policies locally.”
It
“would also lead to fewer affordable homes, because they hand developers a get-out clause … what we will see is not more homes, but, potentially, the wrong homes … in the wrong places”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/5/21; col. 39.]
In this case, Theresa May was absolutely right and many others agree with her. The Bill is described by the CPRE as a descent into the dark ages of planning. It means the end of the Section 106 agreements, which my noble friend referred to, and fewer mechanisms for ensuring that affordable housing targets are met. Unless the Bill is changed, it will not build faster, better or greener. I am afraid I can assure the Minister that it will have a lively passage through this House.
Lord Kirkham (Con)
I add my welcome to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. There is much to be proud of in the United Kingdom when it comes to the environment. I am thinking here particularly of the global leadership we have shown in setting out our 2050 net-zero target for carbon emissions. Why then do so many of us treat our beautiful country as if it were a rubbish dump? Why does not everyone care about where we live? What has happened to our self-respect? When did our nation of shopkeepers become a land of litter louts?
I warmly welcome the promise in Her Majesty’s gracious Speech that the Government
“will invest in new green industries to create jobs, while protecting the environment,”
and
“will set binding environmental targets.”
I desperately hope that we can also take big, positive strides towards a cleaner, greener Britain because there is one area in which Britain is most definitely not a world leader and that is in the way that we treat our urban and rural environment when it comes to waste disposal. We are only too familiar with the mountains of trade and domestic waste deliberately and illegally dumped on the roadside—the stained mattress, the old sofa, rusting refrigerators, electrical items, plastic bin bags of builders’ rubble and, now, disposable face masks.
It is no surprise that research suggests that we have few, if any, rivals for the unwanted title of “most littered country in the developed world”. It is getting worse; if an area looks like a tip, it is no surprise that many will consider that a green light to treat it as one too. If you drive along the highways and byways in Britain, the evidence is there for all to see. It is an eyesore. Verges are awash with rubbish—cans, plastic bottles, fast food wrappers, cigarette ends, Styrofoam burger boxes and crisp packets casually hurled out of vehicle windows. Pavements are encrusted with chewing gum. What a fine impression this will make on those who visit us for global economic or environmental summits, or tourists from abroad—what a memory of our green and not-so-pleasant land.
Sadly, we have become a “don’t care” society, where too many people just do not give a jot about their community and the environment on their doorstep, who do not regard the dropping of litter as an anti-social and criminal act—not only a contravention of the law but a crime against society. It is soul-destroying and dangerous to humans and animals; it pollutes the very air we breathe; it depresses and saps a nation’s morale. Living in filth makes us feel worthless. It is expensive too; street cleaning alone costs the taxpayer over £1 billion annually.
What are we going to do about it? How can we mitigate this growing litter epidemic, clean up our act for the next generation and make this appalling behaviour socially unacceptable? While business in general and the Government clearly have a part to play, at root it is a societal problem. It is people who litter—us. The only lasting resolution is to change our behaviour. That requires a cultural shift.
Clearly, in the long term it is a challenge of education and persuasion. That starts in our schools, colleges and homes. But there are positive actions we can take now; notably, making the new office for environmental protection responsible for litter enforcement and ensuring that local authorities and Highways England and its counterparts in the devolved nations actually fulfil their responsibilities to act against litter droppers—fine them, enforce the existing sanctions and clear up the detritus they leave in their wake.
Some 50 years ago, we saw much less litter on our roadsides, but back then it was also socially acceptable to get behind the wheel of a car while the worse for wear from alcohol—not any more. The same kinds of changes that made drink-driving uncool can also turn the tide on litter: education, advertising and penalties—not just heavier fines, but the likelihood of being ostracised for defying social norms.
This is still a beautiful country, but it is, sadly, a messy, dirty and scruffy one—and getting worse. Improved air and water quality, the regeneration of nature and the reduction of carbon emissions are all essential to the long-term health of the environment, but so too is ensuring that we stop despoiling our cities, towns and countryside by treating them as rubbish dumps, with their threat to public health. It is a massive, nationwide problem. Action is urgent and long overdue.
The Earl of Devon (CB) [V]
My Lords, as we have heard from many erudite speeches, including two excellent maidens, this is a time like no other. It is an unprecedented year for environmental policy; for the sake of the natural world, I can only wish the Government and the Minister success and offer my support. With the G7, COP 26 and COP 15, there are many global stages on which to parade. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, noted, if we cannot get our own house in order, we cannot lead that parade. There is much to do.
As if to emphasise the vagaries of our climate, a tornado ripped down our valley in Devon last week, littering trees and timber buildings for over a mile. I currently join your Lordships from my in-laws’, having been evacuated from home due to wildfires in May—I am not in Devon.
Of course, ecological catastrophe is not new. Alexander von Humboldt, the father of modern environmentalism, visited Latin America in 1800 to witness the devastation wreaked by empire and resource-hungry capitalism. His words could describe Bolsonaro’s Brazil today:
“When forests are destroyed, as they are everywhere … The beds of the rivers … are converted into torrents, whenever great rains fall … The sward and moss disappearing from the brush-wood on the sides of the mountains, the waters falling in rain are no longer impeded … and instead of slowly augmenting the level of the rivers by progressive filtrations, they furrow during heavy showers the sides of the hills, bear down the loose soil, and form those sudden inundations that devastate the country”.
This was written over 200 years ago, and yet still we rape the Amazon of its natural capital with ever more mechanised efficiency—then for coffee and sugar, now for soya too. Our problem is not awareness—von Humboldt was the star of Napoleonic Europe, feted across the continent—but simply that the drive for profit has always overcome the fear of environmental Armageddon, which impacts those in hotter, poorer countries before us. This must change.
Her Majesty’s Treasury took a bold step commissioning the Dasgupta Review into the economics of biodiversity. His conclusions, which we debated recently, could not have been clearer, yet the Government have yet to publish their response. Can we expect that before we see the Environment Bill? Principal among the Dasgupta recommendations is that natural capital must be priced. What steps are the Government taking to price ecosystem services? Similarly, Professor Dasgupta extolled increased access to nature and mandatory nature studies. While ELMS addresses access, it is an optional scheme, and farmers’ fear of unregulated access will discourage its adoption unless the policy is sympathetic. As for mandatory nature studies, the Government have simply ignored this recommendation. I am in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin: please think again, or else another generation will move yet further away from our mother Earth.
