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Business before Questions
Oral Answers to Questions
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
We have been working closely with businesses to help them adjust to any new requirements for trading with the EU. Monthly Office for National Statistics trade figures have shown that exports to the EU have rebounded strongly and have been above average monthly 2020 levels.
Dr Whitford [V]
On top of the impact on our local fishing fleet, Brexit is driving businesses to move operations to Europe. Foxglide, a sportswear company, is not just facing shipping delays and having to pay VAT on the materials it imports, but, due to rules of origin, facing tariffs on the garments it exports to the EU. So does the Minister accept that, contrary to the Prime Minister’s claims, the deal does not deliver tariff-free trade and is damaging local economies?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that particular case. As she will know, we are always happy to talk directly to businesses, or through their Members of Parliament, to see what we can do to help their particular circumstances, but all the issues that she raises are being worked through by my noble Friend Lord Frost. We are also setting up new structures to work with our counterparts in the EU. We have opportunities with member states to resolve these matters.
Anne McLaughlin [V]
UK trade exports to the EU fell 23% in the first quarter of the year, compared with 0.8% to non-EU countries. It is clear to everyone that that is a consequence of the Tories’ Brexit deal—everyone that is except this Government. Will the Minister finally accept that her Government’s deal has harmed exports—in other words, harmed business in my constituency, in her constituency and right across these islands?
Penny Mordaunt
I do not accept that. Businesses have had to contend with a huge amount and they have done a tremendous job to get this far. There are remaining issues, but, on the trade figures, as I said in my opening remarks, they have rebounded; they are actually above average compared with what they were at the beginning of last year. What the hon. Lady does not refer to is the 63 trade deals that we have done elsewhere in the world and that will bring huge opportunities for businesses in her constituency and across the UK.
Jonathan Edwards
Five months ago, I raised with the Cabinet Secretary the case of a local business facing significant problems importing from Belgium. It is now reporting a doubling in time before products arrive, significant extra costs and significant extra red tape. These are not just teething problems. Is it not clear that the task requires wholescale dental treatment, starting with a far closer alignment with the single market, starting with an urgent veterinary agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary rules?
Penny Mordaunt
I would be very happy to look at any cases that hon. Members raise. We can put them in touch with the subject matter experts to work through what mitigations we can bring and what financial support we can give to make sure that businesses are accessing the schemes. As I say, my noble Friend Lord Frost is very focused on these issues. We have done a huge amount of work with businesses directly but also through their trade bodies, and we will bring forward new support for them as we go further to give them the bespoke advice that they need.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
In February, I raised with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster the issue of Wilde Mode, a company in my constituency, and the increases in shipping costs it has had. In the past week or so, it has confirmed that it is still being quoted about €1,000 to ship in from Poland, when pre Brexit it was effectively zero. What concrete action are the Government going to take to resolve these problems, to end this uncompetitiveness and to mitigate these massive Brexit-driven cost increases?
Penny Mordaunt
In addition to the work that my noble Friend Lord Frost is leading on, which the right hon. Gentleman will be aware of, and the financial support we have put in place, we are monitoring what businesses are being charged, whether it is through trader support services or through particular aspects of the supply chain. We are monitoring those costs, and that is factored into our work and the work that Lord Frost is taking forward.
Stewart Hosie
Monitoring is fine, but we need action. Let me raise the issue of another business: ATL Turbine Services, which brings into Scotland for repair turbine parts from around Europe and the world. It has told me that its post-Brexit admin costs are now 10 to 15 times greater than they were last year. It cannot use the Revenue’s post-VAT accounting processes. It is encountering significantly more shipping errors, not just costs. Most damningly, it has said that, while the high-level structure has been put in place, the details of how it works in practice are basically non-existent and, where they do exist, have fallen short. Cost increases, administrative burdens, shipping errors, no useful guidance—when will this Government finally take these issues seriously? Would it not be better to admit, finally, that the truth is that, for business, Brexit is not working?
Penny Mordaunt
I have been doing a large amount of work with Lord Frost to look at what advice and support there is for businesses and what their needs are. They now need at this stage more bespoke support, and we are standing that up and putting it in place. We will be informing Members of this House about that in short order. As well as mitigating the difficulties that we are having, as a nation, to work through, we want people to maximise the opportunities. The trade deals that I referred to represent £217 billion-worth of business. We want all businesses across the UK to maximise that and we will provide the space for them to do that.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
Following the ratification of the trade and co-operation agreement, we are working with the EU to set up the Partnership Council and the specialised committees that form part of the treaty infrastructure to ensure that new trading arrangements are implemented and are working effectively.
Patrick Grady
From the testimony we heard at the Joint Committee session yesterday and the answers we have had today, we know that the Government are in complete chaos on all of this. They went into Brexit with their eyes wide shut. Is it not the case that, once we are clear of the covid pandemic, the chaos and true costs of Brexit will become clear?
Penny Mordaunt
I would gently say to the hon. Gentleman that Lord Frost and his team are working through these issues. Only next month, we will hopefully be having the first Partnership Council meeting. Those structures will be stood up, so we will have other methods where we can work through these issues. When Lord Frost goes into bat on those issues, it would be helpful if Members of this House stood up for all nations of the United Kingdom in the negotiations and got behind him. I think that would improve our chances.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
On 12 May, the Prime Minister confirmed to the House that a public inquiry into covid-19 would be established on a statutory basis with full formal powers. It will begin its work in spring 2022, and further details will be set out in due course.
Afzal Khan [V]
Earlier this week, I visited the covid memorial wall opposite Parliament to remember those I have lost to this crisis, including my mum and both my parents-in-law. Yesterday, grieving families like mine watched in horror as Mr Cummings detailed the litany of failures and gross incompetence right at the heart of this Government, which the proposed statutory inquiry will no doubt examine in much more detail. Given the importance of this inquiry to bereaved families, will the Minister agree to meet me and representatives from Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice as soon as possible, to ensure that their voices are heard?
Michael Gove
First, may I pass on my condolences to the hon. Member for the sad loss of members of his family? I know that the whole House will want to pass on sympathies and condolences. So many people have lost those dear to them. That is why it is so important that, at the inquiry, we ensure that the voices of victims are heard and their questions are answered properly and fully.
Rachael Maskell [V]
The healing will not start until the public inquiry begins. Yesterday’s Select Committees’ damning evidence clearly caused significant pain to grieving families. They need answers now—they need to know whether decisions by this Government could have avoided the death of their loved ones, and that includes 396 families in my city of York. Does the Minister understand why the commencement of the public inquiry must not be delayed until next year, especially following yesterday’s evidence? Will he bring it forward and ensure that bereaved families not only are consulted on the scope of the inquiry but have their questions answered?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady makes an important point. A statutory inquiry is obviously the right way to ensure that all the right questions are asked and that full answers are arrived at. To ensure that the inquiry works, the experience, voices and views of those who have suffered so much must be a critical part in ensuring that it is set up appropriately.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Jane Roche from Erdington tragically lost her father Vince and her sister Jocelyn within five days of one another last April. This devastating loss has driven Jane and thousands like her to be tireless campaigners for justice for those who lost their lives. Does the Minister agree that it is imperative that the public inquiry has the full confidence of the relatives who are grieving to this day? Will he therefore commit to ensuring that the bereaved families groups are fully consulted on who is the chair of the inquiry and the inquiry’s terms of reference? Finally, will he commit to the Prime Minister meeting personally the covid-19 bereaved families? They want to meet with him. Will he meet with them?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the case of his constituents who have suffered so much and who, understandably, want to ensure that the inquiry provides them with answers at a time of grief and not only contributes to the healing process but ensures that appropriate lessons are learned. I look forward, as everyone in the Government does, to working with victims’ groups to ensure that the inquiry can command their confidence.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
The Government are committed to the relocation of 22,000 roles from London to every part of the United Kingdom by the end of this decade. It is all part of our Places for Growth initiative, and it will ensure that the civil service is more representative of the communities it serves, bringing more diversity of thought into policy making. The Cabinet Office has recently announced that our second headquarters will be located in Glasgow, and a number of other Departments have announced their plans to increase their presence across the UK. Just last week, the Home Office announced that there will be 500 new jobs in Stoke-on-Trent, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced that 865 roles are relocating to six locations across the UK, including Darlington.
Alexander Stafford
My right hon. Friend will be aware that I have been fighting for the decentralisation of the civil service to the north, particularly to my constituency of Rother Valley, and the Leader of the House responded to me positively on this only last week. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that the civil service jobs relocating to northern areas will be high-quality, high-powered roles, rather than simply backroom processing positions, which I fear would be a purely cosmetic change and would not constitute a real shift in power to the north? Can I invite him to come to Rother Valley to discuss those opportunities and all new job opportunities in Rother Valley?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and it is absolutely critical that the jobs relocated include those in the senior civil service responsible for decision making. Not only do areas such as South Yorkshire and his constituency provide a very high quality of life for individuals, but it is important that the talent there is deployed at the very heart of decision making. I hope to be able to visit Rother Valley to see my hon. Friend and others in his constituency next month. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Members should not walk in front of a Member during the answer to their question.
Alicia Kearns [V]
This Government’s levelling-up agenda will transform our nation, but does my right hon. Friend agree that we cannot deliver this agenda unless we level up both cities and rural areas such as Rutland and Melton? Can I invite him and his officials to visit the rural capital of food, Melton Mowbray, to see why nowhere in the country makes a more compelling offer for a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs office and the transformative Places for Growth programme than Melton, and why this will show the Government’s commitment to the east midlands and to rural areas?
Michael Gove
Rutland and Melton could not wish for a more effective advocate than my hon. Friend. She talked to my colleague Lord Agnew and me in the Cabinet Office just last week to press the case for a relocation of jobs to Melton. It has a superb agricultural college, is at the heart of our food-producing countryside, produces superb products and also has many of the facilities, logistical and otherwise, that would recommend it to Government Departments, and I look forward to working with her on the prospect of relocation.
Jonathan Gullis [V]
On behalf of the people of Stoke-on-Trent, Kidsgrove and Talke, I want to thank my right hon. Friend, his colleagues in the Cabinet Office and the Home Secretary—the former Stokie and Keele University graduate—for passing our litmus test on the Government’s commitment to levelling up in delivering over 550 high-skilled and well-paid jobs by making Stoke-on-Trent the second home for the Home Office. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that this major investment from this Conservative Government shows that the people of Stoke-on-Trent will never be forgotten or take for granted again, as they have been previously?
Michael Gove
One of the regular features of the last few months has been the near daily popping into my WhatsApp, email or SMS box of messages from my hon. Friend pressing the case for Stoke-on-Trent and for the relocation of senior civil service jobs, and can I say that his persistence and advocacy have paid off? My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has recognised that Stoke-on-Trent—an amazing place—is absolutely the right home for the second Home Office HQ.
Suzanne Webb
Now here comes my pitch!
My Stourbridge constituency is the jewel of the urban west midlands, full of talent and ambition, and some may say it is the perfect “location, location” for any future proposed civil service moves outside London. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that of course Stourbridge should be top of the list? Of course, the Cabinet Office would be more than welcome to locate there.
Michael Gove
I am tempted to say that it is rather like the judgment of Paris. In choosing between Stourbridge or Wolverhampton or Walsall, it is almost as though one is choosing between three beautiful divines or deities. All I would say is that Stourbridge is a fantastic location not just for future Government jobs, but for the private sector. It is part of a west midlands undergoing a revival, with new, energetic Members of Parliament like her and of course a re-elected metro Mayor in Andy Street.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will take these Questions together, if that is okay.
Dame Angela Eagle [V]
Some 3.5 million people in the UK do not have the type of ID papers that this Government have deemed suitable to allow them to participate in a vote, so what are the Government going to do to ensure that people will not be denied their basic human right to take part in a democratic, free and fair election in the UK by these Government changes?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady makes a very important point. It is integral to our democracy that everyone has the chance to vote and to have their voice heard, and research commissioned by the Cabinet Office shows that 98% of the electorate already hold an accepted form of photographic identification, and for those who do not currently a free local voter card will be available from their local authority.
Ellie Reeves [V]
The Bromley wards in my constituency were part of a voter ID pilot in 2018 and the council’s own figures suggest that 154 people were turned away from polling stations because of the requirement for ID. If this was scaled up nationally the overall number of those disfranchised would be huge, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission says it would disproportionately impact ethnic minority communities and older people, yet there were only 33 allegations of voter personation at the 2019 general election. Can the Minister not see the huge disparity here?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady makes an important point. It is incumbent on local authorities like her excellent local authority in Lewisham to work to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to vote. I should say, because her question gives me an opportunity to do so, that in recent local elections, not just for the London Assembly and the London Mayor but across the country, those who work in local government—returning officers and others—did a sterling job in challenging circumstances, and I know that as we introduce reforms to ensure the integrity of the ballot, local authorities such as hers will be at the forefront of delivering those changes.
Zarah Sultana [V]
The Prime Minister once said:
“If I am ever asked…to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am…then I will…physically eat it”,
so why the change of heart? It is not because of evidence of voter ballot fraud, because just six cases were confirmed at the last election while millions of people risk losing their vote because they do not have photo ID. Might it instead be because the Conservatives want to copy voter suppression tactics used in the USA, disproportionately disenfranchising black, Asian and ethnic minority communities, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, working-class people, trans people and young people—all groups less likely to vote Conservative?
Michael Gove
We are not seeking to emulate America; we are seeking to emulate the Labour Government who introduced a form of photographic identification for voters in Northern Ireland when they were in power. I should say that the hon. Lady made reference to working-class people, and overwhelmingly, working-class people now are much more likely to vote Conservative than Labour.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster knows fine well that there was evidence of voter personation in Northern Ireland, which was why we needed to see a change in legislation there, but he also knows that there have been only four convicted cases of electoral personation in Britain. So with £4 million of taxpayers’ money already down the drain on testing this policy, that is £1 million per conviction; I have got to ask him, does he think this is really a good use of taxpayers’ money?
Cat Smith
I have to question whether the right hon. Gentleman thinks that is a good use of taxpayers’ money when there are people waiting for mental health beds up and down this country; I have to ask him whether it is the Government’s priority when we have children needing to catch up on the education that they have been denied over the past year. If the Government want to spend this money on electoral matters, why not get the 9 million people who are not registered correctly in this country registered on the electoral rolls, allow them to use their vote and consider introducing universal voter registration?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady makes two important points. Obviously, as we emerge from covid concentrating on recovery in public services is important, and she is absolutely right to say that there is work to be done not just in mental health but in the NHS and education, but fundamentally the integrity of our democracy is an important issue. As she knows, and as she has been reminded by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution, the Labour party’s own internal democracy depends on the production of voter ID and—[Interruption.] Facts are chiels that winna ding, as we say in Aberdeen, and on that basis we are delighted to be emulating Labour party policy, in this regard at least.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
The Minister without Portfolio (Amanda Milling)
Small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of our UK economy. That is why it is vital that we are ensuring that the power of Government spending supports that vital sector, as part of both the economic recovery from covid-19 and our levelling-up agenda. We are increasing opportunities for SMEs in a variety of ways, and our measures are working. Those measures include breaking up contracts into smaller chunks, transparently publishing contract pipelines and removing complexity from the bidding process. Additionally, our new social value model explicitly allows greater weight to be given to those bids that help drive post-covid recovery.
Sally-Ann Hart [V]
Hastings and Rother Federation of Small Businesses has highlighted the need for small business-led levelling up. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that small businesses in places such as beautiful Hastings and Rye have opportunities in public procurement processes, in line with a rebalancing of local economies?
Amanda Milling
I agree that SMEs play a vital role in our levelling-up agenda. We want to see a greater variety of companies delivering Government contracts from every corner of our country. I am sure that our new social value approach will mean more opportunities for SMEs and social enterprises to win Government contracts by demonstrating the full extent of the value that they will generate, not just economically but taking into account the additional social benefits that can be achieved from the delivery of contracts.
Craig Tracey
In its last report, the women and enterprise all-party parliamentary group found that women-owned businesses added £115 billion to the UK economy, despite securing only about 5% of Government and public sector contracts. What more can the Government do to encourage more female-owned small businesses to come forward to apply for contracts and have the confidence that they will have an equal chance in the procurement process?
Amanda Milling
I thank my hon. Friend for everything that he does as chair of the APPG on women and enterprise. I share his concern that SME owners of all backgrounds should be benefiting from the investment that Government contracts bring. We are doing more than ever to encourage all SMEs, including those owned by women, into public procurement. Government spending with SMEs continues to rise, with 26.7% of the £58 billion spent by the Government in 2019-20 going to SMEs.
Darren Henry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
Levelling up is at the heart of the Government’s agenda to build back better after the pandemic and to deliver for citizens in every part of the United Kingdom. Later this year, the Government will publish a landmark levelling-up White Paper, which will set out bold new policy interventions to improve livelihoods and opportunity in every part of the United Kingdom.
Darren Henry [V]
The levelling-up agenda set out by this Government will ensure that long-forgotten communities across the midlands finally get the investment they deserve. Levelling up in order to regenerate our town centres and high streets, support individuals into employment, improve local transport links and invest in local culture will have a hugely positive impact across our country and in my constituency of Broxtowe. Does my right hon. Friend agree that having the HS2 east midlands hub in Toton is the only choice in line with the Government’s agenda to level up the east midlands?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. He is a brilliantly effective advocate for Nottinghamshire and the people he serves. Indeed, investment in HS2 is critical to levelling up. The case he makes for Toton is one that I know resonates in the Department for Transport, and I will make sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is aware of his dedicated advocacy for that particular outcome.
Sir David Evennett [V]
I welcome the Government’s action so far on the levelling-up agenda to spread opportunity across the UK in order to support jobs, businesses and economic growth. However, I urge my right hon. Friend to pay special attention to the under- achievement of working-class boys, many of whom are not reaching their full potential. In particular, it is essential to ensure that people who work in the civil service come from all walks of life.
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend, as ever, is spot on. As well as being a brilliantly effective advocate for business, he is also someone with a distinguished former career in education, particularly further and technical education, and in advancing the careers of young people from working-class backgrounds. He is absolutely right. We need to do more in the civil service, as the recent Social Mobility Commission report points out, echoing points that he has been making for some time.
Sara Britcliffe
I very much welcome the levelling-up fund and the transformative difference it can make to constituents such as mine in Hyndburn and Haslingden. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is only a small part of our levelling-up agenda and that it is important that investment in local transport infrastructure continues, such as looking at the scope for freight terminals and the reopening of railway lines?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and Accrington and Oswaldtwistle could not have a better advocate. She is absolutely correct to point out that we need not just new investment in improved rail —indeed, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has been reversing some of the Beeching cuts, with more to follow—but to ensure that local bus services and other transport routes are invested in. I know that she is a particularly passionate advocate for improving local bus services as well.
Dr James Davies
It is very welcome that north Wales is set to benefit from the UK Government’s levelling-up agenda, but will my right hon. Friend confirm what actions he is taking to ensure that it benefits not only the region as a whole, but areas of particular localised need?
Michael Gove
I am looking forward to visiting north Wales and, I hope, my hon. Friend’s constituency, later this summer. One of the things I want to do is make sure that every aspect of levelling up—not just macro infrastructure projects but the micro projects that contribute so much to making communities cherished and attractive—are part of the levelling-up fund. I look forward in particular to working with local government in north Wales to make sure that our funds are spent as effectively as possible.
Steve Double
Cornwall has been recognised for decades as one of the most disadvantaged parts of our country. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that Cornwall will be at the heart of the Government’s levelling-up agenda? Can he say what plans the Government have specifically to invest in the Cornish economy and the jobs of the future?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend will know that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was in Cornwall earlier this week. He spoke from Cornwall at the Cabinet meeting emphasising the vital importance of investment not just in improved health care in Cornwall, but of making sure that jobs and opportunities for people in Cornwall were extended as well. The message is already being heard in the heart of Government, but my hon. Friend’s continued advocacy for Cornwall makes the point that, while it is perhaps one of the most beautiful parts of the United Kingdom, it also contains areas that desperately need Government and private sector investment and support for citizens to flourish.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Michael Gove
It is already Government policy to adopt and encourage greater transparency in their commercial activity. Of course, central Government buyers must publish all their qualifying tender documents and contracts with a contract value over £10,000 on Contracts Finder. We recognise, however, that there have been delays to publishing some covid-19-related contracts, and teams continue to work on publishing them as soon as possible.
Mr Dhesi
Seventy-two per cent. of covid-related contracts awarded between February and November 2020 were reported after the 30-day legal deadline, with £7.4 billion-worth of that total reported more than 100 days after the contract was awarded. In comparison, it took Ukraine, which was trying to deal with a major conflict at the same time, less than one day to publish information on more than 103,000 covid contracts. I appreciate that the Good Law Project, EveryDoctor and other activists have taken the Government to the High Court, which confirmed that the Government acted unlawfully, but is it because of incompetence or because they are so imbued in cronyism that the Government lag so far behind on transparency? When will all public contracts finally be published?
Michael Gove
All contracts will be published. As I mentioned earlier, we are doing our very best to do that. I would say two things. First, the hon. Gentleman talks about cronyism. There is no evidence of that. What there is evidence of is people in the public sector and in Government working incredibly hard to make sure that personal protective equipment and other goods were there at the frontline. I am sure that on reflection he will consider that that particular choice of language might need revisiting.
Secondly, on the point he makes about Ukraine, one of the things the Department for International Development and others were doing in the past was making sure that we invest in civil society capacity in Ukraine. I am delighted that Ukraine is making strides forward, but that is partly thanks to the work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), working with others, when she was Secretary of State for International Development.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said in the last Cabinet Office questions:
“Transparency drives everything that the Government do”.—[Official Report, 25 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 1039.]
However, research by Transparency International found that 20% of the UK’s PPE procurement between February and November last year raised one or more red flags over possible corruption—there are too many secrets. Will the Government now restore public trust and publish all communications between Ministers and their business contacts over these PPE contracts? Will they publish the details of all the contracts that were awarded in the VIP lane and end the secretive emergency contracting?
Michael Gove
The emergency contracting procedure, to which the hon. Lady refers, was one that was used by every Administration across the United Kingdom, including the Labour Administration in Wales, and that was because of the pressures that all of us were under. I remember Front Benchers from the Labour party pressing us at an earlier stage in the pandemic, quite rightly, to move even faster to secure that PPE. But, of course, even as were moving more quickly to secure it, there was a seven-step process supervised by civil servants in order to make sure that procurement was handled appropriately. If the hon. Lady has any specific cases where she feels that the process was faulty, I look forward to hearing from her about them, but so far there have been no specific charges from her. More broadly, I welcome emphasis on greater transparency overall.[Official Report, 7 June 2021, Vol. 696, c. 1MC.]
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
I have been having lots of discussions with relevant stakeholders on apprenticeship targets. We must do much better on getting more apprentices into the civil service.
Robert Halfon [V]
Will my right hon. Friend consider ensuring that all new recruits to the civil service are offered apprenticeships? Will he also make certain that, unless there are specific related reasons, all Government sector employment contracts have at least 5% of employees as apprenticeships before they are offered any contract by Government?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. We are currently reviewing, as part of preparation for new procurement legislation, exactly how we can ensure that there is a higher proportion of apprenticeships in contracts that Government allocate as well as making sure that the civil service extends the use of apprenticeship schemes, of which he has been such an effective champion.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
The independent adviser on Ministers’ interests publishes an annual report setting out the work he has undertaken.
Layla Moran [V]
This week, the Home Secretary said on “The Andrew Marr Show”:
“I think at this stage…this isn’t about breaking codes and things of that nature. We’re all just getting on in government doing very difficult jobs actually.”
Given that the ministerial code sets out an overarching duty on Ministers to comply with the law, does the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster agree that even if a Minister does have a difficult job, they should follow both the ministerial code and obey the law?
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
The pandemic must be a catalytic moment when we use digital transformation to sharpen up how we deliver services to citizens and drive leaner, more efficient and, indeed, more insightful Government.
Andrew Jones
The past year has accelerated the digital marketplace very significantly and people are much more familiar and comfortable with doing business online. From a Government perspective, the efficiencies and service resilience have been obvious, so will my right hon. Friend ensure that all Departments across Government focus on improving digital access wherever possible, focusing not only on simplicity and security for users, but in the back office where significant savings may be made?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is spot on. He is absolutely right that the digital transformation of Government should make it easier for citizens to interact with Government, and to receive services quickly—everything from the renewal of passports to making sure that they can book appointments—but it is also the case that back-office functions in Government can be made even more efficient through the effective deployment of GDS’s superb cadre of civil servants. He has championed this quite rightly and I hope to work with him in future to make sure that we do even more.
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)
The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Leo Docherty)
The Government and the Office for Veterans’ Affairs are committed to delivering the veterans strategy. By doing so, we will establish a gold standard of care and opportunity for veterans in the UK. We will address historical issues that have negatively impacted some groups of veterans and we will ensure that all veterans are celebrated for their skills, their courage and their magnificent contribution to our national life.
Dehenna Davison [V]
It is a real pleasure to hear from my hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box for the first time since he took his post. Will he join me in thanking all our veterans who have committed their lives to protect and defend us, and to whom we will always owe a debt of gratitude? Will he confirm that it will be the Government’s unwavering ambition to ensure that the UK becomes the best place in the world to be a veteran, whether that veteran resides in Brighton, Buckie or indeed Bishop Auckland?
Leo Docherty
I can absolutely confirm that that is our ambition. I look forward to publishing the updated veterans action plan later this year. May I put on record my thanks for my hon. Friend’s magnificent work in Bishop Auckland to celebrate the important role of veterans in her community?
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk to the First Ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in order to advance plans for a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss the vital importance of covid recovery. I was grateful for the constructive work across the United Kingdom.
Mentioning that conversation gives me the opportunity, which I am sure the whole House will want to share, to thank Arlene Foster for her leadership as First Minister of the Northern Ireland Executive. Arlene will be stepping down shortly. She is a lovely, wonderful person who has done an amazing job. She is a brilliant advocate for the people of Northern Ireland. I know that we will all wish her very well for the future.
Christine Jardine [V]
We have all heard already this morning about the importance of levelling up in our covid recovery, but in constituencies such as mine, Edinburgh West, it is also important to reinforce and remind people of the strength and support available from the UK Government. Does the Minister for the Cabinet Office agree that it is vital that we remain focused on that and on recovery, and that we do not get side-tracked by the SNP’s damaging obsession with independence?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady puts the case in absolutely the right way: we need to focus on recovery. It was good to hear the First Minister stress in our conversation yesterday that she appreciated that that was a priority. I know that people in Edinburgh completely find the hon. Lady’s arguments compelling, which is why her colleague and friend Alex Cole-Hamilton secured more than 50% of the first preference votes for Edinburgh West in the Scottish Parliament; obviously it was for a different party from my own, but it is a reflection of the fact that he and she are really good local representatives.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, following yesterday’s Wagnerian-length Committee session, the proper place for learning from the pandemic will be in the independent public inquiry announced by our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister? Given that the chair of that inquiry will require the confidence of the nation—and not least that of this House—does the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster agree that that chair should be subject to a pre-appointment scrutiny hearing by the relevant Select Committee?
Michael Gove
I am a great fan of Wagner, but I also recognise that the young tenor voice of my hon. Friend as Chairman of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee is one that deserves to be heard in the debate about how the inquiry should go forward. How exactly that voice is heard and amplified, and as part of which chorus, will be a matter for the whole House, I think.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
I welcome the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to our first exchange at the Dispatch Box, but I only wish that it were in better circumstances. The testimony that we heard yesterday has left families across the country wondering what happened to their loved ones and how they died. It has left all of us fearing that the Government have not learned the lessons or taken the action needed to prevent more avoidable loss.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster once said that he had
“reluctantly but firmly”
concluded that the Prime Minister was
“not capable of…leading the party and the country in the way that I would have hoped.”
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster knows Dominic Cummings very well as his former chief of staff—better than anyone else in this House. Does he believe him to be a credible and truthful witness?
Michael Gove
First, may I welcome the right hon. Lady to her place? She is someone who started her working life on the frontline of social care, who has been a highly effective trade union representative and who has spoken passionately and movingly in this House about the need for greater social mobility and educational reform, and it will be a pleasure, I hope, to work with her over the weeks and months ahead.
As far as yesterday’s testimony went, people will make their own judgment on everything that was said then. I would say only two things. It has been a privilege to work closely with both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health over the course of the last 12 months. They have given unstinting service. It is thanks to their leadership, for example, that we have a world-beating vaccination programme, and it is a privilege to serve alongside them. I think the Prime Minister is doing a fantastic job, and I also think the Secretary of State for Health has shown unstinting—
Mr Speaker
Order. Can I just say that topical questions should be short and punchy? They are not for making statements. Of course we all welcome the right hon. Lady to the Front Bench, but we really need to get answers to the questions that have been posed.
Angela Rayner
I thank the Minister for his comments, but learning the right lessons could save lives and the truth matters to us all, so can he tell us which, if any, of the claims made by Dominic Cummings he is now prepared to refute at the Dispatch Box?
Michael Gove
I have not had the opportunity to read all the evidence that was given yesterday, and indeed the Speaker has enjoined brevity on me, but I think that the public inquiry that we have been discussing is the right place to review all the evidence from every individual.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Michael Gove
That is exactly it. My hon. Friend is completely right.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady and any of the victims of this appalling scandal. I raised this issue at the recent meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, and I want to let all those people who have lost children know that just because we published the written ministerial statement, which made reference to other support for other individuals, that does not mean that they are not at the forefront of our minds. The compensation study that we recently announced will obviously be looking at many of the issues that they have raised, but I would be happy to meet them.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Michael Gove
It is a great ten-minute rule Bill, Bolton West is a wonderfully vibrant and diverse community, it has a brilliant local MP, and we are on it.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The Singh report—of which I have not read every word—is clear about the steps that we need to take to root out anti-Muslim prejudice, and it is absolutely critical that we do so.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
Michael Gove
That is a very thoughtful point with which I completely agree.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP) [V]
Michael Gove
The broad public inquiry that we have set up—with, of course, consultation with the First Minister of Scotland—will, I hope, look at every aspect of our pandemic response. Although I did not hear all the evidence history, I understand that I was mentioned and the point was made that I got some things wrong. I have got lots of things wrong, but of course we will all reflect on those in due course.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) about the particular challenges in Cornwall. Challenges exist across the United Kingdom, and as part of our levelling-up drive we are committed to meeting them.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]
Michael Gove
I do not think so, but the hon. Gentleman raises an important point: we should thank those at the frontline of the NHS for the amazing work they have done. Part of supporting them is making sure that they have the right personal protective equipment. This Government, like Governments around the globe, were under great pressure to make sure that we had the right PPE in the right places at the right time. More than 99% of the PPE that we procured was directed, usable and effective.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an important point. There is a proud tradition of steelmaking in Scunthorpe and she is absolutely right to draw attention to the importance of the issue. My colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have established a new joint industry and governmental steel procurement taskforce, which was launched on 12 March. Of course, as the Government Department that helps to co-ordinate procurement, we are working with BEIS to achieve the goals that my hon. Friend rightly points out on behalf of her constituents.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady raises an important point and I look forward to the opportunity to perhaps meet her to discuss exactly how we can improve the way in which the Cabinet Office supports small businesses.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Michael Gove
Rother Valley is a centre of enterprise in South Yorkshire, and it contains brilliant businessmen such as Mr Don Wightman, who is a manufacturing superhero. He, like his Member of Parliament, recognises that the new trade opportunities that Brexit brings, and indeed the new opportunities for smarter regulation, mean that enterprises in Rother Valley and across Yorkshire have a very bright future.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Michael Gove
Public appointments to Ofcom are of course a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. I should say that the hon. Gentleman would be a superb chair of Ofcom, given the range of experience that he brings. That would mean, sadly, having to stand down from his position in the House, but I think we would all welcome that sacrifice for the greater good.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Michael Gove
I think the Prime Minister is absolutely right. I think my right hon. Friend has been doing a great job as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Looking at the last 12 months—everything we have done from the roll-out of the vaccine programme to the support that we have given those on the frontline—we should celebrate the fact that, at a time of challenge, we have in the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care a dedicated public servant.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend is a great champion of widening opportunity and has done a fantastic job in ensuring that equality is taken more seriously across Government. The campaign that she mentions is absolutely right, and something that I will ensure we embrace in Government publications.
Mr Speaker
I will now suspend the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Speaker’s Statement
Mr Speaker
Before I call Jonathan Ashworth to ask his urgent question, I remind the House that “Erskine May” states:
“Good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language.”
Although the context in which particular phrases are used is important, “Erskine May” also says that there are certain expressions that,
“when used in respect of other Members…are regarded with particular seriousness, generally leading to prompt intervention from the Chair and often a requirement on the Member to withdraw the words”.
One example is making a charge
“of uttering a deliberate falsehood.”
In other words, Members should not accuse other Members of lying. Depending on the context, it may well be in order to quote the views of others, but Members should not themselves state or imply that other Members are lying. There are ways that such issues can be debated in the House by means of a substantive motion, but not as part of an urgent question.
Covid-19: Government Handling and Preparedness
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will update the House on the pandemic preparedness of the Department of Health and Social Care.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
What we have done to handle this coronavirus pandemic has been unprecedented in modern times. Throughout, we have been straight with people and this House about the challenges that we as a nation face together. The nation, in my view, has risen to these challenges. Of course, there were unprecedented difficulties that come with preparation for an unprecedented event.
This pandemic is not over yet. Our vaccination programme has reached 73% of the adult population, but that means that more than a quarter still have not been jabbed; 43% of adults have had both jabs, but that means that more than half are yet to get the fullest possible protection that two jabs give.
Yesterday, we saw 3,180 new cases of coronavirus—the highest since 12 April—but thanks to the power of vaccination, in which I have always believed, the link from cases to hospitalisations and deaths is being severed. About 90% of those in hospital in hotspot areas have not yet had both jabs, so the continued delivery of the vaccination effort and the ongoing work to control the virus through testing, tracing and isolation are vital.
Yesterday, we saw the opening of vaccinations to all those aged 30 and above. I am delighted to tell the House that the vaccination programme is on track to meet its goal of offering a jab to all adults by the end of July. It has met every goal that we have set. Setting and meeting ambitious targets is how you get stuff done in Government.
As a nation, we have many challenges still to come. I know, and one of the things I have learned, is that the best way through is to work together with a can-do spirit of positive collaboration. The team who have worked so hard together to get us this far deserve our highest praise. I am proud of everyone in my Department, all those working in healthcare and public health, the armed forces who fought on the home front, the volunteers who stood in cold car parks with a smile, colleagues across the House who have done their bit and, most of all, the British people. Whether it is the science, the NHS or the people queuing for vaccines in their droves, Britain is rising to this challenge. We have come together as one nation, and we will overcome.
Jonathan Ashworth
Families who lost loved ones will have noticed that the Secretary of State, in his opening remarks, did not respond to any of the specific allegations from yesterday—allegations that are grave and serious: that the Prime Minister is unfit for office; that his inaction meant that tens of thousands needlessly died. We had allegations from Dominic Cummings that the Secretary of State, specifically, misled colleagues—an allegation from Mr Cummings, Mr Speaker—on our preparedness and lack of protection for people in care homes.
The allegations from Cummings are either true, and if so the Secretary of State potentially stands in breach of the ministerial code and the Nolan principles, or they are false, and the Prime Minister brought a fantasist and a liar into the heart of Downing Street. Which is it? Families who have lost loved ones deserve full answers from the Secretary of State today. Is he ashamed that he promised a protective shield around care homes and more than 30,000 care home residents have died? Why were 25,000 elderly people discharged from hospitals into care homes without any test? Did he tell Downing Street in March that people discharged from hospital had been tested, even though it was not until 15 April that there was a requirement for testing to take place?
In public, the Secretary of State has often claimed that little was known of asymptomatic transmission at the time, so testing was not necessary, but the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies in January flagged evidence of asymptomatic transmission. A study in The Lancet in February flagged it. On 5 March, the chief medical officer said that
“there may well be a lot of people who are infected and have no symptoms”,
so why did the Secretary of State not insist on a precautionary approach and test all going into care homes?
On 6 May, at the Dispatch Box, the Secretary of State claimed that it is
“safer for them to go to a care home.”
Yet 12,000 people had died in those early months. How could he justify that comment? In April, he told the House:
“What is important is that infection control procedures are in place in that care home”.—[Official Report, 19 May 2020; Vol. 676, c. 494.]
However, care homes, like the NHS, struggled with the most desperate of personal protective equipment shortages. He was telling us in March from the Dispatch Box that supplies were extensive, but apparently in private, in Downing Street, he was blaming Simon Stevens for the lack of PPE.
The reality is that the Secretary of State and his Department were responsible for PPE, and the National Audit Office report said that the supplies were inadequate. Some 850 healthcare workers died. How many could have been saved had they had PPE? Families lost loved ones and have been let down by the Government, the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary, but the truth matters. Those families and the country deserve clear answers from the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister today.
Matt Hancock
The allegations that were put yesterday and repeated by the right hon. Gentleman are serious, and I welcome the opportunity to come to the House to put formally on the record that these unsubstantiated allegations around honesty are not true, and that I have been straight with people in public and in private throughout. Every day since I began working on the response to the pandemic last January, I have got up each morning and asked, “What must I do to protect life?” That is the job of a Health Secretary in a pandemic.
We have taken an approach of openness, transparency and explanation of both what we know and what we do not know. I was looking at it this morning. Since last January, I have attended this House more than 60 times. With the Prime Minister, we have together hosted 84 press conferences. I have answered 2,667 contributions to this House and answered questions from colleagues, the media and the public, and we will keep on with that spirit of openness and transparency throughout. As well as coming to the House today, I will answer questions and host another press conference later.
Sometimes what we have had to say has not been easy. We have had to level with people when it has been tough—when things have been going in the wrong direction. Also, we have learned throughout. We have applied that learning both to tackling this pandemic and ensuring that we are as well prepared in the future as possible, but beyond all that what matters remains the same: getting vaccinated, getting tested, delivering for our country, overcoming this disease and saving lives. That is what matters to the British people.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
The House should know that when serious allegations were made at yesterday’s Joint Committee hearing, we asked for evidence to be provided, and until such evidence is provided, those allegations should be regarded as unproven. In the meantime, we are in the midst of a pandemic, and we need the Health Secretary to be doing his job with his customary energy and commitment.
I want to ask my right hon. Friend about comments made by Neil Ferguson on this morning’s “Today” programme. He said that the Indian variant is now dominant in the majority of local authority areas and, indeed, is the dominant variant, and that the opening date of 21 June is now in the balance. Given how desperate businesses up and down the country are to return to normal, what additional measures can my right hon. Friend take in the short term to ensure that, in terms of surge testing, the vaccine roll-out and improvements to Test and Trace, we really are able to open up as everyone wants on 21 June?
Matt Hancock
It is true that the Indian variant is spreading across the country, and estimates vary as to what proportion of new cases each day involve that variant first identified in India, which is more transmissible. My assessment is that it is too early to say whether we can take the full step 4 on 21 June. Like my right hon. Friend, I desperately want us to do so, but we will only do that if it is safe. We will make a formal assessment ahead of 14 June as to what step we can take on 21 June, and we will be driven by the data and advised on and guided by the science, and we will be fully transparent in those decisions, both with this House and with the public. That is the approach we have taken, that is the approach he and his Select Committee would expect, and that is what we will deliver.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]
In Dominic Cummings’ opening statement yesterday, he said:
“The truth is that senior Ministers, senior officials and senior advisers… fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its Government in a crisis like this. When the public needed us most,”
we “failed.” We then heard a litany of evidence that the disease was not taken seriously in February last year, further compounded by the ignoring of SAGE advice to lockdown in September, resulting in a worse second wave. Does the Health Secretary agree that the UK Government failed the public? Had he acted sooner, how many lives could have been saved or restrictions avoided? Will he act urgently to prevent further unnecessary suffering and death in the immediate future by holding a comprehensive public inquiry immediately?
Matt Hancock
I have been working on the pandemic since January of last year—before the disease was even evident in this country. That is when we kicked off work on the vaccine, and I was told at first that it would typically take five years to develop a vaccine. I insisted that we drove at that as fast as we possibly could, and I am delighted at the progress that we have been able to make.
Of course it is right that we learn from everything that we understand and everything that we see and all the scientific advances. We should do that all the way through. This idea that we should wait for an inquiry in order to learn is wrong, but it is right that we go through all that happened at the appropriate time in order to ensure that we are best prepared for the inevitable pandemics of the future.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con) [V]
I thank my right hon. Friend for his visit to the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro earlier this week. We met staff, toured the site of the new oncology wing and looked at the start-of-the-art plans for the new women and children’s hospital—part of our manifesto promise for 40 new hospitals.
Given the gravity of the situation that the Government faced at the beginning of the pandemic, and considering we now know that Dominic Cummings was a hugely disruptive force, I congratulate Ministers, not least my right hon. Friend, on staying focused on the evidence presented by the experts at the time as events changed quickly. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will ignore unsubstantiated Westminster gossip and stay focused on delivering the vaccine roll-out and our manifesto promises?
Matt Hancock
I think that is what the public expect us to do. I had a brilliant visit to Cornwall on Monday. It was a pleasure to go to Treliske to see my hon. Friend there and to talk about the new women and children’s hospital that we are building as part of the biggest ever investment in healthcare in Cornwall. Delivering on these priorities on which we were elected, and of course dealing with this pandemic and keeping people safe, is what the public want to see. That is what the expectations of the public are and it is my total focus.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) [V]
There was no manual to guide Governments going into this new global pandemic and most people feel that the Government responded as well as anybody could. In particular, over the past six months government has worked well together to deliver a phenomenal amount of testing and one of the best vaccine roll-outs in the world. Is the Secretary of State aware of anything that has changed during that time to help the way that government has worked on improving the covid response?
Matt Hancock
All I would say to my hon. Friend is that it is very difficult responding to an unprecedented challenge of this scale, but over the past six months people have seen that governing has become a little easier and we are being able to deliver.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]
In February, I called for localised, community-based vaccination centres, and I want to pay tribute to Dr Helen Wall, Bolton’s clinical commissioning group, the NHS and volunteers for the roll-out of the vaccine. Last week, my constituents were wrongly accused of vaccine hesitancy, and then we had a quasi-lockdown that no one knew about and many people’s travel plans were thrown into chaos. My constituents can forgive the Government for that, but I am sure I speak for the country when I say that we cannot forgive the fact that:
“Tens of thousands of people died, who didn't need to die”.
Those were the chilling words of Dominic Cummings. Will the Secretary of State tell me when the Prime Minister and others will be investigated by the police for alleged corporate manslaughter? Why did we not follow the example of New Zealand, where they managed to control the virus with a minimum number of deaths?
Matt Hancock
What I would say to the people of Bolton is that they have again risen to this challenge. The number of vaccinations happening in Bolton right now is phenomenal—tens of thousands every single day.[Official Report, 7 June 2021, Vol. 696, c. 2MC.] It is heartening to see the queues of people coming forward both for testing and for vaccinations in Bolton. This has not been an easy pandemic anywhere, but it has been especially difficult in Bolton. In particular I want to pay tribute to the leadership of Bolton Council and Councillor David Greenhalgh, who has done such a remarkable job in very difficult circumstances.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con) [V]
I thank my right hon. Friend for visiting North Devon District Hospital this week, where he personally thanked the wonderful staff and discussed future development plans. While this Government have worked tirelessly to save lives and protect our NHS, Labour has spent the past year flip-flopping over curfews, lockdowns, schools and our borders, and I am sure he shares my disappointment that even now the Labour party is still more interested in playing politics than working constructively with us. So may I seek his reassurance that as we emerge from the pandemic he is committed to lowering NHS waiting times and improving access to vital GP services, as he continues to make sure that everybody who need care gets care?
Matt Hancock
Absolutely I am. GP access, in particular, is very important. This morning, I met the British Medical Association and the BMA GP leadership to talk about what more we can do to strengthen access to GPs. These are the sorts of things that matter to our constituents, as does the new hospital that we are going to build in my hon. Friend’s constituency. It was a wonderful visit to Devon on Tuesday, and it has been great going around the country to look at what we can do to invest further in the NHS, strengthen it and support it to deliver better care. North Devon does not have a better champion than my hon. Friend. As for what she said about the Opposition, all I can say is that sometimes the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) offers constructive criticism, he has generally had a good crisis and perhaps he will return to that approach soon.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]
In the words of the Prime Minister’s former chief adviser:
“Quite the opposite of putting a shield around them, we sent people with covid back to the care homes.”
If that is true, this is one of the biggest scandals and tragedies of the pandemic. Can the Secretary of State please confirm when testing on discharge from hospitals into care homes was routinely offered? Will he apologise to the tens of thousands of bereaved family members whose relatives died in care homes?
Matt Hancock
It has been an incredibly difficult time for those who have worked in and lived in care homes throughout this pandemic. That has been true across the world, and I pay tribute to the staff in social care who have done so much. It was, of course, a difficult challenge, especially at the start when many characteristics of this virus were unknown. As I have answered many times in this House, we have published full details of the approach that we are taking and that we have taken. We have worked with the care home sector as much as possible to keep people safe and followed the clinical advice on the appropriate way forward.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
May I take the Secretary of State back to what he said in his statement about the B1617.2 variant first discovered in India, which I think will be of the most concern to my constituents and the country in the days and weeks ahead? We are bound to see an increase in cases as we open up; that is inevitable. The important thing is breaking that link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths. My understanding of all the current evidence is that our vaccines are very effective in stopping serious disease, including from that B1617.2 variant. If that remains the case, does he agree that, on 15 June, there would be no reason not to go ahead with opening up fully on 21 June? That is the important question to which we need an answer.
Matt Hancock
That is literally the most important question to which we do not yet have a full answer. The data that we have suggest that, in the hotspot areas, around one in 10 of those in hospital are people who have had both jabs. That is a function both of the protection that we get from the vaccine against this variant and also of the age profile of those who are catching the disease. Those who have not been vaccinated include those who are old enough to have been offered the jab and those who have not yet been offered the jab. The fact that 90% of the people in hospital are those who have not yet been double vaccinated gives us a high degree of confidence that the vaccine is highly effective, but the fact that 10% of people in hospital have been double vaccinated shows that the vaccine is not 100% effective. We already knew that, but we are better able to calibrate as we see these data. We will learn more about this over the forthcoming week or two before we make and publish an assessment ahead of 14 June about what the data are saying about taking the step that is pencilled in for not before 21 June.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for all that he has done to deal with the coronavirus disease and for the roll-out of the vaccine. My mother-in-law died last year from the virus. On Monday, she was taken to hospital, and five days later we lost her. I want to put it on record that we do not blame anybody, but we miss her every single day.
There are those in Northern Ireland who have questions to which they need answers. Our Prime Minister has committed himself to an inquiry, and the Secretary of State has committed himself to that inquiry. I want to ensure that those people from Northern Ireland who have lost loved ones and who have sincere questions can ask their questions—they do not want to blame anybody—and get an answer. Will the Secretary of State assure us that people from Northern Ireland who have those questions can and will be part of that inquiry?
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, like me, will welcome the fact that this morning Northern Ireland has been able to open up vaccination to all adults over the age of 18, showing the progress that we are able to make working together with the UK vaccination programme and local delivery through the Department of Health in Northern Ireland. Of course the inquiry must and will cover the entire United Kingdom. In the three nations that have devolved Administrations, of course it will have to cover the activities both of the UK Government and of the devolved Administrations. Exactly how that is structured is yet to be determined and it will be done in consultation with the devolved Administrations. But as he rightly says, it is vital that we use the inquiry to ensure that people can ask questions and get answers in all parts of the United Kingdom.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con) [V]
Everyone recognises that lessons can be learned as a result of this pandemic and we do not necessarily need to wait for the inquiry to take place. Does the Secretary of State share my view that integration of health and social care is critical and would absolutely be a lesson to be learned from the pandemic? I was delighted to welcome him to the Isles of Scilly on Monday—the first visit of a Health Secretary, we understand, at any time. Will he affirm that the model that we are developing on the Isles of Scilly to integrate health and social care and improve the outcomes for everyone living there is right for the islands but also a model that could be used elsewhere across the United Kingdom?
Matt Hancock
Yes, absolutely. It was an enormous pleasure to go to the Isles of Scilly on Monday morning. I did not know that I was the first Health Secretary ever to visit the Isle of Scilly, but frankly it is so wonderful that I would really quite like to be back there before too long. The integration of health and social care that my hon. Friend mentions is happening on Scilly. It is important on Scilly, but it is actually a lesson for everywhere. I have discussed it with the new Conservative-led Cornwall Council—the first ever majority Conservative-led Cornwall Council. The team there and on the Isles of Scilly are doing a great job of integrating health and social care. Scilly, in particular, needs investment in its health infrastructure and support because it is more remote than almost anywhere else. We will deliver these things. Throughout the length and breadth of this country, we will invest in the NHS and integrate health and social care. The Isles of Scilly could hope for no better advocate than my hon. Friend.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba) [V]
Yesterday’s revelations have only served to reinforce what many have suspected: a tale of chaos, deception, dishonesty and failure, including the reckless suggestion of herd immunity and chickenpox parties. While so many watched aghast, the Secretary of State chose to respond to these very serious allegations by claiming he had been too busy saving lives to even bother. My enduring memory of the Secretary of State yesterday will be of him quite literally running away from his responsibilities.
I want to focus on one vitally important matter that emerged yesterday regarding deaths in care homes. Did the Secretary of State, as alleged, categorically tell Mr Cummings and unspecified others that people would be tested before being transferred into care homes? If he did not, why then was transfer without testing the adopted policy across England and the devolved Governments, including Scotland? On 17 October last year, I asked the Secretary of State to consider tendering his resignation. Surely if all these allegations are substantiated, he must do so.
Matt Hancock
So many of the allegations yesterday were unsubstantiated. The hon. Gentleman’s most important point was that the Scottish Government, with their responsibilities for social care, had to respond to the same challenges and dilemmas as we did, as did other countries across Europe and across the world. We were driving incredibly hard as one United Kingdom to increase testing volumes. We successfully increased testing volumes, including through the important use of the 100,000 testing target, which had a material impact on accelerating the increase in testing, and because of this increased testing we were able to spread the use of tests more broadly. It was the same challenge for the Administration in Edinburgh as it was here in Westminster, and the best way to rise to these challenges is to do so working together.
Mr Speaker
We have a connection problem with the line to Dr Andrew Murrison so we will go straight to Caroline Lucas.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]
The families of the bereaved deserve better than the grotesque pantomime of the Cummings evidence session yesterday. At the very least, they deserve the publication of the internal lessons learned review. A constituent of mine whose father died from covid acquired in hospital wrote to me to say that the refusal to release it is
“an insult to bereaved family members, who, in the midst of our own suffering, are determined to prevent other families from experiencing the loss we have”.
She is right because the big question is not just about mistakes the Government made last March, but why Ministers never learn from those errors and continue on a path that risks lives and livelihoods. The Secretary of State says he is being straight with the public and this House, so as continued Government negligence risks a third wave of the pandemic, will he finally publish that review urgently, not least so that it can be scrutinised before restrictions are due to be lifted next month?
Matt Hancock
Of course, we learn lessons all the way through and we follow the scientific developments that teach us more about this virus all the way through, and then we will also have a full inquiry afterwards to make sure that we can learn further lessons for the future. The thing I did not quite understand about the hon. Lady’s question is why she did not refer to the single most important programme that is saving lives, which is the vaccination programme. She should be urging her constituents and others to come forward and get the jab because that is our way out of this pandemic.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Thanks to this Government and the vaccine taskforce led by Kate Bingham, it is Britain that has led the way in vaccinations and it is Britain that has given so much to the world through our vaccination technology and innovation. Globally, over 1 billion jabs have now been given, most of them Pfizer, Moderna or Oxford-AstraZeneca, and it is this Government who backed Oxford university with over £60 million of funding to give the gift of hope to the world. So may I thank the Secretary of State for his efforts and his remarkable achievements in this regard, and may I ask him when he thinks the Teesside vaccine, Novavax, will be approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency?
Matt Hancock
The last point is very tempting, but I will leave it to the independent regulator to make that decision and determine its timing—but we are all very excited about the progress of the Teesside vaccine, as my hon. Friend calls it, the Novavax vaccine. He is also right to raise the point about vaccinations around the world. The UK can be very proud of having played such a critical role because of the investment we made in the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine right at the start of this pandemic, and because we decided together with Oxford university and AstraZeneca to make this vaccine available at cost around the world. I can give the House an update: over 450 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine have now been deployed around the world at cost. That is the single biggest gift to the world that we could make with respect to vaccines. It is because of the attitude that the Government took, working with one of our greatest universities and working with one of our greatest industrial partners. It is another example of the big team effort that is helping in this case the whole world get out of this pandemic.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) [V]
At Prime Minister’s Question Time in July, I raised concerns of a care home owner in Bedford who was told as late as 21 May that, if she refused to accept the return from hospital of a covid-positive patient, they would be discharged to an unfamiliar home. I know the Secretary of State is desperate to dismiss Mr Cummings’ version of events on care homes, but to do so would mean calling the care home owner a liar. Who is responsible for the high numbers of unnecessary deaths: the Health Secretary or the Prime Minister?
Matt Hancock
As I said, we have answered this question many times before. What I would add to those answers is that it is another example of constantly learning about the virus. As we learned the impact of asymptomatic transmission in particular, we changed the protocols in care homes over the summer and put in place the winter plan that led to a greater degree of protection in care homes over the second peak. We are constantly looking to make sure that we can learn as much as possible and work with the sector to help people to stay as safe as possible.
Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con) [V]
Mr Speaker,
“When it comes to the Health Secretary, I’m a fan.”
Those are not my effusive words; they come from some of the highest levels among our health team in Bolton. Like colleagues on both sides of the House, we have been on countless calls with the Health Secretary, with upwards of 100 MPs on many occasions. As he has done today, he has taken the time to respond or come back after each and every interaction with helpful advice and solutions. I say this in private, I say it in public, and I say it—this is a plug—in the “Red Box” in The Times today: these last two weeks, he has thrown his Department’s kitchen sink at Bolton to help us through the recent variant-driven spike. Can he provide an update on the current situation, as well as giving a continued commitment to work hard for Bolton?
Mr Speaker
I presume it’s your red box the hon. Gentleman refers to, Secretary of State.
Matt Hancock
There are issues around Bolton in my red box very regularly, Mr Speaker. I was waiting on tenterhooks to find out whether, as well as his constituent being a fan, my hon. Friend is a fan—maybe he can tell me later in private. But he makes a very serious point: we have a significant challenge in Bolton right now, with a high rate of covid transmission, and we have done everything we possibly can to support Boltonians to solve this problem with increased vaccination. It is great to see the huge enthusiasm for vaccination and the queues of people coming forward. I say to everybody in Bolton, “Please come forward if you have not had both jabs yet.” Also, the testing effort, which has seen people come forward and get tested, is helping us to break the chains of transmission. That is the approach that we are trying to take now that we have built this huge vaccine and testing infrastructure over the past few months.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [V]
The Secretary of State claims that he has always been straight, yet his response to my question last week suggests otherwise. Remember, he was not straight over the need for higher-grade FFP3 masks for our frontline NHS and care workers, he was not straight over the need for the public to wear masks at the start of the pandemic, and he has not been straight over Test and Trace, for example with his fabricated test numbers last April. Given yesterday’s revelations, however, will he apologise to Warwickshire families for the 344 excess deaths resulting from his decision to discharge hospital patients directly into our care homes?
Matt Hancock
I do not recognise those figures, but I do recognise the enormous challenge of keeping people safe in care homes at the height of a pandemic in unprecedented circumstances. The other thing that I would say is that in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency we are building one of the biggest testing laboratories, if not the biggest, that this country has ever seen. The ability to have this huge testing capacity is an asset that this country has. It will mean not only that we can help to tackle the virus now, spot the new variants and make sure that we have an understanding of where it might be popping up—such as in Bolton, for instance—but that we are better prepared in future. I would like to work with the hon. Gentleman to deliver this brilliant laboratory in Leamington Spa and make sure that it is a model for how we do diagnostics. That working together is the best approach that we can take.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) [V]
How does my right hon. Friend account for the yawning difference between the account given to the Select Committee yesterday and rehearsed by the Opposition today, and the balanced and objective accounts that continue to be given by the National Audit Office on this pandemic, notably the one published earlier this month detailing the Government’s response to the pandemic? May I ask specifically how he will take forward one of the principal recommendations of that report—that we need to plan for a sustainable healthcare workforce that can be organised at pace in the event of a future emergency of this sort, and that we particularly need individuals who are properly skilled and updated to fill gaps that may arise as a result of a future pandemic?
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend is quite right on both points. Not only have we been transparent and accountable to this House, and straight with this House about the challenges, but we have welcomed the National Audit Office into Government throughout the pandemic, and it has published repeatedly. For instance, it published on personal protective equipment, showing that we successfully avoided a national outage of PPE. It has reported on every aspect of the pandemic, and we have learned the lessons that are in those reports. I recommend to the House the National Audit Office’s latest publication, which summarises all these lessons and learnings. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that one of those is making sure that we have high-quality workforce planning for the future.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend noted the various ironies of yesterday’s Committee? It must be personally difficult for him and others who needlessly defended someone so willing to throw them into the road—presumably a road full of those behind the wheel testing their eyesight. But is not the greater irony the strange epiphany in many who have gone from regarding the Prime Minister’s former adviser as a latter-day King Herod whose words and deeds could not be trusted, to regarding him as a prophet who, fresh from the wilderness, brings with him supposed truths written on tablets of stone? Irony of ironies, all is irony.
Matt Hancock
I think what the constituents we serve are looking for is a Government who are focused four-square on delivering for them, getting us out of this pandemic and building back better. Observations on ironies I will leave to my hon. Friend.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP) [V]
Delaying a public inquiry until 2022 could lead to the rewriting of memories, the potential loss of key documents and a lack of full transparency on the decisions that were taken based on the evidence. Given the seriousness of the testimony of Mr Cummings, including that statement, the scale of the disaster is so big that people need to understand how the Government failed them and learn from it. Does the Secretary of State agree that we need a quicker start to a public inquiry than the Government currently plan?
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
What do we know about the Secretary of State? We know that he is exceptionally hard-working, and that every day he woke up to try to save lives. He has been exceptionally good at coming to the House and answering questions. He has also held press conferences and answered questions from journalists. Yet yesterday, we had some outrageous claims by an unelected Spad who broke covid regulations, admitted he had leaked stuff to the BBC, and by his own admission was not fit to be in No. 10 Downing Street. Does the Secretary of State agree that the only mistake the Prime Minister made in this pandemic was that he did not fire Dominic Cummings early enough?
Matt Hancock
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. I will continue to compliment him while I think of how to respond. The honest truth is that, from the start, I have been totally focused on how to get out of this pandemic. It is absolutely true that the operation and functioning of Government has got easier these last six months, and I think all the public can see that. We are laser focused on getting through this, getting this country out of it and delivering the vaccine programme that we have now been working on for almost a year and a half, which is remarkable. I pay tribute to all those who have been working on this effort. The way to fight a pandemic is by bringing people together and inspiring hope.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab) [V]
Five hundred and nineteen residents in my borough of Tower Hamlets have lost their lives to covid—in my own family, we have lost five of our relatives—and their family members are grappling with that loss to this day. The hearings yesterday were incredibly distressing. Mr Cummings has admitted to Government failures in handling the pandemic, and said that it meant
“tens of thousands of people died who did not need to die”.
Out of respect for the over 128,000 families of people who have lost their lives, will the Secretary of State admit to the failures today and apologise? Will he, instead of his simple no to the earlier question, bring forward urgently the date of the inquiry, because families like ours, those of my constituents and all those who have lost loved ones up and down the country deserve answers now and deserve for lessons to be learned so that these mistakes are never made again?
Matt Hancock
The pandemic has taken far too many people away far too soon, and that has happened in the hon. Member’s family and it has happened in mine. She is absolutely right that we need to ensure that we learn as a country how to prepare as well as we possibly can for pandemics in the future—because it is likely that pandemics will become more frequent, not less—and it is vital that people have the opportunity to get answers. We must learn the lessons all the way through, not just wait until afterwards, and we must have a full inquiry afterwards, so that we can ensure that every detail is assessed and everybody has the opportunity to ask those questions. I think that is the right approach.
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
On Sunday, I had the absolute joy of going to the Winding Wheel in Chesterfield and receiving my first vaccine. Will my right hon. Friend thank all the volunteers and staff at the Winding Wheel for what they have been doing? Can he tell me what monitoring has been happening at the Department of Health of an outbreak of opportunism and revisionism that seems to be spreading through Opposition politicians? If it helps, I have an idea of who patient zero might be for that outbreak—Captain Hindsight, if you will.
Matt Hancock
I am absolutely delighted my hon. Friend has had his first jab; I did not know he was old enough yet. It is very important that you take decisions in government based on the information that you have at the time. Of course, you can go and assess things based on information you have afterwards, but you can only take decisions on the information that you have, and that is why an unprecedented crisis like this leads to unprecedented challenges, and what you have to do is tackle those challenges as best you possibly can.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab) [V]
At the start of this pandemic, covid-19 was seeded into care homes by a discharge policy that required care homes to take asymptomatic patients. A letter from Kent and Medway CCG to care providers dated 26 March 2020 made it clear that they were asked to take such patients whether they had been tested or not. Yesterday, the joint Select Committee inquiry heard that the Prime Minister was told by the Secretary of State that testing would be in place for these patients. I am asking quite specifically: did he know that the discharge process did not require testing, and did he sign off this policy, which led to thousands of avoidable deaths of vulnerable people and many deaths of care staff?
Matt Hancock
I have answered this question many times, and the challenge is that we had to build the testing capacity. At that time, of course I was focused on protecting people in care homes and in building that testing capacity, so that we had the daily tests to be able to ensure that availability was more widespread. That is at the heart of the importance of the then 100,000 target, and we are now up to a position where we have millions of tests available per day.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Surely it cannot be in anyone’s interests, least of all those who are mourning loved ones, for the mob to descend and judge and preoccupy my right hon. Friend at this point in the pandemic. The Government have made clear that there will be a full public inquiry, and that is when hindsight can and should prevail. Now, surely, it is in all our interests that he gets on with his work, bringing his experience to bear on saving lives and carrying out this excellent vaccination programme. Will he meet a cross-party delegation of West Midlands metropolitan leaders who are keen to work with him to deliver those common objectives?
Matt Hancock
Yes, those are common objectives. The way my right hon. Friend puts it is absolutely spot on. I would be delighted to meet him and west midlands leaders to ensure we can roll out the vaccination effort as quickly and as effectively as possible in order to both save lives and get us out of this pandemic.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
Is the Secretary of State aware that, by and large, many of us who have been in Parliament for a long time prefer Select Committee inquiries to public inquiries, because we get a faster and sharper look at a problem while the evidence is fresh? I know he has been very good at coming back quickly to Members of Parliament, including myself in Huddersfield in Kirklees. However, last week was not as good as possible. It seemed that he did not give us a heads-up and we were very much taken aback by the new advice given to local authorities like mine.
One last point: the fact of the matter is that this pandemic and these viruses have not gone away. The disturbing thing that came out of yesterday’s evidence was that there seemed not to have been any national plan for this sort of emergency. Every local authority has an emergency plan. Have we now got one?
Matt Hancock
Of course, we have learned a huge amount about how to respond to a pandemic. We have built assets and capabilities such as the vaccination programme and the testing, which is so important both to protect people directly and break the chains of transmission, and to understand where the virus is spreading.
I am glad that we cleared up the issue the hon. Gentleman raised with respect to Kirklees. I worked with colleagues in Kirklees and elsewhere while I was in the west country to make sure that we got the best possible solution to the need in Kirklees: to have a turbocharge on the vaccination programme, to have mass testing to break the chains of transmission, and for people to be cautious and take personal responsibility as we lift measures to make sure that things stay under control.
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said about me personally, and for the leadership he has shown in his community.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con) [V]
Yesterday, our Committee meeting was supposed to be about lessons learned. In that spirit, we know that the World Health Organisation stated on 14 January that there was no human transmission. On 11 February, the WHO actually named the virus. We then know that on 14 February, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, in update No. 4, stated that the risk to health systems in the EU and the UK was “low to moderate” and the risk to the population was “low”. We also know that the UK had a plan, but it was mainly based around flu, not brand new viruses. Look at where we are now. Is not the biggest lesson learned that we need a global response and a global resilience plan? Will the Health Secretary be pushing the Prime Minister to make that case at the G7, when we host it here in the UK in June?
Matt Hancock
I think that is one of the lessons. I do not need to push the Prime Minister on that; he is absolutely seized of the point. We will be developing the work on that next week at the Health Ministers G7, which is being held in Oxford, and then, of course, at the leaders’ summit which is being held in Cornwall later next month. My hon. Friend is absolutely right in the view he takes as to the importance of reforming and strengthening the global institutions, as well as learning the lessons here at home.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Secretary of State spoke earlier about the donation of surplus vaccines and other PPE and medical equipment to India and other developing countries. How does that square with the Government’s determination to cut their overall contribution to international aid? Are those donations being counted towards the 0.7% or 0.5% targets and, if they are, can he assure us that that will not be to the detriment of other projects that were already committed towards those targets?
Matt Hancock
Of course we are donating items directly—for instance, to India, Nepal and others—but the single biggest global contribution that the UK has made is the Oxford vaccine, which is being delivered at cost by AstraZeneca around the world following funding from Oxford, AstraZeneca and the UK Government. That has already led to 450 million jabs globally, two thirds of which are in low and middle-income countries. Everybody, in all parts of this country, should be proud of that, and there was Scottish support in the development of that vaccine. Of course, we will do as much as we can within the official development assistance budget directly, but that decision to waive the intellectual property charge has been called for from others—from President Biden down—but it is something that we in this House and the whole country should be very proud of.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
The vaccine roll-out is going really well in my area and I cannot help but note that the turning of the tide against covid, because of that roll-out, seemed to exactly mirror the turning of the year. Is not it the case that, far from the world being divided into people who are either useless or brilliant and the British state failing at every turn, we have a Government in this country who did their best and a public who came together, as always in the UK, when the chips were down?
Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend, who was a superb Health Minister, has captured not just the spirit of what this country has been through in the last 18 months, but the spirit of the debate today in this House. The truth of the matter is that we work best when we work together, and we work together when we have a common mission, and the common mission has been tackling this virus. It is absolutely true that we must always do that with an open mind on how to do it better in future, but, in my view, the attitude needed is one where you welcome people in and take things forward in a spirit of positive partnership. That is how you get stuff done, and that is how we have made the progress we have been able to make.
Mr Speaker
I will now suspend the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Agricultural Exports from Australia: Tariffs
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if she will make a statement on the United Kingdom’s proposed tariff offer to the Australian Government on their agricultural exports.
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
Our trade agreement with Australia is very likely to be the first from-scratch deal that we have struck outside the European Union. It is a major milestone for global Britain and a major prize secured for our newly independent trade policy. It is on course to slash tariffs on iconic UK exports, saving business potentially about £115 million a year.
The deal will be the most advanced that Australia has struck with any nation bar New Zealand, and will, we expect, be particularly forward-leaning in areas such as services, procurement and digital trade. It will be a great deal for the UK, and our farmers will continue to thrive. The agreement is a gateway into the massive CPTPP—comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership—free trade area in the Asia-Pacific, and opens doors for our farmers into some of the biggest economies of now and the future.
Our food is among the best in the world and incredibly competitive. We should be positive, not fearful, of the opportunities that exist for our agriculture and our farmers. We give the EU preferential trading terms, which I do not recall those on the Opposition Benches objecting to. We should be unafraid of giving our Australian cousins something similar, taking the chance to deepen trading ties with one of our closest friends and allies.
Australian meat is high quality and produced to high standards, and it arrives here in low volume. Meanwhile, Australia has some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world. The UK accounts for just 0.15% of Australian beef exports, and our analysis suggests that any increase in imports is more likely to displace food arriving from the EU. Any deal we strike will contain protections for our farmers, any liberalisation will be staged over time, and any agreement is likely to include safeguards to defend against import surges. Negotiators are now working to agree the outstanding elements with the aim of reaching agreement in principle in June.
This is not the end of the process. Later this year, Parliament will be given ample opportunity to scrutinise the agreement—we welcome scrutiny of the agreement—as well as any legislative changes that may be required before the agreement enters into force. Parliamentarians will also receive an independently scrutinised impact assessment. Mr Speaker, you will know that our scrutiny arrangements are among the most robust, and in line with other parliamentary democracies. Indeed, in some areas we go further still.
This will be a great deal for our United Kingdom. It will deliver big benefits for both countries and will help us build back better from the covid pandemic. I commend it to the House.
Emily Thornberry
Let me make it clear at the outset that we support a trade deal with Australia that is designed in British interests and will create jobs in our economy and increase our exports and growth. What we cannot support is a deal being rushed through in time for the G7 summit without proper debate or consultation, let alone the advance scrutiny that the Government promised by the Trade and Agriculture Commission. We cannot support a deal on agricultural tariffs that will cost jobs in our farming communities, undercut our food standards, increase our carbon offshoring and open the door to the destruction of our farming industry through further lopsided trade deals.
As an exercise in intellectual honesty, I would just ask all those on the Conservative Benches, in the right-wing think-tanks and on the newspaper comment pages to consider for one second how they would have reacted if it was Brussels that had negotiated this trade deal and sold out Britain’s farmers. They would have been rightly furious, and they should not be any less so when it is their own Government who are doing the selling out. However, what matters now is to try to improve the deal on the table before it is signed in Cornwall.
Assuming that it is now too late to remove the offer of zero tariffs, can I ask the Minister of State to pursue three other changes? First, will he put in place a safeguard trigger—which, as I am sure he knows, Australia was willing to accept in its deals with Japan, China and the United States—to protect British farmers against surges in cheap imports? Secondly, will he make it clear that zero tariffs will apply only to Australian products that meet the same standards that British farmers are required to meet on food safety, animal welfare and environmental protections? Thirdly, will he insert a review clause into the deal so that, if its impact is even more negative than was forecast by the Government last year, there is scope both to amend the deal and to learn from it in future trade deals? Those are the bare minimum changes that we need to mitigate the damage that this rushed and botched negotiation is inevitably going to do, so I hope that the Minister of State will agree to pursue all three of those priorities today.
Greg Hands
I thank the right hon. Lady again for tabling this question. Let me answer each and every one of her questions. First, she said that this had been rushed through. I was at the Department at its inception in the summer of 2016, and one of the very first things that was announced in 2017 was our target for our initial batch of free trade agreements, which included Australia. That was back in 2017 and repeated by the current Secretary of State in 2019. She talked about the Trade and Agriculture Commission. This will be up and running soon—[Interruption.] If she is that keen to see it up and running soon, she might have supported the passage of the Trade Bill, which became the Trade Act 2021 just before Easter; instead, we saw her repeated manoeuvres to delay and undercut the Bill at the time.
The right hon. Lady talked about any deal potentially undercutting our food standards. I was absolutely clear in the statement that there will be no compromise on our standards of animal welfare, food safety and the environment. That is our manifesto commitment, and it has often been repeated. She made a point about emissions and food miles. There is controversy in relation to meat production emissions, but no more than 5% of emissions are reckoned to come from the transportation across oceans of that product.
Let us look at Australia’s current trade patterns. Only 0.15% of Australian exports come to the UK. Australia sells 75% of its beef and 70% of its lamb into Asia at the moment. That is where the fast-growing markets are, and that is something that we in the UK are seeking to get access to ourselves through agreements such as the CPTPP and other trade agreements. There is a big opportunity here for UK agriculture.
The right hon. Lady asked about a safeguard trigger. As I said in my opening statement, safeguard triggers are typical of free trade agreements. This is still a free trade agreement that is subject to a live negotiation, but I would say that these things are typical of free trade agreements. She asked if we would have zero tariffs if the Australian produce met our standards. The Australian lamb and beef coming into the market today meets our standards. There will be no change as a result of the free trade agreement to our standards. Australian beef and lamb will continue to have to meet our import standards. If that is the only objection to zero tariffs, I take it that she would welcome such a situation if there were zero tariffs in the deal. She also asked about a review clause. Again, that is a typical feature of free trade agreements.
The right hon. Lady has to explain why she is seemingly so opposed to such a trade deal with Australia, a key Commonwealth, Five Eyes and like-minded trade ally of the United Kingdom. She did not complain about the zero-tariff, zero-quota access for EU beef and lamb, which had no staging on it at all. Why does she do so for Australia? I believe her real problem is that she still wants to remain in or rejoin the EU, like her neighbour the Leader of the Opposition, and cannot see the benefits of doing any trade deal with Australia. I commend the prospective deal to the House and invite more progressive voices on the Opposition Benches to join us in backing an FTA with our close friends and allies.
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)
We have all heard much in recent days about the threat posed by large-scale, low-cost Australian meat production, but we all know that consumers care about quality. What opportunities does the Minister see in a free trade agreement with Australia for the hill farmers of Aberconwy, whose grass- fed stock can run freely across the rain-soaked hills of north Wales, breathing in the clean mountain air?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his constituents in general and his farmers in particular. There are great opportunities worldwide for the Welsh lamb sector. For example, British lamb is currently not allowed at all in America. We are looking at fast-growing Asian markets, and I refer back to the importance of the Australia deal as a springboard to CPTPP. Half of today’s global middle class is in Asia, and almost 90% of the next billion middle-class people in this world will be in Asia. That is where the growing demand for high-quality meat, such as the Welsh lamb produced by my hon. Friend’s constituents, can be found, and that is where I see great prospects and great opportunities for his constituents, his farmers and farmers across the United Kingdom.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP) [V]
Everybody wants more trade deals to be done, but the Minister simply is not listening to those at the sharp end. Martin Kennedy, president of the National Farmers Union Scotland, said:
“Our seafood industry has already been hit hard by Brexit and now Scottish farming is next to be sacrificed—and once again it’s Scotland’s key industries which will bear the brunt of a Tory Brexit people here did not vote for”.
NFU England has warned Ministers that farmers will struggle to compete if zero-tariff trade on lamb or beef went ahead. The RSPCA has warned that tariff-free access for Australia would betray the public, farmers and animals. Those are just some of the warnings to Government from those affected, not from politicians. Will the Minister rule out tariff-free access for Australian agricultural produce?
Nothing must threaten our actions to mitigate climate change. Australia is home to large energy and mining firms and has lagged behind other advanced economies when it comes to addressing climate change. Will the Minister guarantee that no deal with Australia will include investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms, or will he press ahead and betray not only today’s public, farmers and animals, but those of future generations?
Greg Hands
It is always good to hear from the hon. Gentleman. I noticed in his series of questions that there was, for example, no mention of the £113 million-worth of Scotch whisky sold into Australia at present that is subject to 5% tariffs. Australia is actually the eighth largest market by volume for Scotch and has been growing at 7% per annum. There was no mention of the opportunities for Scottish financial services, FinTech or agrifood more generally—we actually have an agrifood trade surplus with Australia.
The hon. Gentleman quotes NFU Scotland, which has great people. I have met Martin Kennedy personally twice in the last week, as well as the Scottish Government to discuss the prospect of this deal.
Let me reiterate: there will be no change in our standards as a result of this trade deal. We are absolutely committed to no compromise on our animal welfare, food safety or environmental standards.
The hon. Gentleman asked me to rule out tariff-free access to Australian agricultural products. There already is tariff-free access through an autonomous tariff rate quota. I think he seeks a rolling back of the trade arrangements we already have with Australia.
The hon. Gentleman asked about ISDS. It is a live negotiation, and there will be a chapter on investment. We are huge investors in each other’s markets, and I remind him that the UK has never lost an ISDS case.
However, the hon. Gentleman has serious questions to answer, too. Never in 20 years has the SNP supported any trade deal done by the UK or even by the EU, even though key sectors of the Scottish economy, such as whisky, apparel and fisheries, are dependent on our trade. SNP Members voted for a no-deal Brexit. They voted against deals with our friends, such as Canada, South Korea and South Africa. They did not support deals with Japan or Singapore. Whatever assurances I have given him today, or whatever turns out to be in the deal, I do not think it would make him and the SNP support this deal. When it comes to trade, the SNP is isolationist and against the best interests of Scotland.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
With the proposed free trade agreement with Australia potentially removing tariffs on all UK exports to Australia, does my right hon. Friend agree that that will save businesses across the United Kingdom millions of pounds—including in Buckinghamshire—support jobs across the nation, boost exports on products such as whisky, gin, cars and cheeses, and bring huge benefits to our agriculture sector?
Greg Hands
I know how important my hon. Friend’s agriculture sector is in Buckingham, and I can say that the deal we are trying to secure will be very beneficial to exporters of whisky, biscuits, cars, cheese, apparel, ceramics and gin, including gin makers in his constituency such as Foxdenton, Bucks Brothers and Butlers Cross.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
To support its agricultural industry, Australia has the highest rate of deforestation in the OECD and uses 71 hazardous substances that are currently banned in the UK. It is also one of the worst performers in tackling climate change, so how are the UK Government using the offer of zero quota and zero tariff access to persuade Australia to improve performance in this area?
Greg Hands
We are the COP26 chairs this year, and we look forward to full Australian participation. The Australian Government are absolutely committed to combating climate change. There may even be something on that in this agreement, which we are negotiating at the moment. In terms of where Australia is overall on our standards, it is worth bearing in mind that it does have high animal welfare standards. It is ranked five out of five by the World Organisation for Animal Health on its evaluation of the performance of veterinary services, and it is worth pointing out that Australian standards are high, but I repeat that there will be no compromise and no change as a result of this free trade agreement to our own food standards.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The Australian free trade agreement is a key step forward for both global Britain and the Indo-Pacific pivot, as well as a stepping stone towards a successful trans-Pacific partnership application. There are wide opportunities for Britain with a key member of the Commonwealth family, but does my right hon. Friend agree, first, that hormone-injected beef is illegal in this country, wherever it comes from? Secondly, does he agree that a combination of staggering the introduction of tariffs and targeted DEFRA assistance will ensure that upland farmers do not suffer in the alarmist way suggested by anti-free trade Opposition parties?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Hormone beef will remain illegal, because we will not be changing our import standards. I do not believe that this deal represents a fundamental threat to UK farmers, and it certainly does not compromise our high standards. As has already been pointed out, any changes for sensitive goods, such as beef and lamb, can be staged. A typical Australian free trade agreement has stages over 10, 12 or 15 years. He is right that there is an opportunity here: a springboard to CPTPP, which I know he understands well as our trade envoy to many parts of south-east Asia.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP) [V]
Farmers in my constituency produce first-class beef to the highest standards both environmentally and in terms of animal welfare, at considerable cost to the family farm. Does the Minister think it is fair to pitch these farmers against Australian farmers and their intensively produced imports, with lesser standards and great environmental impact?
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. In fact, I have met the Ulster Farmers Union twice in the past week to discuss these issues in particular. I met Diane Dodds, the Northern Ireland Economy Minister yesterday, and I am meeting Edwin Poots, the Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister, later today, so we are doing extensive outreach within Northern Ireland.
I would point out to the hon. Lady the huge opportunities for the Northern Irish agriculture sector. The very first beef exported to the United States last year came from Foyle Food Group in Northern Ireland. There are great opportunities for companies such as Moy Park as well in Northern Ireland to be able to export more. We are absolutely confident of being on the front foot, and ensuring that Northern Ireland also benefits from our free trade agreements, as it is written into the Northern Ireland protocol, and is able to sell more of its high quality meat into markets all around the world, including to the CPTPP 11.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con) [V]
Free trade has mutual economic benefits, for not just producers, as we have been discussing, but consumers, who get more choice. We must not lose sight of that. As the Minister said, the understanding is that the proposed free trade agreement with Australia would be a gateway to joining the CPTPP, which is a high-standards free trade agreement of 11 Pacific nations. Does he agree that doing so will mean lower tariffs for British exports to those markets, which will be an incredibly beneficial economic opportunity for British businesses?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is absolutely right on the CPTPP. He is also right to focus on consumers, who are a vital part of our trade agenda. Under the CPTPP, 95% of tariffs between members will be removed. We already do £110 billion-worth of trade with the CPTPP. It has very liberal rules of origin, gold-standard data and digital rules, a small and medium-sized enterprise chapter, and very favourable conditions for business visas as well. It will be a great agreement for the UK, and a key stepping stone to get there is this free trade agreement with our great friends in Australia.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
In an answer to me last Wednesday, the Prime Minister lectured Welsh farmers that they should be selling their beef and lamb to China and the United States. He seemed unaware of one minor detail: that we do not have a trade deal with either country. When will Welsh families be able to sell their lamb and beef to China and the United States, and what should Welsh farming families do in the meantime as the Government trash their income with this bad Australia deal?
Greg Hands
Again, we have done extensive outreach in Wales in recent times. I have met twice with both NFU Cymru and the Farmers’ Union of Wales. I also met with the Welsh Minister Vaughan Gething just yesterday. There are already British exports of beef and lamb to China, and of beef to the United States. I mentioned the first consignment of beef arriving last year. Getting our lamb into the United States is one of the key priorities of our trade agenda moving forward, but the China example shows that we do not always have to have a free trade agreement to be able to open doors for our high-quality agricultural produce. We have opened doors for British beef into Japan and British pork into Taiwan in recent years as well.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
Alongside our farmers, car manufacturers such as Nissan play a key role in constituencies such as mine, helping to secure high-skilled jobs and to create new opportunities for people across Stockton South and the north-east. In 2019, Nissan UK exported around 10,000 cars to Australia and another 10,000 in 2020. What impact might the free trade agreement with Australia have on UK car manufacturers such as Nissan?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is right: 10,000 cars go from Sunderland alone each year to Australia. That is a big volume of cars and a big amount of receipts as well. Cars make up just under 8% of all UK exports to Australia. They currently attract a 5% tariff. We are looking to reduce or remove that tariff in the agreement, and I look forward to making progress precisely on that issue to bring joy to his constituents soon.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)
Over 200 years ago during the highland clearances, people were shamefully replaced by sheep, for landlords’ profits. Now this trade deal threatens the supplanting of those sheep by cheap imports, for Tory dogma. What does it say about the Tory Government that they do not even care about Scottish sheep, let alone Scottish crofters and farmers?
Greg Hands
Well, let me say a few things about that. We have to understand the existing trade flows in beef and lamb from Australia. We have to understand the beef prices. Production costs in some of those Asian markets are twice those in the UK, which makes it very competitive for Australia to sell into markets such as Japan and Korea, where the domestic production price of beef, for example, is twice that in the UK. The Australian lamb quota for the UK is not even fully used at the moment.
Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con) [V]
Compromising on the high food standards we enjoy here in the UK must never be allowed; that is something on which we must never compromise. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that a free trade agreement with Australia will not allow hormone-fed beef into the UK, and that it will never be allowed to enter the UK under any free trade agreement?
Greg Hands
I can absolutely confirm that hormone beef will not be allowed into this country, and there will be no compromise, according to the manifesto that my hon. Friend and I stood on in December 2019—no compromise on our high standards of animal welfare, food safety and the environment—but that does not prevent us from importing produce from Australia. We already receive Australian beef and lamb. It is high quality, and I believe strongly that Australia will continue to sell good, high-quality produce to this country, which of course must continue to meet our unchanged import standards.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance) [V]
I recognise that the Minister is keen to highlight new markets for UK agrifood producers. However, the EU will remain by far the UK’s largest partner in food exports and imports. To what extent will any free trade agreement with Australia complicate or even preclude a UK-EU veterinary agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary issues, which surely should be a greater priority for the Government to assist UK food exporters and to address some of the tensions around the Northern Ireland protocol?
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. He is right that the EU will remain a large and important trading partner for us, particularly in agriculture. On his question about what impact an agreement with Australia would have, look, there will be no change to our standards as a result of the FTA—no change to our import standards. It should not have any impact on the EU.
We already have a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU, which is the trade and co-operation agreement, and I should point out that the EU has an extensive veterinary agreement with New Zealand. That agreement is of great interest in terms of it recognising the equivalence of New Zealand’s veterinary outcomes. I do not see any danger in a free trade agreement with Australia with respect to being able to maintain our trade with the EU.
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
Without doubt, farming is one of Britain’s finest industries, and we all want to ensure that British food production has the best opportunities available to it, so will my right hon. Friend explain the role that the newly created Trade and Agriculture Commission will play in scrutinising the free trade agreement? Will he also comment on the opportunities the FTA will create in Australia for our British food producers, as well as in the wider Asia-Pacific?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is right: this is about opportunity for the UK overall, and specifically for agriculture. It is a gateway to joining CPTPP. New trade deals will bring new export opportunities to British farmers. Global demand for beef and lamb is soaring. We should be wanting to fill part of that global demand. Meat consumption is projected to rise nearly 73% by 2050, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I simply do not understand the Government’s logic: good-quality British farming undermined, high animal welfare standards compromised, jobs and livelihoods bartered away—all for no financial gain to British farmers, but at significant cost to our climate. Will the Minister assure me that he will not sign any trade deal with Australia until he has satisfactorily answered the five challenges that Minette Batters of the National Farmers Union has set out today, which have the full support of farmers—first protecting their interests, rather than his own?
Greg Hands
I have already spoken about climate and the Australian Government’s commitment to the Paris accord, which we warmly welcome. We work very well together with Australia on environmental issues. On standards, I have already answered: there will be no compromise on our standards. May I say something about Australian animal welfare standards, as they sometimes get a little maligned in the press? They are ranked five out of five by the body concerned, the World Organisation for Animal Health—the OIE. Australia already sells naturally-grown beef and lamb into the UK. Our import standards will remain the same after the deal as before. For example, any hormone-grown beef would not meet our import standards.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
Businesses across the High Peak would welcome a trade deal with Australia, and the opportunities and jobs that that would bring. Will my right hon. Friend reassure the hill farmers of the Peak District, who, as we all know, produce the world’s best quality lamb, that their interests will be safeguarded and that the Government remain committed to the UK’s world-leading animal welfare standards, food standards and environmental protections?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I do not know of a bigger champion of his local farmers in the High Peak than him. He is right to say that there are opportunities here in exporting for his local farmers. I have already mentioned the US, where British lamb is currently not allowed in at all. Again there is big, fast-growing Asian demand for high-quality meat and the UK will be seeking a piece of the action by joining CPTPP, which I know will bring benefit to his excellent local farmers.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP) [V]
A huge number of constituents have written to me with deep concerns that the Government will sell out our standards for a trade deal. Although the UK is a world leader in sustainable farming and high animal welfare standards, Australian agriculture lags far behind. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Trade Justice Movement and Compassion in World Farming have voiced concerns that a deal with Australia would
“betray the public, farmers and animals”.
Chlorine-washed chicken, sow crates and battery-caged hens are all banned in the UK but are common practice in Australia. The Government have repeatedly promised that food standards will not be lowered in any trade negotiations, but can the Minister give a cast-iron guarantee and promise us that this tariff deal will guarantee that goods made to a lower standard will not be imported to the UK?
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Lady for that question, and there is a cast-iron guarantee that our standards will not be compromised on. She is an SNP Member, so may I say to her that it would be high time for the SNP to start thinking about whether it will ever back any trade deals? It never backed any trade deals promoted by the European Union, let alone by the UK, and the SNP aspires to rejoin the EU. On Australian standards, she might want to have a word with RSPCA Australia. I have already pointed out that Australian animal health standards are rated five out of five. Australia has also banned some practices that are not banned in the EU, such as the castration of chickens or the production of foie gras. So if she sat down with the RSPCA Australia, it might give her a robust view of how good Australian animal welfare standards are.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) [V]
May I commend my right hon. Friend on the trade deals that have been secured so far? Can he confirm that all these trade deals and the proposed one with Australia will add value to the UK economy without compromising existing trading arrangements with high-value, mature markets such as the EU, which are crucial to exporters in my constituency?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is right on that and he is right to highlight that this is not an either/or; this is not either we have trade with the EU or we have trade with non-EU trading partners. It is absolutely our objective, going back to the manifesto he and I were both elected on, to have 80% of UK trade to be covered by free trade agreements within three years. That includes the EU, but it also includes new trading partners. CPTPP represents 13% of GDP—that would rise to 16% when the UK joined- and it crosses four continents, including old friends such as Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand, as well as growing markets such as Vietnam and Mexico, where there are great opportunities for us to sell more UK agricultural produce and other things into.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
When I met farmers in Luton South, they stressed to me the importance of trade deals not undercutting our food and animal welfare standards. In Australia, live farm animals can be transported over land for slaughter for up to 48 hours without rest—six times the limit that is currently allowed in Britain. On the grounds of both ensuring a level, competitive playing field and ensuring the humane treatment of farm animals, does the Minister think it is appropriate to reduce tariffs to zero on meat from animals that have been subject to that sort of cruelty?
Greg Hands
I refer the hon. Lady back to the fact that Australia is highly rated by independent bodies for its high quality of animal health, rated five out of five by the World Organisation for Animal Health, and our import standards would not change as a result of this or any other free trade agreement.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
It seems that the animal welfare and food standards scaremongering is out in full force again. Does my right hon. Friend agree that given that Australia’s food standards are better than the European Union’s and that its animal welfare is equivalent to the United Kingdom’s, a free trade agreement with us will have an absolutely negligible impact on our own high UK standards?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we have said repeatedly, there will be no compromise on our own standards. I agree that Australia ranks very well overall. Obviously its standards are different, but overall its animal welfare standards rank extremely highly—five out of five. As I said, it banned practices that are prevalent in the EU, such as the castration of chickens and the production of foie gras. It is not a simple like-for-like comparison. The most important thing to note, though, is that our import standards will not be changed as a result of the deal.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
I do just wonder whether the Minister is aware that New Zealand and Australia are actually different countries. Farmers in Wales are very concerned about this deal, and rightly so in Gower. What reassurances can he give that unilateral trade liberalisation with Australia will not set a precedent for future deals?
Greg Hands
I am well aware that Australia and New Zealand are different countries. As the parliamentary president of Conservative Friends of Australia, I am pretty familiar with our two great friends and allies on the other side of the world. I think the hon. Lady is exaggerating the threat, as she sees it, from Australian agriculture. Australia is already exporting hugely into Asia, which is where our opportunities lie as well. When it comes to British beef in our supermarkets, there is strong “buy British” branding in the UK, and I do not see that changing overnight. Some 81% of beef sold in the UK has either UK or other home nations branding, and 100% in many of our major supermarkets. I do not see that changing as a result of any trade deal.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree that these trade deals should not be seen as the end of a conversation but the start of an ongoing one. Can he assure my constituents in the Black Country and businesses in the residual supply chain that, going forward, they will be placed at the heart of his negotiating strategy and that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In any trade deal, we have to look across the whole piece. His question is just about agriculture, but we should look at the other opportunities for the Black Country to benefit from—for example, 5% car tariffs and the huge amount of machinery sold by this country into Australia, including from Northern Ireland. There are other great opportunities in, for example, financial services, gin, vodka and cheese. Australian cheese tariffs can be as high as 21%. There are big opportunities for UK exporters not limited just to agriculture.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Farmers in Scotland and across the UK fear this trade deal with Australia could put them out of businesses and flood our supermarkets shelves with inferior-quality products. I know that the Minister rejects that and does not recognise those fears as being valid, so can he explain why it seems that our farmers and consumers simply do not understand how fabulous this deal is, or could it be that the Government are being disingenuous about the impact this deal will have on our farmers and our food?
Greg Hands
The hon. Lady used the word “disingenuous”, but I notice that, while she talks a good game about supporting British meat farming, her neighbouring SNP council, South Ayrshire Council, put out a tweet just recently encouraging residents to eat 75% less red meat. She cannot have it both ways: she cannot be encouraging less red meat consumption and then complaining about a trade deal that she thinks will import a lot more of it. I remind her that Scotland will benefit very strongly from this deal. I notice, again, that we do not hear anything from the SNP about Scotch whisky and the huge amount of other Scottish goods that we are selling in Australia through this deal.
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
Mr Speaker, the deep historical relationship that we have with Australia is perhaps exemplified by the fact that your Chair is a gift from Australia. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this agreement is an opportunity to deepen the relationship with our kith and kin in Australia and should be celebrated and championed and not denigrated?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have relatives right the way across Australia. My aunt emigrated there—I cannot remember what they were called. Was it the ten bob poms?
Greg Hands
The ten pound poms! Thank you, Mr Speaker. My aunt emigrated there in what must have been the late ‘50s. I have relatives there; many of us have relatives there. We have an incredibly strong and close relationship with Australia. It is not just about family and kinship; it runs across defence, security, culture and sport, and also trade. Australia is a major country when it comes to promoting global free trade. That is exactly the right place for this country to be in as well.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab) [V]
There is concern from farmers in Wales and across the UK who face the potential of losing out from an unlevel playing field as a result of this deal. Will the Minister publish a rigorous economic assessment of cumulative impacts on our farming communities if zero-tariff and zero-quota deals are agreed not only with Australia, but with other countries such as New Zealand, Canada, Brazil and others?
Greg Hands
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. In the past week, I have met twice with NFU Cymru and the Farmers Union of Wales to discuss a particular point. Before each negotiation, we publish a scoping assessment, which, obviously, does not have any idea what may or may not be in the deal. It looks at the concept of the deal. We then publish an impact assessment, which we will be doing later this year, when we can see the text of the deal. We will be involving Parliament, in the way that we did when we set up the Trade and Agriculture Commission, and that will inform that debate going forward. That is the right way to proceed and I am confident that our scrutiny arrangements are absolutely robust.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con) [V]
A free trade agreement between the UK and Australia is something that I welcome, as it can be of huge benefit to both our countries. We are the closest of friends and share so much in common. However, I share the concerns of farmers in Cumbria and across the UK that the FTA might damage our farming sector. It is important that Parliament is able to scrutinise these FTAs—something that is not happening with this deal. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act process is insufficient and the much-welcomed Trade and Agriculture Commission that we all fought for is now not currently constituted and is therefore not looking at this deal. Will the Government commit to meaningful parliamentary scrutiny of this agreement and act to reconstitute the Trade and Agriculture Commission immediately, and also consider tariff-rate quotas as a sensible way of safeguarding the agreement?
Greg Hands
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is hugely knowledgeable of this sector, especially in relation to agriculture, and I respect that. I am pleased that he welcomes the deal overall. The deal is not done yet, which is the first important thing to recognise. There is no text in front of us to scrutinise. The reconstituted Trade and Agriculture Commission will be set up soon and definitely in good time to scrutinise this deal. When it comes to safeguards, again that will be specified in the free trade agreement, but typically it will allow either party temporarily to increase tariffs or to suspend liberalisation in the event of an unexpected or unforeseen substantial increase in imports. Again, it is normal that, in a free trade agreement, those safeguards are in place.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Contrary to what the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said, I am not a member of a right-wing think tank; I am the son of a farmer and I represent a farming constituency. Nevertheless, I am very supportive of any trade deal with Australia that maintains a fair and level playing field. Will my right hon. Friend set out what exact role the Trade and Agriculture Commission will play in making sure that that is the case?
Greg Hands
I thank my hon. Friend, not least for his expertise in this sector. The role of the Trade and Agriculture Commission is set out in statute in both the Agriculture Act 2020 and the Trade Act 2021. We are expecting it to be set up soon, and we also have to respond to the report from the original Trade and Agriculture Commission set up last summer. I would expect it to be a panel of experts who will provide this Parliament—both Houses—with expert insight into the terms of this or any other free trade agreement, particularly in relation to agriculture and standards.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP) [V]
Does the Minister appreciate that doing this deal with Australia would wreck the UK’s reputation on environmental issues, since Australia has the highest rate of deforestation in the OECD, driven by the livestock industry, and Australian agriculture uses 71 highly hazardous substances that are banned in the UK, including neonicotinoids and hormone injections for beef? Does he think losing that reputation is a price worth paying for this trade deal?
Greg Hands
I am slightly surprised by the hon. Lady’s question, and again I repeat the fact that the SNP has never supported any trade deal so I am slightly doubtful that whatever reassurances I give her will make her change her mind. However, I say again that there will be no compromise on the UK’s food safety, animal welfare and environmental standards in relation to this or any other free trade agreement. Hormone-injected beef will not be allowed into this country. It is not allowed into this country today; our standards will be unchanged and it will not be allowed in the future. Australia does sell us beef and lamb, however, and I expect that will continue under this agreement.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend has said, global demand for lamb and beef is rising rapidly, particularly for British meats around the Asian-Pacific market. Does he therefore agree that the free trade agreements that he has already made and is currently pursuing are creating fantastic opportunities for British farmers, as confirmed by Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers Union, in her email to us earlier today?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is about opportunities; this is about opportunities for using UK free trade agreements to enter fast-growing markets around the world—the opportunity provided by the gateway of joining the CPTPP, a high-standards free trade agreement of 11 Pacific nations. However, we are not just waiting for free trade agreements; we are using talks on market access to make sure that our agricultural produce gets sold into the likes of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and others using our joint economic and trade committee, and making sure that, wherever possible, we can meet the growing demand for high-quality meat products in particular in Asian markets. I said earlier that meat consumption is projected to rise by nearly 73% by 2050; the vast majority of that will be in those fast-growing Asian markets.
Mr Speaker
I am now suspending the House for two minutes for the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Business of the House
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)
The business for the week commencing 7 June will include:
Monday 7 June—Remaining stages of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill.
Tuesday 8 June—Second Reading of the Compensation (London Capital & Finance Plc and Fraud Compensation Fund) Bill, followed by a motion relating to the appointment of external members to the House of Commons Commission, followed by a motion relating to the membership of the Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission, followed by a motion relating to the membership of the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
Wednesday 9 June—Opposition day (1st allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.
Thursday 10 June—General debate on support for the aviation, travel and tourism industries, followed by a general debate on world press freedom. The subjects for these debates were previously recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 11 June—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 14 June will include:
Monday 14 June—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions Bill.
Tuesday 15 June—Second Reading of the Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill.
Wednesday 16 June—Opposition day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.
Thursday 17 June—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 18 June—The House will not be sitting.
On Tuesday, the independent expert panel published its report on the conduct of the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts). I thank Sir Stephen Irwin and the panel for their work on this and other cases. The IEP has recommended the sanction of a six-week suspension, and a motion has been tabled so that the House can agree this after business questions today. The House will know that the sanctions determined by the independent expert panel fall outside the scope of the Recall of MPs Act 2015, which provides three conditions for a recall petition process, one of which is a suspension of a period of at least 10 sitting or 14 calendar days. For a recall to be initiated under the Act, the sanction must be applied on the recommendation of the Committee on Standards, or another Committee of the House of Commons concerned with standards of conduct. The independent expert panel is not a Committee of the House of Commons.
It may help if I remind the House of the background to the approach taken. The current arrangement was widely accepted at the time of the creation of the IEP. In particular, staff groups had made representations that recall would be an inappropriate consequence in independent complaints and grievance scheme cases. It was felt that the opening of a recall petition could have implications for the reporter’s confidentiality during the six weeks for which the recall petition is open and during any subsequent by-election campaign, should the 10% signing threshold be reached. In turn, it was felt that that could have an impact on the willingness of future complainants to come forward.
There was also concern about ensuring the independence of the process as far as possible, while recognising that it should, of course, be for the House to order suspension. However, that is not to say that there have not been concerns about the discrepancy between ICGS and non-ICGS cases when it comes to the interplay with the recall Act. I, too, have always been concerned by this matter. Following a case of this severity, in which it would be honourable for a Member to stand down after the withdrawal of the Whip, we need to look at whether the process is striking the right balance between independence, protecting the confidentiality of complainants and ensuring consistent outcomes across different types of conduct case. I can therefore confirm to the House that I have asked the chairman of the independent expert panel for his views on whether changes should be made to the current process to enable recall to be triggered. In my view, any changes in this regard should be made in the most straightforward way possible, and my preference would therefore be for a non-legislative solution.
This is ultimately a matter for the House, and the House of Commons Commission has always been involved in the establishment and running of the ICGS. I will look to work closely with you, Mr Speaker, and other members of the Commission, including of course the shadow Leader of the House—she has helpfully written to me this morning, and that is an important step forward in this process—on this and other matters.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the Leader of the House for that statement and for his words just then, which I will return to shortly, but, first, may I wish you, Mr Speaker, all colleagues and staff a safe and productive recess?
If a Member is suspended from Parliament for 10 or more sitting days by the Standards Committee for a breach of the code of conduct, their constituents can remove that MP and cause a by-election under the Recall of MPs Act, but when the independent expert panel recommends suspension for sexual misconduct under the independent complaints and grievance scheme, they cannot. This is a loophole, and we can work together to fix it. I am encouraged by what the Leader of the House said and the tone in which he said it. I would like to work with him to go further and quicker, and I agree that there are non-legislative solutions.
In what other job could someone who has carried out sexual misconduct not face losing that job? As the House will know, the Member found to have carried out sexual misconduct by the panel this week lost his appeal and will shortly be the subject of the motion on the Order Paper, as the Leader of the House said. Knowing the Leader of the House as I do and from his words, I know we share common cause here. There are workable solutions to what will be a stain on us all if the public see someone who has carried out sexual misconduct keep their job in this place.
According to advice I have had this week from House staff, to whom I am truly grateful, this could be done in various ways, without legislation. Of course, as the Leader of the House said, ideally the Member would do the honourable thing and resign forthwith, but retrospective rule change is possible, permissible and could apply, because this is above party politics. It is about the Government doing the right thing, and it is about maintaining safe working for our staff, because Parliament should be a beacon of good practice. Process should not be a shield for unacceptable behaviour.
If the Member does not resign, he should be subject to recall and, if he is not, we run the risk of appearing as if this House does not take sexual misconduct seriously, which of course we do. As the Leader of the House said, I wrote to him this morning to offer to work with him to close the loophole urgently and seek solutions. I hope he will consider either meeting me today or speaking to me over recess so we can sort this out.
On doing the right thing, if the Prime Minister insists on having cosy chats with anti-democratic purveyors of hate, will he promise to challenge them on their antisemitism, their homophobia and their undermining of the rule of law, starting with Viktor Orbán this week?
By contrast, 51 years ago this week, a Labour Government passed the Equal Pay Act 1970, after women campaigned for equality. This pandemic has set working women back, so will the Government mark the anniversary by reinstating mandatory gender pay gap reporting, and will they publish the long-awaited review into rape prosecutions so survivors in Bristol West and beyond can have hope of justice?
This week, we have had more chaos as people in Bedford, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Hounslow, Kirklees and North Tyneside found out that they had been subject to local lockdowns by stealth, without notice to them or their elected representatives. People trying to do the right thing cancelled events and family get-togethers they have waited so long for. The Government, having failed to act promptly on the surge of covid in India, which will have contributed to the increases in the variant, decided a buddy scheme would help people who were asked to isolate. Can the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how she expects a buddy scheme to pay the rent or feed children? Can he ask her instead to bring in adequate payments for people asked to isolate? Will he also ask the Culture Secretary to sort out guidance for amateur choirs so that people in his constituency and mine can sing together again, as they already can in sports stadiums?
Finally, I ask the Leader of the House and all hon. Members to look at the National Portrait Gallery’s online exhibition, “Hold Still”. These photographs of people in the UK in 2020 tell a painful story of sacrifice, generosity, courage and the love that British people have given each other in this national crisis: children touching a care home window as grandparents touch the other side; a smartly dressed man all alone watching a funeral online; a mother kissing her baby for the first time through a plastic sheet; hands held tightly, tears shed, the anguish of people caring for covid patients who sadly died and of those who love them. They are people who love this country. They deserve the best from their Government: one who prioritise good jobs and a strong economy, fix social care and affordable housing, protect the NHS and education, and halt climate change. I believe they are not getting that from this Government. They deserved a Government who took notice when the Opposition and the scientific experts argued for urgent action—not one who mocked and delayed, costing people dearly, but one who heeded all the recommendations of the pandemic preparedness exercise.
So that the Government can finally learn as quickly as possible the lessons of the past 14 months, and so that people can trust what they do next, will the Leader of the House now ask the Prime Minister to give us the date, scope and timetable of the public inquiry into his Government’s handling of the covid crisis, with survivors and bereaved people at its heart? From the top down, the Government owe the British people that. Thank you, Mr Speaker, and stay safe over recess.
Mr Rees-Mogg
May I join the hon. Lady in wishing everybody an enjoyable and restful recess? It is a much calmer approach to Whitsun this year than it was last year. I thank everybody for all they have done in the period between Easter and now.
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her constructive comments in relation to recall. It is not so much a loophole as an active decision that was made in response to the views expressed by staff groups. They were concerned about issues relating to confidentiality if recall were allowed on ICGS cases. They were also worried about the requirement to involve a Committee in the House of Commons. In my opinion, those worries are not proportionate to the need to be clear that this House and all politicians think that sexual misconduct is at the most serious level of misbehaviour. It is frankly ridiculous that we have a higher sanction for somebody who uses a few envelopes incorrectly than for somebody who is involved in sexual misconduct, although I reiterate the point on my feelings about how an hon. Member would behave in these circumstances. But I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s offer of support and I think, Mr Speaker, with the Commission, we can come up with a sensible solution.
On the visit by Viktor Orbán, Hungary is a very important ally of this country. It is crucial that we have sensible relationships with our allies, but that we are clear to our friends where we disagree with them. That is important not just with Hungary but with the whole range of countries we deal with. But Mr Orbán will be a very welcome visitor to this country.
The hon. Lady refers to the pay gap between men and women. Although it has been narrowing recently, the Government have been pushing forward with a considerable number of strategies to continue the equalities work that has been going on in this country for many decades, has seen considerable improvement and is a major part of the Government’s levelling-up objective. We should level up across every part of this country and ensure we have economic prosperity.
The hon. Lady mentioned stealth lockdowns. I think “stealth lockdown” is an odd way—dare I say, an eccentric way—of looking at it. What is changing is that we are moving from a situation of absolute law, like the Ten Commandments—people know what they can do and what they cannot do—to saying that there are guidelines that wise people will follow. We are trusting the people as the lockdown comes to an end. That is the right way to be going: with both guidance and the clarity of law passed by this House.
The hon. Lady makes a fair point about amateur choirs. I remind the House that I am the patron of the Mendip male voice choir. That is something that I take great pride in and I am looking forward to hearing them back in full voice in due course, but that is currently under stage 4 of the lockdown process.
The hon. Lady challenges the record of this Government. I think it is a record of which we can be very proud. That is not to say that no mistakes were made at stages during the pandemic—a pandemic that nobody knew about and nobody predicted, which came upon us like a thief in the night—but none the less, enormous strides were made. The economic provision that was made means that our economy is bounding back as well as almost any economy in the world, with £407 billion of taxpayers’ money ensuring that the structures of the economy were maintained, so that businesses, as demand comes back, have the supply to meet it in a non-inflationary way. There was the roll-out of the vaccine, a decision taken directly by the Prime Minister, with the vaccine tsar reporting directly to the Prime Minister. It is a terrific success and one this nation can be proud of. There is the ability we have had to ensure that the NHS was not overrun—that the NHS was able to cope—and the fantastic work that the NHS has done in supporting this country. There is our ability to send vaccines to some of the poorest countries in the world and to provide funding to help some of the poorest countries in the world. So not only have we done it for ourselves—not only have we got a record of which we can proud in this country—but we are helping globally.
We should recognise that, but, of course, there is a continual learning process about what went right and what went wrong and to do more of what went right and less of what went wrong. That is what is happening and there will, of course, by the end of this Session of Parliament, be an inquiry established to look into it all.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
Two police stations in my constituency are under threat of closure—one from the lease expiring and the other is likely to be sold by the Mayor of London. Given this Government’s enormous investment in the police, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to keep a physical police presence in north Kensington, and will he contemplate a debate on police stations generally in central London?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend raises an exceptionally important point. It is vital for MPs to campaign to ensure the safety of their constituents. We are recruiting as a Government—as a nation—20,000 additional police officers, and the latest published figures show that we have recruited 6,620 of them so far. It is worth remembering that the Mayor of London is the police and crime commissioner for London, so I welcome my hon. Friend scrutinising his distinctly poor record in office. The safety of Londoners should be his absolute priority, when it seems that he prefers to spend his time hiring press officers—marvellous though press officers are, I think police officers may be better at keeping the streets of London safe. I would recommend an Adjournment debate in the first instance, but she is right to hold the Mayor of London to account and to hold his feet to the fire.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
I welcome the statement from the Leader of the House in regard to the independent expert panel. It is critical that there is confidence that all the processes in place are robust and that there is an equality of outcome. Central to all that is the importance of confidentiality. That is such an important point in all such cases.
Earlier this week, the Government published a number of statutory instruments regarding the space industry. Obviously, we are very keen in Scotland to see space playing a key part in the economy moving forward. However, the industry has been waiting for many months now for the Government’s space strategy. With the new regulations laid before Parliament this week, some clarity about the strategy would go a long way to helping to ensure that we knew where we were going. Can we have a debate in Government time to discuss the space strategy to see where and what that will actually look like?
A constituent got in touch with me regarding their elderly grandfather and his settled status documentation. He does not have biochipped documentation and having been in Scotland for a long time, this is now very unsettling to them. Could the Leader of the House help me to secure assurances from the Home Office that a lack of biochipping will not prevent my constituent’s grandfather from receiving a settled status outcome?
Although I fear I might be taking a long shot here, I wonder whether the Leader of the House might join me in welcoming the findings of the Scottish Government’s Social Justice and Fairness Commission—perhaps not, but I am sure that the proposals will be welcomed by all my constituents, who are keen to see a fairer and more socially just future for Scotland. Can we have a debate in Government time to consider how the UK Government might learn lessons from the Scottish Government’s approach in this regard to help to deliver a fairer society?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments on the independent expert panel and on confidentiality. It is very encouraging to see how much desire there is to work across the House to come to a sensible solution.
On the space industry, all the world’s a stage, but beyond it there is an even bigger stage for the hon. Gentleman and others to investigate. I hear that there have been reports in the newspapers—I think it was in the Telegraph—that the Americans are getting frightfully excited about people coming from outer space and UFOs, and that even former President Obama is getting interested. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman wants a debate on little green men or whatever else may come from outer space, but the Government are developing a strategy. It is an important part of the future that so much space investment is going on and that that will be a United Kingdom-wide activity.
With regard to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, the grandfather who requires settled status: yes, of course if the hon. Gentleman writes to me with the details I will take the matter up with the Home Secretary on his behalf. The system has provided 5.4 million people with settled status—it has worked well, but it is obviously important that it is fair to everybody.
The hon. Gentleman finished by asking whether I would join in the Scottish Government’s social justice and fairness scheme; he thought that probably I would not. What I thought we might have a debate on, perhaps—if he would like to ask me this—is not the policy of the Scottish Government, which they can debate in the Scottish Parliament, but the amazing contribution that the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom taxpayer have made to supporting all parts of the United Kingdom during the pandemic—the £14.5 billion of extra UK taxpayer spending that has gone to Scotland via the Barnett formula, the £1.2 billion for the self-employment scheme for 430,000 claimants, and the nearly 900,000 jobs that have been saved by the furlough scheme. I think we could debate that at considerable length. Should there ever be time for an Opposition day for the SNP, I hope that that is what it will bring forward.
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
In the absence of the Whitsun Adjournment debate, I, too, wish everyone a very happy recess.
Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on forced adoptions? On Tuesday, on behalf of the Movement for an Adoption Apology, I handed in a letter to the Prime Minister’s office simply asking for an acknowledgment of the wrongs that have been done, including to a constituent of mine, and an apology on behalf of the Government institutions involved in what went on.
Mr Rees-Mogg
This is a matter that the House has debated previously. The Government have expressed, and let me re-express, our deepest sympathy to all those affected by historical forced adoptions. Successive Governments have amended legislation to ensure that that practice cannot happen again. The Children Act 1989 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002 changed the law so that adoption has to be agreed to by a court. There is a requirement to be certain that any written consent is real. Adoption agencies, now mainly local authorities, are covered by statute and inspected by Ofsted, so the situation that prevailed cannot prevail again. That is quite right and proper, and the distress caused to families is a matter of the gravest concern.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab) [V]
May I inform the House that the Backbench Business Committee has been re-established? It met yesterday and is now open for business for this parliamentary Session. I welcome the announcement of Thursday 17 June as the first day of Backbench Business debates. We anticipate another round of estimates day debates before the summer recess; the Committee will invite applications for slots shortly after the Whitsun recess. If Members wish to submit debate applications for consideration by the Committee at its next meeting, a week on Tuesday, will they please ensure that they submit them no later than 2 pm on Friday 4 June?
I place on record my thanks to the Members who sat as members of the Committee during the last Session but are no longer members of it: the hon. Members for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe), for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken). I thank them for their service on behalf of Members of this House. I also welcome to the Committee my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), who joined the Committee this week.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con) [V]
Now that the UK has left the EU, we are free to change the VAT system and introduce a new sales tax regime, possibly localised, which will put downward pressure on taxation. May we have consideration of a debate on ending VAT and introducing a more flexible sales tax system?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of our new-found freedoms from the EU to set taxes how we please. We are no longer bound in to a complex agreement with the European Union and can therefore have our own competitive tax system. I am certainly intrigued by his idea that we should have local competition in tax systems, which they have in the United States, where some States have high sales taxes and others have lower sales taxes, and so on. It may be more difficult in a relatively small island, but it is worth noting that VAT is a broad-based tax on consumption designed to ensure the fair treatment of both consumers and businesses, and has been adopted not just in the European Union but by, I think, 170 countries. It may be that going away from VAT would not just be a statement of our Brexit independence, but go against a system that actually works quite well globally.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
The final criminal trials relating to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster collapsed yesterday, 32 years after 96 wholly innocent children, women and men were unlawfully killed by the negligence of others, primarily the South Yorkshire police, who should have been protecting them. No one responsible has been held accountable by our criminal justice system for those deadly failures. This catastrophic failure of justice seriously compounded the grief, pain and anger of the families, who yet again yesterday had to endure hearing on national media outlets the very slurs that the police statements at the heart of this prosecution were being changed to promote, namely that the Liverpool fans attending the match caused the disaster, something that has been utterly and comprehensively disproved by the 2016 inquest verdict.
Does the Leader of the House accept that the law now needs to be changed to prevent this utter failure over three decades from ever happening again to any families bereaved by public disasters? There will be more families bereaved by public disasters. Will he arrange a statement from the Lord Chancellor and a debate in this House, so that those of us who have proposals to stop this kind of thing ever happening again, for example in the public advocate Bill and the public authority accountability Bill, can again bring them to the House?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady is so right to raise this matter. It is the greatest scandal of British policing in our lifetimes, and the pain is still with those families. The thought of the number of children who were killed is something that makes the whole House grieve. When nobody is held to account for that, it surely indicates that something has gone wrong in our criminal justice system. The hon. Lady is therefore right to say that we must do things that make sure this never happens in future, because though there may be nothing further that can be done in the criminal justice system now, we cannot allow this ever to happen again and have no accountability not just for the terrible events that happened but for the wickedness of the cover-up. The hon. Lady is so right to highlight the cruelty of blaming the families for the misery that was inflicted upon them.
I will of course take forward any ideas the hon. Lady has to the Lord Chancellor. I will seek to get replies to any questions she may have. I cannot, as she knows, immediately promise Government time, but she knows there are other ways of getting debates going in this House. It is worth remembering the early success of the Backbench Business Committee in having a debate on Hillsborough in about 2010, which helped to at least get some answers, if not necessarily the full legal conclusion that many would have liked and felt would have been just.
Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)
The Duffield beacon in Workington was erected and first lit to mark the Beacon Europe celebrations in 1992. Built by British Steel apprentices from Workington Rail, it stands today as a monument to our steel industry. Independent councillors who now run the town council have launched a sham consultation on fictitious health and safety grounds, offering Workington constituents a Hobson’s choice: whether the beacon should remain and never again be lit, or be chopped in half. May we have a debate in Government time on the protection of important local monuments such as the Duffield beacon?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government are committed to ensuring that this country’s heritage is appropriately protected. That is why planning rules have been amended to ensure that the removal of unlisted historic monuments requires an application for planning permission. Local planning authorities are responsible for determining such applications, and local people will be able to make their views known through the application process. However, there is nothing worse than pettifogging bureaucracy trying to stop a local monument being lit, used, admired and enjoyed, and he is absolutely right to bash his local council for its silly behaviour.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
May I place on the record my thanks to the Leader of the House for the integrity that he has shown this afternoon in setting out his view that if a Member is found to have committed sexual misconduct, it is a curse on all our houses and it is the right and honourable thing for that Member to resign? I pay tribute to him for that. I know that he cares deeply about this House, the Members in it and the purpose for which we are all elected to serve our constituents.
Will the Leader of the House provide a statement from Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers to update us on what is happening with the Government’s much-celebrated levelling-up fund? There was what can only be described as an embarrassing session of the Welsh Affairs Committee today, where Ministers seemed unable to clarify how the additional streams of funding will work into years 2, 3 and 4; whether funding will be available in the long term beyond the first year; whether Members of Parliament can support one substantive bid, one transport bid and three additional bids, and what happens if a bid fails. There just seems to be continuous confusion, so I would be grateful if he could provide some clarity from Ministers.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am always happy to take on individual questions and pass them through to Ministers, but the levelling up of the country is a major ambition of this Government. Forty-five new town deals worth £1 billion are already there, the UK community renewal fund has been launched, and the first round of the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund has been announced. I seem to remember from last week that the deadline for applications is Waterloo Day. At least we know when the deadline for applications is, and I suggest that MPs should support lots of applications for their local area. Always support your local area in trying to get money out of central Government; that seems wise advice to Members of Parliament.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con) [V]
May we have a statement on whether churches and other places of worship will be able to operate without any mandatory restrictions from 21 June, or when England moves to step 4 of the Government’s road map? In the meantime, can choirs—I have many wonderful choirs in my constituency—be brought into line with the current guidance for other non-professional music activity indoors, as was the case between August and December last year?
Mr Rees-Mogg
On choirs, the issue is essentially the budget of risk. When people sing—particularly if they sing loudly—there is a greater risk because more droplets are spewed out into the atmosphere. The restriction on choirs is well thought through and proportionate, but the hope, obviously, is that on 21 June, when we get to step 4, choirs will be able to come back and church services will return to normal. Step 3 has seen some improvements in church services getting back to normal, although it has to be said that some of the things that were banned and considered dangerous were some modern excretions into church services that I was not too sorry we did not have for a bit.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I am intrigued that the question I asked the Leader of the House last week has widespread support. I hope that he got his birthday song sung to him, and I wish him happy birthday again in retrospect.
In my constituency, GPs’ practices are under severe pressure. I pay tribute to them for their dedication and commitment during the past 14 months. As we come out of lockdown, GPs are facing a tsunami of cases because so much of routine practice had to be put on hold. The extra pressure will hit a workforce that is already on its knees, so may we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—I realise that he is rather busy at the moment—on what the Government plan to do to support GP practices with extra resources, including for mental health support?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Government are seriously tackling mental health issues and considerable additional funding is being provided for mental healthcare, which is at the heart of the NHS long-term plan. There will be £2.3 billion extra by 2023-24 to support 380,000 more adults and 345,000 more children. As regards GP practices, things are beginning to get back to normal and people are entitled to face-to-face consultations if they need them. Over the past year there were 56,900 more people working in the NHS, and the Government are recruiting 6,000 more doctors in general practice during the course of this Parliament. Steps are being taken very much in line with what the hon. Lady asks for. She pays tribute to her local GP practices and her local NHS; as we share an NHS area, may I join her in that? We are extraordinarily lucky to have such dedicated and hard-working people. This is an opportunity to thank Ian Orpen, who was the chairman of the clinical commissioning group for the area and did such a sterling job for a long time before retiring recently.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
Two weeks ago, nine-year-old Jordan Banks was tragically struck by lightning and died in my constituency while playing a game of football. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will join me in passing on heartfelt condolences to his family and friends and thanking those in Blackpool who are now organising events to celebrate his life. Football has a unique ability to bring communities together and this tragic event, as well as Blackpool playing in the football play-off final on Sunday at Wembley, has brought the whole town together. Will my right hon. Friend look to hold a debate in Government time to celebrate the positive impact that community football clubs such as Jordan’s team, Clifton Rangers, can have in our communities?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I join my hon. Friend in sending condolences to the family and friends of Jordan Banks and praying for the repose of his soul. I know that clubs have played a crucial role in bringing communities together in the pandemic and, of course, bringing communities together when there is sadness. It is such a wonderful thing that football clubs are paying tribute to Jordan. It builds a whole community: young and old come together behind the team they all support and admire, whether it is successful or not. I wish both Blackpool and Lincoln luck in their match on Saturday.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab) [V]
I concur with the call from my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) for a Hillsborough-type law.
Last week, the roof and part of the building of Northwich station in my constituency collapsed. It was a miracle that nobody was killed or seriously injured. I, and other disability campaigners and councillors, have been calling for a considerable number of years for investment in and modernisation of that facility, plus those across the north. Will the Leader of the House find time to debate real investment in the rail infrastructure in the north of England?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The level of investment in the railways is unprecedented since Victorian times—which you may think suits me, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I have always had rather an affection for Victorian times. As regards the roof at Northwich station, I will pass that issue on to the Secretary of State for Transport on the hon. Gentleman’s behalf.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]
The recent monsoon-like conditions have created flooding in my suburban constituency, particularly in Kenton and parts of Edgware, caused by the flooding of the Kenton brook. Unfortunately, Harrow Council, which is responsible for some of the maintenance of the sewers and the overflow, blames the Environment Agency. We have tried to get the Environment Agency to take prompt action. Because of over-development and front gardens being lost so that people can put in driveways, the normal soakaways are not available. May we have a debate in Government time on flooding in urban and suburban areas, so that we can call on the Environment Agency and other partners to ensure that they carry out their duties in a proper way?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend raises an issue that is a matter of concern across the country, and flooding does have a terrible impact on people’s homes and on families. The Government announced a record £5.2 billion of taxpayers’ money to be spent on flood and coastal defences, which is double the previous spending, to protect 336,000 properties. The Environment Agency’s flood and coastal risk management strategy will prepare us for more extreme weather and build a better prepared and more resilient nation—it is building back better against floods. The responsibility for drainage is really with local authorities, which are meant to clean their drains and deal with surface water, so he is right to highlight the failures of his local council. As regards a debate, I believe he has a certain influence with the Backbench Business Committee, so he may wish to use that to get the debate he seeks.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]
My constituent Anna Slwinska was enrolled in her company pension scheme with Halliburton. When she was made redundant, she was given six months to transfer her pension pot. She initiated the process within the timescale, but Capita, the administrator, says that it did not receive the second of two forms and has kept all her money. The pensions ombudsman says that there is nothing it can do. So may we have a debate in Government time about the fact that sharp practice in the pensions industry may discourage people such as my constituent Anna from saving for their retirement?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for raising this case in relation to Halliburton, Capita and her constituent Anna. Our job as MPs is to seek redress of grievance individually for our constituents. If there is anything I can do to help achieve that redress of grievance for Anna, I will do it, because sharp practice should not lead to people losing their pension and therefore people being discouraged from preparing for their old age.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
First, on behalf of my constituents in Hyndburn and Haslingden, I would like to send my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Dr Ron Hill MBE after his sad passing. He was not only a former Olympic marathon runner, but a true local hero.
One of the biggest concerns that my constituents raise with me is speeding, particularly on roads such as Hud Hey Road, Blackburn Road, Manchester Road and Stanhill Lane. Will the Leader of the House allow a debate in Government time so that we are able to discuss what further measures can be taken to stop careless drivers putting at risk the lives of local residents, such as mine in Hyndburn and Haslingden?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I join my hon. Friend in sending condolences to Mr Hill’s family. I know that he was a very important, well-known local figure. Not only should drivers obey the speed limit, but my hon. Friend was right to highlight careless driving. It is not always speed, but sometimes the carelessness and lack of consideration for the area that they are driving through that leads to the greatest number of accidents. The enforcement, advertising and decision making on speed limits is a local matter, so in her constituency it is a matter for Lancashire County Council, and the local police force has the responsibility for enforcement. However, it is worth pointing out that the Department for Transport launched a call for evidence last autumn as part of a wider roads policing review—an examination of roads policing in England and Wales and its relevance to road safety. The Government will publish their responses in the summer and I hope they will be reassuring to my hon. Friend.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP) [V]
I am sure that the Leader of the House agrees that Lord Hall has very serious questions to answer regarding the re-employment of Mr Martin Bashir at the BBC. Will the Leader of the House let me know whether there is any mechanism that can be deployed, or that has indeed been examined, that would allow for the removal of Lord Hall’s title and privileges here in the other House, because of the alleged serious breaches that he has been engaged in? Is that being examined and is there a process, given the serious nature of his misdemeanour?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Madam Deputy Speaker, I notice a slightly raised eyebrow or slightly furrowed brow, because by convention we would not talk about individual peers in a disobliging way. There is an ancient practice for removing peerages, which is by Bill of attainder, but looking at the Clerk at the Table, I do not think that it has been used in at least the last 200 years, and probably not beyond the early part of the 18th century, so it may be that a Bill of attainder is an unlikely procedure.
There is a procedure for removing the peerages of Lords who go to prison for a certain period, which came in relatively recently. The House of Lords has exclusive cognisance of its own affairs and can, of course, suspend peers in certain circumstances. It was on the cusp of suspending all sorts of peers for not attending the valuing everybody training, but it seemed to step away from that, in the end, when a particularly distinguished noble baroness was one of the people who had not done that training.
There are mechanisms, but they are at the highest end of our constitutional activity for the most serious misdemeanours, and whether it would be right to go into them in a specific circumstance is a matter I cannot go into at the Dispatch Box.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]
In the last week, two of my constituents—both British citizens—have received letters from the Home Office telling them they will lose their pension unless they apply for EU settled status. Please will my right hon. Friend do his best to extract a statement from the Home Office as to what data sharing is going on across Government that has led to those errors, which have alarmed pensioners in my constituency and, I assume, elsewhere?
Mr Rees-Mogg
May I begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend? I remember her being questioned by the Brexit Committee, when I was on it, about the settled status scheme, which has been an absolute triumph. It started with the work of my right hon. Friend, and 5.4 million people have now settled and secured settled status. She has done a service to 5.4 million people, which is an amazing achievement. It has given certainty to all those people.
Mistakes happen. When they happen, they must be put right. The examples that my right hon. Friend mentions sound particularly ridiculous—a British citizen should not have to apply for settled status—and I cannot understand why that would have happened or how that information has been shared, but I will certainly take up those specific cases with the Home Office.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
The scandal of fire and rehire continues, and there seems to be no movement at all from the Government to address it. It is three months since the Government received the ACAS report. If we cannot have legislation to ban this outrageous practice, can we have a Government statement responding to the ACAS report, so we understand where the Government are on this scandal?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very sympathetic to the issue the hon. Gentleman has raised. We have discussed it in the House before, and there is a considerable degree of agreement that fire and rehire is a disreputable negotiating tactic and gives capitalism, of which I am a great supporter, a bad name. The Department is considering the ACAS report, and I am afraid that my line is the same as before: information will be brought forward soon. Unfortunately, “soon” is rather an elastic concept in the bureaucratic world.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con) [V]
Will my right hon. Friend make parliamentary time available for a debate on markets and how, post-pandemic, they can play a crucial role in the regeneration of town centres throughout the country? Will he join me in welcoming my local council’s levelling-up fund bid to ensure that the world-famous Bury market not only continues to play a crucial role in the economic and social life of my town, but develops as a multipurpose community hub?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very sympathetic to what my hon. Friend has said: local town markets draw people in, and they are a highlight that people go into town to use. They often offer all sorts of attractive things for people to buy, and as we normalise after the pandemic, I think they will be a great attraction. Bury market, as my hon. Friend says, is historic, and I wish him every success with the levelling-up fund bid. I cannot necessarily add my imprimatur to it because I would then be asked endlessly for my support for bids across the country, which might exceed the amount of money available.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Those who have been bereaved or left with long-term illnesses during the pandemic cannot fail to be alarmed by yesterday’s evidence from the Prime Minister’s former close adviser. These matters are now in the public domain: allegations that Government adopted a policy of herd immunity, and that they ignored the scientific facts and delayed lockdowns, leading to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths. The truth needs to be examined in the future—I accept that—but surely people deserve some answers now. If we are not to get an immediate public inquiry, the Prime Minister should make a statement about the decision not to hold an inquiry sooner, so that at least we can represent our constituents and ask him questions based on the evidence to the Select Committees yesterday.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Prime Minister was asked about the inquiry yesterday. An inquiry will be set up in this Session, and it is right to do that at the point at which events are more under control. It would not be right to do it while the pandemic is still raging. Evidence was given yesterday by somebody who played a very important role within the Government and who was a very active part of the decision-making process, and who now seems to have turned himself into Achithophel. The lines that come to mind are:
“In Friendship False, Implacable in Hate:
Resolv’d to Ruine or to Rule the State.”
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I need to finish this session by about 25 past at the latest, because we have two very well-subscribed debates to follow. If I am to get everybody in, I must ask the remaining speakers to ask short questions, and I am sure that the Leader of the House will respond with shorter answers.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
Last week was, of course, Dementia Action Week, and when I met with the Alzheimer’s Society, it presented several worrying statistics, one of which showed the rise in the use of anti-psychotic drugs. Based on the stats in Oxfordshire, fewer than one in five of the people who had been prescribed anti-psychotic drugs actually had a diagnosis of psychosis. Will the Leader of the House please get a statement from the Department for Health and Social Care about what lies behind that rise in the use of anti-psychotic drugs in people who do not actually have psychosis?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that deeply concerning issue. NHS England and NHS Improvement continue to monitor the monthly data published by NHS Digital on the prescribing of anti-psychotic medication for people diagnosed with dementia. However, the issue he raises needs a fuller answer, and I will take it up with the Department on his behalf.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate and votes in this House before the hybrid proceedings lapse on 21 June? We cannot just have some return to the status quo ante as if the past year and a bit has not happened. He was once a champion of Back Benchers and the right of this House to decide its procedures for itself, so will he ensure that debate happens in good time so that we can plan the way forward for the House and the estate more generally?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The emergency provisions were brought in on the basis that the status quo ante would be restored, and then the House could decide in an orderly and proper way what, if anything, it wished to keep. It would be cheating Members who supported the temporary measures if they were to be made permanent before they had lapsed and we had gone back to normal.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
A few weeks ago, I received a letter from Sammy Steven, who is a customer at the Papworth Trust on Foundation Street in Ipswich. It does fantastic work supporting the disabled community and adults with learning disabilities in Ipswich. When the lockdown started, they were very down and did not know how they were going to cope, but the exceptional work done by the staff and volunteers made it work. They became journalists and created a “Lockdown Journal” to write about their experiences, so that they will remember them for ever more. They also tried out new things, becoming poets and music instructors. Will my right hon. Friend find time for us to debate how we fund and structure services to support adults with learning disabilities, so that we think positively about what they can do and not always about what they cannot?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend puts it absolutely correctly. We should always think about what people can do. We should always be positive as a society. I am so glad to hear about the work of the Papworth Trust. Organisations like that are a lifeline of support for some of the most vulnerable in our communities, and everything that can be done to support them should be done.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if essential local services such as a post office need to close temporarily, there should be measures such as transport links, like a minibus, to nearby post offices or a temporary solution based nearby so that elderly residents are not cut off from this important service? May I request that we have a debate on this subject?
Mr Rees-Mogg
If this is a specific case, I think an Adjournment debate is the most suitable approach. The Government are strongly supportive of ensuring that everyone in the country, especially the vulnerable, has access to essential services via the post office within their local community. As 99% of the population are within three miles of their nearest post office and 90% are within one mile, I do understand that if one is shut for a temporary period, that can be difficult for some local residents.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The headline-hogging antics of Dominic Cummings have meant that the Tory Islamophobia inquiry’s conclusion that this was fuelled by PM’s comments about Muslim women as letterboxes and bank robbers and the 2016 smearing of Sadiq Khan has gone unnoticed here. When public buildings all over the UK were illuminated this week in solidarity one year on from the racist murder of George Floyd, there was not a peep here. Can the Conservatives demonstrate how serious they are about these issues and give Government time and legislation so that levelling up applies everywhere, and to ethnicity, not just to electorally expedient geography?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Conservative party commissioned the report, has accepted the results of the report, and has accepted all the recommendations, which will be implemented in full. It has recognised, as the report did, that there may be some individuals who have views that are improper and wrong, and are not suitable to be Conservatives if they hold such views, and it has dealt with people and disciplined people who have fallen into that category. I think it is an issue that the Conservative party has shown it takes enormously seriously and has dealt with. I would say to the socialists on the Labour Benches: motes and beams, motes and beams.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The last bank in Knaresborough closed earlier this year, and I have been concerned at the lack of access to cash and financial services in the town, and particularly the impact on business. Conservative councillors Ed Darling and Samantha Mearns are working to bring extra cash machines to the town to replace the ones lost, and the borough council is working with Barclays to bring its mobile services to the town over the months ahead. However, there will clearly be an impact on the local community, and it will not be the only local community facing this challenge. May we have a debate on the impact of the loss of banks and associated financial services within communities to look at the ideas that are available to help people when this happens?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Government recognise the importance of cash to the daily lives of millions of people across the UK, particularly those in vulnerable groups, and are committed to protecting access to cash for those who need it. Inevitably, decisions on opening and closing bank branches are commercial decisions, but the Government believe that the impact of branch closures should be understood and mitigated where possible. The major high street banks have signed up to the access to banking standard, which commits them to ensure that customers are well informed about branch closures and options for continued access to banking services such as the post office, as 95% of business customers and 99% of personal banking customers can carry out their everyday banking at 11,500 post office branches in the UK. Steps are taken, but I know that the matter concerns many Members across the House and it may well be suitable for a longer Back-Bench business debate.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Welsh language has been spoken on these islands, indeed on this island, since long before the English language arrived on our shores. In fact, the Welsh epic poem “Y Gododdin” describes a battle in the 6th century between Anglo-Saxon invaders and Welsh-speaking warriors from the south of Scotland. The battle took place in modern-day Yorkshire. Does the Leader of the House agree that we should have an early statement from the Culture Secretary to give clarity on the improved funding needed for the Welsh language broadcaster S4C so that it can help to ensure that Welsh, spoken daily by half a million people in the UK, continues to survive and thrive in the digital age?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Welsh is unquestionably a beautiful language of great antiquity in this country. My mother’s father was a Welsh speaker, so this is not the Rees bit of me but the Morris bit of me that very much values Welsh heritage and culture and, of course, its continued use as a daily language. It may be better for the Welsh Government to take up these matters, because it is for them to promote the Welsh language, though I am aware that S4C is in a slightly different category.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
I recently met Katie from my constituency to discuss endometriosis. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will recall that we recently recognised Endometriosis Month, yet women still have to wait, on average, eight years for diagnosis, and that has been made worse by increasing backlogs due to covid. Can he allow time for a debate on what can be done to benefit all those unfortunate enough to suffer from endometriosis and to help to ensure that gynaecology theatre times are not the last element to be considered with regard to women’s health and the reopening of the health service?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Endometriosis can be a very debilitating condition that affects around one in 10 women of reproductive age, and it is therefore important that the appropriate care is available to those who need it. I note my hon. Friend’s point that it takes, on average, eight years for a diagnosis. On 8 March, the Department of Health and Social Care launched a call for evidence to inform the development of the first women’s health strategy for England. Consultation closes on 13 June. Within that call for evidence, both the online survey and written submissions seek information on gynaecological conditions, including endometriosis. I encourage women with experience of this issue, and MPs on behalf of their constituents when it has come to their attention, to respond to the call for evidence so that we can identify areas for further work. It has previously been raised on the Floor of the House, and the Government are aware that it is a very serious issue for many women.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the Leader of the House for his statement. I shall now suspend the House for two minutes to make arrangements for the next business.
Business without Debate
Dementia Action Week
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I call the Minister, let me say that this is a heavily subscribed debate, as is the next one. We intend to divide the time equally between the two debates, which means that this debate will need to finish by 3.15 at the latest—perhaps a little before. There is a three-minute time limit on Back-Bench speeches. I know that those on the Front Bench have agreed to be as succinct as they can be. It may not be possible to get everybody in, but we will do our best.
The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Dementia Action Week.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this debate to mark Dementia Action Week. I pay particular tribute to her work as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on dementia, and to the charities that she and I both work with, including the Alzheimer’s Society.
I know how hard the last 12 months have been for those living with dementia and their families. Living with dementia is hard in normal times, but harder still during a pandemic. It has been an incredibly difficult year. I know that, and I have seen that. There are more than 850,000 people living with dementia and around 670,000 carers looking after them. I thank everyone who is caring for someone with dementia.
While many thousands of people have dementia, we must not, and I do not, see it as an inevitable part of ageing. Although one in six of those over 80 have dementia, five in six do not. Around a third of dementia cases are estimated to be preventable. I am ambitious—ambitious about preventing dementia, ambitious about developing treatments, and ambitious about one day developing a cure. However, first I will update the House on what we have been doing under the umbrella of the challenge on dementia 2020 and in response to the pandemic.
Last year, we assessed delivery of the 2020 challenge, which showed that we now have more than 3 million dementia friends, thanks to the Alzheimer’s Society. We have 437 areas across England and Wales signed up as dementia-friendly communities. We have 137 trusts signed up to the dementia-friendly hospital charter and, thanks to Skills for Care and Health Education England, more than a million care workers and another million NHS workers have received dementia awareness training. Added to that, our commitment to spend £300 million on dementia research over five years was delivered a year early, with £344 million spent over four years.
Timely diagnosis of dementia is really important to help people to understand what is going on, find out what support is available and get advice on what happens next. Since 2016, we have consistently met the challenge on dementia target of two thirds of people living with dementia receiving a formal diagnosis. However, at the start of the pandemic many memory assessment services had to close, and the dementia diagnosis rate has dropped below the national ambition for the first time since 2016.
While we have supported remote or virtual memory assessment services, I recognise that that is not for everyone. I want to see in-person services fully functional as soon as possible, because a diagnosis can make such a difference, allowing people to access the support that they need.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The charity Music for Dementia says that those who have started to sing or listen to music on a daily basis have
“more than doubled their quality of life…whilst halving their depressive symptoms.”
Could that charity be introduced to the Government’s strategy?
Helen Whately
The hon. Member makes a really important point: music is one of the things that is known to really help people who are living with dementia. It helps to improve the quality of their lives, and it has been one of things that has been hard to access during the pandemic. I am determined that we see that kind of support restarted, and develop further support along those lines in the months and years ahead.
We have allocated £17 million of funding to NHS England to get the diagnosis rate that I was talking about back up to where it should be, to support the needs of those waiting for a diagnosis and to help those who have been unable to access support due to the pandemic. Everyone with dementia should receive meaningful personalised care, from diagnosis to end of life, to help them to live with the condition and to live the fullest possible life for as long as possible.
It is imperative that we support those—often husbands, wives, partners, sons and daughters—who care for loved ones with dementia. They take on a huge burden of care, both practically and emotionally. Since the Care Act 2014, every carer for someone with dementia should have their needs assessed by their local authority and should then receive the support that they need, whether that is support with caring or respite, time out for themselves or sometimes help with extra costs. That is crucial, not only because carers are so important to the person with dementia they care for, but because they need to have a life alongside caring.
Throughout the past year, we have worked with the Alzheimer’s Society, Age UK, Carers UK, other charities, care providers, local authorities and the NHS to work out how best to support people with dementia and their carers during the pandemic and put that support in place. We have provided more than £500,000 in funding to the Alzheimer’s Society for its Dementia Connect programme, £500,000 to the Carers Trust for its support to unpaid carers, £122,000 to Carers UK to extend its helpline opening hours and £480,000 to the Race Equality Foundation.
We have provided free personal protective equipment for carers where they live separately from the people they care for, in line with clinical advice. We have given carers priority to vaccines in line with Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation prioritisation, considered them time and again in guidance, worked to better identify them and supported local authorities in the restoration of day and respite services, including with nearly £12 million in funding from the infection control fund.
As we come out of the pandemic, we want not only to ensure that we restore and improve early diagnosis and support for people living with dementia and their carers, but to go further: to prevent people from getting dementia in the first place, support research to develop effective treatments and, ultimately, find a cure. The National Institute for Health Research is right now supporting several studies on dementia.
The 2019 Conservative party manifesto committed to doubling funding for dementia research and delivering a moonshot of ambitious goals. The moonshot will expand the UK’s internationally leading research effort to understand the mechanisms underlying the development and progression of dementia, develop new therapies and help to prevent the condition. We are working right now on developing a new dementia strategy to boost dementia awareness, diagnosis, care, support and research in England. As everyone knows, we are committed to wider reform of social care; we will bring forward proposals for that later this year.
We want a society where the public think and feel differently about dementia—where there is less fear, stigma and discrimination, and more understanding. We want to reduce the number of preventable cases of dementia. We are determined to support those who are living with dementia to live the fullest possible life for as long as possible, and to support those who care for them. We will lead the way in dementia research and innovation to find effective treatments and, ultimately, a cure.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
Dementia affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in this country: not only the 850,000 people who currently have the condition, but thousands more of their family and friends, as I am sure many of us in this House know. It is the leading cause of death in England, and the only condition in the top 10 causes of death for which there is currently no known treatment or cure. Our ageing population means that the number of people with dementia is set to increase to 2 million by 2050, with the cost of caring for dementia more than doubling to almost £60 billion a year.
Over the past 15 months, people with dementia and their families have suffered perhaps more than anyone else because of covid-19. A quarter of all deaths from this awful virus have been among those with dementia, predominantly because of the tragedy in our care homes. Tens of thousands more have seen their condition deteriorate, and families have been pushed to breaking point and banned for more than a year from seeing their loved ones in care homes. Those who look after a relative in their own home have been providing even more care than usual.
Dealing with this pandemic was always going to be extremely difficult, but the truth is that there has been a higher proportion of deaths in care homes in England than in almost any other country in the developed world. Between 17 March and 15 April last year, 25,000 people were discharged from hospital to care homes without a covid-19 test, despite clear evidence of the virus sweeping through care homes in Italy, America and France.
Care providers and trade unions warned the Government about the lack of testing and PPE. The Prime Minister was personally warned about those issues by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) in Prime Minister’s questions on 25 March. I myself wrote to the Health Secretary about these issues on 8 April.
Despite all that, the official guidance on testing before discharge to care homes did not change until 16 April last year, almost a month after we all went into national lockdown. We do not need Mr Cummings to tell us that the rhetoric about putting a protective shield around care homes was complete nonsense; the evidence is there for all to see. The reason this matters—the reason the truth and the facts matter—is that we owe it to people who have lost their loved ones with dementia, to those who are still being prevented from having normal visits to care homes and to all the staff in care homes who have been to hell and back. We have to learn the lessons from what has happened to make sure these terrible mistakes never happen again.
If we want to build a better country as we emerge from covid-19 and meet the challenges of this century of ageing, then the needs of people with dementia must move to the top of the agenda. That starts with dementia research, because ultimately our goal must be to prevent, treat and ultimately cure this often heartbreaking condition. The rapid development of treatments and vaccines for covid-19 has shown us the amazing things our scientists can achieve when they are backed by political will and underpinned with the right resources and partnerships. Ministers now need to apply the same approach to dementia research.
In their 2019 manifesto, the Government promised to double funding for dementia research and speed up progress in clinical trials. When will they deliver on that commitment? Over the past decade, huge progress has been made in imaging, artificial intelligence, genetics and drug development, and that has brought us to a tipping point in dementia research, which the UK is extremely well placed to capitalise on because of our diverse academic research base, funded by the public, private and charitable sectors, and because of the strong foundations in clinical research provided by the NHS. Ministers need to seize this opportunity to give dementia research a greater priority and turn the UK into a world leader in clinical trials, so that patients here can be among the first to benefit from improved treatments.
The second issue Ministers need to grasp is transforming support for families. That should happen across the entire health and care system, but perhaps nowhere more so than in dementia care. Dementia gradually erodes your ability to think, communicate and even move. It destroys your memory, gradually taking away what makes you, you. That is what makes it so very painful for the people who live with dementia and the people who love them.
When someone has dementia or Alzheimer’s, their family is their memory. No matter how amazing NHS or care workers are, they cannot know the foods the person likes, the films they used to watch or the songs they like to sing. That is one of the reasons why so many people in care homes have gone downhill so fast without regular family visits. The bottom line is that we cannot provide good-quality dementia care without putting families centre stage.
Our health and care services need to do far more to identify people who help care for someone with dementia, get them better information and advice and make sure that services are far more joined up, so that people do not have to tell their story to lots of different people in lots of different parts of the system. The Government need to properly fund breaks for family carers, so that they can put their own needs first, at least for a while, and fund other initiatives, such as the amazing support group for carers run by the Alzheimer’s Society in Sefton, who I met recently. They are just absolutely phenomenal and a lovely bunch of people. I believe that Ministers need to change the law to enshrine the rights of care home residents to have family visits, so that the terrible situation facing hundreds of thousands of families over the past 15 months never happens again.
The final point I want to make is on the urgent need for the Government to make good on their promises to reform social care, because while dementia is not yet curable, our broken care system definitely is. For all that the Minister has said, the truth is that when the virus struck, our care system was far weaker than it ever should have been after a decade of cuts, taking £8 billion out of the care system at a time of growing demand. Two years ago, the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and promised to fix the crisis in social care
“with a plan we have prepared”,
yet still these reforms are nowhere to be seen. If there is one thing, just one thing, that comes out of this awful pandemic, it must be a long-term plan that gives social care the priority it needs and deserves, and secures a sustainable funding base for the future.
Labour is calling for a 10-year plan of investment and reform to transform support for older and disabled people, including those with dementia, as part of a much wider ambition to make Britain the best country in which to grow old. In the century of ageing, we understand that social care is as much a part of our infrastructure as the roads and railways. If we neglect our country’s physical infrastructure, we get roads full of potholes and buckling bridges, which prevent our economy from functioning properly. The same is true if we fail to invest in our social infrastructure. Without a properly paid and trained care workforce, vacancy and turnover rates soar, fewer people get the support they need and families end up taking the strain.
President Biden gets that, which is why he has made home care a central plank of his post-pandemic infrastructure plan. Britain deserves that level of ambition too. In the century of ageing, everyone should look forward to getting older with confidence, not fear. Labour Members stand ready to play our part in making that happen, but it is time for the Government to act.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
It is a real privilege to be able to contribute to this debate on Dementia Action Week. Dementia is an issue that affects many in my constituency.
Like many across this country, my family was affected by dementia: my grandma had vascular dementia. I come from a close family. When I speak to constituents, I recall my family’s experience and what we learned from it. Of course, families’ absolute priority is always to ensure the very best for the person they love. I have spoken to many constituents over the past year, and heard at first hand how much harder that experience has been made by covid. It was right that we prioritised care home residents and the elderly in the vaccination programme, and I sincerely hope that families can continue to be reunited.
My grandma spent the last years of her life in The Valleys care home in Scunthorpe, and we were able to see her almost daily. We could not possibly have appreciated what a privilege that was, compared with the experience that people have had over the past year. We were in the slightly unusual position that grandma came to live in the care home in Scunthorpe from another authority. It is crucial that people with dementia and their families are really listened to. I am pleased to say that when she moved to North Lincolnshire, her needs were listened to, and so were we as a family, but that was in stark contrast with our experience of the previous local authority. Had my family not stood firm and really challenged the behaviour of the previous social services department, things would have been very different for my grandma.
I want to emphasise that this is not a sad story for our family. My grandma ultimately received a good quality of care, but we learned as a family some of the very real challenges that patients and families face. I still speak to constituents who are, quite frankly, overwhelmed with trying to navigate the diagnosis, the paperwork, the admin and the changes to their lives and that of their loved one. That should never be the case, and I urge the Government to do everything they can to ensure consistent standards across the country.
Navigating the admin side of a dementia diagnosis, on top of the care needs, can be immensely challenging. The deprivation of liberty order—or, as families call it, the DoLS order—is a power that needs to be used with great care and consideration. I am very much aware that not everybody has a family advocate and someone who can speak up for them. When we take forward our much needed plans for social care, I urge the Government to look not just at the care but at the whole system that delivers it, at the interaction between patients, families and services, and at how we can ensure that no patient is ever made to feel that their voice is not at the centre of their own lives.
I want to take this opportunity to recognise the dedication of our frontline carers. Looking to the future, our local schools and colleges are also working hard to provide the carers of the future. I want to thank Peggy’s World in North Lincolnshire, and Tilly and her very hard- working team.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
It is an absolute privilege to speak in this debate today, and to follow the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft). She spoke so poignantly about her family’s journey with dementia care, and some of the issues that require to be addressed to improve that journey. Having such expertise in the House is excellent, because this issue will touch so many of our lives and it is important to bring the human aspect to dementia care.
We should remember, as we have all grappled with health issues over the past year, that wellbeing should also be at the forefront of the work we do, and that psychological and mental health are important alongside physical health needs. Certainly, in relation to older adults in care homes who have not been able to see relatives and the relatives who have much missed that contact too, we are going to have to learn lessons from best practice right across the United Kingdom and have a key focus on wellbeing alongside that on physical health.
Dementia is a progressive, long-term health condition that affects about 90,000 people in Scotland currently. The Scottish Government are really committed to delivering a modern social care service for the 21st century, including building a national care service that will benefit people living with dementia, their families and carers. It is also my honour to speak today on behalf of the 5,322 people who live in my local NHS Lanarkshire health board who have been diagnosed with dementia, and on behalf of their relatives and loved ones, and the social and healthcare workers who care for them every single day with such dedication. I would also like to mention the East Kilbride & District Dementia Carers Group, which we hope will be up and running again as soon as possible, in line with the restrictions, because it provides the benefit from social communication, building self-esteem, confidence and social integration that people need, alongside having their physical health needs met.
I want briefly to raise the issue of those who have not yet been diagnosed with dementia. We know there was a drop of about 6% in diagnosis rates between the start of 2020 and February 2021 due to this pandemic. Accurate early diagnosis is absolutely crucial in identifying suitable candidates for clinical trials and available medication, which is most effective at the start of a dementia pathway. So it is very important that we have investment and support to get people diagnosed as early as possible, and that that is doubled up on in coming out of the pandemic. Alzheimer’s Research UK estimates that 1.3 million people in the UK will be living with dementia by 2030, so it is of paramount importance that we do everything we can to ensure they have the best treatment and care possible.
The Scottish Government published the dementia and covid-19 action plan in December 2020 to build on and continue to expand the national action, since March 2020, on supporting people with dementia and their carers. This plan recognises the significant impact of the pandemic and the necessary response for people with dementia and their carers, and sets out 21 commitments to assess impact and respond to the needs of this group across all care settings at diagnosis and all parts of the dementia care journey.
We are very proud to be the only country in the UK with free personal care, which is extremely important in supporting people under the financial strains that dementia and living with dementia can place on families. The Scottish Government invested £700 million in 2019-20 to support free personal care for older people in Scotland, and extended it in April 2019 to all those under 65 who have a diagnosis of early dementia. There is a plan to increase social care investment by 25% over this Parliament, which is equivalent to over £840 million.
We are also extremely proud to have ensured a living wage of at least £9.30 per hour for social care staff. While we have been rightly clapping everybody in NHS and care settings every week, it is important that they are also financially rewarded for their excellent work. In this toughest of years, the Scottish Government have also included social care workers in the £500 bonus thank you payment, which they launched for NHS and care workers during covid.
I want to finish with another push for psychological therapies, and I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. My first job was in dementia care, where I led the memory clinic. It is so important that people have access to psychological care, including the musical therapy that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned earlier and reminiscence therapies, and that we treat people holistically —the whole person—and collaborate to ensure we share best practice on treatment.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today. I look forward to listening to others’ contributions.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I remind Members that there is a three-minute time limit on speeches, which will be displayed on the clock here and on the screens for those participating virtually.
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate, which comes at an important time. Last month, dementia overtook covid-19 to reassume its grim title of the leading cause of death in England and Wales. We also know that a quarter of covid deaths have been among those living with dementia. Dementia affects an ever-increasing number of people in the UK, which is presently estimated at 850,000, and it costs our economy £26 billion a year, more than any other disease. Like so many in this Chamber, I have personal family experience of it.
Finding a cure to Alzheimer’s and the other less common types of dementia must be our aim. A cure would be a game-changer for so many. With 88% of people with dementia facing comorbidities, finding a cure would ultimately help to simplify care for hundreds of thousands of older people. To find a cure, clinical trials must be supported. While the 216 dementia trials since 2004 provide valuable information, that number appears insignificant when compared to the 2,900 studies for cancer over the same period. The UK Dementia Research Institute reports that effective treatments and preventions for dementia are within reach. Further progress on existing research provision is therefore essential.
Investment in dementia research comprises just 0.3% of the current costs we face as a result of dementia. In our 2019 manifesto, we pledged to launch a dementia moonshot to find a cure for dementia, doubling research funding and speeding up trials for new treatments. I very much look forward to its implementation as soon as possible. As a former clinical champion for dementia, I recognise that providing a diagnosis to individuals is pivotal to helping to ensure that they receive the necessary support. Early diagnosis is also critical when it comes to ensuring a sufficient cohort for clinical trials.
As part of the ongoing work on social care, will the Minister acknowledge that her Department is considering how to improve diagnosis rates further in all parts of the UK? Will she also comment on the value of technological advances in diagnosis, including the use of apps? Will she confirm that her Department recognises the value of a healthy diet and exercise when it comes to preventing or delaying dementia onset, something very relevant to the debate later today on obesity? As we look beyond the pandemic, which has had such a knock-on effect for those with dementia, I hope Ministers will work to re-energise the fight against dementia in our best efforts to support the estimated 1.6 million people who will live with the disease by 2040.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on dementia, I welcome this debate on Dementia Action Week. In Oldham, there are approximately 3,000 people living with dementia, more than six out of 10 of whom are living with a severe form of one of the many brain diseases that cause dementia. By 2030, that figure will be nearer 4,000.
Dementia Action Week provides an opportunity to highlight the urgent need for the Government to bring forward social care reform proposals. As such, I support the Alzheimer’s Society’s “Cure The Care System” campaign, which focuses on the need to reform social care funding and on driving up the quality of care for people living with dementia.
People with dementia are by far the largest user group of adult social care, but they face devastating care costs, often paying an additional 15% for their care provision. The average cost for someone with dementia or their family is £30,000 a year. Because of the lack of dementia training for our hard-working care staff and the continued disconnect between health and social care, people with dementia often receive inappropriate care. More and more of us will need dementia care, and more and more of us will become dementia carers for those we love, so it is vital that we get social care reform right.
For carers in the community, the pandemic has presented its own challenges. About half of carers are aged over 65, and they have undertaken an additional 92 million hours of care. This is unsustainable and the Government have to recognise that. It is vital that social care reform supports the needs of our army of family dementia carers by looking at respite provision. In addition, carers’ assessments must be backed by the resources to support the needs identified. The Government cannot continue to just dump additional responsibilities on to local authorities while cutting their resources, particularly in areas such as mine.
The Government’s forthcoming social care reforms provide an unmissable opportunity to cure the care system. While dementia as a condition is not yet curable, the care system is, as we have heard. I believe in the principle that healthcare and social care should be provided universally and free at the point of need, and that this is fundamental. In addition, I will be arguing that this should be provided through progressive taxation. The social care reforms also need to support people with dementia to live as they choose, keeping their independence as well as taking part in activities that they enjoy in environments that facilitate their wellbeing. Care needs to be truly person-centred, with control given to people in receipt of it. Lastly, our wonderful care staff must be valued and paid for their work.
Before I close, I want to recognise the impact that the pandemic has had on dementia research. As others have said, we need a commitment from the Government about fulfilling their promise on doubling dementia research, and I would be grateful if the Minister could include that in her closing remarks.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this incredibly important debate. This year has been a year of great loss. We have witnessed the loss of loved ones, the loss of livelihoods and the loss of our usual freedoms and day-to-day routines. However, we have also seen an immense effort, on the part of our scientists and researchers, to produce a vaccine that is now allowing us to think about returning to life that resembles normality. I think there is a great lesson to be learnt and it is one that, for the most part, we all know to be true: when we focus our attention and come together with a common purpose, we can achieve great things. So as we continue along the road to reopening, we can begin to look at tackling other illnesses, including dementia, which is rapidly becoming one of the most heartrendingly cruel diseases of our times.
Dementia is now not only the leading cause of death in this country, but the only disease in the top 10 leading causes of death for which there is currently no treatment for either prevention or cure. Like many of my colleagues speaking this afternoon, I, too, have experienced this disease at first hand. Both of my grandmothers suffered from dementia and, as time went on, both went from being animated, proud, fun women who were very active in the lives of their families and wider communities to shadows of their former selves; dementia affects not only people’s memory—as people here will know—but their ability to do even the most basic things. Eventually, both were left unable to speak. I vividly remember, as a little boy, lying in my bed praying that God would return my gran to the gran I knew when I was much younger and that she would, once again, be able to recognise me. Of course, it is not like that. Dementia affects not only those who are suffering, but the entire family. For example, for my maternal grandfather, his entire life became about caring for her.
My family’s experience is not unusual. Rather, it is a story replicated hundreds of thousands of times across this country and others. While great progress has been made over the last 10 years in terms of improved diagnosis rates and increased public awareness, it is estimated that over one third of people affected by the condition still do not receive a formal diagnosis. In the case of my health board, NHS Grampian, 4,292 people were diagnosed with dementia in 2019. However, according to Alzheimer’s Research UK, that figure is likely to be only the tip of the iceberg.
I support the Government’s dementia strategy wholeheartedly and I welcome the steps being taken by the Scottish Government north of border. I want to see the UK as a whole become a world leader in treatment, care and research. But we must keep such intentions in sight and deliver on the commitments we have made. We must take advantage of the improvements in imaging, artificial intelligence and genetics and look to transform early detection so that treatment has at least a chance of being effective.
For all its sadness and turmoil, this year has proved that it is within our power, with the help of research and science, to deliver life-changing results. Let us therefore take heart from the vaccine success and seek to replicate that in meeting the challenge posed by the devastating and ever more prevalent disease that is dementia, so that little boys around the country will not be in the position that I was in, and that so many others are, of praying that their grandmother will be able to return to the person they once were.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
It is a privilege to speak in this important debate and to hear the thoughtful and moving contributions from across the Chamber. Dementia is an awful, horrific disease, not only for those who have been diagnosed but for family members who are condemned to witness the slow decline of a loved one. With dementia expected to affect one in three people born in the UK today and numbers set to double within the next decade, few of us will not see or experience the horrors of dementia at first hand.
I am sure we have all heard from constituents struggling to provide care to an elderly partner—sometimes while being ill, frail or elderly themselves, or balancing support for a mother or father alongside their career—and from elderly people who are having to lose their homes to provide for residential care. In Stockton-on-Tees, there are currently an estimated 2,665 people over 65 with dementia, almost 60% of whom live with a severe form of dementia and, as a result, require comprehensive support and social care provision.
Dementia is a condition that many still see as taboo and that carries with it the stereotype of being invisible or frail. It is important that we all remember that people have had a life before dementia and will continue to have a life thereafter. People with dementia must be treated with dignity and afforded the autonomy to continue living good lives after diagnosis, but we must still ensure that we have the right support in place to help sufferers.
We are lucky in my part of the world to have fantastic organisations such as Teesside Dementia Link Services, which provides invaluable support to dementia sufferers, their carers and families through support groups, activities and social events. Its work is second to none, and I know that it has made a huge difference to so many people’s lives. I thank Gail, Mark and all their incredible volunteers for everything they do every day to support people through the toughest of times.
Finding a cure for dementia is a challenge that will define our generation. While we deal with the new pandemic of covid, we cannot forget that the pandemic of dementia has been around for generations. That is why I am delighted that the Government have made finding a cure one of their top priorities, committing to extra funding for research and speeding up trials for new treatments. Both the cure for dementia and reform of our social care system must be national priorities, so that we can provide light at the end of the tunnel for those who are suffering and those who work so hard to support them.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]
I express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for securing this important debate. I pay tribute to the Alzheimer’s Society for the vital work it undertakes in raising awareness of dementia, including organising the annual Dementia Awareness Week. I also thank every professional carer around the country, as well as those informal carers who are all too often not recognised, despite working tirelessly to look after our loved ones, and who are an integral part of our care system.
Closer to home, I would also like to take this opportunity to highlight the inspiring fundraising work that one of my constituents, Councillor Janet Mobbs, has done for dementia sufferers over the years. Her mother, Mrs Edith Mobbs, lived with dementia during the latter part of her life, and each year Janet takes part in the memory walk with her family to raise funds for the Alzheimer’s Society.
Dementia is a debilitating syndrome that affects more than 10 million people a year globally. That is equivalent to one new case being diagnosed every three seconds. Given that one in every six people in the UK aged over 80 lives with dementia, it is highly likely that Members will have a friend or loved one who has been impacted by this condition.
Dementia is not only a terrible syndrome to live with; it also takes a terrible toll on family members, who spend years caring for their loved ones, as my comrade Janet explained to me when she said: “My family found it difficult at first as we had little knowledge or understanding of dementia and how this affected mum. We experienced a bereavement but were unable to grieve as we lost the person mum had been long before she passed away. We struggled to cope with the emotional strain of our changing role in mum’s life as we became carers for the person who had always cared for us.”
Janet is not alone. In my constituency of Stockport, almost 4,500 people aged 65 and over have dementia and that is forecast to rise to almost 6,000 by the end of this decade. With the number of people living with dementia in the UK set to double to 2 million over the next 30 years, dementia is a syndrome that must be urgently addressed.
With the growing threat of dementia in our country, it is time that the Government outlined a proper settlement package for our social care sector, not least given the stark estimates that 70% of care home residents and more than 60% of home care recipients live with dementia. It should also not be overlooked that more than a quarter of the 130,000 UK covid deaths—some 34,000 people—died with dementia. That is truly shocking and shows how vulnerable people with the condition are.
The Government must face the reality that the root cause of rising numbers of dementia cases is years of chronic underfunding of our care system, which has left it struggling to cope and difficult to access. Furthermore, it has led to huge unfairness, with Alzheimer’s Society research revealing that people with dementia will on average pay £100,000 over their lifetime for care. Understandably, this outrages and distresses the people affected and their loved ones. I urge the Government to take action.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Both of my grandads had Alzheimer’s disease, but they experienced widely different pathways with their condition. For my grandad Matty, his Alzheimer’s was diagnosed at age 81 while living with my mam and dad, and he lived until the age of 86, finally saying goodbye to us during lockdown last year. But my grandad Mick had a rare form called posterior cortical atrophy.
In 2006, at the age of 62, Michael Garrity realised something was wrong. He looked for a diagnosis, but his GP told him and my grandma that he did not have dementia. For five years my grandma fought to find out why he was struggling—why they were struggling. In that five years things became even harder. I remember he would sit and watch “The Weakest Link”, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” and “University Challenge” and get almost every answer right, but he would struggle to tie his shoes or find a way around the coffee table. He began taking bus journeys and forgetting where he was going and where he had been. It was not until 2011 that James Cook University Hospital noticed his PCA, five years after my grandad first saw his GP.
The problem is that those five years were lost time, when our family could have understood the disease better —how it would affect my grandad, how it would hit my grandma. In 2014, my grandad was finally admitted into care. Over the first six months, he was moved into a care home, then moved into a hospital, then to a new home, then into a psychiatric hospital and then into another new home. He was given the wrong medication, which escalated his condition. He became mute and developed new health problems, too. This was all because he had this unusual type of Alzheimer’s. He had high dependency and the care system could not find the right way to care for him. He died in his sleep in the early hours of 16 April 2018.
I spoke to my grandma this morning, I asked her what message she wanted me to get across today. It was simply that diagnosis is key and then support into the right care. For five years she fought to get the diagnosis my grandad needed, and earlier intervention may have prevented the horrific experience he went through in the early stages of his care.
It is clear from my experience that Alzheimer’s disease can hit people in completely different ways. In the last 12 months, we have invested in science and medicine like never before to deliver a viable covid vaccine at pace. We must have the same drive to attack this disease—to drive earlier diagnosis and new interventions to limit the effects and ultimately to develop a cure. We may never fully eradicate dementia, but learning more about it would mean those facing it are treated with the dignity they deserve. I miss my grandads dearly—we all do.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD) [V]
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Jacob Young). It is, I suppose, inevitable that with as emotive a subject as dementia, this debate would be emotionally charged. Those of us with familial experience, or who have felt helpless as we watched friends cope with the heartbreak of watching their loved ones decline, know how much a dementia diagnosis demands of not just those affected but those closest to them. In my own family, we saw my father-in-law, Alastair MacDonald—a bright, intelligent, articulate journalist who had covered five world cups and Aberdeen’s victory in the UEFA cup in Gothenburg, written books with various footballers and one legendary Manchester United manager, and was once described as one of the best sportswriters of his generation—gradually struggle with everyday life. Vascular dementia, which he had, is characterised by problems with reasoning, planning, judgment, memory and other processes, caused by impaired blood flow to the brain. Like all forms of dementia, it is cruel, relentless and irreversible.
In my health board area, Lothian, there are currently more than 7,000 people living with a dementia diagnosis. Throughout this current crisis, their plight has been accentuated, often by separation from their loved ones or because, in the case of someone I love dearly, although they are fortunate enough to be with their family, lockdowns and the current restrictions mean that their life lacks the stimulation they need to tackle the onset of the condition. His family have discovered that one of the most frustrating things is the lack of clarity in finding support. My cousin told me that you just kind of get signposted and have to manage and get on with it. Sadly, there are nearly a million people with dementia across the UK whose families are currently experiencing much the same, as they strive to get the vital support that they do not just need but deserve.
Underfunding and neglect over decades have left us with a care system in every part of the UK that is overstretched and inadequate to the challenge that families face daily. I know that all of us in the House recognise that and the need to continue to address it. We must work to change and improve a system that means that, as that wonderful organisation the Alzheimer’s Society has put it, a dementia diagnosis
“claims more than one life”
as families face its destructive effects.
Last week was Dementia Action Week. We know that we will probably not find the cure, but we must use the increased awareness to support organisations that are striving to mitigate the effects, improve care, increase research and find better treatments. We must find a cure for the system across the UK, to enable families to have the support and care and provide the love that their loved ones deserve.
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) and to have heard the rather moving story from my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young).
Dementia affects people’s ability to think, learn and make rational judgments. Perhaps most sadly, it can make someone unable to recognise their loved ones. The side effects can be damaging, and include changes in people’s behaviour, emotional issues and lack of motivation. It is a truly awful situation, but it is heartening to see the work being done in Keighley and Ilkley by those who are suffering because of it. Dementia Friendly Keighley is a wonderful organisation that provides help to those with dementia, as well as supporting the family and friends of those who are affected. The group acknowledges the importance of the role the community plays in helping those with dementia by bringing together individuals, families, organisations and businesses to provide support. The group hosts weekly drop-in sessions that provide rest and relief for anyone with dementia and give patients’ carers a well-earned break.
There are so many brilliant volunteer organisations, but I do wish to pay tribute to Dementia Friendly Keighley and, in particular, one of the group’s members, Barbara Wood, whom I was lucky enough to meet in the summer. Throughout the past year, Barbara has continued to work exceptionally hard with Dementia Friendly Keighley, and her work is symbolic of the efforts of the entire group. I am pleased to see that Dementia Friendly Keighley’s impact in the community continues to grow. Recently, the Springbank care home in Silsden joined the growing list of places in my constituency recognised as being dementia friendly.
It is fantastic to see the work being done by local charities, but there is always more we can do at a national level. No treatment is currently able to cure dementia, and although it is encouraging to see numerous clinical trials being undertaken for potential treatments, we must do much more for those with dementia today. That includes increasing early diagnosis, which is crucial for treating the physical illness that can accompany dementia. Accelerating the detection of disease project that the Government are working on, in collaboration with businesses and charities, will go a long way to helping secure that. It is also encouraging that the Government have shown a commitment to finding a treatment for dementia. Like many, I was proud to stand on a manifesto in 2019 that pledged to double research funding going into looking for a cure. There is no denying that there are huge challenges to tackling this terrible disease, but I wholeheartedly hope that we all continue to look at this at pace.
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I want to thank the Alzheimer’s Society for its positive engagement with Members during Dementia Action Week. I also wish to note that 6 to 12 June is Lewy Body Dementia Awareness Week, which seeks to raise awareness about a common but seldom talked about form of dementia.
In Liverpool, just over 5,500 people are living with dementia, with that number set to increase by more than a quarter in less than a decade. Our ageing population means that the demand for social care services is set to increase dramatically. I refer to social care as the Cinderella service, one forgotten and avoided by successive Governments for too long. There has never been a more urgent time for reform of the sector. Its widely reported absence in the Queen’s Speech was much cause for concern. The pandemic threatens real financial instability across the sector, exacerbating the long-established crisis in social care. Under-occupancy rates in care homes are up and care home providers are failing to keep pace with demand.
There must now be a real acceptance by Conservative Members of some unavoidable truths. The first is that the market is not capable of providing the answers on putting social care on a sustainable footing. No longer can we continue to rely on regressive forms of taxation such as council tax to properly fund care. Local government should lead the reforms, but it must have the resources to do so and be able to provide a modern service, in house, where diversity of choice is respected alongside the care workforce who provide the care. That means decent terms and conditions, including good wages, as well the professionalisation of the sector, so that the workforce can grow and develop. A failure to do this will mean that the vacancy problem that exists across the sector will only worsen. If the levelling-up agenda is to be credible, social care reform should be front and centre of a strategy to reduce health inequalities in later life across all our regions.
My office and I are due to become dementia friends in the coming weeks. The information that Dementia Friends emphasises is that there is more to a person than their dementia. That sentiment should be at the heart of tailored dementia care that respects the needs and wishes of individuals and, again, of the workers looking after our most vulnerable. In bringing forward their social care reform proposals, the Government have an opportunity to bring about real change. Based on their record to date, I will not be holding my breath.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
Today, we have heard some moving examples from colleagues, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft) and for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), of their own family situations, to which many of us can relate. It is fair to say that every family has stories such as those to share. It is a sign of how far we have moved on from old stigmas that all of us can talk about this openly. My family is no exception, as my father looked after my mother for almost a decade. After she died, I said to him once, “I honestly do not think I could have done what you did.” The answer came back, “You never know what you can do until you have to do it.” Today, around the country, there are probably hundreds of thousands of people in different families who have been finding out how much they can do. Many of them would love to have done much more during this last year of the pandemic but were unable to do so for the reasons given by Members across the House, including social care difficulties and homes not being accessible.
We will never know the exact emotional, mental and physical cost to those who have suffered and are still suffering from dementia in care homes, unable to see those closest to them for so long, but we do know, as I know from my mother-in-law, that the more human contact they have with the people they love most, and the longer they have with those closest to them, the faster their own mental abilities will spark. That access to people with dementia in every family is incredibly precious, and I am sure the Minister is conscious of that.
Today, in this short time, I want to highlight the good work done by the NHS trusts in Gloucestershire and by charities to help people with dementia in my constituency of Gloucester and elsewhere. The introduction of the purple butterfly scheme in Gloucestershire Royal Hospital some years ago has proved very successful as a way of identifying patients who have dementia, making it easier for the nurses to understand the difficulties that patients may have in communicating. The introduction of so-called Admiral nurses who are trained in handling patients with dementia is also making a difference.
There are three questions I want to end with today. First, can the Minister comment on the research work on dementia of all kinds across the world that the former Prime Minister introduced at the G7? Secondly, what progress is being made on Alzheimer’s research? Thirdly, the Minister herself said how important it was to have faster diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and dementia, not because—unlike cancer—it will necessarily lead to saving lives, but because it can lead to a much better quality of life if it can be identified earlier. That is all I can say today, but I encourage everybody in this House to talk about what is such a difficult disease for so many people.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I am very pleased to be participating in this debate and, like others in this Chamber, I too have a relative living with dementia. I have spoken about her before in this place: it is my mother-in-law, Iris, who is now completely debilitated by dementia. Only a few short years ago, she was an active and long-serving councillor on Glasgow City Council. She ran marathons and participated in them across the world from New York to Tokyo. She was always on the go and would think nothing of jumping on a plane just for the sheer joy of going sight- seeing, all by herself.
Iris was respected and held in deep affection by all who knew her, but in a sudden and dramatic decline, she became unable to look after herself and moved into a care home, something she found difficult to adjust to. Her essential spark was still there, and flashes of the old Iris were still discernible. However, her condition gradually progressed, as we know it does, and that accelerated during the pandemic. She is now completely beyond reach. She is locked in a world that must be bewildering for her. Her ability to communicate on almost any level is completely gone, and Iris is no longer recognisable as the spirited woman that she once was. That, as we have heard today, is a familiar story. Dementia is a cruel illness, where loved ones are both present and absent at the same time. It is bewildering for those living with the condition and heartbreaking for the family members affected.
The Scottish Government commissioned the independent Feeley review into adult social care and are seeking to build a national care service to support those in Scotland living with dementia—thought to be 90,000 people and their families and carers—as well as investing £9.2 million, benefiting around 83,000 unpaid carers through the pandemic. But what we really need, and what we must have, is more research into this dreadful and terrifying disease. We cannot risk the progress on research and treating dementia stalling or even slipping back. Early diagnosis is considered hugely important to dementia sufferers, as there is evidence that, caught at an early stage, it is more treatable and progression can be slowed, so I urge the Minister today to press on with the movement and encourage momentum behind the research on this awful condition, which we know will affect 1.3 million people in the UK by 2030. We cannot allow any more time or opportunities to pass us by as we seek to support those living with, or at risk of, dementia.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con) [V]
Like many other hon. Friends, my family has also been touched by dementia. My grandmother spent her final days in a care home and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. The woman who looked after me when I was a small child was taken from us, but her story was not a sad one: she lived a long life, had regular visits from her family, and, crucially, was loved. My mother was also a nurse and a deputy sister caring for those with Alzheimer’s disease, and my father was a care home manager in Peterborough, providing love, care, and a home to those with dementia. The condition is a progressive one and brutally attacks people’s ability to think and communicate. It takes away who you are. It is an evil condition, but I am thrilled that the Minister has such a strong commitment to finding a cure.
As many other hon. Members have remarked, the Government’s promise to double funding for dementia research and speed up progress in clinical trials is incredibly welcome. The dementia moonshot could be a game-changer and now is the time to deliver on that pledge. As Alzheimer’s Research says, the UK is well placed to capitalise on research. We have a vibrant, diverse research ecosystem thanks to a variety of research and funding sources. This, together with the reform of the social care system, has to be a national priority.
As a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, I have heard some very uncomfortable stories about how those with dementia have had delays in diagnosis, difficulty in accessing care packages, and, ultimately, unhappy experiences at the end of their life. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) that we need to adopt the same attitude to finding a cure for dementia as we have done to the wonderful combined effort that has gone into searching for a covid vaccine.
I wish to pay tribute to everyone at the Alzheimer’s Society in Peterborough and the Dementia Resource Centre in my constituency who do such wonderful and marvellous work.
Finally, I want to mention a meeting that I have had with the Alzheimer’s Society and the worrying rise in the prescribing of anti-psychotic medication to people with dementia during the covid-19 pandemic. A total of 6,195 over-65s in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire have a formal diagnosis of dementia. Figures from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough show that 656 dementia patients aged 65 and over were prescribed these anti-psychotic drugs, which is up from 619. I understand that the Department of Health and Social Care is monitoring the monthly data, but I hope that there will soon be some action to address this issue.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab) [V]
Members from across the House are making some excellent and emotive points, particularly on the impact that dementia can have on our elderly population and their loved ones across the UK.
As ever, our incredible social care workers across the country have played a vital role throughout the coronavirus pandemic. I am particularly proud that it is the Labour Government in Wales who have not just clapped for our carers, but paid them, too, with a special thank you payment for NHS and social care staff, which has benefited more than 220,000 people.
Today, I will, if I may, draw attention to another worrying trend, which is the rise in dementia diagnoses for athletes who have dedicated their lives to their sport. I am extremely proud to sit on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Our inquiry into concussion in sport has heard some extremely shocking evidence. In March, we were told by Dr Willie Steward, a consultant neuropathologist at the University of Glasgow, that women and girls face double the risk of concussion and developing brain injuries from playing sport. The links between dementia and sports such as football and rugby have certainly been receiving more attention over the past few years. Indeed, back in 2017, colleagues may be aware that the BBC documentary fronted by former footballer Alan Shearer explored these links. At the time, Shearer said that his motivation to participate was fuelled by his personal concerns that the rates of dementia might be higher in retired footballers than in the general population.
This issue is not just connected to football. A group of 40 rugby league stars, all under the age of 55, are currently in the process of launching sport’s first dementia-related court case. All 40 of those former players are showing symptoms of dementia and blame concussions and head injuries suffered during their careers for their current prognosis. Many of those athletes played at the elite super league level and now have plans to take action by suing the governing body, the Rugby Football League, for negligence. It simply is not good enough.
It is clear that we have long way to go until the issue of concussion in sport and the subsequent links to dementia are properly investigated and addressed by those at the very top, but in February the Premier League announced that it will add additional permanent concussion substitutions to improve the management of possible neurological head injuries in football. That is of course a welcome step, and I hope that other governing bodies and boards will follow suit across all sports.
However, for industries such as professional wrestling that remain unregulated the links between concussion and dementia are likely to persist. I have spoken passionately about my role as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on wrestling a number of times in this House, and I draw attention to our recent inquiry, which highlighted the importance of concussion protocols across the industry.
There are some excellent charities out there, including the fantastic Head for Change in south Wales and the Alzheimer’s Society campaign “Sport united against dementia” that are working hard to change things for the better, but they urgently need more support. I sincerely hope that the Minister is listening and taking my concerns, and those of so many others, on board and seriously, and will work with colleagues in DCMS towards meaningful change to protect lives.
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
The House is at its best on occasions such as this when we can demonstrate that we are members of the human race. We have heard some very heartfelt stories. Dementia is a heartbreaking illness for those who suffer from it and for the family and friends of the person so afflicted. It is very stressful when someone is admitted to hospital and those they know are told that they have dementia, and it turns out to be a urine infection.
With the coronavirus pandemic dominating the headlines for over a year, many other health conditions that existed before and continue to do harm have been somewhat put aside. The issues surrounding dementia can be loosely broken up into two concerns: the health complications and the financial structures. We should not accept dementia as simply a part of growing old. It is a real issue, and is the leading cause of death in England. Currently 850,000 people are living with the condition in the UK.
Our wonderful national health service staff and health professionals have done a brilliant job of delivering the successful vaccination programme, but people with dementia have been worst hit by the pandemic, accounting for over a quarter of all covid-19 deaths. The percentage of those in Southend West—we have the highest number of centenarians in the country—with the condition is higher than the average for England, and the east of England and Essex. This is not a health problem that we can ignore; it is a serious local and national issue, although we have some wonderful care homes in Southend that are doing magnificent work on dementia.
Dementia is so different from many other health problems because the NHS does not always cover it free of charge. Our party’s manifesto committed to seeking cross-party consensus to bring forward reform proposals, and stated that
“no one needing care has to sell their home to pay for it.”
I have received emails from worried constituents with financial concerns about paying for their own healthcare or for that of elderly family members. I am pleased that reform of the social care system was mentioned in the Gracious Speech, and I hope that the Government ensure that no one has to lose their principal private family residence and their savings to pay for healthcare.
For individuals, relying on the carer’s allowance to support their family members struggling with dementia is proving extremely difficult during the coronavirus pandemic and an adjustment is needed. A financial barrier is stopping people receiving life-saving care and attention, and that needs changing. I urge the Government to implement cross-party talks and explain what steps will be taken to ensure that dementia healthcare is affordable for all. I have previously raised that issue in the Chamber and in questions.
Dementia is the only condition of the top 10 leading causes of death in the UK for which there is no treatment to prevent, cure or slow its progression. The rapid development of treatments and vaccines for covid-19 showed us what science can achieve with political will and the right resources and collaborations.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak on this issue, which is incredibly important to many of us in the United Kingdom. Last week was Dementia Action Week, which reminded us all of how important it is. Dementia has touched many lives all too often. I am sure that all of us present know of someone who has been diagnosed with dementia. Some people have spoken of personal relationships. I have had a number of friends who have also, unfortunately, had dementia. It is one of the leading causes of death in the United Kingdom.
Statistics from Alzheimer’s UK indicate that some 850,000 people in the United Kingdom are living with dementia. Some 20,000 of those people live in Northern Ireland, and unfortunately there are 1,152 in my constituency. For those with dementia who reside in care homes the generalisation of memory loss is simply not enough. I believe that we need to consider the long-term effects that patients have suffered from not being able to seek comfort through seeing loved ones as often as needed. A constant feeling of fright, anxiety and loneliness has consumed the minds of dementia patients.
I mentioned the Music for Dementia charity in an earlier intervention on the Minister, and she was kind in her response. It is important that music is introduced to people with dementia because it can help them. The Department must consider research into the benefits of music, and a UK-wide strategy to implement such support would be welcome.
There are things that we can do ourselves to reduce the risk of developing dementia, such as taking care of our diet, getting plenty of regular exercise and stimulating our mental health. But people are not always to blame for what happens.
The Alzheimer’s Society’s recent “Cure the Care System” campaign highlights the struggles of looking after those with dementia, and I want to speak up for the carers. Some 700,000 unpaid carers are looking after people living with dementia across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I find that astonishing, and more work must be done to offer them sufficient respite. The responsibilities, as I know from friends and their families, can become overwhelming, and it is crucial that carers know that help and support are available. The people supporting those who live with dementia have proved their dedication to this country, and it is our duty in this House and across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to ensure that they are protected in society today.
I conclude by thanking the Alzheimer’s Society, Music for Dementia and all the other charities. They should know—I put it on the record today—that their work is appreciated by so many, including me and every other elected representative and every carer who depends on then.
Liz Kendall
It has been an honour to take part in this debate. It is all too rare for Members to talk so much about what has happened to them personally and to the people they love. We are here to help and support people when they are going through difficult times, so the House can be at its best when we show that we are human.
I will not forget these stories of the people we have loved and the people we have lost. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) talked about being a little boy and lying on his bed praying that his grandmother would go back to being the person he once knew. When the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) spoke about his parents, I was thinking—I know this from my own family and friends—“How on earth could you have gone through and done all that?” and he said, “You never know what you can do until you have to do it.”
I really feel a sense among people here that we want to help families more, and help them deal with not only the emotional strain, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) mentioned, but the financial strain. I firmly believe that we should help people to help both themselves and one another. I spoke quite a lot about the absolute need not just to involve families, but to see them as genuine partners in the care process because, with dementia, we cannot give good quality care unless we support families.
Staff also play an absolutely vital role, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker). They have gone above and beyond the call of duty, especially during this pandemic. As part of the social care reforms, we urgently need a national strategy to transform the pay, training, and terms and conditions of the care workforce. We saw high vacancy and turnover rates before the pandemic, and half of all domiciliary care workers are on zero-hours contracts.
We need to value staff and treat them like the professionals they are, because they are so important to the quality of care. I hope that the Minister will say something about that when she closes this debate. I am proud that the Labour Government in Wales did not just take part in claps for carers, but gave them a special payment. We need a much more long-term, sustainable solution there.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) secured the debate, and, as she said, the bottom line is that we need social care reform. The truth is that our politics has been far too slow in devising a solution to this long-standing issue. As my mother would say to me, “It can’t be a surprise that we’re all living longer, Liz. You knew when we were born.” Her words will always echo in my ears.
As the brilliant group Social Care Future has argued,
“we all want to live in the place we call home with the people… we love, in communities where we look out for one another, doing the things that matter to us”.
The basic aspiration that older and disabled people should have the freedom and support to live a life like everyone else should not be regarded as extraordinary, yet in the 21st century, in one of the richest countries in the world, this is where we have ended up after years of political failure.
A long-term solution to the challenges facing social care, including for those with dementia, is not just desirable; it is essential. We cannot level up our country or build a better future or ensure we all look forward to living longer—not fear it—unless we invest in and reform social care. We heard lots of examples of what people are trying to do within the existing system, often against all the odds. We need a reformed system. We need to understand that social care is as important as the NHS. We have to understand that the two are inextricably linked.
We all—not just today in the debate and not just in relation to health and social care, but across society—need to understand that getting older and all these issues are not going to happen to someone else; they are going to happen to us all. Very few people want to think about what it really means to be very, very old, but one baby in four born today is set to live to 100. We need the House and the country to take long-term decisions, which our constituents and future constituents need. It really is time to act.
The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)
I thank all Members who have spoken in the debate, and spoken so powerfully, time and again drawing on their personal experience of dementia in their family. That is a sign not only of the prevalence of dementia, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) pointed out, of how much the stigma of dementia is being overcome.
My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft) spoke about her family experience, but also about the importance of listening to family and the challenges of navigating the system and the administration involved for a family coming to terms with a diagnosis, who have to go through so many processes.
My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) spoke about the importance of diagnosis with respect to not only the support that people need, but providing a cohort for trials and for research. He drew on his clinical experience, as well as his personal experience, and rightly mentioned the importance of the prevention of dementia and the role of diet and exercise in that.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) spoke about how dementia affects the whole family. Very movingly, he spoke of how it affected him when his grandmother lost her power to speak, and of how he used to pray for her to return to being the person she once was.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) spoke about how many of those who care for someone with dementia may be frail themselves or may be holding down a job. He also spoke about Teesside Dementia Link Services and the huge difference that makes for those with dementia and their carers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) spoke about his grandads’ very different experiences with dementia, and about the importance of treating those who suffer with dementia with the dignity that they deserve.
My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) spoke about Dementia Friendly Keighley, which so effectively brings people together and provides support for patients with dementia and for carers. He particularly mentioned Barbara Wood, who he said was symbolic of the efforts of the group.
My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) spoke about how his grandma suffered from Alzheimer’s and referred to his experience as a result of his father running a care home. He spoke about our opportunity to take the same attitude to curing dementia as to the covid vaccination. He is absolutely right: this is a moment in time. We can look at how we have pulled together as a country and how the public and private sectors, scientists, healthcare specialists and others have come together to develop a vaccination for covid; it was forecast at the outset that that might take five or six years, yet here we are with so many millions of people already vaccinated. He also spoke about the antipsychotic medication of those with dementia during the pandemic. As he said—he has contacted me about this—we are working with the NHS to keep a very close eye on the situation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) talked about the importance of reform, including the reform of funding so that people do not have to sell their homes to pay for care. As I have said, we are absolutely determined to bring forward the reforms of social care that we have committed to bringing forward this year.
I want to touch on some of the comments by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall). She spoke very movingly in her winding-up speech and made important points about social care reform. She said that it is not just about reform for those who are receiving care right now—our mums and dads, for instance, or our grans and grandads. Many of us will also need care, and so will our children and grandchildren as people live longer. We need a system for ourselves and all those we love that we can be confident provides the care that we want and need.
In her opening speech, when the hon. Lady spoke about the response to the pandemic, she clearly did not hold back in what she said, which may be a sign that she shares my sorrow about the many lives lost to covid. She knows how hard this Government have worked to protect and support people who receive social care, and she knows how hard it has been for care homes in England, but also in Wales, where there is a Labour Government, in Scotland under the SNP Administration, and in many countries around the world.
In a pandemic it is impossible to get everything right, but we have provided unprecedented support to social care and care homes over the past year. Once again, I thank all those who have been involved, including the Department of Health and Social Care team, Public Health England, Skills for Care, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, the Local Government Association, local authorities, organisations that we have worked with, such as the National Care Forum, the National Care Association, the United Kingdom Homecare Association, Care UK, Age UK and Carers UK—I could go on, because there have been many of them. I also thank the care providers, the care users and the care workers themselves—the care workforce, who have been on the frontline and have done so much to look after those they care for, through such difficult times.
This is a moment in time, not only for social care reform but for dementia. Yes, we must restore the diagnosis rates and go further. We must make sure that the support is there for individuals with dementia and their carers. We must do more on prevention, because it is estimated that a third of dementia cases are preventable. The Government must, and will, follow through on our commitment to research effective treatments for dementia and find—sooner rather than later—a cure.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Dementia Action Week.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I will suspend the House for a brief moment for the sanitisation of both Dispatch Box covers and the safe exit and arrival of the main players.
Obesity Strategy 2020
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered implementing the 2020 Obesity Strategy.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing this important debate on something I know he is passionate about and about which I have met him on many occasions.
Currently 64% of all adults and 30% of children are classified as overweight or living with obesity. This masks the fact that in some areas the figure is as high as three in four adults. It is a complex issue that has a huge cost not to only the health and wellbeing of the individual but to the NHS and the wider economy. It makes individuals susceptible to a plethora of illnesses. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Minister for Care, who was at the Dispatch Box for the previous debate, commented to me that if we could get the general weight of the population down we would help people with more exercise and a better diet, as well as the health trajectory of those who live with dementia.
Covid has shone a light on why it is more important than ever that we need to get the nation healthy. Obesity is the only modifiable risk factor for covid-19 and a major modifiable risk factor for other diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular, and some cancers—in point of fact, many. We are therefore at a teachable moment in which we can change attitudes, educate and influence drivers around less than healthy dietary and physical activity, and motivate behaviours so that they change. Helping people to achieve and maintain a healthy weight is one of the most important things we can do to improve our nation’s health, and we all have a role to play in meeting the challenge. It is complex. There is no silver bullet. There is no single source of responsibility. It will take action from all of us to work together to achieve our ambition—from the producer, to the processor, to the retailer, to the customer, with quite a dollop of influencing the environment through actions we in Government and in Parliament take and are taking.
Our strategy to meet the challenge, published last July, is far-reaching in its ambition. It reflects the significant work undertaken over the past four years to halve childhood obesity. Currently two out of every five children who enter primary school are overweight or obese. That number rises in the six years they are at primary school to three out of every five children.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
On the Government’s ambition, the Minister said very clearly, and it says in the strategy, that we want to halve childhood obesity by 2030. The strategy also says,
“reduce the number of adults living with obesity”,
although I looked and could not find a specific target. Is she able to set out what the Government think that trajectory should look like? What I am concerned about—she will see this when I make my remarks later—is that there are lots of practical measures in the strategy, but I am struggling to see how the Government will actually deliver the result, which is fewer people being overweight or obese. Having some milestones on that journey, rather than just waiting until 2030, would be helpful so we can judge whether it is working and make some course corrections.
Jo Churchill
I understand why my right hon. Friend is calling for milestones but, although the problem is a national one, there are different numbers for the proportion of the population that is overweight or living with obesity in each area. We can set milestones, but a national mile- stone may mask whether we are achieving what we need to achieve in the areas—often the more deprived areas in our communities—where we need to help, encourage, support and educate people to get them further on this journey. I will listen attentively to his contribution, as I always do, and then I may come back to him in my closing speech.