Is it right that the Government expect to pass the Environment Bill by November’s COP 26? If so, will the Minister assure us that sufficient time will be made available? Rushing to meet a false deadline is not to the environment’s benefit. Noting my interests as a Devon farmer and a lawyer active in the space, the costs of well-intentioned environmental regulation must not fall unduly on those managing land so as to drive them out of business just as BPS is withdrawn. Abandoned farmland will not help the environment or our production of locally produced food.
On food, I join the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, in championing the national food strategy, but we must do more for our health and environment. Noting my interest as a board member of the South West Food Hub, I ask that the Government support efforts for public procurement to be locally sourced, building a direct link for healthy food to flow from farm to fork.
There is a massive hole in the Environment Bill where heritage sits. Given that our island’s natural environment reflects millennia of human interaction, it is a mockery to think that we can manage our natural capital without a mind to its heritage. We will replace environmental degradation with cultural degradation and wipe out the wisdom of ages. As an example of this, we see planning and EPC rules that render 400 year-old cob cottages built of local mud and straw dismissed as carbon non-compliant. This cannot be right.
I look forward to more detail on our national tree strategy and to understanding how we will plant the millions of broadleaf trees desired despite the current unchecked assault of pests and diseases. Also, as a former property barrister who contributed to Lexis’ Commonhold: Law and Practice in 2002, I look forward to debating leasehold reform—not only might someone finally buy the book, but we might ensure an increased supply of affordable homes.
Finally, as chair of a forthcoming APPG inquiry into the role of social enterprise during the pandemic, I hope that the Government will acknowledge and support the vital role of social enterprise within our communities.
Lord Shipley (LD) [V]
My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I too congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on their excellent maiden speeches.
This has been a challenging debate for the Government, partly because of what is not in the gracious Speech, such as local government funding reform, including business rates reform, the Government’s plans for reforming social care, or the plans they may have for greater devolution in England. It is partly also because of what is in the gracious Speech, such as the proposed planning Bill—which has not been properly thought through—and the elections integrity Bill, about which my noble friend Lord Teverson spoke so convincingly.
First, let me acknowledge the important principles behind the building safety Bill and the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill; these are both welcome. I look forward as well to the details of the subsidy control Bill, which should permit local authorities to support key industries, together with the procurement Bill, which could encourage public-private sector working in which social value can be a factor. I welcome, too, plans to widen opportunities for the development of adult skills.
However, I was concerned to hear the Minister say earlier in relation to the private rented sector that a White Paper is planned for the autumn. I had been expecting a renter’s reform Bill, so can the Minister confirm whether this means that the timetable for promised reforms is about to slip significantly?
Moving on to the planning Bill, in his introduction to today’s debate, the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, said that it is about modernising the system to make it quicker, simpler and streamlined. Simplification is always welcome as long as standards are not reduced. However, in simplifying planning procedures, the Government must not reduce local democratic accountability, which is part of the essential process for ensuring high standards. Poor accountability leads to lower standards. The Government know that we have suffered in recent years from a culture that has encouraged poor-quality building. The danger in this Bill is that local planning authorities will not be able to turn down poor-quality developments, which they currently can do. This is not in the public interest. The Government should not be reducing the powers of local planning authorities in the way they are attempting.
The Government are right to want to increase housebuilding but the truth is that this cannot be achieved without a substantial element of new building led by local authorities. New homes, whether for purchase or for rent, must be at prices and rent levels that people on average incomes can afford. We need more social homes to be built—around 100,000 a year for several years—which requires more financial freedoms for local authorities to achieve that. This should be the Government’s priority.
Instead, we are witnessing a boom in house prices caused largely by demand-side subsidies from the Government. The average cost of a new home has now reached £200,000. I submit that this is not the kind of growth the economy needs. Also, despite the need to build more homes, 1.1 million homes granted planning permission in England in the past decade are yet to be built. It is hard to see exactly what problem the Government are trying to solve with their proposed planning Bill. It does not seem to be the planning system that is responsible for not enough homes being built.
There are two other issues on housing. First, more than half of local planning authorities set no requirements for any accessible housing standards, so will the Government create a mandatory baseline for new homes broadly equivalent to the lifetime homes standard or category 2 in the building regulations? This is already the case in London, so why can this policy not be implemented across England?
Secondly, have the Government got their demand forecasts right? I ask because the Office for Statistics Regulation has recently been critical of the Office for National Statistics for its population forecasts, which in some places seem much too high. What is the Government’s response to this conflict of evidence?
Finally, I welcome the proposed levelling-up White Paper, which will set up new policy interventions for poorer areas. I suggest that this should include the role of the private sector in supporting levelling up through the use of the tax system to encourage its investment policies to be directed towards supporting all parts of the country.
Baroness Stroud (Con) [V]
I start by adding my congratulations to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on their excellent maiden speeches. I add my support to Her Majesty’s gracious Speech and congratulate the Government on their visionary leadership.
I have been heartened by the commitment to publishing a levelling-up White Paper that will set out bold new interventions to improve livelihoods and opportunities throughout the UK. This is a crucial agenda to pursue, but how do we know what policies will deliver the levelling up that we seek? How are the Government defining levelling up? How are they measuring success or identifying what levers need to be pulled, and in which communities? How do we understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of our communities so that we know where to put the energy and focus to level up? As far as I can find, the Government have not yet set out an established baseline against which to assess the effectiveness of this ambitious focus. But because this agenda is so important to the British people, last week the Legatum Institute—I refer to my entry in the register of interests—launched a tool to measure the success of the levelling-up agenda: a UK prosperity index to provide the baseline against which to measure progress and success.
With calls for regional renewal across the political spectrum, the moment is right for a new and holistic assessment of the UK’s strengths and weaknesses, which will help point the way towards true prosperity. Building prosperity—levelling up—is much more than bridges and trains, bricks and mortar, and material wealth. It reaches beyond the financial into the political, the judicial, the well-being and character of a nation; it is about creating an environment where people are able to reach their full potential. A community is prosperous when it has an open economy, an inclusive society with strong formal and informal institutions, and empowered people who are healthy, educated and safe.
If the country is to make the most of this reset moment, we will need to unlock prosperity and level up across all our regions and communities. In many ways, the UK is well positioned to do just this—it is one of the most prosperous countries in the world, ranking 13th out of 167 nations. Our national institutions are robust and we have one of the world’s strongest economies, powered by innovators and a world-class education system. This is an amazing country and we have been making great strides in many of the areas that already dominate the debate about levelling up, including infrastructure and the natural environment.
But there are also clear challenges. While levels of prosperity in the UK remain much higher than in other nations and increased during the first half of the 2010s, in more recent years this prosperity has been stagnating. This underlines the need for a more detailed assessment of what is going well and what is not. Interestingly, this stagnation is not driven by factors that currently feature much in the political debate—for example, infrastructure. Rather, we are being held back by declining enterprise conditions and weak health systems that were simply not pandemic ready, and we have insufficiently created the environment in which our family life and relationships have been able to thrive and feel valued.
All our concern has been for the economy, but we should have been even more focused on who we are becoming as a people at a local community level. For example, the index reveals that the West Midlands non-metropolitan region is the sixth most prosperous in the UK, with strong governance, low crime rates and good conditions for business. However, the region performs poorly on the strength of social capital and quality of health and education. This is where the opportunity for levelling up lies. The index reveals that London is the fourth most prosperous region of the UK, with a strong economy, good infrastructure, a supportive environment for business and good education. However, the city’s prosperity is undermined by declining safety and security, failure to build inclusive and connected communities, and the highest rates of poverty in the UK. This is an example of where the levelling-up opportunity lies.
To really become a prosperous nation, we need to understand these issues by local area and by community. This is why the UK prosperity index is such an important tool for the levelling-up agenda. Britain needs to become a place where we strengthen our local communities and truly value the family; where we care for one another, investing in our mental and physical well-being; and where we can innovate and build businesses that are not stifled by unnecessary regulation.
If this hugely important levelling-up agenda is to be effective it needs a baseline, an accountability tool. Will my noble friend the Minister agree to meet me to understand the UK prosperity index, a tool for levelling up, and how it can be used to measure the great strides forward this Government will make as they commit to levelling up the nation?
Baroness Hollins (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Department of Health and Social Care’s oversight panel, which is reviewing the care and treatment of people with learning disabilities and of autistic people who are being detained in long-term segregation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, has just discussed, the gracious Speech set out an ambitious and laudable levelling-up agenda to tackle the long-standing geographical disparities facing the country. I will speak about another kind of disparity: that faced by people with learning disabilities, which is as apparent in considerations of community and welfare as it is in health.
Debate about people with learning disabilities often ends with the comment that services need to be better. The Mental Health Act White Paper published earlier this year recommended a duty on commissioners to ensure an adequate supply of community services for people with a learning disability and autistic people. This duty aims to address the failure of both local authority and NHS commissioners to commission skilled local community services, thus leading instead to involuntary detention in hospital at times of crisis. The proposed statutory principles in the White Paper are choice and autonomy, least restriction, therapeutic benefit and the person as an individual. Perhaps a fifth principle should be added: care in the community.
The Mental Health Act White Paper hopes to drive significant change for people with a mental disorder. When it is published, the Bill must address the financial disincentives which serve to encourage lengthy hospital admissions and an explicit requirement for a duty to make reasonable adjustments in community and welfare services. Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is a good place to start, given that the UK is a signatory to the convention and ratified it in 2009. Article 19 demands that we recognise
“the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community”.
The gracious Speech was notably silent about the widely anticipated social care Bill. Following the disruption of Brexit and the human tragedy of the high number of Covid-related deaths of people dependent on our care system, will Her Majesty’s Government now commit to fully overhauling the social care system—including for disabled adults of working age, not just older people living in care homes?
We need a trained workforce to meet the needs of people with learning disabilities. Commissioners, many of whom are buying the wrong services, must receive specialist training on the needs of the populations they serve. In the course of chairing the oversight panel for the independently chaired care and treatment reviews programme, I have heard panel members angrily decrying the fake lives and fake homes provided for some people with learning disabilities and some autistic people, who, after lengthy countertherapeutic hospital admissions, are too often discharged to alternative institutions such as converted wards away from real life and outside their communities. One important reason for this is the lack of suitable housing providers and suitable safe homes for people.
As we hear today of the importance of community and welfare, let us not forget those who are so often forgotten and ask: what does levelling up look like for people, for example, with learning disabilities from a black and minority ethnic background, whose average life expectancy is just 35 years; or for the over 2,000 people with a learning disability or autism still held in assessment and treatment units almost 10 years on from the Winterbourne View scandal; or for thousands more living their lives in institutional segregated services, denied a chance to live an ordinary life and now facing even more barriers to the most basic of institutions: the democratic vote?
I urge Her Majesty’s Government to take seriously the needs of people with learning disabilities and autistic people and to avoid measures such as Covid passports or photo IDs, which are likely to constitute serious barriers to their full community participation.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to raise a couple of points regarding the gracious Speech in today’s debate. One is minor and the other is a little bigger. I hope that the Minister will be back for the bigger one because, every time I raise it, we never engage with each other.
The first point relates to the introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, who spoke about—and I support him all the way—the need for decent, safe and well-designed homes, in the context of the planning Bill. Many people have followed the Government’s exhortation to stay at home, work from home and travel less. These are some of the important messages that we have been getting, and I declare an interest here: I live on a private estate where a lot of the younger people have stayed at home and converted their attics into working rooms. But they have a problem. They have local authority permission to do that, but they cannot get past the management board, which has restrictive covenants saying that they cannot touch the tiles on the roof. They cannot install a simple VELUX window, which would give light and air to a working space. In many instances we have people working in unfair conditions because of these restrictive covenants.
My question is whether this issue has been examined in the context of the planning Bill. If not, will the Government look at it again? Can we not adopt a more reasonable approach, rather than some of the nimbyism we encounter on issues such as this, whereby people’s health and well-being is being damaged by the enforcement of aesthetic views of what a roof should look like? A simple little VELUX window should not offend anybody.