Three out of five children are overweight or obese by the time they leave primary school. We know that there is a direct correlation between the dietary habits picked up early in life and behaviour later on. We are working to create the right health environment to support people, and I will set out briefly some of the actions we are taking, starting with out-of-home calorie labelling. Restrictions laid in the House on 13 May will require large businesses in England with 250 or more employees, including restaurants, cafés and takeaways, to display calorie information for non-pre-packed food and soft drink items that they sell. Many have already gone some way in doing that. These regulations will support customers to make informed, healthier choices when eating out or purchasing a takeaway.
As I said, many businesses have articulated to me that they understand fully the importance of providing information and being proactive in leading the way. They recognise the demand from their customers for more information so that they can pursue a healthier lifestyle. Smaller businesses currently do not fall within the scope of the regulations.
We have also listened carefully throughout the consultation period to individuals and stakeholders who have the challenge of living with eating disorders. We feel we have been careful and sensitive and have put in reasonable adjustments to help that group. We have also exempted schools from the requirement to display calorie information, given the concern about children in school settings. We have included a provision in the regulations allowing business to provide a menu without calorie information on request.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Minister knows that I have had a number of conversations about calorie counting. What really concerns me is the evidence base for whether this will really reduce the number of people suffering from obesity. As she knows, I am very concerned about the effects on people suffering from an eating disorder, and so far there is no evidence that it will make a significant difference to those who suffer from obesity. Can she provide me with some numbers or assure me that there will be a constant watch on how this is actually affecting those with obesity?
Jo Churchill
If the hon. Lady allows, I will go through the rest of my contribution. I hope she will take away that this is about building blocks. As I said, it is a complex situation, and there is no silver bullet. We must look at the antecedents of both conditions, including the link to mental health for those who suffer from anorexia and certain other eating disorders, and at some of the broader challenges when we are looking at those who are overweight or living with obesity. They need to be taken in the round, but one cannot be cancelled out against the other.
Jo Churchill
I am going to push on just a bit, and then I will of course come back to my right hon. Friend.
We are also taking action to stop the promotion of less healthy products by volume and prominent locations online and in store. We want to support shoppers to purchase healthier options and shift the balance of promotions that way by maximising the availability of healthier products. We still need to eat, and we are not banning anything, but we are trying to educate, encourage and make people aware, so that they have the option of a healthier choice by default.
Last December, we confirmed that we will legislate on the promotion of foods high in fat, salt and sugar in stores and online. This will apply to medium-sized and large businesses—those with more than 50 employees—in England, and it will come into force next year. I would like to congratulate and thank those large retailers that are already taking these steps, because the argument is often put forward that it is unaffordable for a business to do this, yet many of the large retailers are doing it.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for outlining some of the measures she is asking businesses to undertake. She will appreciate that the last year has been very difficult for all businesses. As a Health Minister, she perhaps has not been able to have as much engagement with business, so would she take up the opportunity, ahead of the implementation in June, to come and visit Jordans & Ryvita, a cereal manufacturer in my constituency—she may have some familiarity with it—so that she can listen to its points of concern about the proposals she is making?
Jo Churchill
My hon. Friend and I have spoken about Jordans. Indeed, my first job was selling Jordans Crunchy bars at county shows when I was—oh—several decades younger. I will of course be happy to talk to him after this, but I would also gently point out that I have British Sugar, which is also in this food group, in my constituency. I not only meet its representatives on a regular basis, but I also met as lately as yesterday representatives from the British Retail Consortium and the Food and Drink Federation.
Mr Harper
The intervention I was going to make when the Minister was dealing with the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) was on the impact assessment for the regulations she mentioned. I have looked very carefully at the evidence, and it seems to me that the best case for these regulations is that we will reduce the number of calories consumed by 80, which is an apple, and the worst case will reduce it by about eight, which is a 10th of an apple. It seems to me that the cost of these regulations simply is not justified by the outcomes.
Because the Minister did not take my intervention at that time, she went on to talk about the legislation for promotions online, and I have looked at this. The Government’s goal for this legislation is that it reduces the calorie consumption by 8 billion calories. That sounds like a lot, but if we look at the number of children in the period that is spread over, it is equivalent to each child eating one fewer Smartie a day. Given that the children who have the most serious obesity problem are consuming up to 500 calories a day, reducing their calorie consumption by three calories a day simply does not do it.
The Government’s ambition is correct, but I just have a real worry that these particular measures simply will not have the effect that the Government and all of us wish to happen.
Jo Churchill
I am very glad that my right hon. Friend is joining me in the ambition of wanting to get the weight of the nation down. I would gently push back, and say that I do not recognise those calorie figures. I am sure we can have a longer discussion over where that evidence base is drawn from, and about the fact that there is actually a much greater impact. As I have pointed out on two or three occasions, this is about the building blocks of all these different measures coming together, and they will be monitored and assessed as we go through.
Another element of the environment is advertising. Currently, we are failing to protect children from over-exposure to high-fat, salt and sugar products via advertisements on both television and online platforms. I would gently say that if adverts did not influence people, they would not be used. Therefore, to help tackle the current situation, let us just see more advertising of healthy food. It always strikes me as quite interesting when watching a diet programme on the television that each ad break is often interspersed with adverts for high-fat, salt and sugar products. This does not affect the advertising industry’s revenue, because there is still a need to advertise and people still need to eat, but the foods advertised often do not reflect the balance that we need to enjoy a healthy life.
Jo Churchill
I am going to push on, I am afraid.
The Queen’s Speech on 11 May confirmed our intention to take that measure forward through the health and care Bill, and the Government aim to publish the consultation response as soon as is practicable. Many people objected to the sugar drinks industry levy, saying that it would mean a decline in sales. Five years on, we have seen a decline of around 44% in sugar in soft drinks. Revenue raised has often been diverted into sports activities in schools and so on, and sales have risen to over 105% of what they were in the beginning.
Information helps the consumer; it also helps manufacturers and retailers to look at diversifying their products, and much of the customer research, including the McKinsey report—I think it was put out by the Food and Drink Federation, but it might have been the British Retail Consortium—shows that this is the direction in which customers want retailers and manufacturers to go.
We want to take this measure into alcohol labelling, as well. As we know, each year around 3.4 million adults consume an additional day’s worth of calories each week from alcohol, which is the equivalent of an additional two months’ worth of food a year. Despite that, the UK drinks industry is not required to provide any information on how many calories each drink contains, and up to 80% of adults have no knowledge at all.
Action to ensure that people can make an informed, educated choice is what we want, and we will be publishing a consultation shortly on the introduction of mandatory calorie labelling on pre-packed alcohol and on alcohol sold in the on-trade sector. Once again, it is interesting to note that this labelling happens to a large degree with most low-alcohol content drinks and in many own brands, so the measure is merely about ensuring that customers can feel fully informed.
Turning to weight management services, on 4 March, we announced £100 million of extra funding for healthy weight programmes to support children, adults and families to achieve and maintain a healthier weight. More than £70 million of that will be invested into weight management services made available through the NHS and local authorities, enabling some 700,000 adults to access the support that can help them lose weight. It includes digital apps, weight management groups, individual coaches and specialist clinical support.
There has been a fantastic response from local authorities to the planned roll-out of these services. It shows the widespread need and support for helping people achieve a healthier weight and is an example of the importance of partnership in action. The remaining £30 million will go to: funding initiatives to help people maintain that weight, because we know that weight lost can often be quickly regained; giving access to the free NHS 12-week weight loss plan app; continuing the Better Health marketing campaign to motivate people to make healthier choices; improving services and tools to support healthy growth in early years and childhood; and helping up to 6,000 families and their children to grow, develop and have a healthier lifestyle and weight. In addition, we will invest in helping people access the weight management services and support they need through a range of referral routes across the health system.
We are also looking at incentives and incentivising healthier behaviours. We have committed £6 million to developing a new approach to health incentives. The aim is to support people towards adopting healthier behaviours. That work will be supported by Sir Keith Mills, who pioneered reward programmes such as air miles and Nectar points. It will look at the best innovation to motivate people drawn from not only the public sector, but the private sector.
Since it is critical that a child has the best start in life, we are also working to improve infant food and the information around it. We will consult shortly on proposals to address the marketing and labelling of commercial food and drink products for infants and young children—to reiterate what Dame Sally Davies has said, there is the halo effect, where we think what we are purchasing for our children is healthy, but potentially it is not—so that parents and carers can have clear and honest information that aligns with advice on the products that they feed their children and babies, giving every child the best start in life.
We are not alone in working to address the challenges of obesity; it is pretty much a global problem. The effect of collaboration internationally is critical for us all to learn. The UK has established effective working partnerships with, for example, Mexico, Chile and Canada, as well as international organisations such as the World Health Organisation. I have had discussions with some of my counterparts across the world, including those leading on measures such as health incentives. Through partnerships we share best practice and ensure our interventions are based on experience and the evidence.
Tackling obesity and helping people to maintain a healthy weight is, as I have said, an extremely complex issue, and that is reflected by the wide range of action we are taking. Of course, we would like to move more quickly and have a magic solution, and there is more that we want to do, but I recognise the scale of the policy we are bringing forward. It is a far-reaching and radical plan to reduce obesity in our society; I do not want us to carry on being second in a league table in which we should not be proud of being second.
The high prevalence of obesity in adults and children has been decades in the making. It is going to take time to see results from our interventions, and we may want to go back and change some of them. There is no single fix and no single point of responsibility. We all have a part to play and it is vital for us all—Government, Parliament, industry, employers, the health service, the wider public sector and all of us as individuals—to work together. I am really looking forward to what I anticipate will be a very varied set of contributions this afternoon.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
There will be a three-minute limit on all Back-Bench contributions from the very beginning.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to open this important debate on behalf of the Opposition.
Obesity is a significant public health challenge in this country. It is a growing problem that compounds down the years in missed potential and accelerated poor health. I am glad the obesity strategy recognises that, as well as being a matter for individuals in their personal choices, there is a significant impact from our environment. As such, we have a responsibility in this place to do what we can to help people to maintain a healthy weight.
Almost two thirds of adults are overweight or living with obesity—I am one of them—and we have heard that a staggering number of our children leave primary school overweight. This is an unequally distributed problem, with hospital admissions due to obesity nearly three times greater in poorer communities than they are in the best-off communities. At a population level, it is clear that excess weight brings with it increased risk of diseases such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, liver disease and, of course, associated mental health conditions. In 2019-20—this is such as staggering figure—there were over 1 million hospital admissions for which obesity was either the primary or secondary cause. That was up 17% on the year before, and represents a 600% increase on the previous decade. That is an extraordinary changing picture and one that should kick us all into action. We have also seen in the last year that living with excess weight makes us more vulnerable when fighting the effects of covid. As the Minister says, it is one of the risk factors we can actually make a direct and swift impact on. It is clear that we need to act.
I have said before when we have debated this topic that where the Government bring forward sensible proposals, we shall work with them to implement them in the national interest. Happily, the 2020 strategy contains many such proposals that we are very keen indeed to see implemented. The 9 pm watershed on unhealthy food adverts is prudent. Efforts to curb the promotions and prominent placements of things that we know are bad for us is a good idea, too. Sometimes, even when we are trying to make healthy choices it feels like we cannot escape reminders of those other options. An expansion of NHS weight management services is well overdue, and I hope we will empower such services to use all effective treatments and resource them to be able to do so, too. Traffic lighting is a valued and effective tool in understanding what our food comprises of. We will support proposals that strengthen and develop that system, and I hope we hear a little bit more about that later. A national-level publicity campaign is valuable and we will support its introduction. There is so much to agree with and I have consistently said so to the Minister. Indeed, the only addition I will contribute here is that we need to get on with it and that we do not have time to waste. There are elements, however, that I want to probe and seek reassurance on from the Minister.
On the total online advertising ban, I do not think it is a secret that the Government do not do online policy very well. I think the ever-running saga of the online harms Bill shows that. Online advertising is complex and sophisticated and is changing all the time. I am conscious of concerted efforts by those in the advertising industry to seek to offer the Government a way of delivering on this goal that reflects their expertise in this area. I hope to get an assurance from the Minister that officials are at least talking to them about that and taking it seriously.
On the restrictions on retailers, I hope that we will get a proper chance to understand and debate the qualifiers on square footage and staffing levels. I do not think we would want to be in a situation where this ends up affecting relatively few organisations, creating an unlevel playing field or promoting perverse outcomes, such as having fewer staff. I would be interested to hear from the Minister in that regard.
Crucially, we heard from the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) about calories on menus. I know that that has public support, and support from many campaigners, but if we effect that, it really must be done correctly and properly. I strongly do not believe that before they sought to publicise that and press on the Government have given enough consideration to those with eating disorders who will be negatively impacted.
Richard Fuller
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for cantering through his support for the Government. I just want to take him up on his first principles and the rationale, from his philosophical point of view, for why he believes the Government have a right and a responsibility to manage what people eat and how they look. Does he put obesity on the same level as the tobacco industry of the past? Obviously, health measures were taken because of the harmful effect that tobacco could have on people. If he does not put it on that level, what level does he put it on? Does he put it on the same level as alcohol, which causes a lot of poor health? If not, does he believe that we ought to be doing more on alcohol?
Alex Norris
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. Philosophically, I believe that the state has a responsibility to act when we acknowledge evidence that we have an environment that promotes poor health in this way, so that it goes beyond our personal choices and the way in which we want to lead our lives to things that swamp us. I reject his characterisation of a hierarchy. I would consider the impact that it has on the public and, indeed, the pressures it creates. As for alcohol, I would absolutely support stronger alcohol strategy proposals from the Government, as I would an updated and refreshed version of the tobacco control plan, which we have been waiting on for many months. Again, I would not establish a hierarchy, but I think we can act in those areas and that we ought to.
The hon. Gentleman recognised the support that I had given so far, but I am afraid that that is now about to change—it is not just because of him, I promise. On calories on menus, we have seen the instrument. The impact assessment is comprehensive—it has five different options, 235 paragraphs, four annexes—yet eating disorders are afforded one mention covering three paragraphs before being discarded in a fourth. I do not think that that is sufficient or that due regard has been paid, and I hope that the Minister will revisit it. Alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), I am seeking to bring together stakeholders who reflect a full range of views on this topic to forge a solution that realises important health benefits for one group but is not injurious to another section of society. I hope that the Minister is still in listening mode on the matter and might seek to do something similar.
That leads me to what I am saddest about with this strategy; the Minister knows about it, because I have raised it with her many times. Rather than having just an obesity strategy, we ought to have a healthy weight strategy. Eating disorders are increasingly common and can blight people for their whole lives, and their lives and voices are missing from the strategy. I have thought about this for a long time—since last July—and I think we can guess why that is: talking about eating disorders inevitably challenges us to talk about mental health services in this country, and of course, the Government are not keen to do that, as it would offer a reckoning of their leadership in this area over the previous decade. Access to high-quality mental health services of all kinds is too rare. People wait too long and the oft-repeated promises about a parity of esteem approach have not led to meaningful action. That gets worse when we talk about child and adolescent mental health services. The evidence is irrefutable that the root of challenging behaviours around food is at that time in life, but, as every right hon. and hon. Member knows, trying to get a young constituent into CAMHS treatment is simply too hard. We are failing a big and growing part of our population by not addressing that, too, so in that sense the strategy has missed a really important opportunity.
I turn to public health. As I say, I am glad that these proposals have been brought forward. It has to be said, though, that they follow a decade of the Government’s cutting services that improve the public’s health. I know that it is a core strategy of the current Administration to act as a new Government and run as far away as possible from their record over the last 11 years—I would want to do that if I were them—but they cannot do so.
The public health grant, even with the recent uplift relating to covid, is nearly a quarter lower in real terms than it was five years ago. I had responsibility for the public health grant in Nottingham for three years prior to entering this place. My experience was that, with the growing pressures for demand-driven services such as drug and alcohol services and sexual health services, added to the consistent cuts to local authorities, there just was not anything left for longer-term services such as those that deal with healthy weight. That has meant a withering of nutrition guidance, shared cooking programmes and specialist support. That has absolutely weakened our approach to taking healthy weight issues head-on in this country. These proposals should have included a commitment to reversing those cuts and, frankly, some humility for having imposed them in the first place. That point needs addressing.
Of course—I will make this my final point—this is an issue about poverty in this country, too. If we eradicated much of the poverty, we would take a lot of the obesity with it. As I said, there is compelling evidence that obesity is much worse in poorer communities. Again, that makes it all the more mystifying that those massive and ongoing cuts to local authorities have been targeted at the poorest communities, especially in the big cities. That is an extraordinary public policy disconnect and, again, it is something that we ought to address in the strategy if we really want an all-services approach, at all levels of government, to taking on this national issue.
This is a very important issue and it is right that the Government are seeking to act. We will support them to move at pace to implement evidence-based, effective interventions, but we will push them, too, to close the gaps in the strategy so that it becomes genuinely transformative. The stakes here are lofty, so our ambitions must be lofty too.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We will go, via video link, to Andrew Selous. Andrew, I have some great news for you; we have a bit more wiggle room, so you have four minutes.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) [V]
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Although we should always talk about obesity with sensitivity and avoid stigma at all costs, we lack courage and fail in our duty if we do not address it. Fundamentally, it is about life chances and social justice, and we want life, and life to the full, for all our constituents.
We are regularly asked to do more for the NHS, and rightly so. One crucial way we can help the NHS is to focus on the prevention of obesity. The 2019 paper by S. C. Davies produced by the Department of Health and Social Care calculated the medical cost and lost productivity cost of obesity at around 3% of gross domestic product, or £60 billion. As a country, we have the worst rates of obesity in Europe. There is absolutely no doubt that this matter is urgent and needs action now.
I salute the young people of Bite Back 2030, with their #AdEnough campaign, for their stand against the 15 billion junk food adverts they are bombarded with online every year. One young man told us he had more of those than he had contact from his grandmother. It is excellent that the Government are taking action on that. We should also curtail junk food advertising on radio, outdoors and in cinemas, restrict junk food sponsorship of sports events and teams, and remove child-friendly characters from junk food packaging.
There is, I am afraid, quite a lot more work to do on reformulation. The 20% reduction target is far from being achieved by this autumn, with only 3% achieved so far. I congratulate Tesco, Asda, Weetabix, Co-op and Aldi on big reductions either overall or in some categories. By contrast, Mondelēz International and Mars Wrigley saw the sales weighted average of sugar per 100g in their sweet confectionery increase. They need to get with the programme. We need to start flooding our supermarkets, schools and the out-of-home sector with healthy, nutritious, delicious and hopefully often home-grown food, and we need to make sure that healthy food is affordable; as the Food Foundation has pointed out, this is often the case in Europe but, bizarrely, not always the case in the United Kingdom. That is something we should concentrate on and we can change, and we need to take it very seriously indeed.
It has always mystified me that the quality and outcomes framework in primary care does not reward GPs for collecting data on children’s body mass index and ensuring there is a first-class diet, exercise and cooking skills offer online and in person locally. Primary care must be at the front of this campaign to make sure we are a nation of people with healthy weights.
Bite Back 2030 says that 60% of schools are not upholding school food standards even though it is the law to uphold them. We must strengthen the enforcement mechanism to make that happen, as school food is a great child health opportunity that we are not making the most of and that we need to act on urgently.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]
I want to start by echoing the sentiments of the Obesity Health Alliance; in this debate, weight stigma does not help people lose weight. The right support, evidence-based weight management, and fundamental changes to our obesogenic environment and food systems are all required to tackle this.
The health harms caused by obesity are well known, but I initially wish to mention one particular aspect that does not get the attention it deserves: liver disease. On average 40 people die of liver disease every day. The Foundation for Liver Research and the British Liver Trust have sent a helpful briefing, but in truth I had already committed to mentioning it in this debate. My husband, Joe, was diagnosed with stage 2 non-alcohol related fatty liver disease in 2019, after wandering around complaining of a wee pain under his ribs for five years. Since his diagnosis, he has made difficult but necessary changes to his lifestyle; he has lost 22 kg, taken up hillwalking, and has been carefully monitoring his weight, and I am very proud of him.
Some 90% of liver disease is preventable and, luckily for Joe, at stage 2 it can be reversed; however, as it can remain asymptomatic for up to 20 years, three quarters of people are diagnosed at a late stage when it is too late for lifestyle changes or interventions. Liver disease is the third leading cause of premature death in the UK, with deaths increasing by 400% over the past two generations; this is in stark contrast to other major diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, so I urge the UK Government, who have acknowledged liver disease in their obesity plan, to come up with actions, including doing all they can to spread information about this disease and the ways of preventing it.
The disproportionate harm caused by covid 19 to older people, minority ethnic groups, the people living in greatest deprivation, and those with obesity, diabetes and respiratory and cardiovascular disease has highlighted new vulnerabilities and underscored existing health inequalities. While much focus has been put on the direct health impacts of covid, the SNP recognises that we must also work to shift our focus towards reducing those inequalities and preventing ill health. We want everyone to eat well, be a healthy weight and have equal access to care.
The ambitious and wide-ranging actions to address this challenge are set out in the Scottish Government’s diet and healthy weight delivery plan. The plan, which has over 60 broad-ranging actions, has a strong focus on prevention, including population-level measures to make it easier for people to make healthier choices, as well as more targeted interventions. Alongside this, the SNP Scottish Government also published “A More Active Scotland: Scotland’s Physical Activity Delivery Plan”. This recognises the importance of physical activity in promoting and maintaining healthy weight. Progress towards the outcomes set out in this delivery plan is being monitored through a dedicated set of indicators linked to the active Scotland outcomes framework”. The SNP Scottish Government are continuing to provide £1.7 million in 2020-21 for improvements to weight management services for children and young people. Earlier this year, the SNP Scottish Government also published the refresh of their diabetes improvement plan, which strengthens the actions in the original plan to improve the prevention and treatment of diabetes and the care of all people in Scotland affected by it.
The SNP has consistently pressed the UK Government to ban junk food advertising on television and online before the 9 pm watershed, and we welcome that this is finally coming to fruition. Online adverts on social media are an area the UK Government must tackle strongly, as other Members have mentioned, because they are pervasive. In our recent manifesto, the SNP renewed its commitment to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and to significantly reduce diet-related health inequalities by pledging to provide free school breakfasts and lunches to every primary school pupil in Scotland, all year round, and to all children in state-funded special schools in Scotland; and to pilot the provision of free nutritious school breakfasts in secondary schools and explore the feasibility of universal breakfast provision in secondary schools.
We also want to make Active Schools programmes free for all children by the end of the Parliament, continue to improve nutritional standards of food and drink in schools, and bring forward legislation over the next Parliament to restrict the use of promotions on food and drink that is high in fat, sugar and salt. We will also aim to enshrine the fundamental right to food in law, as the cornerstone of being a good food nation. That will form part of the commitment to incorporate UN human rights charters into Scots law.
Scotland has one of the world’s best natural larders, but we know that so many people do not eat well and that obesity remains a significant problem. Evidence shows that in less well-off communities it is more difficult to obtain good-quality, fresh food at a price people can afford. Community larder projects, such as the Govanhill People’s Pantry in my constituency, have been springing up all over the place and working hard to try to redress the balance, in this case by working with FareShare to provide access to food in the community.
The overriding issue of poverty is, of course, key to tackling a lot of the issues; access to sufficient healthy food and the means to cook it is not there for everyone, not least because of policies such as the two-child limit, the upcoming removal of the £20 uplift to universal credit and tax credits, the UK Government’s neglect of people on legacy benefits, and the pretendy living wage. They all contribute to a situation where people cannot afford to eat healthily. If the UK Government want to tackle obesity, they cannot continue to ignore this reality.
Investment in regenerating neighbourhoods, increasing access to walking and cycling, and improving parks is also significant in getting people out and about and moving. Just last night, alongside local councillors, I met mums and grans from the Calton Community Association, who are desperate to access the newly announced Scottish Government fund for parks so that their kids can benefit from outdoor play. An obesogenic environment, coupled with a culture that allows the insidious influence of food giants and their ultra-processed foods to be advertised not just to us but to our children, has proven to be a recipe for disaster. I am looking forward to watching the latest programme by campaigner Dr Chris van Tulleken, “What Are We Feeding Our Kids?” and urge the UK Government to tune in tonight. The supermarket aisles are heaving with unnecessary infant snack foods, and the new report by the First Steps Nutrition Trust should be essential reading for the Minister.
One significant point of difference in the UK and Scottish strategies concerns our youngest citizens. Scotland’s healthy weight strategy specifically mentions the significance of breastfeeding, which can of course have a positive effect on maternal weight, as well as that of babies. The UK Government are committed to consulting
“on our proposals to help parents of young children to make healthier choices through more honest marketing and labelling of infant foods.”
Ministers could start by doing more to protect babies and pregnant mothers from the rapacious global formula industry, and, in this the 40th year of the World Health Organisation’s international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes, fully adopt the code. That used to be something the UK Government would blame the EU for their inability to do, but they have lost that excuse and must now act. The code sets out to protect all babies, however they are fed. As the chair of the all-party group on infant feeding and inequalities, I do not set this up as any kind of false pro-breastfeeding/anti-formula battle, because I know that for many formula is essential. Many mums want to breastfeed, but are failed by a UK Government who do not see breastfeeding as a priority and do not invest in support. Some years ago, Norway changed its approach and it now has one of the highest rates in the world. Norwegian mums do not have different breasts from us, but they do have a Government who made their needs a priority.
The Minister said that if adverts did not influence people, they would not be used, and she is correct. Formula companies spend astronomical figures on marketing, a cost that gets passed on to consumers at the tills and makes it challenging for many families to afford formula, and on the promotion of follow-on and specialist formulas, which are not necessary, but exist largely as a means of cross-promotion. I hope the UK Government will also act on that, as they claim they intend to look at honest marketing and labelling. As an example of that marketing, I share the concerns raised by the UK’s Baby Feeding Law Group that the National Trust has formed a partnership with HiPP Organic, a company with many documented violations of the code over the years. We should be under no illusions: these kinds of partnerships exist to benefit the company and boost their brand, and I urge the National Trust to reconsider.
I wish to touch briefly on the issue of calories on menus, on which I have received many emails, as I am sure other Members have. I can see what the UK Government intend, and I appreciate that for some people having calories listed on menus may be useful—I have certainly eaten fewer Danish pastries since coffee shops started to put calories on the display—but the policy is not about anecdotes and headlines and must be based on evidence. For those with a history of disordered eating, this is a deeply serious issue and such triggers can be very harmful indeed, so I urge Ministers to be cautious in what they are doing and to listen to and learn from the evidence from expert organisations such as Beat and from those affected.
I commend the Government for taking action on a range of issues to do with obesity but urge them to look more widely at the factors that cause obesity and to follow the Scottish Government’s approach with a healthy weight strategy.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call Greg Smith, with a four-minute limit.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Obesity is clearly a huge challenge facing our country, and one that absolutely should not be ignored, but I do fear that the state is significantly overreaching in some of the proposals that have come forward as part of the obesity strategy. The approach to foods high in fat, sugar and salt encompasses a perversely broad range of products, including butter, granola, porridge oats, muesli and protein bars, none of which have any particular appeal to or indeed are marketed to children, yet all of which are treated as junk food.
Breakfast cereals were previously heralded for high fibre but are now demonised. No distinction is made for naturally occurring sugars and fats from the dried fruits and nuts that are so often present in those products. If the state is really saying that breakfast cereals are bad, where does that naturally push people? A bacon sandwich? A full English? A pain au chocolat? All are things that I am particularly partial to but that I do not think the public health establishment will be keen to endorse. Perhaps people could have toast? But then we see that butter is on the HFSS naughty list.
Many breakfast cereal producers pay farmers, including in my constituency, a premium for buying their oats, thereby paying for the environmental and wildlife schemes that I am sure we all value. Let us be in no doubt that any policy that reduces cereal-makers’ ability to sell wholegrain cereals will adversely impact on great British farmers.
Mr Harper
I was intrigued to listen to my hon. Friend’s list of products. Is not the issue that there is a focus on individual products when, actually, the important thing in getting to a healthy weight is not individual products but a person’s diet as a whole and the balance between individual products across their diet? To demonise individual products is not the way to go.
Greg Smith
I absolutely endorse and agree with everything that my right hon. Friend says. It must be about the promotion of a balanced, healthy diet. Some of the things that we all know are not particularly good for us can be part of that balanced, healthy diet, so I absolutely agree.
The restrictions also undermine some alternatives to high-sugar sacks. For example, protein bars are used by many adults who lead highly active lifestyles. Surely the restriction contradicts the ultimate goal of the Government’s strategy: healthier living.
Let me move on briefly to the question of TV advertising. Broadcasters and creative industries throughout the United Kingdom are estimated to be in line to lose some £200 million because of the proposals. With children spending far more time watching online content than traditional TV channels, it is essential, not least for our public service broadcasters, that there is an absolutely clear level playing field between TV broadcast and online. Anything less would be to let down our broadcasters, particularly, as I say, our public service broadcasters.
I would also argue that the 9 pm watershed is equally destined to fail, as research shows that it will lower the calorie intake among children by just 1.7 calories a day, which is simply inconsequential. We need a more proportionate, less interventionist solution that ensures fairness for all. Obesity is a complex problem, but the solution cannot be nannying, ineffective policies.
I certainly did not get into politics to tell people what they should and should not eat, because when people are free to make an informed choice about the way they live, without coercion or state interference, they are much more likely to keep those changes long term, to the benefit of the health of the nation. I urge the Government to rethink the proposals and strip out the nonsensical inclusion of products such as cereals and protein bars. Let us look once more to freedom, choice and personal responsibility.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]
The Government are clearly right to say that this is one of the greatest long-term health challenges that we face, and it starts with our children. One in four enter primary school overweight or obese and, as the Minister pointed out, one in three leave in that position six years later. We have a shocking problem that gets worse during children’s primary years.
Like any disease, there are two ways of tackling it: prevention and treatment. I broadly welcome the measures being proposed by the Government on prevention, although we should look carefully at the evidence and concerns around calorie labelling for those with eating disorders, but prevention is not enough in itself. We need proper treatment services for children, and currently we do not have them.
Imagine for a moment that we were talking about another disease—say, cancer. Would we say, “We’ll invest in prevention, but I’m afraid we’ll not offer any treatment for children with the disease.” Of course we would not, but that is what we are saying for obesity currently. The Health and Social Care Committee highlighted the problem in its 2018 report, noting evidence from Public Health England that only 56% of local authorities
“have a tier 2 weight management service for children”
and that those services
“are not intended to support individuals with complex needs. When looking at tier 3 and 4 services, service provision is bare.”
It went on to recommend:
“The Government must ensure there are robust systems in place not only to identify children who are overweight or obese, but to ensure that these children are offered effective help through a multidisciplinary, family-centric approach.”
However, the Government’s obesity strategy does not acknowledge the issue. I have become aware of it through the work that I have done with Shine Health Academy in my constituency—a great local project providing the sort of tier 3 services that the Committee wanted. They take children on referral from GPs, teachers and social workers, and they have great outcomes, but they are funded mainly by charities, because neither clinical commissioning groups nor local authorities have responsibility for commissioning services.
I know that the Minister recognises the problem because, together with the inspirational leader of Shine Health Academy Kath Sharman, I met her to discuss the issue about 18 months ago. There have been some positive initiatives by NHS England, and I welcome the work to establish complications related to excess weight clinics—CREW clinics—to support children and young people with severe obesity, but it is limited. As I understand it, the aim of such services is to manage the comorbidities associated with obesity rather than tackling the disease itself. There are just seven centres in the plan, each for 100 children. It is useful, but it is a very small step assessed against need, because the Obesity Health Alliance calculates that there are 450,000 children in the UK who, if they were adults, would be eligible for bariatric surgery. That is shocking, but it is the scale of the challenge.
There are also worries about the CREW approach. Such clinics seem to place too much emphasis on the role of hospitals, and risk being about medical management rather than weight management. They definitely have a role to play and are fundamental to the treatment of comorbidities, but they should not be the only model of care. Above all, there is no certainty of future funding. In her summing up, I ask the Minister, who I know cares about this issue, to say whether it will finally be the Government’s intention to establish clear responsibility for commissioning tier 3 services for children as the Health and Social Care Committee recommended, because frankly nothing less will do.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Thank you for inviting me to contribute to this extremely important debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) for securing the debate, and to the way in which the Minister and the Opposition spokesman have contributed so far. Obesity rates are too high, without question, and the long-term consequences include a range of diseases: covid, which has already been mentioned, dementia, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, liver disease and so many more. The need to tackle obesity therefore goes without saying.
The challenge of obesity and its consequences among young children naturally has a very long tail. Introducing policies to meet the childhood obesity challenge naturally requires an understanding of the complexity of the causes if we are to have a real impact on the effect. Diet is obviously central to what we need influence, but it is not the full story. Contributing to the make-up of the diet there will be a series of complexities, and there needs to be clarity around the content of food products. I pay tribute to the work that the Government are doing and what they have committed to do in the Queen’s Speech, and to the work that has been done on labelling and on the sugar tax, which has contributed to a reduction in sugar in fizzy drinks and other products.
Knowledge and skills are important, including, for example, on the availability of fresh vegetables. Fruit and vegetables are obviously important, as is knowing how to cook. Standards and approaches in schools are also difficult. We need education in schools and among parents, who are also central to tackling childhood obesity. Lifestyle is an issue. The slower lifestyle through the lockdown period has enabled many people to address their own weight, but others have not done so. All of these issues naturally have complexities associated with them. Exercise is clearly also an issue, as well as eating disorders, which have been highlighted. I am trying to highlight the complexity of all that we need to face.
With these points in mind, I ask the Minister to consider the cause and effect directly, as well as the focus that has been given to the advertising industry and the marketing of food products, to establish whether it will have the desired impact. Whatever action we take, we must be sure that it will make a difference. There have been calls for many years for a television advertising ban. I can remember it being discussed in Cabinet and being resisted because the evidence was unconvincing. We need to consider that, although there is a call for a television advertising ban, habits have changed. Very few children these days watch television in the way that we might have done when we were younger, and that demonstrates the further complexity of the debate. Displacement is another issue. Advertising is more likely to move online, and I think all Governments recognise the challenge of tackling advertising online. Finding a solution is much more complicated when dealing with things online, as we have seen from the example of Governments struggling to tackle adult content online being accessed by children.
In the very limited time I have, I want to ask the Minister to look at the consequences, both positive and negative, and to question whether one will outweigh the other. I ask her to engage with the industry to see whether a solution can be found in which the industry itself, including broadcasters and online advertisers, can support the Government’s aims.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I speak today as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on eating disorders and I want to highlight the anxiety felt by many of those with an eating disorder about one specific aspect of the obesity strategy: calorie labelling on menus. Obesity causes serious health problems and there is no doubt that far too many people in this country do not have a healthy weight. I add my unequivocal support to the Government’s aim of addressing obesity, but obesity has to be considered as one side of our complex relationship with food. It is a form of disordered eating and therefore cannot be separated from other forms of disordered eating and cannot be dealt with in isolation. Calorie labelling on menus will not only be ineffective in tackling obesity, but will actively damage those with an eating disorder.
Studies show that there is only a small body of low-quality evidence supporting the suggestion that calorie counts on menus lead to a reduction in calories purchased. While there is limited evidence that calorie labelling will support the public in losing weight, there is convincing evidence that it would harm people with an eating disorder. About 1.25 million people in the UK have an eating disorder, and the 2019 health survey found that 16% of all adults aged 16 or over screened positive for a possible eating disorder. Over the pandemic, the charity Beat has reported a 173% increase in demand for eating disorder support, and research shows that individuals with anorexia and bulimia are more likely to order food with significantly fewer calories when presented with a menu including calorie counts. Those with binge eating disorder are more likely to order food with significantly more calories.
Many people with eating disorders also live with obesity. Up to 30% of people seeking weight management services would meet the diagnostic criteria for binge eating disorder. Clearly, a reductionist approach to nutrition means that the obesity strategy risks harming some of the very people it is designed to support.
Mr Harper
I am sympathetic to the point the hon. Lady is making, and she will know from my intervention that I think the evidence with respect to calories and out-of-home labelling is quite weak. Is labelling on products purchased in supermarkets also a problem for those with eating disorders? I ask that genuinely; I do not know the answer. Can she furnish that information?
Wera Hobhouse
I am particularly concerned about calorie labelling in restaurants. People who suffer from eating disorders are isolated and fearful of contact with others because they are thinking continuously about what they are going to eat or drink. Going out to a restaurant gets them through that step, and it is often a significant step towards recovery. As I say, my particular concern is labelling on restaurant menus.
In response to the survey on calorie labelling conducted by Beat, one respondent said:
“My eating disorder thrives off calorie counting and knowing all the calories in everything. I would feel compelled to look at calorie labels”
in restaurants and
“I would feel embarrassed asking for a different menu. Please don’t do it. Please.”
The Mental Health Minister has been extremely generous with her time, listening to the all-party parliamentary group’s concerns about the plan to mandate calorie labelling on menus. The APPG is grateful for her interest in improving early access to eating disorder treatment. However, I must repeat my plea to the Government to look again at this element of the obesity strategy.
Addressing obesity and tackling eating disorders should not be in competition. We must tackle them together. I look forward to working with the Minister to develop an obesity strategy that successfully addresses the obesity epidemic, but does not harm people with other forms of eating disorder.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
As I said in my interventions on the Minister, I very much support the Government’s objective. A situation in which 36% of adults in England are overweight and 28% are obese is not good, and there are many health consequences of it, but my view is that, fundamentally, we need, first, to enable people to understand whether they are overweight or obese. That might sound like a foolish thing to say, but there is some evidence that people do not recognise whether they or those around them are overweight or obese, and are not very good at working that out.
Secondly, we need to make people understand the health consequences of being overweight or obese. The Minister talked about incentives. The real incentive that people should have is that they want to be healthier. Unless individuals themselves want to be healthier and move towards a healthy weight, it seems to me that we will not get very far.
Frankly, getting to a healthy weight means having a healthy diet. It does not mean going on a diet and then going back to unhealthy eating; it means changing diet permanently. In many cases, it means making not dramatic changes but small changes that people stick to, such as reducing portion sizes. It is about reducing treats and things we like, not getting rid of them. When I eat, I like all the bad things, but I have become better as I have got older—I have needed to—and now I am a bit more controlled about how many times I have them. I watch the size of my portions, because as I have got older, I have had to watch what I eat.
It seems to me that it is about diet, not about individual foods. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) said, demonising individual foods is not a very successful strategy. There are plenty of things that I like that would individually be very unhealthy, but I just do not eat them very often. That is where we need to get to: people need to understand what a healthy weight is, understand the health consequences and want to get there themselves.
I have a couple of questions for the Minister. She spoke about the evidence for out-of-home labelling. The impact assessment is a rather weighty document of 76 pages, but one of the things that I learned as a Minister is that it is worth plodding through such documents. There is lots of useful information in it, but I did not find any compelling evidence that introducing out-of-home calorie labelling would have any significant impact on the quantity of calories that people consume. Given the concerns that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and the charity Beat have rightly set out about those with eating disorders, the case for its successful impact is not very compelling. There is quite a lot of concern that it will not be helpful, so I think the Government ought to think again about their approach.
I also have a question about the soft drinks industry levy. The levy has been successful in reducing the amount of sugar consumed; in my constituency, Suntory Beverage & Food Great Britain and Ireland, which produces Lucozade, Ribena and Orangina, has led the industry in taking more than 50% of sugar out of its products. It has also invested £13 million in new machinery at its Forest of Dean plant to produce those products—I was very proud to launch the new production line. However, although we have reduced the amount of sugar consumed, I have seen no evidence that we have therefore reduced the quantity of calories consumed or made any impact as a result.
Alun Cairns
My right hon. Friend is making a very effective, cogent argument. Does he agree that because there is a will to come up with a solution that will have an impact, there is a danger that unless we take account of all the evidence, including his points about the impact of the sugar tax, we might well feel better for doing something, but not quite achieve what we set out to achieve?
Mr Harper
That is right. I am very keen that we look at the evidence. I can see that through reformulation we have led the industry—the company that makes Lucozade and Ribena has been successful in doing that—but the real question is whether that has reduced the number of calories consumed, both by adults and by children, and had any impact on the number of people who are overweight or obese. It has clearly been successful in reducing the quantity of sugar consumed, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham said, sugar in itself is not a bad thing; people need to consume a certain amount of sugar to have a healthy diet. My worry is that we have reduced the amount of sugar in these products, but that will not actually make any difference to whether people have a healthy diet.
All these measures need to be tested. The point that I was making to the Minister earlier is that I do not want us to introduce them, wait nine years until 2030, and then say, “Goodness, it hasn’t worked.” I absolutely accept the Minister’s point that national targets may not make sense, but we need to look, at a local level, at whether the measures are successful. If they are not working, we need to change them and look at what the evidence suggests would be more successful in getting people to a healthy weight so that we all lead a healthier lifestyle.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, which is covering a wide range of issues. At its heart, it is about trying to support a healthier British public, which I think the whole House genuinely cares about.
My reason for speaking in the debate relates to alcohol labelling; I am sure that the Minister remembers our recent Adjournment debate. We are in the incredible situation where a product such as non-alcoholic beer or wine may provide its calorie content, nutritional information and a lot more, but an alcoholic product need contain only three pieces of information by law: the allergens, the percentage of alcohol by volume and the amount of liquid in the container. That is quite a bizarre situation for us to be in, so I am pleased to hear that the Minister is pushing ahead with the consultation on alcohol labelling. There has been some confusion in recent weeks and months. Just a few weeks ago, we heard that the Government had ditched plans to force pubs to list calories as part of a drive to tackle obesity. That came from Downing Street. I hope that, given what the Minister said, the consultation will be kicking off some time soon.
I want to push the Minister once more on the need for a national alcohol strategy. We had the highest rate of deaths from alcohol on record this year. Alcohol-specific deaths are at an all-time high at a moment when drug and alcohol services are underfunded and mental health services are overstretched.
If this is all about supporting a healthier nation—we have the obesity strategy, Dame Carol Black’s review of drugs, a consultation on alcohol labelling, a review of the Gambling Act 2005, and a promised addiction strategy from 2019—I suggest to the Minister that that work needs to be pulled together. The issues that we have touched on in this debate, including mental health and poverty, which are drivers of addiction, really need to be focused on in the months and years ahead.
Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con) [V]
While I welcome many aspects of the Government’s obesity strategy, today I want to argue against the Government’s outlined proposals to restrict TV and online advertising for high- fat, high-sugar and high-salt foods.
These proposals are blunt tools that will have little or no impact on obesity. The Government assess that both the TV watershed ban and the full online ban will lead to just a 4.5 daily calorie reduction among overweight children. That is completely inconsequential compared with initiatives such as The Daily Mile or Couch to 5K, which have the potential to increase calorific expenditure by about 100 calories a day, or targeted, community-based approaches, such as the Health, Exercise, Nutrition for the Really Young—HENRY—programme in Leeds or the Three Area Project in Wakefield. Those two programmes are based on a holistic approach. They address education, activity levels and food inequality, and have had measurable success.
Commentators might argue that the proposed bans do not matter, but they have large adverse impacts on broadcasters, online news media, advertising and production companies, food and drink companies, retailers and the hospitality sector. Advertisers have made it clear that this ad spend and investment will not be rerouted back through other channels but could leave the UK market altogether. The bans will reduce the advertising revenue that media reinvest in programming and content. They will prevent food and retail companies and the hospitality trade from communicating with their customers. They will impact jobs and remove most incentives food manufacturers have to invest in healthier alternatives in this market, because the alternatives themselves may still fall within scope.
The Quebec ban on advertising to children, introduced as long ago as 1980—incidentally, for reasons other than to tackle obesity—had no effect on childhood obesity rates in that province, compared with other provinces. Indeed, the prevalence of being overweight or obese among children in Quebec grew by 140% during the first 15 full years of the advertising ban—a faster increase than elsewhere in Canada, where those restrictions did not exist.
The UK’s advertising restrictions, currently in place across broadcast and non-broadcast advertising, including online advertising, are already among the strictest in the world. They restrict the exposure of HFSS advertising to children under 16. Although TV restrictions have been in place since 2008 and have reduced child exposure to HFSS on TV by around 70%, this has made no measurable impact on obesity rates. These current plans are disproportionate and not evidence-based; they are not targeted at the problem that the Government say needs to be addressed, which is to protect children. Indeed, they are sweeping and comprehensive, requiring new laws and a new regulatory structure.
I urge the Government to liaise much better with industry. The Committee on Advertising Practice, the advertising code body, has put to Ministers an alternative proposal to this online ad ban, which is targeted, workable, effective and enforceable. So, let us do that. Let us engage rather than have these damaging and over-the-top regulatory proposals.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab) [V]
Like almost everyone speaking in the debate today, I support measures to ensure that people have a healthy relationship with the food that they eat. However, healthy eating habits cannot simply be measured on weighing scales or counted in calories. Today, we are facing a mental health crisis, one element of which is the rising epidemic of eating disorders, including obesity.
I fear that our strategy falls well short of the social and mental health support needed to help people manage a healthy relationship with food. I am talking about those who have any conditions relating to weight management, whether that is diabetes or heart disease, or an eating disorder. I hope that the new funding for services will see those approaches supported.
While I am fully supportive of interventions such as restrictions on advertising and work to improve the diet of the nation, I remain very concerned about certain aspects of the strategy. Before the pandemic, hospital admissions were increasing, especially among teenagers. In 2019-20, we saw a sharp 32% increase on the previous year to more than 21,000 cases, nearly 5,000 of which were children. In addition to hospital admissions between February 2020 and January 2021, the eating disorder charity Beat reported a massive 173% surge in demand for its services. During that time, we saw no corresponding rise in the levels of funding going to eating disorder services. I have sat with eating disorder specialists who have told me that the money that is available often fails to get to the frontline. One doctor I spoke to said that his service was originally designed for 60 children, but now serves 280, with inadequate funding for those places.
I know that NHS trusts are also struggling with non-specialist in-patient services for children. The rising demand means that they just do not have the expertise available to treat in-patients with eating disorders properly, with many waiting for urgent beds for children in crisis in any specialist unit anywhere in the country. We still see a situation in adult services where there are no waiting time targets for support for eating disorders.
I am highlighting this dire situation because one measure of the Government’s obesity strategy involves calorie labelling on menus. Among those who will be reading those menus will be people with eating disorders. There is a wealth of research that shows that calorie labelling can exacerbate unhealthy relationships with food and can be a predictor of the onset of eating disorders. In trying to fix one problem, there is a real danger that Ministers will make another far worse, the costs of which are not trivial. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental health problem, and people who suffer from them are at increased risk of suicide and self-harm. While it is true that half of those with eating disorders recover, 20% remain in a chronic condition.
We should look at obesity in the round. Balanced nutritious meals, promoting healthy diets such as Mediterranean diets, and healthy levels of exercise are far more important ways of maintaining a healthy weight. I urge the Government to rethink and revisit that aspect of the plan, come up with a solution that balances the needs of all. If we really want to promote healthy eating habits, calories on menus are not necessarily the way to do it for the whole population and risk making a very bad situation even worse for those suffering from or at risk of developing eating disorders. I say this as someone with type 2 diabetes. I have lost weight in order to manage my diabetes. There is a real issue with anxiety around calories and weighing out food. More needs to be done to recognise these anxieties and mental health issues.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am grateful to be able to speak on this matter. It has been an ongoing issue for the United Kingdom and I appreciate that it is one of our greatest health challenges that affects people of all ages. I want to put on record my thanks to the Minister. I have been involved in many debates where she has responded on the issue of diabetes, which I think she referred to in her introduction. I believe that she is totally committed to bringing together a strategy that we can all endorse and will hopefully bring about a healthier and leaner United Kingdom. I also welcome the commitment to the alcohol strategy.
I am a type 2 diabetic and I have had diabetes for approximately 14 years. I am proud to say that since being diagnosed I have lost almost four stone on what I weighed back in 2008 and 2009. I am not proud of the circumstances that got to me to where I was. I did not even know what diabetes was, to be truthful. I was not even sure what the symptoms were until I met a diabetic maybe the year before. The choices that led me to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes were ill-judged. I never really gave thought to the health issues that can come along with the foods I was eating. Sweet-and-sour pork and two bottles of Coca-Cola six nights week are not a good thing for anyone, and they certainly were not good for me, as I found out for the worse.
I am now confident and well pleased with how I deal with the issue. It takes self-control. The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) referred to self-control, which is very important. Not everybody can do it, but if they can, it is good that they can. Along with the tablets that I take for the diabetes, it seems to be bringing results. There is no place in society for judgment when it comes to the topic of obesity, as the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said.
Mr Harper
I cannot remember whether I said—as I should have done, when I was talking about people being disciplined—that I accept that it is a simple thing in one sense to reduce one’s calorie intake and take more exercise, but it is not easy for people to do. I did not want to indicate, if I had left that impression, that I thought it was easy. Equally, while there is no alternative, ultimately, to people taking responsibility themselves, I accept that many people require help and support to do so. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has given me the opportunity to put that on the record
Jim Shannon
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for clarifying the matter. I knew that is what he meant, but I thank him.
The health survey for England refers to 1,000 people aged over 16, 277 of whom were obese and 31 were morbidly obese. In Northern Ireland, the figures are replicated; in fact, they are the same everywhere. Childhood obesity is a crucial issue on which much more needs to be done to make youths feel less self-conscious about the issue but at the same time able to do something about it. Obesity affects one in every five children in Northern Ireland. The figures there unfortunately show that there are outstanding problems to be addressed. Obesity exaggerates high blood pressure, diabetes and liver disease. Obesity is one of the three main causes of liver disease, in particular. Obesity also affects many other things, as the Minister said. It is very important to put that on record.
I have met constituents of mine over the years who had a medical condition that meant that they were not obese by choice but because of the circumstances of their own individual bodies. The people I am referring to had to go for bariatric surgery. I know some people who did that and I know it changed their lives. Perhaps the Minister could comment on how such procedures can be looked after within the NHS, because to do it privately costs over £10,000.
This is a serious health problem and it affects thousands of people. I want people to live their lives healthily and happily. I believe children should be taught that support is all around them and that their size is nothing to be ashamed of. There are ways to go about detecting obesity. However, I feel that one of the most important factors in tackling this issue is to reassure people that they will not be judged. Judgment often leads to resentment and failure, and there is no doubt that it is a sensitive issue for those who struggle with weight loss. I therefore urge the Minister to take that into consideration. I also urge others to be kind when it comes to such a topic. I believe that help and support is there for all those who are obese and seek help. I sincerely hope that in the coming years we can work together to bring forward a strategy that will encourage people and not do them down.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Wind ups begin at 4.44 pm. There are six speakers left. Hopefully, we will get you all in at four minutes. We will see.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing the debate.
There is no doubt that tackling obesity is one of the greatest long-term health challenges this country faces. Weight loss is an incredibly difficult challenge for so many people. I spent the first few months of this year on an enforced walking programme and managed to lose a stone in weight. Coming back to Westminster, I am afraid I can already feel it piling back on, but that personal responsibility that my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) talked about earlier is so critical.
One reason I wanted to speak in this debate is that children in the most deprived parts of the country are more than twice as likely to be obese as their peers who live in wealthier areas. That is sowing the seeds of adult disease and health inequalities in early childhood. We do need an urgent strategy so I welcome many of the measures the Minister talked about earlier.
I think we all agree on the need to address issues around obesity. How we tackle it is what we need to debate and what we are debating today. I heard the Minister say that there is no silver bullet and I think she is absolutely right on that. However, I am afraid there are some bullets that can have wide-ranging impacts, some of them unintended. As a number of hon. Friends have raised, one proposal is a TV and digital advertising ban. While some suggestions appear straightforward, I think this is a very complicated issue. The Minister herself said that if advertising did not work, the companies concerned wouldn’t do it. She is absolutely right on that, but there is significant evidence to suggest that introducing a ban will not deliver the necessary beneficial impacts she wants and could have significant outcomes on the public good. The Government’s own evidence, as we have heard, shows that the reductions in calorific intake will be negligible—about 1.7 calories a day. I think it was referred to earlier as a Smartie; I would refer to it as a Tic Tac. It really is not a significant amount of calories on a daily basis. My call to the Minister, therefore, is to encourage further investment in education in this area.
I want to mention in particular the impact that a reduction in advertising or an ad ban would have on public service broadcasters such as ITV and Channel 4. Some data I have seen suggests that about £200 million a year would be taken out of that sector, which is almost three times the amount the broadcaster spends on regional news each year. Regional news is something we all benefit from. It is incredibly important and the impact on public service broadcasting would be significant. My drive is to encourage broadcasters to put more emphasis on the campaigns they have been working on recently, such as the “Eat them to Defeat Them” campaign to increase the amount of vegetables in shopping baskets—around 500 million child-sized portions because of joined-up thinking between broadcasters and retailers, and something that children want to get involved with.
To conclude, one issue that has concerned me greatly relates to press reports suggesting that the ad ban will not be introduced across all platforms. It could be that it is just on TV platforms, rather than online platforms such as YouTube. That is a recipe for disaster, because the money currently spent on TV channels that generate wealth for this country will simply go overseas to the US.
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con) [V]
With more than half the adults in this country classed as overweight, which has well-known associated health impacts on society and the NHS, I understand why the Government want to tackle this issue. Much of the strategy on public health education is not objectionable, unlike the proposals about the advertising of two-for-ones and where shops can display their wares, which I believe fall foul of the core Conservative principles, which are the reason I am in politics, of promoting freedom and the liberty of our citizens.
There is much evidence that suggests that such proposals will not work anyway and will be heavy-handed. That is why these ideas, thankfully, never came to fruition in two former Prime Ministers’ Administrations. The legislation will essentially nationalise the content of food advertising, which will be chosen by the Department of Health and Social Care in Whitehall. It is redolent of EU regulations about whether Jaffa Cakes are biscuits or cakes and Harold Wilson’s selective employment tax; instead we should trust citizens to make decisions for themselves and concentrate on education so that those choices are informed.
The proposed advertising ban on high-fat, salt and sugar products before 9 pm on TV and online in its entirety will not only catch those foods that we commonly think of as junk, but target foods such as ready-made sandwiches, butter and jam. Speciality businesses such as wedding cake shops or artisan producers of sausages will not be able to promote their products on the primary advertising mediums of the 21st century. We are a party that claims to stand behind business, but the financial impact across the food, advertising and broadcasting industries, in stifling entrepreneurship and competition, will be enormous. All these proposals, by the Government’s own admission, will reduce children’s calorie intake only by an unnoteworthy amount. Research from Mondelez International states that restricting promotions will lead to an average daily reduction of only 8 calories for adults.
An obesity strategy as a concept and one that empowers my constituents in Northampton South is fine, but proposals towards a nanny, banny state, which are contrary to years of the Prime Minister’s own writings and to core Conservative principles, are not at all fine. They exemplify the politician’s syllogism from the 1988 edition of “Yes Prime Minister”: “We have a problem. Something must be done. Well, here’s something, so let’s do that.”
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
The challenge of obesity has of course been magnified by the last year’s events, and the evidence is clear, as ever, about the importance of having a healthy lifestyle and eating well. I welcome the national food strategy’s putting a better food system at the heart of the covid-19 recovery. It is worrying that one in three children who leave primary school is overweight and one in five is obese. It is crucial to rethink the food that young people are being given, and the right education is the key to the answer.
I recently met and had a great discussion with Ruth Hall, a constituent in Addingham and a former home economics teacher, about ensuring that people know how to prepare healthy food. She showed me her old lessons plans, which included guidance on making nutritious meals at an affordable price. The people she taught over her 36 years as a teacher were given the right skills to cook, and I am sure their children are better informed about healthier eating.
I worry that home economics as a subject for all at an early age in our schools is now lost, and I fear that a generation have now missed out on acquiring these skills, which I believe is a key reason for the worrying statistics I have mentioned. It is therefore vital for the Government to act to make sure that young people are equipped with the adequate training on and knowledge of nutrition and how to cook a decent meal—a decent, wholesome meal.
There is a much wider discussion to be had about where people’s food comes from. I regularly speak to farmers and those working in the food production sector, who are frustrated by the lack of knowledge about that nationally in the wider population. It needs to be at the heart of our good food strategy. The Government’s intentions to change how food is advertised, displayed and promoted in shops will undoubtedly create purchase behavioural change, but I am yet to be totally reassured of the absolute benefits that will have.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) and the Minister have said, there is no silver bullet. However, of course, in this place we cannot ignore the fact that this issue disproportionately affects those in deprived communities. Currently, children in those communities are twice as likely to be obese than those in less deprived areas. That must be addressed. I am pleased that the Government have pledged to halve childhood obesity and close that gap by 2030, but our approach cannot just be Government-centred; communities must be key, active players, and parents must take more responsibility for what they feed their children and the consequences of that. Of course, that loops back to education.
I know that the NHS long-term plan has ring-fenced £4.5 billion to help local GPs, pharmacists and others deal with issues such as obesity, but I am sure that home economics, food nutrition, and teaching children and parents how to cook good, wholesome food will be a great start.
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
As a member of the all-party parliamentary group on obesity and chair of the APPG on the national food strategy, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this vital debate. We have heard many statistics this afternoon that underline the need for decisive and urgent action by the Government, so I will focus my comments on the complexity of the challenge and the need to tackle obesity with the same collective approach that we have seen work so well during the last year in response to covid-19.
I was pleased to see the importance of prevention acknowledged in the Queen’s Speech, in the words:
“Measures will be brought forward to support the health and wellbeing of the nation, including to tackle obesity”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 May 2021; Vol. 812, c. 1.]
I particularly welcome the introduction of the office for health promotion, which acknowledges that our health is shaped by many factors and that the ability to make healthy choices is not simply a matter of individual behaviour change. Regional and community variations in obesity are strongly linked to the structural inequalities that we seek to address through our levelling-up agenda. Poor diet affects our ability to achieve our full potential, so tackling obesity is central to our commitment to level up.
However, to improve the nation’s health, we need to work together in the same way we did during the pandemic. From schools to local authorities, food producers, manufacturers and marketeers, health professionals and community groups, sports clubs, influencers, families and individuals, the battle to tackle obesity needs to be grasped by us all. That battle should not be framed as a war between the nanny state and personal freedom, as many more of our behaviours were during the pandemic, and I think that the majority of people acknowledge that.
I am reminded of a previous and ongoing health campaign, and the shift of public opinion, on the issue of smoking. I recall that it took many years and some Government legislation to alter the narrative significantly, even though the health risks associated with smoking have been widely known for decades. That is why I support, as part of a comprehensive approach to obesity prevention, the restriction of retail promotions on food and drinks high in fat, salt and sugar, the banning of junk food adverts on television before 9 pm, and a total ban online. Young people are particularly vulnerable to highly targeted online junk food advertising whenever they access social media.
If we are to see generational improvements in obesity levels, we must start with early years, so I welcome the recent increase in the Healthy Start payments made available to pregnant women and those with children under the age of four to help them buy fruit and vegetables, and the investment in school holiday clubs to ensure that many more children receive healthy food and exercise during the holidays.
Education has a vital part to play in behaviour change, with all schools offering healthy meals in their canteen and teaching about nutrition, underpinned by cooking skills for all. The latter must be measured as a key curriculum requirement, and the nutritional value of school meals needs to be included in Ofsted or local authority inspections to ensure that school food standards are met.
I also welcome the Government’s commitment to a health incentives and reward approach and the use of innovative tools to effect behaviour change, as well as the plan to build on existing digital solutions available via GPs to widen access to digital dietary support programmes to those who wish to improve their health, rather than to the clinically obese only. This Government are committed to winning the battle against the nation’s obesity crisis with a wide range of measures. It is a battle we cannot afford to lose.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing this debate, and I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to her place. It is clear with the breathless endorsements from the Opposition that the Government, if they wish, can fully get their way with these proposals, but I worry.
I worry that an opportunity for a determined and modern policy based on empowering individuals has instead been replaced with a rather tired, top-down, bureaucratic approach. I worry that the Department of Health and Social Care algorithm has resulted not in an intelligent group of products, but a confusing and ill-targeted group of products, as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) said.
I worry that the policy is literally treating adults like children, particularly with its full-scale transfer of the nutrient profile model. Worse, I worry that the policy targets those who are poor, ethnic minorities and the elderly, who are most likely to be obese or overweight, and it connotes with it a rather condescending attitude that the Government know best for those particular groups of people.
I worry that the evidentiary base is flimsy. The Minister mentioned the sugar tax, and the sugar tax may have been successful, but that is not what is in this policy. In fact, the policy being proposed is very different from the sugar tax. I worry that success is not defined or measured. Essentially, the policy remains a matter of hope, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) pointed out.
I worry about the haste of implementation, adding new efforts and responsibilities on businesses just as they are recovering from the impact of lockdowns. In particular, I worry about the impact on Jordans in my constituency and the farmers who are supporting that business. I worry that the Department has chosen to silence the power of businesses and the power of their brands, rather than enhance them in the efforts they wish to undertake.
I worry that the policy is blunt where it could be smart. For example, it prefers an outright ban to using technologies in advertising online that would help achieve the Government’s goals. I worry about the unintended consequences for people with eating disorders. I worry about timing. Many people are already anxious about their health post covid, and these measures will do nothing to avert those anxieties.
I worry about the social credit system of points that Sir Keith Mills may come up with in his review, with all of its potential ramifications. I worry where all this may lead—potentially we will have an NHS app. As we walk down the street and pass a restaurant or a bar, it will beep to tell us, “Please input what you have eaten.” Perhaps we will reach there one day. In fact, we are already there. Those apps are already under trial by the NHS.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Helping people to achieve and maintain a healthy weight is one of the most important things we can do to improve our nation’s health. As a consultant paediatrician, I have seen at first hand a worrying rise in obesity among our children and the health complications that come with it. I remember in my practice seeing a nine-year-old heavier than I was at seven months pregnant. I saw a young teenager weighing more than 120 kg—that is more than 19 stone. I saw many children with significant obesity-related health problems.
As other Members have said, the trend is increasing. One in three children leaving primary school are already overweight and one in five are leaving with obesity. This trend is further exacerbated in the most deprived areas of this country, where children are twice as likely to be obese as their peers in the richest areas. This is tragically setting up far too many young people for a lifetime of health complications, from diabetes to mental health, as well as reinforcing health inequalities.
In my experience as a doctor, the patients I see want to maintain a healthy weight but find it challenging to do so—and it is challenging, perhaps not surprisingly given the food environment in which we live. In particular, eating out has gone from an occasional treat to a regular feature of our social lives, but we have very little information on how many calories are in the food offered. This is important because on average meals out contain more than twice as many calories as those prepared at home. Accordingly, I welcome the Government’s proposal to introduce calorie labelling on menus, because it will empower people and give them the chance to make the healthy choices that they want to make. Nutritional information is already available on the food and drinks that we buy in supermarkets; expanding the practice to larger restaurants and cafés will help customers to make more informed decisions when they eat out. The evidence shows that calorie labelling on menus can reduce the number of calories consumed by about 8% and, indeed, that it leads to the development of healthier menus.
Although I welcome the push for reformulation to reduce the sugar and calorie content of food, I am worried that in their efforts to reduce the calories on menus, food producers and establishments may make greater use of artificial sweeteners. Research has shown that the mismatch between the sweet taste and few calories provided by artificial sweeteners can confuse the body’s systems and lead to hunger cravings that result in the consumption of an even greater number of calories overall. We need to be careful to ensure that our efforts to reduce calories do not unintentionally create the opposite effect with artificial sweeteners.
Finally, I wish to discuss an area that needs greater emphasis in the Government’s strategy to tackle obesity: education. As other Members have mentioned, education is really important in tackling obesity. Today’s greater prevalence of eating out is partly because of an increase in disposable income and convenience. We also know that cooking skills at home are just not what they once were. Education has a significant part to play by instilling healthy habits in young people and showing them not just what is healthy but how to make it, so that by the time they leave school they have good kitchen-safety skills and can cook simple, healthy and nutritious meals. I hope that when she responds to the debate the Minister will have time to elaborate further on the Government’s intentions in regard to education in this policy area.
Alex Norris
With the leave of the House, I shall respond to the debate. The funny thing about opening and closing this debate for the Opposition is that I have already posed 10-minutes’ worth of questions to the Minister and now I am back for another round. I do want to hear the answers to my questions and to the many good questions posed by Members from all parties, so I shall not speak for long. I am not sure whether that is a kindness to the Minister, but we are keen to hear the answers.
I want to reflect on some of the contributions, because it has been a really great debate. I hope that the people watching—there is a lot of interest in this subject—will have seen the quality of the discussions. There have of course been differences of view, but that is a good thing, and I hope people will have seen the House at its best this afternoon.
I have worked a lot with the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on modern slavery, and he always works with such compassion. The tone that he set on having a non-stigmatising debate was a very good one. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) picked up that theme too and I think we have managed to have such a debate. It is important that we continue that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) made some points on alcohol labelling, following his recent debate on the subject. It would be helpful to hear clearly from the Minister that the briefing that such labelling was to be dropped is wrong. I think that is what we heard from her, but it would be helpful is she was very clear that that briefing is inaccurate. Will she pick up on the idea of having a national alcohol strategy and say how she feels about bringing together some of the existing strategies to attack many of the commonalities—for example, in relation to mental health services?
I spoke about mental health services earlier, as did others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), whose points about treatment services for children were very well made. After a decade of real famine in this police area and the continued failures in CAMHS, there is a commitment in the strategy on investment in healthy-weight services; I am keen to hear from the Minister some extra detail about what form that is going to take. If she does not have those details today, will she say when we are going to start to hear some and when we will have a chance to debate what form that is going to take? My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) and the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) picked up on a point I raised in my opening remarks about eating disorders and they strongly displayed just how people feel, certainly those who are working and active in supporting people with eating orders. We are very lucky to have those people still making that case after such a challenging year for their support services. I hope the Minister has heard that, because I strongly believe that the impact assessment does not pay prominent enough regard to it. I hope she will confirm that she is still in listening mode and perhaps give us a date for when we can hear about and debate that secondary legislation, now that it has been published. I hope she will use this time to seek to meet some of those concerns.
Let me turn to contributions from Conservative Members. I was struck by the one from the right hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) on knowledge and skills, because the cruelty in all this is that scratch cooking is not only better for us, but cheaper. It is one of the few things where doing the right thing really rewards us. If my wife was watching this—let’s face it, she’s not—she would roll her eyes and say, “It tastes better if you do it right.” She has tasted my cooking and scrutinised my app-based ordering late at night, so she might say that I am in danger of a bit of hypocrisy there, but nevertheless it is true that scratch cooking is cheaper and healthier.
The hon. Members for Keighley (Robbie Moore) and for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) picked up on the idea of education programmes. Whether or not we characterise them, as he did, as a recommitment to home economics, these sorts of programmes are effective. It is not making a particularly aggressively partisan point to say that a decade of cutting the public health grant has meant that, in essence, these services have disappeared across the country, but they did exist and can do so again. I hope that we will see a reinstatement of them, and I do not think it is nannying to do that. When this is done intergenerationally as well, it can have a great social benefit. The evidence behind it was good, and I would love to see a report on it.
The point made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) about public opinion was very important, as that issue has not been covered much. There has been a lot of talk about personal choice, to which I will turn shortly, but the public are ahead of us on this. On the vast majority of the interventions, even the ones I am most sceptical about, the public are more bullish than I am, so it is important that we do not lose that from the debate.
We heard contributions from the hon. Members for Woking (Mr Lord) and for Warrington South (Andy Carter) about the ad ban, which is not a silver bullet, as the Minister has said, although it is impactful. I might argue that the vigour with which those who oppose it say it is a bad idea shows why it might be a good one. Nevertheless, I hope the Minister will again demonstrate that she is in listening mode. When the industry comes together with proposals that meet the Government’s stated aims, I hope they will be given a fair hearing—that is entirely reasonable.
The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) made very good points about reformulation, which is the big goal here; whatever we do with menus, what we have seen from the sugar tax is that once firms really put their shoulder to the wheel on this, we can do some incredible things. The progress made in the past decade or so, certainly in the soft drinks industry on reformulation, is a really good sign. I did not quite agree with the point he made on demonising products, as I do not think that that is the purpose. For me, the goal here should be informed choice, which all Members have talked about, and our knowing what is in those products. I do not think manufacturers would fear that, and they should not either. The point about informed choice was also raised by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith), who talked about “overreaching”. I would think the proposal we are talking about is quite modest; there are no bans in here, certainly not of products—it is just about ensuring clarity of what is in them, and we should do that.
I want to come to the point about free choice, as it was made by many Members, including the hon. Members for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) and for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller). If this is genuinely a matter of free choice—this is the thing I just cannot get past on this issue—why does obesity happen disproportionately on the same streets and estates, year after year, generation after generation, even though the people in those houses change? If this was purely a matter of free choice it would not happen that way and would be much more evenly distributed across the country, but all the evidence tells us that that is not the case, so I cannot quite accept that point, I am afraid.
I was not going to do this, but I thought the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire was a bit unkind to me by suggesting I had offered “breathless” support to the Government. I might have been breathless but was trying to get a lot in and wanted colleagues to have a chance to contribute too, and I think there was balance in what I said. I know the hon. Gentleman now differentiates what is being proposed today from the sugar tax, but I remember even though I was not a Member at the time that he was very publicly and prominently against the sugar tax, saying it would not work. I do not think that has been borne out by the facts since then, and I gently say I think he is wrong again in the same way today.
I have now given a quick canter around all the contributions, which were very good, even the ones that perhaps I would not agree with and that were made by Members who might not have agreed with my contribution. We have got the strategy—we have had it since July—and what I want to hear from the Minister now is a real emphasis on delivery and implementation and on recognising the concerns raised by Members and those outside this place, and a real sense of how we will work together to implement it. As I have said, where that is done in an evidence-based way, we will be supportive, because this is a very big prize indeed.
Jo Churchill
With the leave of the House, I would also like to thank everyone for the tone of the debate. It is important that we discuss these things and do so in the right way, which is essentially reflected in the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) that he did not come into politics to tell people what to do. Neither did I; I came here to help them, and the crux of this strategy is to inform, to educate and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) said, to slowly knit together policies such as the Office for Health Promotion and the healthy start vouchers so that we can start changing lives, and so that children do not end up in front of my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) as a 12-year-old weighing 9 stone, with the concomitant effect that one in 10 adults over 40 have diabetes and 4.7 million people in this country have diabetes. I have met the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) discuss diabetes, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) to discuss vascular disease—which is, again, completely compounded by carrying weight—and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central to discuss the childhood challenges of poverty. We have often spoken about how particularly challenged Stoke-on-Trent is.
In no particular order, as I just happen to randomly have these figures to hand, I shall state that 8.6% of children in Northampton go into reception classed as obese, but that figure rises to 18.5% when they leave—about a 9.9% uplift. In the Forest of Dean the corresponding figures are 10.3%, with 19.3% of all children in year 6 coming out as obese. In Bedford the figures are 8.9% and 21% of all children, and more than six in 10 adults are overweight or obese.
Actually, I think the time has come to do something, and to help and to assist, because I do not think on our watch we can do nothing. This is about helping people have more quality, healthy life years, and surely that is why we are here. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham said, when we eat out we consume double the calories; surely it is better that we help inform, because if we were to prepare the food, we would have half the calories.
We are not banning advertising; indeed, we are offering probably the greatest marketing and advertising opportunity as we come out of the covid crisis. It cheered me this week that Kellogg’s has indicated that it will reformulate the amount of fat, salt and sugar in its products, taking out 10% of sugar and 20% of salt. The whole reason that the policy exists is to try to put children and, arguably, all of us on a better trajectory.
All the contributions were excellent, but I listened with some sorrow to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith). I know his county and, indeed, I represent a rural county. I am not demonising breakfast cereals. Kellogg’s is going in the direction that its customers are demanding—I think, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) said, that customers are ahead of us in this House on this—and reformulating, which is what we want it to do. A noble Friend in the other place once mentioned porridge and was derided for doing so, but I want to help families and children so that, no matter what they can access and purchase, they are, by default, able to access a healthier choice, so that they are not forced into making the choice of saying, “That, at least, is something to give my children”.
We are not banning butter, so my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham can rest assured that he will still be able to have his butter on a bit of toast, if that is what he likes. I will not repeat A.A. Milne’s:
“I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!”
However, we are also not putting more than 16 product lines into this, because we have listened to industry, the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and various others who have noted the challenges. I talk regularly to the Minister for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), and we are incredibly cognisant of those who have eating disorders. The road that we travel has to be balanced so that people can make the right, informed choices.
Jo Churchill
No, I am terribly sorry, I have only two minutes left, but I am more than happy to talk to my right hon. Friend at considerably more length. He asked me for a bit of evidence on the sugary drinks tax. There is the fact that that, over three years, it has reduced the calories consumed on every occasion that somebody drank a soft drink by 35.2%. The figures on out-of-home calorie labelling show that £5.6 billion will be saved for the economy over 25 years, and that is before we even get to the associated benefits to people’s health.
I am sorry that I am probably not going to answer every point, but we want to achieve the full potential of all people. It is about a joint effort. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) has been a doughty campaigner. I have met members of Bite Back 2030 with him, and those are young people asking us to do something. I am working with colleagues in the Department for Education and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to make sure that we are doing that. Indeed, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who is on the Front Bench next to me, and I have the food strategy. Part 1 is already out and we are expecting part 2 in short order—that will very much go towards responding to what my hon. Friends the Members for Keighley (Robbie Moore) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central said. That Minister and I have worked together, with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), to look at how we can promote healthy eating for children and work across Government to drive these objectives.
I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who said that this was about education, changing behaviour, changing the environment and not demonising individual foods. I want everyone to get to where he has, so I can see a future career as a healthy weight consultant, if nothing else. I congratulate Lucozade on what it has done. We will be continually monitoring the situation to make sure that we achieve our ambition on this. Partnership is key, and we are working with local authorities and working to build healthy weight management services. Promoting good health is central to this Government’s health agenda, and we will do that through the new Office for Health Promotion and proactively take the burden of preventable ill health and empower everyone to make the right choice. We would like to see immediate results, but the situation is complex, and we know it will take time. We all have a lot to gain by helping people achieve and maintain a healthy weight, and I look forward to the support of the whole House in doing that.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered implementing the 2020 Obesity Strategy.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I ask Members to leave the Chamber in a covid-friendly way. The Minister for the Adjournment will not touch the Dispatch Box cover, because I am going to ask the Serjeant at Arms to sanitise it while we hear the opening speech.
Distant Fleet Fishing: Kirkella Trawler
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
This year, the UK fishing industry set out on its voyage as part of a newly independent coastal state.
The Government made grand pronouncements about the benefits that would come flowing to the industry. However, rather than helping it to sail confidently across the promised sea of opportunity, the Government appear to have left it to become becalmed on a stagnant millpond.
Fishers from Penzance to Peterhead are out of work and angry. They have been badly let down, and they have every reason and every right to ask why. Why are small fishing boats tied up and idle around our shores? Why can we not sell our high-quality catches to continental markets? Why have we lost fishing opportunities outside our own waters that we have fished for generations? This Administration, and the Secretary of State for the Environment in particular, have sat back and watched as the whole industry slowly sinks. It beggars belief.
Throughout the Brexit negotiations this Government promised our fishermen that they would see great bounty from the fishing opportunities as our waters came back under the UK’s sovereign control. Instead, the pressure of competition from foreign fleets has not eased, even in the inshore areas that the Government promised to preserve for the UK fleet. No bounty there. What our fishers do catch is snared in red tape that makes exporting the catches to continental markets untenable. This is a crippling double-blow for our fishermen. If that was not damaging enough, the UK’s once-proud distant water fleet, whose very last remaining vessels bring jobs and great economic benefit to my constituency in Hull West and Hessle, has been holed below the waterline by a Government who have objectively failed to secure a single fisheries deal with any of their northern coastal neighbours—not a single one.
I will put that into context. There are four fisheries-based economies around the north Atlantic that are not EU members. The UK has had friendly relations with Norway, Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroes for years—at least since the Icelandic cod wars, which marked the beginning of the decline of the UK’s distant water fleet. As Brexit approached towards the end of last year, the Government trumpeted loudly that they had achieved historic fisheries deals with all those states, implying that all would be well for the UK’s distant water fleet. Those assurances now look to be disingenuous at best.
Two of the historic deals, with Greenland and Iceland, contain no basis for future negotiation over access to their waters for the UK fleet. The other two, with Norway and the Faroes, were merely agreements to sit down and talk at some later date. The fishing industry is dying now, not at some later date. The House will know that until 31 December 2020, the UK fleet had valuable and long-standing fishing rights in Norwegian and Greenlandic territorial waters worth millions of pounds. Those stocks cannot be replaced with quotas in UK waters. Arctic cod is abundant in their waters and non-existent in ours.
Until this year, Kirkella, a Hull-based ice-class distant waters trawler, was plying her trade in the sub-Arctic waters on trips lasting up to three months at a time, bringing home one in every dozen portions of cod and haddock sold for the UK’s fish and chip shops. She was the only UK vessel catching in those waters. Today, with no deal struck by this Government with either Norway or Greenland, this valuable British-caught fish will be lost to us, only to be replaced by the self-same fish, but this time caught by Norway and exported tariff-free into the UK market.
In one failed negotiation, the Secretary of State for the Environment has handed over 8% of the UK’s market for takeaway fish and chip suppers to Norwegian and Icelandic fishermen and has cut English fishermen out of the market entirely. I suspect that there will be Members on both sides of the House reflecting on how tragic it is that the Government could not keep even that small part of our national British dish.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Lady is trying to clearly outline the issue of extra quota coming to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I say to her gently, as I did beforehand, that it is more than the Kirkella and her constituency; the Northern Ireland Fish Producers’ Organisation, the Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers Organisation and the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association all wish to see extra quota coming to them as well. Does she agree that we should all benefit from this?
Emma Hardy
Absolutely—any quota that the British Government secure should be there to benefit everybody.
We have lost jobs, markets and investment. Those are the results in my constituency, and across the country, of the Government’s inability to land a deal with their neighbours. UK Fisheries and the Kirkella acquired the failing interests of the last of the UK’s distant water fleet two decades ago. It amalgamated those investments in Hull, made Hull the Kirkella’s home port and established its headquarters down the road near the Humber bridge. It invested more than £180 billion in the business, and until now was able to safeguard the livelihoods of hundreds of crew, staff and their families. Not only that, the Kirkella’s owners had earmarked another £100 million in future investment in the hope and expectation of new or better fishing opportunities, promised by the Government after Brexit, as the UK took its place on the international stage as an independent coastal state.
Now, as a direct consequence of these negotiations, there will be no new investment or new jobs in the Humber area. Worse, all the existing jobs will soon be gone. Again, the crew and their families across the Humber region have every right to ask why. This is why: because when push came to shove the Government failed to strike a single agreement with any of the friendly partner economies, despite the almost total reliance of those states on the UK as an export market for their main fisheries products—cod, haddock, salmon and prawns.
There is, of course, a human impact too. There is one Hull resident I would like to mention. His name is Charles Waddy, and he will not mind me saying that he is in his 60s or that he started working in Hull’s distant water fleet 47 years ago. Charlie’s dad was a fisherman too and, as any fisherman will tell us, it is more than a profession; it is a way of life that runs through generations. Charlie’s dad was lost at sea in 1961 along with four others when the Arctic Viking sank off Flamborough Head in heavy seas—brave men who gave their lives bringing home fish to feed the nation. Charlie was there during the cod wars, which marked the beginning of the decline of the distant water fleet. He devoted his life to distant water fishing, and today he is first mate on the Kirkella—a job with great responsibility, and that he loves.
However, Charlie Waddy has no idea whether he will still have a job in three months’ time. Nor do any of the other crew members who rely on the Kirkella and her continued ability to fish in sub-Arctic waters. UK Fisheries has just announced the sale of one of its boats to Greenland—Norma Mary—in order to keep Kirkella viable. That means that 25 UK crew are now without jobs. Those are not just abstract statistics; they are real people, real jobs and real families who are suffering now. These fishermen are part of the lifeblood of this great maritime nation of ours.
The Secretary of State might say, in fact he has said, that the owners of the Kirkella are foreign and therefore deserve no special treatment, but UK Fisheries is no more foreign than Jaguar Land Rover, Newcastle Brown Ale or Tetley Tea. The jobs and investment that it provides are of true economic benefit to the UK, and support hundreds of families in and around Hull and the broader north-east. All the fish that it catches are sold in British chippies. The crew are almost entirely British. They, and the company that employs them, pay their taxes here in the UK.
In short, UK Fisheries is the perfect example of the sort of inward investment that this country is seeking in its much trumpeted global Britain; yet the Secretary of State has hung it out to dry. As one of the first moves in the UK’s new trading relationship with the world, that sends entirely the wrong message to those considering investing foreign capital in our industries. It will send them looking for other more appreciative and more secure homes for their money.
The Secretary of State will say that in seeking deals with our neighbours, he is looking for the best balanced deal for the entire UK fleet. If the current situation is balanced, that is only because it is almost equally damaging to everybody. It is difficult to see how no deal with Norway, Greenland or the Faroes benefits any part of the UK fleet. It has removed the distant water fleet’s ability to catch off the coast of Norway and has prevented Scottish and English whitefish fleets from catching in southern Norway. Perhaps the Secretary of State will tell the House exactly which part of the UK fleet gains from no deal and how, on balance, that is a good deal for the rest of the fleet.
The Minister may say that the mackerel and herring that the Norwegians have until recently caught in our waters is a valuable resource to the Scottish fleet. She may be right, but that fleet is already the biggest, and perhaps only, winner from Brexit and makes up only a modest part of the UK fleet as a whole. Does she understand that the mackerel and herring that the Norwegians would like to continue catching in UK waters form part of their own North sea quotas and that they will simply catch them as younger stock in their own waters? That will not only be less sustainable for the whole North sea stock, but damage the UK’s share of that stock. Where is she getting her advice?
The Secretary of State or the Minister may also say that there is still some cod to be caught off Svalbard. That may be true, but it amounts to just 5,500 tonnes, about a third of what the UK would be entitled to catch in Norwegian waters alone if it had not left the EU. Combined with the UK’s total Arctic cod catches from Svalbard in the Norwegian zone, that would have been approximately 20,000 tonnes. Five thousand tonnes will not provide long-term employment for anyone in the Humber region. They might say that that is just fine, because next year there will be different negotiations—but those negotiations start in earnest in only three or four months’ time, as the Minister told me in a meeting this week. What will she do next year that she did not do this year? What assurances does she have for Charlie Waddy and his shipmates that next year will be any different?
The Government’s track record in the area is far from encouraging. They made grand promises to the UK fishing industry, but I am sad to say that they have reneged on them both: they have failed the entire UK fleet in negotiations with the EU and are now set to preside over the end of our distant water fleet. It is a sorry state of affairs when the fleet that once fed this country through two world wars is finally sunk—not by enemy action, but by the decision, or perhaps indecision, of this Government. If the Secretary of State is not on the side of the fishermen who put their trust in him, whose side is he on? Right now, no reasonable person could say that it is the fishermen’s.
I make this plea to the Minister and the Secretary of State on behalf of my constituents. Will the Secretary of State personally reach out to his opposite number in Norway tomorrow to look for ways to strike a deal as soon as humanly possible, so that people like Charles Waddy can be confident that they will have a job in three months’ time and so that much-needed investment will find its way to Hull—or will he continue to sit back and watch this once proud industry slip below the water for good?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Karl Turner has sought and received from the mover of the debate, Emma Hardy, and from the Minister responding, Victoria Prentis, permission to make a short contribution. I have been informed, as per the rules.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
I do not intend to detain the House for very long. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) for securing this incredibly important debate, and to the Minister for indicating to me that she is content for me to take a little of her time.
We have a proud history in Hull and a proud heritage of fishing, but historically it was dangerous work. It would be wrong of me not to briefly mention Big Lil Bilocca, because if she were here, she would have something to say to the Minister. It is true that, following the triple trawler disaster and tragedy, Big Lil campaigned with men and women in Hull to improve the safety standards of fishermen at sea, and also the terms and conditions of those hard-working men. She campaigned with my predecessor, Lord Prescott. The people of Hull are very proud of Big Lil.
It is true that the industry has been in decline for decades, but the Kirkella provided a safe fishing future so that lads and lasses in schools in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend could plan a fishing career where they would earn a good living and have proud employment. They have been let down by this Government.
This is not about leave versus remain or left versus right; it is about what is right and what is wrong. We are not arguing about fishing rights that we got as members of the European Union. The fishing rights we are talking about are those that we had long before we joined the European Union in 1974, so it is simply not good enough, Minister, to say to me and my hon. Friend, “Listen, don’t worry, we are doing the preparation now for the negotiations to start next year.” We need to get a grip now. We need to take back control. That is what we need to do, and if we cannot get the answer we need for those men and women—those 100 crew members —we need to be speaking to the Treasury about compensation. Get a grip.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)
I congratulate both representatives from Hull on securing this debate on such an important issue. It was good to meet them earlier in the week and earlier today, and I look forward to continuing our conversations over the months ahead. They both represent areas with a proud fishing history, as indeed do the other Members present in the House this evening.
I understand that this is a difficult time for the Kirkella, her crew, UK fisheries and, indeed, parts of the wider industry. I want to take this opportunity to set out the background to the recent fisheries negotiations and why the UK and Norway have been unable to conclude bilateral fisheries agreements so far this year.
Victoria Prentis
I will make a bit more progress, I think.
When the UK was a member of the EU, UK vessels were able to fish in Greenlandic, Norwegian and Faroese waters because of agreements that the EU had in place. Those agreements, however, caused fundamental difficulties for the UK. It was interesting that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) said that this is not about left and right or Brexit and remain. I agree: it is about fairness.
The agreements that were in place when we were an EU member meant that in 2019, for example, the value of the fish that Norway landed from UK waters was approximately eight times higher than that of the fish that we landed from Norwegian waters. We gained £30 million-worth, and it gained £250 million-worth. That gives hon. Members some idea of the difference. About 197 Norwegian vessels fished in our waters, compared with about 50 of our vessels fishing in its waters. Similarly, Faroese catches in UK waters were worth about 21 times the value of those caught by UK vessels in Faroese waters.
With those deals, there was an effective deficit to the UK of £218 million with respect to Norway and £24 million with respect to the Faroe Islands. That was because we were a member of the EU. We were not an independent coastal state and we could do nothing about that. I suspect that the House agrees that such arrangements are not in the best interests of the UK in the long term. As an independent coastal state, our fisheries relationships in the north-east Atlantic must change, and we must move away from this highly unbalanced position.
Jim Shannon
Does the Minister agree that, as an independent coastal state, the UK is right to seek redress for the years of imbalance in fishing agreements negotiated by the EU, which in the case of Norway has resulted in eight times as much seafood being harvested by Norwegian vessels operating in UK waters than vice versa?
Victoria Prentis
I do agree, and indeed am trying to explain how very imbalanced the relationship has been in recent years.
It is, of course, challenging for our neighbours as we seek to make those adjustments and to strike the right balance in our relationships with our fellow coastal states. We started annual negotiations with Norway in January. We met with the Norwegians extensively and put several offers on the table. As I have set out, the priority for us was to rebalance the relationship. We are not willing to give valuable access to our waters for free.
During our fisheries negotiations, it is important—I see in the Chamber Members from Scotland and from Northern Ireland, and from other parts of the UK—that we represent the whole UK. We must also focus on long-term strategic outcomes, not just those for this year. A deal acceptable to Norway that retained some of the imbalance would not be in our national interest, and a similar dynamic developed in our negotiations with the Faroese.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) mentioned that we do not have an agreement in place with Greenland. The EU pays money, not quota, for access to Greenland’s waters. It pays about €16.5 million a year, in money. There might well be opportunities to agree for UK vessels quota and access sharing agreements with Greenland, but the House must understand that there is difficulty in replicating the arrangements the EU has with Greenland. That would doubtless involve a direct payment of taxpayers’ money, which would benefit private companies that catch the quota. I do not see us wanting to go down that route.
It is important to make it clear to the House that the Kirkella still has access to significant fishing quota in Norwegian waters around Svalbard.
Victoria Prentis
No, I will make progress if I may.
In a separate arrangement with the Norwegian authorities, the UK received access to fish 5,500 tonnes of cod in the Svalbard area, as the hon. Lady said. That is not to be sniffed at. It is worth approximately £12.6 million to UK fisheries, which will fish that quota. I understand that the Kirkella has apparently used half that quota to date and has about half left to fish, as well as the majority of its quota in UK waters. I appreciate that that is less than it has had in previous years—I do appreciate that, and I am not in any way seeking to downplay it—but those are substantial fishing opportunities none the less.
Victoria Prentis
No, I will carry on if I may.
Let me answer the hon. Lady. The Secretary of State has written this week to his Norwegian counterpart, expressing a desire to continue to work closely with Norway this year and looking forward to the formal start of the negotiations for 2022 in September, as soon as the science, which is so important, becomes available.
I should also make clear, as perhaps I have not done so, the fact that we have never taken our offer for this year off the table. Our offer to Norway remains on the table and our door is completely open if the Norwegians wish to begin to negotiate with us again, but I re-emphasise that that must be based on fairness in the future. We look forward to restarting the cycle of negotiations. As hon. Members know, the preliminaries have started. We await the science, then negotiations will start formally in September.
The Government recognise the need to support the fishing sector generally to transition and prepare for a new long-term future. I am pleased that we have gone well beyond our manifesto commitment, and the Prime Minister has announced that £100 million will be invested across the UK for transformative seafood projects. The projects will rejuvenate the industry—and, I hope, our coastal communities—through training and qualifications, infrastructure projects and the development and roll-out of science and innovation across the supply chain.
Emma Hardy
I am sure the Minister will recall the conversation we had earlier in the week about workforce retention. As I mentioned in my speech, we have already lost 25 British crew members in the fisheries industry because of the failure to secure that deal. I also mentioned my constituent Charlie Waddy, who might not continue as a first mate if the Kirkella is unable to continue to fish to the level it did before. There is not much point in preparing a workforce for an industry that is in decline if the support is not there any more. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) asked, what compensation will be given to those fishermen and women to secure them in work until a new deal is negotiated?
Victoria Prentis
I do not share the hon. Lady’s analysis of the future of the UK’s fishing industry. We believe that there is a bright and sustainable future for the industry.
Turning, if I may, to the impact on jobs, I recognise that seafood processing in particular has huge regional significance and that it makes a really important contribution to Grimsby. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici), whom I met yesterday to discuss this with, reminds me of that very regularly indeed. The gross value added is almost £300 million, and there is a turnover for processing of over £1 billion in most years from 2018 onwards. The area accounts for over 30% of seafood processing jobs in the UK.
Karl Turner
Is the Minister suggesting that those fishermen and women should transfer to doing factory work onshore? Is that the alternative the Minister is offering?
Victoria Prentis
I do not recognise the picture of the jobs situation that has been painted by the two representatives from Hull. I do not recognise the hon. Lady’s figures. I have been briefed that all the crew are self-employed share fishermen. We think that about 30 to 34 crew are being employed on the Kirkella. As I said earlier, there are still significant fishing opportunities for the Kirkella this year in Svalbard, and we will continue to work hard to make a deal for fishing opportunities next year.
Moving to another point that the hon. Lady raised, the majority of raw materials used in processing in Humberside are sourced from imports, as they long have been. We are seeing significant investment in the seafood sector in the region. Young’s, for example, is currently running a recruitment campaign for 400 people, which is a great indicator of how the hub in the region is doing. I am not suggesting that every crew person transfers into processing jobs; I am merely trying to explain that there are good jobs in the seafood sector in the region, and that we are really pleased to support those where we can.
On a good news note, we have noticed a significant uplift in retail sales of seafood recently. The Government are working closely with bodies such as Seafish to ensure that the British public continue to develop their appetite for British fish. I want to see continued growth in this industry and more fantastic UK seafood being enjoyed by the British public.
This has been a period of considerable change for the fishing world and the wider sector, including for processes and hospitality. In its response to the covid pandemic, the sector has demonstrated again and again how resilient and adaptable it can be. Adjusting to our position as an independent coastal state is also challenging, but I am confident that, as we continue to work with other neighbouring coastal states, there is a bright and environmentally sustainable future for British fishing.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Before I put the question, let me thank all staff of the House for the incredible work that they have put in. I hope that they have an enjoyable May week’s recess.
Question put and agreed to.
The Myanmar (Sanctions) Regulations 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we begin, I remind Members to observe social distancing and, when not speaking, to wear masks.
The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Myanmar (Sanctions) Regulations 2021 (S.I. 2021, No. 496).
As ever, Mr Stringer, it is a pleasure to appear under your chairmanship. The statutory instrument before us was laid on 29 April under the powers provided by the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, also known as the sanctions Act. The instrument revokes and replaces the Burma (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which had previously established the UK’s sanctions regime in respect of Myanmar. The 2019 regulations brought the policy effect of the European Union’s Myanmar regime into UK law at the end of the transition period. That regime was designed as a response to the serious human rights violations committed by the Myanmar security forces, including widespread and systematic attacks on ethnic minorities and the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in 2017.
As Committee members know, on 1 February this year the Myanmar military launched a coup that disregarded the democratically expressed will of the Myanmar people, and arrested Aung San Suu Kyi, among many others. Peaceful protest has been met with brutal force, with more than 700 civilians killed and more than 4,000 detained. There are credible reports of torture, humanitarian relief organisations have been refused access, and there are internet shutdowns and the intimidation and persecution of civil society, which have restricted access to information and journalistic freedoms. We are pressing the military to return power to the democratically elected Government of Myanmar; to protect the rights and freedoms of the Myanmar people, including their right to political protest; to release all those who are arbitrarily detained; and to ensure unobstructed humanitarian access.
Targeted sanctions are a key part of our response. However, the 2019 regulations did not contain purposes or designation criteria that would allow us to make designations in relation to the coup. The Government therefore took the decision to revoke and replace the 2019 regime, which focused more narrowly on human rights compliance among the Myanmar security forces. The new regulations, which we are considering, expand the purposes and designation criteria from those set out in the previous 2019 regulations.
The purpose of our new regime is to promote peace, security and stability in Myanmar; to promote respect for democracy, the rule of law and good governance; to discourage the repression of the civilian population; and to promote compliance with international human rights law and respect for human rights, including the rights to liberty and security and the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. As for designations, the regulations enable us to designate not only members of the Myanmar security forces, but any other individuals or entities that meet the designation criteria, including those supported by the junta.
We are now able to designate people not only for committing serious human rights violations, important as that is, but for undermining democracy, the rule of law or good governance; repressing the civilian population; violating international humanitarian law; obstructing humanitarian assistance activity; or any other action, policy or activity that threatens peace, stability or the security of Myanmar. We had already designated the two largest military conglomerates—Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and Myanmar Economic Corporation—under the global human rights sanctions regime before we laid the new regulations.
Significantly, the regulations give us the power to list entities under our geographic regime, allowing us to target the military’s economic interests and demonstrating that we stand in solidarity with the domestic movement to boycott businesses linked to the military. On 17 May, we used the regulations to designate the Myanmar Gems Enterprise. Gems are a multibillion dollar trade in Myanmar and a key source of revenue for the junta.