My second point concerns the wider context of the future of God’s planet. I have had a number of exchanges with the Minister recently about the growth of the world’s population. This is the most fundamental issue relating to climate change and the unsustainable position in which we find ourselves. The Chinese are complaining that their numbers are growing in the order of just over 5% only, and they want to see bigger growth. The Pope has been complaining that young girls are not having enough babies, yet we are living in a world that has grown from 1.7 billion, when the Duke of Edinburgh was born in the early part of the last century, to 7.4 billion. All the projections are that, unless there are fundamental changes, we will be heading towards 10 billion, which many say is unsustainable. The planet cannot support it.
I have been trying to get answers from the Government on the extent to which they will engage in a discussion with people of influence. Why is this issue not on the agenda for COP 26? They engaged Dasgupta to report on biodiversity issues, but he spent several pages looking at world population and the absence of policies on it. I again ask the Minister: when will we have a debate on this fundamental issue?
I know that this is difficult and extraordinarily sensitive, but there are two people in the world who could greatly influence the course of events. One is the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the second—and he has made a very good start as a new President—is President Biden, who is a Roman Catholic too. They should engage in discussion about the fundamental issues of contraception, abortion, dying with dignity and so on. I know that these are difficult topics, but we cannot run away from the fundamental problems we face in this world of ours. There are other major ethical issues which require a deep-seated examination of where we have been going and why we have ended up in the mess we are in. I hope that the Minister can give me hope that some thought is being given to how we might have worldwide engagement on this issue. If we do not, the state of the planet will get even worse.
Lord Cashman (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. I refer to my entry in the register of interests, particularly as a trustee of Neighbours in Poplar and as an officer of the APPG on Global LGBT+ Rights.
We have all been shocked by the levels of loneliness, deprivation, inadequate social housing and mental health needs, and the varying quality of adult social care that the pandemic has revealed. Sadly, many of these issues have been ignored by this gracious Speech. I could go on at length, but it is late, so I will instead recommend a report by the small charity Neighbours in Poplar, commissioned by Sister Christine Frost. She has inspired generations in Poplar, east London, and, during the Covid crisis, she has gathered an army of volunteers to provide support, food banks, befriending and hot meal deliveries to hundreds of people who would otherwise have been forgotten, isolated or ignored. As others have said, the gaps created by the state should not be filled by charities. It is clear, therefore, that the Government now need a far greater focus on the social care economy, recognising that it is broken and simply does not work for care workers, employers, local government and—most of all—users.
I turn to the announcement that the Government will bring forward measures to ban so-called conversion therapies. The announcement is welcome, but what detail there is is deeply flawed. We do not need more consultation. It is nearly three years since the Government first committed to banning conversion therapy; further delay would put more people at risk from these inhumane and degrading practices. We urgently need a draft Bill and a clear timeline for its implementation.
It is stated that the ban will focus on coercive practices. This is entirely unacceptable: it will create loopholes or exemptions, and would be a tacit endorsement of conversion therapy. LGBTI+ people and our allies need a comprehensive ban on all conversion practices in all settings. Let us be clear: banning conversion practices does not undermine religious freedom. Holding, teaching and preaching religious belief will always be protected, but trying to change or cancel a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through religious practices is unacceptable and a form of abuse. Indeed, the Government’s own research—the LGBT survey of 2018—found that a majority of conversion practices happen in faith-based settings. Therefore, such an exemption for these practices would render the ban meaningless and inoperable. Sadly—and I do not wish to seem ungracious—this half-hearted approach reflects the widely held view that the Government are not fully committed to delivering equality.
Concerning ministerial commitment on equality, I refer to the letter of 28 April from the chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, the right honourable Caroline Nokes, to the Secretary of State, Liz Truss, where she says:
“I have become concerned in recent months about the approach being taken by the GEO and its Ministers to my Committee and its essential scrutiny work. We have become increasingly frustrated by a lack of positive engagement from Ministers and note that a growing public perception of Government intransigence on equalities issues is being reflected in our own relationship.”
In conclusion, sadly—deeply sadly—I remain concerned about the continuous defamation and misrepresentation of trans people, particularly trans women, from within your Lordships’ ranks and elsewhere. This misrepresentation of trans people, and particularly trans women, as a threat is reckless, dangerous and diminishes us as a civilised society. This vilification of trans people is wrong, and it must end.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lords who made their maiden speeches today. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, spoke with such passion about poverty that the gods responded immediately with a thunderbolt. In his excellent speech, the noble Lord, Lord Morse, reminded the House that his career at the National Audit Office will greatly strengthen our hand in our role of scrutinising the Government.
In his speech, my noble friend Lord Stunell said that the environmental targets exist, and many of them are perfectly good, but we lack the detailed steps on how we get there. This has been the theme of today. There are no proposed Bills in the gracious Speech aimed at cutting emissions and tackling the climate emergency. The key is there in that phrase: it is an emergency, and it requires government action this year—not next year or the year after. This applies particularly to transport-related emissions, which are responsible for around one-third of the total. They constitute a two-pronged assault on our well-being, causing ill health as well as climate change. There has been significant technological progress, so as a nation we can tackle many of the issues. However, transport is the one sector where, despite having the technology, there has been no reduction in emissions in recent years. That is because we travel more often and further. There are particular problems in relation to aviation and the increased sales of SUVs, which produce much greater emissions than average cars. Those points are being neglected by the Government.
The Government have a unique opportunity, as national life restarts following the pandemic. We can drift back largely to our bad old ways, or maybe even take a step backwards by returning in greater numbers to our cars, or the Government can use this time to steer us into less polluting habits. We urgently need the Government to lead the way, with legislation, investment and a new environmental tax regime, but sadly there was nothing in their proposals. The Government have so far shown little commitment to the steps needed to meet their targets. Rail fares were increased above inflation this year, while vehicle fuel tax was frozen yet again and grants for purchases of EVs were cut. The Government’s spending commitments include £27 billion on A roads and motorways, which academic experts have estimated will produce an astonishing 100 times more CO2 than official government estimates. How can the Government be serious about leading COP 26 when they remain wedded to that?
The reference to the next phase of HS2 in the gracious Speech was welcome but the omission of any mention of the eastern leg to Leeds undermines the Government’s claims to be levelling up in the north-east. Yet, at the same time, they maintain their support for the outdated and damaging plan for the Heathrow third runway. There is a welcome commitment that public transport connectivity will be extended. In the previous Session, they unveiled their national bus strategy, which the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, discussed, but we are still waiting for details of the long-promised 4,000 zero-emission buses. On Wednesday, here in Westminster, the Campaign for Better Transport is launching its new campaign, “The way forward is public transport”. I hope that Ministers will find their way over to that event and pick up some good key action points.
I very much hope that the White Paper on rail reform is followed rapidly by legislation. The pandemic has stretched the current structure beyond breaking point but, again, we need action now to restructure the industry for the widespread investment in electrification and line reopenings that is so badly needed. Unlike bus services, which can be transformed in a small number of years, transformational investment in railways takes decades.
On many occasions, I have referred to the need for more measures to encourage the take-up of EVs. Motor manufacturers are increasingly concerned at the slow and chaotic development of the infrastructure to support them, including urgent investment in the national grid and a well co-ordinated and massive expansion of urban and motorway charging points. Neither of these can be left to the market alone; they need government leadership.
Then there is taxation. What is the future for vehicle taxation? Will the Government tax EVs as they do petrol and diesel cars or will there be road pricing? There are crucial issues for the future that need to be planned now. Even minor steps, such as changes to vehicle taxation to discourage the use of SUVs, would make a worthwhile difference.
In the Budget, the Government announced that they would remove APD on internal flights. Short-distance flights are more carbon-intensive. There is a need for reform of APD and aviation taxation, and, as my noble friend Lord Oates suggested, we need to follow the French and ban domestic flights that cover journeys of under two and a half hours by train.
The failure to use taxation as a weapon in the climate change fight is noticeable. I will give noble Lords another example: the Government charge 5% VAT on gas for a household boiler, but they charge 20% VAT on home improvements to improve energy efficiency. That is nonsensical.
The Government are also failing to set out the huge benefits that the revolution to come will bring to our economy: the many jobs that will come in building homes to the highest environmental standards and replacing all our gas boilers. The Government must level with the population: our apparent success in reducing emissions has come from relying on other nations to manufacture the goods that we use. If we measure our carbon footprint on the basis of our consumption, it has hardly changed. The scandal of the abandonment of the green homes grant was mentioned by many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Stunell. I urge the Government to give it another go, with redesigned policy and financial support.
This has been a very wide-ranging debate. A frequent theme was the notable omission of social care. My noble friend Lady Benjamin talked about the importance of young people and made the memorable statement that “childhood lasts a lifetime”. Very recently, my noble friend Lord Shipley, among others, concentrated on the need for decent affordable housing.
Many noble Lords have expressed serious concerns about the planning Bill: the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and my noble friends Lady Pinnock and Lady Thornhill. They all emphasised the danger of excluding local voices, and they made the point that there are 1 million homes for which planning permission has been given but which have not been built. The Government really must not let the building industry off the hook on this. My noble friend Lady Pinnock, among others, also referred to the cladding scandal, which the Government must deal with.
In conclusion, I spur the Government on. Social change does happen, underscored by legislation. They must act now to ensure that social change can make throw-away fashion and technology as socially unacceptable as drink-driving. I press the urgency of this. So far, all that we have done as a planet is to slow the rate of the increase of climate change. The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has kept on growing. I end by restating my noble friend Lord Oates’s reference to the words of Mahatma Gandhi: the future is decided by what you do today.
Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]
My Lords, we have had the privilege this afternoon and this evening of listening to many thoughtful and interesting speeches, not least to the acclaimed maiden speeches of my noble friend Lord Coaker and the noble Lord, Lord Morse. Judging by the comments of so many who have spoken, both maiden speeches have been much appreciated. I am sure we all hope that they will be but the first of many contributions in this House from both noble Lords.
In her comprehensive opening speech, my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch raised numerous questions and points. One point which she raised was the recent Public Accounts Committee report’s conclusion that Defra
“does not have ‘the clout to lead the rest of government’”
to deliver their environmental programme. That does not bode well for the relevance and effectiveness of the Environment Bill and our ability to address climate change. It also raises the issue of how much clout any of the departments with responsibility for the issues we are discussing today actually have in influencing government policy.
Local government has been decimated over the last decade, with spending power reduced by a third at a time when demand for services has soared. To meet legal duties to balance budgets, already depleted reserves and yet further cuts to already heavily reduced services are having to be used and made. What is it that this Government continue to have against local government and the vital services it provides to the communities it serves? The government department concerned is clearly either unwilling to, or incapable of, standing up for local government. Yet the effects of the rundown of local government services on local communities are all too obvious and numerous. For example, while the Government express concern about levels of youth crime and acknowledge the social and mental issues that many young people now face, including youth unemployment, they seem unwilling to accept that the rundown of local government youth services we have seen has withdrawn a vital pillar of support for many young people in need of help and advice.
The extent and breadth of social care provision has already been, and continues to be, cut back by local authorities as a result of funding being reduced over the last decade. One in seven adults were unable to get the social care they needed even before the pandemic. Yet there was nothing specific in the Queen’s Speech that recognised the hardship and problems this has created for many vulnerable people and their carers. The continuing non-appearance of the Prime Minister’s oven-ready plan for social care clearly indicates that it remains simply a figment of the Government’s imagination.
A projected planning Bill, based on proposals drawn up by friends of property developers, will further reduce the ability of local government and local communities to influence the nature and form of future developments directly affecting their localities, as many noble Lords have already said. Existing planning laws and regulations are not unnecessary red tape. They are there to prevent inappropriate and excessive developments, and to strike a balance between protecting the environment, while taking proper account of the interests, needs and priorities of local communities, and ensuring an appropriate supply of new homes and other needed infrastructure.
My noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch and other noble Lords have referred to planning permission that has already been granted for an estimated 1 million homes that have, nevertheless, still not been built. A Government who were serious about providing more affordable homes and social housing would be addressing this unacceptable situation, rather than seeking to pass legislation which rides roughshod over democratic local government and the concerns of local communities. This legislation seemingly also takes priority over acting now on the cladding scandal arising from the Grenfell tragedy four years ago and its already devastating effect on leaseholders, to which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans referred.
I turn to transport. The Government have just produced a bus strategy. They say they want to increase levels of service but seem unwilling to accept that a key reason we have lost so many bus routes is because local authorities no longer have the financial resources to support loss-making but much-needed routes and services.