In addition to expanding the purposes of the designation criteria, the new regulations create another licensing purpose for financial sanctions, enabling the Treasury to grant a licence to conduct otherwise prohibited activities, if those activities are in connection with humanitarian assistance activity. That helps to ensure that the effects of the sanctions are targeted and that there is no unintentional impact on humanitarian operations. Otherwise, the substance of the regulations is the same as we set out in the previous legislation, and the types of sanctions measures permitted—financial, trade and immigration—have not changed.
It is important to note that the new regulations retain the comprehensive arms embargo, which the UK worked to secure while we were in the EU. They also retain trade prohibitions on dual-use items for military use, as well as items that could be used to intercept or monitor telecommunications and repress the civilian population. Finally, the regulations also prohibit the provision of military-related services, including the provision of technical assistance, to or for the benefit of the Myanmar security forces, which are defined to include the Tatmadaw, the police force and the border force.
Of course, sanctions are only one element of our response to the coup. We have been at the forefront of the international response, capitalising on our presidencies of both the G7 and the United Nations Security Council, as well as our relationships with Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states and others in the region. At the G7 Foreign and Development Ministers meeting on 4 and 5 May, we ensured that the G7 countries were aligned in calling for the military to restore democracy to Myanmar. We also got all G7 countries to commit for the first time to preventing the supply, sale or transfer of weapons, munitions or other military-related equipment to Myanmar.
Similarly, our leadership at the UN Security Council has ensured that the issue remains at the forefront of its agenda. We have secured a succession of strong Security Council statements, which condemn the violence, call for the release of political detainees and support Myanmar’s democratic transition.
In addition, we are working closely with civil society to build community resilience and help create the foundations for a more open, inclusive and democratic Myanmar. However, sanctions provide an important tool to take concrete and meaningful steps that demonstrate to the junta that its actions have a cost and that it cannot repress the population of Myanmar with impunity.
Our designations have already undermined the credibility of the junta and its governing body, the State Administration Council, and have also reduced its access to key revenue streams. We are giving consideration to further possible designations that would meet our objective of targeting the military’s revenue streams, while mitigating the risks to the wider population.
As I set out at the beginning of my speech, the UK considers the recent action of the junta and the Myanmar security forces to be abhorrent. They have undermined democracy, brutally repressed protests, arbitrarily detained thousands, and killed hundreds of innocent people, including children. These regulations expand our powers to impose sanctions in response. They demonstrate that we will not accept such egregious violations of human rights. They enable us to stand with our international partners and, most importantly, with the people of Myanmar in working towards a peaceful, prosperous and democratic future. I welcome this opportunity to hear the views of Members on the regulations, and I commend them to the Committee.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the Minister for setting out the need for this secondary legislation. It is of course absolutely critical that we as a country get the legalities around sanctions frameworks correct so that we can act with speed to apply sanctions against those who seek to repress the population of Myanmar or who break international law.
Sanctions play a critical role in holding Governments to account, not least in Myanmar. Recent events in the country, as the Minister has said, have been absolutely appalling and devastating, with more than 800 deaths of protesters at the hands of the tyranny of the Tatmadaw. The Labour party will always speak up for universal rights and freedoms, the rule of law, and democracy across the world, including in Myanmar.
Few with knowledge of Aung San Suu Kyi’s Myanmar would claim that the country’s democracy was in rude health. Her failure to stand up for the Rohingya people in the face of the military has been deeply troubling, but the fact remains that her party secured a landslide victory in the November election. It is clear that Myanmar’s fragile democracy must be respected and protected. Elected politicians should not be languishing in prison cells; protesters should not be lying dead on the streets. The military coup is a flagrant breach of the constitution of Myanmar, and it must be condemned in the strongest terms. The army’s claims of voter fraud are utterly spurious: this is a naked power grab. The barbaric killing of more than 800 protesters is a scar on the conscience of the world.
But words are not enough. We need international action, and a functioning sanctions regime is a good start. We are pleased that the Government are seeking to make the scope for sanctions less restrictive than under the previous legislation. However, the sanctioning of Myanmar officials and military-owned companies has been too slow across the board. For example, the sanctioning of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and Myanmar Economic Corporation did not come until after the 1 February coup, despite the fact that we on the Labour Benches had been asking for those sanctions for well over six months before then in relation to the Myanmar Government’s appalling persecution of the Rohingya.
It is also clear that the Government should have seen the 1 February coup coming. For decades, the power-hungry Myanmar military have oppressed and persecuted the Burmese people, committing countless atrocities—most notably the apparent genocide against the Rohingya—without meaningful consequence. If you give a bully an inch, he will take a mile, and the 1 February coup is testament to that fact.
While the Gambia has shown real leadership by taking Myanmar to the International Court of Justice on allegations of genocide, the wider response from the international community—including, unfortunately, the UK Government—has been somewhat lethargic. We do not understand why the Government continue to drag their feet on this point. Experts who observe what is happening in Myanmar, and have done for many years, note that the military were emboldened by the weak international response on the Rohingya and, of course, have been further emboldened by the tacit support that they have received from China. It was telling that the Chinese Government simply “noted” the 1 February coup without condemning it, while the main state news agency in China described the coup as merely a “cabinet reshuffle”.
Now is the time for the UK and the wider international community to stand up for the Burmese people, so I would like to press the Minister on some of the actions that the UK Government must take. First, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office must seek to apply further sanctions where appropriate. Ministers should work with NGOs such as Burma Campaign UK and Justice for Myanmar on getting the designations right so that they have a laser-like focus on the Burmese military. I would be grateful for the Minister’s assurance that that is happening.
On the specifics of this legislation, will the Minister make something clear? Part 6 of the regulations
“provides for certain exceptions to this sanctions regime, in particular in relation to financial sanctions (for example to allow for frozen accounts to be credited with interest or other earnings)”.
Will he say a little more about what the exceptions are, when they might be needed and where the situations might occur, so that we can get a bit more flesh on the bones? For instance, in what situation would it be important for a bank account to accrue interest if it had been frozen because its owner had committed serious human rights abuses?
Secondly, aside from sanctions, the Government should use their international influence to seek to extend the arms embargo against Myanmar. Clearly, Russia and China will not be participating in that, but we must still seek to build the broadest possible international coalition. The Chinese Government may just be opposed to having a failed state on their doorstep. What steps are the UK Government taking in that regard?
Thirdly, the UK Government should think carefully about whether they recognise the military junta as the legitimate Government of Myanmar. There are legal and practical challenges here; we on the Labour Benches fully understand that. But we also feel that we should be standing in full support of the Myanmar ambassador Kyaw Zwar Minn in refusing to recognise new appointments by the junta to the embassy here in London. Will the Minister set out the Government’s position on that?
Fourthly, when the moment is right the UK Government should publicly declare that it is time to refer Burmese officials to the International Criminal Court via the United Nations and call on other countries to follow suit. Just because Russia and China can block the referral in the UN Security Council does not mean that the UK should be prevented from doing what is right.
Finally, the UK must now finally join the Netherlands and Canada in formally supporting the Gambia in its International Court of Justice case against Myanmar. Myanmar’s first report has now been submitted. The FCDO must ask for that report to be made public so that the international community can scrutinise the contents.
The Opposition support the legislation in front of us today, but the people of Myanmar need a stronger response from the UK Government and the international community—and they need it now. The UK must stand up for its values and interests, and those include the rule of law, democracy and human rights in Myanmar.
The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution and his support for the changes to the sanctions regime that are before us today. I will address some of the points that he has raised but, as I said in my opening speech, the regulations give us the power to target not only members of the Myanmar security forces but the civilian members of the junta and the economic interests that fund their activities.
We have been clear about our support for the ICJ process. We have urged the military to comply with the provisional measures rulings. We also provided funding to enable Rohingya citizens to attend the hearings in December 2019. Obviously, that case will develop in the coming months. We are monitoring developments closely, and will consider the legal arguments to establish whether a UK intervention would add value. But we have made it extremely clear that we believe Myanmar should comply with the provisional measures.
On the question of the asset freezes, all sanctions regulations that contain asset freezes include exceptions related to interest—crediting frozen accounts, among other things. This is standard practice. However, interest on frozen accounts will also be frozen when added to an account. I hope that that clears up that issue.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have met the ambassador on several occasions. We commend his bravery in standing up for democracy in Myanmar, and we strongly condemn the bullying behaviour of the junta towards him. It has come at great personal cost to him to speak out against the regime. We have offered him and delivered further significant support. We have received notification in accordance with the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations of the appointment of a chargé d’affaires ad interim to act provisionally as head of Myanmar’s mission in the UK. Under the Vienna convention, the appointment by foreign states of an interim chargé does not require our approval. I hope that establishes that point for the hon. Gentleman.
The measures will demonstrate that the United Kingdom will not stand by in the fact of unacceptable behaviour by the junta. We are ready and willing to act as a force for good in the world, and we will stand up for those who believe in democracy. We work closely with our international partners on this, and we are fortunate in having the two presidencies that I mentioned earlier. We are regularly in contact with ASEAN partners, and we welcome the five points that they came out with following their leaders’ meeting a couple of weeks ago. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are working tirelessly with international partners on this measure. We all want to see democracy restored in Myanmar at the earliest opportunity, and I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Petitions
Independent assessment in family courts
Support for market traders
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Seventh sitting)
Thursday 27th May 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 View all Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 27 May 2021 - (27 May 2021)
The Chair
Good morning. Before we begin, there are a few preliminaries. Can you switch your phones and electronic devices to silent please? The Speaker does not permit food or drink to be consumed during Committee. Please make sure you are observing social distancing and sitting in the appropriate places as marked. People should wear face masks when they are not speaking, unless they are medically exempt. Hansard would be grateful if you could email your speaking notes.
We will now resume line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room. I remind Members wishing to press a grouped amendment or new clause to a Division that they should indicate that intention when speaking to their amendment. The temperature is wonderful in here, so feel free to remove your jacket if you so wish.
Clause 23
Duty to arrange a review
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be back here today. Before I get into the detail of the clauses, I want to put some questions to the Minister, to reflect on the importance of reviews when there have been homicides or unexplained deaths and to give an example.
I was reading the serious case review about Child Q, who was aged 16 when he died following a moped crash. One might think, “There’s a child who died following a moped crash. End of story.” but because he was a vulnerable adolescent there was a comprehensive serious case review into his life, his death and what happened.
At the time of his death, he was a looked-after child in children’s services and was living in the midlands with members of his extended family. On the day of the collision, he had been released on conditional bail from a remand court for breach of his court order. Family members and professionals had requested that he be made the subject of a curfew and tagging, but that, for whatever reason, was not put in place and he returned to London, where the fatal accident occurred.
He started his life as an aspirational boy and had wanted to be a professional footballer. His first conviction ended those aspirations and the motivation to play football. Throughout his life he lived with various family members and foster carers. He was often missing and was both a victim and a perpetrator of various offences. He was involved in high-risk behaviour and believed to be a gang member. When interventions were made, he appeared to understand that his life was very high risk, but seemed almost resigned to the inevitable risks that he was facing. During the latter stages of professional involvement, Child Q asked the professionals, “Where were you when I was six?”
This 16-year-old died because of a moped crash, but because of this review we can learn that bail conditions and tagging would have helped him to make the decision not to travel to London. We have learned that this child was in and out of care and often went missing, that interventions were not made and that the problems started very early. Although that could not in itself have prevented that death, there is a story behind that child that we can learn from.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend may not know that I used to run a children’s hospice. Child deaths are very rare, but a review such as this enables the family to have the closure that they need to move on, enables the lessons to be learned and enables the whole community to grieve and draw a line under something. Of course it is important to understand the failings that occurred so that they never happen again, but also in the broader context, conducting a review is a really important thing to do. In terms of costs and resources, these deaths are not that common; this does not happen that often, but when it does, it destroys a community, not to mention the family.
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She speaks with great experience, and she is absolutely right: doing these reviews has wider benefits. Reading the review on Child Q and hearing the stories from the father, mother and family members about him, we can see, hopefully, some form of the beginnings of closure from the review. Therefore we are very much in favour of extending homicide reviews in the way provided for under the Bill. We have some amendments, but they come later, so I will not speak to them now.
To do the victims and their families and friends justice, we need to ensure that the lessons are learned. Part 2, chapter 2 of the Bill will require police, local authorities and clinical commissioning groups to conduct offensive weapon homicide reviews when an adult’s death involves the use of an offensive weapon. Police recorded 625 homicide offences in the year ending December 2020. Of all homicides recorded in the last year—the latest year that we have information for—37% were knife-enabled crimes. A large proportion of homicides involve offensive weapons. In the year ending March 2020, 275 homicides involved a sharp instrument, 49 involved a blunt instrument and 30 were homicides involving shooting. It is therefore absolutely right that the Government look to learn the lessons from those homicides not currently reviewed by multi-agency partners.
In my constituency, there have been incidents in which adults have been killed and an offensive weapon was involved. In one instance, there were incidents in the same area within weeks of each other. Those cases were not linked together, but actually, when people looked into the background and how those murders occurred, it turned out that they were linked.
It is therefore important that the pathways that lead people to be involved in homicides, whether as victims or perpetrators, can be understood and the knowledge can be shared. Offensive weapon homicide reviews will be similar to the domestic homicide reviews that already take place. Domestic homicide reviews are carried out when someone over the age of 16 dies as a result of domestic violence, abuse or neglect. The Government have committed to taking action to address homicide, but have not previously committed to introducing offensive weapon homicide reviews specifically.
Clause 23 will require an offensive weapon homicide review to be carried out when a qualifying homicide has taken place. A qualifying homicide occurs when an adult’s death or the circumstances or history of the person who has died meet conditions set by the Secretary of State in regulations. In accordance with clause 27, the purpose will be to identify lessons to learn from the death and to decide on actions to take in response to those lessons.
Clauses 24 to 35 do a number of things, including giving the Secretary of State the power to specify the relevant review partners in regulations and which of the listed public bodies will need to carry out the review in these circumstances, and to clarify when offensive weapon homicide reviews do not need to be carried out. Importantly, review partners must report on the outcome of their review to the Secretary of State. In addition, there are other key regulations about the obligations of offensive weapon homicide review partners.
Clause 33 is important, as it will require offensive weapon homicide reviews to be piloted before they are brought into force. The Secretary of State will be required to report to Parliament on the pilot. It is vital that offensive weapon homicide reviews are piloted before being rolled out nationally, but the provisions are fairly light on detail. It would be helpful if the Minister could provide any further information on the piloting. Can she clarify how many local authorities or police forces they will work with to pilot the reviews?
Standing Together, a domestic abuse charity, recently reviewed domestic homicide review processes in London boroughs. Its 2019 report identified several areas for improvement, including how domestic homicide reviews are stored and retrieved, how chairs are appointed, and how appropriate funding is secured. It also highlighted that not enough sharing of knowledge is happening.
We are glad that the pilot partners will report on these reviews before they are implemented, but could the Minister explain in a bit more detail what those reports will include? Will there be regular reporting and evaluation of these offensive weapons homicide reviews once they are implemented? Where there is an overlap, and a homicide fits into two different categories—for example, if there is a domestic homicide review and an offensive weapons homicide review—how will the lessons be learned? Will there be two reviews, or just one? I am also keen to hear how the lessons from all existing homicide reviews can be better understood and shared between partners to ultimately make our streets safer and save lives.
The Secretary of State is given the power to make regulations on offensive weapons homicide reviews, to provide information on how to identify which local services are relevant to the review and how local services can negotiate who carries out the review when the circumstances are not clear. This is defined in regulatory powers, not on the face of the Bill; perhaps the Minister could explain why, and also explain what her expected timeframe is for these powers. If the duty to conduct these reviews will not be carried out until the criteria are defined in regulation, will there be a delay? What period of time is the Minister expecting that to be—because those regulations will need to go through Parliament—and what will happen after the regulations are published? Can she provide any data on how many more homicide reviews this change will actually bring; what expected number of reviews will need to be undertaken? Finally, what are the plans for budgets to cover local safeguarding partners’ costs for the delivery of these reviews? That question was raised in evidence from the Local Government Association, so will the Home Office be submitting a case to increase the funding for local authorities? If not, how does it envisage that these reviews will be funded? I will leave it there.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
It continues to be a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Croydon Central for setting out some of the background to these clauses. Through the clauses relating to offensive weapons homicide reviews, we want to tackle the growing proportion of homicides that involve offensive weapons, for all the reasons that one can imagine: for communities, and for the families affected. As the hon. Lady has set out, there is at the moment no legal requirement to review such homicides unless they are already subject to review: if, for example, the victim is a child or a vulnerable adult, or the homicide has happened in a domestic setting. As such, we want to introduce these offensive weapons homicide reviews to ensure that local agencies consider the circumstances of both victims and perpetrators, and identify lessons from these homicides that could help prevent future deaths.
Taking a step back and looking at the Bill as a whole, this work will form part of the local authorities’ work on the serious violence duties. I hope there will be much cross-learning between those duties and the homicide reviews that may occur in local areas, as part of a joined-up approach to tackling such homicides. All persons, bodies and organisations with information relevant to the decision to conduct a review or to identifying lessons, such as schools and probation services, will be legally required to provide information deemed relevant to the review.
The hon. Member for Croydon Central has understandably asked where these reviews fit in with existing homicide reviews: child death and adult safeguarding reviews in England, and their equivalents in Wales, as well as domestic homicide reviews. To avoid duplication of work, the Bill provides that these new offensive weapons homicide reviews will be required only where there is not an existing statutory requirement to review the homicide, which I hope answers her question.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Given that the Minister is determined to learn the lessons of these reviews and given the importance of properly funding local agencies to carry out any such improvements, can she confirm today that additional resource will go along with this additional focus from the Home Office on implementation?
Victoria Atkins
I am very pleased to confirm that the Home Office will provide funding for the relevant review partners to cover the costs of the reviews during the pilot stage, and will meet the cost of the Home Office homicide oversight board. If the policy is rolled out nationally, funding arrangements will be confirmed after the pilot, but in that initial period that is certainly the approach.
I am trying to see whether I have further details about the pilots that I can assist the Committee with. Clause 33 requires that a pilot of the reviews takes place for one or more purpose, or in at least one area. We intend to pilot reviews in at least three areas and are currently in discussions to enable that to happen. We will announce the pilot areas in due course. We want to pilot the reviews in areas that have high levels of homicide and in areas that have low levels, and that represent regions in both England and Wales.
We will also specify in regulations the length of time that the pilot will last. We currently intend to run the pilot for 18 months to ensure that the review process can be tested properly in each of the pilot areas, but clause 23 allows us to extend the length of the pilot for a further period, which may be useful if further test cases are needed. Our approach is to ensure that the pilot provides us with the greatest insight and information as to how the reviews would work if we roll them out across the whole of England and Wales. In the interests of transparency, clause 33 also requires the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report on the operation of the pilot before the reviews can come fully into force across England and Wales.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 23 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 24 to 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 36
Extraction of information from electronic devices: investigations of crime etc
Sarah Jones
I beg to move amendment 94, in clause 36, page 29, line 5, at end insert—
“(c) the user who has given agreement under subsection (1)(b) was offered free independent legal advice on issues relating to their human rights before that agreement was given.”
This amendment would ensure that users of electronic devices were offered free independent legal advice before information on their device could be accessed.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause 36 stand part.
Government amendment 63.
Clauses 37 to 42 stand part.
Amendment 115, in schedule 3, page 198, line 29, leave out
“A person appointed as an immigration officer under paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971.”
This amendment would remove immigration officers from the list of authorised persons who may carry out a digital extraction.
That schedule 3 be the Third schedule to the Bill.
New clause 49—Extraction of information from electronic devices—
“(1) Subject to Conditions A to D below, insofar as applicable, an authorised person may extract information stored on an electronic device from that device if—
(a) a user of the device has voluntarily provided the device to an authorised person, and
(b) that user has agreed to the extraction of specified information from the device by an authorised person.
(2) Condition A for the exercise of the power in subsection (1) is that it may be exercised only for the purposes of—
(a) preventing, detecting, investigating or prosecuting an offence,
(b) helping to locate a missing person, or
(c) protecting a child or an at-risk adult from neglect or physical, mental or emotional harm.
(3) For the purposes of subsection (2) an adult is an at-risk adult if the authorised person reasonably believes that the adult—
(a) is experiencing, or at risk of, neglect or physical, mental or emotional harm, and
(b) is unable to protect themselves against the neglect or harm or the risk of it.
(4) Condition B for the exercise of the power in subsection (1) is that the power may only be exercised if—
(a) the authorised person reasonably believes that information stored on the electronic device is relevant to a purpose within subsection (2) for which the authorised person may exercise the power, and
(b) the authorised person is satisfied that exercise of the power is strictly necessary and proportionate to achieve that purpose.
(5) For the purposes of subsection (4)(a), information is relevant for the purposes within subsection (2)(a) in circumstances where the information is relevant to a reasonable line of enquiry.
(6) Condition C as set out in subsection (7) applies if the authorised person thinks that, in exercising the power, there is a risk of obtaining information other than information necessary for a purpose within subsection (2) for which the authorised person may exercise the power.
(7) Condition C is that the authorised person must, to be satisfied that the exercise of the power in the circumstances set out in subsection (6) is strictly necessary and proportionate, be satisfied that there are no other less intrusive means available of obtaining the information sought by the authorised person which avoid that risk.
(8) Condition D is that an authorised person must have regard to the code of practice for the time being in force under section [Code of practice] in accordance with section [Effect of code of practice] below.
(9) This section does not affect any power relating to the extraction or production of information, or any power to seize any item or obtain any information, conferred by or under an enactment.
(10) In this section and section [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity]—
‘adult’ means a person aged 18 or over;
‘authorised person’ means a person specified in subsection (1) of section [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity] (subject to subsection (2) of that section);
‘child’ means a person aged under 18;
‘agreement’ means that the user has confirmed explicitly and unambiguously in writing that they agree—
(a) to provide their device, and
(b) to the extraction of specified data from that device.
Such an explicit written confirmation can only constitute agreement for these purposes if, in accordance with the Code of Practice issued pursuant to section [Effect of code of practice], the user—
(a) has been provided with appropriate information and guidance about why the extraction is considered strictly necessary (including, where relevant, the identification of the reasonable line of enquiring relied upon);
(b) has been provided with appropriate information as to (a) how the data will or will not be used in accordance with the authorized person’s legal obligations and (b) any potential consequences arising from their decision;
(c) has confirmed their agreement in the absence of any inappropriate pressure or coercion;
‘electronic device’ means any device on which information is capable of being stored electronically and includes any component of such a device;
‘enactment’ includes—
(a) an Act of the Scottish Parliament,
(b) an Act or Measure of Senedd Cymru, and
(c) Northern Ireland legislation;
‘information’ includes moving or still images and sounds;
‘offence’ means an offence under the law of any part of the United Kingdom;
‘user, in relation to an electronic device, means a person who ordinarily uses the device.
(11) References in this section and sections [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity] to the extraction of information include its reproduction in any form.
(12) This section is subject to sections [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity] and [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] where user has died etc].”
New clause 50—Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity—
“(1) A child is not to be treated for the purposes of subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] as being capable of—
(a) voluntarily providing an electronic device to an authorised person for those purposes, or
(b) agreeing for those purposes to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(2) If a child is a user of an electronic device, a person who is not a user of the device but is listed in subsection (3) may—
(a) voluntarily provide the device to an authorised person for the purposes of subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices], and
(b) agreement for those purposes to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(3) The persons mentioned in subsection (2) are—
(a) the child’s parent or guardian or, if the child is in the care of a relevant authority or voluntary organisation, a person representing that authority or organisation,
(b) a registered social worker, or
(c) if no person falling within paragraph (a) or (b) is available, any responsible person aged 18 or over other than an authorised person.
(4) The agreement of persons listed in subsection (3) further to subsection 2(b) should only be accepted where, if it is appropriate, the child has been consulted on whether such agreement should be provided and the authorised person is satisfied those views have been taken into account.
(5) An adult without capacity is not to be treated for the purposes of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] as being capable of—
(a) voluntarily providing an electronic device to an authorised person for those purposes, or
(b) agreeing for those purposes to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(6) If a user of an electronic device is an adult without capacity, a person who is not a user of the device but is listed in subsection (7) may—
(a) voluntarily provide the device to an authorised person for the purposes of subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices], and
(b) agreement for those purposes to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(7) The persons mentioned in subsection (6) are—
(a) a parent or guardian of the adult without capacity,
(b) a registered social worker,
(c) a person who has a power of attorney in relation to the adult without capacity, or
(d) if no person falling within paragraph (a), (b) or (c) is available, any responsible person aged 18 other than an authorised person.
(8) The agreement of persons listed in subsection (7) further to subsection (6)(b) should only be accepted where, if it is appropriate, the adult without capacity has been consulted on whether such agreement should be provided and the authorised person is satisfied those views have been taken into account.
(9) Nothing in this section prevents any other user of an electronic device who is not a child or an adult without capacity from—
(a) voluntarily providing the device to an authorised person for the purposes of subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices], or
(b) agreeing for those purposes to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(10) In this section and section and [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] where user has died etc]—
‘adult without capacity’ means an adult who, by reason of any impairment of their physical or mental condition, is incapable of making decisions for the purposes of subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices];
‘local authority’—
(a) in relation to England, means a county council, a district council for an area for which there is no county council, a London borough council or the Common Council of the City of London,
(b) in relation to Wales, means a county council or a county borough council, and
(c) in relation to Scotland, means a council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994;
‘registered social worker’ means a person registered as a social worker in a register maintained by—
(a) Social Work England,
(b) the Care Council for Wales,
(c) the Scottish Social Services Council, or
(d) the Northern Ireland Social Care Council;
‘relevant authority’—
(a) in relation to England and Wales and Scotland, means a local authority;
(b) in relation to Northern Ireland, means an authority within the meaning of the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 (S.I. 1995/755 (N.I. 2));
‘voluntary organisation’—
(a) in relation to England and Wales and Scotland, has the same meaning as in the Children Act 1989;
(b) in relation to Northern Ireland, has the same meaning as in the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995.
(11) Subsections (10) and (11) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] also contain definitions for the purposes of this section.”
New clause 51—Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] where user has died etc—
“(1) If any of conditions A to C is met, an authorised person may exercise the power in subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to extract information stored on an electronic device from that device even though—
(a) the device has not been voluntarily provided to an authorised person by a user of the device, or
(b) no user of the device has agreed to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(2) Condition A is that—
(a) a person who was a user of the electronic device has died, and
(b) the person was a user of the device immediately before their death.
(3) Condition B is that—
(a) a user of the electronic device is a child or an adult without capacity, and
(b) an authorised person reasonably believes that the user’s life is at risk or there is a risk of serious harm to the user.
(4) Condition C is that—
(a) a person who was a user of the electronic device is missing,
(b) the person was a user of the device immediately before they went missing, and
(c) an authorised person reasonably believes that the person’s life is at risk or there is a risk of serious harm to the person.
(5) The exercise of the power in subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] by virtue of this section is subject to subsections (2) to (8) of that section.
(6) Subsections (10) and (11) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] and subsection (9) of section [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity] contain definitions for the purposes of this section.”
New clause 52—Code of practice—
“(1) The Secretary of State must prepare a code of practice containing guidance about the exercise of the power in subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices].
(2) In preparing the code, the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the Information Commissioner,
(b) the Scottish Ministers,
(c) the Welsh Government,
(d) the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland,
(e) the Victims Commissioner,
(f) the Domestic Abuse Commissioner,
(g) any regional Victims Champion including the London Victims Commissioner,
(h) persons who appear to the Secretary of State to represent the interests of victims, witnesses and other individuals likely to be affected by the use of the power granted in subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices], and
(i) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(3) After preparing the code, the Secretary of State must lay it before Parliament and publish it.
(4) The code is to be brought into force by regulations made by statutory instrument.
(5) The code must address, amongst other matters—
(a) the procedure by which an authorised person must obtain and record confirmation that a device has been provided voluntarily;
(b) the procedure by which an authorised person must obtain and record confirmation that agreement has been provided for the extraction of specified information, including the information which must be provided to the user about—
(i) how long the device will be retained;
(ii) what specific information is to be extracted from the device and why, including the identification of the reasonable line of enquiry to be pursued and the scope of information which will be extracted, reviewed and/or retained;
(iii) how the extracted information will be kept secure;
(iv) how the extracted information will or may be used in a criminal process;
(v) how they can be kept informed about who their information is to be shared with and the use of their information in the criminal process;
(vi) their right to refuse to agree to provide their device and/or to the proposed extraction in whole or in part and the potential consequences of that refusal; and
(vii) the circumstances in which a further extraction may be required, and what will happen to the information after the case has been considered;
(c) the different types of extraction processes available, and the parameters which should be considered in defining the scope of any proposed extraction from a user’s device;
(d) the circumstances in which the extraction of information should and should not be considered strictly necessary and proportionate;
(e) the considerations to be taken into account in determining whether there are less intrusive alternatives available to extraction for the purposes of subsection (7) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices];
(f) the process by which the authorised person should identify and delete data which is not responsive to a reasonable line of enquiry and/or has been assessed as not relevant to the purposes for which the extraction was conducted; and
(g) the records which must be maintained documenting for each extraction or proposed extraction, including—
(i) the specific information to be extracted;
(ii) the reasonable lines of enquiry pursued;
(iii) the basis upon which the extraction is considered strictly necessary, including any alternatives considered and why they were not pursued;
(iv) confirmation that appropriate information was provided to the user and, if applicable, agreement obtained;
(v) the reasons why the user was not willing to agree to a proposed extraction.
(6) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (4) is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
(7) After the code has come into force the Secretary of State may from time to time revise it.
(8) References in subsections (2) to (7) to the code include a revised code.”
New clause 53—Effect of code of practice—
“(1) An authorised person must in the exercise of the power granted under section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] have regard to the code of practice issued under section [Code of practice] in deciding whether to exercise, or in the exercise of that power.
(2) A failure on the part of any person to comply with any provision of a code of practice for the time being in force under section [Code of practice] shall not of itself render him liable to any criminal or civil proceedings.
(3) A code of practice in force at any time under section [Code of practice] shall be admissible in evidence in any criminal or civil proceedings.
(4) In all criminal and civil proceedings any code in force under section [Code of practice] shall be admissible in evidence; and if any provision of the code appears to the court or tribunal conducting the proceedings to be relevant to any question arising in the proceedings it shall be taken into account in determining that question.”
Sarah Jones
As more and more crimes take place online or are enabled through digital devices and the internet, the extraction of information from electronic devices has increasingly become a routine part of criminal investigations, but the way in which such information can be made available to law enforcement, prosecutors and the defence has rightly received a great deal of attention and scrutiny in recent years, particularly in rape cases. It has become the norm for rape complainants to be asked to hand over digital devices and for most or all of the material to be checked through in detail. The Victims’ Commissioner said in her excellent evidence to the Committee last week that, through her recent survey of rape complainants and her network of stakeholders, she had heard that
“the CPS frequently seeks a level of material straight away, before it charges, and if a complainant refuses, the case just does not get considered for charge. That is very, very troubling, and it has a chilling effect not only on current victims, but on reporting, and it could impact victim attrition.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2021; c. 110, Q174.]
I will give some examples that have come to light and that reflect many people’s experience. These are the words of Courtney:
“After a two-and-a-half-year investigation into my sexual assault case, which had witnesses and a potential second victim, the police told me the CPS was going to drop my case if I didn’t give them a download of my phone. When I asked them what was the reasonable line of inquiry, they told me that I could be lying. There could be something that discredits me on there. I could be hiding something. And to me, that’s not reasonable. I was asked why I was concerned, but actually it’s totally rational to fear giving your phone over to the police. I think most people would not want to give the contents of their phone to their mother”—
I certainly would not—
“let alone the government or the person who attacked them who may, because of rules around disclosure, get access to it. When I refused my case was immediately dropped.
The CPS turned its back on me and treated me as a suspect—they made it so clear that I was alone and I was powerless. That anyone can rape me with impunity unless I submit to the court’s illegal demands.
And it became clear to me that I needed to work to change that, because it can’t go on. I had my power taken away from me from the assault, I had my power taken away from me from the criminal justice system. I was left in a really bad place. There were times, you know, I didn’t want to be here anymore. But taking up this case, working with the Centre for Women’s Justice, it’s been so important for my mental wellbeing. I feel like, for the first time in a while, I’m coming to terms with everything that happened to me.”
A woman who was raped by a stranger in London told The Independent newspaper that she dropped her case after the police demanded access to her mobile phone. She said:
“It made me very angry, it made me feel like I was the one on trial and they were trying to seek out ways it was my fault.”
She added that she was concerned that evidence of past one-night stands could be used against her in court. Another woman who faced the same demand after the Metropolitan police had identified her attacker using DNA told that paper that the investigation felt like “one intrusion after another”. She said:
“I’m not actually sure I would have gone ahead with the case if I’d known what was part of the process.”
In another case, the CPS demanded to search the phone of a 12-year-old rape victim despite the fact that the perpetrator had admitted the crime. The case was delayed for months as a result. Finally, a different woman reported being drugged and then attacked by a group of strangers, but the case was dropped after she refused to hand over seven years of phone data.
Analysis of a rape crisis administrative dataset conducted by the office of the Victims’ Commissioner showed that one in five victims withdrew complaints at least in part because of disclosure and privacy concerns. Victims in 21% of cases had concerns about digital downloads, about disclosing GP, hospital, school and employment records, and about a combination of negative press coverage. Home Office data also shows an increase in pre-charge withdrawal of rape complaints. In the year ending December 2020, 42.8% of rape offences were closed as part of what is called the “evidential difficulties” category—where the victim did not support further police action against a suspect—compared with 25.6% in 2015. As we know, the charge rate for sexual offences is just 3.6%, and for rape it is 1.6%.
Such stark figures will not help with the concerns of many senior police chiefs that there has been a fall in public and victim confidence in the police in relation to rape cases, in particular. The issue of digital data extraction plays a big role in that, which is why we have tabled amendments. I am sure the Minister will say that clause 36 is required to tidy up the law so that it is clear about what the police can and cannot do, but with our amendments we are seeking to define and improve the rights of victims so that it is clearer to them when data should and should not be extracted.
Amendment 94 would ensure that users of electronic devices are offered free, independent legal advice before information on their device could be accessed, and it was recommended by the Victims’ Commissioner. It is vital that victims understand their rights so that they can make an informed decision on whether to agree to handing over their device for digital download.
Sarah Champion
I can only speak from my constituency experience, but many women have come to me having gone to report offences against them in childhood or rape offences against them. They are not in a position to give consent; they are not even in a position to understand what is going on—they are in a highly traumatised state. Walking into a police station is a very shocking thing. They go up to the front desk, get a meeting—one hopes—with an officer, and they are then told to hand over their phones or the police cannot proceed. Will my hon. Friend comment on that inherent power imbalance and the vulnerability of people in that situation—they were all women in those cases—who are expected to make an informed choice?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about that power imbalance. I have not been in that situation myself, but I can only imagine the bravery that it would take for someone just to take those first steps into a police station and recount what has happened to them, given how awful that would make them feel, let alone potentially handing over everything on their phones.
We were all watching Dominic Cummings yesterday—well, some of us were. [Interruption.] Whatever we think of him, right or wrong, he commented, “Well, I would not just hand my phone over so you could look, just to fish to see if there was anything on it that you thought might be relevant.” It is the same situation here. If people have past sexual history, which most people have, the idea that that would be used against someone in that vulnerable position—
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend referred to a fishing expedition. Generally speaking in the criminal law, fishing expeditions are not encouraged, and court rules generally seek to discourage them and to prevent information gathered in that way from being used at trial. Is this any different?
Sarah Jones
That is completely right and why we think that having some advice would help in both directions. It would help be clear about when a phone should or should not be handed over, but it would also hopefully help give people confidence when handing it over is the right thing to do, because it is reasonable and proportionate for the police to ask for it, for whatever reason they have given. We hope that that legal advice and support at that stage would help stop anything from being just a fishing expedition, while also giving people confidence to hand over their phones when that is the appropriate thing to do.
I am grateful to the Home Office for funding a pilot of independent legal advice for rape complainants dealing with digital download in Northumbria. The Sexual Violence Complainants’ Advocate scheme pilot engaged local solicitors to provide legal advice and support to rape complainants in Northumbria, related to the complainants’ article 8 rights to privacy. The pilot demonstrated what was happening in practice and found that about 50% of requests were not strictly necessary or proportionate. Some police officers who participated in the scheme expressed concern about this culture. One said:
“I could talk all day about third-party material, and it is the real bone of contention. It’s one of the things that has given me sleepless nights over the years.”
They go on:
“I had a rape team investigator say to me on one occasion, or a former rape team investigator, say to me, ‘I had to like leave the rape team because of what I was asked to do, in relation to victims, I couldn’t do it’. And I think, you know, that, for me just spoke volumes. And lots of people were expressing their concerns, including me, but when that officer said that to me, I kind of thought, d’you know what, there’s something sadly wrong here.”
Another contributor said:
“I would love to see a document where somebody who has looked at third-party material has actually considered the Article 8 rights of the victim. ’Cos I don’t think you’ll find that anywhere.”
Furthermore, another said:
“In terms of the 3rd party material: I have obtained as much as I need from her phone. I have just received her Local Authority Records from [Council] and I am awaiting her medical records and school records. Once I have reviewed this material, I will be able to go to the CPS for a decision. Unfortunately, as you are no doubt aware, the CPS will not entertain any files for charging decision unless this material is reviewed without exception regardless of the circumstances.”
Sarah Champion
I think we all—well, most of us—got a fantastic briefing from Big Brother Watch, Amnesty, End Violence Against Women and so on. Within that, they refer to these things as digital strip searches, which tend to be carried out more often on women than men.
Perhaps I can read something out and ask for my hon. Friend’s opinion:
“The scale and depth of the police’s mobile phone searches are incomparable with the police’s legislative powers to carry out physical searches.”
An average phone
“would amount to police searching someone’s property and taking copies of all photographs, documents, letters, films, albums, books and files.”
Furthermore, some
“phones can contain over 200,000 messages and over 100,000 photos”,
and the information
“can run to many thousands of pages. An average individual’s mobile phone can contain the equivalent of 35,000 A4 pages of data.”
Will my hon. Friend, and indeed the Minister when she speaks, comment, first, on the relevance of that; secondly, on why, digitally, police have so much further reach, without the necessary applications to court in place; and, thirdly, on the impact—my hon. Friend rightly mentioned this—that that is having on court and CPS time, and the costs associated with it, in an already highly clogged-up court system?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend has made a series of correct points. Across the board, in the digital and the online worlds, when it comes to laws, we are behind what is happening in the real world. A significant number of changes need to be looked at to come up to date with what is already happening. We would argue that this is one of those examples.
As well as impacting victim attrition, this issue is a factor in deciding whether to even report a rape or a crime in the first place. The Victims’ Commissioner survey of rape complainants showed that, for some, scrutiny of their personal lives—including their digital lives—was a consideration in their decision not to report. For those who did report, the experience was felt to be “invasive” and “traumatic”, with many feeling that the process was not properly explained. The survey stated:
“Just 33% agreed that the police clearly explained why any request to access mobile phone and other personal data were necessary and 22% that they explained how they would ensure that data would only be accessed if relevant and necessary. Requests for these data were often considered invasive and intrusive, and survivors had serious concerns about this.”
A female is quoted as saying:
“I was also reluctant to do so because I felt my [F]acebook data and mobile phone information would not have supported my account as I had been friendly with the perpetrator before the incident.”
Another said:
“I was happy to provide my mobile phone for them to download all the vile messages that supported my assaults. The police said they would download all messages between me and my ex-husband but they actually downloaded all of my phone every message…and all my privacy was gone.”
Many respondents felt that they had no choice but to hand over devices for scrutiny, and that raises issues around what is meant by “voluntary” in the context of a police power. Arguably, it confirms the need for safeguards in legislation, which speaks to what my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said about the power balance and what “voluntary” means. The Victims’ Commissioner said:
“Many survivors said they wanted to help with the investigation and achieve a positive outcome. Some did not believe that they could refuse such requests, that they did not have anything to hide, or thought the request was simply part of normal investigation procedures. However, most survivors had concerns around the disclosure of personal data and access to records.”
A 2020 report by the Information Commissioner on mobile phone data extraction outlined that the way in which police were operating did not comply in a number of respects with data protection legislation, and argued that the gateway of consent that police had been reliant on was not open to them for a number of reasons. They could rely on “strict necessity” for law enforcement purposes, but that comes with a number of prior conditions that must also be met. The report also outlined concerns about the realities of such downloading and how it impacts on other’s rights to privacy, such as family and friends, whose sensitive data may also be contained on the complainant’s mobile, but from whom consent is never sought.
A great deal of work has been done at policy level to address some of the issues, but none of the work to date has sought to alter police powers to obtain and scrutinise a digital device. Existing case law legislation and guidance make it clear that agreement to digital extraction can be sought only if the officer believes that relevant material can be extracted from a phone for criminal investigations—that means that it is relevant to a reasonable line of inquiry.
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend would be making an incredibly powerful argument if she was making it on behalf of the criminals, but she is actually making it on behalf of the victims of crime. Surely, this level of invasive behaviour as regards their most private and personal things, after they have been the victim of a crime, is truly shocking.
Sarah Jones
I completely agree. The issue of people having things on their phone that relate to their family or friends, which they feel it would be terrible for others to see, has not been thought through.
In the Bater-James Court of Appeal judgment, the judges were clear that there should not be speculative searches, and that there must be specificity based on a reasonable line of inquiry. The information should be extracted only in so far as it is strictly necessary and proportionate to the investigation, and the officer must be satisfied that there are no other, less intrusive means available to them of pursuing that line of inquiry. It is vital that the police can rely on “strict necessity” for law enforcement purposes from the perspective of data protection, but it is also vital that the victims agree to the download, meaning that they fully understand what is being sought, and that the agreement is freely given.
In an evidence session last week, we heard from Martin Hewitt of the National Police Chiefs’ Council that there is an ever-increasing
“volume of digital evidence that is required for almost every investigation.”
He said:
“That has created real pressure on the time limits of investigations and our ability to gather the evidence that we need to take an investigation forward. We have increased the capability. It is partly about equipment and having the right equipment to be able to extract digital evidence. It is also about having officers and staff who have the right capabilities to assess that evidence and produce it in an evidential form…However, the flip side and the really important point is making sure that what is being done is lawful, proportionate and necessary. Again, that side of the work is equally important…So we need the legal framework to allow us to do that properly and we then also need the resourcing and the capabilities to do it within the right time limits.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c.16, Q21.]
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a very clear argument. She will recollect clause 36(10), which relates to the age of an adult. It suggests that in the context of extraction for information, an “adult” is someone who is 16 years old. Is it not all the more important that we have legal protections for children, if the Government insist that they are adults at the age of 16?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which was raised last week, and which I know the Minister has clocked. We have an amendment to shift the age from 16 to 18, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that if the age remains that low, we need to make even more sure that we protect victims.
Police forces carry out digital data extraction from victims’ phones in kiosks. In the police forces that have kiosks—not all of them do—the police often have to queue and wait to download their information. Martin Hewitt’s point about time limits is crucial; the police clearly do not have the right equipment for the new power to be used in the way that the law says it should be used. The police do not have the technology to draw out specific information from people’s phones, and the risk of incriminating family or friends can prevent cases from going ahead. I know that the guidance from the College of Policing says that police must immediately delete all data that are not relevant, but there is a big problem, in that so many cases brought to them do not go ahead. Will the Minister provide assurances as to how the Government will provide the police with the resources and capacity that they need to enforce what they need to do with digital extraction?
In the evidence sessions, we also heard from Dame Vera Baird that
“The police have now done a lot of work to try to shift policy backwards, and this new power—which has no obvious nod, even, in the direction of the protection of complainants—came out of the blue from a different Department of the Home Office, and has absolutely none of the protections that, in policy terms, the police have been looking towards for quite some time.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2021; c.111, Q174.]
New clauses 49 to 53, on the power to extract data from electronic devices, would protect the rights of complainants under article 8 of the European convention on human rights, particularly in sexual assault and rape cases. They would more clearly define that “agreement” in the legislation means informed and freely given agreement, to avoid abuse of this power. The new clauses would ensure that alternatives were considered before a request was made to a victim, and that only specified persons could agree and provide a device on behalf of children, who must be consulted before a decision is made. The same would apply to adults without capacity. The new clauses would oblige the code of practice to address a number of points about exercising the power, in order to better protect the rights and experience of victims.
I will run through the issues that we are seeking to correct through the new clauses. The first is that there is no definition of “agreement” in the legislation. As we have said, police all too often seek the agreement of complainants of sexual violence in circumstances where they are not fully informed—sometimes they are being coerced—so it is really important that the primary legislation defines “agreement”, which means agreement that is informed and freely given. Linked to agreement is the need for the police to be specific about what data they are seeking. Only if the police are specific can the data owner give informed agreement to extraction.
The second issue is that a reasonable line of inquiry is not clearly defined in the legislation. It nods to that by using the word “relevant”, but material sought from a suspect or complainant for the purposes of investigating and prosecuting crime will be relevant only inasmuch as it is part of a reasonable line of inquiry. It is vital that that be clearly defined in the legislation. Without a clear definition, the legal hoop for police is merely reasonable belief and relevance. This risks further embedding a culture of wholescale downloads and intrusion into privacy.
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend talks about the being able to access the device only if there is a reasonable line of inquiry. Should the police or investigating body also look to follow that reasonable line of inquiry through other methods, rather than automatically making a call on that digital device?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: other means of investigating should be pursued before there is that intrusion of taking people’s phones. The Victims’ Commissioner has recommended that guidance be issued mandating that a record be made of the decision-making process of the authorised person in identifying a reasonable line of inquiry, so that it can be scrutinised at a later date.
The next problem is that clause 36(5)(b) states that an authorised person using the power should be
“satisfied that exercise of the power is necessary and proportionate to achieve that purpose.”
The Victims’ Commissioner advises that the test should be that the authorised person is satisfied that exercise of the power is strictly necessary and proportionate to achieve that purpose, and we have incorporated that language into our new clauses. Statute and case law insist on strict necessity as the only appropriate test in circumstances where sensitive data—such as health data, sexuality data, or information about others—will be processed. A complainant’s phone will nearly always contain such information, and as such will automatically require sensitive processing. In their clauses, the Government have removed “strictly” from the test, creating a far lower threshold than the one that the Data Protection Act 2018 intended for processing this type of material, and meaning that victims’ article 8 rights are less protected.
The next problem is that the phrase “reasonably practicable” in clause 36(7)(b) is incompatible with the data protection legislation, and there are concerns that this gives police a means of easily dismissing other options. The term
“strictly necessary for the law enforcement purpose”
under the Data Protection Act places a higher threshold on processing based on this condition. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said, controllers need to demonstrate that they have considered other, less intrusive means, and have found that they do not meet the objective of the processing. The test does not ensure that. Under the clauses, police could decide, having considered alternative means, that it is not practical to get the information via those means. The risk for rape victims is that, both culturally and due to operational constraints, the most practical or easiest path to obtaining the information sought will nearly always be the victim’s phone. Again, normal practice is being bolstered by this legislative power, and there are limited safeguards for victims.
The final point of concern for the Opposition is that in the clauses, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North said, the authorised person has no obligation to obtain the views of children and those without capacity when seeking to obtain information from their phones. Neither the police nor the person giving agreement in those people’s stead is obliged to ensure that their views are considered.
Sarah Champion
This relates to amendments of mine that will be debated later. I wonder whether something needs to be inserted about language competency. My amendments deal with asylum seekers who do not have English as their first language. Should language competency also be a consideration, so that we ensure that people actually understand their rights?
Sarah Jones
Yes. Whenever people hand over personal information, they need to know why they are doing so, and the implications. That is as important for a child as for an adult, and we need to make sure that principle is enshrined properly in law.
It is important to safeguard the human rights of children, and to ensure that only specified persons can agree to handing over information and providing a device on behalf of children, who must be consulted before a decision is made. The same should apply to adults without capacity, and we have effected this principle in our new clauses.
Another issue—the Minister was looking at this last week —is that for the purposes of this chapter, clause 36(10) defines an adult as a person aged 16 or over, and a child as a person under 16. Hazel Williamson, chair of the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers, said in evidence to us last week:
“We should treat children as children until they are 18 and they should be sentenced as a child until they reach the age of 18. In an ideal world, we would look beyond that, because many people do not develop fully, in terms of brain development, until they are in their mid-20s.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2021; c.136, Q223.]
Our amendments would change the age from 16 to 18. I would like to learn from the Minister why the Government chose to define “adult” in that way.
While we welcome the code of practice attached to this legislation, there is no detail yet about what it may contain, and there is no duty on the Secretary of State to consult victims’ representatives or champions in creating it. Our new clause would require the Secretary of State, when preparing the code of practice, to consult a range of parties, including the Information Commissioner, the Victims’ Commissioner, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and other regional and national bodies.
Our new clauses also list matters that the code of practice should address, because protection for victims should be in the Bill. Clauses 36 to 42 provide the police with a wide-ranging power to obtain and scrutinise victims’ phones, with virtually no safeguards for victims. It is said that some protections are intended to be put into the code of practice, but the police will not be obliged to follow it. There are concerns that the clauses will provide the police—and the Crown Prosecution Service, via the police—with a legal basis for carrying on as they have been. The police accept that the Victims’ Commissioner’s proposals are appropriate for their purpose, and would give a better balance as regards victim protection. I thank the Victims’ Commissioner and her team for all their work to guide us though this tricky area of law. I hope that the Minister will listen to the concerns we have raised.
Sarah Champion
I thank my hon. Friend for all the points she made, which, to be quite honest, are common sense, but would cause a huge shift in victims’ and survivors’ perceptions of their rights. I have questions for the Minister.
On data storage and security, I am sure we were all pretty shocked and disgusted to hear that images relating to Sarah Everard were not secure in the police system. While I have a very high regard for the police, they can be a leaky sieve—let us be honest. Why do we not simply clone phones at the point of taking them? Why is it months, or usually years, before the victim gets their phone back? Would it be possible to put in legislation or guidance a timeframe on how long that phone can be held for? Having spoken to officers, it seems that cloning a phone is complicated and geeky; it tends to be put in a back drawer until they absolutely have to do it. A timeframe would give a lot of comfort to victims and survivors; they would know it was only a week until they got their photos back, for example.
Finally, a myth has been perpetuated that victims and survivors have to hand over their phone or mobile data to the police or their case will not be taken forward. I have heard examples of victims and survivors being told expressly that if they do not hand it over, they are withholding evidence and could be prosecuted. At that point, unfortunately, a number of survivors drop out of the process and withdraw their charges altogether. If the Minister is able to give reassurance on that, that would be hugely appreciated.
I turn to amendment 115, on the list of people who may extract data. The list is pretty extensive, but one group stood out: immigration officers may request a mobile phone. A few months ago, I went to a large asylum hospital in my constituency, where there were 50 to 100 men—I do not know how many—and what concerned them most was that, literally as they entered the country, their mobile devices and indeed clothes were taken off them. There was no debate or explanation; it is just part of the process.
I completely understand the argument that very bad people, such as gangmasters, who come into the country may have a lot of contacts that are relevant to police inquiries. The police and transport police are already on the extensive list of people who may access electronic devices, so if an immigration officer was concerned, they could get a police officer to take the digital device away. That is not a problem. Extracting data is a complex process that requires specialist experience, and it ought to be managed under the law. I am concerned that we are asking immigration officers to be incredibly mindful, and to be trained and resourced, and to have all the skills, to request that device.
The people I met fell into three camps: economic migrants, who have paid to come over here; people who have been trafficked over here; and those brought in specifically for modern slavery. All the men I spoke to wanted to see pictures of their loved ones. They wanted those memories from home, and a mobile phone may be the best way to hold those memories and connections.
I do not know anyone’s telephone number aside from my parents’—it was the one I grew up with. I can call the police, the NHS helpline and my mum, but everything else is stored on my phone. If I lost it, I would not know how to respond—and I have back-ups that I can access, and English as my first language. When I changed phones, I did not download properly and lost five years of photos. That was so painful. Imagine someone being trafficked into this country, and probably horrifically abused on the way in. The one thing they can hold on to is their memories on that digital device, but that is taken away. They have no information about why it was taken, or when it will be returned, and all their contacts have been lost.
All the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central made apply in this case. Immigration officers are one of the groups who may take these devices—this is not a dig against immigration officers, who do a difficult job—but in any other situation a police officer or a court order would be required to take such detailed data. I ask the Minister please to remove immigration officers from the list.
Victoria Atkins
I welcome the discussion about this chapter of the Bill, because the framework we are setting out is a really important step forward in improving the expectations about and management of digital data that victims and complainants may have on their digital devices. Of course, completely understandably, the focus has been on complainants in sexual violence cases—I will go into some detail on that in due course—but the chapter applies across the board. If, for example, in cases that do not relate to sexual violence, a mobile phone is deemed to be relevant and the authorised person is satisfied that the exercise of the power is necessary and proportionate, this chapter will apply.
Victoria Atkins
Thank you. The Minister for Crime and Policing, my hon. Friend Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) answered the urgent question on the timing of the rape review. Colleagues will know that for the last two years, the Government have commissioned intensive research into each stage of the process within the criminal justice system of a rape case or a sexual violence investigation, from the moment of reporting through to the moment when the case finishes, whether by way of a verdict or if a trial does not go ahead for any number of reasons. We had very much hoped to publish that review by the end of last year. However, we were very understanding of the fact that the Victims’ Commissioner and women’s charities wanted to make representations, in particular looking at the shadow report by EVAW—End Violence Against Women. We were mindful that there was a super-complaint under way as well. Therefore, we have paused publication in order to take into account some of those factors.
The Minister for Crime and Policing informed the House this week that we plan to publish the review after the Whitsun recess. It will show the Government’s intentions in relation to this particular category of cases, sexual violence cases, and will of course sit alongside this Bill, but will go much further than the Bill. On some of the situations, scenarios and experiences that were described today and last week in evidence, I just urge caution until the rape review is published, because there may be answers in that document.
In terms of the legal framework, I think it is really important that we have this in the Bill and that the rights of victims and of suspects and defendants are set out and clarified and that we introduce consistency where that has been alleged in the past to be missing.
I note just as an example that one of the other ways in which we are really trying to help victims of sexual violence is through support for independent sexual violence advisers. We already have ISVAs working with victims across the country. This year, we have been able to announce the creation of 700 new posts, with some £27 million of funding. I give that just as an example. This is an important part of our work, but it is not the only piece of work that we are doing to address some of these very genuine concerns.
Sarah Champion
I am hearing everything that the Minister is saying. Knowing that the review is coming out—I assume it is something that she has been working on or very closely with, because of her intense involvement and support in this area—does she feel that the measures in the Bill are proportionate or are they something that, once the review comes out, she may look at changing, to ensure that the safeguards that she speaks of are embedded in the final Act that we see?
Victoria Atkins
We have been working together on this. We must not not forget that the background to the legal framework has to take into account the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 and the more general disclosure rules, for example. But this has been very much a piece of work across Government, because we want this framework to give confidence and clarity to victims and to suspects, but also, importantly, to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, because they are the ones who must administer and work within the legal framework and the code of practice.
If I may, Mr McCabe, I will take a bit of time, because this is such an important measure and I am mindful that there are questions about it, to set out some of the detailed thinking behind the way in which the clauses have been drafted. The current approach to the extraction of information from digital devices has indeed been criticised by some as feeling like a “digital strip-search” where devices have been taken as a matter of course and where, in many cases, all the sensitive personal data belonging to a device user was extracted and processed even where it was not relevant to the offence under investigation. We absolutely understand the concerns that have been raised in relation to that.
Alex Cunningham
I think this is an appropriate point for me to lay the challenge on the Government about the decision to classify children as adults at the age of 16 in clause 36(10). The Minister has just used the expression “digital strip-search”. Is it really appropriate for a 16-year-old girl, or boy for that matter, to have a digital strip-search, giving up all their little secrets and everything else, because the Government think that they should be classified as an adult and that adult factors should be applied directly to them?
Victoria Atkins
I will deal with that in detail in due course. Just so that colleagues understand how that age was settled upon, in the drafting we carefully considered people’s views, including the Information Commissioner, about the freedoms and the feelings of power and authority that users of devices have. We settled on the age of 16 because we understand that a 16-year-old is different from a 12 or 13-year-old, if their parents have allowed them mobile phones, although I am banning my son from having a mobile phone until he is at least 35, but there we go. A moment of lightness, sorry.
I will deal with the point in more detail later, because it is important, but there is a difficult balance to maintain between rights of victims, suspects and defendants but also rights of users, particularly under the European convention, so that has been the Government’s motivation in this. However, we are alive to scrutiny.
Sarah Champion
I think this involves the focus that I hope the Minister is going to come to. I hear everything she has just said about the justification and I am going along with that, but it is clear in subsection (10):
“In this Chapter—
‘adult’ means a person aged 16 or over”.
Why was that specific wording chosen rather than “the remit of the clause covers people from the age of 16 onwards”, for example?
Victoria Atkins
I will come to that later, but the hon. Lady knows that I am in listening mode on this. The Bill includes requirements to obtain agreement to extract information; to ensure there is reasonable belief that the required information is held on the device; and, before using this information, to consider whether there are less intrusive means of obtaining it. That is an important point that I know hon. Members have focused on. The clauses will ensure that the victim’s right to privacy will be respected and will be at the centre of all investigations where there is a need to extract information from a digital device.
The Bill also includes a new code of practice. This will give clear guidance to all authorities exercising the power. It will address how the information may be obtained using other, less intrusive means; how to ensure that agreement is freely given, and how the device user’s rights are understood. All authorised persons will have a duty to have regard to the code when exercising or deciding whether to exercise the power. The clauses are also clear that the code is admissible in evidence in criminal or civil proceedings and that a failure to act in accordance with it may be taken into account by the court. It will give up-to-date, best practice guidance for selectively extracting data considering existing technological limitations. That will be updated as and when further capabilities are developed and extended to all authorities able to use this power.
Sarah Jones
The Minister is outlining how important the code of practice is. Is she therefore sympathetic to the view that we have put forward in our new clauses that that code of practice should be pulled together with a list of eminently sensible and professional organisations and people, and that we should define in the Bill some of what that should include because it is so important?
Victoria Atkins
We are going to be even more ambitious than that. We aim to publish a draft on Report, which means the House and the other place will be able to scrutinise the draft code of practice during the scrutiny of the Bill as a whole. Once the Bill receives Royal Assent, we will consult formally on the code of practice, including with the relevant commissioners, to enable a more detailed draft to be laid before the House. Again, we are in listening mode on the ways in which the code of practice should be drafted, because we understand how important it is and how important it is that victims, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, among others, have confidence in the document.
Sarah Champion
I hear what the Minister says about cloning and the risk that it is not suitable for admission in court. Will the Minister comment on a kindness that could be done—giving a clone of photos to an asylum seeker, for example?
Victoria Atkins
I am so sorry—I have not quite understood the hon. Lady. On the taking of a phone, if I have just been told that we are concerned about the ramifications of cloning it, I do not see why we would clone it despite those reservations in order to provide photographs. I would be very uneasy about having differences in how the police handle digital data depending on the personal circumstances of the person from whom they have taken a phone, including nationality. I would be very cautious about going down that road.
Sarah Champion
I did not mean to be used in court. I meant for the individual who has lost their one contact with home—that they could get a copy or a print-out of photos, rather than the device just being taken away with no explanation of when they are going to get it back again.
Victoria Atkins
I am very cautious about distinguishing between different victims. Perhaps the hon. Lady is alleging that the person she is talking about is a victim. The framework is about consistency and clarity, and I would be concerned about having caveats here and there in order to fit individual facts. Part of this test is about relevance, necessity and proportionality. Those are the tests that we are asking officers to apply, and we would have to apply them across the board.
There are situations within the framework whereby the power can be used without agreement, such as to locate a missing person where the police reasonably believe that the person’s life is at risk. Under clause 36, the police may have good reason to believe that a device has information that will help to locate the person. In such circumstances, clearly the person is not available to give their consent, so clause 36 ensures that officers can extract data, if it is necessary and proportionate, to protect the privacy of the user. That also applies in relation to children who need to be protected.
New clause 49 raises the bar for the exercise of the power in clause 36(1). The necessity test under new clause 49 is one of strict necessity. I am not persuaded that adopting the phrase, “strictly necessary and proportionate”, instead of “necessary and proportionate”, will make a material difference. This phrase is well used in the Bill. I note that article 8.2 of the European convention on human rights—the very article that people are relying on in relation to the framework—permits interference with the right to respect for private and family life. Such interference is permitted where it is necessary to achieve various specified objectives.
Sarah Jones
I understand what the Minister is saying. The review in Northumbria showed that about 50% of requests were not strictly necessary and proportionate. That must be wrong, and we are trying to make sure that people know what they are giving over, that they do it voluntarily and that it is absolutely necessary that such information is requested. Apart from trying to be clear about what is proportionate and necessary, what solution can the Minister put in place to make sure we do not have 50% of cases involving asking for information where it is not necessary and proportionate?
Victoria Atkins
On what the hon. Lady has described, I am not sure what difference it would make. I am trying to put myself in the boots of a police officer. Would a police officer ask for data if they read the words, “strictly necessary”, but not if they read the word, “necessary”? Actually, the problem that has been identified by the figure quoted by the hon. Lady is police officers’ understanding of the legislation, which comes back to training. Article 8, on which many rely in this context and in this part of the Bill, refers to “necessary” interference, and I am not clear what “strictly necessary” would add to that.
New clause 49 seeks to provide that information may be extracted only for the purpose of a criminal investigation
“where the information is relevant to a reasonable line of enquiry.”
There are safeguards within the clauses to ensure that information is not extracted as a matter of course, and they have been drafted with respect for victims’ privacy in mind. They include a requirement that the authorised person has a reasonable belief that the device contains information that is relevant to a purpose for which they may extract information, and that the exercise of the power is necessary and proportionate to achieve that purpose.
Sarah Champion
I hear everything the Minister is saying and it is very plausible, but I want to challenge her assertions on necessary, proportionate and clear lines of inquiry, based on the answer I received to a written question to the Home Office on 11 November. I asked about the process of extracting mobile phones. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Croydon South replied:
“Immigration Enforcement search all migrants”—
at this point, “all migrants”, so we do not know yet whether they are an asylum seeker, being trafficked or are here for nefarious purposes—
“upon arrival at the Tug Haven at Dover. In the event that a mobile phone is discovered it will be seized as part of an investigation into the organised crime group involved in the facilitation.”
Again, we do not know if they are a criminal or a victim at this point, but the phone will be seized regardless.
“The migrant will be informed verbally that the phone will be kept for evidential purpose for three to six months. They are provided with a receipt and contact details. Attempts will be made to communicate this in their first language, although this can be challenging due to external factors.”
So people arrive here, immediately their phone is taken away from them and they might not even know why. It is great that within “three to six months”, they are meant to have that response—
Sarah Champion
Sorry, Minister? I do not think that the reality on the ground—the reality that the Home Office acknowledges—backs up what the other Minister is saying about reasonable, proportionate and lines of inquiry, because it is happening to every migrant coming into this country.
The Chair
I know this is important detail, but I remind the hon. Lady that interventions should not be too long.
Victoria Atkins
I cannot hope to do justice to a parliamentary question answered by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South, the Immigration Minister, because I know the care and attention he gives to answering such PQs. However, over lunch, I will attempt to extract an answer that will do justice to his response. I make the point that the hon. Member for Rotherham is referring to practice at the moment. Again, the point of this legal framework is to ensure that we have consistency and clarity of approach. I will try to do my hon. Friend justice when we return at 2 o’clock.
I will now move on to the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 and its code of practice, because those provisions on “reasonable lines of inquiry” will continue to apply to the investigation of criminal offences in England and Wales. We cannot—must not—view the extraction of digital data in a vacuum, apart from the rest of the powers of, and duties on, police officers and the CPS when it comes to a criminal trial.
In the context of mobile phones, iPads and so on, police forces will continue to use the digital processing notice developed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council for this purpose. It explains in lay language how the police extract the information, which information might be extracted, how long the device might be retained for and what happens to irrelevant material found on the device or devices. The notice makes it clear that investigators must respect an individual’s right to privacy and must not go beyond the reasonable lines of inquiry. That is the golden thread that runs throughout the Act.
It is imperative that the existing procedures for investigations set out in the 1996 Act are followed. Although the clauses in the Bill concern a broader range of activity than just criminal investigation, helping as they do in investigations for missing persons or to protect children, we do not want to introduce any ambiguity. I will therefore reflect on that, but we are clear that the CPIA provisions must continue in the context of criminal investigations.
I note that new clause 49 would omit subsection (7)(b) of clause 36. We are clear that police officers and others using the extraction power should always seek to obtain the information required in the least intrusive way possible. There are situations in which it may not be reasonably practicable to utilise the least intrusive means of obtaining information, and this clause ensures that authorised persons may make that judgment. That could be because the time it would take to gather the information might affect the investigation or increase the risk of harm to an individual, or because those methods would mean intruding on the privacy of a wider number of people.
I will give one example and then I will sit down. When searching for a missing person, information such as an image on a witness’s device might also be captured on CCTV. Identifying all cameras, and downloading and reviewing many hours of CCTV footage is a time-consuming process. The authorised person may decide that it is more appropriate to extract the information from the device in order to speed up the inquiry and to try to locate the missing person before they come to harm.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Eighth sitting)
Thursday 27th May 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 View all Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 27 May 2021 - (27 May 2021)
The Chair
As you all undoubtedly observed, the Minister was just having a quick breather. We will now resume.
Clause 36
Extraction of information from electronic devices: investigations of crime etc
Amendment proposed (this day): 94, in clause 36, page 29, line 5, at end insert—
“(c) the user who has given agreement under subsection (1)(b) was offered free independent legal advice on issues relating to their human rights before that agreement was given.”—(Sarah Jones.)
This amendment would ensure that users of electronic devices were offered free independent legal advice before information on their device could be accessed.
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Clause stand part.
Government amendment 63.
Clause 37 stand part.
Clauses 38 to 42 stand part.
Amendment 115, in schedule 3, page 198, line 29, leave out
“A person appointed as an immigration officer under paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971.”
This amendment would remove immigration officers from the list of authorised persons who may carry out a digital extraction.
That schedule 3 be the Third schedule to the Bill.
New clause 49—Extraction of information from electronic devices—
“(1) Subject to Conditions A to D below, insofar as applicable, an authorised person may extract information stored on an electronic device from that device if—
(a) a user of the device has voluntarily provided the device to an authorised person, and
(b) that user has agreed to the extraction of specified information from the device by an authorised person.
(2) Condition A for the exercise of the power in subsection (1) is that it may be exercised only for the purposes of—
(a) preventing, detecting, investigating or prosecuting an offence,
(b) helping to locate a missing person, or
(c) protecting a child or an at-risk adult from neglect or physical, mental or emotional harm.
(3) For the purposes of subsection (2) an adult is an at-risk adult if the authorised person reasonably believes that the adult—
(a) is experiencing, or at risk of, neglect or physical, mental or emotional harm, and
(b) is unable to protect themselves against the neglect or harm or the risk of it.
(4) Condition B for the exercise of the power in subsection (1) is that the power may only be exercised if—
(a) the authorised person reasonably believes that information stored on the electronic device is relevant to a purpose within subsection (2) for which the authorised person may exercise the power, and
(b) the authorised person is satisfied that exercise of the power is strictly necessary and proportionate to achieve that purpose.
(5) For the purposes of subsection (4)(a), information is relevant for the purposes within subsection (2)(a) in circumstances where the information is relevant to a reasonable line of enquiry.
(6) Condition C as set out in subsection (7) applies if the authorised person thinks that, in exercising the power, there is a risk of obtaining information other than information necessary for a purpose within subsection (2) for which the authorised person may exercise the power.
(7) Condition C is that the authorised person must, to be satisfied that the exercise of the power in the circumstances set out in subsection (6) is strictly necessary and proportionate, be satisfied that there are no other less intrusive means available of obtaining the information sought by the authorised person which avoid that risk.
(8) Condition D is that an authorised person must have regard to the code of practice for the time being in force under section [Code of practice] in accordance with section [Effect of code of practice] below.
(9) This section does not affect any power relating to the extraction or production of information, or any power to seize any item or obtain any information, conferred by or under an enactment.
(10) In this section and section [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity]—
“adult” means a person aged 18 or over;
“authorised person” means a person specified in subsection (1) of section [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity] (subject to subsection (2) of that section);
“child” means a person aged under 18;
“agreement” means that the user has confirmed explicitly and unambiguously in writing that they agree—
(a) to provide their device, and
(b) to the extraction of specified data from that device.
Such an explicit written confirmation can only constitute agreement for these purposes if, in accordance with the Code of Practice issued pursuant to section [Effect of code of practice], the user—
(i) has been provided with appropriate information and guidance about why the extraction is considered strictly necessary (including, where relevant, the identification of the reasonable line of enquiring relied upon);
(ii) has been provided with appropriate information as to (a) how the data will or will not be used in accordance with the authorized person’s legal obligations and (b) any potential consequences arising from their decision;
(iii) has confirmed their agreement in the absence of any inappropriate pressure or coercion;
“electronic device” means any device on which information is capable of being stored electronically and includes any component of such a device;
“enactment” includes—
(a) an Act of the Scottish Parliament,
(b) an Act or Measure of Senedd Cymru, and
(c) Northern Ireland legislation;
“information” includes moving or still images and sounds;
“offence” means an offence under the law of any part of the United Kingdom;
“user”, in relation to an electronic device, means a person who ordinarily uses the device.
(11) References in this section and sections [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity] to the extraction of information include its reproduction in any form.
(12) This section is subject to sections [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity] and [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] where user has died etc].”
New clause 50—Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity—
“(1) A child is not to be treated for the purposes of subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] as being capable of—
(a) voluntarily providing an electronic device to an authorised person for those purposes, or
(b) agreeing for those purposes to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(2) If a child is a user of an electronic device, a person who is not a user of the device but is listed in subsection (3) may—
(a) voluntarily provide the device to an authorised person for the purposes of subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices], and
(b) agreement for those purposes to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(3) The persons mentioned in subsection (2) are—
(a) the child’s parent or guardian or, if the child is in the care of a relevant authority or voluntary organisation, a person representing that authority or organisation,
(b) a registered social worker, or
(c) if no person falling within paragraph (a) or (b) is available, any responsible person aged 18 or over other than an authorised person.
(4) The agreement of persons listed in subsection (3) further to subsection 2(b) should only be accepted where, if it is appropriate, the child has been consulted on whether such agreement should be provided and the authorised person is satisfied those views have been taken into account.
(5) An adult without capacity is not to be treated for the purposes of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] as being capable of—
(a) voluntarily providing an electronic device to an authorised person for those purposes, or
(b) agreeing for those purposes to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(6) If a user of an electronic device is an adult without capacity, a person who is not a user of the device but is listed in subsection (7) may—
(a) voluntarily provide the device to an authorised person for the purposes of subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices], and
(b) agreement for those purposes to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(7) The persons mentioned in subsection (6) are—
(a) a parent or guardian of the adult without capacity,
(b) a registered social worker,
(c) a person who has a power of attorney in relation to the adult without capacity, or
(d) if no person falling within paragraph (a), (b) or (c) is available, any responsible person aged 18 other than an authorised person.
(8) The agreement of persons listed in subsection (7) further to subsection (6)(b) should only be accepted where, if it is appropriate, the adult without capacity has been consulted on whether such agreement should be provided and the authorised person is satisfied those views have been taken into account.
(9) Nothing in this section prevents any other user of an electronic device who is not a child or an adult without capacity from—
(a) voluntarily providing the device to an authorised person for the purposes of subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices], or
(b) agreeing for those purposes to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(10) In this section and section and [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] where user has died etc]—
“adult without capacity” means an adult who, by reason of any impairment of their physical or mental condition, is incapable of making decisions for the purposes of subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices];
“local authority”—
(a) in relation to England, means a county council, a district council for an area for which there is no county council, a London borough council or the Common Council of the City of London,
(b) in relation to Wales, means a county council or a county borough council, and
(c) in relation to Scotland, means a council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994;
“registered social worker” means a person registered as a social worker in a register maintained by—
(a) Social Work England,
(b) the Care Council for Wales,
(c) the Scottish Social Services Council, or
(d) the Northern Ireland Social Care Council;
“relevant authority”—
(a) in relation to England and Wales and Scotland, means a local authority;
(b) in relation to Northern Ireland, means an authority within the meaning of the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 (S.I. 1995/755 (N.I. 2));
“voluntary organisation”—
(a) in relation to England and Wales and Scotland, has the same meaning as in the Children Act 1989;
(b) in relation to Northern Ireland, has the same meaning as in the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995.
(11) Subsections (10) and (11) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] also contain definitions for the purposes of this section.”
New clause 51—Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] where user has died etc—
“(1) If any of conditions A to C is met, an authorised person may exercise the power in subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to extract information stored on an electronic device from that device even though—
(a) the device has not been voluntarily provided to an authorised person by a user of the device, or
(b) no user of the device has agreed to the extraction of information from the device by an authorised person.
(2) Condition A is that—
(a) a person who was a user of the electronic device has died, and
(b) the person was a user of the device immediately before their death.
(3) Condition B is that—
(a) a user of the electronic device is a child or an adult without capacity, and
(b) an authorised person reasonably believes that the user’s life is at risk or there is a risk of serious harm to the user.
(4) Condition C is that—
(a) a person who was a user of the electronic device is missing,
(b) the person was a user of the device immediately before they went missing, and
(c) an authorised person reasonably believes that the person’s life is at risk or there is a risk of serious harm to the person.
(5) The exercise of the power in subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] by virtue of this section is subject to subsections (2) to (8) of that section.
(6) Subsections (10) and (11) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] and subsection (9) of section [Application of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] to children and adults without capacity] contain definitions for the purposes of this section.”
New clause 52—Code of practice—
“(1) The Secretary of State must prepare a code of practice containing guidance about the exercise of the power in subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices].
(2) In preparing the code, the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the Information Commissioner,
(b) the Scottish Ministers,
(c) the Welsh Government,
(d) the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland,
(e) the Victims Commissioner,
(f) the Domestic Abuse Commissioner,
(g) any regional Victims Champion including the London Victims Commissioner,
(h) persons who appear to the Secretary of State to represent the interests of victims, witnesses and other individuals likely to be affected by the use of the power granted in subsection (1) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices], and
(i) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(3) After preparing the code, the Secretary of State must lay it before Parliament and publish it.
(4) The code is to be brought into force by regulations made by statutory instrument.
(5) The code must address, amongst other matters—
(a) the procedure by which an authorised person must obtain and record confirmation that a device has been provided voluntarily;
(b) the procedure by which an authorised person must obtain and record confirmation that agreement has been provided for the extraction of specified information, including the information which must be provided to the user about—
(i) how long the device will be retained;
(ii) what specific information is to be extracted from the device and why, including the identification of the reasonable line of enquiry to be pursued and the scope of information which will be extracted, reviewed and/or retained;
(iii) how the extracted information will be kept secure;
(iv) how the extracted information will or may be used in a criminal process;
(v) how they can be kept informed about who their information is to be shared with and the use of their information in the criminal process;
(vi) their right to refuse to agree to provide their device and/or to the proposed extraction in whole or in part and the potential consequences of that refusal; and
(vii) the circumstances in which a further extraction may be required, and what will happen to the information after the case has been considered;
(c) the different types of extraction processes available, and the parameters which should be considered in defining the scope of any proposed extraction from a user’s device;
(d) the circumstances in which the extraction of information should and should not be considered strictly necessary and proportionate;
(e) the considerations to be taken into account in determining whether there are less intrusive alternatives available to extraction for the purposes of subsection (7) of section [Extraction of information from electronic devices];
(f) the process by which the authorised person should identify and delete data which is not responsive to a reasonable line of enquiry and/or has been assessed as not relevant to the purposes for which the extraction was conducted; and
(g) the records which must be maintained documenting for each extraction or proposed extraction, including—
(i) the specific information to be extracted;
(ii) the reasonable lines of enquiry pursued;
(iii) the basis upon which the extraction is considered strictly necessary, including any alternatives considered and why they were not pursued;
(iv) confirmation that appropriate information was provided to the user and, if applicable, agreement obtained;
(v) the reasons why the user was not willing to agree to a proposed extraction.
(6) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (4) is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
(7) After the code has come into force the Secretary of State may from time to time revise it.
(8) References in subsections (2) to (7) to the code include a revised code.”
New clause 53—Effect of code of practice—
“(1) An authorised person must in the exercise of the power granted under section [Extraction of information from electronic devices] have regard to the code of practice issued under section [Code of practice] in deciding whether to exercise, or in the exercise of that power.
(2) A failure on the part of any person to comply with any provision of a code of practice for the time being in force under section [Code of practice] shall not of itself render him liable to any criminal or civil proceedings.
(3) A code of practice in force at any time under section [Code of practice] shall be admissible in evidence in any criminal or civil proceedings.
(4) In all criminal and civil proceedings any code in force under section [Code of practice] shall be admissible in evidence; and if any provision of the code appears to the court or tribunal conducting the proceedings to be relevant to any question arising in the proceedings it shall be taken into account in determining that question.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
As the Committee will remember, I gave a very quick example of circumstances in which it would be appropriate for the authorised person to use information extracted from a digital device: when a person is missing, it would be appropriate to do that rather than wait for a review of many hours of closed circuit television footage. I hope that has dealt with that part of new clause 49.
New clause 49 also incorporates a definition of “agreement”. In order for authorised persons to exercise the power to extract information from digital devices, device users other than children or adults without capacity must voluntarily hand over their device and agree to the extraction of information. Authorised persons must explicitly ask device users for their agreement. The code of practice will provide guidance on: how agreement is to be obtained by the authorised person; ensuring it is freely given; and how the device user is made of aware of their right to refuse. The code will set out the best practice that authorised persons should follow when obtaining agreement, such as providing a copy of the digital processing notice for the device user to read and sign.
The final change made by new clause 49 is that it would define an adult as a person aged 18 or over, rather than 16 or over, as set out in chapter 3 of part 2. I understand this was not raised by the Victims’ Commissioner, but we have listened, and have thought very carefully about the imposition of that age in the Bill. In setting the age at 16, we were keen to ensure that those aged 16 to 17 were given appropriate control over their personal devices. That is not dissimilar from the position in other legislation, such as the Mental Capacity Act 2005, which recognises the rights of young people aged 16 and 17. However, we note the concerns raised in the debate, and we will reflect on them.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
May I say how grateful I am that the Minister is clearly in listening mode on this issue? The difference with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is that it does not define 16 and 17-year-olds as adults. It is that particular word, not the inclusion of that age bracket, that we are concerned about.
Victoria Atkins
I thank the hon. Lady. As I say, we will reflect on the issue.
New clause 50 would provide that, where the user of a device was a child or adult without capacity, their views were sought and taken into account when someone else was making a decision on their behalf regarding the extraction of information from their device. We agree on the point about children. Indeed, clause 37(4) makes an equivalent provision, so we are not sure there is much between us on this point. We rely on clause 37(4) to ensure that the views of the child are taken into account.
We do not, however, agree that it is appropriate to include equivalent provision for adults without capacity. With such people, it is the capacity of the individual user that is relevant, and that is determined on the basis of a case-specific assessment. It is only if, as a result of that assessment, the person is deemed not capable of making the decisions that someone else is asked to make it. Authorised persons using that power will still have to comply with their existing responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the associated code of practice or equivalent provisions in Scotland and Northern Ireland. We will, however, include guidance and direct authorised persons to the relevant statutory responsibilities in the code of practice.
New clause 52 seeks to expand the list of statutory consultees in respect of the code of practice to include the Victims’ Commissioner, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and representatives of victims and witnesses, but clause 40 already places a duty on the Secretary of State to consult
“(a) the Information Commissioner,
(b) the Scottish Ministers,
(c) the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland, and
(d) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”
We believe this last line affords sufficient flexibility to capture those other persons listed in new clause 52. I can assure the Committee that we will work closely with the Victims’ and Domestic Abuse Commissioners, and other relevant groups, as we develop the code.
The new clause also lists matters to be addressed in the code of practice. We do not dispute the relevance of many of the matters listed in new clause 52(5), but putting such a list in the Bill is unnecessary. The code needs to be comprehensive and fit for purpose, and it will be prepared in consultation with interested parties and subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
Amendment 94 seeks to provide for independent legal advice for device users. Ensuring that victims are properly supported is a priority for this Government. The code of practice will make it clear that investigators should inform people about the use of the power, and ensure that they are fully aware of their rights. This information will include: why they are asking for agreement, what will happen to the individual’s device, what information will be extracted from the device, how long it may be retained for, and what will happen to any irrelevant material found on the device.
We are aware of the impact that requests for personal information can have on victims of sexual violence, and we believe that individuals should be supported in the process. We are fully committed to giving support to victims of crime, including access to independent sexual violence advisers, who we believe have a role in helping to explain the power to victims; as I have said, we are investing in 700 more of these posts this year.
We are exploring the findings of the sexual violence complainants’ advocate scheme, piloted in Northumbria, as part of the rape review, which will be published shortly. We do not think that chapter 3 of part 2 of this Bill is the right place to address this broader issue about the provision of legal advice to victims and witnesses, given the wider impact across the criminal justice system.
Amendment 115 to schedule 3 seeks to exclude immigration officers from the list of persons authorised to carry out a digital extraction. Immigration officers play a vital role in protecting vulnerable people, particularly those who may be victims of trafficking, and it is important that they are able to obtain information that may be vital in those and other investigations. The power in schedule 3 ensures that all authorities extract information in a consistent way, and put the needs and privacy of the user at the forefront of any request. Any person being asked to provide a device will be made aware of their rights, including their right to refuse.
The hon. Member for Rotherham asked about a parliamentary question that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Croydon South, answered. I am told that mobile phones are seized under statutory powers where there is a reasonable belief that evidence of a criminal offence will be found. The subsequent examination of the device will be conducted in forensic conditions, and in such a way as to target only the relevant material. The handset will be retained for as long as is required to support any criminal proceedings before being returned to the owner.
Finally, there is also a Government amendment in this group: amendment 63, which ensures that the definition of the common council of the City of London is used consistently throughout the Bill. The City of London Corporation has both public and private functions, and it is therefore appropriate that public legislation applies to the corporation only in respect of its public functions. Government amendment 63 provides that the reference to the common council relates to
“its capacity as a local authority”,
which brings clause 37 into line with other provisions in the Bill referencing the common council.
To sum up, this is the first time that a clear and consistent approach to the extraction of information from digital devices with the device user’s agreement has been written into primary legislation. The provisions remove legal ambiguity around the practice and, for the first time, enshrine the protections and safeguards that authorised persons must adhere to when exercising that power. It is a significant step forward in driving a consistent approach across the Union for the law enforcement authorities that exercise these powers, and for victims and witnesses in the criminal justice system. Of course, there is more to do outside the Bill in a range of areas, but we are committed to working with victims and survivors and with charities and commissioners to ensure that when implemented, the provisions command the trust and confidence of victims and witnesses. Many of the issues raised in the new clauses can and will be addressed through the code of practice, so I hope that the hon. Member for Croydon Central will feel able to withdraw her amendments and support Government amendment 63 and clauses 36 to 42 standing part of the Bill.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
We all agree on the problems here; we have suggested some solutions and the Minister has explained why she is not convinced. I think it would be hard for the Minister not to agree with quite a lot of what Vera Baird said when giving evidence. We will have to come back to some of those new clauses and decide how we vote at an another time.
Given what the Minister said on three points—first, that she would look at the age issue and the definition of an adult; secondly, that there would be a draft code of practice by Report, and that she would incorporate some of the measures we discussed into that; and thirdly, that the rape review will be published soon, and that in it, the Government are looking at work such as that done in Northumbria, and at police training—I am content not to push the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 36 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 37
Application of section 36 to children and adults without capacity
Amendment made: 63, in clause 37, page 31, line 35, after “London” insert
“in its capacity as a local authority”.—(Victoria Atkins.)
This amendment clarifies that the reference in clause 37(11) to the Common Council of the City of London is to the Common Council in its capacity as a local authority.
Clause 37, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 38 to 42 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Clause 43
Pre-charge bail
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 95, in schedule 4, page 203, line 33, leave out
“If it is reasonably practicable to do so”
and insert
“Unless there is an exceptional reason not to”.
Amendment 96, in schedule 4, page 203, line 38, at end insert—
“(4AA) If it is reasonably practicable to do so, the investigating officer must consider the personal situation and the needs, as they appear to the investigating officer given all the circumstances of the case, of the alleged victim (if any) of the relevant offence on—
(a) whether any of the conditions that are relevant conditions should be varied under subsection (1), and
(b) if so, what variations should be made to those conditions.”
Amendment 97, in schedule 4, page 203, line 40, at end insert “and (4AA)”.
That schedule 4 be the Fourth schedule to the Bill.
New clause 54—Offence of breach of conditions of pre-charge bail—
“(1) The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 is amended as follows.
(2) After Section 37 insert—
“37ZA Offence of breach of conditions of pre-charge bail
(1) Where a person has been arrested and released on pre-charge bail under subsection 37(7), that person commits an offence if they breach any condition attached to that pre-charge bail.
(2) A person guilty of an offence under this Section will be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.””
Sarah Jones
The full package of these reforms will be named “Kay’s law” in memory of Kay Richardson, who was murdered by her ex-partner following his release under investigation despite evidence of previous domestic abuse. No conditions were imposed and the police gave Martin the keys back to the home he had shared with Ms Richardson. Martin let himself into the house and waited for Ms Richardson, who was 49, before attacking her with a hammer and strangling her. Kay’s mother Audrey Richardson said:
“They might as well have gone and opened the door for him”.
I think we will all want to keep in mind Kay and her family, and all victims of perpetrators who have caused harmed while on RUI, as in Kay’s case, or while continually in breach of bail conditions.
We are all largely pleased with the provisions on pre-charge bail, in that they reverse what amounted to mistakes made in the 2017 reforms, but it is important, if we want to achieve justice that is fair and efficient, that it comes alongside the Government investing in every part of our criminal justice system and tackling some of the many challenges that it faces.
To set the context, the reforms pursued by the Government in 2015 to 2017 introduced the presumption against the use of pre-charge bail. These reforms also introduced strict time limits on the use of pre-charge bail. They were designed to reduce both the numbers of individuals subject to, and the average duration of, pre-charge bail. That was supposed to address concerns that unconvicted individuals were being subjected to pre-charge bail conditions for long periods of time without due process.
The House of Commons Library says:
“There is no official data about who is released from police custody and how they are released. However, data obtained from various freedom of information requests suggest that the number of suspects released on pre-charge bail fell substantially following the 2017 reforms.”
The use of RUI
“increased rapidly as a result.”
A BBC investigation found that in one three-month period, 12 forces released more than 3,000 suspects of violent crime, murder, rape and sexual offences. Officers use RUI when they want more time to gather evidence and when the preconditions for pre-charge bail have not been met. There is no requirement for RUI suspects to report to the police, and the police have no power to place conditions on their movements or activities—although some RUI suspects will voluntarily attend further questioning at the request of the police. There are no time limits within which officers must conclude their investigations against RUI suspects and the police are under no obligation to keep them informed about the progress of their investigation.
Many stakeholders from across the criminal justice system have been critical of these 2017 reforms. The use of RUI, particularly in cases involving violent and sexual offences, puts vulnerable victims at risk because pre-charge bail conditions are not imposed on suspects. There are also concerns that the rights of RUI suspects are being undermined. Investigations against RUI suspects, on average, take longer and the police are not required to inform suspects about their progress while investigations are ongoing.
Zoë Billingham of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said in December 2020, on the police and Crown Prosecution Services’ response to the changes, that the full consequences
“had not been thought through”.
The report said that of 140 cases examined, in 62 cases a suspect was released under investigation when bail with restrictions should have been used. The inspector said:
“These cases included domestic abuse, sexual offences and offences against children—serious crimes. This is extremely worrying, especially for the victims in these cases, who had no bail conditions in place to keep them safe.”
The report found one case where a suspected paedophile was arrested and, after three months, the bail restrictions lapsed. This was because delays in getting digital evidence from the suspect’s devices meant police feared they would fall short of meeting the threshold to get bail extended. The report also raised particular concerns about domestic abuse cases. Billingham said:
“It has a profound effect on victims’ confidence that they are being taken seriously and staying with cases that can drag on for months and years.”
We welcome the changes, but have suggested some amendments; I will talk about amendment 95 first. Part 3 of schedule 4 would impose a duty on officers to seek the victim’s views on whether pre-charge bail or street bail should be applied, and their views on what conditions should be attached, when it is reasonably practical to do so. Amendment 95 simply strengthens that wording, so that the views of victims must be sought by the investigating officer when setting pre-charge bail conditions, not
“if it is reasonably practical to do so”,
but unless there is an exceptional reason not to do so; it tilts the balance in favour of seeking the views of a victim. It is vital that there be greater consideration of the needs of the victim in setting bail conditions, to protect them and ensure that they are able to continue through the criminal justice process safely and with full confidence.
Amendments 96 and 97 would ensure that the personal situation and needs of the victim, as well as all the circumstances, are taken into account to ensure that any variations necessary to the conditions can be put in place to protect the victim. The needs and situation of the victims must be taken into account when setting pre-charge bail.
It has, sadly, often been the case that victims—largely female victims of rape, domestic abuse or sexual exploitation—are hesitant to provide complete evidence of their personal situation or needs due to fear that the perpetrator will find out and put them, or their family, at risk. It is not right that victims do not feel that the police can protect them enough. Pre-charge bail can be broken and, as this is not a specific criminal offence, the custody clock can currently be run down by continuous breaches of pre-charge bail conditions.
I will talk about the measures in the specific context of domestic abuse, which represents one third of violent crime recorded by the police, and approximately one fifth of all adult homicides—half of all adult homicides when the victim is female. It affected 2.3 million adults in the last year. The criminal justice system still has a long way to go in bringing perpetrators to justice and in providing a consistently good response for domestic abuse survivors.
Over the past couple of years, there has been a notable decline in the number of offences prosecuted by the CPS relating to domestic abuse, despite there being no reduction in prevalence and an increase in offences recorded by the police. Between April 2014 and March 2020, the annual number of domestic abuse-flagged cases referred to the CPS by the police fell by 37%, with similar declines in prosecutions and convictions. In the year ending March 2020, only 9% of domestic abuse-related crimes recorded by the police led to a charge or summons, and the CPS convicted 47,000 domestic abuse cases, compared to 758,000 police-recorded offences relating to domestic abuse.
As incidents of domestic abuse often take place in private, the complainant may be the only witness. CPS guidelines for prosecutors state that:
“Giving evidence may be very difficult for them, or may cause additional difficulties (for example, fear of reprisals; safety of their children; increased family pressures or serious financial repercussions; fear of being 'outed'; fear of a lack of support by the criminal justice system, or specialist support organisations; or, an emotional attachment or loyalty towards the defendant), leading to uncertainty about the course of action they should take.”
Sarah Champion
I support the amendments that my hon. Friend is putting forward, because the intention is to put the victim at the absolute centre of all of this. Does she agree that we also need the resources to enable the police to back that up, and to enable the voluntary sector and social workers to put in place the support that she is talking about?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Nearly 5,000 women are turned away from refuges each year, because the support just is not there and so much provision has been taken away. That applies across all kinds of different aspects of the support that should be in place.
It is well known that separation and reporting to police are periods of heightened risk in abusive relationships, and the effectiveness of bail conditions can be critical. The Centre for Women’s Justice has said that it hears from frontline women’s services that breaches of bail are extremely common, and that women often cease to report them once they find that nothing is done by the police after their initial reports. Some victims withdraw support for prosecution in such situations and sometimes disengage from the domestic abuse service. In its briefing, the Centre for Women’s Justice says that
“in the worst case scenarios women feel so unprotected that they reconcile with suspects and return to abusive relationships, because the separation has increased the dangers they face in the short term. As the only power available to police following a breach of pre-charge bail is to arrest the suspect and release him again on bail, officers sometimes say there is nothing they can do. Police often don’t contact a victim until some time has passed since the reported breach, and many breaches are by phone or electronic communications. In these situations there is little purpose in arresting and releasing the suspect on bail again, and it is understandable that officers take no action.”
New clause 54 has been tabled to probe the Minister and to seek some clarifications and assurances on a number of problems that the police deal with and that have been brought to my attention by several police organisations. New clause 54 would make a breach of any condition of pre-charge bail, such as not being allowed to go to someone’s house, to turn up at the school gates or to visit a certain restaurant, a criminal offence. That would prevent the custody clock being run down by purposeful breaches of bail, and it would particularly protect victims in domestic abuse cases, so that abusers are less likely to breach conditions by returning to the home of the victim. If the enforcement around breach of bail could be strengthened, it would likely drive down the number of offenders who breach bail conditions, and it would allow the police to focus on the worst offenders. It is a straightforward amendment, which was drafted with victims in mind but was recommended to us, as I say, by senior members of the police.
The Police Superintendents Association has spoken to us about making the breach of pre-charge bail conditions a stand-alone criminal offence. Paul Griffiths was clear about this in the evidence session. He said that the PSA has concerns about breach of police bail and that
“bail conditions are imposed and then suspects continue to breach those bails. Of course, those bail conditions would be there to protect victims or even the wider public. It could be extremely useful to us for that to be an offence in its own right. I note that there is an introduction to prevent the start of the custody clock, which was another risk that we thought may come from somebody who would consistently breach their bail, risking an impact on the investigation custody time limits for other aspects for which they were under investigation. The Bill suggests that three hours is sufficient to deal with that breach of bail, and that seems appropriate, but it could be beneficial to the police service for that to be an offence in its own right in terms of processing individuals for such breaches.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 30-31, Q45.]
Could the Minister give us her views on that opinion and on the problem that we are seeking to overcome?
I appreciate that part 5 of schedule 4 would make amendments to the functions of the PACE clock, as it would suspend a detention clock for three hours when someone is arrested for failure to comply with bail. The amendments are supposed to prevent suspects from running down their PACE clock by repeatedly breaching bail. However, the view of many senior police whom I have met is that it is not long enough and that they would prefer the breach of pre-charge bail conditions to be a separate offence. I am aware that the Minister might say that to make the breach of pre-charge bail conditions a stand-alone offence could create an imbalance whereby the breach of post-charge bail conditions is not a stand-alone criminal offence, but I would appreciate her giving her views on how we can tackle this issue.
The Centre for Women’s Justice had a slightly different proposal, which is a two-stage process whereby a breach of bail conditions triggers a presumption that the police will impose a domestic abuse protection notice and apply for a domestic abuse protection order. Once the order is in place, a further breach would be a criminal offence, so it creates a “two strikes and you’re out” process. Perhaps the Minister will give us her view on that.
I reiterate that we very much welcome these much-needed reforms to pre-charge bail. Can the Minister talk us through what plans the Government have to monitor the changes to ensure they are effective and how they will ensure that the data on how each police force deals with suspects after they have been released from custody is clear and can be sufficiently reviewed so that victims across the country can be better protected?
Sarah Champion
I am in the unusual position of having found out that things were going wrong with pre-charge bail at the same time that the Minister did. We were both in Rotherham with the National Crime Agency, to learn more about how it was investigating past cases of child sexual exploitation. There was a throwaway line by the officer about how things had got a lot more complicated since pre-charge bail was brought in through the Police and Crime Act 2017, and I have to say that I did not know anything about it.