The Government’s bus strategy refers to an objective of cheaper fares outside London, which are way higher than those within London, where the mayor and Transport for London have much greater power over levels of services, routes and fares. I hope that, if elected metro mayors also want greater powers over bus service provision within their areas, the Government will not allow bus operators to delay or thwart them in achieving that objective. Perhaps in winding up the Minister could give that assurance on behalf of the Government.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, there has been no reduction in overall transport emissions, which make up a significant percentage of the UK total. If we are to reduce harmful pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, address the looming disaster that is climate change and improve the environment, we will have to encourage people back on to public transport through the provision of better and cheaper services. That means recognising—including by providing the necessary resources—that the overall value of such services to society and the environment extends far beyond the state of a financial balance sheet.
The likelihood of this Government recognising any such thing is a matter of some considerable doubt. We have recently seen the Government put pressure on the Mayor of London to increase fares, which might suggest that their approach to reducing the gap between fare levels in London and most areas beyond it will be more by forcing up fares in London than by providing the resources to reduce them outside London.
We have recently seen the Government’s approach to encouraging people back on to our trains; namely, an above-RPI inflation fare increase some two and a half months ago. Quite what that is meant to achieve when it comes to encouraging passengers deterred by Covid and government instructions back on to our trains is far from clear. The Government claim that above-inflation fare increases are needed to finance improvements to the rail network. The reality is that the Government’s deliberate high-fare policy is to ensure that passengers in this country continue to pay a higher percentage of the running costs of the rail network than in virtually any other country in Europe. Environmental and societal considerations and benefits appear to get little of a look-in, which says a great deal about the attitude—or alternatively the lack of influence—of both the Department for Transport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The only high-power energy source offering rail potentially net-zero carbon is electricity. Rail decarbon-isation is unlikely to happen without further electrification, yet in 2017 the Government cancelled a number of major rail electrification projects—another short-sighted decision if ever there was one. Indeed, this Government have cancelled more rail electrification projects than probably any other.
The Queen’s Speech provides for a Bill for phase 2b of High Speed 2 from Crewe to Manchester. Consultation with residents and communities affected by phases 1 and 2a has left a lot to be desired. Whether or not the Government have learned anything will become clear over their approach to phase 2b. If the Government want communities immediately affected by a new high-speed rail route running non-stop through their back yard, as well as communities further away, to at least not strenuously oppose the project, they need to look at it also from the perspective of those impacted—including looking at improving transport links from those communities to the new high-speed route so that those most affected can at least see some potential benefit coming their way. There is, though, continuing silence in the Queen’s Speech on the exact fate of phase 3 of HS2 from Birmingham to Leeds—not so much levelling up as levelling off.
My noble friends Lady Sherlock and Lord Coaker, the latter in his passionate maiden speech, spoke powerfully about the inadequacies of current welfare and employment rights and protection policies and the silence of the Queen’s Speech on this issue. Even before the pandemic, there were over 5 million people in low-paid or insecure work and well over 4 million children growing up in poverty. The pandemic has now ruthlessly exposed the inadequacies and gaps in current government policies, which an either unwilling or lightweight Department for Work and Pensions does not intend to address or does not have the clout within government to address. What, for example, has happened to the employment Bill announced in the 2019 Queen’s Speech?
We now await the Government’s response to the many questions and points raised in this debate on communities, the environment and climate change, transport and welfare. However, that response cannot cover up the reality that too many of the crucial major issues requiring transformative change we face today have not been addressed by the legislative programme set out in the Queen’s Speech.
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour to conclude today’s debate on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech—the first since the United Kingdom’s formal exit from the European Union. Before I start, I join noble Lords in paying tribute to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, on the delivery of excellent maiden speeches, delivered with great passion and commitment.
The UK has embarked on a period of great possibility and has the opportunity to make headway on the hugely important issues that matter, not just to me and to many noble Lords here today, but for the British people as a whole. My noble friend Lord Greenhalgh outlined an ambitious agenda, raising issues such as building and planning reform, the importance of getting people back into work post lockdown and the Government’s plans to revitalise the nation’s transport network to help the UK to build back better, post pandemic. The noble Lord also detailed the reforms we will make to improve the way our natural world and its animals are treated, which says so much about who we are as a nation.
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to today’s debate on these important matters. The range of topics has been wide and there have been many contributions, so I will not be able to respond to every noble Lord—indeed it is not physically possible for me to do so. However, I will do my utmost to respond to the key points that were raised. Should any noble Lords seek further assurances, I shall endeavour to write and copy these responses to the Library.
The case for tackling the environmental crisis and biodiversity loss—experienced both here and globally—is patently clear, as many noble Lords have said. However, I am obliged to take issue with a number of comments, particularly those from the noble Lord, Lord Oates, echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. They said that the Government are doing nothing, there was nothing in the Bill and we are achieving nothing in relation to climate change and biodiversity. The word “nothing” appeared over and over again, and it is simply not true. That is not a serious observation of where we are. Of course, there is no Government in the world who are doing enough. The gap between where we are and where we need to be is huge, but the idea that this Government are doing nothing is absurd.
We were the first country in the world to commit to net zero in law. We are the only country in the world, at this point, to have begun to take steps to legislate to clean up our supply chains, to get rid of deforestation from our supply chains as 80% of the world’s deforestation is caused by commodities. We are the only country in the world to commit to, and actually begin, the process of shifting our land use subsidies away from destruction towards environmental renewal. If every country in the world did that, we would be well on our way to restoring the abundance of the natural world. We have doubled our international climate finance, the only country to have done so in the last couple of years at least. We will be finished with unabated coal by 2025. We are one of the only countries in the world to stop investing in fossil fuels overseas, and our emissions reductions have been faster than any other country in the G20.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, quoted me. Her quote was correct, but it was slightly out of context. I made a comment that we are not doing enough, but the comment was really “we” in a global sense. As I said, the gap between where we are and where we need to be remains huge. All governments need to catch up. That gap is there, and the UK is doing everything it possibly can to encourage the world to join it in closing that gap. She is right to say that President Biden is providing leadership, but the US has an enormous amount of catching up to do. I am not aware of any important, significant step that the US has taken to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss that we have not already taken. Indeed, the US needs to catch up fast with where the United Kingdom is, and most officials in the United States that I have been speaking to in the last few weeks would very readily agree. Yes, we do need leadership; we need leadership all around the world, and I think the UK is providing much of that leadership.
The noble Lords, Lord McNicol and Lord Stunell, both questioned the lack of detail in the Queen’s Speech. My understanding is that the gracious Speech is normally pretty high-level and does not go into the minutiae of how policies are going to be delivered. But what I would say is that the steps outlined in the Speech are just part of a much wider programme. Net zero, for instance, is not covered by the commitments made in the Queen’s Speech. It is affected by them and features throughout many of the areas where we have made significant promises, but net zero goes far beyond the commitments made in the gracious Speech. This is a cross-Whitehall endeavour. Indeed, we are not going to get to net zero without a cross-Whitehall endeavour, and every Minister, every colleague, has a role to play. That is something we are very much aware of. As my noble friend Lord Lansley and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, pointed out, we need global action but not all the change needed will require legislation. We need to operate on every conceivable level.
The Environment Bill is an important part of the Government’s response to the clear scientific case and the growing public demand for a step change in environmental protection and recovery. Acting as one of the key vehicles for delivering the bold vision set out in the 25-year environment plan and the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, the Environment Bill will act as a catalyst for urgent and meaningful action to challenge the environmental crisis we are facing and support the economic recovery from Covid-19. This legislation will deliver radical benefits by setting legally binding targets on biodiversity, air, water quality, resource efficiency, waste reduction and more. Thanks to measures in the Bill, we will have powers to set standards for eco-design and consistency in recycling that will move us towards a more circular economy and lower emissions.
We are setting legally binding targets on levels of fine particulate matter—or PM 2.5—that permeate the air. The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, stressed the damage to human health this particulate matter can cause. She identified some measures being taken in Spain, such as diesel engine bans and fossil fuel investments being cut back. Actually, it sounded like much of what she proposes is already being done here in the United Kingdom, but I will look further at the policies she identifies. PM 2.5 poses a real risk to the health of the population, and exposure to high concentrations can cause all kinds of health issues and respiratory conditions. While the World Health Organization guidelines on PM 2.5 are not specifically being legislated on, we are gathering the necessary evidence to set targets that best fit the UK’s particular context. This approach is endorsed by the World Health Organization, and this Government will engage in a fully costed analysis before a target is set.
In answer to the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, this legislation will also fortify the way our precious water resources are managed through the development of new statutory regimes and regulations that reduce the risk of poor farming practices and the impact of storm overflows on water quality. The Storm Overflows Taskforce was set up in September 2020 to bring together government, the industry, regulators and environmental NGOs to accelerate progress in this area. This is just the next step in a journey that we are committed to seeing through. In direct answer to the noble Duke, we are incorporating Philip Dunne’s Bill as a series of amendments to the Environment Bill.
The urgency to act means that while the Bill has been carried over from the previous Session, the work has continued. This Government have been working with experts to develop our legally binding targets. The draft of the environmental principles policy statement was published and is now out for consultation. Consultations have been launched on the deposit return scheme for drinks containers, extended producer responsibility for packaging and consistent recycling collections.
I assure my noble friend Lord Kirkham that we are going hard on both waste and litter. Indeed, they are a central part of the environment Bill that we will shortly be introducing. The Government appointed Dame Glenys Stacey as chair of the Office for Environmental Protection. We are particularly excited about the challenge being set by this independent public body. The OEP will monitor the way public authorities implement environmental law, unencumbered by ministerial or any political agenda.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, the Office for Environmental Protection will work closely alongside our world-leading Committee on Climate Change, and I thank my noble friend Lord Deben and the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, for the guidance they have provided in this regard.
I am confident that this Bill will deliver on the Government’s manifesto commitment to create
“the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth”,
even as we navigate economic recovery. It will help establish the UK as world leaders as we head towards COP 26, taking place in Glasgow this year.
I want to address points made by noble Lords on the Environment Bill before I move on to other areas. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, mentioned the importance of food. She rightly suggested that our climate agenda cannot rest on the shoulders of a single food strategy, and of course it does not. We address the issues that she raised in many different regards. I mentioned earlier our legislation to break the link between commodity production and deforestation —a world first—and that is something around which we are now building an international coalition of countries committed to doing the same.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh questioned whether the shift to ELM would prevent inappropriate development, a point echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Curry. The answer is that the principle of ELM is very clear: it will be the provision of public money purely and simply in return for the delivery of public goods. Yes, the definition of “public goods” remains broad, as it should.
The noble Lord, Lord Curry, asked whether our standards would be damaged through imports of low-quality food. We have been very clear that, in our pursuit of free trade agreements, we will not allow our standards here domestically to be undercut.
The noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Benjamin, all in one way or another touched on the tree strategy, woodlands and related issues. The answer is that we must use every tool that we have to deliver the hugely ambitious strategy that we are shortly to release in a few days’ time. That involves talking to other departments; I am lobbying colleagues in the Ministry of Defence, asking them to make available some of the land that it does not use—it is one of the biggest landowners in the country—in order to help us to accelerate our plans towards achieving the objective of 30,000 hectares per year by 2025. A number of noble Lords asked about the funding. We have a fund specifically designed to support the tree programme as well as our peat restoration, and that is the nature for climate fund.
To the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I simply want to say congratulations to his relatives on their rewilding initiatives.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the noble Earls, Lord Devon and Lord Sandwich, all talked about the importance of global agreements. Clearly, the UK cannot do any of this on its own. We can provide a moral authority through the example that we set, but we can achieve nothing without global targets, agreements and commitments.
The noble Earl, Lord Devon, talked about the importance of forests. He is of course right. Again, the UK can make a difference on our own but not a defining one, so we are building an alliance in the run-up to COP 26 where we hope we will be able to deliver a significant forest moment—a moment where people can afford to invest a bit of hope that perhaps we can turn the tide on deforestation, which continues at the rate of 30 football pitches’ worth of forest every single minute.
The noble Duke, the Duke of Somerset, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, talked about the tension between the need to keep costs down and the need to reduce carbon, but in fact that conflict is out of date. As we have seen, the cost of solar has collapsed by 90% since the banking crisis. Even under President Trump, who lavished public money on keeping the coal sector alive, coal use declined faster on his watch than under President Obama. The market is moving rapidly ahead of the politics in many respects, and the costs are coming down.