Pre-charge bail does exactly what it says. Before 2017, the police were able to put in place restrictions on a person before they were charged, such as “You cannot leave the country” or “You cannot go within 100 yards of the victim.” This is really important in a place such as Rotherham, because the victims—the survivors—and the perpetrators are sometimes both still living on the same street, or their children may still be going to the same school, but also because a number of the perpetrators are dual nationality and there is a flight risk. The problem the police had was that there was a window of 28 days during which they had to make the charge, and with child abuse cases, particularly past child abuse cases, it can take months if not years to gather all of the evidence they need to make that charge. We found in Rotherham that the police were having to sit on their hands and hope that the perpetrator did not either flee or—as unfortunately happened in a number of well-documented cases—engage in intimidation. There was a lot of intimidation of victims and witnesses because the police were not, for example, able to put distance restrictions on the then alleged perpetrators.
I really welcome that these restrictions are back. I do not want to reflect on the omission in the intervening years—the fact that they were not in place. I am grateful that the police were creative and used release under investigation, because that was really all that they had, but it was not good enough, and it is not good enough. I am proud to support my hon. Friend’s amendments on this topic, which I think strengthen the Bill and make it even more victim-centred. However, I thank the Minister for listening to the women of Rotherham, the National Crime Agency, and all the other forces up and down the country. These events demonstrate to me that we make legislation with the best of intentions, but sometimes the unintended consequences are severe, so I am grateful that the Government have recognised that mistake and redressed it through this Bill.
What I would say, though—I have to say something, Minister—is that child abuse cases and many sexual offence cases are, by necessity, resource-heavy. If she can do more to put resources within the reach of officers so that they can speed up these cases as much as possible in order to eliminate the ongoing trauma that survivors go through, that would be deeply appreciated.
Victoria Atkins
Before I explain the clauses, we should remind ourselves why the 2017 Act was passed. Colleagues may remember that in the first half of the past decade, there were several very high-profile investigations into very serious allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation. There was an understanding that in some cases—not all—we had to look at bail conditions and so on to ensure that these complex investigations were carried out as efficiently and quickly as possible. That was the driving sentiment behind the 2017 legislation. We have listened to the police and to victims and survivors and charities that work with them. We want to improve the efficiency of the pre-charge bail system and encourage the use of bail where necessary and proportionate.
The hon. Member for Croydon Central explained the background to this clause and schedule and its reference to Kay Richardson, whose murder has already been described. When we scrutinised the Domestic Abuse Bill, I said that the experiences of individual victims and their families were behind many of the measures introduced to improve court processes, for example, and to help with services and refuges. This is such an example. Colleagues will understand that we wanted to take time to work through the measures in this Bill and this schedule in order to ensure they were as effective as possible in helping victims. It could not be included in the Domestic Abuse Bill, but I am pleased it is in this Bill.
The motivation behind Kay’s law is to provide better protection for victims through the anticipated increased use of pre-charge bail and to refocus the system, with victims at its heart. The hon. Lady’s amendments and new clause allow us to discuss two significant elements of this reform package: the duty to seek views from alleged victims on pre-charge bail conditions and the consequences for a suspect who breaches those conditions.
As with other measures in the Bill, our reforms to pre-charge bail put victims at the centre of the changes we are making, to help ensure that they are better protected and involved in decisions that affect them. The views of victims on bail conditions and how these can best safeguard them are vital to enable the police to build a full picture of all the relevant circumstances.
I hope we can all agree that this must be balanced against the need for operational flexibility within policing and the need to balance victims’ rights against those of the suspect. While I would expect officers to seek the views of victims in the vast majority of pre-charge bail cases, that may not always be practicable. For a variety of reasons, a victim may be uncontactable by the police. The duties imposed by the legislation must be proportionate within the investigation. It would not be right, and could be disproportionate, to require officers to hold a suspect in custody longer than appropriate until that contact is made. The current wording goes far enough to ensure that the duty is followed in all cases where it is practical to contact the victim.
We are not of the view that the Bill should be amended to require that officers discharge this duty in every case, unless there are exceptional circumstances. We need this change to work in practice for the benefit of victims and the wider public. I make it very clear that this is the expectation within this legislation, but we have to reflect operational practicalities and the balancing act of ensuring the rights of both victims and suspects.
Amendments 96 and 97 seek to provide that the personal circumstances of the victim are taken into account where bail conditions are varied. I agree with this view but believe that the drafting of the Bill as is, coupled with the current legislation in this area, already provides for this. When imposing or varying conditions, custody officers must take into account a number of considerations, including the need to ensure that the suspect does not interfere with witnesses or obstruct the course of justice, and that will include consideration of the victim’s circumstances and needs. The duty set out in the Bill also requires further consideration by the investigating officer to determine which of the bail conditions are relevant conditions—conditions that relate to safeguarding the victim. I anticipate that that will also require consideration of the victim’s personal circumstances and needs as part of this overall assessment.
Finally in this group, new clause 54 aims to create a criminal offence of breach of pre-charge bail conditions. I understand that there is a long-held concern about the sanctions available when a suspect on pre-charge bail breaches their bail conditions. We should remember that officers will, in the first instance, consider whether the behaviour or actions that breached the conditions amount to a separate offence, such as harassment or intimidation. Equally, there are civil orders that can be put in place, breaches of which constitute an offence. I am thinking of a sexual risk order, a stalking protection order and when in due course they are piloted, the new domestic abuse protection orders. I also have concerns around creating an offence without an understanding of the number of people that it would be likely to affect. I am pleased to say that data collection in this area is being improved, but we do not yet have a full picture of what the effects of such an offence are likely to be on suspects, victims and the wider criminal justice system.
To support the increased data collection around breaches, the Bill includes provision for a pause on the detention clock following arrest for breach of conditions to encourage the police to arrest in those instances. The issues raised by the amendments are all ones that we would expect the College of Policing to address in the statutory guidance provided for in the new section 50(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. In the longer term, across the board of Home Office policy, we will keep under review the case for any additional sanction where pre-charge bail conditions are breached as the reforms provided for in the Bill settle in and we have better data on which to make a decision. For now, however, I invite the hon. Member to withdraw her amendment.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 43, accordingly, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr McCabe. The Opposition have an opportunity to respond to the Minister about whether to withdraw the new clause.
The Chair
I think you are just one step ahead of me, Mr Cunningham. We now come to amendments 95 to 97 for schedule 4, which have already been debated. Do you wish to press the amendments?
Sarah Jones
I will not press the amendments on the basis of what the Minister said on those ones. I was also pleased to hear that there is going to be better data gathering—she might come to that in a minute, I am not sure—on whether it should be a separate offence. I understand the point that we need more data about what is happening before we take a view on that. I therefore ask that the Minister keep an eye on that situation as the data emerges and keep an eye on the fact that the police are concerned about that.
Schedule 4 agreed to.
Clause 44
Arranging or facilitating commission of a child sex offence
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 37—Retrial for child sexual offences—
“(1) Schedule 5 of The Criminal Justice Act 2003 is amended as follows.
(2) After paragraph 14, insert—
‘Sexual assault of a child under 13
14A An offence under section 7 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.’
(3) In paragraph 15, leave out from ‘where’ to the end of the paragraph.
(4) After paragraph 15, insert—
‘Sexual activity with a child
15A An offence under section 9 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
Causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity
15B An offence under section 10 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
Indecent assault against a child under 16
15C An offence under section 14 or 15 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 where it is alleged that the assault was against a child under 16 by a person over 18.’”
New clause 39—Aggravated child sexual offences—
“(1) The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is amended in accordance with this section.
(2) In section 14—
(a) in subsection (4), at the beginning, insert ‘Subject to subsection (5),’; and
(b) after subsection (4), insert—
‘(5) If one or more of the following applies, a person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life—
(a) the child has a mental impairment at the time of the offence;
(b) the child is subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment in connection with the offence;
(c) the child dies as a result of physical harm suffered in connection with the offence;
(d) as a consequence of the offence the child is forced to engage in sexual activity with another child;
(e) as a consequence of the offence the child is forced to engage in sexual activity with a family member;
(f) more than 500 pounds were paid in aggregate for the commission of the offence or related offences.’
(3) In section 48—
(a) in subsection (2), at the beginning, insert ‘Subject to subsection (3),’; and
(b) after subsection (2), insert—
‘(3) If one or more of the following applies, a person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life—
(a) the child has a mental impairment at the time of the offence;
(b) the child is subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment in connection with the offence;
(c) the child dies as a result of physical harm suffered in connection with the offence;
(d) as a consequence of the offence the child is forced to engage in sexual activity with another child;
(e) as a consequence of the offence the child is forced to engage in sexual activity with a family member;
(f) more than 500 pounds were paid in aggregate for the commission of the offence or related offences.’”
New clause 40—Communication for the purpose of causing or inciting sexual exploitation of a child—
“(none) Section 48 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Causing or inciting sexual exploitation of a child) is amended by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (1)—
‘(1A) A person commits an offence if he communicates with another person, whether in person or remotely via electronic communication through the internet or other telecommunications, for the purpose of committing an offence under subsection (1), regardless of whether the sexual exploitation takes place.’”
New clause 41—Causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity—
“(1) Section 8 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity) is amended in accordance with sections (2) and (3).
(2) In paragraph (1)(a), leave out ‘to engage in an activity’ and insert ‘, having communicated with B by any means, to engage in an activity in any part of the world’.
(3) After subsection (1), insert—
‘(1A) For the purposes of this section “by any means” includes, but is not limited to—
(a) in person, and
(b) remotely via electronic communication through the internet or other telecommunications.’”
Sarah Champion
I will start with new clause 37 on extending double jeopardy. I start with a quote from Dean Radford in the Metro in 2019,
“Like many young boys who grew up with a dream of becoming a footballer, the sport was my whole life. It was the be-all and end-all. I didn’t even want to think about not being offered a contract. That dream looked like it could become reality when I made it to Southampton Football Club at 13 years old. They had produced some of my favourite football heroes and I was given the amazing opportunity to train with boys like myself, who wanted to be the next big thing in football. All of this came to a halt when I was subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of a coach I trusted and looked up to.”
In the 1980s, Radford was one of six boys allegedly abused by their football coach and scout Bob Higgins at Southampton football club. Higgins was acquitted of all charges in the ’90s and continued in same line of work. In 2016 the football abuse scandal rightly erupted, and more than 100 people came forward in relation to Higgins. Higgins was convicted of 45 counts of indecent assault involving 23 victims over a period from 1971 to 1996.
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 sets out exceptions to the law of double jeopardy if the offences are considered “severe” or “serious”. Murder, kidnapping, serious drug offences, serious criminal damage offences, and penetrative child sex offences all come under that definition. The schedule does not exempt any offences relating to non-penetrative sexual assault or sexual activity with a child. Due to double jeopardy exemptions not applying in sexual assault or indecent assault, the original six complainants against Higgins from the 1990s were prevented from having their case reheard. I find it shocking that the law does not deem non-penetrative child abuse as serious or severe enough for retrial.
The Government is right to acknowledge that extending the list of qualifying offences is not something to be undertaken lightly, but any form of child sexual abuse, whether it involves penetration or not, should be considered a serious or severe offence. Survivors do not differentiate between the severity of different forms of sexual abuse; they do not have a hierarchy. They judge it by the impact on their lives, which tends to be both devastating and lifelong. Abuse of a child should be the very definition of a serious crime, regardless of whether penetration has taken place. I return to the quote from Dean Radford in 2019. He says:
“even though Higgins is in jail right now, he spends no time in his cell for the abuse he [allegedly] subjected us to. He sits in jail knowing he got away with it when it comes to us. He took away years of my childhood and ruined my adult life, without paying any consequences for it. There isn’t one day that I don’t feel sick to the stomach, or sleep through one night without waking up and thinking of what he did to me.”
New clause 37 would amend schedule 5 to the Criminal Justice Act to include child sex offences set out in sections 7 to 10 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and sections 14 and 15 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. Will the Government at the very least commit to a review of the law in this area? It has been 20 years since the Law Commission conducted such a review. The proposed changes to the double jeopardy laws have received widespread support, including from the Victims’ Commissioner, the all-party parliamentary group for adult survivors of child sexual abuse, and over 15,000 people who have signed a change.org petition.
The case of Dean Radford, who was abused by Bob Higgins, is just one that devalues the fairness that should exist in our criminal justice system. Higgins was convicted of abusing a total of 24 boys, but the police, Crown Prosecution Service and clearly the criminal jury and judge appreciated the veracity and importance of Radford’s evidence, because as he was a witness at Higgins’ trial in respect of the abuse—but he did not get the conviction in relation to Higgins’ abuse of him.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. My constituent Ian Ackley was also abused, by Barry Bennell. He was one of the first whistleblowers on the sexual abuse of young men by football coaches, but because he was one of the first, he did not get the support that others got subsequently. As a result, he was encouraged to allow certain offences not to be pursued as much as he would have liked. Does she think that, with additional support, that would change—and how does that relate to her new clause?
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend knows that I have the great privilege of knowing and working with Ian. He is a remarkable survivor, who does everything he can both to prevent and to seek justice for child abuse. The problem in a lot of these cases is that the abuse happened in the past. As technology has moved forward—in the use of DNA, for example—the evidence available now will be so comprehensively different from that available to those brave enough and successful enough to try to get a case to court in, say, the ’70s or ’80s, that not to allow double jeopardy in the case of child abuse seems a really poor and morally reprehensible decision. We have the opportunity to change that now for these specific cases.
As I said, the last review into double jeopardy was conducted 20 years ago by the Law Commission. Since then, the disclosure in 2017 of abuse by Jimmy Savile and in 2016 of abuse within football, and disclosures in other parts of society have changed the societal landscape so radically that I ask the Minister to consider at the very least initiating such a review.
I will end with a question that I put to the Victims’ Commissioner:
“Non-penetrative child abuse offences are not seen as serious crime; therefore, they do not fall under the double jeopardy rule. Should they be?”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2021; c. 113, Q178.]
Her answer, in a word, was yes. I urge the Minister, if she will not accept the new clause, to consider a review into this important topic, which is widely supported by the public and a number of bodies.
I will now speak to new clauses 39, 40 and 41 together, while giving a little bit more detail on each one. They all relate to online sexual abuse of children. It might seem silly to say, but people seem to see online abuse as not as severe as abuse in a room, which is nonsense, because online abuse is a child being abused; they are just not in the same room as the abuser. I have to put a health warning on some of the examples that I will give, but I need to give them to explain. Hopefully no one in this room has any knowledge about what is going on out there on the internet, but unfortunately some of us work in this field and so do know. It is pretty chilling, hence my earlier attempt to put “trauma” into the police covenant.
I have worked really closely on these new clauses with the International Justice Mission, which is a fantastic organisation.
Sarah Champion
The Minister is nodding. The IJM is leading the way in working collaboratively with international justice departments, police departments and local voluntary organisations around the world. It gave me one example from its recent work in the Philippines, where it has been spending a lot of time. Recently, Philippines police rescued a three-month-old baby in an operation to free children from online sexual exploitation, and weeks later they brought a two-year-old to safety. This is what we are talking about when we talk about online abuse.
The International Justice Mission reports that children it has helped to rescue have been abused by family members. It has been supporting children who have, for example, contracted sexually transmitted diseases as a result of their abuse. Online sexual exploitation includes creating, possessing or distributing child sexual exploitation material such as photos or videos. Traffickers livestream the exploitation to satisfy the online demand of child sex offenders paying to direct the abuse in real time. That crime has been growing internationally, particularly during the covid pandemic, as online offenders have been at home with greater access to the internet and with fewer eyes on them, while victims have been locked into the same environment as their traffickers.
The National Crime Agency has stated its belief that the UK is the world’s third largest consumer of livestreamed abuse. That means that people here are sat in their homes directing the abuse of a child in another country. We must strengthen our criminal legal framework for apprehending those offenders in the UK. They may not physically not carry out the act, but they are directing it, and as far as I am concerned, that is as good as.
The International Justice Mission research shows a trend of relatively lenient sentencing for sex offenders in the UK convicted of abusing children in the Philippines, for example. Offenders serve on average only two years and four months in prison, even though they spent several years and thousands of pounds directing the sexual abuse of children. Those sentences do not represent justice for the survivors and, probably just as important, they do not deter the perpetrators. Prevention is vital, but a framework must be in place to give law enforcement the tools they need to act effectively.
I welcome some of the changes in the Bill, which will really help to deal with the problem, including clause 44 and the positive shifts on sentencing for those convicted of arranging or facilitating sexual abuse. We could go further simply by including online offences.
Sarah Jones
I cannot really argue with the points my hon. Friend makes, which seem completely correct. At the bottom of my road was the Shirley Oaks home, which was the scene of massively severe child abuse decades ago. Victims are still coming forward and being compensated for it. The internet now makes it possible for huge numbers of people to be involved in that kind of awful activity, so it is even more important not only that we catch up and stop seeing online offences as different criminal offences, but that we ensure that our response to that crime and our sentencing are such that we can stem the tide. We need to go even further, because that kind of abuse is so widely available that perpetrators can abuse children in any country around the world.
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point. I am talking about UK offenders abusing children internationally, but hon. Members, particularly the Minister, will also be very aware of the rapid escalation of abuse of UK children through online means.
I remember when I first started to research the issue. Simon Bailey, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for child protection, said, “Sarah, what you need to understand is that when a family is sat down watching ‘Antiques Roadshow’ on a Sunday night, and the six-year-old is there playing on their iPad, they could be being groomed and abused in the same room as the parents, and the parents just don’t understand that.” It always chills me. If I may deviate very slightly, Chair, it frustrates me enormously that the Government’s legislation for mandatory relationship education for all children from primary school age, which should have been introduced in September, still has not been brought forward. We have to address that because covid has really escalated the abuse faced by children in this country and internationally.
Alex Cunningham
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe, and I do recognise that you know what you are doing. I tend to have a big mouth at times, and I am often the first one to jump in, maybe a little bit prematurely.
I pay tribute to the Clerks of this Committee, just as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central did. We all know that their professionalism is first class, but my greatest admiration is for their patience, which they have had to demonstrate daily in helping us prepare for this particular Bill. I also apologise to you, Chair, and to the Minister, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle, that I was a couple of minutes late to the Committee this afternoon. I gather that the Minister mentioned that she is going to address the issue of 16-year-olds being designated as adults in clause 36 of the Bill.
I am sure that Members on both sides of the Committee will join me in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham for the tremendous amount of dedicated work she has done on child exploitation since arriving in this House. Her experience and ability to pull together Members from across the House not just to champion the rights of children but to help educate us on what is happening in our society, is admirable to say the least. Today, she has finally had that most important opportunity: the chance to propose a series of amendments to legislation to help address some of those issues and, above all, better protect young people from the predators who would ruin their lives.
As Members will have seen, we are supportive of what the Government are trying to do in this space, but it is important that we do not lose this opportunity to strengthen this work in the best interests of our children and young people. We hope that Ministers will remain in listening mode, ready to adopt the revisions that we are suggesting, in relation to not just clause 44 but the following clause 45. There is very little that I can add to the detail outlined by my hon. Friend, so I will address clause 44 and new clauses 39 to 41 in relatively brief fashion.
As has been said, clause 44 addresses the need to strengthen section 14 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, with subsection (2) extending the offence so that it covers acts preparatory to the offences in sections 5 to 8 of that Act: among other things, the rape of a child under 13, assault of a child under 13 by penetration, and causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity. The proposed sentence changes are to be welcomed as a step in the right direction, and the new clauses proposed by my hon. Friend are designed to bolster what the Government are trying to achieve while, more importantly, demonstrating a much tougher approach to those who would commit the most heinous of crimes against children.
As outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, new clause 39 will introduce aggravated offences to cover the most serious cases such as those involving particularly degrading treatment of a child, or where a family member or the family are involved in the contact abuse. This reflects landmark legislation that has been introduced in Australia, as my hon. Friend has set out in more detail. Each of the aggravating factors listed in this new clause—I am pleased that my hon. Friend read them out—is an example of the most depraved and horrifying offending that can be imagined. We strongly believe that these instances of extreme abuse and exploitation should be captured in legislation, and I am sure the Government agree that offending of this nature needs to feel the full force of the law.
New clause 40 will criminalise online communications or activity that are intended to enable sexual abuse and exploitation. As abuse moves online, it is so important that we ensure our legislation keeps place with emerging criminal activities so that these abusers are still held to account for their crimes. This new clause will address the initial steps taken by the sex offender who is intent on committing an offence, and will ensure that law enforcement has a framework through which it can tackle this horrendous behaviour at the earliest point possible.
Finally, new clause 41 will make it clear that offences of inciting, arranging, or facilitating child sexual abuse can take place in person or online, in the UK or in any other part of the world. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham spoke of the important work of the International Justice Mission. As she said, the IJM’s teams in the Philippines work with local and international law enforcement to address situations in which sex offenders pay to direct and livestream sexual abuse of Filipino children. Sadly, and to our shame as a nation, it is often sex offenders in the UK who are driving the demand for such abuse. The National Crime Agency believes that the UK is the third-largest consumer of livestreamed abuse in the world. The harm that the demand causes cannot be overstated. Many of the children whom IJM has assisted are very young: around half were under 12 years of age when they were helped to safety. The severity of the harm caused by online offenders here in the UK must be recognised.
Currently, UK offenders who directed and paid for the livestreamed sexual abuse of Filipino children will serve an average of just two years and four months in prison. Are the Government content with that? I would hope not. The new clauses will go some way to addressing the injustice and will help hold UK online offenders accountable for the abuse and trauma they cause. We need the abusers to know that they cannot hide behind their computer screens and access extreme material without knowing that when they are caught—modern technology is improving the chances of that tremendously —they will not just get a slap on the wrist but will go to prison for a considerable length of time. I hope the Government will support the amendments.
The Chair
No need for apologies, Mr Cunningham. It is important that the Bill is properly scrutinised and that the parliamentary procedure is complied with. I call Minister Philp.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)
It is a great pleasure, once again, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I join the hon. Member for Stockton North in paying tribute to the hon. Member for Rotherham for the work that she has been doing in this area for so many years. I am sure the entire Committee, and anyone listening, will have been deeply moved by her speech a few minutes ago, in which she described the most appalling abuse that I know all of us, as a House, can come together to combat and fight. I know she has been tirelessly working in this area for many years, and the whole House is grateful to her for the work and leadership she has shown.
The provisions in the Bill that we are discussing form only a small part of what the Government are doing to combat these terrible crimes, and I pay particular tribute to the Minister for Safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle, who leads the Government’s work. Before talking about the provisions in the Bill, I want to draw attention to some non-legislative work that is going on, particularly the work that is being done internationally, including through the “Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy”, which I think was published earlier this year. The hon. Member for Rotherham talked a few moments ago about a separate piece of legislation—the forthcoming online safety Bill, which aims to tackle many of the issues that we have been discussing. We are of course also working internationally with other states and with international organisations and charities, such as the International Justice Alliance and the International Watch Foundation, to make sure that we protect children overseas. Legislation is important, but so is action. The Minister for Safeguarding and others in Government are committed to taking that action, and we welcome the support from Members of different parties in doing that.
Let me pick up some of the points that the hon. Members for Rotherham and for Stockton North raised in their comments. A question was posed by the hon. Member for Stockton North in his excellent speech: he asked whether we were content with some of the sentences being handed down to people in the United Kingdom who go online and cause a deeply traumatising offence to be committed in another country, such as the Philippines or elsewhere. The answer is no, we are not.
Clause 44 aims to address the lacuna that currently exists in this area and that we think needs to be closed. Clause 44 is a critical part of doing that.
Sarah Champion
The Minister’s speech is incredibly reassuring, and I am glad that it will now be in black and white in the transcript, because it gives the comfort that we need. However, hearing everything that he is saying, is there any objection to putting the words “online” or “international” in the Bill, just for clarity and just because there is a change? The likelihood of people reading through all the guidance when they are making a decision is slender, whereas they will go to the Act and it would be there in black and white, which would give a lot of comfort.
Chris Philp
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. My clear understanding is that the police already prosecute for these offences. I will go away and double-check with colleagues to make sure that there is no scope for misunderstanding by law enforcement authorities: the police; the National Crime Agency; and the Crown Prosecution Service. Having investigated that question further, I will write to her with the reply to her question. The law permits it, and the law is being used. However, I will just seek that assurance that there is no misunderstanding by practitioners. My understanding, as I say, is that they are prosecuting and getting some convictions, but I will double-check her point and get back to her in writing.
I think that speaks to the issues raised in new clauses 40 and 41. In relation to new clause 39, I think that the essence of what the hon. Lady is seeking to achieve is delivered by clause 44, as it is drafted, by making the maximum penalty the maximum sentence for the underlying act that is committed. To take the most extreme and distressing example, if someone is being raped and that has been incited, facilitated or arranged online, that facilitation will now—if we pass this clause—lead to that maximum sentence applying. It will be the underlying offence that triggers the maximum sentence, which I think addresses the point that she is quite rightly making in new clause 39. I believe that clause 44 addresses that issue.
Finally, there is the question of new clause 37, which is concerned with double jeopardy. I completely accept, and I think the Government accept, that this is an incredibly difficult area, where a very difficult balance has to be struck, because on the one hand we have long-standing interests of natural justice, which say that someone can only be tried for a given offence once for reasons of fairness, natural justice and finality, but on the other hand there are the points that the hon. Lady has very powerfully made concerning these very distressing offences.
As the hon. Lady said, this issue was looked at by the Law Commission in the early 2000s and then legislated for via the 2003 Act. In fact, the Law Commission initially only recommended that the exemption to double jeopardy should apply to murder. However, when Parliament debated this question, it decided to expand the range of exemptions, which were covered in schedule 5 to the 2003 Act, to cover, in addition to homicide, other offences, as she said, such as rape, penetrative sexual offences, kidnapping and war crimes. Such offences are generally punishable by a term of life imprisonment, or in one or two cases by the exceptionally high standard determinate sentence of 30 years.
A line has to be drawn as these things are balanced, which is an extremely difficult line to draw, because there will always be offences that are just over the non- exception side of that schedule 5 line, which are very grave offences. The hon. Lady very powerfully described why those offences are so appalling, offensive and terrible. She is right—they are—but we have to try to strike a balance in deciding where that line is drawn. Clearly, offences of rape and sexual assault involving penetration are exempted—they can be tried again—but those that do not involve penetration are not in schedule 5, so the rules on double jeopardy apply.
The Bill does not change that, and there are no plans to change where the line is drawn. As the hon. Lady raised the question in such powerful terms, I will raise it with more senior colleagues in Government to test their opinion—I can make no stronger undertaking than that—to ensure that her point, which she articulated so powerfully, gets voiced. I will let her know the response. I do understand her point, but there is a balance to be struck and considerations of natural justice that need to be weighed as well.
Sarah Champion
I appreciate what the Minister is saying. In that discussion, will he throw in the potential of another review? In relation to this crime, things have moved on so much, not in the last 20 years, but in the last five years, so it would be good to hear his colleagues’ thoughts on that as well.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
I have been listening carefully to the Minister’s response. Will he undertake to get back to Opposition Members and indeed the whole Committee before Report?
Chris Philp
I almost said that without being prompted, but, since I have now been prompted, yes, I will.
I hope that the commentary I have given on the operation of the clause addresses the many points quite rightly and properly raised by the hon. Member for Rotherham and the shadow Minister. I have undertaken further to investigate two points, and I hope that on that basis the Committee is content to see the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
I know that members of the public get a little confused by this, so I remind them that the new clauses were debated as part of our discussion on clause 44 because that is where they sit most logically, but we will vote on them at the end of our consideration.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 44 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 45
Positions of trust
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 45, page 37, line 1, leave out subsections (2) and (3) and insert—
“(2) In section 21, after subsection (5), insert—
(5A) This subsection applies if A is regularly involved in caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of B and none of subsections (2) to (13) of this section otherwise applies.”
(3) In section 16—
(a) in subsection (2)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’;
(b) in subsection (4)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’.
(4) In section 17—
(a) in subsection (2)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’;
(b) in subsection (4)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’.
(5) In section 18—
(a) in subsection (2)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’;
(b) in subsection (4)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’.
(6) In section 19—
(a) in subsection (2)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’;
(b) in subsection (4)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’.”
This amendment aims to ensure that all adults who are in a position of trust are subject to the child sexual abuse offences provided for by section 16 to 19 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, rather than simply extending the definition to those who coach, teach, train, supervise or instruct children in a sport or a religion.
I am sorry; everyone must be sick of my voice now. I must say that I am sick of giving this speech on positions of trust, because I have given it so many times. I will start, somewhat cheekily, by quoting the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle, back to herself on clause 1 and the police covenant. On Tuesday, she said:
“We have kept the wording deliberately broad to ensure that there is room within the legislation to allow the Secretary of State to consider issues of importance as they arise, and the issues that have been raised here will be included in those considerations.”—[Official Report, Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 25 May 2021; c. 198.]
I ask her to take a similar approach on positions of trust. I am hugely—[Interruption.] Oh. I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Croydon South, to listen to the other Minister’s wise words when it comes to considering positions of trust. It is a real collaborative effort when it comes to tackling child abuse, and I do appreciate that.
Let me set out my stall. At the time of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, it was rightly identified that certain adults had a position of trust over a child that made it all the more inappropriate for them to have sexual relations with that child. I am talking specifically about children aged 16 or 17 who are able to have sex within the law, and who are able to give consent. Because of the adult’s position of trust, they have a disproportionate amount of power over that child, which brings into debate the free gift of consent that a child could give because of that power imbalance. Clause 22(2) of the Sexual Offences Act defines someone in a position of trust, saying,
“a person looks after persons under 18 if he is regularly”—
that is a key word—
“involved in caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of such persons.”
I think we would all agree on that.
Alex Cunningham
My mum is a wise older woman who will be 88 on 1 August. She has offered me many a statement, and sometimes direction, that has given me food for thought and helped me form opinions or even take action to work for change. One expression she would use in the past was, “We all come into the world the same way, and we all leave it the same way.” She knew, as we all do, that opportunities between and birth and death vary tremendously for our people. We need to work for equality wherever we can, particularly for our children and young people. We need to apply that work on equality to this Bill, to ensure that all young people are protected from adults in a position of trust over them and, where they are exploited, to ensure that the full weight of the law is felt by those who have betrayed that position and possibly ruined young persons’ lives.
The Opposition have worked for months with the police and policing and justice stakeholders from across the field in drawing together our various amendments. It has been extremely heartening that Ministers have already shown a great willingness to work together to improve the Bill. That has been extremely welcome thus far, and I hope it will extend to our discussion on clause 45.
This matter has strong cross-party support, and I am sure hon. Members join me in giving wholehearted thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and those she paid tribute to earlier—the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford and Baroness Grey-Thompson—for their tireless work prosecuting the case and campaigning for wider protections for our children.
The proposed extension to the definition of “position of trust” is very much welcomed by the Opposition, but it is vital that we do not miss this opportunity to introduce a comprehensive solution that protects children from potentially abusive adults in positions of influence over them in all activities and settings. It is time to Close the Loophole, as the NSPCC has called its campaign.
Before I discuss the excellent amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, on which she made an outstanding and meaningful speech, I would like to seek some clarity about who is covered by the definition currently in the Bill, to eliminate confusion. Can the Minister confirm that, with regard to sports, the current wording covers those adults who are instructing and training children in recreational physical activity that is not directly leading to a specific competitive event or display—for example, swimming lessons or dance classes? Can he also confirm that, with regard to religion, the current wording covers adults who are leading activities that have a religious ethos, or who are operating under the auspices of a specific religious organisation or denomination, but where the activities are not directly related to religious practice—for instance, a temple youth group, a church camp or outdoor activities? What happens there? I would welcome clarity on all those points. The possible confusion in the current wording, which has been pointed out by the NSPCC, means that the clause as it stands may not cover all sporting and religious activity.
The lack of clarity about the Government’s proposals goes to illustrate the issue at hand. Why are we excluding children from the protections of this clause in some settings, but not in others? I will repeat that point a few times. Why have the Government chosen to draw the line here? Why are some children being safeguarded and others left at risk? As it stands, the Government will be excluding children from this new protection in many settings, such as music, creative and performing arts, tutoring, cadets, driving lessons and youth clubs.
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend is making a very strong point. I am thinking about this from a parent’s point of view. At the moment, they assume that everybody in a position of trust over their child, as they would see it, is covered by this legislation. It seems ridiculous that, when we are talking about a child in school—I will stay with the example of the maths teacher—the maths teacher would be convicted if they had sex with a 16-year-old, but if the child leaves school and goes to a maths tutor, the maths tutor could have sex with them and would not be prosecuted. The issue is just about getting clarity for everyone on this.
Alex Cunningham
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. It illustrates exactly what we are about here, which is that everybody should be treated the same. Incidentally, I had an excellent maths teacher; I do not remember his first name, but he was Mr Fielding, and he was a first-class maths teacher.
I am sure that we all agree that extracurricular activities such as those that I have outlined are vital for children’s development. They provide opportunities for children to learn new skills, make new friends and develop self-confidence. But why should those young people not be afforded the same level of protection when doing them?
I discussed this issue recently with my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), and she shared with me a number of horrendous cases of abuse by adults in positions of trust that have arisen in her constituency, yet the definition proposed by the Government would not cover these horrific abuses. I understand that she discussed one particular case in meetings with Justice and Home Office Ministers, so she was surprised, as I am, that no action was taken in this legislation to deal with people in similar situations in the future.
I am sharing details of the case here with my hon. Friend’s permission. She said:
“With regard to tutors, we had a dreadful case of grooming and then assault on a teenager who was a music student, by her private tutor.
She was groomed from the age of 14, was a rising talent, which he nurtured and there came a relationship of dependency in the light of this.
He then raped her when she turned 16.
The case went to the CPS but they did not proceed with the case despite the support of the local police.
It destroyed her.
Music lessons were conducted in private. He held her future career in his hands.
He was in a position of trust and abused that trust.”
Can the Government explain why they have chosen not to extend the positions of trust laws to cover all situations like this, where the adult holds the power to influence a young person’s future and is in close contact with the child? If we fail to close this loophole, we will fail young victims like the young woman in the case I just described.
Sarah Champion
Like my hon. Friend, I am somewhat perplexed. He is right: subsection (2) suggests that the Government recognise that additional careers may need to come under the legislation, now or in the future, so why are they closing the door now when they recognise that they will need to open it again in a year or in 10 years? NSPCC research on the cases it already knows have been prosecuted identifies—as well as the teaching professions, faith and sport—transport, youth work, scouts, cadets, charities and the performing arts as the most prevalent careers for cases. We know that there are more cases.
Alex Cunningham
Yes, and that seems so obvious. The briefings we have received from different organisations outline that the fact that this is the case across all the activity that my hon. Friend describes. How will the Minister determine what is to be added or removed in future? What criteria will be used to determine which child should be protected and which should not?
No doubt a robust mechanism will be required to monitor the implementation and to ensure that no child is placed at unnecessary risk, but the legal framework makes it difficult to collect comprehensive data on the scale of abuse by those in positions of trust. We have insight to the scale of the problem, and I thank the NSPCC for providing these figures and pay tribute to it. The NSPCC is probably one of the clearest about what it is trying to achieve; when it sends me a brief, I know exactly what it wants, and I trust it tremendously when it tells me things.
The NSPCC tells me that the Office for National Statistics has analysed child sexual abuse data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which asks people over 16 to report on their experiences of abuse in childhood. It found that in 9.7% of all contact child abuse cases, and in 4.4% of all non-contact child abuse cases, the perpetrator was an adult in a position of trust or authority over the child. For males—this actually surprised me—19% of contact abuse was by a person in a position of trust or authority.
In the data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, the definition of a person in a position of trust or authority included positions currently included in the definition of positions of trust, such as teachers and social workers, and persons included within the Government’s proposals in clause 45, such as sports coaches and religious leaders, as well as positions that remain outside the Government’s proposals, including private tutors, youth workers and those leading music and creative activities, which we have covered.
Chris Philp
I thank the shadow Minister for giving way and for sharing those figures. Does he have, or was he provided with, a breakdown of them? On the 19%—I think that was the figure he gave—of males reporting contact abuse perpetrated by someone in a position of trust, does he have a breakdown of what proportion of those offences were committed by people who either met the current definition or who meet the definition as expanded by clause 45, as opposed to people who do not meet either of those definitions? That would be interesting information if he has it to hand.
Alex Cunningham
Indeed it would be good information to have to hand, but I do not know the answer to the question. Perhaps we can discuss the issue in a future debate.
If data on those instances of abuse is collected, even in the Crime Survey for England and Wales, why do the Government not think that the law should recognise the activity as criminal?
Sarah Jones
I worked for six months at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. That happened to be when things were coming to light about a doctor called Myles Bradbury, who had abused many, many children. Part of what I had to do was put together the plan for how we would go to the parents of children who had died of cancer, having been treated by that doctor. We will never know how many people he managed to abuse; he abused many children. He was an abuser. If he had not been a doctor, he might have been a driving instructor. If he had not been a driving instructor, he might have been a football coach. He was intent on abusing young people and he would always have found a position of trust to do so.
Does my hon. Friend agree that it makes no sense to list certain things and exclude others when we are talking about perpetrators who will find the means to do these things if they want to?
Alex Cunningham
Indeed I do. People say, “It doesn’t matter what laws you pass; people will find a way.” That is one of the terrible things in our society.
Having heard what both my hon. Friends have said, I reflect on the parents and the trauma that parents face when they realise that they have allowed their child—their daughter—to be tutored by a particular person to learn the piano, or entrusted them to a sports coach working with 20 children, who goes on to abuse them. The parents have that guilt—guilt they have to live with. It is not their fault, but they still have to live with the guilt.
We must strengthen the law as much as possible, so that if such cases come to light the perpetrators face the full force of the law, and we must not allow any loopholes whatever to protect any of those people.
The figures from the NSPCC that I mentioned come from a series of freedom of information requests on all local authority children’s services in England and Wales between 2014 and 2018. The NSPCC found that over a four-year period there were 653 complaints about adults who were not covered by the criminal law having sex with 16 and 17-year-olds in their care. That compares to 1,025 criminal offences of abuse of a position of trust of a sexual nature in the same period.
The NSPCC also asked local authorities to provide information about the fields of work of the referrals: 26% were cases in sport and leisure settings; 12% were in religious group settings; 11% were cases involving transport or involving drivers—my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central referred to cases involving driving instructors; 5.7% were in settings of voluntary or charity work; and another 5.7% were in cadet organisations. That is 653 cases where our law did not protect vulnerable young people.
We have a chance to extend that provision to protect children in those settings future and I urge the Government to take it—please do not lose the opportunity. Those figures are deeply disturbing, but statistics alone do not convey the impact that abuse of a position of trust has on children and young people, including the truly devastating impact when someone is told that what happened to them is not a criminal offence and nothing can be done about it. Too many young victims are being given the message that the adult who abused their position did nothing wrong and that to have prevented it from happening the young person should not have consented.
With support from the NSPCC, “Hannah”, whose name has been changed, and two other brave young women directly affected by that form of abuse wrote directly to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. “Hannah” told the NSPCC, “When I turned 16, ‘Jeff’, my swimming coach, began to comment on my appearance. He would tell me that I looked nice or that clothes looked good on me. No one had ever said these things to me before, and I wasn’t sure how to feel. Soon he started pushing the boundaries. Initially he would just give me a hug. Then one day he gave me a hug and put his hand on my bottom. ‘Jeff’ spent a long time making me feel comfortable. I remember the first time we kissed. After training, we started to be intimate in that way a couple would. After some time, we started having sex. This was my first sexual experience. ‘Jeff’ told me to keep this a secret. I was under the impression when ‘Jeff’ told me not to tell anyone that it would be for the best for my swimming, and this would develop into a proper relationship and we could tell everyone. I wanted to tell my friends, but I knew I couldn’t. When this relationship came tumbling down, I changed with it. I was left feeling really angry, I was a difficult person to be around. It took me a long time to trust friends and family, to let them hug me again.”
Hearing the devastating impact of that horrific abuse is absolutely heartrending. I want to put on record the great debt of gratitude that we as parliamentarians owe to the courageous young people, such as “Hannah”, who work with the NSPCC to lobby the Government on the issue. Their civic-mindedness in the wake of such dreadful abuse is so very admirable, and because of their work, alongside others, the law will be improved to protect more young people.
In the event that the Government do not support my hon. Friend’s excellent amendment, will the Minister say how the risks associated with positions that remain outside the definition—for example, private music tutor or cadet leader—will be monitored? The consistent collection and monitoring of data relating to the implementation and effectiveness of clause 45 are vital if it is to protect the full range of young people who may come into contact with personal abusers. If the Minister will not do what the Opposition consider the right thing, will he please provide clarity on the review mechanisms the Government will put in place to decide whether further extensions of the definition of “positions of trust” in clause 45(2) should take place?
I want to consider some of the Government’s previous objections to the extension of the ambit of the “positions of trust” definition. In March 2020, during a Westminster Hall debate on sports coaches in positions of trust, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), said:
“What is at stake here is a need to balance the legal right, as prescribed by Parliament, for young persons aged 16 and over to consent to sexual activity, with the proper desire to protect vulnerable young people from manipulation.”
Although I agree that it is not our place to deny age-appropriate rights as prescribed by Parliament, this is not an attempt to raise the age of consent by stealth. It is an attempt to offer extra protection to young people when they are specifically in a context where there is a disproportionate power imbalance.
Sarah Champion
I hear that the Government use that excuse a lot, and my rebuttal is always that it has not been an issue for the past 18 years when it has been in place for teachers, so why would it suddenly be an issue with different professions?
Alex Cunningham
Again, my hon. Friend makes it very clear that we are bamboozled by the approach that the Government are taking. Surely the figures that I mentioned earlier show that there is significant prevalence of abuse in such settings, and that Parliament should step in and offer protections to our young people. Later today, we will be talking about memorials. Apparently, the law could be changed, and one person extra might go to prison as a result of the new legislation, yet here is a serious situation whereby many people could be sent to prison for the abuse of young people, but the Government are not making the necessary changes. We hope that the Minister is actually listening.
In Westminster Hall, the hon. Member for Cheltenham said:
“Another complicating feature is the evolving case law in the area. In certain situations, the criminal division of the Court of Appeal has already been clear that supposed consent may be vitiated or even negated, thereby creating a criminal offence in any event… That is important because, as the Crown Prosecution Service now indicates in its charging decisions, in certain circumstances that ruling could apply where perpetrators were in a position of power in which they could abuse their trust over a victim. If we look at the CPS charging decision—in other words, when making a decision about whether there truly was consent in a relationship—one of the matters that has to be considered is:
‘Where the suspect was in a position of power where they could abuse their trust, especially because of their position or status’”—
including, as he said himself—
“‘a family member, teacher, religious leader, employer, gang member, carer, doctor.’”
He continued:
“The point is that it is no longer necessarily automatically good enough for the defendant to say, ‘Look, she consented’, if in fact that will was suborned in some way. That might well be a very proper reason why the CPS could conclude that there had been no consent.”—[Official Report, 4 March 2020; Vol. 672, c. 304WH.]
Chris Philp
I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham for introducing her amendment and the hon. Member for Stockton North for his thoughtful speech. I think we are all united in our horror and disgust at people who abuse positions of authority or trust to do the sorts of thing that we have been discussing—there is agreement on that. The debate is really about how we can best implement the solutions that we would like to see.
This is obviously a complicated and delicate area. As Parliament has legislated that the age of consent is 16, when we deviate from that by defining circumstances where the age of consent is effectively raised to 18, we need to be careful and ensure that we are doing it in a thoughtful and well-considered way. As the hon. Member for Rotherham said, the existing legislation—sections 16 to 19 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003—defines some very specific roles, such as teacher and social worker. That is the law as it has stood for the last 18 years.
The Government have listened to the campaigns of the hon. Lady, of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford, and of many others, and we have decided to change the law in response to the very powerful case that has been made. However, in doing so, we have tried to be thoughtful, careful and proportionate. As Members will see from the drafting of clause 45, the Government propose to extend the current “positions of trust” legislation to cover where a person is coaching, teaching, training, supervising or instructing someone on a regular basis in either sport or religion, as then subsequently defined. To answer the shadow Minister’s question, the definition of sport in this context would certainly cover things like gymnastics, swimming and so on. Therefore, the case that he powerfully made out—the awful case of Hannah that he mentioned—would of course be covered by this legislation as drafted, because it was in the context of swimming, which is a sport. I hope that reassures the shadow Minister that that awful case would be addressed by this legislation.
Alex Cunningham
It does reassure me on that point, but I wanted the Minister to reassure me about the individual music teacher as well.
Chris Philp
I think that was the constituency case raised by the hon. Member for York Central. In that case, the victim alleged rape—she was saying that there was no consent—and in cases where there is no consent, it is obviously appropriate that it is investigated as rape and prosecution is sought for rape. The legislation we are discussing today deals with cases where there is consent. I do not know the particulars of the case—the shadow Minister said that it was not subsequently proceeded with—but that is a non-consent case. We are discussing cases where, even with consent, it is still held that an offence has been committed.
I think we are agreed about the need for reform. We have listened carefully to the cases that have been made, and have made these proposals. The shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Rotherham have raised a number of questions through their amendments and in their speeches, the first of which is, “Why shouldn’t this be much broader? Rather than specifying sports and religion, why not—as amendment 7 does—have a very broad clause that says
‘if A is regularly involved in caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of B’?”
That is an extremely broad set of definitions, and it is not completely clear from that very broad drafting who might or might not be included in them. The shadow Minister asked, “Why be specific? Why not be general?” The first reason for wanting to be specific rather than general—specifying these two roles, religion and sport, to start with—is so that people have certainty about which side of the line they are on. If the clause is drafted very broadly—“caring, training, supervising”—supervising is an extraordinarily broad term, so it would not be immediately obvious who is included and who is not included. One of the features of good law is that the people who might be subject to it have some pretty good degree of certainty about whether they are going to be affected or not. The Government’s concern about terms as broad as “supervising” is the question of what is covered by them. What is included, and what is excluded? There are a lot of things that could be covered by the term “supervising”.
Sarah Champion
As I am sure the Minister is aware, amendment 7 is a direct lift from the Sexual Offences Act 2003, so the definition that he is pulling apart now is already law. The bit that we are challenging is adding the specific job titles to the legislation, which I think is already fit for purpose.
Chris Philp
I understand the hon. Lady’s point. However, the point about providing some degree of certainty for someone in a particular role in this context, which is at the edge of the law—where the law is evolving—none the less has some validity.
Having said that we want to be specific rather than general for the reason just outlined, the question that then arises—which the shadow Minister and the hon. Lady have asked—is, “Why these two roles? Why sports and religion to start with?” I stress the words “start with”. The reason is twofold: first, those particular roles carry an unusual degree of influence.
Religion is a powerful force. Ministers of religion or people who lead religious congregations often wield very extreme and high levels of influence over their congregations and their followers. It therefore seems appropriate to recognise the high degree of influence that flows from that particular religious context.
In the case of sports coaches, there is clearly a degree of physical proximity. In fact, the shadow Minister, powerfully and eloquently illustrated in describing the case of Hannah—the case of the swimming coach—how it is that sports settings are so easily abused. That is why sport was selected as one of the two specific areas. It also flows from the data. In fact, the shadow Minister referred to the January 2020 report of the all-party parliamentary group on safeguarding in faith settings, chaired by the hon. Member for Rotherham. It analysed the 653 complaints mentioned by the shadow Minister and, in 495 of those, the type of role that the person was discharging was identified. The figures I have are slightly different from the shadow Minister’s—they are broadly similar, though—and the top two categories were sport, at 31%, and faith, at 14%. Therefore, the two roles here are the two top roles revealed by that survey. Of course, there were other roles with smaller percentages.
Sarah Champion
The frustration of wearing a mask is that the Minister cannot see that I am smiling. He is quoting back all the arguments I have been making for the last five years—I am grateful that they have sunk in. He is right that we went for the most obvious and biggest offenders, but that is now. As I said in my speech, I am concerned that in five years it may be counsellors, whom we have not mentioned today but have a huge influence over the people they support, or an online form that turns online grooming into real abuse. I completely agree with him, but this measure needs to be future-proofed so that we do not keep having the same arguments as the professions and influences change.
Chris Philp
I pay tribute again to the work done by the hon. Member in this area over many years and the work done by her all-party parliamentary group. I am glad that we agree on the starting point, because she has called for it and the data of her all-party parliamentary group points to it as well. The question is how it is best future-proofed and whether one tries to do so with the general provisions in amendment 7, which would run the risk of giving us a lack of clarity and potentially inadvertently criminalising some situations that hon. Members may not feel appropriate, or with the other approach of starting with these two specifics—I think we agree they are the right starting point, because the evidence points there—and adding further positions as the evidence base develops. That is what proposed new section 22A(4) of the 2003 Act will do: it will give the Secretary of State power to add other specific roles as that evidence base develops.
Chris Philp
I will say a word on that because the shadow Minister asked about it. But, before I do, I give way to him.
Alex Cunningham
There is considerable evidence to cover some of the other categories of people in a position of trust. The Minister said that we may have a different interpretation of some of the statistics, but, even if I agree with his numbers, the Bill’s provisions cover only half the children, and half would still be at risk. Should I start drafting amendments for Report that say, “Let’s include people who provide home facilities for overseas students or, perhaps, cadet force leaders”? If anyone has a strong influence over a young person, it is a cadet force leader. Should we start coming up with a list based on evidence that he might accept on Report?
Chris Philp
There may well be evidence in those areas, but the shadow Minister does not need to draft amendments for Report, because, if the Bill in its current form is passed, it will not require primary legislation to add those other categories; it will simply require a statutory instrument. Therefore, once passed—if passed in this form—the Secretary of State will of course keep this under constant review.
It will then be open to anyone, including organisations such as the APPG or people such as the shadow Minister or anyone else, to make representations to the Department—the Department will also keep it under review—that there is evidence that group X, Y or Z should be added. The case might be that they have an unusual degree of influence, capable of being abused, and that an evidence base supports that, so they should be added to the list. By virtue of a statutory instrument under subsection (4), that can be done.
Alex Cunningham
Those reassurances are helpful, but will the Minister tell us what criteria we should apply if we are to bring forward suggestions of other groupings to be included in the legislation?
Chris Philp
The criteria are not specified in subsection (4), which simply says:
“The Secretary of State may by regulations amend subsections (1) and (2) to add or remove an activity in which a person may be coached, taught, trained, supervised or instructed.”
However, providing the profession or category of person being added is involved in coaching, teaching, training, supervision or instruction—provided they do one of those things—they are capable of being added.
On the criteria that might be applied, that would be for the Secretary of State and a Delegated Legislation Committee to determine. I suggest that what would make sense is for the criteria to consider two or three things: first, the degree of influence that the person has—that case has been met in the case of sports’ coaches and religious ministers or practitioners—and, secondly, that there is an evidence base to demonstrate that abuse of that position of authority is occurring. Again, that case has been made for sports and ministers or practitioners of religion, because the data that the APPG received shows that.
I suggest to the Committee—this is not in the legislation—that if those two criteria are met, it might be appropriate to make further additions, but that would be for the Secretary of State and a Delegated Legislation Committee to decide, case by case. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Rotherham, the APPG and others will make that case. The mechanism is there to add things pretty quickly from month to month, or year to year, as the cases get laid out.
In conclusion, it strikes the Government that the provision is the best way of protecting vulnerable people—we have started with sports and religion—but we have also created the facility to expand the list quickly and easily by delegated legislation, as the case gets made by campaigners over time. On that basis, I hope that the Committee will be content to see clause 45 stand part of the Bill. I hope that the provisions that I have been explaining mean that amendment 7 does not need to be pressed to a vote.
Sarah Champion
I have heard everything that the Minister said. I 100% put on the record my gratitude that our work to research and prove the case around faith leaders was heard and listened to. However, my concern is the clarity. No legislation is effective unless it is out in the public domain, whether that is for the professionals who need to use it or, for example, the victims or families who need to know it is there.
As the Bill stands, my concern is that, were we to go to for the
“regularly involved in caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of”
persons as the definition that means it is a crime, any parent or individual would know what that meant. I do not want to press the amendment to a vote now, but I will reserve the right to later, because 21 MPs spoke on this in the Chamber, so I think it needs to be heard by the Minister. We need that clarity so that any parent or child knows what their rights are. Just having certain professions defined muddies the waters further rather than a blanket definition based on role and responsibility. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
We have had a fairly thorough debate, so I am not sure there is any need for a clause stand part debate.
Clause 45 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 46
Criminal damage to memorials: mode of trial
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
I will briefly introduce the clause. At present, when someone commits an act of criminal damage, where the value of that damage is less than £5,000, the matter is triable summarily only, with a maximum penalty of three months’ imprisonment or a fine of up to £2,500. The clause makes a change and says that where the item being damaged is a memorial, where it commemorates someone, the offence of criminal damage is triable as an either-way offence and potentially, although not necessarily, can be heard in the Crown court with a higher sanction.
The reason for that is that there are some occasions when criminal damage is committed against, for example, a war memorial and although the financial value of the damage may be less than £5,000, the symbolic damage to society is far higher. We have particularly in mind acts that desecrate war memories; memorials to people who have sacrificed their lives for our freedom—the ultimate sacrifice. We and, I think, most of the public take the view that where their memory is desecrated in that way, it is appropriate that the courts have open to them a higher criminal sanction. It does not mean the judge has to use it. We still have judicial discretion so the judge can make a determination based on the facts of the case, but we believe that things such as desecrating war memorials and dishonouring those who have sacrificed so much should, in some circumstances, be punishable by more than just a fine and three months in prison.
Alex Cunningham
I am absolutely gobsmacked that after the Government made such a tremendous fuss in the media, with announcements in Parliament and all manner of things, that the Minister has just dismissed his clause in a matter of a couple of minutes.
Alex Cunningham
The Minister did not dismiss it, but he addressed it for two minutes after everything that went before.
Chris Philp
A point is no less powerful for brevity. In fact, some of the most powerful points are brief.
Alex Cunningham
I will not reply to the Minister by applying brevity to my speech, because we need seek reassurances from the Government on several things. It is fair to say that clause 46 generated much discussion on Second Reading, and I am glad that we are now able to discuss it a lot more fully in this focused forum. I am sure it is no surprise to the Minister to hear that we have some serious reservations about the clause.
First, we do not believe that it in any way helpfully adds to the existing law on criminal damage. Much has been made by the Government about how those who vandalise statues will feel a greater force of law in relation to their actions and could face up to 10 years in prison. Speaking in support of the proposed changes, the Home Secretary said:
“My message today is simple: actions have consequences. I want vicious individuals held to account for the violence and criminality that they perpetrate.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 542.]
That sounds very serious indeed. However, the Government’s impact assessment states:
“No additional prison capacity needs to be built because the expected prison caseload increases are less than 1 place per annum. Prison construction costs are thus treated as negligible.”
If the legislation will result in less than one prison place a year, why bother changing the mode of trial at all?
The impact assessment goes on to say:
“The number of cases that will be sentenced for this offence every year range from 10 to 60, with a best estimate of 35…These figures are based on a mixture of published research and internal projections.”
Let us say that we do get 35 cases a year. We then need to know how many would be for damage worth less than £5,000. Then, within that even smaller subsection of cases, we need to work out how many cases it would really be appropriate to send to the Crown court for sentencing. Perhaps the Minister can tell us, but my guess is that it would probably be none at all.
Then there is the issue of the utter randomness of increasing penalties for some vandalism offences in this wide-ranging crime Bill—a Bill that completely omits to make changes in the criminal law to offer more protection to victims of other types of offences, victims who are actual living breathing people, whom we believe the public at large, and Members of the House, think pose a more pressing concern to legislators. Child criminal exploitation and sexual offences are just a couple of examples that spring to mind. As the Secret Barrister has noted:
“While in practice the maximum of 10 years would rarely, if ever, be imposed, the new cross-party consensus appears to be that displaying disrespect—not even quantifiable damage—to an inanimate object is worthy of a higher maximum sentence than inflicting grievous bodily harm, violent disorder, affray, theft, carrying knives, acid or offensive weapons, voyeurism, upskirting and causing death by careless driving, to name but a few offences that cause tangible harm to real people. It would inject criminal sentencing, which already suffers from wild incoherence and inconsistency between offence types, with another dose of gratuitous disproportionality.”
I agree with the Secret Barrister on all but one part of that: there is no cross-party consensus.
The Government have done much good work to simplify the vexed and confusing world of criminal sentencing by overseeing the implementation of the sentencing code last year. Yet in clause 46—and in so many other parts of the Bill—the Government seem enthusiastic to trample across the good progress that has been made.
I would particularly welcome some information from the Minister on what guidance will be used to quantify the level of sentimental and emotional impact necessary for the case to be sent to the Crown court. Whose emotions will be measured, and how? Surely clear guidance would provide at least some protection against the “gratuitous disproportionality” about which the Secret Barrister warns.
The Sentencing Council has already helpfully provided detailed sentencing guidance on that very topic. In fact, for the offences of
“Criminal damage (other than by fire) value exceeding £5,000”
and of
“Criminal damage (other than by fire) value not exceeding £5,000”,
the guidance refers to damage to
“heritage and/or cultural assets”.
It is, therefore, already covered in law. I am no lawyer, but I strongly presume that that includes war memorials and that the sentencing court should treat that as an aggravating factor when passing sentence.
I ask again: how does clause 46 helpfully add to the law? The Opposition’s position is that it does not. It goes way beyond the anticipated proposals to address protection for war memorials. Instead of working with us to address the concerns of their Back Benchers, the Government have tried to make this a wedge issue across the political divide, to the detriment of the law. We would have been happy to engage on provisions in relation to war memorials and protections for our communal symbols of such great national sacrifice and pride, but we are certainly not happy to do so on the wide scope covered by the clause.
The clause defines a memorial as
“a building or other structure, or any other thing, erected or installed on land (or in or on any building or other structure on land)”.
That is weird: “any other thing”. Why have the Government drafted the clause so widely? I would be grateful for guidance from the Minister on what type of serious offending the Government hope to catch with that capacious definition.
Proposed new section 2(11B) reads:
“For the purposes of that paragraph, any moveable thing (such as a bunch of flowers)”.
The Bar Council notes:
“This raises the prospect that the removal of a bunch of flowers could result in proceedings in the Crown Court.”
It goes on to say:
“Putting aside questions of whether one would need to get permission to remove old bunches of flowers, such an allegation could be sent to the Crown Court if either a magistrates’ court considered the offence to be particularly serious”—
I do not think that it would—
“and beyond their maximum sentencing powers of six months’ imprisonment, or if the defendant”
opted for trial by jury. That means that somebody who has removed a bunch of flowers from a graveside could opt for a trial at the Crown court.
I know that the following example is from Scotland, but it comes from my childhood. Let us imagine that an old bunch of flowers left for commemorative purposes at the memorial for a dog such as Greyfriars Bobby—a delightful memorial that is well loved in its community—is picked up and put in the bin. Does the Minister think that the person who put the flowers in the bin should end up answering a case in the Crown court? I am sure he does not. I am sure that the intention behind the clause is not to cover that type of incident, but the fact that we could even ask the question strikes me as absurd.
Chris Philp
Let me start by answering some of the points the shadow Minister has just made. First, he questions why the measures are necessary when the Sentencing Council guidelines already have, as aggravating factors, things such as “emotional importance”. In reading out those guidelines, he acknowledged their title:
“Criminal damage (other than by fire) value exceeding £5,000”.
The whole point of this new clause is that it addresses circumstances where the value is less than £5,000. That is precisely its purpose. There may be cases where the monetary value of the damage may be less than £5,000 and therefore not subject to the Sentencing Council guidelines that he read out, but the damage to our national discourse—our national state—is significant, because war memorials represent all of those hundreds of thousands of people who gave their lives for our freedom. Even if the value of the damage is less than £5,000, the disrespect and dishonour done to those who sacrificed and secured our freedom is a matter that this Government take seriously. I am disappointed to hear that that is not something that interests him.
Alex Cunningham
The Minister is relying on these war memorials again. He is talking about them, but this is an extremely wide provision, covering all manner of memorials and of places, from individual gravestones all the way through to the Cenotaph. How on earth will a prosecutor determine the emotional value of one crime against that of another? Is the emotional value of a small grave desecrated the same as the Cenotaph?
Chris Philp
First, it is not the prosecutor who makes that determination; it is the judge. Secondly, the judge makes such determinations the whole time. Indeed, judges already make those determinations under existing sentencing guidelines for the more serious either-way offences. It will be for the judge to decide whether the nature of the damage merits a higher sentence or a lower one. That is why we have judicial discretion. I have confidence in our country’s judiciary to be able to draw the distinction between desecrating the Cenotaph, which honours the memory of hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women, versus something else.
The point is that, at present, the judiciary do not have that discretion open to them, because where the value of the damage falls under £5,000, the matter is triable summarily only, with a very low maximum penalty. The clause gives the judiciary the discretion to take into account such considerations and to sentence as appropriate. The Government’s view, clearly, is that desecrating the memory of brave servicemen and women who have given their lives in defence of our freedom is something we should stand up against. This Government are standing up against it; I do not know why the Opposition are not.
Alex Cunningham
The Minister is being unkind. In no way are we against some of the things in the Bill. We do not want to be in a position in which we are not supportive, respectful and everything else. I think he should withdraw that remark.
Chris Philp
I will be happy to withdraw my remark when the shadow Minister joins us in supporting the clause. If he does so, of course I will withdraw it.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Surely when something is stolen, damaged or desecrated, it is about not just its monetary value but the effect on the victim. In this case, the victim could be the children or grandchildren of the person commemorated on that war memorial. A stolen photograph album has no monetary value, but the actual value to the family is very strong.
Chris Philp
My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. That is exactly the purpose of the clause. The monetary value, the £5,000, does not reflect the profound emotional damage that can be caused when something like a war memorial is desecrated.
The shadow Minister asked how it will be decided whether a matter is heard in the Crown court or in the magistrates court. As he rightly said, the defendant always has the right of election for an either-way offence but, generally, the allocation decision is set out in the allocation guidelines of 2016. A decision is based on whether the anticipated sentence will exceed the magistrates’ sentencing powers—if the magistrates think that it might exceed their sentencing power, they will send up to the Crown court—or if the case is of unusual legal or factual complexity.
There is therefore a flexible system for deciding where a case is heard. Some of the cases might be heard in the Crown court and some in the magistrates court, depending on the facts of the case, so by no means does it follow that everything will end up in the Crown court. It is true that the number of anticipated offences is low— between 10 and 60 a year—but we are talking about acts that desecrate the memory of servicemen and women. I hope that that the Committee can agree on that in supporting the clause.
Alex Cunningham
Will the Minister confirm that all the offences captured in those statistics were against war memorials?
Chris Philp
The impact assessment covered all offences that might be caught by the clause, clearly many of which might well be war memorials. We have seen examples of war memorials being desecrated and the Cenotaph was attacked last July. A war memorial in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Corby was desecrated—indeed, it was possibly even destroyed—and he led a campaign to get it replaced. Sadly, such things happen, and it is important that we as a House send out a message that we stand with our servicemen and women when their memory is attacked in that way.
The Chair
With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause 51 stand part.
That schedule 6 be the Sixth schedule to the Bill.
Clause 52 stand part.
Victoria Atkins
Very quickly, I just want to put on the record a point about clauses 50, 51 and 52, and schedule 6. Their background is, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said on Second Reading, the horrific case of Keith Bennett and the Moors murderers, which brought to light the need for new powers to search for material that may relate to the location of human remains.
In 2017, the police believed that they had a further lead to assist Keith’s family in finding his body, when it was discovered that Ian Brady had committed papers to secure storage before his death. However, the existing law would not allow the police to obtain a search warrant to seize the papers, because there was no prospect of them being used in criminal proceedings, as Brady was dead.
These new powers will build on the existing law and enable officers to seize material that may help them to locate human remains outside criminal proceedings. As well as cases such as Keith’s, where a homicide suspect has been identified but cannot be prosecuted, these powers could be useful for the police in missing persons cases, or suicides where there is no indication that criminal behaviour has taken place.
These are terrible circumstances that lead to the need for this law, but we very much hope that passing these measures will bring a small crumb of closure and comfort to the Bennett family and others.
Sarah Jones
The Opposition support these clauses, for exactly the reasons the Minister has outlined. The case of Keith Bennett was incredibly awful. Today we saw the news about the ongoing search for remains in a Gloucester café. Mary Bastholm was 15 when she went missing in 1968. She is a suspected victim of Fred West. That search, for various legal reasons, was able to go ahead. Unfortunately, the police have today said that they have not found any human remains, so for Mary’s family the ordeal goes on, to try and get some kind of closure. However, for that family at least we were able to look for remains, but in the case of Keith Bennett the law did not allow the police to look. Therefore, it is absolutely right that we correct the law.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 50 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 51 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 6 agreed to.
Clause 52 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 53
Functions of prisoner custody officers in relation to live link hearings
Chris Philp
I beg to move amendment 64, in clause 53, page 44, line 33, leave out “and (4)” and insert “to (4A)”.
This amendment and Amendments 65 to 67 ensure that the references to live audio links and live video links in clause 53(3) are consistent with the provisions made about live links in clause 168 of, and Part 3 of Schedule 19 to, the Bill.
Chris Philp
Clause 53 seeks to extend to prison escort and custody service officers the right to accompany prisoners in police stations, such as for the purpose of conducting video remand hearings. Owing to an historical anomaly, they are unable to discharge that function at the moment. It became clear during the coronavirus, where video remand hearings were used quite widely to avoid having to take a prisoner to court, that PECS officers did not have those powers, so we had to ask police officers to do that instead, which took up a lot of police time. The police did that, and I pay tribute to them for doing so, but that took up police officer time that could have been spent out on patrol arresting criminals.
The clause amends the Criminal Justice Act 1991 to provide PECS officers with those powers to have custody over prisoners in police stations, for the purpose of overseeing preliminary sentencing enforcement hearings by way of live links. It is a good operational improvement that I hope will make things more efficient where it is appropriate to use it.
Amendments 64 to 67 make some small technical amendments to the clause, because there were some references to a piece of legislation that is being repealed. They simply replace those reference with the correct ones.
Alex Cunningham
We understand what the Government are trying to achieve in this clause, but we have a number of concerns about what it will lead to in the longer term. I would welcome some ministerial assurances that those concerns will be considered.
Before that, I thank Transform Justice for its energetic scrutiny of the amendment, which I am sure will add much value to the debate. The Government’s fact sheet describes clause 53 as
“enabling legislation to ensure that any future VRH rollout is not reliant on police resource, which would be an ineffective and inefficient use of their training and skills”.
It also notes that the implementation plan for rolling out video remand hearings across police stations
“is being developed and not yet finalised”,
and that
“A solution to the long-term structural and resourcing issues is required”
to facilitate the roll-out. In that case, it does not seem necessary to include it in the Bill.
If there is so much work to be done to have proper functioning video remand hearings, why are the Government bringing that forward at this time? We take a similar position to that of the Law Society, which says that although it supports the use of prisoner custody officers to facilitate video remand hearings during the pandemic, it does not believe it should be a permanent feature of the justice system.
The rationale for legislating to increase the use of audio and video live links across the Bill seems somewhat confused. On the one hand, the need for covid-19 protection is mentioned; on the other, the measures are justified on the grounds of efficiency and modernisation. The covid-19 motivation is particularly confusing, given that the Bill will not be enacted for some time, when the covid safety of courts will, we hope, no longer be an issue. Can the Minister tell the Committee the motivation for video remand hearings beyond the pandemic?
Even more problematic is the lack of evidence to back up the functioning of the proposals. Even now that we have been living with the pandemic measures for a year, we still have no evidence beyond the anecdotal about the extremely significant changes to how we run hearings. This is one of a number of remand changes made during the pandemic for which we are seriously lacking detail. The other, more concerning, one is that in September 2020 the Government increased the length of time they are legally allowed to hold people on remand from six to eight months, a provision in place until 28 June 2021. While I am on the topic, I would welcome an assurance from the Minister that the custody time limit extension will lapse, and he will stick to his word in the SI Committee some months ago and it will not be extended again.
To go back to clause 53, before the pandemic very few police forces ran video remand courts. Where they did, defendants detained by the police post charge would not be taken to court for their first appearance, but would appear from police custody by video link, with their lawyer, the judge, the prosecutor and so on in the physical courtroom. When the pandemic hit, PECS contractors, who usually transport these remanded defendants to the court, said that courts and court cells were not covid-safe enough and refused to transport all the prisoners who needed to go to court, so police forces in almost every area agreed to set up makeshift courtrooms in police custody suites that would be video linked to the magistrates court. The police agreed to run these courts purely on an emergency basis and were not paid to do so by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. As the first wave eased and the courts implemented their own covid-19 safety procedures, police stopped running video remand courts and most areas reverted to the traditional arrangement.
We are not aware of any significant concerns with the traditional arrangement, so again I ask: why do we need this clause, which lays the groundwork for even more video remand courts in the future? There are significant cost implications to running the hearings in this way. The Government have published an economic impact assessment for the use of PECS staff in police custody. This shows a positive cost-benefit, but the assumptions need some further scrutiny.
To quote from the material provided by Transform Justice:
“PECS staff would only be used in custody if the police agreed to run video remand courts permanently. Despite the government stating ‘VRHs will indeed be rolled out at some point in the future’…no such agreement has been reached—police forces have given no commitment to running and hosting video remand courts. Given that most police forces are not running video remand courts currently, the installation of video remand courts nationwide would incur considerable costs for the police, including premises costs, IT infrastructure costs, costs of keeping defendants in cells for longer, and staff costs. During the first months of the pandemic the costs incurred by police in running emergency video remand courts were considerable—the Met had to use 45 staff to manage the process and estimated the operation cost the equivalent of £2 million a year. Though some police costs would be offset through the support of PECS, it would still cost police staff time to liaise with PECS staff and would incur the other costs. The ‘Do nothing’ option in the economic assessment assumes that the police costs of running video remand hearings have already been budgeted for by local forces—but this is not the case.”
I know it is a very long quote, Mr McCabe, but it continues:
“The economic impact assessment suggests that the PECS staff in police custody are in addition to existing PECS staff. PECS staff will still need to transport defendants from police custody to court and to supervise prisoners at court. Therefore, if PECS staff allocated to police custody for video remand hearings are additional, PECS costs will be greater, police will incur significant costs and the courts will still need to be able to accommodate some of those who have been detained by the police in court cells. We therefore suggest that the economic impact assessment does not encompass any of the costs associated with having PECS staff in police custody, so the cost-benefit cannot be judged.”
I would welcome the Minister’s comments on Transform Justice’s analysis because, as far as I can see, the economic justification for the measure goes to the root of why it is being proposed. Furthermore, will the Minister accept that the implementation of the PECS staff in police custody proposal should be contingent on a full cost-benefit analysis of video remand hearings versus the physical equivalents? If he is not prepared to do that, why not?
We have reservations about the impact that this change would have on justice. It is vital that changes to our justice system that would impact on the very principles that underlie it, such as the right to a fair trial, are properly tested before they are introduced. The stakes are too high for us to get it wrong, so will the Minister consider safeguards to make sure we get this right? These include that every defendant who may be assigned a video remand hearing should be subject to full health and mental health screening, and if necessary an assessment, by a health professional before the case is listed; that this screening information and needs assessments from police custody are made available to the bench or judge before that day’s court hearings start; that a simple system is set up to bring those defendants immediately to court whom the bench or judge deems need face-to-face hearings; and that all those who are deemed vulnerable—vulnerable adults and all children—should automatically be assigned a physical hearing.
We do not really see the need for the provisions in the clause, but I stand open to hear the Minister’s justification for it. If need can be demonstrated for it, we would welcome the Government’s commitment to the safeguards to access to justice that I have just raised, alongside the further cost-benefit analysis.
Chris Philp
I thank the shadow Minister for his speech, and for the thoughtful questions that he has posed in it. As he says, this is enabling legislation to create the option of using PECS officers this way in the future. We were rather caught by surprise during the pandemic when it transpired that these powers did not exist at a time when we wanted to use lots of video remand hearings for obvious, covid-related reasons. As the shadow Minister said, this Bill will hopefully receive Royal Assent some time after coronavirus has become a memory and is behind us. None the less, these enabling powers are worth taking, because it is conceivable that in future, even after coronavirus, we may want to use video remand hearings more than was done previously, which was essentially not at all.
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World Press Freedom Day
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Members participating physically and virtually must arrive for the start of Westminster Hall debates and are expected to remain for the entire debate. I also remind Members participating virtually that they are visible at all times, both to each other and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks at their email address, which is westminsterhallclerks@parliament.uk. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and as they leave the room. I also remind Members who are here with me physically that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn in Westminster Hall debates, unless the Member is contributing.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered World Press Freedom Day 2021.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. World Press Freedom Day, which falls on 3 May, is a reminder to Governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom; a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics; and a day of support for media workers who are targets for the restraint or abolition of press freedom. It is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost their lives in the pursuit of a story.
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for having granted time for this debate today, which has been the first opportunity to hold it since the start of the new parliamentary Session. I also declare my interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on media freedom, which is supported by Reporters Without Borders.
This debate comes in the wake of last Sunday’s hijacking of a civilian aircraft by the Belarusian Government in order to kidnap the journalist Roman Protasevich, an outspoken critic of President Lukashenko’s illegitimate and oppressive regime. This is one of the most audacious attacks on press freedom we have seen, but it is just another example of the increasingly brazen way in which Governments seek to oppress legitimate journalism with increasing impunity.
In 2018, we saw the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by agents of the Saudi Arabian Government in the grounds of their own consulate in Istanbul. In 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia, a campaigning journalist who investigated corruption and organised crime and delved into visa-for-sale schemes, energy deals and Caribbean offshore companies set up for Maltese politicians, was assassinated by a car bomb planted by a professional hitman.
According to Reporters Without Borders, 50 journalists were killed around the world last year, and a further 13 have already been killed in 2021. These include Sadida Sadat and Shahnaz Roufi in Afghanistan, who worked for Enikass TV’s dubbing service and were gunned down in an alley in Jalalabad as they were walking home at around 4.30 pm. Their colleague Mursal Waheedi was shot in the rickshaw she had taken to go home. All three women were aged 20 or 21. Furthermore, in 2020, 387 journalists and media workers were held in detention: 117 of those were in China, and 34 were in the next highest country, Saudi Arabia. In the Philippines, in the five years since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power, 16 journalists have been killed in connection with their work, the latest of whom was beaten to death in May 2020.
Media freedom is being threatened not just by violent physical attack, but by the use of dubious legal procedures to intimidate or close down journalists. In the Philippines, Maria Ressa, a journalist and the chief executive of the digital news service Rappler, has been under repeated legal attack since the election of Duterte. Rappler has tirelessly investigated human rights violations and the country’s increasingly authoritarian Government, and Ressa, whom I am proud to serve alongside on the Real Facebook Oversight Board, currently faces 10 open charges against her, relating to nine separate cases. Some of those have been brought retrospectively through new laws created since the alleged offences occurred.
In this country, too, our legal system is being used to intimidate legitimate journalism through lawfare—the misuse of legal systems and principles against an opponent by seeking to damage or delegitimise them, wasting their time and money—and what is known as SLAPP, a strategic lawsuit against public participation. Such actions are intended to censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of legal defence until they abandon their criticism of the opponent. The initiator of such a lawsuit does not usually expect to win, but to wear down the defendant until they succumb to fear, intimidation and mounting legal costs or exhaustion, and cease their otherwise legitimate criticism. A current example is the journalist Catherine Belton, author of “Putin’s People”, which was published last year by HarperCollins, who is facing lawsuits, along with her publisher, filed in London by four Russian businessmen, including Roman Abramovich.
Mr Abramovich has also recently forced apologies from British newspapers—The Times and The Daily Mail—for stating that he gave a yacht, Le Grand Bleu, to Eugene Shvidler, a Russian-American oil billionaire, despite the fact that Mr Shvidler had stated this himself in English court proceedings on 14 November, 2011, during the hearing of the Berezovsky v. Abramovich case. I also understand that in 2019, Mr Abramovich’s lawyers were also successful in preventing the broadcast of a BBC “Panorama” investigation. It is interesting that Mr Abramovich, who is not a resident of the UK, has not visited the country since 2018 and has not been granted a new UK visa, can nevertheless retain the services of the London law firm Harbottle & Lewis and has full access to the English courts.
Data protection legislation is also being routinely abused to make multiple requests against investigative journalists and corporate research and intelligence companies, for any information that they hold on any individual or organisation. In Australia, the Protection of Public Participation Act 2008 seeks to
“protect public participation, and discourage certain civil proceedings that a reasonable person would consider interfere with engagement in public participation.”
In the USA, high-profile public figures are also limited in their access to the courts to pursue such cases. It is time we looked at whether such reforms are required in the UK, and also to review the GDPR legislation to prevent it from being used to intimidate those engaged in legitimate investigations acting in the public interest.
We also have to consider the commercial pressures faced by the news industry today, which pose perhaps one of the greatest threats to the freedom of the press. In 2019, the Cairncross review, commissioned by the Government, highlighted that the sales of both national and locally printed papers have plunged. They fell by roughly half between 2007 and 2017, and are still dropping. In addition, print advertising revenues, which used to carry much of the cost of producing news, have fallen even faster, declining in that decade by 69%. To cut costs there have been mergers, as well as heavy cuts in staffing numbers of frontline journalists in the UK, and in that period those numbers have dropped from 23,000 to 17,000, and the numbers are still falling.
These pressures came to light recently in Australia, where an investigation by its competition authority has highlighted that for every $100 of online advertising spend, $53 goes to Google, $28 to Facebook, and $19 to everybody else. This creates enormous pressure on other organisations, particularly news companies and publishers that have in the past relied on advertising revenue to pay their journalists and investigations. The decline in ad revenue for publishers is a direct challenge to the news industry itself, which has already led to the closures of a great number of publications, and many of those that have survived have had to make significant cuts and reductions.
In order to preserve the future of public interest journalism, the Australian Government presented the news media bargaining code to oblige companies such as Facebook and Google to enter into commercial arrangements with the news industry to ensure fair renumeration for their content. It was only because they legislated to require this, and to give a regulator the power to mediate and set the term of renumeration if no deal was done, that Google and Facebook eventually did move. We have to consider what the role of journalism is in the digital age, where people increasingly use the internet as their primary source of news and information. The most recent Ofcom “Media Nations” survey, published last summer, showed that around 35% of people now regularly get their news from Facebook.
News media and the freedom of the press face a constant assault every day. Direct challenges are issued, through social media, against “the mainstream media”, which is used as a derogatory term, seeking to persuade the public that they should not believe the so-called mainstream media on anything they write, whether critical or praiseworthy, and putting people in a position where they simply do not know what they should believe anymore. In the world of social media, where algorithms of engagement drive content through those platforms, often it is the misleading or the downright lies and conspiracy theories that gain a bigger audience, are more interesting and are actively promoted by those platforms. When Parliament considers the online safety Bill later this year—it is currently in draft form—we must take into account the impact of harmful disinformation, spread through and sometimes amplified by social media, which is undermining news and, through that, democracy itself.
We need to protect journalism and the freedom of the press if we are to remain an open and democratic society. We need to recognise that those values are increasingly under attack from authoritarian Governments around the world who actively and deliberately target journalists, sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally, sometimes economically, but always with intent to suppress their necessary work. We need to ensure that our modern media landscape, driven by social media platforms and their engagement, still works to provide fair remuneration for journalists creating content, because if journalists cannot be paid for what they do, few will do it. The people who will win in that situation will be those who fear legitimate investigation and questioning.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind) [V]
I compliment the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for securing the debate and on the way in which he introduced the subject. It is absolutely crucial and essential to all our lives that we think seriously about what press freedom actually means. In any free society, the right to know, the right to speak and the right to assemble are important and precious, and indeed are encapsulated in the 1948 universal declaration of human rights.
In considering press freedom, we should also look at media ownership and control, and the concentration of media ownership into a small number of global companies that impose news values on their outlets, which are not necessarily very open and which are often not interested in many of the poorest parts of the world but only in celebrity and the goings on in the wealthiest parts of the world. It is important that we recognise the importance of the right to know, and therefore the importance of diversity of ownership and diversity of access to the media.
As the hon. Gentleman quite correctly pointed out, many people now get most of their information from online sources, through social media and associated outlets. Many people simply do not buy newspapers and do not access newspaper websites or anything else. They rely completely on news that they believe they select themselves from various websites around the world, but they are often unaware of the complex, complicated and very efficient algorithms used to drive people in certain directions on certain stories and news issues.
We must look not only at the freedom of journalists and the importance of independent ownership of all media outlets, but at making social media accessible to everyone. Social media companies have shown themselves to be very happy to operate with authoritarian and oppressive regimes and close down access altogether to certain individuals. For example, in the middle of their strike action in Delhi, Indian farmers suddenly found that they had no access whatsoever to social media, which was a crucial outlet for them. Social media is restricted in a number of countries, and Google and others are quite happy to do deals with national Governments in order to restrict access to information. These things have to be looked at seriously and carefully. We need international agreement on this, which I will come on to in a moment.
I have in front of me the “White Paper on Global Journalism”, produced by the International Federation of Journalists, of which I am a member, in the sense that I am a member of the National Union of Journalists in Britain. This report makes for chilling reading. Since 1990, as the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, 2,650 journalists have been killed around the world. Those are the ones we know of—there may well be more. A good friend of mine, Anabel Hernández, a Mexican journalist, launched a book called “The Sorrows of Mexico” with Lydia Cacho and others at the Edinburgh international book festival three years ago. I was there. She described what she had gone through in preparing the book and in writing about the power of drug cartels, corrupt police forces and the role of the military. She described the threats made to her:
“Ever since, I have lived with 24 hour protection, if you can call that living.”
The threat never goes away. On 21 December 2014, a dozen men, armed with AK47 rifles and handguns, closed off the street where Hernández lived, and started asking her neighbours in which house the journalist lived. They deactivated the security cameras in the immediate area, including those installed in her house. She was lucky that day, because she was not at home; she was away. That is the kind of life that she and other very brave journalists live in Mexico, in Colombia, in Egypt and in other countries where journalists are consistently under threat.
We mourn those who have been killed, but there are many others in jail and the threat of jailing journalists is a form of censorship. Many of the world’s Governments know that by consistently threatening journalists, they will either tone down their reporting or simply not report what is going on where corruption, drug cartels and so on are involved. There is a kind of league table of journalists who are in prison. Globally, there are 235 of them in prison—those are the ones we know of —including 67 in Turkey, 21 in Egypt and 20 in China. They are all people who have been imprisoned because they were trying to report the truth.
The hon. Gentleman quite rightly pointed out what happened to Roman Protasevich. Obviously, it is appalling that the plane was effectively hijacked and he was taken to Belarus because he had been writing stories that were critical of its regime. Obviously, action should be taken. I am a member of the Council of Europe and my fellow members and I will make our views very well known at subsequent meetings. Unfortunately, Belarus is not a member of the Council of Europe; it is the only European country that is not a member.
Our complaints and objections about the way in which Roman Protasevich is being treated would be far more credible if the London Stock Exchange was not at the same time hosting financial servicing arrangements and opportunities to raise cash for the Belarussian Government. If we are serious about press freedom and freedoms in general, we must think very carefully about what financial institutions and others are doing.
The terrible events in Gaza and the west bank over the last few weeks and the loss of life of people both in Israel and in Palestine are obviously shocking and appalling. It is also very clear that the bombing was very effectively and efficiently targeted in Gaza. Two towers were taken out completely; they were demolished by targeted bombing. They included the offices of al-Jazeera and a number of other journalistic outlets in the region, so they could no longer effectively report what was happening in Gaza. Some brave journalists managed to use satellite phones and so on to keep in communication, but they were reporting while under fire from Israel that was quite clearly targeting those places where journalists were trying to report the reality of what is going on. And Yousef Abu Hussein, a young journalist, was killed during that whole process.
In this debate I hope that we can reflect on the bravery of journalists around the world—those who seek to speak truth to power and who try to tell us the truth about what is happening around the world. We all love newspapers; we all love news and information. However, we need to make sure that those who collect and gather that information—irritating as they often are to politicians; that is the world in which we live—are a crucial part of any democratic society.
The work done by the International Federation of Journalists and others in trying to get global agreement on the protection of journalists is very important. It is also important that the United Nations Human Rights Council continues its work on protecting journalists, and that we have an effective protection mechanism for journalists all around the world. Too many have died, too many are in prison and too many are frightened to report the news they ought to be reporting, because they are scared of what will happen to them if they do so.
We should not be complacent about our own society, either, because often in Parliament we have this sense of complacency that bad things—
Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
May I ask the right hon. Member for Islington North to bring his speech to a conclusion, please? Thank you.
Jeremy Corbyn
I apologise, Ms Ghani. I was not aware that there was a time limit. I will briefly say this. In our complacency, let us not forget brave people who have blown the whistle on the truth around the world. I think of Julian Assange and the work he has done in exposing what has happened around the world in preparation for war and other things. In some countries, he would be called a hero for being a whistleblower; here, he is called something very different. We should think of what news values and freedom of speech values are actually all about. Thank you for the opportunity to speak, Ms Ghani.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con) [V]
I have been practising the black arts of journalism for the best part of 50 years. In that time, I have had quite a few dodgy moments, but I have never been arrested, I have never been tortured and, patently, I have never been murdered. I have published and reported on stories that politicians have not liked, but I can honestly say that I have not been subjected to political pressure and I certainly have not suffered from the online threats that, sadly, today’s journalists suffer from.
I recognise that around the world there are very brave people going where I, frankly, would have feared to go in the interests of publishing and truth. It is right that we say “Thank you” on occasions to some people in power. I recognise the initiatives taken by the Foreign Secretary in pursuing this issue seriously through the global conference in London and as co-chair with Canada of the Media Freedom Coalition. Last December, the world press freedom conference highlighted the cause again, and I hope that it will be raised at the G7 in Cornwall, when we sit in the president’s chair.
We do not often say “Thank you” to civil servants, so perhaps it is right that we recognise the work of Kanbar Hossein Bor, Louise Savill, Michelle Webster and Justin Williams, who head up the media freedom teams at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. We also ought to thank Rebecca Vincent of Reporters Sans Frontières, who I understand also provides the secretariat for the all-party parliamentary group on media freedom. They are doing valuable work, and we must be grateful to them.
During my time with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, we pursued this issue vigorously. My friend and colleague Lord Foulkes was, and still is, stalwart in seeking to defend media freedom. The appalling case of Roman Protasevich, which was instigated by Lukashenko, the President of Belarus, and the equally vile murder of Jamal Khashoggi, at the behest of the Saudi Arabian Government, are frightful. However, every day there is ongoing oppression of journalists in the Russian Federation, in China, in Azerbaijan, in Ethiopia, in Myanmar and most certainly in Turkey. BBC World Service reporters are under desperate pressure in Hong Kong and in Persia, and sadly, because of some careless words uttered by a previous Foreign Secretary, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is languishing in an Iranian prison on a trumped-up charge of teaching journalism—as if that was something that should not be done.
I have four questions to put to my right hon. Friend the Minister, and I hope he will be able to answer. First, will the subject of media freedom be on the G7 agenda for Cornwall? Secondly, will the Government of the United Kingdom be prepared to use Magnitsky sanctions in cases of breach of media freedom? Can my right hon. Friend assure us that the BBC’s World Service funding, which at the moment is under an extension due to end in September, will be continued? That contribution to media freedom is vital. Finally, will the Government of the United Kingdom be prepared to back the call from Reporters San Frontières for a UN special representative for the safety of journalists?
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for securing this debate. It is appropriate that we celebrate World Press Freedom Day, because press freedom is fundamental to our democracy. It is a basic right. We all know that knowledge is power and that, equally, its absence endangers us. Press freedom allows us to expose totalitarianism, often in the face of danger, as other Members have said.
I was privileged to know James Pringle, who returned to my old constituency to vote in the Scottish referendum back in 2014. He regaled me with tales about, first, having served in the Dominican coup and then having been the first western journalist into Cambodia under Pol Pot, after the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. I pay tribute to his courage.
Press freedom is vital to democracy. I remember reading Professor Henry Milner’s book, “Civic Literacy”. It is a study of what motivates turnout in elections. A critical factor is not whether it is as easy to vote as to buy a tin of beans in a supermarket; what matters in particular is understanding, and a quality media is fundamental to that. If people do not understand the issues, they will not participate and vote. That factor is normally shown in this country in turnouts being higher in referendums, when there is a clear understanding of the issues, than in wider elections, where turnout can be significantly lower.
As other Members have said, there are obviously ongoing issues—in Saudi Arabia and Belarus, and indeed closer to home, with Julian Assange. I sympathise and agree with the points made by others across the political divide that these people require protection.
I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who was correct to point out the changes that have happened in the media. I have been writing for the Scottish media for several years now. The decline is significant. There are actions we have to take to address that and to protect the valuable newspapers that are undermined by other platforms. We should also remember that in many instances now, social media is just as important as the mainstream media.
We have looked in this country at what happened in the Arab spring. It was not the mainstream media that was the outlet letting people know, both within the countries that were part of the Arab spring, and in the wider world. It was not the papers, held by the regimes. It was social media bloggers and just people tweeting, or writing on their Facebook pages or whatever else. The hon. Gentleman was right to warn about dangerous disinformation and the challenges that we face as a society to protect our democracy. Equally, we also have to remember that it is important that we support that.
That brings me to my own situation within my own jurisdiction of Scotland. It is many years since I first studied law. I have had 20 years practising as a lawyer and seven and a half years as Justice Secretary. I never thought I would face a situation where I was condemnatory of actions that have been happening against the press in my own country.
Since the days of learning about the Gordon Airs case, HM Advocate v. Airs, I always assumed that those who were seeking to put forward information that was appropriate and fair would be protected. Yet in Scotland, in the fallout from the Alex Salmond affair, we have seen Mark Hirst, a journalist, prosecuted. The case, in which he was supported by the NUJ, was rightly rejected by the presiding sheriff in the borders. We have seen Craig Murray, a blogger and former British senior civil servant, now facing a prison sentence of eight months. That is not only shocking, but drives a coach and horses through a position brought in by the Scottish Government that there be a presumption against a sentence of imprisonment for less than a year. Their absence of criticism and their failure to comment has been quite shocking.
It is not simply cases brought by the Crown. It is the cases that have been pursued by the police, where people so much as tweeting anything that might be seen as possibly identifying a witness have faced a knock on the door from the police. That is fundamentally damaging to Scottish democracy. It is not what I expect and it has not come about by happenchance. It has been deliberate. It has been targeted. It is being driven by the Crown Office. If we are to have a free press, there has to be free reporting. That has to apply to bloggers as much as it applies to the mainstream press.
That people have been charged in Scottish courts and have faced possible terms of imprisonment for simply doing exactly the same as the mainstream press has done but not faced prosecution is simply unacceptable. There is also a reason that I am required to raise it here: it is that the position of the Lord Advocate of Scotland is no longer tenable. There has to be a separation of powers of having one individual who is both a legal adviser to the Scottish Government and also the head of the prosecution service in Scotland. That is no longer appropriate and I am disappointed that the First Minister did not seek to make it faster. It is something that has to come back to this Chamber because as a result of the Scotland Act 1998, the Lord Advocate is enshrined in statute by this Parliament. Action must be taken here as well as in Holyrood.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
I must remind Members not to comment on any live cases.
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I welcome this debate called by the hon. Member on world press freedom. We should be proud to live in a democracy where the press exercises a high level of freedom to highlight the truth and hold the Government to account. That does not mean we do not still face challenges in relation to the press in the UK and their reporting, in particular towards Muslims and minority communities.
Thankfully, we do not live in a nation where the regime in Government blows to smithereens the towers housing internationally renowned journalists such as in the AP building. Yes, I am speaking about the callous and totalitarian attack by the Israeli military a week or so ago in the tower housing both AP and al-Jazeera journalists. Much will be said in this debate about world press freedom relating to China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea or Iran, for instance, all of which our nation and I too share concerns about in regards to press freedom. However, just over a week ago, we watched the Israeli military blow up a mainstream media outlet, which the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had he seen no evidence for. Despite such a devastating attack on press freedom, given the scale of the attack, the response by the so-called defenders of free speech was deafening in its silence, and the outright condemnation by our Government seemed to be written in invisible ink.
The latest siege on Gaza and targeted Israeli air force attacks have destroyed the premises of 23 Palestinian and international media outlets, according to some reports, in a single week. A statement by the nine experts to the United Nations Human Rights office stated:
“The indiscriminate or deliberate bombardment of civilians and towers housing civilians in Gaza and Israel, as well as media organizations and refugee camps in Gaza, are war crimes that are, prima facie, not justified by the requirements of proportionality and necessity under international law. All parties who engage in such attacks must bear individual and State responsibility as appropriate.”
Let me state just one example. At approximately 4.30 am on Wednesday 19 May, Israeli war planes targeted with three successive rockets, without prior warning, the fourth and fifth floors of the home of Muhammed Abdul Qadr Muhammed Abu Hussein, 63, consisting of five floors over an area of 120 square metres and located on Al-Gala Street near Sheikh Radwan junction north of Gaza City. Yousef Muhammed Abdul Qadr Abu Hussein, 32, a journalist who worked as a broadcaster for the local Voice of Al-Aqsa radio station, a husband and a father of three, was killed in that attack.
All that I have stated is a reality of Israeli regime in only the last few weeks. Even after the ceasefire, AP reported that 17 journalists in Gaza had confirmed their WhatsApp accounts had been blocked. When 23 media houses are obliterated, journalists killed and social media networks blocked, where is press freedom? The question is whether the Government will still support the International Criminal Court investigation into the situation in Palestine, given Israel’s repeated attacks on media outlets and journalists. I also remind the Minister of a statement from his colleague Lord Ahmad on the matter of press freedom. He said:
“Ultimately, we need every country to recognise that attacks on media freedom are beyond the pale. And just like any assault on human rights, and I speak as the UK Human Rights Minister, we must hold abusers accountable, both legally and financially.”
I agree that we need every country to recognise that attacks on media freedom will not be tolerated and legal and financial accountability will be the consequences. I say to the Minister that the mounting evidence of the Israel’s alleged crimes is before him. If the Government truly want to support press freedom worldwide, they should support the investigation by the International Criminal Court into Israel’s actions. At the very least, they should use today’s debate on world press freedom as an opportunity to condemn the totalitarian actions by Israel and to support journalists within the region.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this important debate to mark World Press Freedom Day 2021. It could not be more pertinent at a time when attacks on press freedom across the world and in parts of Europe are intensifying. Authoritarian Governments across the world have yet again demonstrated that, before all other things, they fear the power of the written word.
I start by paying my respects to Roman Protasevich, a Belarusian blogger and journalist who was captured by the Lukashenko regime in an aeroplane hijack last Sunday. Roman faces charges of terrorism in his native country for the pivotal role that his Nexta blog played in instigating and co-ordinating the peaceful pro-democracy protests of last year. Belarus is the only country in Europe that retains the death penalty, which is a very real threat that Roman may now be facing. I believe all Members present share my deepest concern for Roman’s wellbeing, and I insist in the strongest possible terms that the UK Government do everything in their power to help secure his immediate release.