In the interests of time, I am going to move on to another area of Defra’s agenda, and that is animal welfare. The UK has a record that we can be proud of. The UK banned keeping calves in veal crates in 1990, 16 years before the rest of the EU. We banned keeping sows in close-confinement stalls in 1999, we banned conventional battery cages in 2012 and we banned fur farming and foie gras production in the UK. More recently, we required CCTV in all slaughterhouses and banned the use of wild animals in circuses. Our ivory ban is the strongest in the world. I was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, why it has been delayed; the answer is a combination of Covid and, I am afraid, vested interests taking us to court to try to stop us, but we are very nearly there. Only a fortnight ago, as noble Lords will know, we raised the maximum sentence for animal cruelty offences from six months to five years. We have some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, and our plans will build on this record and go further.
Indeed, I believe the action plan for animal welfare that was launched a couple of days ago represents the biggest shake-up of animal welfare standards for generations, and that is something that I think has been acknowledged by pretty much all the animal welfare organisations—certainly the ones that I have been in contact with. Our exit from the EU allows us to do things that simply were not possible before. The plan contains five key strands of focus: recognising animal sentience, supporting international advocacy and enhancing the welfare of farm animals, companion animals and wild animals. As part of the action plan we are going to crack down on puppy smuggling, unscrupulous breeders and pet theft. We will incentivise farmers to have healthier animals on their farms that are kept to higher welfare standards. We are examining the case for ending the use of cages for poultry and farrowing cages for pigs. We are ending the live export of animals for fattening and slaughter, and we are committed to improving the conditions of animals subjected to lengthy journeys.
We are honouring our commitment to end the keeping of primates as pets. We will stop the import of gruesome hunting trophies from endangered animals. We are banning the import of shark fins and low-welfare produce. We will introduce greater protections for British hares and will end the use of excessively cruel implements such as those appalling glue traps.
Beyond our borders, we want holiday firms to cease advertising entertainments abroad that involve extreme cruelty, such as elephant training, and there is a whole range of other measures. The action plan is not exhaustive. I know that there are welfare issues that concern many noble Lords and the wider public. There is always more that we can do, and this Government are always open to pro-welfare reforms. As my noble friend outlined earlier today, our animal welfare strategy will be implemented in law, initially through a kept animals Bill, which will set an example for the treatment of animals in a domestic context.
I turn to communities issues and say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans that our building safety Bill will catalyse a once-in-a-generation improvement to the building safety regime to ensure that tragedies such as Grenfell never happen again. As well as introducing a new, more stringent regime for higher-risk buildings, the Bill will create clearer accountability and duties for those responsible. We will also give residents a stronger voice in the system. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, asked about timing. I am afraid that I am going to defer to my colleague, who will be in touch with as much information as he can provide. Following expert advice, the Bill takes a risk-based approach, prioritising action on the buildings that face the greatest risk. We are providing direct funding to address unsafe cladding in buildings over 18 metres in height, ensuring that those buildings most at risk will pay nothing. The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, mentioned the French company that failed to show at the inquiry. All I can say is that its actions speak for themselves. The noble Lord, Lord Jordan, raised important concerns about other dangers associated with buildings, not least unsafe staircases and the consequent falls, usually of elderly people. That is an issue that I know my colleague will also be considering.
We have brought forward a financing scheme to ensure that leaseholders living in buildings between 11 and 18 metres in height will never face costs of more than £50 per month. Again, many will pay nothing at all. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, that this will protect leaseholders from big remediation bills while also respecting taxpayers’ money. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, that we are also introducing measures to protect future leaseholders from unreasonable ground rents.
My noble friend Lord Howard raised a number of concerns, citing Berlin, in relation to ground rents and reforms thereof. I know those concerns will have been heard by my colleague, my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh, who will take them away. The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill, will, however, remove the inconsistency and ambiguity around the issue that have plagued leaseholders for too long.
We are introducing vital reforms to make our planning system fit for the future. The planning reform Bill will leave behind an antiquated and unengaged system. Contrary to concerns raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Mallalieu and Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Rosser, among others, the Bill will give people a greater role in shaping how their communities will look through their local plans and design codes. It is a localist agenda. It will replace lengthy documents with easy-to-access digital tools and map-based local plans, allowing people to visualise local plans for development and participate in a way fit for the digital age—that was a point made by my noble friend Lord Lansley. It will support every community to produce its own design code, to reflect its own local needs, heritage and identity, putting design and quality at the heart of the planning system.
Throughout these reforms, the Government will prioritise maintaining environmental protections—I say this in response to questions raised by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and the noble Lords, Lord Bilimoria and Lord Shipley. We will identify opportunities for environmental improvement and simplify and improve methods for assessing environmental impacts.
I turn briefly to Department for Work and Pensions matters. Alongside these important reforms, this Government want everyone to be able to find a job, progress in work and thrive, whoever they are and wherever they live. The Government champion work as the single best route out of poverty and towards financial independence. Pre-pandemic, this approach delivered record levels of employment, supported by a universal credit system which withstood extraordinary challenges, with caseloads doubling in number since March 2020. As we make an economic recovery, through our ambitious £30 billion Plan for Jobs, the Government are creating jobs and supporting people of all ages to move into work or gain the skills that will open up new opportunities.
I recognise that I have not got a chance of answering all the questions that were asked. A very significant number of questions were asked in relation to transport, and I long to be able to answer in more detail about the plans put forward by my colleagues to decarbonise the transport sector—an issue that came up time and again in numerous speeches by noble Lords. Needless to say, the plans are there and my colleague Grant Shapps is particularly enthusiastic about a shift to zero-emission buses and vehicles. I recognise that I will not be able to give any evidence of that in this speech, but I am happy to follow up afterwards.
This is an important gracious Speech, made even more so by its timing. We are at the forefront of the opportunity that the UK’s exit from the EU presents the Government to create a more prosperous, healthy and sustainable future for our people. As a Government, we will continue to put the necessary support in place to ensure that our bold and ambitious vision for the future is achieved and the issues discussed in this debate will play a key part in this process. I thank most sincerely all noble Lords who have taken part in this important debate today for their insightful contributions and dedication to progressing these important matters.