Thirty-four journalists are now in prison in Belarus, and dozens of independent media outlets are being prevented from operating freely. This week, Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree that erects even more explicit legal barriers to the freedom of the press, including a prohibition on news outlets making live reports on unauthorised mass gatherings, new powers for the information ministry to order the closure of media outlets, and a ban on the publication of opinion polls that are unauthorised by the Government. The Belarusian police recently raided and shut down TUT.BY, the largest independent Belarusian media outlet, as a follow-up to revoking its media credentials last year.
There have also been reports of personal blackmail and the intimidation of journalists, such as the journalist Arina Malinovskaya, who works with the Belarusian independent TV channel Belsat. Arina, who is currently abroad, is reported by the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza to have received threats from the Belarusian police that unless she returns to Belarus and presents herself at a police station, her sister and grandparents will suffer the consequences. Such tactics are designed to silence and intimidate even Belarusians in exile, and to prevent them from reporting systemic human rights violations in their home country. In August last year, the Government in Belarus removed the accreditation of two BBC journalists, meaning they are no longer able to work for the BBC legally. They are both Belarusian nationals who have worked for the BBC for a number of years. The BBC has called on the Belarusian authorities to revoke the decision and to allow the two journalists to continue to do their jobs.
Another part of the world where press freedom is undergoing a catastrophic deterioration is Hong Kong. Since the introduction of the national security law, the Government of China have been accelerating a full-scale crackdown on Opposition political activity and press. Last month, journalist Choy Yuk-ling was found guilty of making false statements and obtaining public information as part of an investigation into the perpetrators of a violent attack on protestors in a subway station in 2019. Choy was collecting the data as part of a documentary for the public broadcaster RTHK that also explored the conduct of Hong Kong police during last year’s protests. Chris Yeung, the chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, expressed himself plainly when he said:
“The government sent a reporter to the dock, she was found guilty and the fourth power is under threat. Press freedom in Hong Kong is dying.”
As citizens of a liberal, democratic state, we are privileged in many ways to have access to an independent press and extensive civil liberties, and to have the freedom to use our voice to speak up for those whose voice has been denied. I hope that we are able to reflect, as parliamentarians today, on how we can assist the many thousands in Hong Kong, Belarus and across the world whose voices are being silenced.
Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship Ms Ghani. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this important debate.
Press Freedom Day comes at an important time: not only have we just witnessed the bombing of the building of two major outlets—al Jazeera and Associated Press— we have also just witnessed the latest example of wide- spread misreporting on the crisis between Israel and Palestine. The systemic violence against Palestinians and the continued illegal Israeli occupation is an international atrocity. Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestine territories have been identified by the United Nations as being in breach of international law, but across the British and western media landscapes the crisis is too often reported as a conflict, yet it is not a conflict between equals. It is about the occupier and the occupied. The Gaza strip is effectively an open-air prison, with 97% of the population having no access to clean water, and each bombing campaign further eroding living standards. It is a colonial war. The British empire was instrumental in the displacement and subjugation of the Palestinian people.
The UK and western press either fail to report on atrocities against the Palestinian people, or label the abuses as clashes and consistently misreport the systemic aggression, dispossession and violence directed at Palestinians. Such framing serves only to legitimise and obscure the scale of oppression in occupied Palestine. It is encapsulated by the case of US journalist Emily Wilder, who was sacked by Associated Press after it was unearthed that she had previously supported Palestinian rights. I urge the Independent Press Standards Organisation to do much more to ensure the accurate, contextualised and fair reporting of the crisis. A strong, diverse and independent media is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy and society.
I am also concerned by the continued imprisonment and attempted extradition of Julian Assange. That case presents a real danger to the freedom of the press. It extends the judicial reach of the US Government, and it deploys the US Espionage Act against a journalist for the very first time. We must oppose this attempt to criminalise journalism that involves reporting on classified information. If not, it could set a chilling precedent with grave implications for the functioning of our democracy. I believe that the US Government must drop the attempted prosecution, and the British Government must do all they can to halt a process from which there can be no satisfactory outcome for the freedom of the press.
A free press is essential for our public life, but sadly much of our press is really not free at all. A 2019 study by the Media Reform Coalition found that just three companies—News UK, the Daily Mail group, and Reach—dominate 83% of the national newspaper market, and that has actually increased by 11% in just four years. Looking at who owns those outlets, the right-wing bias in our media ecosystem becomes clear: five billionaires own around 80% of all UK media, and two billionaire press barons own half of the UK’s top ten daily newspapers. The fact is that since 1979—a period spanning 11 general elections—no party has been able to reside in Government without the explicit backing of a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Polling shows that the British press is the least trusted press in Europe. That is corrosive for our democracy. It is crucial that we support public interest journalism, including through charitable status for some local, investigative and independent media outlets. The BBC is of course an important institution, which we must defend from privatisation, but as recent weeks have shown, the BBC is far from perfect and much must be done to make it more democratic, representative and independent. The BBC must also be wary of amplifying the world view that is shared among the right-wing press. In the light of funding cuts and the loss of investigative reporters, too often it is billionaire-owned media outlets that set the agenda for our public service broadcaster.
I fully support the National Union of Journalists and the rights and conditions of workers in our media. Empowering journalists, such as by enabling them to elect editors and have seats on boards, is beneficial for our entire public discourse. To see a world defined by the imbalance of wealth and influence propped up and obfuscated by a compliant media system is intensely disempowering. Let us take as an example yesterday’s explosive testimony from the former chief adviser to the Prime Minister. It should not have taken a disgruntled Government employee to expose this Government’s deadly handling of the coronavirus. That was a damning indictment of our media ecosystem and revealed the cosy relationship between Government and client journalists. I believe that must end. Following this year’s World Press Freedom Day, let us strive to build a vibrant media that is democratic, representative and truly independent.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Ghani. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for securing this debate to celebrate World Press Freedom Day.
The debate comes at an important time. Mere weeks ago, the world watched in horror as the Gazan offices of al-Jazeera and Associated Press were razed to the ground by Israeli bombs in a brazen attack on the media. The International Federation of Journalists reported that, at the same time in Jerusalem, Israeli police were deliberately and systematically assaulting, beating and firing stun grenades at Palestinian media workers. Today, I add my voice to the calls, including by the IFJ, for an end to impunity for these war crimes and for the shameful attempt to silence the media and reporting on the ground. These events followed two complaints submitted by the IFJ to the UN special rapporteurs in December 2020 about Israel’s systematic targeting of journalists working in Palestine and its failure properly to investigate killings of media workers—reminding us that the threats to journalists working in Palestine are consistent and stretch beyond the bombing campaigns.
The diversion of a flight and the arrest of journalist Roman Protasevich just days ago in Belarus, bringing the country’s number of detained journalists to 24, further increases the urgency of this debate. President Lukashenko has also taken action to harass and block the country’s most popular news website and has passed authoritarian measures relating to the media law.
Will the Minister call on the Government of whom he is a member to use every means at their disposal to compel the Israeli and Belarusian authorities to bring an end to the attacks on journalists? It is the case that 2,658 media workers have been killed globally in the last 30 years; that is about two every single week. And 84% of journalists who were killed in 2020 were knowingly targeted and deliberately murdered; that was a significant increase from 63% in 2019. In nine out of 10 cases, the killings remain unpunished.
Press freedom in conflict zones is an absolute necessity, but concerningly there is an increasing trend of journalists being killed in countries considered to be at peace; it accounts for 68% of all those killed. We can say in no uncertain terms that this is a crisis of impunity. In the last year, Turkey, Belarus, India, Myanmar and China implemented brutal crackdowns on their media. Nearly 400 journalists and media workers were being held in detention at the end of 2020. That is a historically high level. The number of women journalists imprisoned in 2020 increased by one third.
At home, the UK is ranked 33rd out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, with our own record marred by restrictions on freedom of information, the detention of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange, and active threats to the safety of journalists in Northern Ireland. These figures are shocking, and a concrete solution is desperately needed to reverse this dangerous trend. Will the Minister take up calls from the IFJ and media representatives on every continent for the establishment of a UN convention on the safety and protection of journalists, to ensure implementation of existing UN mechanisms, hold states accountable for their obligations, and end the impunity with which attacks on the press are currently conducted?
I will conclude by paying tribute to the bravery of journalists across the globe who work in dangerous circumstances to keep power in check. We must not mark World Press Freedom Day merely with words, but renew our efforts to ensure that threats to press freedoms everywhere are combated with decisive action, because press freedom protects us, and we must strive every day to protect press freedom.
John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on having secured today’s debate. In the heart of Europe today, a brave young man named Roman Protasevich languishes in jail. His face is now familiar to all of us from a video he was forced to make by his thuggish captors: puffed and swollen from beatings and looking scared, he told us that he was being treated well. Journalism at its finest speaks truth to power; that is why tyrants the world over hate journalists. Lukashenko, the Belarusian dictator, was so desperate to silence Roman Protasevich that he was prepared to hijack a plane and force it to land in Minsk, the capital of his dark regime.
I am proud to be a journalist. It is all I ever wanted to be, so sometimes I am a little bit surprised to find myself here, offering opinions and certainties rather than asking questions. My dad remembers that as a kid, I used to lie on our tenement hall floor and read the broadsheets. Too wee to hold them, I would lay them flat and read them column by column, poring over reports from far-away, impossibly exotic places. I remember reading the fearless reporting from Vietnam, and also fearless journalism of a different type from Watergate. I loved the writing of Neal Ascherson, the taut forensic skill of Brian Walden, and the flamboyant showmanship of Robin Day. Charles Wheeler’s lugubrious delivery heightened the brave passion of the civil rights movement. James Morris wrote about war as a man and then, as Jan, inspired as a woman, writing with grace about her transition.
I have done a bit of foreign affairs correspondence, and I have anchored some dramatic moments, none more memorable than the horrors of 11 September. I was on air when the twin towers were attacked, and had to find the words to describe the unspeakable brutality and cruelty of the unfolding events. I kept my cool, I think, during the hours of live broadcast, but I wept when I got home. Some of the images that we could not show that day, such as the people jumping from the towers, will be forever seared into my mind. However, my work has mostly been confined to political correspondence—a safe place for journalists, even at Westminster.
Journalists working elsewhere in the world have very different experiences. Reporters Without Borders reports that only 12 countries worldwide are rated “good” for press freedom. Almost three quarters of countries have constrained press freedom. Fifty journalists were killed last year, and 387 were held in detention, which is a historic high. Unsurprisingly, the worst offenders are the most brutal, despotic regimes, with Saudi Arabia and China leading the rogues’ gallery. Fourteen journalists are currently detained for telling the truth about covid, and more than 1,000 have died of it.
Not only did the recent onslaught by Israel against the Palestinians trapped in the Gaza strip see the slaughter of 67 innocent children, who were killed outright or buried alive by bombs fired by a military superpower that claims that it uses precision bombing, but that same Israeli bombing campaign targeted journalistic outlets that were determined to report on the carnage. Israel—a country that describes itself as a western democracy—used fighter jets to bomb the building housing Associated Press and al-Jazeera in Gaza. No journalists in the building were killed, but we remember that in a previous Israeli onslaught in 2003, James Miller, a freelance Welsh cameraman, was killed by Israeli troops who continued to fire on him even after the reporter he was with shouted, “We are British journalists.” An inquest concluded that he had been murdered, but no Israeli soldiers were prosecuted.
There have been so many killings of journalists that it seems almost invidious to single out individuals, but we all remember Marie Colvin, the celebrated Sunday Times correspondent who was killed when Assad troops, who were almost certainly targeting her, shelled the building in Homs where she was sheltering as she covered the Syrian regime atrocities. Closer to home, it took the shooting of Lyra McKee by IRA thugs in Derry to get Northern Ireland’s recalcitrant political leaders to issue a joint statement condemning her murder as an attack on the political process and democracy. Although Frank Gardner, the BBC security correspondent, survived an al-Qaeda attack, we are forever reminded of the price he paid when we see him on our screens, reporting uncomplainingly and with grace from a wheelchair. They are brave and fearless, every one of them. Armed only with a pen, microphone or camera, they were killed by cowards bombing and shooting from afar.
Of course, as we have heard, the threat to journalists takes many forms. The spread of disinformation through social media, and attacks on professional journalism, are perhaps the most insidious new ones. The lies disseminated by Putin and Assad, to spread disinformation about the murder of journalists and political opponents, to disguise their responsibility for gas attacks and to blacken the name of, among others, the White Helmets, are amplified online by the malevolent and the naive.
Here today, we honour a fine craft. I hope that, whatever our politics, we as parliamentarians resolve to affirm the right of journalists, whether at home or abroad, to scrutinise and examine, and to probe and uncover, without fear or favour.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani, and to follow what has been an excellent debate. In an unusual opening gambit for a shadow Minister, may I first pay tribute to the Minister who, in Opposition as well as in Government, has made this issue a priority? I know it is something that he really believes in.
I also pay tribute to my good friend, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), who gave a fantastic opening exposition. He spoke about news deserts, and other hon. Members also spoke about the problems of local news and media. He also mentioned the importance of not forgetting online news and disinformation, on which I know he has done so much work in the past. It was a fantastic introduction.
Let me say first of all that we have to get our own house in order, starting here in this place, in Westminster. Too often, there is a tendency to attack journalism. It is still a matter of shame for me that four or five years ago, Laura Kuenssberg felt that she had to have a bodyguard to attend the Labour party conference. Once again, I send my apologies to her for that. More recently, a Conservative Minister caused the Twitter pile-on of a journalist who was asking perfectly innocent questions, and we have heard some unhelpful comments from the Prime Minister attacking all journalists. We have got SNP Members who attack the BBC because they do not like the way it covered the independence referendum. Plenty of Conservative MPs are always undermining the BBC and calling it for it to be defunded. We have Democratic Unionist party MPs who have a beef with Stephen Nolan and attack the BBC and its integrity. Those attacks need to stop. By all means complain about individual broadcasts, but stop undermining independent journalism.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) mentioned, the UK is ranked 33rd out of 180 countries in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index. Restrictions on freedom of information and active threats to the safety of journalists in Northern Ireland continue to mar the UK’s press freedom record. We heard about the murder of Lyra McKee and her search for the truth. She was shot in 2019 during the riots that took place in Derry. It is truly shocking that on our shores journalists still face such a hostile environment.
The situation in Northern Ireland, incidentally, is becoming increasingly hostile. I heard recently the horrific story of Patricia Devlin, who has been subject to continuous and serious threats and abuse in recent years. In 2019, she reported receiving a Facebook message—I hesitate to say this, but I will—that suggested threats of rape against her baby. That is to a journalist in the UK. In a case in Barrow-in-Furness, Amy Fenton was run out of town by far-right gangs. We still have something to do in the UK. We need to make that a priority.
The focus of the debate is international. Numerous hon. Members referred to the disgraceful case of Roman Protasevich, which, frankly, was an act of piracy by the Belarusian Government. To those who would suggest that Mr Protasevich is not a journalist but merely a citizen blogger, when all the press in Belarus is so tightly controlled and not independent, citizen bloggers become the only source of independent information and, as has been mentioned, an essential independent voice.
In the debate, we heard that the number of journalists being killed is at an all-time high, with 387 being detained and 50 journalists killed around the world in 2020. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe mentioned the gunning down of the three female media workers in Afghanistan. In fact, the past decade has been the deadliest one for the profession, with a total of 1,059 journalists killed in the past 10 years simply for doing their job. That has to stop. Every year, every statistic, has a human side—the death of a mother or father, a brother or sister, a community left without information, denied that human right to be properly informed.
Let us not forget that the threat does not come only from authoritarian Governments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) talked about Mexico, a country that he knows well. Journalists have been murdered for investigating powerful organised crime groups and drug cartels. Reference was made to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta, with suggestions that elements of organised crime were working in concert with Governments. I ask the Minister for us to do more than simply condemn the detention and killing of journalists all around the world. More must be done to support those who are being silenced.
The BBC World Service does a fantastic job of projecting and promoting not just British values, but truthful and honest journalism. That is known throughout the world. Given those who say that we need to cut the BBC licence fee, I remind hon. Members in the Chamber and elsewhere that 70% of World Service funding comes from the licence fee—be careful what you wish for.
The BBC World Service is under threat. In China, the BBC World News TV channel has been banned by the Chinese authorities. In Hong Kong, the BBC World Service has been removed from the airwaves, after criticism of the BBC for its reporting on coronavirus and the persecution of the Uyghurs. World News distribution in mainland China was limited to international hotels; nevertheless, its loss is symbolically significant. John Sudworth, the BBC’s China correspondent whose reporting exposed truths about the Xinjiang detention camps, including sexual violence against Uyghur women, has now had to move to Taiwan, following pressure and threats from the Chinese authorities.
In Myanmar, BBC Burmese correspondent Aung Thura was taken away and detained along with a colleague towards the end of March, while reporting outside the court in the capital. The licences of media companies have been revoked and nightly internet shutdowns have been used to restrict news coverage and access to information.
Russia is also becoming an increasingly hostile environment for journalists. In recent years, many independent news organisations have closed down or curtailed their operations. Legislation governing the media is extensive and strict. The Russian authorities have made it clear that any action taken against the Russian state-backed TV channel RT in the UK will result in similar measures being taken against the BBC in Russia. Of course, there is the problem of the continuing harassment of BBC Persian staff, and their families, by Iran. It is deeply troubling and continues to escalate. The Iranian authorities have targeted Persian journalists, the BBC and their families since the service launched satellite television in 2009. Intimidation of the family members of BBC Persian staff in Iran is a regular occurrence. This takes various forms, including arrests, detention, questioning, threats that jobs or pensions will be lost, confiscation of passports and asset freezes. I ask the Minister to reflect on the situation of BBC Persian journalists, and ensure that they and their families in this country and abroad are safe.
I refer briefly to the question on the bombing of the news premises in Gaza, mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North and many others. What happened is an absolute outrage. The building was deliberately targeted and that cannot be allowed without massive criticism of the Israeli air force.
Finally, I reflect on an increasingly problematic matter, mentioned by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), the question of SLAPPs—an acronym that I think came first and the words to fill it after—strategic lawsuits against public participation. It is a real problem. Legal threats against journalists are far from a new phenomenon. Yet increasingly, media outlets and freelance journalists—even those with no links to the UK—report receiving letters from London law firms acting on behalf of the people they are investigating. The high costs and long time periods involved in fighting legal threats in the UK pile significant pressure on individual journalists or media outlets to withdraw or refrain from publishing their investigations, even if they believe them to be accurate and in the public interest. Taken usually by powerful or wealthy individuals and entities, the intention is not to address a genuine grievance, but to stifle investigations into matters of public interest through intimidation, and by consuming the target’s financial and psychological resources.
These types of vexatious legal threats can also come hand in hand with orchestrated smear campaigns, offline surveillance and other forms of harassment against journalists. Some of the recent examples include lawsuits filed by Russian billionaires against Catherine Belton; by the allies of the Malaysian Prime Minister against Clare Rewcastle Brown; and a lawsuit filed against OCCRP and its co-founder Paul Radu, by an Azerbaijani politician. Perhaps even more shocking is the involvement of UK legal companies who actively advertise such services to their clients. The UK is the leading international source of these threats, almost equivalent to those stemming from EU countries and the US combined.
To protect media freedom at home and abroad, the UK must take action to address two interlinked trends—first, the role that London continues to hold as an international libel capital, despite reforms to English and Welsh law in 2013, and the impact of such legal action, or even the threat of it, in the UK on journalists around the world; and secondly, the impact that the UK’s facilitation through its financial and legal systems of illicit finance links to political elites in countries with poor democratic records has on media freedom there. It is not surprising that countries with higher rates of corruption tend to have the fewest protections for journalists and the media. The so-called SLAPPs damage the UK’s reputation as a haven for free speech, and I urge the Minister to look into that issue.
It is clear that press and media freedoms are under threat around the world. For a country that is part of the global Media Freedom Coalition, there is a long way to go to promote and protect press freedom. I know that the National Union of Journalists advises that there should be a new convention, which is stronger than the demand solely for a special representative. A new convention would systemise and detail existing obligations, enhance the visibility of the journalists and the protection required for journalism, and codify multiple texts into one comprehensive document. We need to value journalists and their contribution, protect their livelihoods and stand up for universal rights and freedoms, democracy and the rule of law everywhere, and against violations wherever they take place. That must support freedom of expression, and specifically media freedoms.
The Minister for Media and Data (Mr John Whittingdale)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing the debate and on his work to promote media freedom. I am particularly grateful to him for taking over as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on media freedom, which I chaired until February 2020.
A lot of Members have focused on dreadful abuses of media freedom in different countries around the world, and so to some extent Members might have expected a response from a Foreign Office Minister. The Minister who has specific responsibility for the subject is my noble Friend Lord Ahmad, the Minister for South Asia and the Commonwealth, who is doing a great job championing media freedom internationally. He is obviously prevented from taking part in this debate in our House, but I work with him closely.
It is encouraging that there has been widespread recognition across this Chamber that media freedom is a crucial component of an open, democratic society. We may not always like or agree with what is written about us in the press, but the role of a free media in holding Government to account, in exposing corruption or malpractice and in providing trusted, reliable information and reporting has never been more important. However, media freedom is under increasing threat across the world. A number of Members pointed out that 50 journalists were killed last year while doing their job. According to Reporters Without Borders, which does a terrific job of monitoring that and campaigning, already this year 13 more journalists or media assistants have been killed, and there are currently 439 in prison. The summary analysis of its World Press Freedom Index 2021, published in April, said that journalism is completely or partly blocked in 73% of the 180 countries ranked in the index; that the coronavirus pandemic has been used by Governments as cover for blocking journalists’ access to information; and that journalists find it increasingly hard to investigate and report sensitive stories, especially in Asia, the middle east and Europe.
I join a number of those who have contributed in paying tribute to the courage of journalists working in some of the most difficult, dangerous and challenging parts of the world. The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) reminded us of our own Marie Colvin, who was killed in Syria along with her photographer, French journalist Rémi Ochlik, in 2012. I am sure he heard, as I have, Paul Conroy, who was also badly injured at that time, talk about how the shelling that killed Marie Colvin and her colleague was deliberately aimed at them because they were journalists.
It is because media freedom is so important that the Government have championed the cause of media freedom around the world. As has been mentioned, in July 2019 the UK hosted the Global Conference for Media Freedom, which led to the establishment of the Media Freedom Coalition of like-minded countries that pledged to collaborate to improve the media freedom environment across the world. The UK continues to co-chair the coalition. It is still a relatively young body, but it is growing and currently has 47 members. This year the coalition has already issued statements about China, Belarus and Myanmar, as well as a statement marking World Press Freedom Day. We are working on giving the coalition more impact on the ground by encouraging local collaboration in countries with those who are better able to engage with Governments and lobby them directly.
A number of countries have been mentioned, but I think it is important to speak about the most recent appalling example of the danger faced by journalists, which is of course the hijacking of an aeroplane and then the detention of Roman Protasevich in Belarus. In 2018, I led an Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation to Belarus. There was no question: the country was not democratic or free, and journalism was under terrific pressure. We met independent journalists operating there. Reporters Without Borders has assessed Belarus as the most dangerous country in Europe for media actors. I am pleased that the Government are supporting independent media organisations in that country, and we have already committed £2.7 million of support for independent media in Belarus. Alongside the Government, the IPU has been very active in championing media freedom and organising conferences, and I can remember listening to the relatives of journalists operating for the BBC’s Persian Service. The Persian Service is not able to operate in Iran. Its journalists broadcast from London on the BBC, but their relatives in Iran are being subjected to harassment and intimidation. We will continue to high- light that and to put pressure on the Iranian Government to respect their freedom.
As I said, the World Press Freedom Index, which several Members have referred to and which was published in April, showed that the UK had risen by two places, to No. 33. It is obviously good news that we have gone up in the rankings, but to some extent that is because other countries have gone down. It demonstrates that we undoubtedly still have a lot of work to do. The death of Lyra McKee, a journalist in Belfast, is happily a very rare example of where a journalist in this country has lost their life in the course of their work, but there is no question that journalists in the UK still suffer dreadful harassment and abuse.
The hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) mentioned Amy Fenton. I have met and talked to her about the abuse that occurred, which led her to have to seek police protection. It was for that reason that we established the National Committee for the Safety of Journalists, which brings together senior figures from law enforcement, the police, the prosecuting authorities, the campaigning organisations, the Government, and both the Society of Editors and the National Union of Journalists. The aim was to demonstrate a shared commitment to ensure that journalists are free to carry out their vital role without threats of violence.
We have now published the first ever national action plan for the safety of journalists, which sets out the actions that all the partners will take to protect journalists. Every police force will have a dedicated officer to whom journalists can make a complaint, or whom they can contact in the event of abuse against them. The police will be trained, particularly about the importance of safeguarding journalists. Employers will provide extra training, and the platforms where a lot of the abuse occurs have said that they will establish designated journalism safety officers.
There is still more to be done, and one of the first things that we want to do is to get more evidence about the scale of the problem. We will shortly be publishing the call for evidence, and I hope that any journalist operating in the UK who has suffered in such a way will respond to it. I am delighted that our work on that has already been praised at the Stockholm Conference on Media Freedom in the OSCE region, and has perhaps contributed to the promotion in the ranking of the UK on the World Press Freedom Index.
In response to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), I can confirm that the UK is using our presidency of the G7 to highlight the importance of media freedom. We will be asking G7 members to reconfirm their commitment to defend media freedom and to provide practical, technical and programmatic support to journalists and media, including through the global media defence fund. The fund was set up with the help of the UK and UNESCO, which currently manages it, and we continue to support it. In 2019, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office pledged £3 million to the fund over the next five years, and we are delivering on that commitment. To date, the fund has supported a variety of activities, such as pursuing strategic litigation with the goal of challenging laws and regulations that infringe on media freedom in Zanzibar, and investigative journalism that is focused on cases of threatened, prosecuted, imprisoned, attacked or assassinated journalists in the Philippines.
I thank the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom for its contribution to international efforts to promote media freedom. We are now working through all the recommendations of its report, with a view to responding.
Just before I finish, I will touch on an issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe and by the right hon. Member for Islington North—the threat to sustainable journalism, especially traditional media, as a result of the growth of social media and the power of the online platforms. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that issue; it is a matter of considerable concern. As he well knows, we have received a number of reports highlighting the need for action. He will also be aware that we recently established the Digital Markets Unit in the Competition and Markets Authority, which will bring in mandatory codes of conduct to ensure that the relationship between publishers—in other words, media—and the platforms is not abused by the over-dominance and anti-competitive practice of the platforms.
There is still a lot of work to do, but I am determined that this country should address the concerns that have been rightly expressed today about what happens in the UK, and I am also determined that we should continue to champion media freedom wherever it is under threat across the world. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe for giving us the opportunity to show that this House is united in that ambition.
Damian Collins
Thank you for calling me again, Ms Ghani.
I thank all Members for their participation in what has been a really excellent debate. We have heard many harrowing stories of attacks on individual journalists, many of whom have lost their lives, for seeking to speak truth to power, to make citizens aware of abuses of power, and to campaign for change.
In my 11 years as a Member of Parliament, I can think of so many issues that I have been involved with, personally or as a member or Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and coverage of so many of them was initiated by the work of investigative journalists, bringing to the attention of Parliament and politicians serious issues that needed to be addressed. So journalism is a vital part of a vibrant democracy, and we should take any attack against the media and journalism anywhere in the world incredibly seriously.
A number of Members, and indeed the Minister, too, raised the serious challenges that exist in the digital world. As the Minister said, it is right that we create the infrastructure to safeguard journalism in the future, through the operation of the draft Online Safety Bill and in particular through the Digital Markets Unit, to ensure that there is not an abuse of market power that will undermine media and could effectively turn journalism into a behind-closed-doors product that a few people pay for but many citizens are simply not exposed to at all. That would be a terrible outcome.
The final point that I will make, which I and others—particularly the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson)—made during the debate, is the important one about abuse of the legal system in the UK to shut down legitimate journalism and legitimate inquiry with lengthy and expensive lawsuits. We have seen examples of that and it is another important area where we need to safeguard journalism in the UK, too.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered World Press Freedom Day 2021.
Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)
Sorry for the slight delay due to technical problems. I ask Members attending physically whether they would not mind cleaning their spaces before they use them and as they leave the room. I remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn in Westminster Hall other than when speaking.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of the Green Homes Grant voucher scheme.
It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Robertson, albeit remotely. Apologies if I am improperly dressed. I thank the Chairman of Ways and Means for allowing the debate to take place, because it was postponed as a result of Prorogation happening a day earlier than previously planned. I am grateful for that flexibility. I am moving the motion because, as Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, I have a particular interest in energy efficiency and the contribution that it needs to make to enable the country to meet our net zero obligations.
The green homes grant scheme was announced with some fanfare in July last year by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the centrepiece of the economic package of emergency measures to aid our economic recovery from covid. It was announced as a £1.5 billion scheme, not previously flagged as part of the manifesto commitment from the previous general election, with a very welcome ambition to improve 600,000 homes by March 2021 and in so doing create some 100,000 jobs.
The scheme did not open for applications until late September last year, which in itself led to an unfortunate hiatus in orders for energy efficiency improvements, as householders intending to proceed with some improvements stalled orders while they awaited the prospect of grant funding. The financial grants on offer to install energy efficiency measures and some types of low-carbon heating such as heat pumps were capped at £5,000 per property but up to £10,000 for fuel-poor households—but accessing the grants proved extremely difficult. I am sure others will come to that.
In November, the green homes grant scheme was extended for a further year to March 2022 due to the demand for applications. That was welcome, because one of the shortcomings of the scheme had been its short duration. The scheme was intended to mobilise the energy-efficiency supply chain, but as a consequence of intrinsic problems in its application and implementation, it had a perverse impact, with several installation companies seeking to use the scheme having to lay off staff because of the difficulties consumers had had in gaining access to it.
Prior to the voucher scheme’s closure in March this year, it had received more than 113,000 applications— 10 times as many as under the coalition Government’s green deal—so it was clear that there was demand. By 5 May, the last date for which statistics have been published, some 57,500 vouchers had been issued and 15,500 measures had been installed. Some 1,880 installation companies had expressed interest in becoming accredited under the scheme, but only 1,021 were classed as active, so barely half of those installers who had been interested in participating in the scheme had done so. I suspect that was in large part due to the varying uncertainties surrounding the scheme.
The Environmental Audit Committee held an inquiry on the energy efficiency of existing homes, which we launched in May last year—before the scheme had been announced—and concluded in March, a week before the scheme was scrapped. I am pleased to see my excellent Committee colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), in his place for the debate; I look forward to his contribution. The Committee made recommendations about necessary improvements to the scheme. We wanted to see it overhauled and, crucially, extended to make it more effective. We certainly did not want to see it scaled back or scrapped. I will not dwell on the shortcomings of the scheme any more than I have already—they were manifest, and I am sure others will point out some of the specific challenges—but focus my remarks on what is needed in the future.
It is hard to overstate the scale of the challenge presented by the need to improve the energy efficiency of our homes. The UK has one of the least efficient housing stocks in Europe. Domestic properties account for almost a fifth of the UK’s carbon emissions. There are 29 million homes across the UK, 19 million of which do not meet the energy performance certificate C rating. Even those that do, in many cases, do so without effective insulation and so could do better. The Climate Change Committee has said that the UK’s legally binding climate change targets will not be met without the near-complete elimination of greenhouse gas emissions from UK building stock by 2050.
Failure to address, with urgency, the energy efficiency of the country’s homes could seriously jeopardise our emissions, now enshrined in statute to be net zero by 2050. The Government know that, having been elected on a manifesto that allocated £9.2 billion to be spent during this Parliament on improving heat in buildings, only a third of which has been allocated now that the green homes grant scheme has been ended. The funding needs to be deployed in new, more flexible, more enduring and more realistic schemes, as I shall touch on when I conclude my remarks.
The task is colossal. In England alone, more than 10 million owner-occupied homes and more than 3 million private rented sector landlords need to upgrade the energy efficiency of their homes to become at least EPC C rated by 2035. In the Government response to our report, the suggestion was made that the target will be brought forward to around 2030. I would just like the scale of that to sink in with the Minister, who I know is not normally responsible for this area. If that acceleration were to happen, 13.6 million homes in England would require retrofitting over nine years. That is equivalent to 1.5 million properties a year or 125,000 properties a month, each and every month between, say, the end of this year and the end of 2030.
This will be at the same time as the construction industry, which is by and large responsible for this work, is supposed to be delivering 300,000 new homes a year. For context, I should say that the green homes grant scheme achieved 15,500 installations in six months. That is a fraction of what would be required every month from now until the end of the period.
The good news is that this is a colossal business opportunity, including for many small and medium-sized enterprises, for whom, as small business Minister, my hon. Friend has responsibility. For contractors to seize this opportunity, they need to have their confidence restored that the Government have a coherent plan, with support available, to be clearly established once the domestic renewable heat incentive scheme ends next March, which is currently the only scheme available.
The Government have been dropping hints that they will mandate energy efficiency at the point of sale or renovation of a property. We expect that to be spelled out in the heat in buildings strategy. Homeowners need support to get there. I would find it very challenging for the Government if minimum standards of energy efficiency were brought in for owner-occupiers without some financial support, given the scale of work required. It is not just buying a heat pump; it requires significant insulation, in particular to properties that are in isolated rural locations. Rural, stand-alone or elderly properties are often much harder to insulate with a retrofit and it is therefore more expensive. If no support is available, there is a genuine risk of blight on millions of homes.
What can we learn from the green homes grant scheme? Demand for the scheme was there. Our Committee received no evidence that covid was causing a problem, which at one point the Government hinted at. That was evidenced in the consumer survey that the Committee conducted: covid was not referenced as a problem at all. The good news is that there is demand there from home- owners.
The Government redirected some of the green homes grant funding to the local authority delivery scheme, which is welcome, but it will not reach all those who need help as only some local authorities have had successful bids. It may not help SMEs in the sector, where support for jobs is needed, since local authorities will often award projects to larger construction companies or to their own in-house workforces.
An example is E.ON, which recruited some 100 permanent roles to deliver the local authority scheme. That is good for those who were employed, but it does not help SMEs. We need to see support available to homeowners across the country—and with it, jobs. Bringing all homes up to EPC C would achieve more than the 100,000 jobs that the Government were talking about; one of our witnesses at the Committee, the Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group, indicated that it would support 150,000 jobs from the moment it began.
I want to see a long-term replacement—certainly five years and preferably 10 years—for the green homes grant scheme. It should be funded as one of the spending review announcements. A replacement scheme needs to be as free of bureaucracy as possible, consistent—obviously—with the need to beware of the risk of fraud. Government and industry need to work together to design a scheme. Sadly, that was not the case with the green homes grant scheme from the point of inception. The scheme needs to be long-term to give the right signals to the sector, to train the people required to do the work, and to enable them to have confidence that they can afford the accreditation process.
Above all, the scheme needs to be easy for the public to understand. It needs to cover a simple hierarchy of measures and to be flexible enough to cope with the individual requirements of individual properties. No two properties are identical, and the notion of having two different tiers—in which some work has to be completed under one tier before being able to move on to the other —was far too complicated and put many people off.
The Government should look to other solutions to improve domestic energy efficiency. In our report, our Committee called for a reduction in VAT on renovations that improve energy efficiency. That would be a simple way to incentivise work. We already have zero rating on new homes, so why not zero or 5%, depending on the item, for those that need improving as well?
We feel that the Treasury has taken a sceptical approach to such measures. It ruled out changes to VAT or stamp duty rebates, which is another suggestion made by industry that we think has significant scope: the rebate would be spent on getting the building up to energy efficiency standards. The UK Green Building Council published a report this week containing a revenue-neutral proposal for just that: a stamp duty rebate to encourage energy efficiency, and I strongly urge the Minister to encourage his colleagues at the Treasury to look at such a scheme.
We welcome the fact that the Government are working with lenders for green mortgages. That has real potential, and there is a lot of enthusiasm in the mortgage industry for attaching green mortgages to their product portfolio. Again, we need to be wary that if we raise standards without providing support or mechanisms to allow people to improve their properties, potential buyers of properties that do not meet the standard may not get access to mortgages. That could have a significant impact on those properties’ value. The Government should also look to the national infrastructure bank to provide finance. The Government have said that the bank’s remit will be established this summer, and we hope that this will be included within it.
I will touch briefly on the energy performance certificate regime. The certificates were originally designed to provide a basic indicator of the energy cost of running a home, but they now underpin a range of Government policies and targets—including not only the legally binding fuel poverty targets, but the ambition to have as many homes as possible at grade C by 2035 or earlier, as indicated by me, and the minimum energy efficiency standard for private homes.
EPCs have a range of flaws, as was demonstrated to me by an assessor who I met last week. I asked to be taken through how the algorithm works. It is now undertaken through a centralised Government website, where the assessor puts in the parameters of the property and out comes the result. Just to illustrate to Members how perplexing this is, for a rural three-bedroom cottage currently fuelled by domestic heating oil in my constituency, where we had all the details, replacing that heating oil with a heat pump and doing nothing else would increase the EPC rating by two points. It is necessary to move by nine or 10 points in order to move up a rating, so doing so barely moves the dial on its own.
The EPC rating penalises off-grid and rural homes in particular, as too much weighting is given to fuel costs. If a person is on a domestic heating oil system because that is the cheapest method of heating their home, but they then introduce energy efficiency measures, that does not move the rating, and they cannot adopt a non-fossil fuel system if it is more expensive. The EPC methodology is therefore not addressing the fundamental challenge, so we recommend that it is fundamentally overhauled to support low-carbon heating measures by indicating in its headline rating not only the fuel cost of heating a property, but its energy and carbon metrics. This must be done before we set minimum efficiency standards for homes. Eye-catching top-line targets for heat pump installations are welcome, and raising minimum energy performance standards for homes is all very well, but what is desperately needed is a coherent plan to achieve the targets that are being set.
Homeowners need to be made aware of the benefits for the planet, but also for their pocket, as reduced energy demand will reduce energy bills. They need to be given the confidence to invest in energy efficiency and low-carbon heating. My Committee and I remain of the view that a replacement scheme for the green homes grant is needed, and that this should be announced and funded in the next spending review.
This replacement scheme will need to endure for several years and be free of bureaucratic obstacles. Alongside that, an overhaul of energy performance certificates is needed to make sure that progress towards decarbonising our homes is not penalised. The Government’s recent response to our report frankly raises the stakes for the heat in buildings strategy, which is due to be published; it has been much delayed, and we would like to see it published as soon as possible. We very much hope that we will not be disappointed by that strategy, and that tangible action to implement it, backed up by Treasury funding, is taken as soon as possible after its publication.
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Robertson. Before I begin, I declare an interest: my wife works for the Association for Decentralised Energy.
Today’s debate is a timely one, not just because of its necessary focus on the failures of the green homes grant scheme and the lessons we should draw, but because of the foundational importance of energy efficiency to the success of our net zero targets. It was therefore a pleasure to sponsor the debate application, and I commend the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) on his and his Committee’s leadership on this issue. His Committee was instrumental in highlighting concerns about this scheme earlier this year, and I am grateful for the seriousness and detail of their ongoing work in this area, not least in opening today’s debate.
We on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee are nearing the end of a major inquiry looking directly at how Britain can meet the challenges posed by decarbonising heat in our homes, in addition to monitoring our overall progress as a country in meeting our net zero targets at home as we seek to lead abroad by example at COP. There is little point decarbonising the heating in our buildings if those buildings are not energy efficient, and we will not meet our net zero targets if we do not decarbonise how we heat our homes, so these issues are inextricably linked. Those decarbonisation targets present huge opportunities for citizens right across the country, from reducing our energy bills at home and making our homes more comfortable to live in to creating consumer demand for small and large businesses in every community, and creating green jobs for the workers who will be needed to go into each and every one of our homes over the decade ahead.
That was the key impetus behind the green homes grant scheme announcement when it was unveiled last year, and rightly so. It is therefore critically important that the grant scheme’s failure, and that of its predecessor initiatives, does not put paid to that ambition but provides us with an opportunity to reflect and reboot. At the same time, the scale of the green homes grant debacle—which, as has been pointed out, the Government scrapped after enabling fewer than 6,000 installations, or less than 1% of its stated target—underlined the importance of fully investigating its failings to ensure that they are not repeated.
The right hon. Member for Ludlow and his Committee drew out in welcome detail how a panoply of design flaws led to an approvals framework that proved burdensome for builders and installers, impenetrable to homeowners, and saw installations run up against regulatory muddle and paralysing delays. Shipping out the delivery of the scheme to the lowest pay provider was neither realistic nor sensible, and realising the importance and capacity of local authorities to deliver better than Whitehall in my view is key.
Too easily, however, that experience could give way to miserablism and receding ambition, so as we interrogate the causes of the scheme’s failure, I will stress the importance of getting back on track quickly. Lifting energy efficiency standards in homes remains the key short-term measure of success in decarbonising, not only because the quality of our existing buildings is often so inadequate but because real progress is feasibly deliverable, with the Climate Change Committee putting the per-home cost at under £10,000.
In spite of that, our progress to date in decarbonising buildings has stalled, with emission reductions in the sector sitting stagnant for more than a decade. The single biggest impediment to substantial private sector investment, however—most importantly, to remedy Britain’s skills shortfall in this area, which continues to put a ceiling on our capacity to deliver—remains the Government’s hesitancy.
Last month, my Committee heard evidence about the kind of time and financial outlay that smaller businesses confront in getting accredited to take on those jobs. For businesses to believe that such investments are justified, it is incumbent on Ministers to provide certainty that the Government will be in it for the long haul. We have seen far too many false starts. It is past time for a properly funded strategy, sustained over the coming decade and beyond, and I therefore associate myself with the calls of the right hon. Member for Ludlow.
In that spirit, my biggest worry is that the green homes grant experience typifies the pervasive lack of strategy running through the Government’s attitude to climate policy. The fanfare that accompanied the scheme’s unveiling last year was of a piece with a now-typical approach: far-reaching targets, soaring rhetoric, but a failure to follow through. Targets, however ambitious, are no substitute for delivery. The scheme’s premature demise is an object lesson in the importance of getting the basics right.
I am confident that we can rise to that challenge, and create a sense of hope and opportunity for the British people as we move towards our net zero target, but we must be honest with ourselves, learn the lessons and step up to meet that challenge in the first place. I hope that the debate, the work of the respective Select Committees and the preparation of Ministers to put forward a replacement for the green homes grant in advance of the Budget later this year provide the space and opportunity to get this right once and for all.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson.
The debate is an important one, because when we talk about climate change, we tend to focus a lot more on transport than we do on buildings, and yet buildings are our second biggest cause of emissions. Domestic buildings are 30% of our energy use and 19% of our emissions overall.
Ultimately, I would like to see more of what I have in my constituency, from Greencore Construction, which has built homes that are net zero in both build and use. It sold them to housing associations at the same price they would pay for other houses. It has continued to innovate and, with recent modifications, reduced the carbon emissions by a further 40%. Those are now carbon-positive homes. I have taken the Secretary of State for BEIS and others to see them, because what the company is doing is really impressive. In July, it will be talking at my pre-COP summit for Wantage and Didcot constituents.
More broadly, I welcome the commitment on the future homes standard to reduce the amount of emissions by 75% to 80%. That is very positive but, again, that is about new homes and we know we have an issue with the homes that have already been built.
I was excited by the green homes grant scheme. I was excited by the ambition to make homes more energy-efficient. I was also excited by the jobs that I hoped it would stimulate in the supply chain. I was very disappointed when it was cancelled due, at least in part, to lack of take-up, although there were clearly other issues with it.
We have a heat and building strategy coming. We will have to see what is in that—I hope it will tackle some of the issues we are discussing—but as of today, I would support another scheme. I will quickly offer some observations on things that I have seen as a constituency MP which we would need to retain or change if we were to have a new scheme.
First, I thought it was really important that we gave more financial support to low-income households. That is the fairness aspect that shines through in the Climate Assembly report. We do not want policy decisions and judgments to be made by the most affluent in society; we should not judge everything that those on low incomes are doing without giving them the support to make changes that they may well want to but just do not have the means to make.
Secondly, price hikes very definitely took place once the scheme had been announced. Constituents wrote to me to say, “I know what that should cost because I looked at the price last week, and suddenly it has gone up.” I am not sure that there is a lot the Government can do about that—they had price guidelines for applications to the scheme. I suspect this kind of thing always happens, but I think it would be positive if we did whatever we could to avoid price hikes.
Thirdly, there was debate about the kitemark. I defended the use of the kitemark for the tradesmen, because it is important that we do not have cowboy tradesmen—for want of a better term—doing shoddy work. I know there is a debate about whether TrustMark was the right one for this. Maybe it was not, but I think it is important to have that kitemark.
Fourthly, there is a broader issue—not just for this scheme but for our strategy as a whole—relating to historic listed buildings. I have four towns in my constituency, but 64 villages. The homes that are built in Didcot are of varying quality, but they are new, whereas the homes in the villages are often protected in various ways and face a whole bucket of issues. Many of the people in those villages are keen to make their own contributions to combating climate change, but there is a range of things that we have not yet got to grips with, from the fact that some of those homes can use only oil for their heating because they are off the gas grid, to whether they are allowed to have solar panels. There is also lime rendering, which was something about which I did not know very much, but which certain types of home need as part of the insulation process. That can only be done at certain times of the year, and there are not many tradesmen who can do it.
Those things feed into the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne): if we are going to have another scheme, it needs to be over a long enough time period that we can get those things right. We need to make sure that prices are not hiked too much, that we are using the right kitemark, and that tradesmen see it as in their interests to get that kitemark because of the length of time that it will cover. We also need the scheme to cover enough seasons that those things that can be done only at certain times of the year can be included. We might even train more people who have experience with older, historic buildings, because that issue left rural areas at a considerable disadvantage in the short timeframe the scheme was to designed to cover.
We will probably still spend a lot more time talking about the cars we drive and the plane journeys we take, but unless we can make the progress we need to make on buildings, we will continue to hamstring our ability to tackle our net zero goals.
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
It is pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for securing this important debate. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
In the summer of 2020, I joined Members from across the House, along with trade unions, industry leaders and environmental groups, in welcoming the announcement of the green homes grants scheme. It represented a welcome opportunity to support the construction industry at a time of immense economic hardship, to slash energy costs and tackle the scourge of fuel poverty, and to create thousands of high-quality jobs in left-behind communities such as my constituency of Birkenhead.
Less than a year later, however, the scheme has been consigned to the scrapheap and businesses have been left to pay the price. Ministerial infighting and bureaucratic incompetence has doomed to abject failure what was supposed to be a shovel-ready project. Of the £1.5 billion originally allotted, around £1.4 billion has gone unspent, and a measly £300 million has been reallocated to the local authority delivery scheme. Instead of creating the 100,000 jobs that were promised, the TUC estimates that the scrappage of the green homes grant will cost 13,000 jobs across the north west, in a shameful betrayal of the very work of small businesses that the scheme was supposed to support.
We should not be surprised. The scrapping of the scheme is just the latest in a long line of Government failures to live up to promises on climate change—failures that have left the UK widely off course to meet both our fourth and fifth carbon budgets. If we are serious about tackling climate breakdown, we need urgent action to reduce household emissions. However, this is not just about the environment. The retrofitting of homes and the transition to low-carbon heating systems such as heat pumps and hydrogen boilers also has a vital role to play in delivering on the Chancellor’s promise of a green jobs revolution and creating badly-needed jobs in towns such as Birkenhead, which for far too long have suffered a chronic shortage of work and training opportunities.
It is imperative that the Government now reflect on the many failings of the green homes grant scheme and get us back on track to meeting our targets for retrofitting homes. That means working with industry leaders and local authorities to design a plan that is both ambitious and achievable and puts job creation and training opportunities for young people at its heart.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. It is also an honour to speak in the debate called by the excellent Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), and I am delighted to support him here today.
With every good intention, the Government launched this scheme to a fanfare, as we have heard, in September 2020. Of course, one has to applaud the efforts to help households improve their energy efficiency, placing them at the centre to decarbonise our homes. However, there is no doubt that the scheme has been beset with problems. The take-up has been well short of any expectations, but then, as they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Launching a scheme without having anywhere near enough approved installers—as we heard, just 1,021 active companies—meant that the issues under the green homes grant quickly became apparent. My constituency office has tried to help many people who struggled to access the grants. It did not help, obviously, that we had further lockdowns and an apparent reluctance of home- owners to see installers come into their homes. However, that finding was not included in our Environmental Audit Committee report. We will give the benefit to the Government on that, and I know that they cannot be blamed for those further issues, but we did not see evidence of that.
I welcomed the drive to create jobs with the scheme, especially in the construction and property renovation sector that drives a lot of our economy. The drive to improve the energy efficiency of low-income households, reduce fuel poverty and work to phase out high-carbon fossil fuel heating is all laudable. Decarbonising our homes is a key priority in the race to net zero, and through the 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution and the energy White Paper, the Government have set out how they plan to decarbonise our buildings. However, I want to make a point here about a preoccupation with retrofitting, which has led to my Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into the sustainability of the build environment. The green homes grant is focused on reducing carbon emissions in the operating efficiency of an existing home, but we have hardly touched on the build environment. The materials that we use in the construction sector account for 11% of emissions that contribute to climate change. Concrete and steel production is dreadful for the environment. We need to look at more sustainable materials such as engineered wood and other more organic materials, which are far more prevalent in Europe. It is my hope that my inquiry will shine a light on that.
I wish that in the green homes grant scheme conception the use of natural materials such as lambs’ wool insulation had been given far greater weight. Natural materials are growing in prominence, but the Government must further incentivise consumers to drive their take-up. The green homes grant could have been the perfect launchpad to do this, which is why I welcome one of our findings—that consumers should be incentivised with a VAT cut.
I applaud every intention of the scheme. I recognise, with fairness, its shortcomings. Some of them could have been foreseen; some should have been foreseen; and some were exacerbated by extraordinary circumstances. Nevertheless the intentions and the lessons are valuable. The idea behind the scheme was not a bad one, but schemes involving vouchers—I should know this from being an ex-retailer—sometimes take a long time to bed in. We must have people ready to go.
So, having learned those lessons, I hope that instead of scrapping the scheme entirely, there is the appetite for another attempt, learning from where we went wrong. If we are to get anywhere near the targets that we need to reach with our homes, the incentives in the scheme must be kept going. The findings of the EAC need heeding, because the demand was there; that was proved. Reducing VAT is a very strong idea and I again echo the thoughts of the Chairman of the EAC in saying to the Minister, “Let’s try to extend the scheme, rather than have a full-scale scrapping of it”.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Robertson; I think that I do so for the first time.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) on securing this hugely important debate, on his Committee’s leadership on this issue, and on keeping alive the idea and the ambition of the green homes grant. I hope that there will be many future conversations about it, and that this will not be the end of it; I hope that the green homes grant will not slip away silently without our learning from it.
I think there is also some cross-party agreement here, which I always welcome. There is agreement about the need for the scheme; a general welcoming of the scheme’s ambition; agreement about the need to learn from and improve on the scheme; and agreement about the need to bring it back in some form. I hope that this debate will contribute to its return.
Like other Members, several constituents have contacted me after trying and failing to get a green homes grant. One of them wanted to have improvements in tier two but not in tier one, so they really wanted to make a change to their house, which was very commendable, but they could not get into the scheme. And others, in trying to access it, had to go back three times for new quotes. Thankfully, they were very persistent—they really wanted to do this—but they still have not heard about their application, despite making it in early October. That shows some of the frustrations that have arisen, and that the scheme was set up with barriers inside it that stopped it from working. I will go on to say more about those barriers.
In total, 40% of UK carbon emissions come from UK households, with over half coming from heating and electricity. As the Committee on Climate Change has made clear, those emissions need to be reduced by 44% by 2030 if we are to meet the UK’s fifth carbon budget. As was said earlier, that is a huge challenge.
If we look at the 15,500 successful applicants to the scheme in the six months that it was running, and if we look at the 10 million owner-occupied homes that need to be retrofitted and brought up to environmental standards, we can see that at that rate it will take us 323 years to deliver the change we need. In a climate emergency, we simply do not have that time.
Last month, I held an all-party parliamentary group on sustainable resource roundtable with leaders from the energy and buildings industries, company leaders and other representatives, to get their views on the ending of the grant and what we can learn from it. They were incredibly disappointed at its closure and believe that we need it back as soon as possible, so there is willingness from the industry to see the scheme work in a future form. As has been said, demand was definitely there. More than 210,000 applications had been made to the scheme by the time of its closure, and I think there would have been even more if the application process had been easier.
There were certainly problems with the design of the scheme, but the overwhelming enthusiasm with which it was met by householders is very striking. That willingness to pay for home efficiency improvements, if it could be encouraged with some financial help in conjunction with Government schemes, should not be squandered now. We should press on.
Those in attendance at that meeting felt that ending the scheme after just six months of operation suggested an inconsistent approach to energy efficiency and a lack of faith in Government policy. In fact, the owner-occupied market may now be disincentivised as a result, which is why it is even more important that, as well as looking back to learn, we quickly move on and address people’s willingness to take this up.
It is absolutely critical that we act fast. Whatever comes next, we must, as a minimum, include the following. First, as has been said, the scheme must last a minimum of 10 years, to allow industry to develop the necessary skills, provide investor confidence and meet objectives over a sustained period. Those skills could be built up and delivered by local colleges such as mine, which would love to be part of the green jobs revolution that this could bring about. If the Government committed to a 10-year grant programme of home insulation and renewable energy improvements, suppliers could expand to meet that demand, knowing that there was time to invest.
Secondly, a future scheme must cover all homes. As well as social housing, the Government must support owner-occupied homes and private landlords in the energy efficiency transition. That will require the Government to implement and co-ordinate a range of concurrent schemes to suit the different markets. The Government must think big on this.
Thirdly, the scheme must be easy to access for my and all our constituents across the country. People are willing to access it, but they will put off by any barriers put in their way. If it is really difficult to access, the scheme will fail. It must be easy to access.
Fourthly, a future scheme must expand the accredited supplier base. Inviting a small number of companies to deliver the grant was a mistake, as they were overwhelmed by demand at a time when the number of people wanting to do DIY on their homes increased massively during lockdown. The British Board of Agrément accreditation service provides quality assurance for all the relevant building sectors: insulation, wall cladding, floors, heating, ventilation, walls and doors and roofing. All of those accredited suppliers need to be able to participate in the scheme.
Fifthly, a new cohort of inspectors must be created and trained. This was a limiting factor in the previous scheme. Grenfell sadly demonstrated just how dangerously unregulated the building industry has become. Creating a new body of locally based and easily accessible inspectors, who would also inspect the delivery of grant scheme installations, would provide the dual benefit of building safety and fraud avoidance.
Finally, it is vital that the Government work with the building industry right from the start of the scheme’s creation. They did not do that last time. It has been suggested that they could easily work with the industry through the Construction Leadership Council. They must also work with financial services, including mortgage companies, to ensure that the system is deliverable. This must include providing financial incentives to homeowners, for without the grant, decarbonising a home is very expensive. Some of my constituents in Putney received quotes, as required by the scheme, of up to £20,000 to properly decarbonise their home. Financial support needs to be made available to deliver that, and more financial support needs to be made available to people on low incomes. That could involve grants or personal tax relief, although that would not incentivise all households. We need to invest in public engagement to raise consumer awareness of the additional benefit of reducing heating bills.
I would like the Minister’s assurance that he will listen to the voices of the building industry, environmental groups and potential consumers—householders, lease- holders, landlords and local authorities—when designing whatever scheme comes next. We were all desperate for the green homes grant scheme to succeed and were desperately disappointed at its closure. We simply will not achieve net zero without green homes. COP26 will provide the perfect opportunity to announce a viable, long-term approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from homes. The Government must not miss this opportunity.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
We have had an excellent debate, with a very high degree of agreement among those taking part, not only about the failings of this particular scheme but about the imperative at the heart of what we have been talking about this afternoon. That is the imperative of ensuring that, within a very short time, we have secured in this country a massive uplift in the energy efficiency of homes across all sectors of housing—not just the easy-to-treat homes but the ones that have single cavity walls, for example, and are difficult to treat. We have to put into those homes different forms of heating to go along with the energy efficiency uprating, and the reason why we have to do that is of course to decrease very substantially the emissions from buildings, which contribute so substantially to CO2 emissions overall, which could lead us well away from our target of net zero by 2050. Indeed, buildings in the UK emit some 19% of emissions overall, and the vast, and a substantial, majority of that is in residential homes, so the targeting of schemes to uprate energy efficiency in homes is vital.
The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), made an excellent contribution. By the way, I congratulate his Committee on its hard work in looking forensically not just at this particular scheme, but at the things we need to do in order to get to where we want to go on home insulation. He mentioned the figure of 13.6 million homes—not new homes but homes of all kinds. As he said, all homes have different requirements when it comes to their retrofit. There are 13.6 million homes that will basically need work to be done on them over the next nine years. He estimated that that equates to about 1.5 million properties a year over the next nine years needing to have those measures.
Although I welcomed the Treasury’s initial announcement in summer 2020 that what looked like a substantial amount of money would be made available for retrofitting homes, we have to understand that, even at that point, it was substantially less than the sum required to meet the ambition set out in the energy White Paper to make all homes EPC conform to EPC band C. I fully accept the Environmental Audit Committee Chair’s strictures about the use and accuracy of EPCs. Nevertheless, the ambition is that all properties should be band C or above by 2035. That date, I think, should come further forward, but that is the area that we are looking at.
The idea that we could make some reasonably rapid initial progress with a scheme in the private sector involving vouchers was a welcome start. I think that the only lesson or conclusion that we can draw from the allocation of this particular fund, the particular way it was done and the subsequent requirement placed on BEIS to draw up a scheme is that we should never do it in this way again, as far as our targets are concerned. Perhaps there is a lesson from what has happened over the last few months.
I am interested to hear from the Minister about this. My understanding of how the scheme progressed is that the Treasury, without any idea of what was involved in the process, announced that money would be made available—£1.5 billion, with £500 million for the local authority delivery scheme—with about as much detail as I have set out this afternoon. The Treasury then said to BEIS, “Go away and work up a scheme to make it happen, and we want it on the ground as quicky as possible.” Had I been a fly on the wall during those discussions, I would have hoped to have seen BEIS kicking back at the Treasury and saying, “Look, this is ludicrous. You can’t do it this way. You can’t expect a scheme to be worked up in this way. And, by the way, you can’t expect a scheme to be conceived, put into operation, undertaken and closed within a year. You just can’t do it that way.” That is what BEIS should have said to the Treasury. Instead, it rapidly produced a scheme and, in so doing, undertook the services of a consultancy company based in America which had no experience of doing these sorts of operations.
Frankly, the scheme was doomed not to work from the start. Indeed, that is what happened. The final figures, which came out in May, show the frankly pathetic number of measures that arose from the scheme. We also heard, while we ran through that period, dreadful stories of building companies that had geared themselves up to do the work but did not get paid for it. There were immeasurable layers of bureaucracy involved in getting voucher schemes going, even though many householders desperately wanted to take advantage of them.
I have the figures from the end of February, which were released before the final figures were made available. At that point—the scheme was still going but it was nearing its end—123,000 vouchers had been applied for, but only 28,000 had been issued. What was the company running this organisation doing by working out the scheme in such a way? There were only 5,800 installations at that point, and of those, only 900 or so were for low carbon measures. This scheme was not just a pathetic failure; it has put the cause of retrofitting homes back substantially. Companies that wanted to do the work were burned yet again and will perhaps be reluctant to undertake further work. Disappointed householders were grievously misled on the energy uprating process, and precious time has been lost for getting to grips with this. To say, “This is a lesson learned in how not to do it,” is a bit of an understatement.
I hope that the considerations raised by every contributor this afternoon will be at the heart of the lessons that the Department will take on board for future projects on energy efficiency uprating. The scheme has to be serious. It has to have the right amount of money to make a difference. The timescale has to be long enough for people to be able to do the work properly and have confidence in the system, and for the variety of necessary measures to be put in place, including, as the Chair of the EAC said, measures that suit the different circumstances of each household and the time required to get the work done.
We also ought to take lessons from the element of the scheme that had some purchase—namely, the local authority part, which has been a relative success. Although it made local authorities adhere to breakneck timescales, they were nevertheless often able to deliver because they were not an American consultancy firm trying to do things by numbers overseas. Rather, they were on the ground with their local communities, engaged in the work. That is another lesson that we ought to draw from this fiasco—give it to local agencies that can actually do the work properly on the ground and make it happen on a daily basis, rather than run it remotely from the centre.
We can draw some valuable lessons from this fiasco. I am tempted to say that it is such a dreadful catastrophe for the cause of energy efficiency activity that, in the words of Stanley Holloway,
“someone’s got to be summonsed!”
It is a shocking failure of Government.
I hope that the lessons will have been at least partly learned by the time the heat in buildings strategy comes out, which, as hon. Members have mentioned, has been delayed on several occasions. I should not say this as a shadow Minister—it should be for the Minister to say this—but I am confident that it will come out shortly. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that it will come out in the next few days or weeks and that it will contain a number of the lessons mentioned this afternoon for bringing forward the ambition of energy efficiency.
All of that is contained in the energy White Paper. I hope that the heat in buildings strategy will address itself to the width and depth of the task in front of us. We know that that we have not appreciated the scale of the task, but I hope that the strategy will, finally, address what we actually need to do to achieve our energy efficiency targets.
Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)
We need to leave a couple of minutes for Mr Dunne to wind up at the end. We now go to the Minister, Paul Scully.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. Rest assured that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) will have plenty more than two minutes to summarise the debate. I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on securing this debate on the future of the green homes grant scheme, which has been conducted in a conducive way despite concerns about the scheme.
It is really important that as we discuss the future of the green homes grant scheme, we also discuss the wider future of decarbonising our country’s 30 million buildings to meet our target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. As hon. Members know, the Government’s aim is to reduce emissions by 78% from 1990 levels, which is one of the most ambitious targets in the world and is supported by our sixth carbon budget, which limits the volume of greenhouse gases emitted over a five-year period from 2033 to 2037, taking the UK more than three quarters of the way towards reaching net zero by 2050.
The carbon budget will ensure that Britain remains on track to end its contribution to climate change while remaining consistent with the Paris agreement temperature goal to limit global warming to well below 2° C and pursue efforts towards 1.5° C. In the energy White Paper, as has been mentioned, we set out our ambition and approach to get as many homes as possible to energy performance certificate band C by 2035, which includes our aim to deploy 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028. We need far more households to heat their homes without burning fossil fuels such as oil and gas.
My right hon. Friend talked about the EPC, which is a widely available, standardised means of assessing sustainability. We will not be getting rid of the EPC, but none the less we will continue to make improvements to its accuracy, as outlined in the action plan as a result of the consultation we have undertaken.
Other ways and means of tackling climate change are outlined in the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, which sets out how we will mobilise £12 billion of Government investment, and potentially three times as much from the private sector, by 2030. That will level up regions across the UK and support up to 90,000 highly skilled green jobs across the UK in this Parliament, and up to 250,000 by 2030. The UK is committed to taking advantage of the huge economic opportunities that the transition to a green economy offers, including large-scale job creation and even more jobs being supported in the green economy.
In addition, as we have heard, 2021 is one of the most important years for global Britain as we host the G7 presidency and the UN climate change conference, COP26, in Glasgow in November. We know that the world is watching as we lead the way in reducing carbon emissions from homes, businesses and public sector buildings.
I welcome the news from my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) about his pre-COP26 conference in his constituency. It is excellent that as well as doing the countrywide conference that brings global attention to the UK, and Glasgow in particular, we all do our bit as champions within our constituencies. I congratulate him on that.
We are making excellent progress across much of that investment; substantial sums have already been spent on schools, hospitals and social housing as well as in privately owned or rented homes, particularly in partnership with local authorities. Just one part of that is the green homes grant voucher scheme, which was launched to help householders offset the cost of installing energy efficiency measures in their homes. Despite the fact that the scheme received many applications, as we heard, it did not deliver at the rate and scale that we originally hoped. As a result of that, and because the Government remain committed to reaching our ambitious goals by 2050, we had to look again at how best to support householders in decarbonising their homes at a rapid pace. We took stock and considered our approach. We reviewed our options and made a decision to close the voucher scheme, which ceased taking new applications at 5pm on 31 March.
As we have heard, the Government have already issued more than 62,000 vouchers, worth more than £262 million, and we continue to process more each and every day. No one who made a valid application by that closing date will miss out, but clearly, as we have heard, that does not mean that our work is finished. We are now refocusing our efforts and substantial funding on alternative approaches.
The Government will of course reflect on the lessons learnt from the closure of the green homes grant voucher scheme. In response to the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), we will learn those lessons, but our ambition is not diminished and we will very much listen to everyone who will be involved with us in the collective drive towards net zero, especially on decarbonising homes, which is so important. Other elements of the work on decarbonising homes have seen great successes. The local authority delivery element of the green homes grant scheme, for example, aims to support measures such as insulation and low-carbon heating. Of around 50,000 low-income households, both privately owned and rented, it is important, as we have heard, to make sure that we can address and support the people who cannot otherwise go about this very easily.
To date, the scheme has allocated £500 million of funding across the English regions. That investment is already being felt in constituencies across the country. For example, Bristol City Council has been awarded £2.6 million to retrofit 275 homes, reducing energy bills and creating warmer homes for low-income households. That project plans to install solar and solar thermal panels and underfloor insulation to keep residents warm through the winter months. The scheme, alongside the social housing decarbonisation fund, has now seen the Government commit an additional £300 million to green homes upgrades. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) talked about “only” £300 million, but we cannot dismiss telephone number figures of investment. I think that in most contexts many people in this country would look askance at “only” alongside £300 million.
Such investment means that for the financial year 2021-22 we are investing more than £1.3 billion for energy efficiency and low-carbon heating up and down the country. That not only ensures that we continue to cut carbon, but supports tens of thousands of jobs across the country and reduces heating costs for those most in need, helping to build back greener and level up in one go.
I was pleased to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) about the work that he is doing on sustainable materials. Yes, we can decarbonise homes and have retrofitting, but it is important that we plan for the future. We are embedding new practices with new materials, or newly purposed materials, because wood is hardly a new material, but it is very sustainable if we get it right. My hon. Friend’s contribution is important to our thinking and to our drive to net zero, so I thank him and congratulate him on his work.
As the world looks to recover from the impact of coronavirus on our livelihoods and our economy, we have the chance to build back better and invest in making the UK a global leader in green technologies. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow once again for securing this debate. I appreciate all the comments that have been made, and we are listening. My colleagues, the Energy Minister and other Government Members, will reflect on the words said today as we redouble our efforts to make sure, as I have said, that we keep to our ambition as we drive to net zero by 2050.
Philip Dunne [V]
I want to start by thanking the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), for his wind-up speech and for undertaking to listen to the contributions in this debate, and indeed to the submissions made by the Committee that I am proud to chair. Before I respond to the points made, I also want to thank others who have participated, particularly the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), the Chair of the BEIS Select Committee, who co-sponsored this afternoon’s debate with me. We work closely together on climate change issues, and it was good to see his characteristically measured and impressive contribution to the debate. We look forward with great interest to the results of the inquiry that is being undertaken into energy efficiency measures.
I also want to thank other Members who participated in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) made an impassioned plea for contractors in his constituency. Notably, he called for future measures to help those who are fuel-poor, as did the hon. Members for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley).
In the debate, although we were talking about an issue that is, let us face it, not the Government’s finest hour in implementing a new support scheme, it was particularly striking that there was not a great deal of party point-scoring. The measured tone of the debate was about learning lessons to ensure that in future, whatever scheme is put in place to replace the green homes grant scheme, it is effective and can deliver on what is, frankly, and clearly from this debate, a very shared objective. In that respect, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), who speaks for the Opposition, was characteristically measured in his tone, too, for which I am very grateful.
On contributions, I cannot wind up without thanking for his comments my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), who plays such a valuable role on my Committee. He focused much of his remarks on ensuring that, when we look at energy efficiency measures, we give due credit to the embodied carbon impact of the materials used. He makes a very good point: we cannot just carry on using materials that in themselves create enormous carbon cost in their production. That is why he was persuasive in encouraging our Committee to undertake a new inquiry, which we have just launched, into the sustainability of the built environment, looking in particular at construction materials, in which he has such an interest.
To conclude, I encourage the Minister, in his discussions in the Department and with the industry, to ensure that we do not seek just to introduce headline-grabbing measures. This week there has been a rumour that the Government are thinking about scrapping gas boilers, introducing an end date for their installation. That would be as striking for domestic buildings as the ban on internal combustion engines in the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 will be for that industry.
There is a major difference, however: the motor vehicle industry has been working on alternative-fuel vehicles for many years and has hundreds—literally, I think, this year 100—of new models coming into its showrooms, for people to start buying now. We are not in that position in domestic heating. In 2019, the last year for which figures are available, 1.7 million gas boilers were installed in our homes. In the same year, 30,000 heat pumps were installed. That is 56 times as many gas boilers as heat pumps.
As we have discussed, just installing a heat pump will not cause a home to qualify for a higher energy performance certificate band. The technology is there, but what is not there yet is what will be required for a new scheme: it should only be introduced, in my view, when the technology is available and affordable and when it is achievable to replace such a significant part of the construction industry’s standard operating practice with something that can be installed because enough people are skilled to do so.
These measures are not simple. A great deal of thought is needed for their introduction, and work with the industry to ensure that any successor scheme to the green homes grant has a real prospect of restoring confidence to the industry and to consumers, so that it can be adopted. I very much look forward to what the heat and buildings strategy will say, and to the spending review this autumn.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the future of the Green Homes Grant voucher scheme.
Written Statements
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Empowering British Citizens Overseas to Participate in our Democracy
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for the Constitution and Devolution (Chloe Smith)
As we move to the new chapter in our nation’s history and embrace the global opportunities it presents, we must ensure that the voices of our citizens across the world are heard. As committed to in the Government’s 2019 manifesto, we will be bringing forward measures in the upcoming Elections Bill to scrap the arbitrary 15-year limit on the voting rights of British expatriates and make it easier for more British citizens living overseas to vote in UK parliamentary elections.
Delivering votes for life
In an increasingly global and connected world, modern technology and accessible air travel have strengthened the ability of our expatriates to retain deep ties to the United Kingdom. Many still have family here, a lifetime of hard work in the UK behind them and some will have even fought for our country. What is more, decisions made in the UK Parliament on foreign policy, defence, immigration, pensions and trade deals directly affect British citizens who live overseas. It is therefore right that they have a say in general elections and are well supported to do so.
Currently, to register as an overseas elector, British citizens need to have been registered to vote in UK parliamentary elections in the UK within the last 15 years. This arbitrary and anachronistic time limit will be removed in changes to be brought forward in the Elections Bill, enabling British citizens who were previously registered or resident in the UK to vote in UK parliamentary elections, no matter how long ago they left.
Being previously registered to vote or having previous residence in the UK denotes a strong degree of connection to the UK and so this extension of voting rights sets a sensible boundary for the overseas franchise while maintaining consistency with the existing system.
Improving participation for British citizens living overseas
The registration period for overseas electors will be extended from one year to up to three years and changes will be made to enable electors to reapply or refresh their absent vote arrangements (as appropriate) at the same time as renewing their registration. This will make it easier for them to remain on the register with an absent vote arrangement in place ahead of elections.
Improvements will also be made to the registration process. Changes to the current identity verification processes for overseas electors will bring this part of the registration process in line with the process for domestic electors and make it easier for overseas electors to have their identity verified. We will also put in place clear rules regarding the address under which an overseas elector may register, ensuring that the individual continues to have a demonstrable connection to a UK address. This will also have the advantage of maximising continuity with the existing registration system, which electors and administrators are familiar with.
Together, these changes will help to ensure that overseas electors are able to participate in our democracy and provide extra assurance for them to have an appropriate absent vote arrangement in place ahead of elections.
Ensuring British citizens can have their say
The Government’s Elections Bill will place British citizens’ participation at the heart of our democracy, and its broad range of measures give voters the confidence to have their say in a truly global Britain—no matter how, or where, they choose to cast their votes.
In addition to opening our democracy to British citizens living overseas, the Elections Bill will also: improve access to voting for electors with disabilities; tackle electoral fraud by post, proxy, in polling stations or through intimidation and undue influence; prevent foreign interference by hostile actors; and increase transparency and accountability within our elections.
[HCWS62]
Service Complaints Ombudsman 2020 Annual Report on Service Complaints System
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Leo Docherty)
I am pleased to lay before Parliament today the service complaints ombudsman’s annual report for 2020 on the fairness, effectiveness and efficiency of the service complaints system.
This report is published by Mariette Hughes—her first as Ombudsman—and covers the fifth year of operation of the reformed service complaints system and the work of her office in 2020.
The findings of the report will now be considered fully by the Ministry of Defence, and a formal response to the ombudsman will follow once that work is complete.
[HCWS60]
Bovine TB
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I am updating the House on today’s publication of the Government’s response to a consultation and call for views on a range of proposals to help eradicate bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in England by 2038. This is a step towards some of the key priorities that this Government set out in response to Charles Godfrey’s independent review of our bTB eradication strategy in March 2020.
BTB is one of the most difficult and intractable animal health challenges that England faces today. In the last year, over 27,000 cattle in England were compulsorily slaughtered to tackle the disease. This causes devastation and distress for hard-working farmers and rural communities and is damaging our reputation as world leaders in high standards of animal health and welfare. Tackling bTB in England is costing taxpayers over £100 million each year.
The bTB eradication strategy, published in 2014, is making progress, with sustained reductions in the number of new cases and proportion of cattle affected by the disease in the highest incidence areas. However, to achieve bTB-free status for England by 2038, we need to build on this momentum.
The consultation focused on proposals to transition away from the current badger control policy and improve diagnostic testing to root out bTB more effectively. Badger culling is one of the most contentious and divisive policies within our bTB eradication strategy and our latest consultation has continued to attract scrutiny.
We should continue to proceed with the transition to non-lethal wildlife controls as set out in the consultation and striking a timely balance for this transition will be crucial. Current policy enables four years of intensive culling in defined areas, with scope for a further five years of supplementary culling. I intend to stop issuing intensive cull licences for new areas post 2022 and enable any new licences issued from 2021 to be cut short if the chief veterinary officer considers this acceptable based on the evidence available at the time. Supplementary cull licences will be limited to two years and no further such licences will be issued in any areas in which supplementary culling has previously been licensed. We will develop a monitoring system to track the badger population and disease in badgers in former culling areas to monitor any trends. This data will be published, thus supporting any future decision making.
The consultation also put forward proposals for targeted changes to our cattle testing policy to ensure we root out the disease in herds with sustained problems, while further helping to protect low risk bTB areas. I am committed to introducing these policy changes as soon as is practicable. The parallel call for views included longer term options for further changes and improvements to bTB testing, supporting responsible cattle movements and rewarding low-risk cattle purchasing behaviour. It also discussed ways we can continue to adapt how we pay compensation or indeed, reward farmers for “best practice”. We are considering the evidence submitted through consultation responses to determine next steps.
I am committed to accelerating work to deliver a deployable cattle vaccine by 2025. This will be a powerful additional tool in the fight against bTB and will support the staged transition away from culling in ways which will help to protect gains made and ensure incremental progress continues to be made towards disease eradication. Field trials are expected to commence in June.
There is no single solution to the scourge of bTB and we must continue to deploy a range of policy interventions. New industry initiatives, such as the CHECS TB entry- level membership, have launched. The successor to the TB advisory service will also provide the practical help many herd owners need.
Working together, I have full confidence that we can continue to turn the tide on this terrible disease and achieve our long-term objective of eradicating it in England by 2038.
[HCWS59]
Draft Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)
I have today published as a draft the Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 and an accompanying draft explanatory memorandum. The draft regulations amend the Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships) Regulations 2008 (SI 2008/2924) to implement international air pollution standards—agreed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO)—for the control of pollutant air emissions from ships.
The draft regulations implement several air quality measures to control sulphur and nitrogen oxide (SOx and NOx) emissions from ships. These are contained in annex VI of the international convention for the prevention of pollution from ships (MARPOL). The measures are already in force for shipping internationally, but the measures must also be incorporated into our domestic legislation to enable them to be enforced effectively. Most notably, to discourage non-compliance by foreign flagged vessels in UK waters, which would be detrimental to public health and the environment in UK coastal areas.
The draft regulations apply the global 0.5% sulphur limit on marine fuel used by UK flagged ships operating outside European waters and prohibit ships from carrying high sulphur fuel in their fuel tanks to help compliance in international waters. They also apply the stricter NOx tier III limit on new ships operating in
“the North Sea Emission Control Area”
(including the English channel) which came into force internationally this year. The draft regulations also enable certain revisions to MARPOL annex VI to be implemented more rapidly using the ambulatory reference power in section 306A of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995.
The draft regulations are being published 28 days before they are due to be laid for approval by each House of Parliament. This is required under paragraph 14 of schedule 8 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 because part of the text in the 2008 regulations which the draft regulations amend includes amendments previously made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. The amendments to the 2008 regulations which were introduced under the European Communities Act were made by the Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships) (Amendment) Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/895) and the Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships) and Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 (SI 2014/3076). Further details are contained in the annex to the draft explanatory memorandum.
The draft regulations complement the Government’s ambition to tackle all sources of air pollution, making our air healthier to breathe, protecting nature and boosting the economy as set out in the clean air strategy 2019. In July 2019, the Government published the “Clean Maritime Plan” to address both air quality pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. The plan sets out an ambitious path to the transition to zero emission shipping supporting the achievement of the legislative target for the UK to reach net zero emissions across the economy by 2050. The plan outlines the Government’s ambitions that by 2025 all new vessels for use in UK waters are being designed with zero emissions capabilities, and that by 2035 zero emission marine fuel infrastructure (bunkering) is widely available across the UK.
The draft regulations, the accompanying draft explanatory memorandum and the impact assessment can be found on gov.uk.
[HCWS61]
Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now begin. Some Members are here in person 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 will immediately adjourn the Committee. If there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for five minutes. The time limit for the first debate is one hour.
Climate Change: Targets
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Sheehan
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that legislation aligns with their ambition for the United Kingdom to be a global leader in achieving its climate change targets.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, I start by thanking all noble Lords who will be speaking in this debate. I look forward to their contributions, which will fill in some of the gaps left by mine.
This year presents a unique opportunity for the UK to really grasp the nettle of collaborative global action on climate change. It is an existential issue for our planet and we owe it to our children and future generations to get this right. For us to lead the world we must, when all eyes are on us, present a clean domestic scene, which means some good housekeeping. My husband will testify that I am no domestic goddess but I can dust—maybe not behind fridges—and I can hoover a bit. So let me tell noble Lords why I think a bit of housekeeping is in order.
During my time as Lib Dem spokesperson for international development I came across various anomalies, the most egregious of which was the fact that at the same time as we were spending ODA to combat dreadful climate-related disasters overseas, such as the effect of famine in the Sahel due to increasing desertification, we were also investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure in Africa and elsewhere in the world, including in the North Sea. What really struck home was the injustice of those least responsible for climate chaos being the ones who suffer most.
According to Global Justice Now, since the 2015 Paris Agreement was signed, approximately £568 million of UK aid has been invested in fossil fuel projects overseas. If we include export credits provided by UK Export Finance for fossil fuels, that figure rises to £3.9 billion. This makes a nonsense of our commitments to tackling climate change—not just the Paris Agreement but the sustainable development goals and our own Climate Change Act. We cannot be serious about keeping global temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2 degrees centigrade, or about domestic net-zero targets, if we continue to export fossil fuel infrastructure, the ultimate source of the problems we face today.
The situation is worse than that. Our domestic legislation has incoherencies that reverberate here at home. In 2019 I tabled my Private Member’s Bill, the Petroleum (Amendment) Bill, the essential aim of which was to stop the issuance of new licences for oil and gas exploration, to put in place plans to safeguard jobs and livelihoods of communities as we start to phase out existing fossil fuel infrastructure, and to stop UK support for new fossil fuel projects abroad.
For now, I will focus on what is happening here at home. Existing legislation currently pulls government Ministers in different, incompatible directions. For example, the Petroleum Act 1998, as amended by the Infrastructure Act 2015, confers a duty on the Oil and Gas Authority to maximise revenues from petroleum, while the Climate Change Act commits Governments to aim for a target of net-zero carbon by 2050. To tidy up this anomaly, my Private Member’s Bill proposes that the Petroleum Act 1998 be amended so that its principal objective is no longer maximising economic recovery of UK petroleum, but instead is aligned to the otherwise competing statutory aim for a target of net-zero carbon by 2050 in the Climate Change Act 2008, as amended in 2019.
Since the Bill was tabled, the OGA, in July 2020, carried out a consultation to revise its MER UK strategy. It published its response to the review in December. Can the Minister confirm that the principal objective of the OGA is still to maximise economic recovery? If so, how can the Government continue to justify the OGA’s remit to, in effect, extract every last drop of petroleum from the North Sea, given that our existing fields alone will take us over our nationally determined Paris commitment?
On 24 March, the Government announced a new deal with the oil and gas sector, very much in line with the OGA response to its own review. In essence, the sector should reduce its own carbon footprint, deliver carbon capture and storage, and support the development of blue hydrogen. This came as a bitter disappointment to many climate campaigners, because it does not address the fundamental issue that the sector’s raison d’être—the extraction of fossil fuels—is the fundamental root of the problem of greenhouse gases that we face today. Nor does it recognise that carbon capture and storage is not a proven technology at scale. It remains decades away and is technology for the future. The Government’s deal with the sector shows little appreciation of the urgent need to act now. At the very least, we must draw a line under the issuing of new licences, as the International Energy Agency has done in its very recent landmark report, Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy System. What will be our response to the report? Does the Treasury intend to publish its own road map to net-zero emissions by 2050? Such an exercise is sorely needed and would concentrate minds on how we will go about this issue.
While I am on the subject of the oil and gas sector, I should mention tax breaks, and some other supports and subsidies that the sector enjoys. It was good to read in the media that the UK wants to lead discussions at the G7 to end fossil fuel subsidies. Sadly, the fossil fuel industries still get huge government subsidies. Annual fossil fuel subsidies were valued at £5.2 trillion dollars in 2017, equal to 6.5% of the global economy, according to the IMF, which also found that more efficient fossil fuel pricing in 2015 would have cut carbon emissions by a whacking 28%. The impact of success at the G7 and, one hopes, the G20 that follows, will be huge.
However, in this regard, the UK has, up to now, been a bit of a laggard, with a major sticking point on how subsidies are defined. What definition will we be asking our G7 partners to sign up to—the IMF’s, the OECD’s, the WTO’s, or will it be custom made? Also, is cutting the tax on North Sea profits, a policy introduced by George Osborne in 2015-16, a fossil fuel subsidy? Today’s tax rates in the UK are so low that in some years, the tax take is less than the subsidies, making UK oil revenues negative. As a result, UK oil and gas extraction is more profitable than most other UK sectors, is more profitable than oil and gas are in most other countries and enjoys benefits not extended to companies producing renewable energies. Rather than requiring companies to clean up after themselves, the UK taxpayer pays roughly half the cost of decommissioning oil platforms and cleaning pollution. Will these anomalies be addressed at the G7 leaders’ summit? These serious issues must be addressed if we are to match fine words with commensurate action.
In the short time I have left, I shall say a few words about planning, because it is so important to get this right. The Government have indicated they wish to reform the planning system and have plans to introduce a new planning law within this Parliament. However, what is needed more urgently is to bring existing planning rules into line with net-zero legislation. The national planning policy statements, which cover large projects, are a gaping hole and urgently need to be updated. The fiasco surrounding the Cumbrian coal mine decision is a salutary reminder of how badly things can go awry when legislation at all levels of government is not tightly aligned to the net-zero targets.
In conclusion, what does the Minister think of the Swedish Government’s climate action plan, published in December 2019, in particular their commitment to review all relevant past legislation and objectives for their compatibility with the plan, as well as to align future legislation? Our children deserve no less.
Lord Lennie (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for securing and introducing this important debate.
The climate crisis is the single greatest long-term challenge we face. We know the importance of aligning legislation with our climate change targets. We noticed recently, however, that some legislation was absent from the recent Queen’s Speech; in particular, the energy Bill was not included. Only a couple of months ago, the Minister himself said:
“The government intends to bring forward an Energy Bill as soon as parliamentary time allows. The Energy Bill will aim to enable progress to be made on commitments made by the Prime Minister in his Ten Point Plan as well as deliver policy commitments set out in the Energy White Paper.”
What happened? Will progress now be stifled rather than enabled without it? Regardless, the central challenge is whether targets are matched by the scale of action required in this decisive decade. The biggest concern is the growing evidence that there is a wide gap between rhetoric and reality. We are way off meeting our fifth and sixth carbon targets. The Green Alliance estimates that policy announcements will lead to only 26% of the reductions necessary to get the UK on track for 2030. How far off does the Minister think we are from meeting our fifth and sixth carbon budgets?
We desperately need a comprehensive plan for the massive task of retrofitting and changing the way we heat millions of homes, with the finance to back it up. The heat and building strategy was supposed to be published this year, but it has been delayed and delayed. Can the Minister promise that when it is finally published, it will contain the plan we need? The Treasury’s crucial net-zero review was due in autumn 2020, then promised in spring 2021. It is still not delivered. When will it finally see the light of day? From the underinvestment in hydrogen to the uncertainty of when 60% of our offshore wind will be domestic, the examples go on and on. Ultimately, we need a comprehensive green new deal. Only this will allow the UK to meet its climate change targets.
Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for securing this very helpful debate.
I have raised on several occasions the urgent need for the Government to publish their hydrogen strategy, which presumably will require legislation to put into effect. As Bill Gates said in his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, significant investment in research into new technologies will be necessary if we are to reach net zero by our target date. He also said that some of the investments will be very costly and high risk; therefore, they will have to be funded by Governments. He also said that private investment will do lots of the heavy lifting in terms of investment, given appropriate government support. Does the Minister agree with Bill Gates’s assessment? Do the Government yet have a date for the publication of their long-awaited hydrogen strategy to move things along? Does the Minister understand the urgency of this issue? I am sure he does.
Another very important issue is the size of the hydrogen target by 2030. Why is this country’s target so low, at five gigawatts? This is the same as for Scotland alone, for example. Can we really not do better than that? The Government have claimed that their forthcoming hydrogen target will be world-leading—really? If so, some urgent work surely needs to be done to revise substantially upwards the five-gigawatt target. Finally, the energy White Paper set a target of one gigawatt of low-carbon hydrogen by 2025. Can the Minister spell out how the Government expect to meet this target? Is he content that the target is adequate if we are to achieve our final target for 2030? The Minister knows that this country has a brilliant opportunity to create lots of high-quality jobs across the UK in the hydrogen industry. I would be grateful if the Minister could give the House a clear indication of when the hydrogen strategy will finally be published.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on calling this debate and on her excellent introduction. In my brief time today, I would like to urge the Government to consider the use of pension scheme assets in our battle against climate change. They are the ideal long-term capital source to mitigate risks and prepare for both the known and unknown unknowns that we are facing. Climate change is potential catastrophe, both for us and for countries globally, and for future generations. We perhaps have an opportunity, if my noble friend agrees, to use our huge sums—more than £1 trillion—in pension assets, which are significantly larger than those in most other countries, to build back better; to ensure that traditional investments in global industries do not become worthless in the transition to low-carbon economies; and to address some of the inconsistencies in our policy stance, outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. Pension assets could support a hydrogen strategy; they could encourage fossil fuel reduction and encourage traditional energy companies to diversify and build alternative sources of energy before their assets become stranded. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, has been working on some of this for a while and talking about capital requirements and risk-weighting for such assets. I would be grateful if my noble friend could give the Committee his thoughts on those.
I have two further quick points. Do the Government have targets for building new, eco-friendly homes, especially for older people to downsize to, while ensuring that existing housing stocks can be retrofitted and upgraded to be more energy efficient? Do the Government have plans to ban cryptocurrencies from all regulated activities, given the measure of carbon emissions entailed in this socially worthless exercise?
Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet and add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on her ongoing work in this area. This week we have seen a spotlight on disaster planning and crisis management. In climate change, we face an even greater potential catastrophe than Covid—what the Government themselves this week called the planet’s greatest threat. We need a response that is comprehensive, systemic and integrated, and brings together disparate contributions from many sectors into a coherent whole. It requires leadership from the Government, and a climate lens on all policies and legislation, if we are to ensure delivery not only of our domestic agenda but of our international aims for COP 26, leading, in the words of President Biden,
“by the power of our example.”
In regard to legislation, we are not there yet. Two crucial Bills in the last Session contained no reference to climate obligations whatever until changes were made in this House. That problem continues in this Session, with silence on the issue of climate in the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill and a potential lack of consonance between the Environment Bill and the planning reform Bill.
Can the Minister say today how the Government intend to ensure early and comprehensive scrutiny of all policies and legislation against their green agenda? Are they, for example, looking at the work being done in this area by other countries such as New Zealand and Sweden? Finally, can he assure me that the Cabinet Committee on Climate Change, which has met so infrequently, will now be fully engaged in leading the systemic co-ordination and integration that is so urgent?
Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]
While there is no doubt about the ultimate objective of our climate change agenda, there are many choices—some very expensive, and some improbable of coming to fruition. People with possible solutions are keen to sell but, drawing on recent experience with the supply of PPE and ventilators during the pandemic, a willingness to sell does not equal a willingness to sell the right product at a competitive price.
How do Her Majesty’s Government propose to rank ideas as to their cost and deliverability? Are they aiming to establish a hierarchy of schemes to which resources should be targeted? I am anxious that we gather lower-hanging fruit first, because that has the greatest effect. I remind the Minister of the interest I expressed the last time we spoke in whether Ofgem’s objectives do in fact conform to the objectives of the Government’s policy on climate change.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for securing this debate and particularly for the way that she framed it as ensuring that legislation aligns. That seems to point us towards the Queen’s Speech and the need to mainstream climate and environmental issues in everything.
I want to pick out three Bills from the Speech, two obvious, one less obvious. The noble Lord, Lord Lennie, referred to the lack of an energy Bill in the Speech, although there is of course a Bill addressing energy, the draft downstream oil resilience Bill—so the only energy Bill we have is about oil. It talks about working with the sector and, in particular, about transferring to abatement technologies. Will the Minister acknowledge that the Bill is talking about the hard, inefficient way to store carbon? What we have with carbon capture and storage is oil, gas and coal in the ground—and leaving it in the ground is by far the cheapest and most efficient way to store carbon.
I move on to the planning Bill. This seems to divide the country into two areas: open-slather development in some parts, with a few other parts protected. It is a “sparing and sharing” approach. Yet we have seen the Government recently adopt—after a great deal of campaigning—a new nature target, which would seem utterly incompatible with allowing any more trashing of our desperately nature-depleted country.
Finally, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I come to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill. I spent this morning talking first to the Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum about food security and then to Building magazine about a national retrofitting strategy. Both stressed the need for skills, the need for people and the terrible shortage of labour supply. This Bill contains plans for a flexible, lifelong loan scheme. We need these workers and these skills; surely with education being a public good, we should not be asking people to take on the weight of loans—to have debt hanging around their neck as a burden. Surely, to deliver our climate and nature targets, we should be looking to fund this education from public spending.
Lord Mountevans (CB) [V]
My Lords, I add my congratulations to those offered to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on securing this important debate. There is no greater challenge facing humanity than containing and reducing global warming. I want to focus the lens on maritime, an area of significant challenge but one of great opportunity for the UK. Before I start, I pay tribute to the Minister, who kindly made time to meet me and some maritime colleagues last year—here, I should declare my unremunerated maritime interests as declared in the register promoting the UK’s maritime industries.
Maritime is now, very properly, being brought into government legislative requirements. The industry is committed to playing its part. Although it can be said that maritime is a lesser sinner in terms of emissions per tonne mile of freight moved, due to the scale of the industry, it has been estimated that it accounts for 2.5% to 3% of global emissions. It is early days, and the technology for zero-carbon main engines has not yet been commercialised. An additional challenge is to lay on power at ports to supply ships that are alongside with electricity.
So far, the Government have awarded £3 million to the maritime research and innovation institute and have set up a £20 million clean maritime demonstration competition, which is currently open. These initiatives are of course welcome to the industry. I should also mention one significant example of government support: £30 million from BEIS for a Strength in Places bid from Artemis in Belfast to build high-tech ferries. This is not specifically a green investment, but I believe there will be a green beneficial outcome.
These investments represent a start, but they are small and must be regarded as only a start, and they are less than those of competitor states. If we are to be successful in meaningfully reducing carbon output from shipping, a fundamental problem that we face is that vessel charterers and users are unlikely to pay for expensive new ships with as yet untried technologies, with owners therefore discouraged from investing. Carbon pricing is the elephant in the room. The industry needs urgently to know what form carbon pricing in the UK will take. It is essential that any funds realised from the maritime sector are reinvested in shipping and maritime.
Does the Minister agree that, with the right policy framework, Britain can attract international owners as well as orders for the shipyards that government and all of us are so keen should flourish?
Lord Sheikh (Con) [V]
My Lords, I commend the Government on their climate change ambitions and the leadership they have shown by increasing our commitment to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035 and achieving net zero by 2050.
As we prepare to host COP 26, which is now less than six months away, we must make sure that we have the proper legislation to deliver on our climate change goals. This means that we must work to support specific Bills in both Houses, such as the Environment Bill and the Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill, as well as making sure that our environmental commitments are properly considered in other legislation.
In New Zealand, all policy proposals going to Cabinet must have a climate impact policy assessment. Can my noble friend the Minister comment on the Government’s willingness to consider a similar process in the United Kingdom? Such checks would help us not only to meet targets but to avoid unintended negative impacts that could undermine our ambitions. They would also show the rest of the world that we were serious about being an environmental leader and encourage other countries to take similar steps.
In 2020, 78% of respondents to a Local Government Association climate change survey said that a lack of skills was a barrier to them tackling climate change. Does my noble friend the Minister have any comments on this, and can the Government tell us how they plan to address this knowledge and skills gap? We must make sure that policymakers, civil servants and those working in local government are properly trained so that legislation can be adequately in line with climate change ambitions and be properly implemented. Furthermore, we must drive forward legislation that develops proper skills for green jobs. Does my noble friend agree?
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on raising this important debate. I want to raise the issue of subsidies in two areas: wood and waste food. Currently, burning wood in power stations is much costlier than genuinely non-emitting and renewable electricity technologies. Burning wood exacerbates climate change and puts at risk our net-zero target and our desire to be a climate leader. It degrades forests and is a nightmare for wildlife. Black bears and pine martens are suffering in America, from where we get a lot of wood. It also emits deadly air pollution, which is linked to an array of health problems.
We direct scarce funds in the wrong direction. When he was a Back-Bencher, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, led the charge against these subsidies, yet new data reveals that the UK is the top subsidiser of bioenergy in Europe. We spent more than £1.9 billion in 2019 on such stuff, primarily to burn wood imported from overseas forests at places such as Drax power station. In 2020 Drax earned £832 million in direct government subsidies for biomass, and it benefits from multi-million-pound tax breaks, calculated to be worth £258 million in 2020. The Secretary of State is not powerless in this. He could amend the renewables obligation—the RO—and apply the GHG emissions intensity threshold. None of the pellets burned at Drax would qualify.
I now want to use my final 30 seconds to ask why we are still subsiding food waste for use as fuel. Currently, low or negative gate fees charged by AD plants for food waste collection disincentivise using food waste to feed people because they lower the cost of disposal. Some AD plants pay for food waste so that they can fulfil government contracts for energy. About 8 million tonnes of edible food waste occurs in the UK and 1.9 million tonnes of this currently goes to AD although a lot of it is edible.
In a recent survey, the public said that they find this an intolerable situation. Eight out of 10 said that the Government are completely hypocritical in continuing to facilitate forest loss in other countries, thereby potentially preventing other countries meeting their goals. I would like the Minister’s view on this.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on securing this debate. In the Queen’s Speech, the Government laid out many commitments for updating and toughening climate change legislation. That Speech focused on green investment and jobs, with particular reference to the existing measures set out in the Government’s 10-point plan. It sought to reiterate the UK’s commitment to achieving net zero by 2050 and to provide global leadership in tackling climate change. However, the Government have not made entirely clear how the legislative programme will be carried out and co-ordinated between departments, allowing for the climate and biodiversity goals. It seems nothing but an empty promise.
As time is constantly running out for action to be taken to achieve the net-zero goal by 2050, it is paramount that the Government begin immediate action to ensure that the existing legislative programme aligns with climate change targets and objectives. Will the Minister indicate what immediate action will be taken to do just that? Will it be before the international climate change conference in Glasgow later this year? There are at least 15 Bills in the Queen’s Speech that need to be aligned. It is worth noting that the Dasgupta review states that for the UK to change its legislative direction towards nature-positive outcomes, it is clear that the Government have to make system choices about investment and production processes in the public and private sectors. Will the Minister say whether the Government are up to that challenge of ensuring that the legislation meets the climate change and biodiversity challenges of this era?
Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]
My Lords, this year, we are organisers of both the G7 summit and COP 26. The UK has an obligation to demonstrate global leadership on climate and environmental policy, and build on our existing strengths to help others to face climate change risks. We are the first country to commit to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for initiating this debate.
Do the Government agree that government and the private sector need to work closely together on this? The CBI, of which I am president, welcomes the industrial decarbonisation strategy. We await the Government’s net-zero strategy and look forward to the heat and building strategy, the decarbonisation of transport plan and the hydrogen plan. On Monday, the CBI launched Seize the Moment, our economic vision for the next decade, whereby decarbonisation will be a key pillar in the years to come. We urge the Government and industry to make the most of this unique time and focus on building future growth and prosperity. We need ambitious private partnerships, sustainable financing and innovative clean tech solutions. We need to cut emissions, not only in the power sector but in transport, buildings and industry. Do the Government agree?
The CBI is happy to support the National Centre for the Decarbonisation of Heat at the University of Birmingham, of which I am the chancellor. Do the Government support such an initiative? Decarbonising heat is perhaps one of the most significant challenges on our journey to net-zero emissions. We must make progress on decarbonising emissions associated with our buildings; their heating is a significant factor.
At COP 26, the CBI would like to see progress on international negotiations so that countries are aligned in setting and delivering ambitious targets for emissions reduction. Two weeks ago, as president of the CBI, I was privileged to host the B7 summit. Climate change was of course one of the key themes. There was a lot of enthusiasm across the international business community for a more sustainable future. I repeat what I said on 17 May:
“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.’”—[Official Report, 17/5/21; col. 381.]
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sheehan for initiating this important debate and underlining, as other noble Lords have, the lack of alignment between policy and legislation on the one hand and our ambitious climate targets on the other.
In the short time I have, I want to focus on taxation and regulatory policy. Today’s Financial Times reports that the Chancellor has commissioned work on a carbon border tax. Can the Minister tell us when this work will be completed and how the Treasury will consult stakeholders? Can he also tell us what discussions the Treasury is having with our friends in the EU who are currently working on the same issue?
Secondly, can he tell us what consideration the Government are giving to fiscal measures to incentivise energy efficiency in homes, such as a stamp duty rebate for home owners who raise the efficiency band of their home within a certain period of purchase, as the Liberal Democrats have proposed?
Thirdly, can the Minister explain how the Government’s 2017 decision to scrap the graduation in vehicle excise duty by fuel efficiency—except for the first year—and their current proposal to scrap air passenger duty on domestic flights align in any way with our net-zero policy?
Fourthly, will the Government look at reforming the renewable transport fuel obligation so that not just green hydrogen produced from electrolysers directly connected to a renewable source but green hydrogen produced with electricity from renewable-only contracts qualifies? Will the Government consider waiving grid fees for electrolysers and scrapping VAT on green hydrogen? This is an important area, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said.
Finally, will the Government look again at how the regulatory system prices the cost of capital in relation to climate change risks? At present, we have the absurd situation where funding loans for new fossil fuel exploration and exploitation is often significantly cheaper than financing the new industries and technologies that we need to tackle climate change. If the Minister does not have time to answer all these questions and those from other Peers in his response, I would be grateful if he could write to us.
Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I have been impressed by many of the preparations for COP 26, but I am also struck by the fact that the policies and strategies of the Government, and of most individual departments, do not seem to reflect that priority; nor did the recent Budget; nor does the legislative programme for this parliamentary Session. The drafts of those Bills which we have seen so far do not do so either, including the supposed flagship in this context of the Environment Bill itself.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, I will focus on MHCLG and the so-called reform of planning. The noble Baroness emphasised the national planning statements, but it is also true that, currently, individual development proposals do not have to have mandatory net-carbon reduction criteria. Yet building construction, demolition and subsequent building use, if taken together, add up to nearly 40% of all emissions.
Developers propose schemes that do not have net-zero objectives or even an assessment of the greenhouse gas effects; the same is true of biodiversity. Local planning authorities increasingly nod through schemes whose carbon effect has not been properly assessed, let alone whether they would create a net reduction. The contribution to net zero should be written into all planning legislation and planning procedures, decisions and appeals. At the moment, it is a very low priority.
The big developers and big housebuilders favour demolition and rebuild over retrofit and refurbish, which is usually more environmentally sensible. The materials they use for much new build and rebuild are steel, glass and a lot of plastics. The glass, steel, concrete and hydrocarbon manufacturing processes take a lot of heat, most of which is currently based on fossil fuels. None of that is weighed in the assessment of major development projects. I could say the same about the building regulations from the department. My main point is that we need a powerful, concerted, cross-Whitehall structure to ensure that saving the planet is indeed a priority for all Whitehall departments and for the country as a whole.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, as I made clear to the House just a few weeks ago, climate change remains one of the most pressing issues of our time. While we of course presently find ourselves in the midst of a fairly vicious health pandemic, we will not abandon our climate change goals and risk further crises down the line. Let me reaffirm the point I made to the House a few weeks ago: this Government are absolutely determined to play their part in upholding the Paris Agreement and driving down our own greenhouse gas emissions.
To this end, we recently passed a significant milestone by beginning the process of enshrining the UK’s sixth carbon budget in law, proposing a target which would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. This is a huge commitment which the Government are working flat out to achieve. Despite the considerable challenges that we face, we can leverage our strengths to deliver a greener and stronger economy, and go further and faster to level up and accelerate the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, I am pleased to confirm that on 31 March 2021 the UK Government implemented their new policy and will no longer provide any new direct financial or promotional support for the fossil fuel energy sector overseas. This applies to any new ODA and investment, including support provided by UK Export Finance. We are working hard to drive down demand for fossil fuels. However, there will continue to be ongoing demand for oil and gas, which is recognised by the work of the independent climate change committee.
Through our recent landmark North Sea transition deal, we are the first G7 country to set in place an ambitious partnership to back the oil and gas industry to transition away to clean, green energy while supporting the tens of thousands of highly skilled jobs that exist in this sector. I agree that it is an existential issue and that we need to get it right. The foundation for delivering net zero is through the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for the UK to lead the world into a new green industrial revolution. This innovative programme sets out ambitious policies, backed by £12 billion-worth of government investment.
To respond to the point on legislation, and to a similar point made by my noble friend Lord Sheikh, this is key to delivering our climate change goals. We were the first major economy in the world to set a legally binding target to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across our economy by 2050 and in April we laid the draft legislation for the UK’s sixth carbon budget. As I said earlier, it proposes a target which would reduce emissions by 78% by 2035.
Under the Climate Change Act 2008, we have made significant progress in meeting our climate targets. We confidently met the first two carbon budgets and we are projected to meet the third out to 2022. We exceeded the required emissions reduction in the first carbon budget by 1.2%, and in the second by nearly 14%. Now is the time to double down and decrease our emissions further and faster.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, we do recognise the need for further action to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets. Our forthcoming sector decarbonisation strategies and our wider plans that deliver a green economic recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic will contain further proposals to support delivery of carbon budgets 4 and 5. We will also publish a comprehensive net-zero strategy ahead of COP 26, setting out the Government’s vision for transitioning to a net-zero economy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates, talked about the UK’s plans to develop hydrogen production. Working with industry, the UK is aiming for five gigawatts of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030. This is stretching but credible for the UK. We welcome the Scottish Government’s ambition, which will be important in developing low-carbon hydrogen production at scale within the UK. Our ambition will be supported by a range of policy measures, including the £240 million net-zero hydrogen fund, which was confirmed out to 2024-25, for co-investment in hydrogen production. We have committed to consulting on our preferred hydrogen business model in 2021 and set out a revenue mechanism to enable our new business models to bring through private sector investment. The noble Lord will be aware that we are developing our hydrogen strategy in partnership with industry, because while our ambition is important, the key ask from industry is that we have a clear revenue/business model to support delivery. That is why we are not rushing ahead with a strategy.
My noble friend Lady Altmann spoke about using pension scheme assets to assist in the battle against climate change—indeed, she has spoken about this a number of times before. Trustees of occupational pension schemes are, as she is well aware, independent of government and not bound by the commitments which the Government have signed up to. However, given the significance of the financial risks posed by climate change, the Government expect all investment decisions made by pension scheme trustees to take climate change into account. As of 2019, trustees of pension schemes with 100 or more members have been required to set out in their statement of investment principles policies on stewardship and on environmental, social and governance considerations, including climate change.
In the Pension Schemes Act 2021, the DWP took powers to require trustees to manage climate risks and opportunities to their savers, and to report on how they had done so. After two consultations, the DWP will lay the required regulations next month. If approved, they will come into force in October 2021 and will require larger occupational pension scheme trustees to undertake governance activities, assess how their scheme will fare in different temperature rise scenarios, calculate the emissions of their portfolio, and set targets. They will need to make annual disclosures about these activities in line with the TCFD recommendations. This will make the UK the first major economy to mandate TCFD reporting for its pensions sector.
The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, also asked about the Government’s plans for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As always, we stand ready to respond to emerging risks or changes in the market, and we will continue to monitor how cryptoassets are being used in the UK. Regarding the emissions they create, it is of course important to consider this in the context of the UK’s success in decarbonising the power sector. As she will be aware, between 1990 and 2019, the sector saw a reduction of 71% in emissions.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spoke about balancing our ideas to reach net zero with their cost and their deliverability. Our ambition to protect the planet goes hand in hand with supporting economic growth and prosperity across the UK. The 10-point plan will also help develop the cutting-edge technologies needed to drive down emissions in industries across the United Kingdom, such as through the significant investment in hydrogen that I spoke about earlier, and in carbon capture technologies through our £1 billion net-zero innovation portfolio. We have developed our plans to reach net zero centred around the UK’s strength, and there is huge potential in boosting innovation and advancing technology to help meet those ambitions. At every step on the path to net zero, we will of course put affordability and fairness at the heart of our reforms.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, analysis from the Climate Change Committee shows that to achieve net zero, GGR methods will be required to balance residual emissions from some of the most difficult to decarbonise sectors—for example, some parts of agriculture and aviation.
Last year, it was my pleasure to meet the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, and his colleagues to talk about the maritime sector, so let me respond to the points he made about the maritime industry. The UK will continue to play a prominent role in international forums, including at the International Maritime Organization, to encourage action from other countries to cut emissions from this sector. We will invest £20 million in the clean maritime demonstration programme to develop that clean maritime technology. We are already running hydrogen ferry trials in Orkney and we are due to launch a hydrogen refuelling power plant in Teesside, as we seek to revitalise our ports and coastal communities. The clean maritime demonstration competition includes feasibility studies on our sites, such as Orkney and Teesside. The competition will support the development of hydrogen and alternative fuel shipping hubs across the UK, enabling a number of clean maritime clusters.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, on legislation being key to delivering our climate change goals, I remind them that, as I said, we were the first major economy in the world to set a legally binding target and in April, we laid draft legislation for the UK’s sixth carbon budget. Under the Climate Change Act 2008, we have made significant progress in meeting those climate targets. As for the point the noble Lord raised about requiring every policy submitted to have a climate impact assessment, net zero has become an increasing priority for this Government. For the first time, we now have two Cabinet committees, chaired by the Prime Minister and the COP president-designate, to turbo-charge the net-zero transition and co-ordinate action across government. As the lead department for net zero, BEIS works in the centre of government and other key departments to ensure that net zero is factored into all our key policy decisions and future plans.
The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, also raised the point that in order to deliver on net zero, we must ensure that local authorities and the devolved Administrations are adequately involved and trained in delivery of net zero. We are working closely with our partners in the DAs and many local authorities to achieve those climate goals. Local authorities are key delivery partners in projects ranging from electric vehicle charging infrastructure to heat networks and energy efficiency schemes.
Unfortunately, I am running out of time, so I shall write to those noble Lords I have not had a chance to answer and that will be a more effective use of our time. I am grateful for the time of the Committee.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now resume. 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 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.
Child Poverty: Ethnicity
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Woolley of Woodford
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the review by the Office for National Statistics Child poverty and education outcomes by ethnicity, published on 25 February 2020, which found that Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black ethnic groups have a higher percentage of children living in low-income households than the national average; and subsequent to this, what assessment they have made of the importance of tackling child food poverty over the upcoming six-week school holidays.
Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB) [V]
I thank noble Lords for giving me the opportunity to begin this crucial debate. I wish it were longer, but an hour is better than nothing. I am particularly pleased that we are having this debate in the week of the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd—nine minutes and 29 seconds that moved the world. Some of us hope that it will change the world, but that remains to be seen. After his death, in front of our eyes, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of young people, black and white, marched on the streets of cities and towns in countries around the world. Central to their demand was that our institutions, our Governments. our people look at systemic inequality, particularly race inequality. That is why today’s debate is important.
To look, as we should, at child poverty in general, as many noble Lords know, 14.4 million people in this country are living in poverty. When we drill down to black, Asian and minority ethnic families and children, the data is stark. We should not only acknowledge and confront this but have the bravery to close those gaps and unleash the talent within our communities. I was struck by the data that the Social Metrics Commission unleashed on us about a year ago, which said that half our black families are living in poverty, many in deep poverty. I tried to get an image of what deep poverty looks like. It is not just about people going to the food banks that we have seen; it is the way that people look down on them when they go. It is also about their housing. I found data in a recent report showing that as many as 13% of black people are living in damp, poor accommodation. For Africans the figure is 10% and for Pakistanis 9%. That compares with 3% in white communities. We see the gulf in food poverty, in housing poverty and in unemployment. The TUC stated that black people have been hit four times harder by Covid-19 in being made unemployed. Unemployment rates for young black men are now rising. The national average is 4% and the figure is about 13% for young people, but for young black men it is nearer 40%.
We know how that pans out. We know where that goes, when people have no hope and no dignity. We see them being vulnerable. We see unscrupulous gangs waiting for them in the wings to take them under their spell and lead them to no good in this double pandemic of Covid-19, which has devastated black, Asian and minority ethnic communities disproportionately, and the George Floyd murder and protest. It has been a double pandemic—a perfect storm, if you like. Historians will look back at this time and ask but one question: when the systemic inequalities were laid bare by this double pandemic, what was our response? What did we do?
We have three choices. We can do nothing, we can do a little or we can do something great. For me, it is not good enough to build back better. I have seen the data from back then, and it was not great then. It was made worse by Covid-19. We parliamentarians have got to build a new better. We must have that 1945 moment, when we built the National Health Service, but we cannot do that if we are not brave. We cannot do it if we are steeped in denial, like Dr Tony Sewell, who saw all this evidence in education, health, jobs and housing and then confronted you and me, saying he found no systemic racism. We cannot deny the lived experiences of many out there, black and white. We must not.
We have an opportunity when bad things happen. We have a unique opportunity before us to have the greatest conversations and the greatest unity ever. Will we take it up? I have been fantastically impressed by that young man, the footballer Marcus Rashford, who has, in his own way, changed our world by demanding that we look at those uncomfortable truths—and he still plays great football and keeps on his track to guide us. Will the Minister listen to the range of experts, supermarkets and charities that make up Marcus Rashford’s End Child Food Poverty coalition and expand free school meals to all under-16s with a parent or guardian in receipt of universal credit or an equivalent benefit? They are slipping through the cracks, and that is on our watch. We cannot let that happen.
I want to be bigger than that. I know noble Lords want to be bigger and bolder than that. We have done right in disregarding the Tony Sewell report because we know it is dishonest and disingenuous and seeks to blame people for their situation, rather than to have an adult conversation. I hope we can have a conversation and meet the Minister and relevant experts in the field to have broader discussions and to formulate, in the absence of a race equality strategy, a framework that deals with these uncomfortable truths, so that we join the dots where Covid has laid them bare. We know where we need to look. We join the dots, in the short term, to make sure that kids do not go hungry; in the medium term, to start building; and, in the long term, so that all our young kids, families and communities can say that in 2021, after the anniversary of the tragedy of George Floyd, we came together—bigger, bolder, more creative, non-political and shoulder to shoulder—to have a plan that will deliver for all our communities. I thank noble Lords for this special time.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for tabling this QSD, which raises important questions about child poverty and ethnicity.
In addition to the sobering ONS statistics that it highlights, recent analysis from Leeds University shows how children from black, Asian and other minority ethnic backgrounds are at the greatest risk of deep poverty—to which the noble Lord referred—which is increasing among children generally. Indeed, the latest official data showed that two-thirds of the growing number of children in poverty are in deep poverty. What steps are the Minister’s department taking to address this growing problem?
Although the recent attention given to child food poverty is welcome, it is but a symptom of what the New Policy Institute has called a “child poverty disaster”, as earlier progress made in reducing child poverty has been all but wiped out in the past six years. The Trussell Trust, which has done so much to draw attention to growing food insecurity and reliance on food banks, is clear that the problem is not one of food but of people not having enough money for basics. The answer, it believes—as do others—lies at least in part in improved social security support, especially for children.
According to the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, social security spending on children has been cut by £10 billion in real terms since 2009-10. Analysts agree that social security cuts, both the general freeze and cuts targeted at larger families, have been a key driver in worsening child poverty. What assessment have the Government made of the likely impact on child poverty of: first, ending the £20 universal credit uplift this autumn as planned; secondly, retaining the two-child limit, when just yesterday three of the UK’s Children’s Commissioners called on the Government to scrap it, arguing that it is a clear breach of children’s human rights and pointing to its disproportionate impact on black and minority ethnic children; and, thirdly, refusing to review the benefit cap as a matter of urgency, as was called for by the Economic Affairs Committee back in December? Again, the cap has a disproportionate impact on black and minority ethnic children.
Tackling child food poverty, including among black and minority ethnic children, requires a comprehensive cross-departmental child poverty strategy that goes well beyond paid work, which is increasingly failing to provide protection against poverty. Where is it?
Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, on his excellent speech.
This ONS report is very interesting. I want to focus on food poverty. I particularly value the granularity of the data because it allows us to explore which elements of a child’s experience and background affect their educational attainment. The ONS has made a clear the link between poverty in general and educational attainment and, within that, the excessive representation of certain ethnic groups.
First, I believe that the provision of free holiday meals should be extended to all holidays when schools are closed for whatever reason. Children do not get hungry only during the major holidays. Secondly, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, that we should increase eligibility for free school meals and do more to encourage the parents of children in poverty of all ethnicities to apply for them. However, the ONS found that pupils who were eligible for free school meals —FSM—made less progress between the ages of 11 and 16 than those who were not eligible. This indicates that it is the poverty, not the meal itself, which affects educational attainment. However, free meals help to alleviate poverty and help with children’s health, albeit in a small way. For those reasons, will the Government consider reintroducing free lunches for all primary pupils at least, as was done for a time under the coalition Government? There was evidence of better attainment during that period. That may have been because, by removing the barriers to application and the stigma, more pupils who really needed a free meal got one.
However, the ONS found that educational outcomes for Bangladeshi and Pakistani children did not follow this lower attainment trend, since children of those ethnicities who were eligible for FSM had higher Progress 8 scores than the national average. Since the ONS also found that these children are more likely than average to live in low-income homes, this indicates that there is something else operating here to overcome the poverty effect. It is not that these ethnic groups have higher incomes than other Asian groups, but it could be something about the home background and the extent to which the parents positively engage with the child’s education. We need more research to find out whether this is the case. Can the Minister tell us if that will happen?
Of course, when we talk about child food poverty, we are not talking just about free lunches. It is important to make sure that children get a good breakfast by increasing support to the excellent voluntary organisations that provide them to ensure that they are available everywhere and throughout the holidays.
Finally, because all aspects of a child’s life link together to predict their life chances, it is vital to tackle child poverty in the round through housing, special education provision and all the other things that contribute to education and health inequality. Will the Minister comment?
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, it is obviously concerning that certain ethnic minority groups still have a greater percentage of children in low-income households than the national average and illuminating that children from Pakistani and Bangladeshi households perform higher than the national average at GCSE level despite this. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley has just indicated, there is a disparity here. Also, white Irish and white British pupils have the largest gaps between average educational outcomes for students eligible for free schools meals and those who are not, while Chinese, black African, Bangladeshi and Pakistani students have the smallest gaps. In other words, income is only one determinant that should be of interest to policymakers.
This further substantiates evidence from the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities that certain ethnic groups, such as black African, Indian and Bangladeshi pupils, perform better than white British groups once socioeconomic status is taken into consideration. The commission partly attributes such achievements to “immigrant optimism” and greater devotion than the native population to education as a way out of poverty. It recommends that the Government invests in research to understand what factors drive the success of high-performing pupil communities, including black African, Chinese, Bangladeshi and Indian ethnic groups, and how this can be replicated to support all pupils.
The CRED report has proven controversial for many reasons, but it contains important messages that we ignore to the detriment of those whom policy should support. Its findings and those of the ONS highlight that poor white British populations should also be seen as ethnicities deserving of policy attention. Poor white people in the north-east of England are the largest group with multidimensional disadvantages, such as income and life expectancy. Importantly, the north-east also has the largest proportion of lone-parent families in England after London. The CRED report made the neglected point that family breakdown is
“one of the main reasons for poor outcomes”,
and that
“Family is also the foundation stone of success for many ethnic minorities.”
Those ethnicities that are doing better educationally also have lower numbers of families where there is only one parent; for example, 40% of black African families and 6% of Indian families, compared with 60% of black Caribbean families. Strengthening families must be central to effective policy to tackle social inequality. As co-founder of the Family Hubs Network, I welcome the Government’s adoption of family hubs as official policy and their continued funding of the reducing parental conflict and supporting families programmes. Will the Minister say what the Government are doing to ensure that family hubs and these other strands of policy are outworked in a way that fully includes families from all ethnicities?
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]
My Lords, today, the political community reels from accusations made by the Government’s former most senior adviser that so many lives were cut needlessly short by a wanton disregard for their value during last year’s pandemic management. Surely we can at least come together with the pledge that no child should ever have their life blighted by hunger in the sixth wealthiest jurisdiction on the planet.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, a legendary campaigner for social justice, for this timely provocation, and I congratulate him on his new role in Cambridge. The Minister knows of my respect for her and my belief that she is one of most genuinely compassionate voices in a less-than-compassionate Government. I therefore ask her today whether she will consider using her voice to urge the Government to legislate for a right to food in the United Kingdom. I ask her to consider the enormous public health, educational and life expectancy benefits of providing a nutritious pre-school breakfast and a lunch for every single child in compulsory education. I urge her also, in the interests of better scrutiny and governance, to consider a new statutory duty on the Secretary of State to set out how much of any welfare benefit or legal minimum wage has been calculated for food. Will she meet me and other right-to-food campaigners after the Recess to discuss our proposals for the most basic levelling up of all?
As for the forthcoming half-term holiday, I wish all noble Lords safe and peaceful breaks, but I also fear for all those children and families who will undoubtedly struggle adequately to feed themselves during this period. How can we justify being a country of food banks next to investment banks? How can we justify even those in work on the front line of infection struggling to feed their families? How can we give thanks for a single meal with our own families while so many children go badly nourished or undernourished?
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl) [V]
I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and endorse every word she uttered. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Woolley and congratulate him on his new role.
Noting the ONS report, I wish specifically to highlight the educational achievements of Bangladeshi people, particularly in Tower Hamlets, notwithstanding the evident consequences of poverty, poor social outcomes, a lack of quality housing and, even more stark, unequal opportunities for employment. Experiences of institutional and structural racism, whether or not it is recognised by the Government, also have a profound impact on educational outcomes.
However, there is a parallel narrative. Through the efforts of my generation of councillors in the late 1980s and early 1990s, inspired by the historic struggles of Eric and Jessica Huntley, Bernard Coard and Professor Gus John, the Tower Hamlets parent and community team revolutionised and mobilised the delivery of education through supplementary schools and made it available to Bangladeshi children, who also suffered significantly as a result of the disgraceful ESN designation and the continuance of pupil referral units.
This report speaks of poverty without acknowledging the pernicious effects of discrimination, which blights and impoverishes children’s lives. They look on their schools and institutions, still disgracefully lacking representation, and the message to them remains that they do not belong to their society, that they do not have any stake in their institutions and that they are lesser citizens. We live in the shadow of the wealth of Canary Wharf, the City of London and Broadgate. I have raised this matter time and again. Despite an educated workforce and educated Bangladeshi graduates being available at arm’s length, more than 70% of those who work in these areas come from at least 70 miles away. These are uncomfortable facts which cannot be denied. We cannot be complicit with the endemic effects of institutional and structural discrimination on children’s futures.
What discussions can the Minister and her department undertake to ensure that employers in this area take seriously the Government’s agenda to strengthen these communities and eradicate the endemic discrimination which is harming our children’s futures?
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for instigating this debate and shall focus my comments on the section on page 6 of the report highlighting low income and material deprivation, the self-reported inability of individuals or households to afford 21 particular goods and activities. For children, these include, in order of weighting and priority, outdoor space or facilities nearby to play safely, a hobby or leisure activity and organised activity outside school each week. These factors, when considered with wider concepts of material deprivation, demonstrate that children in Bangladeshi households are the most likely of all ethnic groups to come off worst. Their material deprivation scores in the ONS study before the Grand Committee today stand at an appalling 29%. This is almost three times as high as white households.
The importance of play and investment in green spaces so that children can play safely in the community must be strengthened in the new planning system which will come before Parliament shortly. We must transform lives and communities through sport, recreation and physical activity for all our children. We must increase school sport and PE provision. We must tackle the growing crisis of obesity. We must improve teacher training in this context, especially in primary schools. We must transform lives and rebuild the younger generation, who carried the greatest burden of the coronavirus epidemic for the rest of us. They suffered from obesity, poverty and, above all, boredom, being cooped up with escalating mental health issues, to protect old generations and the most vulnerable from even greater hospitalisation and death rates. We must recognise the vital contribution of an active lifestyle to alleviate poverty, and we need policies for the communities which are most affected by material deprivation.
For all this, we urgently need a Cabinet Minister for children. We need the development of a youth well-being strategy that considers the wide discrepancies in our society highlighted in this report. They are heart-breaking. The interests of children are served by many government departments, local authorities and the voluntary sector, yet co-ordination of policy formulation and policy initiatives is too weak. It is time for action. It is time for a voice for children at the cabinet table.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for securing this debate and for so powerfully introducing it. The noble Lord referred to the lived experiences of systemic racism, something which has been built on centuries of discrimination, discrimination that very much continues, as powerfully testified by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin.
In this debate, I feel that I need to respond to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, particularly in the light of the fact that your Lordships’ House has recently spent a great deal of time and energy on the Domestic Abuse Bill. It is important that we do not send any kind of message that we need to continue families no matter what, given the damage that might be done to the individuals within them. We should acknowledge the impact of discrimination and poverty on the rate of family breakdown.
However, I want mostly to focus on two positive solutions. To ensure that I was taking a different approach from other noble Lords, I went to two research institutes in Sheffield. Both are associated with the University of Sheffield: SPERI, the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute, and the Institute for Sustainable Food. I want to focus on one sentence in a report from SPERI in December 2020 on food vulnerability during Covid-19. The report said that
“it is important to revisit, once again, the heated debate around the role of food charities as frontline responses to a lack of economic access to food.”
That has been carefully phrased in the form of academic discourse, but I put it to the Committee that, in the context we are talking about, none of us should rest until the last foodbank closes because of a lack of demand.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, food poverty is poverty. The underlying problem is a lack of income. She also talked about maintaining the boost to universal credit; that is a start, and the Minister will be well aware that I would much prefer universal basic income, but we need to look at incomes.
Secondly, the Institute for Sustainable Food focuses on the local as the site of food security resilience. I would like to point here to a group in Sheffield called Kenwood Community Growers, which was set up at the start of the pandemic and has been supplying community kitchens in Sharrow and areas with a large BAME community. What are the Government doing to focus efforts towards local food production and local growing, with people being able to produce food for themselves and have access to land and the resources that they need? Our BAME communities have skills, talents and energy that need to be utilised, supported and encouraged.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for this debate and for giving us the opportunity to consider the ONS report and, of course, systemic inequality in general. Hungry children cannot learn as effectively and efficiently as those who are well fed, or at least adequately fed and nourished. Teachers and teaching assistants know this only too well; they deal with hungry children in their classrooms every working day of their lives and respond by providing food, often at their own expense. Hunger in the classroom is, alas, not a new problem but education staff observe it to be an increasingly prevalent one.
As we all know, the pandemic has exposed significantly different health outcomes by ethnic group, while the ONS report has shown that Bangladeshi, Pakistani and black ethnic groups have more children living in low-income households than the national average. These children must therefore be exceedingly likely to be disproportionately affected by hunger daily. As we all know, it took a young man better known for football than politics to draw on his own lived experience and push the Government to do something on food which they had no intention of doing originally. Marcus Rushford is no longer just a football star but a champion for the right to food—and now food for the mind, too, with his campaign on reading and access to books.
The pandemic has hit many families’ finances hard. Eight out of 10 teachers say that they have seen this impact. We know that many schools have organised foodbanks and delivered food parcels to pupils in their homes—some, of course, even before the pandemic. We cannot allow our children and their families to languish in hunger during the summer break. Local authorities can be well placed to provide recreational and educational programmes and include food as part of that offer, but they need sufficient resources provided in a coherent and timely manner, and on an ongoing basis throughout the summer and during the autumn half-term. In fact, this should happen in all school holidays to ensure that no child or family slips through the cracks.
If the levelling-up agenda means anything, it must mean an end to child and family hunger and poverty. It must mean a right to food and an end to systemic inequality, which has left so many facing a future in which their own future is less bright than it could and should be.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, on securing this important debate. I will focus solely on one aspect of child food poverty, which is somewhat “offline”. I declare my interest as a lifelong sufferer from coeliac disease. This is an autoimmune condition; it is difficult to diagnose and is not an allergic reaction. There are a growing number of children, across all ethnicities, who suffer from gluten intolerance. For those from ethnic backgrounds, reading the small print on labels to check for the presence of wheat can be a challenge, especially if English is not their first language. When I was a child, a very limited range of gluten-free products was available and only on prescription. The Minister will know that a large number of clinical commissioning groups no longer provide gluten-free prescribing. Supermarkets now stocking a range of GF products is given as the reason. This assumes that those with gluten intolerance have money in their pockets.
Supermarkets dedicate sections to “free from” foods, including GF products. Although there are different types of GF pasta, sliced loaves, chocolate biscuits, et cetera, their cost is very different from that of products containing gluten. In the case of a loaf of bread, this can be three to four times as much as a loaf made from wheat. For families who are living on benefits, the cost of GF cereals, bread and flour may be beyond their reach. For a recently diagnosed child, the family may find the cost of the new diet prohibitive. A child usually having a packed lunch at school may find they cannot afford a gluten-free sandwich due to the price of the bread, so just what are they going to have for lunch? Would the Minister consider pressing her colleagues in the Department of Health to seriously reconsider returning gluten-free products to the prescription list?
There are those not qualifying for benefits who have fallen on hard times during the pandemic; the food banks are keeping them alive. It is important for the long-term health and welfare of coeliac sufferers that they stick to their diets at all times. A GF parcel from food banks will be essential for these sufferers.
Lastly, I turn to the school holidays. A child may have qualified for a GF school hot meal during the week, but what will happen to them during the school holidays? I urge the Minister to take account of the importance of regular, proper, balanced meals during those six weeks. As Marcus Rashford has demonstrated, it is a dreadful thing for a child to go to bed hungry. We are one of the richest countries in the world and should be ashamed that this is happening to large sections of our communities. I look forward to the Minister’s positive response.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for securing this debate and for the powerful challenge with which he kicked it off. The picture painted by these ONS statistics is both politically unacceptable and deeply sad. I note the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, about the educational results in the north-east and I look forward to seeing more action to support my region. However, what struck me most in this report was the clear reminder that child poverty has a disproportionate impact on certain minority-ethnic communities in the UK. Noble Lords have referred to the fact that children from Pakistani and Bangladeshi households are the most likely to live in low income; a higher proportion of children in black and other UKME households are more likely to be living in low income; and children in Asian households are two and a half times as likely as the national average to be in persistent low income. That is huge. These figures came out in February last year, before the pandemic even kicked in, showing that, even by that point, progress in the UK had stalled.
We know that, when kids grow up in poverty, there is a greater risk that all areas of their lives will be adversely affected. This includes lower grades and fewer opportunities and, later on, lower wages and poorer health. However, the Government are still sticking with policies, such as those outlined by my noble friend Lady Lister, that have already resulted in 4.3 million of our children growing up in poverty, and they are still planning to cut another £20 a week for millions of families in September, which will make things worse still. Given this evidence that poverty is not equally distributed, can the Minister tell us what assessment the Government have made of whether and, if so, how that £20 cut will disproportionately hit black, Asian and other UKME people?
We know that kids cannot learn well on an empty stomach. Just this week, new government data showed that 500,000 more children became eligible for free school meals during the first year of the pandemic—more than 11,000 children each week. However, again, this is not evenly distributed. The 2020 ONS figures showed that black pupils were the most overrepresented group in the free school meals population, so can the Minister tell us what the picture is for black pupils now that we have had a year of the pandemic?
The Government plan to give food and activities to children eligible for free school meals, though during just half of the summer holidays. Why will they not give cash transfers for free school meals to ensure that families get the full value of this support and can buy the food and activities best suited to their children? As has been mentioned by other noble Lords, do the Government plan to extend eligibility for free school meals to all children from a household getting universal credit or with no recourse to public funds?
We need action to tackle child poverty. We need reform of our social security system to give everyone the help that they need. However, we also need action to target structural inequalities, including differential rates of poverty, unemployment, low pay, job insecurity and so much more. How will the Government address those underlying problems? Indeed, how will they identify them? Labour suggested various ways, such as a race equality Act or a strategy. If the Government do not like those ideas, that is fine, but what are their ideas? How will they identify the problems and address them? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for securing this important debate and introducing it so eloquently and powerfully. I also thank those noble Lords who have contributed to today’s discussion of this important issue.
I share the concern that has been expressed that children from some ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to be in low income than their peers. It is absolutely right that any Government are held to account for their record on tackling poverty.
Over the past year, our priority has of course been to help all families, regardless of their background, to withstand the financial hardship brought about by the pandemic. Such unprecedented circumstances have called for an unprecedented response. I believe that this Government are delivering this by spending more than £407 billion on support measures to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, including the furlough scheme and the self-employment income support scheme. This has helped to protect jobs and to keep businesses afloat and has helped families to get by. The noble Lord, Lord Woolley, issued us with a challenge: we can do something little or we can do something great. I believe that the Government are doing a good job in trying to support people in this incredibly difficult time.
That spending also includes the additional £7.4 billion injected into the welfare system further to support those most in need, raising our total spend on welfare support for people of working age to around £111 billion. The noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Sherlock, referred to the £20 uplift. I must tell them that it was always intended to be a temporary measure. As such, as far as I know, it will cease in September.
We have done other things to support families and children. We fully recognise the profound impact of this hugely challenging period on people’s lives. We have taken further substantial action to support the most vulnerable children and families, wherever they live and whatever their background, to ensure that they are able to access food and other essentials.
My noble friend Lord Farmer raised the important issue of family stability and the good work that family hubs are doing. The Government are working to expand these hubs and continue to invest in the reducing parental conflict programme. The hubs continue to grow at pace. There is a cross-government department team working on family hubs and RPC: I am a member of that group. Somebody pleaded with me to use my voice; it is loud and clear on these issues, and I would be very happy to meet any noble Lords to talk about hubs and the reducing parental conflict programme.
To strengthen the welfare safety net, in December 2020, my department introduced the Covid winter grant programme, which had an additional £229 million of local welfare funding and has enabled local authorities to provide targeted support to vulnerable households, keeping them warm and well fed over the winter, focusing particularly on disadvantaged children and families, whether that support is needed in term time or in holidays. Recognising that some restrictions on the economy are still in place, a further £40 million of funding has been allocated to the Covid local support grant fund.
The noble Lord, Lord Wooley, was very challenging in his speech, as other noble Lords have been, about educational attainment and free school meals and breakfast clubs. We have put in place extraordinary measures to ensure that disadvantaged children receive the support they need to learn, whether that is in home or in the classroom. In England, this has included spending an additional £500 million on food vouchers so that children had access to food when schools were closed during lockdown. This is in addition to the usual funding schools have continued to receive to provide free school meals for more than 1.6 million pupils from the lowest income families and universal free school meals for all children in reception, year 1 and year 2. As well as lunchtime meals, the Government also support breakfast clubs in more than 2,450 schools. The Department for Education has recently announced another £24 million to continue the successful breakfast club programme.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, talked about the summer holidays. Looking ahead to this summer, we recognise that many vulnerable families need additional support during the longer school holidays. Following three years of successful pilots, the Department for Education’s holiday activities and food programme has been expanded for 2021. The programme launched at Easter and will provide support during summer and Christmas this year at a cost of £220 million. This programme is available to disadvantaged children in every local authority. Wider support is available, including our healthy start scheme, and we are exploring any additional support that may be needed throughout the summer.
I now turn to some of the specific points made by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Woolley, talked about unemployment rates for ethnic minorities. We have committed to level up skills and opportunities across the country for people of all backgrounds. Using data from the race disparity audit, updated annually since October 2017, and our own analysis, we are continuing to help those underrepresented in the labour market.
We were challenged in this debate by the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and others about expanding free school meals. We think it is important that free school meal support is targeted at those who need it most. Free school meals are an integral part of our provision for families on low incomes and of our wider actions to promote social mobility.
On the help we are giving to ethnic minorities, particularly to get into the labour market, we have identified 20 target areas using our own research and data from the race disparity audit. Lessons learned are rolled out, where appropriate, across the country. Each area has a high ethnic minority population and a high gap between the ethnic minority and white employment rates. Together, they represent more than half of the national ethnic minority employment gap. We are also considering the recommendations of the independent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.
Again, I am sorry to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that I have no information that the two-child policy is going to be changed. I know it will be disappointing to her, but the Government feel quite strongly that a benefit structure adjusting automatically to family size is unsustainable.
We have the same view on the benefit cap. The proportion of individuals capped remains low in comparison to the overall UC case load at around 3%. This is in spite of the significant action that DWP took early in the pandemic to protect those financially impacted, including the temporary uplift in the UC standard allowance and increases to local housing allowance rates. The most vulnerable, who are entitled to benefits for disability and caring, are obviously exempt from the cap.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, raised a point about free school meals for all primary school children. I am afraid I have no information that that is planned. On the other points the noble Baroness raised, I will write to her.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raised the poverty strategy and cross-government working. Here I might raise a smile, I think. As we recover from the pandemic, departments will continue to work together to deliver a number of key cross-cutting outcomes linked to the 2020 spending review. These outcomes include addressing poverty through enabling progression into work and increasing financial resilience. DWP is leading this work in collaboration with other departments, including, in particular, HMT, DfE, MHCLG and Defra.
My noble friend Lord Moynihan raised the issue of a Cabinet Minister for children, which other noble Lords have raised. The Secretary of State in the Department for Education has responsibility for children and families and takes it very seriously. I will ask my noble friend Lady Berridge to write on behalf of her Secretary of State to say what is being done there.
The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, urged me to use my voice. I will always do that. I can confirm to her, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that we will consider all the recommendations of the national food strategy and respond fully within six months of the publication of the next and final national food strategy report. I will come back to the noble Baroness in writing.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, a passionate campaigner, for her contribution. In my working life, trying to help people back to work, the business community at Canary Wharf has been outstanding in its support for its local communities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, made a point about gluten-free products on prescription. I am very happy to write to the Department of Health. I make no promises, but I will write, and I will copy the noble Baroness in on the letter.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, talked about the impact of the pandemic on levels of poverty being clear and asked whether we will publish our evidence and act on it. Estimating the impact of Covid-19 on relative and absolute poverty requires estimates of income for all people in the UK, which are not yet available. We are wholly committed to supporting people on lower incomes. We spend an estimated £111 billion on welfare, including an additional £7.4 billion on Covid-related welfare policies.
I always finish these debates by apologising for not being able to answer every point, and I always promise that I will look at Hansard and write to noble Lords on any matters I have not dealt with. I hope noble Lords understand that this Government are absolutely committed to helping those who need help most—those in poverty—and my door is open at any time for noble Lords to make representations.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now resume. 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 will immediately adjourn the Committee. If there is a Division in the House—which we are not expecting—the Committee will adjourn for five minutes. The time limit for the next debate is one hour.
Covid-19: People with Neurological Conditions
Baroness Gale
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with neurological conditions and their access to health and care services; and what steps they will take to restart specialist neurology services.
Baroness Gale (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this matter today in order to hear the Government’s plans to restart specialist neurology services after the devastating pandemic. I thank all Members who are taking part and I look forward to their contributions.
I declare an interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Parkinson’s, which is the fastest growing neurological condition in the world. It is a complex and debilitating condition with no cure, so quality health and care services are vital to help people with Parkinson’s manage their condition. By quality neurological services, I mean that people should be able to access consultants, specialist nurses, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and mental health professionals. These services are also vital to people with multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, motor neurone disease, migraine and other disorders of the brain, spinal cord and nervous system that affect at least one in six people in England.
The 2019 Neurological Alliance report, Neuro Patience, described the variability of health and care services for people with neurological conditions in England. It also highlighted how overstretched the neurology workforce is and indicated that people with neurological conditions have a poorer overall experience of care than those living with other long-term conditions.
We know the pandemic has affected everyone. However, those living with neurological conditions have seen their symptoms worsen. Since March 2020, people with neurological conditions have been locked in their homes; in many cases, their physical state has deteriorated and they have been without access to the vital therapy services that help them maintain their well-being. Emerging research suggests that some people with, or recovering from, Covid-19 can experience neurological symptoms, which will add extra pressure to the already overstretched services.
Like many health charities, Parkinson’s UK conducted a survey of how the pandemic affected their supporters in 2020. One in four said that the Covid restrictions negatively affected their mental health and a third said that it impacted their physical health. Over a third of people with the condition experienced increased symptoms including slowness of movement, stiffness and fatigue, and over a quarter experienced increased tremor and sleep problems. One in 10 people with Parkinson’s also reported having distressing hallucinations. Family members, friends and carers, particularly spouses or partners of people with Parkinson’s, were also affected by the pandemic. Nearly seven in 10 took on more caring responsibilities, and almost half of the people with Parkinson’s receiving social care support at home received less care during the pandemic.
In fact, recent NHS data shows an increase in waiting times for access to specialist services for people with neurological conditions. The data shows that more people are being referred for specialist care by their GP. However, it also shows there has been a significant increase in the number of people waiting more than a year for treatment.
Neurological services are struggling to cope with the number of patients. Can the Minister say what progress is being made by the NHS England/NHS Improvement neuroscience transformation programme, provide details about how it will improve care for the one in six people living with a neurological condition and tell us when it might conclude? What proportion of the extra funding awarded to the NHS has been allocated for neurological services to restart? How will the Government address the workforce issues?
Will the Minister also commit to introducing a national strategy for neurorehabilitation, with strong leadership in the NHS to drive forward this vital work? We know from NHS data that access to neurosurgery —and, in the case of Parkinson’s, deep brain stimulation, or DBS—was impacted by the pandemic last year. On average, 20 new DBS procedures were completed per month in England in 2019. However, that fell to around 135 new procedures in total for the whole of 2020. DBS can be a life-changing treatment for some people with Parkinson’s. It is not a cure, but it can drastically improve the physical symptoms of the condition and reduce the amount of medication a person takes each day.
Further delays to the restart of DBS and other neurosurgery could be disastrous for people with Parkinson’s and those with other neurological conditions. Even a few months delay can mean that some people are no longer suitable for DBS or other neurosurgical procedures. I understand that the NHS March guidance said that elective procedures should be restarted, and payments were introduced to incentivise integrated care systems to schedule them. Can the Minister explain what this will mean for the restart of neurosurgical procedures, in particular DBS for people with Parkinson’s?
Although I am sure that many will welcome the move to virtual healthcare appointments to maintain the well-being of patients, NHS data shows that there are significant variations in access to these appointments based on where one lives. While many people with neurological conditions welcome these virtual appointments as they reduce travel time to hospital, not everyone benefits from them. Some may be unfamiliar with the technology or find that it does not work. Charities have heard reports of connectivity issues, and people may not have the necessary equipment to take part in these virtual appointments. Others with neurological conditions have also shared their concerns about the security and privacy of virtual appointments.
People with neurological conditions and professionals have said that a phone appointment, for instance, cannot accurately assess people with movement-related symptoms. Many professionals have said that it is harder for them to assess how the individual’s carer is managing, and I know from Carers UK’s insight and research that carers have faced increasing pressure during the pandemic. For treatments such as speech and language, physiotherapy or where a professional manipulates muscles or joints, face-to-face appointments are the most effective. It is therefore crucial that patients have the right to choose how they interact with their health professionals. Can the Minister give a commitment to ensuring that patients are given that right?
I have posed several questions to the Minister, the answers to which people living with neurological conditions are desperate to hear as they look to the future. I hope that the Minister can respond to them today. However, to explore them further, would she be prepared to meet with me and others with an interest in this subject? I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Greengross (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia. Dementia is an umbrella term used to describe a range of progressive neurological disorders, of which there are more than 200 known types. Some 25% of those who have died of Covid-19 in the UK also had some form of dementia, and more generally there is increasing awareness that Covid-19 affected people with dementia quite differently from non-dementia patients. There is still much we do not know about how Covid-19 and dementia interact, and much more research is needed in this area.
Sadly, research funding for dementia has reduced by 75% since the start of the pandemic, as charities and other private organisations which fund this research have lost money over the past year and cannot fund efforts to continue this work, so it is really serious. And it is not just dementia research funding that has suffered during this pandemic. According to the MS Society, 70% of research into other neurological conditions has stopped, as the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, so ably described. The Government have pledged to double dementia research funding as part of the dementia moonshot. Will they also commit to similar funding increases for other neurological conditions? I hope the Minister can tell us that they will.
The number of people dying of neurological conditions generally has increased significantly in recent years. Dementia is now the single highest cause of death in the UK, according to ONS figures. Thousands more are now living with neurological conditions. In some cases, if diagnosed or treated early, they can continue to live a productive and independent life. We know, however, that during this pandemic access to specialists and other medical help has not been easy due to the pressure on the NHS. The problems predate the pandemic, though, as for many years this country has had a shortage of neuroscience specialists. According to Alzheimer’s Research UK, it takes two years, on average, to diagnose someone after they have developed dementia. This diagnosis time will have become much longer during the pandemic, meaning that chances of early prevention that may improve quality of life are sadly lost.
The human mind is something of which we still have only limited knowledge. Much more research is needed to help us really understand the human mind and how to treat neurological conditions. Our health systems also need to prioritise brain and neurological health, as increasingly these areas are becoming our greatest health challenge as a society.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. I refer to my entry in the register as a vice-president of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
I also have a personal interest. It is not an exaggeration to say that I owe my life to my then GP, Dr Christopher Baillie, who referred me for an emergency MRI 25 years ago. I saw him in the morning; I had the MRI at the local NHS trust that evening. Within days I had an appointment with a neurologist, who diagnosed life-threatening compression of the brain stem. Another couple of months, and the damage would have been irreversible; another six, and it would have been lights out. In my case, major neurosurgery meant that I am still here, but I am acutely aware that, had I been one of the more than 150,000 people who were waiting for a neurology appointment in March 2021, 10,000 of whom have been waiting for more than a year, it would have been too late.
It is imperative that, as we address the severe backlog in appointments and treatment caused by the immense Covid-19-induced pressures on our NHS, we also optimise people’s prospects for recovery post-treatment through access to rehabilitation services. According to a report on people’s experiences of accessing speech and language therapy, for example, during the first UK-wide lockdown, published by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists in March this year, 80% of people living with neurological conditions had had no face-to-face speech and language therapy since June 2020. No wonder 40% of people living with neurological conditions said their needs had got worse.
Will the Minister commit to reappointing a national clinical director for neurology? I echo the call by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for a national strategy and a national leadership position to be put in place to drive improvements in neuro-rehabilitation.
Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I shall concentrate briefly on the effects of Covid-19 on people living with motor neurone disease and where we go from here. Covid-19 has seriously reduced face-to-face GP appointments, which may well explain why, just as an example, at King’s College Hospital there has been a drop of some 35% in referrals to the motor neurone disease centre. That was compounded by the fact that there was a four-month period without any therapy clinics, leading to 200 fewer therapy contacts. No doubt that pattern is reflected throughout the country.
Motor neurone disease, as we know, is a rapidly progressive disease, with diagnosis difficult at the very best of times. Covid-related delays in referrals and delays in access to medication, to therapies such as physio and speech therapy, for example, and to other treatments and support mechanisms make it really difficult for people with MND to maintain function and maximise their quality of life. That is the backdrop—perhaps inevitable, given the need to deploy staff during the crisis—but what to do now? That is what I know noble Lords will want to hear from the Minister. What is the plan to restore neurology services as soon as possible? I understand that a recovery plan is in place for cancer services. Will the Government commit to a similar plan for neurology services? Will they commit to working with NHS England, with NHS Improvement and with appropriate patient groups, healthcare professionals and commissioners to get us back as quickly as possible to pre-pandemic levels?
We hear a lot of the mantra “build back better” these days. Well, there is much to build back better in the health service and, within that, a clear need for a firm commitment, as has already been said, to build a national strategy for neuro-rehabilitation in the National Health Service. Much as I am an admirer of Professor Sir Bruce Keogh and his many good works, I think he was wrong in recommending the abolition of the post of national clinical director for neurology, and the Government were wrong in adopting that recommendation. It is imperative, in my view, that we have an end to the long government neglect of neuro-rehabilitation. We must have a national clinical lead to drive real improvement, and I hope the Minister will have something positive to say in that respect when she comes to her winding-up speech.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, this debate is a salutary reminder of the range of neurological conditions that have been affected by the pandemic. I speak in my capacity as the president of SUDEP Action, a local charity in my former constituency of Wantage. SUDEP stands for “sudden death in epilepsy”; it is perhaps astonishing to learn that 21 people a week die suddenly of epilepsy, often in the prime of their life, and that 50% of those deaths could be avoided with proper treatment. In fact, epilepsy is the second most frequently reported potentially treatable cause of death. The number of women who are pregnant and dying of epilepsy has also doubled in the last few years.
SUDEP Action has led international research on the pandemic’s impact on epilepsy and bereaved communities throughout 2021, along with the University of Oxford and Newcastle University. These statistics will echo some that have already been cited for other conditions: 40% of people with epilepsy had worsening health during the first wave of the pandemic; almost all epilepsy sufferers have reported increasing mental strain; a third have experienced issues with accessing care; a quarter have trouble getting their medication; and one in five have not seen a health professional in a year.
Two decades ago, the Government had a national audit of epilepsy death, which brought these deaths out of the shadows, but only recently have steps been taken to implement some of its recommendations. Of course, as has been echoed in other speeches, the opportunity to implement those changes has been severely put back by the impact of the pandemic. SUDEP Action has put in place a number of protocols to help people suffering with epilepsy. It works with 1,200 health professionals to ensure that those suffering from epilepsy can use a checklist to check their health, and works with an app that allows it to monitor the condition of 4,000 patients. This wonderful charity that I work with would clearly like to see—like many other charities, I suspect—that, when the eventual inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic takes place, we look not just at Covid deaths but at the deaths of people who suffered from other conditions and whose healthcare has been impacted.
More long term, we need to level up epilepsy services and care provision, providing access in the community to a named co-ordinator of care for each individual with epilepsy. A vital levelling up of tailored communications of the risk of epilepsy is also needed nationally, just as we broadcast the risks of asthma or diabetes. These resources already exist but they require national rollout and implementation, and support from government.
Baroness Eaton (Con) [V]
My Lords, 22q11 syndrome is a common neurodevelopmental disability hiding in plain sight because it is massively undiagnosed, yet 128,000 people in the UK are estimated to be affected. A prevalence of one in 500 of the population is reported—twice that of Down’s syndrome and almost six times that of cystic fibrosis. Its effects, unique to each individual, range from fatal heart defects, catastrophic immune deficiency and severe learning difficulties through to mild behavioural problems, speech and language issues and facial characteristics. Neurodevelopmentally, these children have challenges in learning, with developmental delays in speech, cognition and motor development. Many are affected by behavioural and psychiatric issues. It is a multisystem disorder and the greatest genetic risk factor for schizophrenia.
The lack of awareness of 22q11 syndrome means that there is an extreme lack of specialist services and, often, a lack of understanding of children’s learning challenges. Many were asked to shield during the pandemic and the services they need were greatly affected. Appointments were either lost completely, with hospital clinics shut down and therapy services unable to proceed, or substituted with telephone conversations. Many missed months of school due to their medical issues. Home-schooling packs were often inadequate for meeting their needs and did not cover the requirements under their educational healthcare plan or individual education plans. Their mental health often suffered and parents reported more behavioural issues. Progress was already slow, compared with their peers, and many have fallen back even further educationally.
The long-term outcomes will likely prove more severe than previously expected, meaning a greater difficulty in attaining the baseline levels required to enable them to progress into post-16 education. Given the difficulties for children and young people affected by neurodisabilities such 22q11 to catch up and recover lost education, how will the Government support them to ensure that they achieve their best possible educational outcomes? What reassurances can my noble friend the Minister provide to those families that support will be forthcoming?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con) [V]
My Lords, I would like to raise an especially neglected area of neurology: autonomic dysfunction. This neglect has been exacerbated, but not created, by the pressures of the pandemic. I declare my interest as chair of Genomics England and an autonomic patient myself. I thank Professor Chris Mathias in particular for his help in preparing this contribution.
Autonomic dysfunction describes several conditions that cause malfunction of the autonomic nervous system, which controls the automatic survival functions of the body that we do not consciously think about, such as heart rate, blood pressure or kidney function—processes that we all take for granted until they go wrong. Autonomic dysfunction can be intermittent; it ranges from mild inconvenience to severe disability. For example, those with mild autonomic mediated syncope can faint once or twice in their lives, but others can faint several times a day, risking falls, broken bones and, sometimes, traumatic brain injury. Postural tachycardia syndrome, which I have, causes a wide range of autonomic symptoms. It is a deceptive, invisible illness that disproportionately affects young women; they can look very healthy when not symptomatic so are often diagnosed with anxiety or eating disorders and disbelieved. However, researchers compare the disability of PoTS to that of COPD or congestive cardiac failure.
Autonomic dysfunction can also occur as secondary to neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s, spinal injuries and MS, as well as common conditions such as diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. It is not rare: it affects 70 million people worldwide, but it is accepted that the true prevalence is higher due to underdiagnosis. In most cases there is no cure, but it is possible to improve symptoms with medication and lifestyle adaptations. However, despite the high prevalence and significant disability, most patients take years to be diagnosed due to poor clinical and public awareness.
Even when diagnosed, getting treatment is extremely challenging. The few clinics that do exist are simply overwhelmed. Patients from Derriford Hospital autonomic clinic have contacted me in desperation because their clinic is being closed without a further plan for autonomic patients in that region. It is the only service in the area; other autonomic clinics are not taking referrals due to demand. It is a picture of a few specialists offering pockets of excellence and responding to aspects of autonomic dysfunction, rather than integrated services that can fully respond to the multisystem challenges that the condition presents. I believe that UCL now has the only integrated autonomic unit in the country.
Low awareness among non-specialists, especially in primary care, means that patients often have inconsistent management and difficulty in accessing special care. Together, this means unnecessary deterioration for patients. This is widely reported by patients and clinical experts but noble Lords do not have to take their word for it. The DWP’s own guide to medical conditions states:
“Although 25% of people with PoTS are unable to work or attend education, 80% to 90% will improve with treatment and 60% will return to previous levels of functioning.”
The opposite is of course true. It could not be clearer: autonomic dysfunction is a common condition that causes significant disability but, with diagnosis and treatment, symptoms can be mitigated and managed. Despite this, our clinical services, training and awareness are woefully inadequate, and autonomic patients are suffering serious inequalities as a result. I ask the Minister in her response to acknowledge the inadequacy of autonomic services and set out her plan to rectify this, including the publication of a national neurology strategy and clear national leadership.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare that I am a patron of the Motor Neurone Disease Association and a vice-president of both Hospice UK and Marie Curie. We are all most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for securing this important debate because the pandemic has had a catastrophic effect on services.
Most hospice services are largely funded through charitable donations—that is, hands in pockets from the thousands of families around the country who are eternally grateful for the excellent services that they received and continue to receive. However, in the pandemic, the money dried up. The Government were extremely supportive and provided funding but there is a real worry that, over time, the overall level of donation will not return to previous levels.
We have seen delays in support procedures for patients with motor neurone disease, such as gastrostomy, which can be essential for nutrition and hydration. Two-thirds of MND specialist centres reported that end-of-life care has been compromised during the pandemic. Some hospices did not have the required level of specialist trained staff to admit patients using non-invasive ventilation or even suctioning or were confused about the specific PEE they needed, and beds closed, highlighted in Marie Curie’s recent report, Better End of Life.
Added to this, the messages from campaigners for assisted dying have been particularly frightening, controversial for some people and at times misleading, especially for those newly diagnosed and coming to terms with their illness. Specialist services do a remarkable job of empowering people to live well, with technology assistance allowing people to continue to work, write books, run businesses and remain active participants in their families’ lives. The Motor Neurone Disease Association signposts people to empower them, as well as driving research forward.
I hope that the Government will confirm that, as the Covid-19 threat is lowered, they will work with NHS England and NHS Improvement, commissioners, healthcare professionals, professional bodies and patient groups to ensure that services are restored to their pre-pandemic levels as soon as possible. Where possible, these services should be improved to plug gaps. This means that NHS England and NHS Improvement must develop a recovery strategy for neurology services, matching—as the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, has said—the recovery plan developed for cancer services.
Finally, can the Government confirm that they now recognise that hospices and other palliative care providers are providing a core clinical service that needs secure NHS funding to provide high-quality palliative and end-of-life care for everyone who needs it? That care is needed early in a disease, so that people are adequately supported. This is not just about the last phase of their illness.
Baroness Browning (Con) [V]
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, on securing this very important debate. When Covid-19 first struck in 2020 and we began the first lockdown, I do not think that enough was known—for very obvious reasons—about the impact that Covid-19 has on the brain and, necessarily, on neurological conditions that already exist. We have seen how it can affect people who have neurological conditions after they recover, but the impact on those already diagnosed did not appear to be that well recognised. I hope that, now we are this much further on, the Government will ensure that we capture data more effectively to make sure that those who are doubly at risk because of a neurological condition are safeguarded.
During that first lockdown in 2020, I was a carer for family members with Alzheimer’s and with epilepsy. I can testify to what is, 15 months on, a very clear diminution in their mental health state and, particularly regarding Alzheimer’s, the ability to be aware enough to enjoy life as we would hope. I therefore ask my noble friend to ensure that the Government listen to what is said in this debate, because we need to capture that data and make sure that, in future, the warning goes out to all those who are severely at risk.
In particular, I think it is worth mentioning that, when somebody with dementia needs intensive care in hospital, there is a very big question mark on the part of doctors as to whether that is advisable, because of the impact of the treatment itself in intensive care on somebody with dementia—certainly somebody with advanced dementia. I hope that we will, in future, widen that list of people who are vulnerable and who need to be doubly careful.
May I also add my support for the reappointment of a national clinical director for neurology? There are so many diverse conditions that come under the heading of neurology and it is absolutely essential that there is some control at the centre with somebody who can take a wider view across the country.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]
My Lords, 40 years ago this year, my eldest daughter was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She is the vice-chairman of the Multiple Sclerosis Trust and has been active in its work.
I know that this past year has been a massive challenge for everyone; nowhere has this been more acutely felt than in the NHS, especially by neurological patients and those awaiting medical treatment. The House of Lords briefing, which was contributed to by the Neurological Alliance, states:
“In February 2020 … just 38 people had been waiting more than a year for a neurology appointment, 169 for a neurosurgery appointment. However, by March 2021, according to recent NHS England and NHS Improvement data, more than 150,000 people were waiting for a neurology appointment and more than 60,000 for a neurosurgery appointment. More than 10,000 have been waiting for more than a year … This has profound implications, and could mean delays to diagnosis and treatment … Without access to specialist expertise patients cannot receive a confirmed diagnosis and begin accessing treatment and support for this complex and often rapidly progressive condition. In multiple sclerosis (MS), delayed diagnosis could mean a delay to access treatments which could slow or even stop the progression of the condition.”
We have seen how NHS staff have been so resilient in this pandemic. We are for ever grateful for their individual and team efforts. For some patients, online consultations have been beneficial as the patient has not needed to travel and is seen on time. However, medical appointments cannot replace a physical exam and the nuances of a face-to-face appointment, which are so important in helping with diagnosis or treatment in neurological cases. It is important that patients are allowed face-to-face appointments once more to enable health professionals to do their job as effectively as possible.
I urge the Government to restore care and access to physical consultations for those with neurological conditions to pre-pandemic levels; to look at a co-ordinated approach across departments and care, from rehabilitation services to earlier access to social or mental health care; and even to consider a national clinical director for neurology to pull all these services together and work across organisations, as neurological conditions come in so many different guises.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for securing this important debate.
We have heard reports from noble Lords of the impact of Covid on neurological services, as well as of the shocking numbers of people who have not had the appointments, diagnoses or treatments they needed to manage their disease during the disruption to the NHS during the pandemic. It is important to recognise that, over the past 14 months, doctors, special nurse practitioners, speech and language therapists and other allied healthcare professionals working with those with neurological conditions have often been moved into different roles during the pandemic—and for many months. We owe them a particular debt of gratitude. Not only have they been working very long hours; they have also had to learn new skills rapidly and work in often distressing circumstances. We salute them.
In my brief contribution, I will focus on services for babies and children with neurological conditions; this includes children with epilepsy and stroke. It is understandable that many services have had to move to online consultations. One young mother, whose baby had had a stroke in utero, told me that online physiotherapy last autumn with her three month-old baby was virtually impossible, because she did not know the micromovements that the physio was looking for and the quality of the screen meant that the physio could not detect them either. Speech and language therapy online is also very difficult with small children, but critical so that they do not slip behind, as there may be a knock-on effect on their days at nursery and early years at school.
Many primary care services have also gone online and, in some areas, the health visitor one-year baby-check assessments are now a paper checklist for the parents to download and complete themselves. Again, for babies with known neuro conditions, parents are not trained to spot problems. Worse, where there has been no diagnosis at all, it is possible that parents and health professionals inevitably miss the warning signs, so it is vital that there are immediate returns to in-person appointments and the funding to go with them.
It is essential that the Chancellor of the Exchequer guarantees extra catch-up resources for all long-term conditions, not just cancer, important though that is. Many neurological conditions are life-limiting and their impact mitigated by treatment and medication, but substantial catching-up needs to happen to prevent much more serious deterioration that will, in the end, cost the NHS much more money. I ask the Minister whether the Department of Health and Social Care is pressing the Treasury for these extra catch-up resources. If not granted, the health costs for society will be substantially more.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I first congratulate my noble friend Lady Gale on this debate and pay tribute to the work that she had done on Parkinson’s disease, over many years, including championing it in your Lordships’ House. It is lovely to see the noble Baroness, Lady Blackwood, speaking with her usual eloquence and knowledge. I always felt that she knew much more about anything than I ever did, when I faced her across the Chamber.
Covid-19 has undoubtedly had a profound effect on people with neurological conditions and the services they need. There are three issues that we need to consider: first, catching up on missed appointments, therapies and treatment; secondly, ensuring that the rapid referral to which my noble friend Lord MacKenzie referred is restored; and thirdly, working out how much the neurological and neuropsychiatric manifestations of Covid-19, which are still emerging, are likely to further increase demand on services, both in hospitals and in the community. We also need to recognise that neurological research has been significantly disrupted, which is compounded by the financial pressures on charities.
The report from the National Neurosciences Advisory Group published last month found that, since the onset of England’s first lockdown in March 2020, people with neurological conditions have been directly impacted across all areas of their lives—their access to food, ability to work, social interactions and support, and access to essential health and social care services. Many have been shielding or self-isolating because of the virus, increasing anxieties, loneliness and isolation, which is sometimes exacerbated by unclear and inconsistent messaging and advice. This has also led to increased pressure on family members, carers and the charities and patient organisations providing support services.
However, while we recognise that support from the NHS and social care has been restricted, we have also heard many stories about health and social care professionals across the country finding new ways to maintain contact with people with neurological conditions remotely, and patient groups have found new ways to facilitate peer-to-peer support. It is vital not to lose those as we move out of the pandemic.
There is an estimated backlog of more than 225,000 neurology appointments and 58,000 neurosurgery appointments at the end of 2020. The motor neurone disease figures are particularly concerning. Referrals have dramatically fallen, which means that diagnosis, support and help for this dreadful condition are being delayed, which is exactly what we want to avoid. The pandemic has exposed and exacerbated longstanding barriers to social care that people with neurological conditions and their families face. There are some serious challenges here. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the many questions that she has been asked.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for securing this important debate, recognising her tireless commitment to championing neurological conditions, including through her many years of service as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Parkinson’s.
As this debate has illustrated, the pandemic has resulted in unprecedented pressure across the health and social care system. All noble Lords recognise the outstanding work done by staff and volunteers across the NHS, social care and the voluntary sector at this difficult time. Early in the pandemic, NHS England and NHS Improvement advised that in-person consultations
“should only take place when absolutely necessary”.
This decision ensured that care was provided to those in greatest need during extremely challenging times. Neurology services saw new models of care emerge, with triage processes to ensure that patients receive appropriate care and are seen in outpatient settings closer to home. Providers rolled out remote consultations, using video, telephone, email and text message services, including for patients with neurological conditions. To support these new models of service provision during the pandemic, from March 2020, the Association of British Neurologists, the Royal College of Physicians and the Chief Medical Officer’s team produced guidance for clinicians, including recommendations on where services could be temporarily paused or moved from face-to-face, and where normal practice should continue. This was updated to ensure that it continued to meet the scale of the challenge and maximise the quality of care offered.
However, we all recognise that these were necessary but undesirable decisions that were taken to deal with the pandemic, and the Government completely recognise that this has resulted in delays to elective care, including non-urgent surgery, which has been impacted throughout the pandemic. Neurosurgery activity levels fell by 29.8% between 2019-20 and 2020-21, representing a reduction of about 30,500 completed patient pathways, and as noble Lords have noted, the waiting list has grown from 34,600 to 43,200 in the same period. However, it should be noted that urgent care was maintained throughout the pandemic to ensure that those requiring emergency care still received it. I will come on to our plans to address the backlog shortly, but a small sign of improvement is that median neurosurgery waiting times have dropped from a peak of 19.5 weeks in July 2020 to 14.3 weeks in March 2021.
Moving into the recovery phase of the pandemic, the Association of British Neurologists has published specific guidance on recommencing neurology services, including assessments on which services and patients require urgent prioritisation, considering the severity and onset of symptoms. As the NHS transitions from pandemic incident management to recovery of services, our priority is addressing the pressures caused by the pandemic. On 18 March, we announced an additional £7 billion to support pandemic recovery and £1 billion for elective recovery in 2021-22. While this funding is not allocated towards specific specialities, it will go towards services that benefit people with neurological conditions. NHS England and NHS Improvement are currently developing recovery plans across all services, including for patients with neurological conditions. Specialised services are setting a clear approach for recovery of services which ensures that patients are treated at the correct time in the appropriate setting, while balancing the ongoing Covid-19 pressures and front-line staff well-being.
I cannot say what the plan is for specific treatments, such as DBS for Parkinson’s, but I would be happy to follow up to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, on that point in writing. I can say that, based on current information, neurology inpatient services should be fully restored to pre-pandemic appointment levels by the end of September this year, if there are no further significant Covid-19 outbreaks.
A number of noble Lords have expressed how challenging the past year has been in its impact on individuals’ mental health and well-being, including those with neurological conditions. The Government will continue to do our utmost to ensure that our mental health services are there for those who need them. Although talking therapies are available remotely, the NHS is working to ensure that the option of face-to-face support is provided to people with serious mental health illnesses where it is clinically safe to do so. For those with severe needs or in crisis, all NHS mental health providers have established a 24/7 urgent mental health helpline.
In March 2021, we launched our mental health recovery action plan, backed by an additional £500 million for this financial year, to ensure that we have the right support in place. We are committed to our ambition in the long-term plan to expand and transform mental health services, including by investing an additional £2.3 billion a year in mental health by 2023-24.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, rightly highlighted, it is also imperative that we have a skilled and resilient neurology workforce. In August 2022, improvements to the neurology curriculum will be implemented. During their five-year training programme, trainees will accredit dually in neurology and internal medicine and obtain sub-specialty training in stroke medicine. Based on current numbers undergoing neurology training, this will mean that each year from 2028 onwards at least 40 neurology trainees each year will complete their training in neurology and stroke and be eligible to lead stroke services—a major boost to the workforce.
Furthermore, over recent years we have increased the number of funded medical school places in England by 1,500, a 25% increase. In the process, we have delivered five brand-new medical schools across the country. This expansion completed in September 2020 and will significantly increase the pipeline for doctors, including neurologists and other doctors treating neurological conditions, in future years.
As noted by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, we are also keen to understand any neurological impacts of Covid-19 and are aware of studies that suggest the potential for longer-term neurological symptoms developing in people who have had Covid-19. It is for this reason that we are providing more than £50 million of research funding and are working with world-leading scientists better to understand the virus and its long-term effects and how to treat them effectively. One such study is the Covid-19 clinical neuroscience study, which was awarded £2.3 million by UK Research and Innovation and the Department of Health and Social Care. It will look at 800 patients in the UK who were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 and had neurological or neuropsychiatric complications to understand how these problems occur and to develop strategies to prevent and treat them.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Greengross and Lady Thornton, also raised broader research funding, and I reassure them that the Government are committed to providing funding towards innovative research in neurological conditions. DHSC funds research into these conditions through the National Institute for Health Research, and funding was at £56 million in 2018-19. However, this is not the only route of research funding that we provide. We also provide funding through the Medical Research Council and UKRI, through the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, which supports a diverse portfolio of neuroscience research and innovation totalling around £30 million per annum.
Longer term, a variety of improvements are under way for neurological conditions. The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, raised the important neuroscience transformation programme, which was intended to be a five-year programme and launched in 2018. At present, the programme is working with key stakeholders and patient groups to develop a collaborative model of care to improve local neurology services, improve care closer to home and reduce variations in access and treatment within and across systems. In light of the pandemic, the programme is currently reviewing its approach and priorities to align with the overall service restoration and recovery work.
The NHSE/I specialised neurology service review is looking at the optimal model for neurology services with the aim of ensuring patients are seen quickly in the most appropriate setting and carrying forward lessons learned during the pandemic. This review is now complete and NHSE/I is considering its recommendations. NHSE/I also supports the National Neurosciences Advisory Group, which is a collaborative leadership group for neurosciences in England. The overall purpose of the group is to improve outcomes for patients living with neurological conditions.
In April this year, NNAG published a report into the effects of the pandemic on neurological services and care pathways. The report highlighted the benefits of remote care methods but also recommended a fuller evaluation of remote care which, as a number of noble Lords have highlighted, is not appropriate for all people with neurological conditions. The report’s long-term recommendations are for NHSE/I to lead a national neurology plan in collaboration with NNAG and its members to develop and invest in a national rehabilitation plan, which the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, also raised, and to develop a clinically-led, pragmatic system of clinical classification of outpatient episodes. NHSE/I will be considering these recommendations as part of its ongoing recovery and restoration work and the future transformation of neurological services.
To respond to the point raised by several noble Lords about patients having the right to choose how they interact with health professionals in the right setting, the Government are committed to ensuring that patients have personalised care that considers their needs and preferences. That is why it is embedded in the NHS constitution and set out in the long-term plan.
I fear that I am running out of time. A number of noble Lords raised specific conditions. My noble friend Lord Vaizey mentioned epilepsy and my noble friend Lady Blackwood mentioned autonomic dysfunction. Many other conditions were also raised. I say to noble Lords that we are committed to improving services for people with these conditions. We acknowledge that, particularly where people have specialised conditions, further work is needed to acknowledge those conditions, raise awareness of them and improve their treatment. On specific points on any of those conditions, I will write to noble Lords.
I close by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, once again for securing this debate and thank all noble Lords who have taken part in it.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden)
My Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now resume. Some Members are here in person, 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 will immediately adjourn the Committee. The time limit for this debate is one hour.
Genocide: Bringing Perpetrators to Justice
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to bring the perpetrators of genocide to justice.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, in opening this short debate I must declare that I am a patron of the Coalition for Genocide Response, and thank its founders, Luke de Pulford and Dr Ewelina Ochab, for their briefing note. I also thank the Library for its briefing note, and all participants, who will bring great expertise and knowledge to our proceedings. I also serve as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Burma, Uyghurs, Rohingya, and Hong Kong, and as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eritrea.
Dag Hammarskjöld, a truly inspirational Sectary-General of the United Nations, once said that the United Nations
“was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.”
But as we will hear this evening, from Xinjiang to Burma, from Tigray to Nigeria, from Iraq to Sudan, and in many other parts of the world, the international community has fallen a long way short in saving millions of people from the hell of genocide and from atrocity crimes. While the victims suffer appalling violations, the perpetrators strut the world stage, confident of their impunity and the triumph of mercantile and other interests over our convention duties to prevent, to protect and to prosecute those responsible for these heinous crimes.
In the post-war years, men such as Raphael Lemkin, and women such as Eleanor Roosevelt, bequeathed the institutions that emerged from the ashes of Auschwitz—notably the International Court of Justice and, later, the International Criminal Court. It is to those bodies that the United Kingdom Government defer, stating as recently as this week, in reply to a Parliamentary Question, that
“The UK is fully committed to honouring its legal obligations under the Genocide Convention. The Government’s longstanding policy is that any judgment on whether genocide has occurred is a matter for competent courts. These include international courts, such as the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, and national criminal courts that meet international standards of due process.”
But as became clear during our proceedings on the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill, this is simply a convenient sleight of hand, disguising the shameful inability—or perhaps unwillingness—to bring perpetrators of genocide to justice. The Government cannot plausibly offer that response, simultaneously telling us that Russia and China will invariably use their Security Council veto to close routes to the international courts, while the Government themselves close routes to domestic courts.
The all-party genocide amendment to the Trade Bill offered a way out of the cul-de-sac and a route to our national courts, and it was given three-figure majorities in the House but opposed by the Government. My noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead, a former Supreme Court judge, and others, told the House that the current arrangements simply do not work and that our High Court was perfectly capable of adjudicating on whether a genocide is under way. When the proposal came within a whisker of defeat in the Commons, the Government offered the compromise of a committee to examine allegations of genocide. I have given the Minister notice that I would like to know when such a committee will be established to examine whether the Uighurs, for instance, are subject to a genocide. Can he also confirm that, even if a parliamentary committee determines that a genocide is under way, the Government will still not accept such a determination and intend to continue to say that it is just a matter that the courts can determine?
The Committee should note that a legal opinion from Alison Macdonald QC and Essex Court Chambers concluded that there is credible evidence of genocide in Xinjiang. We should also note that, on 22 April, the House of Commons voted to declare the crimes against the Uighurs in Xinjiang to be a genocide. The United States, Canada and European countries such as the Netherlands and Lithuania have all done the same, but not the United Kingdom Government.
On 27 April, the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, appeared before the House of Lords Select Committee on International Relations and Defence. I asked him whether it was his intention to accept the Commons declaration. In reply, he said that
“Parliament should hold the executive to account on all these matters. That has been our position all along. Our long-standing position is that a court should make judgments on genocide. Fundamentally, genocide creates obligation at the state level”.
Yes, he is right—we have treaty obligations at the state level—but we and others repeatedly fail to meet them, and refuse to reform our domestic and international mechanisms to address this lamentable failure.
When Mr Raab told the committee that he is an “ardent … reformer”, I asked him what we are doing to increase the efficacy of international institutions, to gather support for the proposed code of conduct regarding Security Council action against genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and in combatting genocide. On the code of conduct he said:
“We are a signatory to the accountability, coherence and transparency code of conduct … That allows all members of the Security Council, permanent and non-permanent, to make public commitments not to vote against credible resolutions intended to prevent mass human rights abuses.”
Perhaps the Minister can tell us this evening what progress this proposal is making and whether, realistically, in the absence of support by China or Russia, he honestly believes it will save a single life.
Mr Raab rightly warned the committee about the potential misuse of the word genocide. It is precisely because the definition is exacting that I agree with the Government that a court should evaluate the evidence and make the determination. But there is no point identifying the problem without willing the solution. This has become a circular argument, and it was to break this vicious circle that noble Lords tabled the genocide amendment—and why we are here again today. Voluntary codes of conduct are all very well, but at the United Nations Human Rights Council, Dominic Raab rightly said that what is happening in Xinjiang is “on an industrial scale”. That needs much more than a voluntary code of conduct. The Foreign Secretary told us legislative attempts in both Houses had “shifted the dial.” Perhaps, with the Biden Administration, we can push the dial further.
We have already worked together on Magnitsky sanctions, announced on 6 July 2020, and for which the Foreign Secretary, and indeed the noble Lord the Minister, deserve credit, but those sanctions are not a response to genocide. I have sent the Minister a recent Financial Times review of Geoffrey Robertson QC’s new book, Bad People. In summary, he argues that the sanctions regime is too opaque and liable to be used against soft targets rather than the worst villains. It does seem passing strange that a functionary such as Chen Quanguo, the CCP party secretary in Tibet and then Xinjiang, remains unsanctioned, as does Carrie Lam, in Hong Kong. Oversight of the Magnitsky sanctions by a Select Committee of your Lordships’ House is urgently needed.
I note, incidentally, as someone who has himself been sanctioned by the CCP for drawing attention to genocide against the Uighurs, that the European Parliament has frozen the EU-China infrastructure deal until sanctions against their parliamentarians are lifted. By contrast, in the UK, our Trade Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, tells us it his ambition to deepen trading links with a state credibly accused of genocide. Let me ask the Minister quite directly: does he think that it is ever licit to seek to deepen trade with a country credibly accused of genocide, or, for that matter, one which uses slave labour?
Will the Minister also provide a response to the recommendations in the Coalition for Genocide Response briefing? I would especially like a response on what it says about universal jurisdiction; prosecution in UK courts of Daesh fighters for their involvement in the genocide against Yazidis, Christians, gay people and others; and the importance of establishing a mechanism for evidence collection and preservation, about which I have written to the Minister, and which is urgently needed in Tigray, where there are reports of mass graves, rape as a weapon of war, summary executions and the targeting of religious figures—these are all detailed in the briefing provided by CSW to noble Lords.
It tells us all we need to know that China and Russia blocked attempts to discuss the allegations about what is under way in Tigray at the United Nations Security Council, while the 2016 recommendations of the UN commission of inquiry on Eritrea, which is now embroiled in Tigray, have never been implemented.
Can the Minister also say what we are doing to bring Burma’s illegal junta to justice and, in the light of the atrocities against Rohingya and Kachin, what we are going to do to take forward the Gambia’s admirable decision to pursue the Burmese military at the ICJ?
The dial may be shifting, but it is not fast enough for beleaguered and suffering people in Burma, Tigray, northern Nigeria, Xinjiang and elsewhere. Dag Hammarskjöld’s ambition to create effective mechanisms
“to save humanity from hell”
remains unfulfilled, but we must not throw in the towel. We have clear duties to hold to account those responsible for atrocity crimes and genocide, and in meeting those obligations we must redouble our efforts. Once again, I thank all noble Lords who have entered the list to speak tonight.
Baroness Nye (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and as a trustee of Burma Campaign UK, I will focus on Burma.
For decades the Tatmadaw has been committing human rights violations that break international law. The impunity it has enjoyed only encouraged further crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing. The genocidal campaign against the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017 caused thousands of deaths, and over 800,000 fled to Bangladesh.
Last year more than 100 parliamentarians of all parties and none, including many in this House, wrote to the Foreign Secretary urging him to formally support the Gambia’s case against Myanmar at the ICJ to protect the Rohingya. Regrettably, the British Government have not fully implemented the recommendations of the UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar, set up in response to the Rohingya genocide as well as the unlawful violations against other ethnic groups in Kachin and Shan states. The letter warned that it was essential to uphold the genocide convention to deter further crimes by the Tatmadaw. Sadly, since then the military has removed the democratically elected NLD Government from office, has imposed military control and is indiscriminately killing Burmese of all ethnicities.
The Minister may reply that the UK has welcomed the Gambia’s case at the ICJ, but he needs to explain why a formal UK intervention may not add value. Furthermore, as a member of the UN Security Council the UK should use its diplomatic standing—especially with our history in Burma, as well as our expertise with the PSVI initiative—to join this action with Canada and the Netherlands. Failure by the UK to show leadership and uphold human rights by formally joining the ICJ case sends a dangerous message that ethnic cleansing and genocide are acceptable tools for repressive Governments around the world. The UK has an historic opportunity to make this a watershed moment in international law, and I hope we take it.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for all the work he does in this area and for the passionate way in which he introduced this debate.
I will start with a quote:
“The United States will provide no support or recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority.”
Not surprisingly, those are the words of Donald Trump, addressing the United Nations General Assembly in September 2018. In 2020 President Trump issued a sweeping executive order authorising asset freezing and family bans against Fatou Bensouda, the ICC chief prosecutor, and took away her visa. Trump said that anybody who assists ICC investigations risks the same sanctions. Of course, this has had a broad, chilling effect on co-operation with the ICC.
Trump indicated that his policy of sanctions might extend to allies—specifically Israel—and demanded that the ICC change its course. The ICC prosecutor concluded in December 2019, after examination, that all the statutory criteria to proceed with a formal investigation in Palestine had been met, but the court is currently seeking a ruling on jurisdiction.
Not surprisingly, neither China nor Myanmar submits to the jurisdiction of the ICC, although 123 countries have ratified the Rome statute. The threat of investigation by the ICC prosecutor resulted in a significant change of government policy under the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, which was recently before us, when genocide, torture and war crimes were at the last gasp omitted from the presumption against prosecution. That they had ever found their way into that Bill is a disgrace.
The most effective thing that can be done just at the moment to tackle genocide is for this country actively to persuade the Biden Administration to take up the responsibility and to ratify the Rome treaty. Is this happening?
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]
My Lords, I have joined this debate to show my support for the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who attack the problem of genocide with fantastic energy, and also to urge the Minister to take more notice of what is being said. I urge him to look at the report of yesterday morning’s sitting of the International Relations and Defence Committee, when the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, gave evidence in respect of China.
I find it embarrassing that, as a Government, we say that we want to be global leaders, but we leave it to Lithuania, Canada, the United States and Holland to call out the genocide that is occurring in China. I say to my noble friend that I have a suspicion that the Government would be prepared to do a bilateral trade deal with China even if it were guilty of genocide—so perhaps he will make it absolutely clear that we will never do a bilateral trade deal with any country accused of genocide.
During the passage of the Trade Bill the Government gave a commitment to set up a committee of both Houses. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to that. Why has it not happened, and when will it happen? Last week we were able to put in place 33 committees on the nod—so why have we not been able to set up either a committee of this House or the joint committee proposed by the Government?
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I agree with every word he said. I hope that the Minister will not come back in this debate and repeat the same arguments about genocide being a matter for the courts, when he knows perfectly well that the perpetrators and those who support them will prevent that being achieved internationally.
Baroness Cox (CB) [V]
My Lords, I strongly support the argument made by my noble friend Lord Alton: the failure to hold perpetrators of genocide to account gives them a green light to continue. The failure of the international community to respond to the Armenian genocide emboldened Hitler to embark on the Holocaust, with his infamous remark,
“Who … speaks today about the annihilation of the Armenians?”
Yet Her Majesty’s Government still refuse to recognise the Armenian genocide and have done nothing to end the impunity with which Turkey and Azerbaijan commit genocide against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, as argued by Genocide Watch. We hope there will be a much more appropriate response to Azerbaijan’s recent incursion into the sovereign state of Amenia, with the killing and capture of Armenian soldiers.
In Myanmar the military regime continues its aggression. Since February, more than 785 civilians have been murdered, including at least 52 children, 5,000 are detained and tens of thousands displaced, in addition to the mass exodus of Rohingya refugees. Time only allows one example of military aggression. In the town of Mindat, in Chin State, as reported by Dr Sasa, speaking on behalf of the National Unity Government, homes were destroyed by tanks and helicopters, anyone trying to help the wounded was arrested, screams of pain were heard as captured civilians were tortured, and many were used as human shields. Dr Sasa pleaded:
“When will the world stop the military generals before they commit another genocide?”
A similar question applies to Nigeria’s Middle Belt, with escalating attacks by Islamist groups, thousands of Christians killed, and hundreds of thousands displaced. Many Muslims who refuse to adopt an Islamist ideology have also been killed. Will Her Majesty’s Government therefore fulfil their obligations under the genocide convention to prevent, protect and punish? The longer we tolerate these massacres and atrocities, the more we embolden the perpetrators, giving them a green light to continue their genocidal policies with impunity.
The Lord Bishop of Blackburn
My Lords, I want to say something about timing, referred to in the moving introductory speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for which we are very grateful.
We face two problems in bringing perpetrators of genocide to justice. One is the length of time it takes for such atrocities to cease, as it is extremely difficult to stop acts while they are happening; it is only after the genocide has ended that moves to accountability seem to kick in, and then it takes years to gather evidence while the perpetrators run free. What is needed is a far more effective early warning system that triggers action much sooner to stop the genocide in its tracks before it does more damage. With modern communication, surely it is not hard to learn of and know of these atrocities; the problem comes in preventing them continuing when access is likely to be denied, lies are told to cover the evil and attempts at intervention are resisted by claims about the sovereignty of the nation state.
I learned recently of an attempt in World War II to intervene in a totally unconventional way. Some may know the extraordinary story in a book entitled The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather. It tells of a Polish man, Witold Pilecki, a farmer, husband and father of two who allowed himself to be arrested in order to be sent to Auschwitz. Despite much personal suffering, he tried to persuade the outside world of the atrocities he was witnessing through sending a series of smuggled messages, but the horror was so great that many people did not believe what he was saying—even here in the UK. So nothing was done to begin with, and the genocide continued.
A similar story surrounds Emily Hobhouse, who came from the UK. She visited South Africa but, when she returned here, she was not believed when she reported on the concentration camps and tactics employed by the British Empire against the Boers. She found herself ostracised here and returned to South Africa, where she is feted and memorialised.
An atrocity can sound so extreme or even unlikely when it is reported that it is not believed and is allowed to run on for too long while nothing is done about it; or, having learned of an evil, it seems that there is nothing anyone can do but pray and wait. While we ask the Minister to speed up the route to justice for perpetrators of genocide, may I seek an assurance that effort will also be given to finding ways to intervene and stop genocide while it is actually taking place, and so save and protect precious lives?
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on securing this important debate and thank him for all that he does.
I commend the Government on its proactive work on UN Resolution 2379, establishing an investigative body on Daesh’s atrocities in Iraq, and for the good work that has been done collecting and preserving evidence for future prosecutions. However, similar steps need to be taken in the case of the atrocities in Xinjiang; I urge Her Majesty’s Government to create a mechanism that will collect and preserve the evidence of the atrocities against the Uighurs for future prosecutions. I acknowledge that while China has the P5 veto, the Security Council may not be the right vehicle for such a mechanism, but I urge my noble friend the Minister to examine the proposals put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Alton.
If we want to ensure that justice is done in future, we must ensure that evidence is not destroyed and witnesses are not pressurised into silence. However, we must be consistent. After the atrocities of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994, the perpetrators, including high-level government officials and other key figures, fled to Europe and North America. Some returned home to Rwanda to be tried. Others were extradited back to Rwanda or prosecuted in domestic courts of the country of their residence under the principle of universal jurisdiction—but, sadly and embarrassingly, not here in the UK.
Since 2006, efforts to extradite the five known Rwandan suspects alleged to have been involved in the genocide against the Tutsi have failed, as have efforts to try them here in the UK. The newly constituted All-Party Parliamentary Group on War Crimes is campaigning hard to urge Her Majesty’s Government to do the right thing. Five suspects accused of heinous crimes against humanity are living peacefully on our shores. I ask my noble friend the Minister: what is the point of campaigning for justice abroad if we fail to deliver justice at home?
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate and for his tireless work on genocide and other egregious human rights violations. We are legally bound by the 1948 convention to take all reasonable steps to punish and to prevent genocide. How many times have we said “never again”, despite inadequate action to break the cycle of it? Nothing will change unless we find a route to legal accountability and justice.
Regrettably, the Government’s actions fall short of their own rhetoric; they are slow to bring forward Magnitsky sanctions and are avoiding reform of supply chain legislation. They are in defiance of the House of Commons recognition of genocides and your Lordships’ overwhelming support for a judicial route to determination. They have prioritised their ability to enter trade negotiations with China over a process to assess the Uighur case. The Government hold an untenable position on the determination of genocide. You cannot say “genocide determination is for a court” when, with Chinese and Russian vetoes, no court will ever hear the case. Their policy is inoperable and now they must come forward with credible alternatives. They must continue to explore all legal routes to justice.
There are options. My honourable friend Stephen Kinnock urged the Foreign Secretary to introduce a UNGA resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the question of Uighur genocide and to explore legal avenues through other treaties and conventions, like the Convention against Torture, to which China is a signatory. If there was sufficient evidence against individuals, and they were to travel internationally, countries could assume jurisdiction to try those responsible for Uighur policies. France created a genocide unit to investigate and prosecute such offences and in May 2020 arrested a suspect in connection with the genocide in Rwanda.
Another option is bringing cases against Chinese officials at the ICC. China does not accept that jurisdiction, but, as a basis for jurisdiction, lawyers for exiled Uighurs claim some victims were kidnapped from Cambodia and Tajikistan, which do recognise the court. If not these, what credible alternatives do the Government have?
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on being the conscience of not only the House of Lords but the Government on this issue of genocide. I do not need to explain to all the wonderful legal minds in this Committee that, in English law, the accomplices who aid, abet, counsel or procure an offence are charged jointly with, and face the same maximum sentences as, the people who commit the criminal act.
This night, the UK Government and the arms industry are culpable for genocides and other atrocities committed across the world. There are very few such atrocities that are committed independently of the global arms trade, of which the Government of the UK are a major component. In your Lordships’ House earlier this week, I mentioned the case of the UK aid sent to Mozambique to create a fossil fuel plant. Not only is this a disaster for our planet, it has also created more unrest in a very unstable area. In 2020 the plans actually encouraged an increase in the number of violent incidents; there were 570 in 2020 alone, of which one was 50 people beheaded on a sports field over the course of one weekend.
The conventional arms industry is bad enough for this, but then there is the nuclear weapons industry, the whole purpose of which is to facilitate global nuclear annihilation. Any high-flown promises about justice for genocide are empty while those same people who made the promises support the arms industry. It is time to rein in the military industrial complex and stop facilitating the killing of people across the world. That really would benefit the reputation of the UK Government.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB) [V]
My Lords, I personally went through two traumatising experiences of genocide in the 1990s when I was Britain’s representative on the UN Security Council: Rwanda in 1994 and Srebrenica in 1995. That is why I strongly support and welcome my noble friend Lord Alton’s debate today. If proof was needed that the lack of any enforcement provisions in the 1948 convention against genocide left a wide-open door to that most reprehensible of crimes, that was it.
Since then, attempts have been made to remedy that lacuna, with the establishment of regional courts and then the International Criminal Court, and with the endorsement by the 2005 UN summit of the emerging norm of the responsibility to protect. But, as the evidence before us of genocide committed against Iraq’s Yazidis and Myanmar’s Rohingya, and of the threats to the Uighurs of Xinjiang and the Tigrayans of Ethiopia, demonstrates, these attempts have fallen short of what is needed. So, what should be done to bring perpetrators of genocide to justice and thus strengthen the deterrent effect which the 1948 convention was intended to have?
Here are four suggestions. First, the UK, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, should press for the council to extend the jurisdiction of the ICC to cover countries which have not signed up to the Rome statute, but in whose territory genocide may have been committed. That route was used successfully in the cases of crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region and in Libya; it should now be used in the cases of Iraq’s Yazidis and Burma’s Rohingyas. Secondly, the UK should also maintain its support for the French initiative to get the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to agree not to use the veto when the risk or actuality of genocide was involved. Thirdly, our Houses of Parliament should prepare the ground to make use of the opening in the Trade Act to consider allegations of genocide by any proposed trade partner. Fourthly, we should tighten up our own immigration and residence legislation and its enforcement so that never again, as was shamefully the case with some of those accused of genocide in Rwanda, could perpetrators find impunity in the UK.
I hope that the Minister can say at the end of this debate whether the four points I have identified—others have mentioned most of them too—are part of the Government’s agenda.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, who could fail to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and with the sentiment that the perpetrators of genocide should be brought to justice? After all, did we not sign up to that principle at Nuremberg, when the sentiment was translated into sentences?
Three images come to my mind when I think of bringing perpetrators to justice. The rows of senior Nazis at Nuremberg is the first; the other two feature Radovan Karadzic. One is of him smiling with Ratko Mladić—the butcher of Srebrenica, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred—both of them assuming that they would never be brought to justice. The third image is again of Karadzic, this time at The Hague as the judgment was delivered. There was no smile then. But Xi Jinping must be smiling today because, while we debate, the Uighurs die. While we agonise over their genocide, they suffer the agony of despair. Time is of the essence, but will we act before it is too late?
Bringing perpetrators to justice is essential, but that inevitably means the crime has already been committed, as we have heard. It is far better, surely, to ensure that there are no perpetrators to bring to justice in the first place. Unless and until we translate sentiment to sentencing for the crime, there will be no deterrence, no prevention and no justice, and yet more genocide will be perpetrated again.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for securing this debate. I am sure the Minister will have heard the frustration from every speaker who has yet spoken with the current impasse, where we are going nowhere on doing anything to properly prevent genocide.
I want to pick up the theme of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn on the tricky issue of what the international community can and should do, particularly where genocide is a slow burn. It does not happen all of a sudden. It starts with removing human rights protections from certain groups, mainly ethnic groups; then by imposing new laws that impinge on their ability to live and work freely in society; then by using new laws to deny these peoples and groups the right to inhabit a society in security and freedom. Usually, the culmination is violence to drive them out and/or bring about their extinction. That is the course we have seen throughout the 70 years of the convention and before it, under the Nazis and the genocide of the Jewish people. So also in Darfur, in Rwanda, with the Yazidis and now with the Uighurs in China, it follows the same course. China is of course more egregious in many ways, as those people have nowhere to flee.
My question to the Government, borne out of the frustration of the ineffectiveness of the UN in this regard, is that, since the Security Council is incapable of consensus on these matters, will they work with like-minded countries such as those in the Accountability, Coherence and Transparency Group, to establish a risk register to monitor the slow burn of genocide so that human rights violations in a given country that point in the direction of genocide can be monitored? The international community can then use responsibility to protect and other measures in coalitions of the willing to take the necessary actions that they may need to before the act occurs.
Baroness Goudie (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I thank my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for arranging for this debate today and for the leadership he has given across party in the House of Lords on all these issues and on others.
Her Majesty’s Government are second to none in paying eloquent lip service to bringing the perpetrators of genocide to justice. The value of this question is that it focuses attention on accenting this in practice. The Government’s record is lamentable. The rights of victims are valueless without effective remedies. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and his four points, which the Government must look at clearly. There has to be effective machinery both to identify the perpetrators of genocide and to bring them before the courts, but this is not happening. We should ensure that we set up the Joint Committee, as promised by the Government recently, as soon as possible. Further, we should look at all trade deals so that we do not trade with countries that are committing genocide or about to do so. We know from various indexes when genocide is starting to be perpetrated. The killing of women and children by the perpetrators is always the first sign that something is wrong, because they are such cowards. I ask the Government to look again at the trade deals and to look at the four points of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. We cannot be a world leader and continue to let this go by.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, the Minister can be in no doubt of the feeling of Members of your Lordships’ House about the question of genocide. My noble friend—I do call him a friend—the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has on so many occasions raised the issue of genocide. Many of these issues that we have talked about this evening have been rehearsed again and again. The Government in the integrated review and in the gracious Speech stressed that they want to play an important role in the world and be a beacon of democracy and human rights. To do that, we need also to be able to take a stand on genocide, upholding our own commitments under the genocide convention of 1948, and finding a way to hold regimes to account when there are cases of genocide.
On so many occasions, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and others pointed out, the Government have claimed that decisions need to be made by a court, and yet the nature of the UN Security Council and the vetoes of the P5 countries, when we know that China and Russia and the US under Donald Trump would not accept any moves on genocide, mean that we need to look again. Can the Minister tell us whether there has been any thought in the Government about taking up the French idea of the veto not being used in cases of genocide? Can the Minister tell us when we are likely to see the joint parliamentary committee, so that Parliament can begin to take a stand on genocide and hold the Government to account in their decisions and actions in this area as well?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I very much welcome the continued focus on issues of genocide from the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Sadly, however, there is too often a gap between what Ministers say and what they do. Despite the Gambia putting forward a case to the International Court of Justice, as my noble friend Lady Nye highlighted, in which Myanmar stands accused of genocide, the UK has so far been unprepared to support the case. Why?
The Government have not gone far enough, considering the evidence of genocide in Xinjiang. Despite the sanctions, many perpetrators will be untouched. Much more must be done to ensure that UK business supply chains do not involve forced labour in Xinjiang. What steps are the Government taking to strengthen Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act?
In my amendment to the Trade Bill I sought guarantees that we would never sign agreements with the worst abusers of human rights. In response to my amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, said that the FCDO’s annual human rights and democracy report was the right place to report on human rights and trade. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, agreed that the report would be strengthened to include a greater focus on trade. I hope that the Minister will repeat those assurances and confirm that the forthcoming report in the summer will include trade negotiations. As we leave the EU, this will be an important part of our negotiations and of how we determine to fight these human rights abusers. Human rights abuse is the start of where genocide is the end. We must stick to our word and hold these people to account.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for tabling this debate. He can be assured that, as the Minister responsible for, among other things, human rights, I not only have listened to the sentiments expressed by noble Lords in this excellent debate but will reflect on them and take them back to ensure that they get due consideration.
From the outset, I express what I am sure are the sentiments of all: accountability for genocide and, indeed, all atrocities, is an important and impassioned issue. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, knows my great and deep respect for him personally and for his strong advocacy for human rights across the world over many years. So it is absolutely right that the Government continue to respond to debates such as these and to calls to lead the charge for accountability for perpetrators of serious international crimes. I assure the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that we are focused on the important issue of atrocity prevention. I will come to that in a moment or two.
The pursuit of international criminal justice and accountability remains at the heart of our foreign policy. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, mentioned the human rights report; that was a timely reminder, as it is currently coming across my desk. I hope that the noble Lord appreciates my personal commitment to ensuring that human rights remain very much at the heart of the work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and of the Government. The Government remain committed to the principle that there should be no impunity for those who perpetrate the most serious crimes of international concern, and we remain at the forefront of efforts to hold perpetrators of such crimes to account.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, put forward four important points. I will pick up on just one: the veto. I have heard the sentiments of others, including the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on this. We should certainly lead by action. The United Kingdom has not exercised its veto and it is right that, through our actions, we now have a determination to influence others in this respect. However, as I have directly experienced as Minister for the UN, the ability of the five member nations to exercise the veto remains a real challenge, particularly on some of the issues discussed previously, including the situation in Myanmar.
The UK policy remains, as has been said by a number of noble Lords, that the determination of genocide should be made by competent courts, not non-judicial bodies. This includes international courts, such as the ICC, and, indeed, national criminal courts that meet international standards. I hope that noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Forsyth, while not perhaps being fully content with my response, will appreciate that while the determination of genocide remains for the courts, and it is important they consider all the available evidence, we do not stand and wait for that determination. We act, as our approach to global human rights has shown, with the introduction of our own independent sanctions regime.
It is important to stress, however, that our approach in no way undermines the UK’s commitment to the principle that there should be no impunity for perpetrators of the most serious crimes, as illustrated by the various situations in countries highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. Let me assure her and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that we remain true and will uphold our obligations under the genocide convention. When atrocities occur, our approach is to seek an end to them and prevent further escalations, irrespective of whether they fit the definition of a specific international crime.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Goudie, my noble friend Lord Forsyth, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, rightly raised the progress being made to create the promised mechanism of a parliamentary committee to examine allegations of genocide. The provisions relating to trade agreements and genocide within the Trade Act will commence from 30 June 2021. The relevant commencement order has now been made. I will write to noble Lords, in the interest of time, on what the processes will be thereafter.
We do not agree with one central premise—and I am sure that other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Browne, will share this view—that we should act only when there has been a determination of genocide. Today’s debate has demonstrated the importance of early intervention. The United Kingdom, notwithstanding the challenges I have heard today, has been at the forefront of calling out crimes and, indeed, strengthening international action. We have demonstrated this, as my noble friend Lord Polak acknowledged, against the unspeakable actions of Daesh in Syria and Iraq, and also in calling out the appalling human rights violations in Xinjiang, among other areas.
Turning to the situation in Xinjiang, we led the first two UN statements on this issue. I know from personal experience because I led on one them. An increased number of countries now support us, but I will be clear that the challenge remains very real. Sadly and tragically, when it comes to the biggest internment of the Muslim community anywhere in the world, there are many across the world, including a large part of the Muslim world, who remain silent. We must therefore persevere in our actions to ensure broader support. In answering the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, let me assure her that we work directly with our partners to strengthen an international alliance of the willing to speak out against human rights abuses and in the case of China’s human right violations, to increase pressure on China to change its behaviour.
As noble Lords will be aware, the Government have, as I have already said, put in place national sanctions to back our actions and words. The sanctions regime calls out serious violations and human rights abuses. On 22 March, under our global human rights sanctions regime, the UK imposed asset freezes and travel bans for the first time on four senior Chinese government officials and an asset freeze on one further entity. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, rightly asked about the Modern Slavery Act and tightening supply chains. That is under way, and I have previously given a commitment that colleagues from the Home Office and the Home Secretary will be leading in that respect. On 12 January—which was the preamble to that action—the Foreign Secretary announced measures to help ensure that British businesses are not complicit in human rights violations or abuses in Xinjiang.
Noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned various live situations of concern about human rights abuses around the world. I know that recently there has been much correspondence about Ethiopia’s Tigray region and what is happening there. As I assured the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in the Queen’s Speech debate, I am taking forward specific responsibilities in my capacity as the Prime Minister’s special representative on preventing sexual violence by sending a team now, not after, to ensure that evidence can start being collected according to international standards. I can also share that I have had a summary report. Nick Dyer, who is our special envoy on humanitarian issues and famine relief, has just returned from the Tigray region.
The UK continues to support the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on her efforts in Tigray and, as noble Lords will be aware, particularly in ensuring access to areas such as Xinjiang. We continue to lobby further support in that respect.
The UK has also been a strong supporter of accountability mechanisms. We have contributed nearly £2 million so far to the team operating to investigate Daesh in Iraq. The Government have also been clear that there must be accountability for the actions of the Burmese military and the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya community that has taken place. On 1 April, we announced a funding boost of £500,000 to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. Our autonomous Myanmar (Sanctions) Regulations prohibit the provision of military-related services, including the provision of technical assistance, that benefit the military regime. Support for international justice remains at the heart of our approach in this regard.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and others, raised the action of the Gambia at the ICJ. We are supportive of that. There are various dates, including the right of Myanmar to respond to the initial report. I assure noble Lords that we continue to consider where we would consider, at the appropriate time, the formal support of a UK intervention in this respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, talked about the International Criminal Court as a read-across to certain situations, including those of Israel. We have been clear that any international court must ensure that its mandate and its jurisdiction are upheld; it is our view that the ICC does not have jurisdiction in this case. However, we of course support the independence of the ICC and its officials. The noble Lord quoted the US position, and the UK position is clear: we provide political, financial, and practical support for the International Criminal Court. I am sure that I speak for all noble Lords regarding the excellent Joanna Korner being elected as a judge recently, backed further by our success in ensuring the first ever election of a prosecutor who is also British, Karim Khan QC.
Regarding situations elsewhere in the world and bringing perpetrators to account, my noble friend Lord Shinkwin rightly raised issues of justice and time. But we should be heartened that in 2016, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found Radovan Karadzic guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws or customs of war, committed during the conflict in and around Bosnia and Herzegovina. This conviction brought accountability for some of the horrors of the Yugoslav wars and, following a request to the UK from the successor body to the tribunal, Radovan Karadzic will be transferred to a prison in the UK to serve his sentence. I hope that this underlines that no matter when such a crime takes place, we will continue to pursue international criminals, uphold the rule of law and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.
I also accept the premise rightly raised by many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Polak, on Rwanda and those who seek to be or are currently in the UK. While that case is under way, it would be remiss of me to comment too deeply, but I assure my noble friend that this was the direct purpose of a conversation that I had with President Kagame while I was in Rwanda, to give him the assurance that he needed of our commitment to ensuring that all perpetrators are held to account.
The issue of preventing atrocities was raised by the right reverend Prelate, my noble friend Lord Shinkwin and the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner. I assure all noble Lords that we work quite systematically on this important agenda, from early warning mechanisms to diplomatic engagement and development programme support, as well as defence: we use all those to strengthen the international system. They are all part of our approach to ensure that it is not just waiting; it is about acting early and quickly. As set out in our integrated review, we are committed to a more integrated approach to our work on conflict and instability, placing greater emphasis on addressing the underlying causes and strengthening the resilience, particularly of fragile countries, to external influence.
I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that, both through our trade and, indeed, our arms export licences, we remain consistent to our obligations under international law. We remain consistent in terms of the regimes in which we operate, and certainly I, as Minister for Human Rights, remain very much committed to ensuring that the issue of human rights is at the centre of our thinking, both when it comes to issues of trade and issues of arms sales. That is a case we continue to make and I know my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is cognisant of that.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, raised various matters and asked specific questions. I will write to him. I have mentioned the Modern Slavery Act, but I will write to him, if I may, on specific dates and timelines. I noted the commitment and the passion, and I assure noble Lords that Her Majesty’s Government remain committed to ensuring accountability and justice; within that, we work with communities on the ground to support reconciliation on the ground as well. We will demonstrate this through our political, financial and practical support to international justice and accountability mechanisms, including those of prevention, to ensure not just that the suffering of those communities around the world can be lessened but that we can prevent future atrocities from occurring.
I assure all noble Lords that we will continue to work with our international partners to ensure that, where we can, we end atrocities and that, where we can, we prevent atrocities and ultimately alleviate the suffering of those being impacted. We will never wait for the determinations of specific international crimes before taking action. It is early days on our global human rights sanctions regime, but through the 70-odd sanctions that we have currently levelled and our partnerships—we are working with key partners such as the United States, Canada, and our partners in the European Union—we have demonstrated the importance of working together with the like-minded. I hope that that provides a degree of assurance to all noble Lords who have participated in this important debate. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, mentioned the importance of partnerships, of working and listening to your Lordships’ House and our colleagues in the other place, and I assure the noble Lord of my commitment in that respect.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, had the first word and, in my summing up, he should have the last word. He quoted, among others, Eleanor Roosevelt, and there is one particular quotation of hers that really stays with me:
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
We must ensure that those who suffer at the hands of others never lose sight of their dreams. Let us help build those dreams.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, that completes the business before the Grand Committee today. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.
House of Lords
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 and wear face coverings while in the Chamber except when speaking. 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.
Commonwealth Heads of Government
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the progress made on delivering commitments agreed at the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting; and what is their agenda for the next Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, as chair-in-office the UK has worked hard with the whole Commonwealth family to deliver on the leaders’ CHOGM 2018 commitments. This has included over £500 million of UK-funded projects and programmes, as set out in the chair-in-office report, which we published and placed in the Library of this House last September. The United Kingdom will continue as chair-in-office until CHOGM can take place and we will continue to pursue the declared and shared priorities that leaders agreed on fairness, security, sustainability and prosperity.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, we remain chair-in-office following the cancellation of the Rwanda meeting, so we have an ongoing commitment. I hope that the Minister will ensure that, when we monitor the progress that we have made on those commitments at London, he updates them and ensures that Parliament has access to them—it would be good if we could have a debate—in particular on strengthening democratic institutions. What steps are the Government taking to strengthen the role of civil society across the Commonwealth? This is an important ingredient to guarantee and further the cause of democracy.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, first, I am sure that the noble Lord did not mean “cancellation”; it is a postponement of the CHOGM. On the second point, which is practical, I assure the noble Lord that, as Minister of State for the Commonwealth, I shall seek to take up all opportunities, including future debates, as long as we remain chair-in-office—and indeed beyond when Rwanda takes over. On the specifics of the agenda, we will continue to support democracy and champion human rights, inclusion and the rule of law, which includes issues of media freedom, LGBT rights and gender equality, as well as 12 years of quality education for girls. On that final element, the joint meeting that we are having with Kenya will bring further focus to that priority.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB) [V]
Last September, the Foreign Secretary claimed that the UK had helped to update laws discriminating against women, girls and LGBT communities in six Commonwealth countries, which he could not mention. Can the Minister, who we know stands up for human rights, now name those countries and confirm that this project is complete and that there is no more discrimination?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the noble Earl’s second question, this is of course ongoing. Dealing with discrimination is never a job done, whether at home or abroad, and we need to remain vigilant on the issue. On the specific countries, some have declared quite openly the reforms that they have undertaken. Others, because of domestic sensitivities, have sought more discreet support from us in that regard, which is why we have not named them specifically. I am sure that the noble Earl is aware of several countries that have declared progress on, for example, the important priority of LGBT issues.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, there have been a number of Questions in your Lordships’ House about the education of girls, the answers to which usually rely on the repetition of sums of money allocated by the Government. Can the Minister give a concrete example of an action taken to move towards providing 12 years of high-quality education for girls—and indeed for boys? Could he specify a proposal that the UK Government will have on the agenda to move more quickly to achieve this goal?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I can certainly share with the noble Baroness, including in my responsibilities as Minister for South Asia, how we have invested specifically not just in school building programmes in Pakistan—a Commonwealth country—but in teaching, textbooks and support, ensuring that there is an inclusivity to the educational agenda. As I said in response to an earlier question, the issue is never done. We need to remain focused on delivering the priority on girls’ education. We have seen over £200 million spent on 11 countries and I would be happy to provide specifics of other programmes to the noble Baroness.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, the pandemic has shown the devastation that is caused by a global health crisis. What action has been taken since the 2018 CHOGM to address, as promised there, antimicrobial resistance? Has the FCDO assessed what effect the cuts to science and research that it has just carried through might have had on the UK’s contribution in this area?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the first question, we continue to focus on that issue, which has informed much of our research. On spending on research, as the noble Baroness is aware, we have allocated specific sums to research as a stand-alone function in the budget assessments that we have made. Also, across the seven themes and priorities that the Foreign Secretary has outlined, research budgets will be specifically allocated to fulfil those objectives.
Baroness Goudie (Lab) [V]
My Lords, as part of the task force of the Commonwealth arising out of CHOGM, a commitment was made to allow girls aged nine to 13 to have access to HP vaccinations, as we know that 40% of incidences and 43% of deaths in the Commonwealth are from cervical cancer.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the specifics, I will write to the noble Baroness with an update on vaccines. The commitment that we gave to supporting global health in the context of the Commonwealth remains a priority for us as chair-in-office. Indeed, we are discussing this with the next chair-in-office, Rwanda.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, I was pleased to see sexual and reproductive health referred to at last week’s Commonwealth Health Ministers’ meeting. Does my noble friend agree that access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services and rights and comprehensive sexual education are essential to achieve the aims of the Government and the Commonwealth on 12 years of quality education? If so, will he commit the Government to putting these issues on the agenda at the next Heads of Government Meeting?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I can certainly say yes to my noble friend on the commitment and prioritisation that we need to give and assure her that I will raise this issue directly with Rwanda and press for the inclusion of SRHR in the CHOGM communiqué.
Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Will the Minister tell me what specific action the Government are undertaking to mobilise delivery of the commitment made in 2018 at CHOGM to halve malaria in the Commonwealth by 2023? Are not that commitment and our credibility undermined by the cuts in bilateral malaria programmes —for example, in Nigeria—occasioned by the abandonment of our 0.7% spending commitment?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I clearly recall working with the noble Baroness on prioritising fighting malaria in the run-up to and through CHOGM 2018. We have made some real progress on deliverables across the Commonwealth in raising awareness and on vaccinations. The noble Baroness raises specific questions within country programmes. Those are being finalised, but I can assure her that we are seeking to prioritise health and particularly vaccination.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, the commitments on education are welcome, even if they have been undermined by the Government’s spending cuts on global education. The last year has shown how important it is to make advances in digital education provision. The Government of Rwanda have prioritised digitisation in public services for their time as chair-in-office. Will the UK Government and the Government of Rwanda work together to ensure that across the Commonwealth we can see an escalation of advance in digitising education provision, so that, should there be a future pandemic, so many millions will not lose out quite so much?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
The noble Lord makes a very practical suggestion and I can assure him that we are talking with the Government of Rwanda, with Foreign Minister Biruta and with the Secretary-General—we had a meeting only yesterday. While there has been a postponement on CHOGM, we will continue to work very much in association with the Government of Rwanda. The noble Lord makes a very practical suggestion, which has application not just in the context of what Rwanda may do but in delivering girls’ education and prioritising education in the UK’s overall ODA programme.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, the theme of the London CHOGM was “Towards a common future”, whereas for Kigali it is “Delivering a common future”. Will the Minister clarify what progress has been made between these finely nuanced positions, particularly for Commonwealth trade compared to the EU? What is the Government’s response to the Economist’s view that believing increased Commonwealth trade would fill the gap left by the EU was an admirable delusion?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I would say that it was not a delusion. We have already seen practical initiatives, including SheTrades, which has supported 3,300 women entrepreneurs. It is good that we see consistency across the piece between the two Commonwealth countries.
Baroness Mobarik (Con)
My Lords, one of our commitments was to lead and strengthen the structures of the Commonwealth to become a powerful economic bloc. Much of our focus since CHOGM 2018 has been on negotiating a free trade agreement with India, but there are other sizeable economies in south Asia. Will my noble friend tell me what efforts are being made to engage fully with Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in relation to trade?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is quite right that the issue of prosperity was a declared priority. We are working with associations within the Commonwealth, including that led by my noble friend Lord Marland on pursuing trade and business across the Commonwealth. There is a recognition of intra-Commonwealth trade and investment and an ambition has been set for $2 trillion-worth of trade. On south Asia, I can talk with some degree of insight as the Minister for South Asia. My noble friend is correct to point to India, but I can assure her that we are working in very practical terms with Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. We are very focused on the trade element, including setting up teams across Whitehall, which include not only FCDO Ministers, but DIT Ministers as well.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and we come to the second Oral Question.
Nagorno-Karabakh
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Cox
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of (1) the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and (2) reports of human rights violations by the Government of Azerbaijan.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the UK Government continue to closely monitor the situation in and around Nagorno-Karabakh and we are deeply concerned by reports of human rights violations stemming from last year’s conflict and wider allegations that war crimes were committed. My colleague the Minister for European Neighbourhood and the Americas has urged both sides to undertake thorough investigations of these claims, including during her visit to Baku and Yerevan in February of this year.
Baroness Cox (CB) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. However, is he aware that in Armenia this morning, six Armenian servicemen were captured by military forces of Azerbaijan, and on 25 May an Armenian serviceman was fatally wounded by Azeri soldiers in Armenia? This is a blatant armed encroachment on the sovereign territory of Armenia. Does the Minister agree that Her Majesty’s Government’s policy of talking has been seriously inefficient, and that effective action is needed in response to these threats to regional peace?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I am aware of the media reports of this morning and of 25 May of military forces exchanging gunfire that the noble Baroness alludes to. What is encouraging in what remains a very tense situation is that the November truce that was brokered and agreed by three countries working on the Minsk agenda, particularly Russia, is still largely holding. However, I assure the noble Baroness that we are working with both sides, including through engagement at ministerial level, towards a lasting peace between the two countries.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, part of the rich cultural heritage of Armenia now lies in lands captured during the recent conflict. That includes 161 churches, tombs and other Christian monuments. I know that Azerbaijan has undertaken to protect and honour these religious sites. However, will the Minister go further than that and say that there needs to be some monitoring and investigation, and will he press Azerbaijan to allow UNESCO to carry out that monitoring and investigatory mission?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I totally agree with the noble Lord. Whatever the final settlement between the two countries, the importance of retaining and protecting heritage is a key priority for everyone. The noble Lord makes a practical suggestion regarding UNESCO and I will certainly take that back and share it with my colleague responsible for our relations. It is right that we see agencies such as UNESCO acting in areas of conflict to ensure that heritage sites are fully protected.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is hard to imagine a more fragile ceasefire, with Azerbaijan satisfied and crowing and Armenians weakened and insecure—and all this with allegations of war crimes on both sides? What steps is the United Kingdom taking at the United Nations to seek to achieve greater stability in the region?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the specific issue of the United Nations, we had sought and certainly worked towards a presidential statement, notwithstanding the challenges and representations from both sides. Unfortunately, that could not be secured at the last meeting of the UNSC but we are working, not just through the UN but the OSCE, to ensure that exactly the objectives the noble Lord has laid out can be guaranteed, particularly for those within Nagorno-Karabakh, who come from both communities.
Baroness Eaton (Con) [V]
The impunity enjoyed by Azerbaijan has given it the confidence to violate November’s peace agreement in a number of ways and to threaten the territorial integrity of Armenia. Will Her Majesty’s Government make urgent representations to the Government of Azerbaijan to withdraw their forces from sovereign territories of Armenia and to cease such open provocations?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I note what my noble friend has said, and my colleague Minister Morton has been working on this agenda. However, very much the first priority is to ensure that the Minsk process, which has been agreed by both sides, is strengthened further. We are certainly lending support to ensure that all aspects of this conflict can be resolved through that mechanism.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB) [V]
As the Minister knows, allegations of war crimes have been made by both main parties to the dispute. What steps have Her Majesty’s Government taken to ensure that those are subject to proper international—not just local—examination, and, if proven, to prosecution?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, again, the noble and right reverend Lord raises an important point. Certainly, exactly those points have been pushed through the various engagements we have had with both sides, and indeed by those working on the peace deal more specifically, including our colleagues in Russia, the United States and France. The issue of holding to account those responsible for such actions is a key priority and both sides should seek to co-operate fully.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, what is the Government’s assessment of recent reports suggesting that Russia has significant control over the administration of Nagorno-Karabakh and has prevented groups such as MSF and the Halo Trust from entering the region? Has the Minister raised those issues at the United Nations as well?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Lord is aware, we have brought forward specific support, including funding for key organisations working in the region, which is very difficult. Indeed, an announcement was made back in October that £1 million of funding would go to the ICRC. The issue of Russia is very clear. Yes, Russia is present; I believe that about 2,000 Russian troops are in Nagorno-Karabakh, and obviously they have an extended influence through the Minsk process. The noble Lord makes practical points and I can assure him that we are raising the important issues of civil society roles and humanitarian agencies’ access to that important region.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, I draw Members’ attention to my registered interest, particularly as a director of the John Smith Trust. The Minsk Group has failed to make any real progress on achieving an agreed outcome to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute or to act coherently, with Russia supporting Azerbaijan and the United States and France failing to balance that with support for Armenia. How can Her Majesty’s Government use their P5 position to help balance the situation by giving some more support to Armenia, where there is an increasing suspicion that the commercial relationship with Azerbaijan has become more important than finding an agreed peaceful resolution?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
The noble Lord rightly raises the concerns of Armenia, particularly with regard to various other countries extending their support to Azerbaijan. We believe that we have dealt with this issue and continue to deal with it through direct engagement with Ministers at both levels—my colleague, Minister Morton, leads on this. Equally, however, from the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to Minister Morton, we have engaged with countries that have supported either side, and we will continue to extend influence in that regard. However, the Minsk process is the agreed process, notwithstanding the challenges it faces, and our efforts continue to be in support of that.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds [V]
My Lords, just to add to the catalogue, on 12 May this year Azerbaijani armed forces also invaded the border area of the Syunik region of the Republic of Armenia. On the ground, the constant incursions and the violations of human rights are perceived with impunity. Does the Minister believe that Minsk is working and is ultimately viable, and what more can the UK and its allies do to hold Azerbaijan to account?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the right reverend Prelate’s first question, I have already said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, that I accept that it has been very challenging and that the Minsk process has not been as effective as all sides would have hoped, certainly for those hoping for further peace between the two countries. That said, the UK fully supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group as the primary forum. Of course, the other concerns that the right reverend Prelate describes remain, and we will continue to use all our interventions to ensure the cessation of hostilities and that perpetrators of any crimes are fully held to account.
Lord Sheikh (Con) [V]
My Lords, Armenia forcibly occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, which should have been part of Azerbaijan under four UN Security Council resolutions, in 1993. During the war there were injuries and loss of life on both sides, and one side cannot be held responsible for such consequences over another. Azerbaijan took what was rightfully theirs. Does my noble friend accept that? Does he also accept that the current situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is that Armenia is refusing to share landmine data with Azerbaijan, which is causing injury and death, and that Armenia is also failing to withdraw its armed forces from the territory?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I hear what my noble friend says and of course, we are working towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict for both sides.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question.
Agri-environment Schemes: Permissive Access
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Quin
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what, if any, new measures they plan to introduce regarding permissive access to footpaths across farmland being used for agri-environment schemes.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. Support for public access, including paying to create new permissive access or rights of way, could potentially be funded under new schemes that reward environmental benefits. The agricultural transition plan sets out examples of the types of land management actions that we envisage paying for under these schemes. We are working with stakeholders and users to determine the specific actions that will be funded, and further details of these will be set out later this year.
Baroness Quin (Lab) [V]
I congratulate the Minister on his appointment. Defra’s own figures indicate that there has been a reduction of some 38,000 miles in permissive footpaths on land that was previously eligible for grants under the CAP-funded stewardship schemes. Given that Covid has shown how much people value access to the countryside on their doorstep, will the Government act quickly to bring in again schemes to reward farmers for access and, hopefully, reverse the footpath closures that have been taking place?
Lord Benyon (Con)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right: there is an imperative, which has been particularly noticed during the Covid lockdown periods, when more people sought access to our countryside. We want to see that continue and be encouraged. That is why, in the schemes that we are bringing forward under environmental land management, there will be a very clear access commitment, backed by funding.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, will the Government guarantee specific funding for farmers for disabled access through the environmental land management scheme?
Lord Benyon (Con)
Access for disabled people to the countryside will be funded under these schemes. Funding could be available for, for example, improving footpath surfaces, gates and access to footpaths. We are looking at this in the tests and trials that we are carrying out at the moment.
The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that it is extremely difficult to reroute an existing footpath or bridleway. Under ELMS, might it be possible to simplify the rerouting process where existing paths interfere with cropping regimes—perhaps by utilising headlands as the route, instead of ingressing through growing crops? It would be much easier for those using the paths and would interfere less with the efficient farming operation. Is he aware that there really needs to be a review of footpaths and bridle paths to make them compatible with current farming methods and to the benefit of the general public good?
Lord Benyon (Con)
I can assure my noble friend that this is being addressed outside environmental land management. We are bringing forward legislation this year to streamline the process of recording and changing rights of way. Under environmental land management schemes, it will be possible to find permissive routes that are more attractive to walkers and are mutually beneficial to the landowner and farmer as well.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I pay tribute to my colleague Lord Greaves, who in the past would have spoken on this Question. Following on from the question of the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, it is important for the public to have access to the countryside. However, in order to achieve the aim of ELMS to encourage the return of insect and animal species, especially around field margins, which have already been referred to, does the Minister believe that rights of way may need to be constrained?
Lord Benyon (Con)
I echo the noble Baroness’s tribute to Lord Greaves. Alongside the crisis of species decline, a crisis of lack of engagement with nature by large proportions of the public is of equal concern to me and to this Government. I do not believe they are mutually exclusive; I think we can find an increased permissive paths system which does not compromise the desperate desire to find improved habitats for vertebrates, insects and wider species. So I can only assure her that we are looking at this as part of the tests and trials process.
Baroness Mallalieu (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as set out in the register and am very cheered by the Minister’s response to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin. Many rural roads were not designed for the volume and types of traffic that they now carry and are becoming increasingly dangerous, especially for walkers, cyclists and riders. So what plans do the Government have to increase and finance access for off-road recreation and to provide facilities to increase the areas that the number of people who we now encourage to visit the countryside need to use to access those footpaths and bridleways?
Lord Benyon (Con)
Under what we hope will be an increasing network of permissive footpaths that can be used by not just walkers but cyclists and horse riders—with greater access, as I said, for disabled people— it is hoped that we can design them with farmers and land managers. We will be taking people who are currently walking on roads into a safer place for them and rewarding the farmer for providing that facility. There is an opportunity. I am aware of the problems that have been caused, particularly in recent months, with increased access, where road users are not safe, and we want to make sure that farmers and land managers are helping us solve that problem.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V]
My Lords, the rights-of-way network tends to reflect historic usage and is often not very useful for new developments and towns. To address that, we need co-operation between landowners and local communities. Will funding be available for partnerships, such as those created by local access forums?
Lord Benyon (Con)
Local access fora are absolutely vital in this, and what is decided at governmental level is often unimportant when you get down to the ground. Local access fora have been brilliant at bringing together farming and landowning interests with the desires and needs of walkers. I will also say that we are also encouraging farms to group together in clusters as part of the environmental land management scheme, so we can get improved access across a landscape, rather than just across an existing farm.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that 2026 is still the cut-off date for mapping historical rights of way—footpaths? Is he aware that the stakeholder group In All Our Footsteps refuses to communicate with a number of people who have written to it? Will he please ensure, if he wants proper consultation, that he gets such groups to do their job properly?
Lord Benyon (Con)
I will look into the latter point that my noble friend makes, but I can confirm that, at present, 2026 is the cut-off date for recording historical footpaths. There is provision under the legislation to extend that by five years, but I think most people want to get on with this and get it recorded. That will provide clarity for the farmer and land manager, and an opportunity for walking groups as well.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box. In a recent Written Answer, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, was able to give details of only six tests and trials for the new payment scheme which were focused on public access, and some of them were only incidental to other projects. Is the Minister confident that these trials will give enough data to shape access policy for the future? How can we be assured that the resulting funding regime will indeed deliver the much-needed increase in public access that everybody wants?
Lord Benyon (Con)
In addition to the six schemes which I suspect are the ones the noble Baroness heard about from my predecessor, my noble friend Lord Gardiner, we are also looking at around 1,000 farms, we hope, that will be coming into the sustainable farming initiative pilot that will start in October. There will be an access element to that as well. But I would draw attention to some of those six, which are very extensive indeed. They will offer groupings across landscapes, as I said, and will really inform how successful we can be in getting more people into the countryside.
Baroness Rawlings (Con) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very constructive answers. As there are more and more people from cities using footpaths across farmland for the first time, will the Ministry encourage clear signs with codes of behaviour, especially if there is livestock around, as protection for all?
Lord Benyon (Con)
My Lords, we would encourage clear signage, and the Countryside Code, the revised version of which was published last month, gives advice to land managers, along with the Health and Safety Executive advice. Like my noble friend, I am concerned by the number of injuries and tragic deaths of members of the public caused by cattle. We want signage and a clear understanding of the risks. Under environmental land management, it will be possible to get funding for, for example, a fence to separate walkers from cattle.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed and we now come to the fourth Oral Question.
Covid-19: Poverty
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Blackburn
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made as to whether there is a correlation between areas with high COVID-19 infection rates and high levels of poverty; and if there is such a correlation, what steps they intend to take to address this as part of their levelling up agenda.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, the facts are heartbreaking. Covid, like many diseases, has hit hardest those who are most vulnerable: the poorest, the most disabled and those who work in some of the most difficult jobs. The vaccine rollout and community testing programmes have shown what the country can do, but there is much more to be done. That is why we are publishing a levelling-up White Paper, and health inequalities will be central to that.
The Lord Bishop of Blackburn
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and the work that he and colleagues are doing in a fast-changing scene. We know that it is not easy. Does he agree that care for the poorest, most disadvantaged and most vulnerable in the community is one of the signs of a healthy society? Can he be more specific about how equality of opportunity in the levelling-up agenda will be rolled out?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I can certainly speak for the inequalities we have in health. The right reverend Prelate is entirely right—Covid has been a real reminder of the impact of deprivation and inequality on the population. Those who are disabled are two-and-a-half times more likely to have had some form of life issue with Covid. In terms of deprivation, mortality in the most-deprived neighbourhoods was more than double the rate than in less-deprived neighbourhoods. Those facts are chilling. They are a wake-up call, and we will be working through our levelling-up agenda.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, as the latest Marmot review made clear, damaging and heartbreaking levels of inequality and poverty, especially child and family poverty, weakened our resilience in the face of Covid. Apart from getting people into paid work, which increasingly is failing to protect from poverty, what is the Government’s anti-poverty strategy?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I can speak for the health dimension. I should emphasise the work of the office for health promotion. Under the Chief Medical Officer, the OHP will deliver proactive, predictive and personalised preventive strategies. We believe that there is a huge opportunity off the back of Covid to really change the health inequalities of the country, and that is what the OHP will be devoted to doing.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, levelling up is a UK-wide ambition and priority; health and public health are devolved responsibilities. Will the Minister undertake to take a good look at how the various parts of the United Kingdom have dealt with problems that they have faced? For example, Wales appears at the moment to be far more successful in rolling out vaccination than England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We should not be too proud to learn from each other in order to overcome some of the deep inequalities that have developed over the past years.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the vaccine race is being contested right across the country, and I take my hats off to all those who are delivering the programme so effectively. We are not too proud to learn from each other. In fact, I pay tribute to, for instance, those in Scotland who have programmes around alcohol and drug use, which are pioneering on a worldwide level. We have to work on this all together, and we will absolutely use the best case studies to apply the best programmes on a countrywide basis.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to my position as a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. There is an old adage that correlation does not necessarily indicate causation. While it is easy to talk about levels of poverty, there are other factors such as lifestyle and ethnicity, and there will be a need for some multiple regression when studying the consequences. When the committees are inevitably set up to look at the causes and how to deal with those matters, will the Minister make it a priority that a good, well-qualified statistician is included among the members of any committee that is set up?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I hear my noble friend’s warning very clearly and he is absolutely right. We must not be confused between statistical correlation and causation. However, one thing that has become clear is that in Covid personal health status, particularly obesity, has been a driver of severe illness and mortality. The environments in which people live and work have been a driver of infection. Those two are probably inescapable conclusions and will be central to our levelling-up agenda.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
The pandemic has brutally exposed the health inequalities that ran deep in our society even before Covid-19, and it is certainly welcome that the White Paper acknowledges that. However, even the best efforts of an integrated care system can only go so far in preventing ill health. Forthcoming legislation needs to be underpinned by national policy measures and funding to tackle overarching determinants of health. With that in mind, will the Minister comment on why the Queen’s Speech did not contain improved funding for public health, given the Government’s professed commitment to levelling up and building back better?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right that it cannot be for either the law or the Department of Health to solve a national challenge. That is why the Prime Minister has committed to appointing a cross-ministerial board. It needs the co-ordination and focus of many different departments that handle health, social welfare and the culture of the country to tackle these tricky, long-standing and difficult challenges.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
Could the Minister add the levelling-up agenda to the arguments for not delaying opening up on 21 June? Overcaution at this stage would be particularly devastating for ordinary working people. Even if the cost-benefit analysis is post hoc, I ask the Minister to start looking now at the health impacts of lockdown, not Covid as such, on the less well off. The health impacts of being confined in overcrowded houses, no gardens for kids and worries about job security are likely to have taken their toll, and we need to learn from what has happened.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, it is a difficult fact that males working in low-skilled elementary occupations, such as security guards, had rates of death more than three times higher than the general population. That illustrates that often those in the most difficult jobs face the greatest threat of infection. The best thing we can do for the economy is to get rid of this virus, for which we need vaccination and testing, and that is the Government’s focus.
Lord Patel (CB) [V]
My Lords, following the effects of Covid-19, restoring the nation to good health will require a new social compact, backed by a national cross-departmental health inequality strategy. I am pleased to hear the Minister say that the reduction of health inequality will be in the health Bill, but could he confirm that the legislation will include commitments from other departments and the Government?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, we have provisions for tackling obesity in the health and social care Bill, as the noble Lord knows, but the focus of the cross-ministerial board on health will be to bring together government efforts on not just obesity, but health inequality in the round. The board’s remit has not yet been published, nor has its membership or chairmanship, but I reassure noble Lords that that is coming reasonably soon.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab) [V]
So we have to wait for a cross-ministerial board; that will really make a difference. Overall, the Government’s record has been appalling. Improvements in life expectancy, which had been rising steadily since the 1950s, stalled in 2010 when the Conservatives were elected and throughout the subsequent decade. What is more, according to the King’s Fund, real government spending on public health has fallen by 15% in the last six years. That is not new, so why do we have to wait for the so-called levelling-up White Paper and this cross-ministerial thingy? Why can the noble Lord’s department not get on with boosting public health locally, rather than reshuffling the deckchairs nationally by abolishing Public Health England and diluting that focus?
Lord Bethell (Con)
I feel inspired by the noble Lord’s passion for the subject, but it is not fair or reasonable to suggest that death rates in the country are driven by the electoral cycle. Far from it—this Government have been extremely committed to the obesity strategy, not least because of the personal story of the Prime Minister. We have not abolished Public Health England; we have redefined it as two organisations, UKHSA and the OHP. The impact of those will be profound.
Lord Bird (CB)
Is the Minister aware of the social mobility pledge, which is trying to remove impediments to people applying for highly skilled jobs so that they do not follow the route that their families may have followed into underpaid jobs, where they remain in poverty for ever? I would very much like him to look at this. I support the pledge and many hundreds of businesses are following that example and removing these impediments.
Lord Bethell (Con)
The noble Lord speaks movingly about this important issue and social mobility is itself a massive issue for the country. It does not fall directly within the remit of the Department of Health, but the NHS itself can be an enlightened employer in this respect. Many families have seen great advances in their personal development there, and I hope that it has a spirit of meritocracy and opportunity. I would be glad to write to the noble Lord to share with him the kinds of initiatives designed to increase social mobility that there are within the NHS.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now resume. I ask Members to respect social distancing. We now come to Oral Questions to the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, the noble Lord, Lord Frost. There will be three Questions, with 10 minutes allowed for each, and we will proceed in the same way as for other Oral Questions. I call the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, to ask the first Question.
UK–EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Meetings of Bodies
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Earl of Kinnoull
To ask the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) which of the 24 bodies set up under the United Kingdom–European Union Trade and Cooperation Agreement met in May; and how many are anticipated to have met by the end of June.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) (Con)
My Lords, now that the trade and co-operation agreement has been ratified, its committees and other bodies can indeed begin their work. None has met so far, but we will agree the date for the first meeting of each of those bodies with the EU shortly. We expect most to meet before the summer break. We also expect to fix a date for the first partnership council meeting, which is likely to be in the first half of June.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, the TCA will be six months old at the end of June, and to hear of the lack of activity is dispiriting. Its multi-layered governance structure is incredibly important to getting the parties to iron out the problems, and to discussing the next layer down of the detail of the new relationship. Can the Minister tell the House by when all the bodies will have members appointed, and will he commit to publishing monthly basic statistics on the number of meetings taking place, to demonstrate activity?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I agree that it is extremely important that all the bodies created under the trade and co-operation agreement should meet and work effectively. I can assure the noble Lord that there has been no lack of activity between me and my EU opposite numbers and our teams during this period, but I agree that it will produce stability when the committees are working properly. We will do everything we can to ensure that there is good transparency about meetings and what is discussed.
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
My Lords, when the Minister resumes partnership meetings with the EU, presumably the Northern Ireland protocol will be at the top of the agenda. Can he tell us what his response is to the remark by the President of the European Commission on Monday, that the protocol is the
“only possible solution to ensure peace and stability in Northern Ireland while protecting the integrity of the EU single market”?
As the co-architect of the protocol, does he accept responsibility for its consequences, which were widely predicted, and which now seem to trouble him, too, so much?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, the question of the Northern Ireland protocol will, I am sure, be on the agenda of the joint committee when that meets, which should be at approximately the same time—in the first half of June. We have noted the comments of the Commission president earlier this week. The protocol relies on the support of all communities in Northern Ireland, so it is disappointing that there was not more recognition by her of the impact that its operation is having there—but we continue the discussions and hope to be able to find pragmatic solutions.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many noble Lords are rather relieved that this plethora of committees remains inoperative? They are wholly disproportionate to a trade agreement, and we do not see the need for them, or for the expense of the caravan of secretariats that they will no doubt bring with them. Does my noble friend agree to make it an objective of British government policy in his current discussions that their number and scope of activity be radically reduced?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I share my noble friend’s distaste for bureaucracy in all its forms, even though I have spent most of my life working in one. It is, unfortunately, a characteristic of international relations nowadays that there is a substantial bureaucratic component, and we have to work with that. I hope that the various committees that have been created will help us to resolve problems. I can reassure my noble friends that the bureaucracy is, at least, much less than when we were a member of the European Union.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, is it the Government’s objective, nevertheless, to get the full panoply of relations and committees working well, as we have to manage a very wide agenda of continuing close relations with the European Union? Do the Government have it in mind that they could take the Swiss option, as it were, and break the series of complex negotiations and treaties that they have with the EU—which, as he will know, the Swiss have just done?
Lord Frost (Con)
The noble Lord is right, in that the trade and co-operation agreement is an extremely broad treaty, with a very wide agenda. That is why it requires so many committees to make it work. I can reassure him that it is certainly our objective to make sure that the committees work, and that they meet, if at all possible, before the summer break. We have already exchanged with the EU lists of chairs of the committees, and I am confident that we will move forward fairly quickly on all this.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that if the trade specialised committee on SPS measures had been set up and had actually met, we might be in a better place as regards cross-border trade issues between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and between the UK and the EU? Will he endeavour to ensure that it meets at least once before the end of June, to resolve these issues?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, unfortunately, I am not sure that I agree with my noble friend that we would be in a significantly different position if that committee had met. There have been quite a lot of discussions on SPS issues in various contexts over the past few months, although the committee has not met formally, and we have not managed to find constructive agreements on that subject—although we keep trying. I am confident that the committee will meet before the summer break, and of course we continue to discuss these matters extensively with the EU.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, in negotiating the TCA, the UK Government succeeded in putting the UK’s extradition arrangements with the EU on a similar unbalanced footing to those with the US. We continue to extradite to the EU, but 20 EU countries will not extradite directly here. Are negotiations going on to try to rectify that?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, extradition arrangements were indeed the subject of quite a large part of the negotiations, and in our view—the Government’s view—the agreement that we reached with the EU deals with many of the defects that were present in the earlier European arrest warrant system. It is part of the standard way in which extradition arrangements work that member states can, in certain circumstances, refuse to extradite their own nationals, and some member states have made that clear. We continue to discuss this issue with the Commission and all the member states concerned.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, the multi-layered governance structure mentioned by the noble Earl is not the only thing that needs to be set up under the TCA. The civil society forum and the domestic advisory group are vital channels into Government, and the partnership council decisions. The UK cannot by itself set up the joint forum, but it can—and surely should—establish a domestic advisory group to feed into the forum. Can the Minister, who is responsible for getting this going, tell us the date when that will happen, and assure us that preparations go a little beyond what he referred to in his Written Answer to me this week—just to
“engage with business and civil society”?
I think it is time for action now.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, the TCA provides for a civil society forum. It has to be balanced between UK and EU business and civil society groups to discuss the implementation of the agreement. We are in touch with the EU about how this will work. We will work very much to facilitate its first meeting this year. We are engaging actively with business and civil society domestically, and I am happy to write to the noble Baroness about the detail of where that has got to.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
Is the noble Lord making any progress on negotiating a new deal for the creative sector on touring in Europe? While he is thinking of a plausible answer to that, can he tell us whether, when he decided to reject the EU’s generous offer in the negotiations and throw touring musicians under a bus, he anticipated, is surprised by, or accepts any responsibility at all for the humiliation of our country scoring zero—nul points—in the Eurovision Song Contest?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I am happy to accept responsibility for many things but I do not think I can reasonably accept that I affected the result on Saturday night. As regards creatives, of course we work to support all our creative industries in the situation that now prevails under the TCA. We made proposals in the negotiations that would have largely solved the difficulties faced by our great creative industries. The proposals made by the EU would not have done so, so we would be in this situation. We are now working as hard as we possibly can with the member states to establish the facts about visas and to support our industry in moving forward.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.
UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Regions and Industrial Sectors
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Purvis of Tweed
To ask the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) whether Her Majesty’s Government still plans to commission an impact assessment of the United Kingdom–European Union Trade and Cooperation Agreement on regions and industrial sectors when the economy returns to normal.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) (Con)
My Lords, the Government routinely publish a wide range of analysis on the UK economy and will continue to do so as appropriate. Many bodies, such as the OBR, also regularly publish economic analysis on the impact of our trade deal with the EU. All this contributes to the public debate in this area. We keep this matter under review, but meanwhile we will continue to take full advantage of the opportunities available to us as an independent trading nation.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, the ONS publication on Tuesday this week detangled the impacts of Covid and the impacts of the TCA by comparing quarter 1 2021 figures with quarter 1 2018 figures—the last period in which
“relatively stable trade patterns were observed.”
Non-EU trade for the UK fell by 0.8% over that period; EU trade fell by an enormous 23.1%. That shows clearly the difference between Covid-19 and the TCA. How can the Minister explain the difference in that fall?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I read the ONS report with interest. It confirms the position on trade, which I have set out on several occasions before: that there are a number of factors prevailing here. It is true that 2018 may well have been the last full year of normal trading conditions, but we are still in a pandemic. Economies have not returned to normal, so it is not entirely surprising that trade figures have also not returned to normal at the moment.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, perhaps the most pressing issue facing the country, other than Covid, is discerning the best way forward post Brexit, economically and in other ways. Whether drawing up an impact assessment would be the most helpful method is doubtful in this case. However, does my noble friend the Minister agree that a full evaluation of the new opportunities that he has mentioned is now essential?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that there are huge opportunities from Brexit, and we are taking those forward as set out in the Government’s legislative programme: a subsidy control Bill, a procurement Bill, a National Insurance Contributions Bill, a freeports programme and so on. These are all huge opportunities. It might be premature to do an immediate evaluation of the effect of all those before they have been introduced and brought into force, but of course impact assessments will go with the necessary legislation in this area.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I am sure the Minister is well aware of the excellent work of the Centre for European Reform under its director, Charles Grant. I would like his reaction to the latest report authored by its distinguished economist John Springford, published on 12 May, about the first quarter of trade data. The conclusion is that
“leaving the single market and customs union had reduced UK trade by 11 per cent in March 2021. That is on top of a 10 per cent hit to trade between the referendum and leaving the single market.”
He goes on to say that several more months have to pass before we can be certain of these impacts, but that
“it is becoming clearer that the impact cannot be dismissed as temporary.”
Does the Minister agree? Is he proposing to set in hand immediately a review of how these problems can be mitigated?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I looked at the CER report with a lot of interest. It is one in a series of reports that has, I think, been subject to some methodological debate, at least. I am not sure I personally think it entirely valid to set up a kind of mock economy based on other parallel economies and draw conclusions from that, which I understand to be the methodology. I do not think we dispute that there have been changes in trade patterns in recent months, but as the ONS said in its report published on Tuesday:
“It is difficult to fully detangle the impact the coronavirus and EU exit had on UK and international trade while they are still having an influence.”
That remains the case.
Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]
Can the Minister include, in any assessments he can be persuaded to carry out, the loss of EU nationals in sectors such as horticulture and social care? It is reported that workers may be brought in from Belarus and Russia to pick our fruit and veg, in replacement for EU nationals. Can he rule that out? Do the Government not think it better to invite some of the EU nationals back to help us in those sectors, rather than let them be detained and deported when they come for a job interview, as permitted under the Immigration Rules?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, one of the great benefits of ceasing to be a member of the European Union was that we could establish our own immigration system, and indeed we have done so, on the basis of the points-based system that has been extensively discussed and implemented. The advantage of that is that it gives us control of who we wish to let enter the country, either temporarily or permanently. Obviously, when we make that assessment we look at the industries, the economics and the broader situation. We will continue to do so when we make those judgments.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
The Minister and the Prime Minister seem to claim that they did not know quite what the protocol would imply and how tricky it would be to make it work. In front of our European committee last week, the Minister confessed that he was a bit surprised about how disruptive it was, and said it could remain
“a bit bumpy … for some months”.
Is it possible that, because the vigorous work was not done before that protocol was signed, he is surprised by the implications of it? Even now, it might be helpful if he publishes the legal advice that was available at the time.
My other question is this. Given that there are still very many decisions to be taken, both by the Government in implementing the agreement and together with the EU in the Partnership Council, can he undertake that there will be proper impact assessments before big decisions are made and that these will be published and discussed widely, so that he has the benefit of the wisdom of Charles Grant and others before big decisions are taken?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, on the Northern Ireland protocol, the issue is that the protocol is a very delicately balanced document designed to support a very delicately balanced agreement—that is, the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. When the protocol is implemented it needs to have regard to that balance and the set of provisions that try to protect this delicately balanced situation. At the moment, in our view, the protocol is not being implemented in a way that reflects that balance. It does not reflect the full dimensions of the Good Friday agreement, east-west and north-south, and that is at the root of the difficulty. That is not what we expected when we agreed it, but we still hope that we can get into that situation in discussions with the EU in the weeks and months to come.
On future impact assessments, when legislation is needed to implement reforms or changes, whether these result from the TCA or from anything else, there will of course be an impact assessment. That is the usual practice.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con) [V]
Does my noble friend agree that it is absurd to attempt to measure the impact of Brexit in such a short term, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and others, and that other factors will be difficult to separate from Brexit? Above all, new policies, whether they be domestic policies or trade agreements, take time to build up, and the impact of Brexit over one year, five years or 15 years will be very different. Do all these questions not sound suspiciously like attempts to rerun the Brexit referendum, and is it not time that we all recognised that the result has to be accepted and we should move on?
Lord Frost (Con)
I agree with my noble friend. These questions have been extensively debated over the last five years and the range of views on that subject has possibly not changed significantly over that period. Our view is that the medium-term benefits of being a full democracy, of having control over our own laws and regulations and having the ability to tailor them to our own requirements as a country, will be of huge benefit to us, so we are very confident that those benefits will materialise. However, he is right that five months after the end of the transition period is a bit soon to be 100% clear about that.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked.
Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Dodds of Duncairn
To ask the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) what steps Her Majesty’s Government will take to prevent any negative impact on Northern Ireland from the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) (Con)
My Lords, as I have set out on many occasions, it is clear that the protocol is presenting significant challenges for many in Northern Ireland and across the whole of the UK. Solutions must be found urgently to address these. We remain committed to working through the issues with the EU, and we hope that it will show common sense and take a pragmatic risk-based approach to the problems. We continue to consider all our options in meeting our responsibility, which is also the purpose of the protocol, to protect the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the peace process.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his Answer. In the protocol court case that is being taken in Belfast, the Government have argued, astoundingly, that parts of the Act of Union itself have been impliedly repealed by the protocol. That is an incredible position for a Conservative and Unionist Government to find themselves in. Does the Minister accept that, as well as the serious economic difficulties and diversion of trade being caused by the protocol, this assertion of constitutional vandalism will add immensely to the serious societal difficulties in Northern Ireland, one expression of which is the almost nightly occurrence of peaceful protests in Northern Ireland, which are largely unreported but reflect a widespread dismay at the unbalanced approach to the political and peace process? The Minister talked about solutions. Can he indicate a timetable for solutions that reflects the urgency and gravity of the situation?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, obviously I am not able to comment on the specifics of litigation while it is ongoing. I point out that the protocol itself is clear that it is without prejudice and has no effect on the territorial integrity of the UK or its essential state functions. That is a very important element of the protocol.
We understand the dismay and concern about identity that is provoked by the way the protocol is currently being implemented, and we are attempting to respond to that as a matter of urgency. There are a number of timetables in parallel here: the negotiating process, the grace periods themselves and the political timetable in Northern Ireland must all be kept in step if we are to find solutions to these issues.
Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is fairly clear that the Minister is unhappy with the protocol, or at least the way that it is working out. Will he indicate what the Government’s strategy is for achieving a better outcome regarding the protocol, given that, if neither we nor the EU know what is going on, it is hard to see how we are going to move forward? What is the Minister’s proposal?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord is right to observe that we are not particularly happy with the way that the protocol is being implemented. Our hope is that we can find solutions to this with the European Union. I speak frequently to my EU colleague, Maroš Šefčovič, and our teams are in regular touch. Talks are going on semi-continuously on these questions and we hope to have made progress in dealing with some of the most difficult issues by the time of the joint committee, but obviously it takes two sides to move forward and find pragmatic solutions. Progress is limited at the moment but we keep working at it.
Baroness Suttie (LD) [V]
What progress, if any, has been made towards achieving an EU-UK veterinary agreement?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, we would have liked, in the negotiations last year, to have established as part of the TCA an agreement on equivalence for SPS and food standards that could have been framed as a veterinary agreement or in other forms, but the EU was not willing to agree such a process. We remain willing to try to do so if it wishes to. What we cannot agree to is dynamic alignment of our rules with those of the EU because it is a fundamental tenet that we must have control of our own laws and rules if we are to do free trade deals and get the full benefits of Brexit. Once again, we keep working to see whether we can find a compromise on this issue that works within both sides’ red lines, but at the moment we are not succeeding in doing so.
Lord Caine (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is completely insane that a packet of Sainsbury’s Cumberland sausages destined for its Forestside store in Belfast has to undergo cumbersome checks on entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain due to fears that it might illegally enter the EU single market, when Sainsbury’s does not have a single store in the EU? Could there be a clearer example of the pressing need on the part of the EU to adopt a more sensible, pragmatic and proportionate approach to the implementation of the protocol, and to put an end to this utter madness?
Lord Frost (Con)
I certainly agree that it seems curious to us that there needs to be extensive process paperwork as well as the possibility of checks for goods that do not present any risk of moving into the EU’s single market. Obviously we agree that it is important to protect the integrity of the EU’s single market, but that needs to be done on a sensible risk-based basis. It was because of concerns such as this that we had to extend the grace period relating to supermarkets earlier this year, as is well-known, and why we remain concerned that a permanent solution to this problem has not been found yet.
Lord Empey (UUP) [V]
My noble friend the Minister will be aware of the report from Marks and Spencer yesterday which revealed the cost to that company of its operations on both sides of the Irish border. This huge, undemocratic and bureaucratic superstructure we have created is surely totally out of proportion to the tiny amount of trade, in European terms, that flows across the Irish border. Will my noble friend and the colleagues he is negotiating with at the EU seriously talk to some people about realistic alternatives that achieve the objective of protecting the single market but do not cause the divisions within the United Kingdom that this protocol has caused?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, we looked very closely, obviously, at the report from Marks and Spencer earlier this week and the costs that it has identified as being connected to the protocol. It is important to note that, although it is sometimes said that we are not trying to implement the protocol, in fact both companies and this Government have shouldered very considerable costs trying to do so—both in the private sector and, for us, in the trader support scheme, movement assistance scheme and so on. All of that is having a chilling effect on the ability to move goods across the whole of the UK, which is causing so much difficulty, so we need to find a realistic and lower-cost, risk-based approach to doing this. That is what we hoped to see and we continue to hope that we can agree with the European Union.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, dialogue is always better than legal writs and newspaper articles, so I welcome the Minister’s recent visit to Northern Ireland to meet businesses and communities. Can he now tell us if he has any immediate plans to meet officials of the European Union, the Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney and the leaders of all the political parties in Northern Ireland to discuss these difficult issues around the Northern Ireland protocol?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I remain in contact with all those whom the noble Lord has suggested that I should be in contact with. I talk to my European Union opposite numbers frequently—in fact, I had a meeting with the EU ambassador this morning. I remain in close touch, as does my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, with all ranges of opinion in Northern Ireland.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, the protocol is causing immense harm to peace and stability in Northern Ireland, as well as to businesses and consumers. However, now people all over the UK are angry about the ridiculous EU rules on pets traveling from Northern Ireland to GB and from GB to NI. What message would the noble Lord give to Christopher, who is a 13 year-old boy in County Fermanagh who helps train dogs for search and rescue? He is a champion at dog trials but now, because of the cost and bureaucracy of travelling back taking his dog, he will not be able to attend dog trials any more. There are rabies injections, worming and pet passport paperwork, which are all needed each time he takes his dog from one part of the UK to another. The EU is clearly not listening to the people of Northern Ireland, nor cares about the people of Northern Ireland. Does the Minister? I know he does, so when will the Government recognise that the EU does not care and just pull the plug on this protocol?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, this is a good example of a problem that we saw no reason should arise when the protocol was negotiated but has nevertheless arisen. We are concerned about the difficulties in moving pets from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and in the other direction. The EU has it in its power to deal with this problem by giving us part 1 listing for pets as it does for many other countries and for which dynamic alignment is not required. We had assumed that this would be what happened; unfortunately, it has not been granted to the UK. We have part 2 listing and that is why the problems persist. It remains in the EU’s power to change this situation if it wishes.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.
Education (Assemblies) Bill [HL]
Thursday 27th May 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Education (Assemblies) Bill [HL] 2021-22 View all Education (Assemblies) Bill [HL] 2021-22 Debates Read Hansard Text
Age Assurance (Minimum Standards) Bill [HL]
Thursday 27th May 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Age Assurance (Minimum Standards) Bill [HL] 2021-22 View all Age Assurance (Minimum Standards) Bill [HL] 2021-22 Debates Read Hansard Text
Business of the House
The Earl of Courtown
That Standing Order 44 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on Tuesday 8 June to allow the Finance Bill to be taken through its remaining stages that day.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg to move the Motion standing in her name on the Order Paper.
Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [HL]
The Earl of Courtown
That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [HL] has been committed that they consider the bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 12, Schedule, Clauses 13 to 26, Title.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Public Service Broadcasting (Communications and Digital Committee Report)
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Gilbert of Panteg
That this House takes note of the Report from the Communications and Digital Committee Public service broadcasting: as vital as ever (1st Report, Session 2019, HL Paper 16).
Lord Gilbert of Panteg (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to introduce this debate on the Communications and Digital Committee’s report, Public Service Broadcasting: as Vital as Ever. I declare some interests. I was a guest of S4C at a Wales v Ireland rugby match in March 2019 and of ITV at the National Television Awards in January 2019. I was invited to participate in the Royal Television Society Cambridge conference in September 2019 in my capacity as committee chair. The conference was hosted by ITV, which provided hospitality and accommodation.
I am grateful to the committee staff for their assistance in preparing the report. Our clerk was Theodore Pembroke and our policy analyst Theo Demolder. They and the committee were provided with great support by Rita Cohen. I also thank Professor Steven Barnett, who provided expert advice throughout the inquiry, and the many witnesses who gave us evidence.
I am looking forward today to hearing from noble Lords who were members of the committee at the time of the report, and others who have joined the committee since. As always, they have bought extensive experience and expertise to the work of the committee and the deliberations of this House.
We issued our call for evidence a little over two years ago, in March 2019, and reported 18 months ago in November of that year. Since then, much has changed. Covid has hit us all and led to huge disruption for PSBs, accelerating some changes already under way in the industry while bringing new challenges to the thriving production sector and the wider creative economy and, in particular, its large freelance workforce.
The Government have announced what looks like a blanket and untargeted pre-watershed ban on HFSS advertising that will impact the business models of commercial PSBs while leaving online platforms untouched.
Ofcom has published its five-year review of PSBs. Like us, it found:
“Public service content still matters hugely to people and society”
and that PSBs
“underpin the UK’s creative economy.”
However, it argued that
“radical changes to support PSBs shift … to online”
are needed.
The report from Lord Dyson shocked many of us who want a strong, independent and trustworthy BBC. The Government, in their so-far measured response, have indicated further changes in the way the BBC is governed, which I hope the Minister will be able to say more about today.
In introducing this report, I cannot help feeling that the hard work of Select Committees, the engagement and commitment of our witnesses and the time put into responding by Ministers and officials deserve more timely debate in this House while reports remain topical. This inquiry focused on the role of PSBs—both the BBC and commercial PSBs—the financial pressures they face, the nature and future of the PSB model and the impact of the changing production landscape in the age of video on demand.
We looked in great detail at drama and factual content, which account for around 70% of Netflix and Amazon programming, with eye-watering budgets of up to £15 million per hour. News and current affairs, barely covered by the SVODs, was not a focus of our inquiry but was considered in more depth in our subsequent report on the future of UK journalism, where we called for much greater diversity in newsrooms and highlighted the danger of groupthink and narrowness of thought.
Trust, though, is everything, and that trust has been badly hit by what Lord Dyson found at the BBC. Drawing on our inquiry, it seems to me that it is vital that we restore that trust because, as we concluded, the evidence we heard indicated that public service broadcasting is as important as ever. The Government agreed and, in their response, said that PSBs provide
“significant cultural, economic and democratic value to the UK”
and that the broadcasters
“will need to adapt to the changing media landscape to sustain their value”.
As we all know, the way in which we watch television is changing—20 years ago, most people relied on five free-to-air channels provided by the PSBs. These broadcasters now face competition from hundreds of other channels and online services. Subscription video on demand services—or SVODs—such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have enjoyed rapid success. They have made available thousands of hours of content and offer each viewer a personalised experience. More than half of UK households now subscribe to an SVOD, while YouTube is also a major competitor. SVODs operate globally and have enormous resources, leading to concerns that PSBs are being priced out of the market for making high-quality television, limiting their ability to create drama and documentaries that reflect, examine and promote the culture of the UK.
We sought to understand the contemporary role of PSBs and whether the compact—the obligations they take on in exchange for privileges—is fit for the age of video on demand. I would like to outline the importance of the committee’s recommendations for the thriving of public service broadcasting. Our evidence, like Ofcom’s, overwhelmingly indicated that public service broadcasting is as important as ever to our democracy and culture, as well as to the UK’s image on the world stage. PSBs contribute to the economic health of the UK and support the wider creative industries.
A wide range of witnesses told us how PSBs inform our understanding of the world, reflect the UK’s cultural identity and represent a range of people and viewpoints. Although other channels and services offer high-quality UK programmes, the availability and affordability of PSBs through digital terrestrial television remain unmatched. Their availability allows them to provide “event television”: moments that bring the nation together, such as major sports events, documentary series and landmark drama such as the virtual water-cooler drama “Line of Duty”, commissioned by the BBC from an ITV-owned production company, and Channel 4’s powerful and important “It’s a Sin”, which told a story that needed to be heard and which was public service broadcasting to a T. To strengthen the availability of event TV, we recommended that the Government should review the listed events regime to extend the availability of significant sports events on free-to-air television.
I should add that, while the committee was clear that losing universal and affordable public service broadcasting would make our society and democracy worse off, we recognised the contribution of great content from non-PSBs that met many of the broader public service objectives—content of great quality that was original and made for Britain—and recommended that Ofcom should consider the contribution of content from non-PSBs when reviewing the PSB landscape. But we found that PSBs are struggling to achieve their mission to serve all audiences in the face of increased competition and changing viewing habits. They are not serving younger people and people from minority backgrounds well enough. Their legitimacy depends on serving these groups better.
To do this, PSBs must be willing to take creative risks and do more to involve people from different backgrounds in developing and making programmes. We recommend that Ofcom should be empowered to gather data on the diversity of commissioners and production crews making programmes for PSBs. We heard concern about representation of the nations and regions of the UK. Investment in TV production is too heavily concentrated in London. Many viewers believe that London and the south-east, as well as hub locations such as Glasgow and Cardiff, are overrepresented at the expense of other areas. Although progress has been made and new entrants have made high-budget series outside the capital, the economic benefits of investment have not spread widely enough.
Public service broadcasters are obliged to commission a certain percentage of programmes outside the M25, in the regions and nations of the UK. This is critical to building a skills base in different areas and ensuring that viewers see their localities represented on screen, but Ofcom must ensure that PSBs uphold the spirit of these obligations. The best way to support production in the regions and nations is to invest more in returning—rather than one-off—series and to commission production companies with headquarters outside London.
The UK TV production sector has enjoyed impressive growth in recent years, including in exporting programmes. SVODs and other commissioners such as HBO and AMC have driven significant investment, encouraged by high-end tax relief. However, public service broadcasters remain essential to the UK production sector. They spend considerably more than SVODs and other broadcasters on original UK programming.
The terms of trade—the code of practice drawn up by PSBs setting out principles for agreeing the terms of commissioning independent productions—encourage independent production companies to work with them. We heard from many witnesses that the terms of trade were one of the main reasons they work with PSBs. Their success relies on both PSBs and the production sector being willing to update the terms of trade as the market changes.
PSBs are also vital to the success of SVODs, as part of the UK’s thriving mixed ecology—a mutually reinforcing system of specialist skills, labour, production companies, broadcasters and other assets that are supported by both public and private investment. This ecology is integral to the wider creative industries. It nurtures creative and other skills used in filmmaking, and it is a vehicle for exhibiting British talent to an international audience. PSBs are at the heart of this ecology. We heard from Netflix that co-production
“works extremely well for us as a model and it seems to work extremely well for the rest of the industry as well.”
Between 2014 and 2018, co-commissions between SVODs and broadcasters almost doubled, from 16 to 30.
The health of the independent production sector depends on maintaining the supply of production crews to meet increased demand. There is a serious risk of the sector reaching full capacity and overheating. We recommended that the Government should address skills shortages in the sector through urgent reform of the apprenticeship levy and extending the high-end TV tax relief. Public service broadcasters are especially vulnerable to further cost inflation. The apprenticeship levy simply does not work for much of the creative sector; the committee has illustrated this time and again in a number of reports. The Government’s response is largely one of denial, with commitments to some small-scale pilots. As we shape up for a post-Covid national effort to train young people for the roles of the future, what plans do the Government have to do something really impactful to sort out this failing policy area?
If public service broadcasters are to continue to serve us, and to be able to afford to make world-class programmes, they must remain financially viable. The BBC should not be given further responsibilities without a corresponding rise in income. We expressed concern that the integrity of the licence fee, the guarantor of the BBC’s financial independence, has been undermined. In particular, the Government should not have asked the BBC to accept responsibility for over-75s’ licences, nor should the BBC have agreed to take it on.
A new, independent and transparent process for setting the licence fee is necessary. We recommended establishing a new body, to be called the “BBC Funding Commission”, which should be in place in time for the next round of negotiations. The Government have not chosen this route, but will the Minister commit today to a transparent and open process next time round? When we call for transparency, we have the BBC as well as the Government in mind.
The obligations public service broadcasters take on and the privileges that they receive in return must be balanced. However, we heard that, in a competitive environment, the PSBs’ traditional privileges were becoming less valuable. Most importantly, public service broadcasters have historically received mandated prominence, listed as the first five channels on the electronic programme guide. We supported Ofcom’s proposals to update this principle for the digital age, so that it covers on-demand viewing, but implementing a solution seems to be taking for ever, and I cannot understand why.
Digital terrestrial television will remain essential for the many viewers who cannot afford, or do not have access to, internet or pay TV, and free access to spectrum for PSBs must continue to be guaranteed. Given the pace of change in the market, we recommended that Ofcom should review whether TV platforms should be required to pay commercial PSBs a retransmission fee for carrying their channels.
Much of the regulation affecting broadcasting and TV production dates from a time when PSBs were dominant. They remain the largest producers in the UK, and regulation has enabled smaller players in the ecosystem to thrive. However, the sector is facing major changes because of the rising popularity of US-based SVODs, which are themselves likely to become consolidated.
As we found in our report, Regulating in a Digital World, regulation needs to become faster at reacting to changes in the digital economy. An example of this was the Competition Commission’s decision in 2009 to block the creation of Kangaroo, a joint venture of the PSBs to aggregate content from BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4. In a report at the time, the committee strongly regretted the Government’s failure to intervene on public interest grounds. In 2018, Sharon White, the chief executive of Ofcom, said that the PSBs will need to “collaborate to compete” in the new environment. The opportunity that Kangaroo presented for Britain to be in on the ground floor at the start of video on demand is not the kind of opportunity that comes along often. That it was stopped on the runway is an example of a regulatory approach that harks to the past rather than looking to the future. It illustrates the need for much more flexible, forward-looking and joined-up regulatory thinking than we have.
If the UK is to continue to be a world leader in the creative industries, public service broadcasters must be enabled to thrive in the digital world. They must be held to account for their obligations, afforded full access to the commensurate privileges and supported to ensure that the important work that they do remains financially viable in an ever-more competitive environment.
I started by looking at the changes that have happened in the industry since we reported. Of course, the other big change is that the Government were re-elected with a thumping majority, an agenda to level up Britain, and no hesitation at all about playing a role in helping business to thrive in this fast-changing world. From their response, we know that the Government believe that PSBs play a central role in the ecology of the creative industries but that they need to adapt quickly to survive. I ask the Minister: what role do the Government envisage for the creative industries in their industrial strategy? How do they plan to support the production and content distribution sector? How can skilled work in production and content distribution contribute to levelling up? Will the Minister tell us what the Government will do to help to ensure that PSBs continue to provide, in the Government’s words,
“significant economic, cultural and democratic value across the UK”?
In particular, what will the Government do to help PSBs to adapt to the changing media landscape so that they continue to make that vital contribution? I beg to move.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the members and staff of the Communications and Digital Committee for its impressive work on this report, so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, who has just made a powerful and informed case that public service broadcasting is, as the report says, as vital as ever. I am of the view that public service broadcasting has a place in not just our hearts but our heads. Therefore, it is absolutely right that this report highlights the need for public service broadcasters to adapt to a changing media landscape, while shining a light on the need for a legislative and regulatory framework with the public interest at its core.
As we have heard in this House and the other place, there is no doubt that the BBC has issues to address about accountability, trust and integrity in the wake of recent revelations. However, it is important to acknowledge that, in recent times—times which have been so heavily defined by the global pandemic—the BBC’s universal mission to educate, inform and entertain has never been more critical and appreciated. Indeed, it has been a focus for bringing us all together, as well as supporting the wider creative industry. Covid-19 and the BBC’s showing of press conferences and films has highlighted the importance of a platform for information, while its entertainment and education offerings have helped many households through a deeply difficult and troubling time.
While the report is mainly focused on the entertainment side, it is a credit to the BBC that it delivers trusted news to millions in the UK and across the globe. Ofcom research bears this out: at the start of the lockdown, which we remember as a time of great uncertainty, 83% of people expressed their trust in the BBC’s coverage. This had a particularly important impact on those who were more vulnerable to the impact of misleading news sources—a topic I am sure we will return to as part of the upcoming online safety Bill. In respect of recent events, I urge the Government to resist political opportunism and the pursuit of vendettas. If public service broadcasting is diminished, the public suffer, and it is hard to back-track in the future.
This report discusses the long-standing debate around BBC funding. DCMS recently confirmed that it stands by the licence fee format, and we welcome the clarity that offers. However, I urge the Government to revisit the over-75s concession scheme. We are all aware of the need to strike the right balance between cost savings and ensuring a quality service, but increasing the burden on the over-75s was and remains unclear and unfair in its outcome.
Where the BBC can save, it should do so. However, the Government must provide a fair funding settlement. After all, we can remind ourselves that universality is an essential part of public service broadcasting. The licence fee underpins that. It is also a critical foundation for investment in the UK’s creative economy.
As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, the continued success of online platforms presents challenges to public service broadcasting, but it is noteworthy that the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have come up with interesting initiatives, including commissioning more varied content in terms of casting, location and so on.
The time lag on commissioning means—we must remember this—that there is no such thing as a quick fix. We must allow time for recent changes to filter through and for the creative industries to return to their capacity after this pandemic. So, while it is true that on-demand services put much money into UK production, the sector would suffer if a poor settlement for the BBC and Channel 4 meant a reduction in their commissioning or prevented the type of innovative, alternative content that adds such value to our world. After all, it is a rising tide that lifts all boats.
The media landscape is changing, and the pandemic has brought new and defining aspects to it. I welcome this timely report and look forward to it shaping the future of public service broadcasting to provide ever greater service to the public.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, as a member of this committee, I record my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert of Panteg, for steering us through this and more recent reports. I also associate myself with his thanks to our advisers and staff. I started in this report’s final stages, so I also record my thanks to my noble friends Lady Bonham-Carter and Lady Benjamin— who preceded me and my noble friend Lord Storey from these Benches—and to all other members of the committee.
Little did we know when this report was published in November 2019 that, a year later, we would be in the midst of a global pandemic, when trusted sources of information, regulated to provide the public with impartial and accurate news, would be such a vital lifeline for so many of us, alongside high-quality online education such as BBC Bitesize and, of course, as much entertainment as we could get our hands on. How wonderful it is that this was all available to every household in the country, free at the point of use for those unable or unwilling to pay subscriptions for Netflix, Amazon or Sky.
This debate comes in the wake of the BBC’s independent judge-led Dyson inquiry into events of 25 years ago. While Bashir’s behaviour was shocking and subsequent management action lamentable, there have been fundamental changes in BBC accountability since then. The BBC is now under external regulation by Ofcom, and any such lapses in editorial standards would be swiftly exposed. It should certainly not be our focus today.
I intend to confine my comments to some of the broader strategic questions which this report set out to address—in particular, how the unique ecology of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom can survive and thrive in a future where subscription video on demand, or SVOD, appears to reign supreme.
Why does it remain so important in the context of so much available content? We need only take a short hop across the Atlantic to get our first answer. In the US, fake news and polarisation of opinion ultimately ended with a President promoting violence to suppress the results of the ballot box. It gave us a graphic demonstration of a dystopian, unregulated future without well-resourced and trusted PSBs committed to accuracy and impartiality.
In the UK, we have a unique blend of publicly and commercially funded public service broadcasters which enhance our economy, culture and democracy. Indeed, last year’s Ofcom research, The Impact of Lockdown on Audiences’ Relationship with PSB, found that most audiences had a greater sense of its value on behalf of society as a whole. It also highlighted its value for older and more vulnerable audiences. That research revealed that audiences put greater value on the need for news that reflects the regions and nations. I guess if you live in Bolton or one of the other seven areas right now with constantly changing government advice, accurate information about what exactly is going on is an essential public service. Therefore, our recommendation that Ofcom should ensure that public service broadcasters uphold the spirit of regional news and production quotas is even more critical today. The BBC’s “Across the UK” plan and the move of Channel 4 headquarters to Leeds are both welcome initiatives in that area.
Even before the pandemic, the evidence in our report that PSBs are vital to our democracy and culture and to the UK’s image on the world stage was overwhelming. Commercial rivals in the UK also see our PSBs as a critical part of the make-up of the creative sector; the Commercial Broadcasters Association described them as the bedrock of the UK audio-visual sector.
PSBs have invested £2.6 billion in the UK, delivering 32,000 hours of original home-grown content—125 times more than Netflix, which is still, even in a time of Covid, lockdowns and “The Queen’s Gambit”, not making a profit. PSB investment gives underpinning stability to our creative industries that the uncertain funding of streaming services cannot. As the report concludes:
“PSBs provide a stable investment platform for a diverse range of content, made for UK audiences, and freely available on a reliable over the air platform.”
PSBs also provide event television, bringing the nation together. Just look at the nearly 13 million who watched the epic finale of “Line of Duty” or the 4 million who watched Jenny tearing up her notes on “Gogglebox” while watching the same programme.
Last year, sadly, we lost a member of this committee: Lord Gordon of Strathblane, whose long-standing experience in media was a huge asset to this report. He particularly advocated event television and extending the listed events regime, especially relating to sport. I am sorry that the Government rejected that recommendation and would like to hear why.
Finally, but vitally, as the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, mentioned, mandated prominence is critical for PSBs across all devices. PSBs must be easy to find in a fragmented media environment, whether as channels or hubs or through their own portal. The Ofcom proposal to update this is critical; I hope the Government will support this initiative and bring forward legislation this year.
This is a nation that needs to heal from division and disease. Public service broadcasters have a vital role to play in that process. We must give them the resources and support to get on with it.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, for his inspired chairing of the Communications and Digital Committee, of which I am proud to be a member. For me, this report is driven by the statement that
“public service broadcasting is as important as ever to our democracy and culture, as well as to the UK’s image on the world stage.”
As other noble Lords have said, the 18 months since this report’s publication have seen huge changes in the PSB landscape. The ecosystem is threatened by the relentless advance of the US-owned streaming giants and the revelations and fallout of Lord Dyson’s report.
I was profoundly shocked by the Dyson report and the evidence of Martin Bashir’s fraud. Its findings were personal to me because I was working in BBC News and Current Affairs in the 1990s. Contrary to media reports, the fraud was not widely known across the corporation. I was particularly shaken because the fraud was so far removed the public service ethos that I believed in so passionately. With the corporation, I filmed across the world and the UK, often being met by obfuscation and downright lies as I tried to get to the heart of the story. It was my job to cut through to the truth and broadcast the facts to the viewers across this country. I was guided by the corporation’s editorial guidelines, which were rigidly enforced by great BBC lawyers, such as Roger Law. However, there was a rigid hierarchy and a culture of control by editors of programmes and heads of department. In the organisation, the key to a long and successful career was almost entirely in the hands of a few bosses. As a result, their favour was eagerly sought and they had the power to make or break careers. I was able to argue an editorial case with my bosses but, if I failed and was still dissatisfied, there was no mechanism for whistleblowing where my case could be taken seriously without damaging my career.
Martin Bashir’s original fraud, and the 25 years the BBC has taken to admit the fraud, are dreadful failures of management within the organisation. However, I believe it would be much more difficult to repeat today. The appointment of the BBC’s unitary board and the corporation’s regulation by Ofcom have introduced objectivity and a degree of independence into the management of the organisation. In 2019, Ofcom reviewed 3,059 complaints about the BBC, under its own independent code, and found two breaches of content standards against the BBC. However, there is always room for improvement, so I am glad the governance of the BBC is being reviewed by both the Government and the organisation itself. The Government should look at the suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Grade, for an independent editorial oversight board, but independence both from the Government and the BBC must be the overriding criterion in appointing its members. The BBC’s whistleblowing unit needs to be expanded, so it does not deal just with management issues but with journalistic concerns from the staff. Maybe it could be attached to this board.
The overpowerful, London-based hierarchy that I experienced when working at the BBC in the 1990s, which contributed to what the Culture Secretary calls “group think”, is being diluted. Today, across the PSB sector, production staff are, in the majority, drawn from freelancers who are not beholden to a single boss, and in line with the recommendation of the committee’s report, action is being taken to increase ethnic diversity in production and commissioning teams. The BBC’s 250 interview champions and anonymised application forms are contributing to a wider recruitment base, while the mandatory 20% diverse production staff quota for independent content commissions is already bringing in a much wider range of storytellers. At the moment, many smaller production companies are struggling to fill their quotas. Across the industry, more needs to be done to train up a new cadre of diverse production teams.
The report also recommends increasing regional content commissioning production, which is playing its part to break group think. The BBC has moved major content production to Salford, Glasgow and Cardiff, and with it has drawn other PSB providers to generate powerful regional creative centres. Just as importantly, BBC News teams have been moved out of London: the team covering technology is to be based in Glasgow, with climate and science in Cardiff and learning in Leeds. Now, if young people want to build a career in television, they will no longer have to move to London and sofa surf until they are established. The next generation of content makers can now enter and pursue a broadcasting career in the regions. I am convinced that will provide a powerful regional counterbalance to allay the Government’s concern about metropolitan group think.
I hope these reforms will strengthen our PSB channels, and their crucial ability to reflect this nation back on itself. The Home Secretary’s message after the Dyson report’s publication is that the BBC risked becoming irrelevant in an era with streaming giants. She is right, but not as she alleged because its journalists are systematically flawed and distrusted but because it is being outspent by streaming giants. The new Discovery-Time Warner merger will pour $18 billion next year into content—nine times more than the BBC’s television content budget. Is the sensible response to the threat of irrelevance of the PSBs to ensure that the mid-term charter review is both transparent and increases the license fee in line with inflation, while looking for an alternative funding model in the long term? Subscription can be part of the mix but, if we are going to continue with universal provision, we have to include public money, maybe in the form of a household tax or a share of the digital services tax. Likewise, the threat to privatise Channel 4 is going to damage its ability to reach underserved British minorities. I, like millions of people across the country, want the public broadcasting sector to thrive as a British beacon for truth and editorial independence, shining across the world. The Dyson report must be responded to, but the response must be bolstered to help a sector that is under threat.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I refer to my declarations in the register of Members’ interests. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, for being on the Front Bench, and say how jealous I am of her meteoric rise. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Gilbert. I am very lucky to serve on his committee, although I did not contribute to this report. He is a superb chairman who clearly has an extraordinary ability to herd cats; he keeps us all in order and produces great conclusions from many dissenting voices. I am sad that I am speaking before my noble friend Lord Hannan, because normally he provokes me to such paroxysms that I give better speeches. Last time, he proposed the privatisation of the British Library, and I look forward to what is coming next.
Let me try to out-provoke him to begin with by saying that when it comes to the public service broadcasters, it is important to be a critical friend and ask tough questions. I have, for example, once been on the front page of the Sunday Times proposing the privatisation of Radio 1, because it was only set up to take on the pirate radio stations, and I wondered what the purpose was of having a popular music channel funded by the BBC when there is now so much choice. I opposed BBC Jam education services because, in my constituency when I was an MP, lots of my constituents worked for education publishers and they asked me how on earth they were meant to compete with free services. I initially opposed John Whittingdale’s proposal of a content fund, because I saw how criticised the BBC was and wondered if we wanted to create another one, but it has been a great success. It may be that, as the debates about the future of public service broadcasting continue, we may have debates instead about public service content.
What this report says is true: the BBC has to look very hard at how it serves minorities and young people, and it must look very hard at whether it is simply producing popular services or producing services that the market cannot provide. If we are to help public service broadcasters, we should deregulate them, if that does not sound like a contradiction in terms. I completely agree with the report’s conclusion that imposing the free licence fee on the BBC was a terrible error. I was the Minister at the time, and I have said before that I probably should have resigned, but I did not. It was made worse when the Government campaigned against their own policy by telling the BBC that it should keep the free licence fee, when it had already agreed that the BBC could change it. The noble Lord, Lord Hall, deserves a great deal of credit for absorbing that policy change and reforming how free TV licences work. I supported the deregulation, for example, of some of the regulations around commercial radio. I think we could support advertising minutage changes for ITV. I supported changes to product placement for ITV. The market is now so saturated that, in effect, broadcasters should be given as much freedom as possible because they will regulate themselves. We will not get ITV putting on 40 minutes of adverts every hour, because it competes against advert-free subscription channels such as Netflix.
The key, for me, is that public service broadcasters are a bit like B corps: they do not have shareholders and they have to take into account the wider community interest. Some public service broadcasters are too focused on the metric of audience share, rather than their role in supporting communities. It should not be Government intervention that puts the BBC in Salford or Channel 4 in Leeds or that drives the agenda on diversity. I was very struck that when I campaigned for greater diversity in the media, the BBC issued dozens of reports whereas Sky simply said “Yes, you’re right, we’re going to get to 20% by such and such a date” and just went on and did it. The public service broadcasters, the BBC and Channel 4 in particular, have a great opportunity, sheltered as they are to a certain extent from market forces, to really move the dial on issues such as diversity, regional production and skills—just as the excellent report from the communications Select Committee makes clear.
I conclude simply by saying that I firmly believe that we need public service broadcasters. It is obviously fashionable to look at our crystal ball—or, indeed, the screen in our sitting room—and say that we now live in an age of streaming and that the young no longer watch television, but the BBC in particular does not make the case effectively enough about the myriad services it produces; that may not be its fault. When we had floods in my constituency in 2007, I was fond of referring to BBC Radio Oxford as the “fourth emergency service”. From orchestras to local radio, public service broadcasting makes a massive difference; it is not simply about whether you like “Strictly”. The BBC needs to be careful to get out of the way and to realise that commercial broadcasters need to make a living. However, in an age of disinformation, as has been referred to, we need public service content that reflects British culture in all its shapes and sizes. That is why the thrust of the report—that the BBC and public service broadcasting should be supported—is so important.
Finally, do not read into the conspiracy theories in the newspapers. I genuinely do not believe that the Government have a hidden agenda to close down the BBC or knobble it in any way, although it is going about some of its business in very odd ways.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, with his enormous experience as a very distinguished DCMS Minister. I encourage him to spend a bit more time sharing his experiences with us, since he clearly has a lot to say on some of the most topical issues, some of which we will discuss later. I declare my interest as a member of the Communications and Digital Committee, although, like the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, I was not a member when this excellent report was published. I also declare my interest as a former director of the British Film Institute.
Like others, I thank the committee’s chair, the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, for his fine introduction of the report and his excellent questions, which I hope the Minister will respond to at the end of the debate. I also echo the noble Lord’s concerns about the delay in debating this important report. The committee system of your Lordships’ House is one of its absolute crown jewels, and it is extraordinary that we have had to wait so long for a debate on an issue such as this. The good thing is that it is still timely, although that may not be true for some of the other reports waiting in the queue. I also welcome my noble friend Lady Merron to our Front Bench and thank her for covering the important DCMS brief.
Given the time constraints and the fact that I was not then part of the committee, I will focus on two important issues touched on in the report that may not get much attention today: archiving and the process for setting the BBC licence fee. Having said that, I welcome the Government’s general approach—they share
“the Committee’s view about the importance of public service broadcasting … and its continued relevance”.
Together with evidence from Ofcom that shows that PSB programming remains popular and is valued by UK audiences, that provides a very good basis for the proper debate and discussion that I hope will accompany the light-touch mid-term review of the current BBC charter and the licence fee settlement negotiations for 2022 to 2027.
First, on the BFI national film and TV archive, the report says it is important that UK TV programmes of cultural significance are preserved for future generations. It also recommends that:
“The Government should broaden the requirement to provide programmes to and fund the BFI National Archive to non-public service broadcasters and SVODs which produce content in the UK.”
The Government’s response is welcome but limited: they recognise that the remit of the BFI national film and television archive
“includes the preservation, restoration and dissemination of culturally British screen content”
and that
“this should include programmes and films produced or commissioned by non-public service broadcasters and SVoDs”.
These are fine words, but they will not achieve what is in essence a voluntary scheme. The response goes on to say:
“The Government hopes that these entities share a desire to contribute to British heritage in this way and strongly encourages these entities to entrust guardianship of their screen content to the BFI National Archive, making a ‘reasonable contribution’ to the BFI.”
But this is not the basis for a long-term sustainable plan.
PSBs currently pay £1.5 million per annum and contribute to various one-off projects, such as digitising legacy collections held on myriad obsolescent videotapes with fixed shelf lives, but the BFI needs much more. It is not given the statutory powers or funding it needs to achieve its aims. For example, there is no Sky output—despite the existence of loads of original UK productions —and no streamed TV in the BFI’s collections. Like it or loathe it, most people would expect to have the Netflix series “The Crown” in the national collection, but it is not there. There is no Amazon Prime and no Apple TV. Who is to be responsible for holding examples of material from YouTube and the wider web? Future historians will find that omission very strange indeed.
Unlike the public service broadcasters, none of these new players, streamers and content originators have to supply materials, with a contribution to costs, to the national archive. I believe that the long-term solution is a “statutory deposit” scheme, but there are other options that could achieve the desired outcome. I am glad that the Government say in their response that they
“will monitor progress in this regard”
and remain
“open to considering the full range of options to deliver this outcome, including statutory support for collecting as currently exists for the PSBs.”
This certainly would be welcome, and I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on that.
My second point is on how the BBC licence fee should be determined. The committee reaffirms a previous recommendation that there should be
“an independent and transparent process for setting the licence fee”,
and recommends that the Government should establish a BBC funding commission to oversee that process. I strongly support this proposal. The BBC licence fee is a tax, and as such should be levied by the Government, but the processes of negotiating a charter and of recommending a licence fee to ensure that the BBC has the resources to do what the charter asks of it should be separated and transparent. However, those of us who have had some involvement in the process know that this is not quite how it works. The connection between the two processes is indirect and shrouded in political pressures. The result of all this is bad not just for the BBC—which faces increasingly intolerable pressures to deliver what is expected of it without the right money, and faces threats to its operational autonomy and independence—but for the Government, because of a growing suspicion of unwarranted political interference in the BBC, and for viewers.
The Government say that they have
“no plans to introduce a licence fee commission”.
However, I note that the response also says that the Government will set out in more detail the processes to be followed in due course. I hope that the Minister can elucidate further on this issue when she comes to respond. I look forward to hearing from her.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I went through this report desperately looking to find something I seriously disagreed with. I failed miserably. I have then come to the conclusion that I do not disagree very much with anything anybody has said in this debate. We have a problem here: we are debating something which came out in 2019. As someone who predominantly watched the BBC as a child and is still something of a fan of “Doctor Who”, I feel that the TARDIS has come and missed out a bit of our history. It has taken it away and pulled us back through.
The pandemic has displayed many of the BBC’s merits. The fact is that it backed up the education system and helped with entertainment, which is something I do not think any other body could have done. If ever something has been damaged by the pandemic it is the education system, and the BBC stepped in. It did not replace teaching in classrooms, but it did not do a bad job of making sure that there was a decent sticking plaster. I cannot see any other body ever doing that—unless you get something that is free to air and publicly funded—or having any incentive to do that without going through a commissioning process that would make PPE look like a simple task. You have to have something that will act, and the BBC fulfilled its role.
Then you look at Lord Dyson’s report on the Bashir fiasco. It is not so much that the mistake was made, but that it seems to have been ignored and that the whistleblower was persecuted. This must be looked at and identified so that it can never happen again. It may be too much to hope that we will never make that initial mistake again, but we must make sure that whistleblowers are protected. We have a right to expect that from an organisation which we fund.
Going back to the footballs that were in play in 2019—and probably still are—on the licence fee, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, has probably done it justice, but the fact of the matter is that, if you expect the BBC to provide good content, you have to give it the money to provide the content. I have had conversations with people who say, “I want my licence fee back,” and I say, “What are you going to cut?” They reply, “What do you mean cut?” I say, “Well, it’s money. Production costs money. What do you want to cut?” He—it was a gentleman—then muffled through this process of going down, “Well, I’d get rid of X and Y that I don’t watch”, to which his wife said, “But your grandchildren watch that.” We will always have a real challenge here. If we want broadcasting to do all this stuff, we have to fund it—and fund it by the licence fee. I do not think we want this to be part of a Budget and something that is paid for out of income tax, to be perfectly honest. Can you imagine the rows then? It is almost unimaginable that there would be any continuity to go on.
I will not go on at any length about the BBC, because I am not a great expert, but what about the World Service? If ever there was an extension of soft power for Great Britain, it has to be that. It just is—it is all over the world and touches the rest of the world. We are lucky that English is one of the universal languages of the day, and we have a way of going forward. But once again, it must be seen to be reliable and truthful, at least to the best of its ability. The fact is that, when foreign powers stop challenging what the BBC says, we should worry. When Russia stops challenging, then worry.
I end with one other thing that public service broadcasting has a wonderful record on, and that is educating the world on sport and making sport available. There has been a massive improvement in the growth of women’s football on TV. The universal medicine—the wonder drug—is exercise. People do not take exercise because it is good for them; generally speaking, they take it because it is fun. Playing sport is one of the ways forward. We must also bear in mind what Channel 4 has done with the Paralympics and how it has carried forward that work. At its best, public service broadcasting has the ability to entertain and educate at the same time. We need to look at the way it has made different aspects of sport available.
All of us who have access to video-on-demand services know that they are great—they are wonderful—but we are looking into a closed room with one closed set of information coming in. The fact that you can find your old TV series, fall asleep and when it comes on again you recognise both episodes is great. But the fact is that you are talking in your own little echo chamber. Public service broadcasting does not do that, and more power to its elbow because of that. We all need to be shaken up just a little bit.
Finally, if there is political bias in public service broadcasting, I hope that the party opposite realises that it has been in power for most of the time that it has been going on, so it is not that successful. It is the job of public service broadcasting to have a go at those who are in power. We all have the scars to show for that.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, in the 1980s, while both my gender and geography were against me, I was able to begin my directing career at Channel 4 and subsequently build it at the BBC. Since that time, I have worked across the creative industries from Hollywood studios and streamers to independents and PSBs. With that in mind, I draw the attention of the House to my interests on the register in relation to the tech sector and as director of a TV and theatre company. It was a privilege to be a member of the Communications Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, at the time of the report’s inquiry. I would like to associate myself with his words at the beginning of the debate.
I want to talk briefly about three things: the urgent need to support a national broadcaster; the funding model of the BBC; and who the competition really is. It is striking that, for a much-loved institution, the BBC attracts so much ire. It manages to upset the left for its failure to give it a platform and the right for being a hotbed of liberals. It is accused of failing the young as they abandon it for YouTube, and failing the old, in the debacle of the over-75s licence fee. Perhaps it is the role of a Cross-Bencher to point out that, if it is upsetting both sides, it is probably doing a reasonable job.
In a time of division, culture wars and disputed realities algorithmically pushed to highlight our difference, the nation’s broadcaster should not be a comfort to any one view but an instrument for, and a mirror to, us all. The danger of this moment is that our divisions—symbolised by our fragmentation north and south, Brexit or not, urban or rural, nationalism or unity—overwhelm our common interest. The vast majority of our witnesses made the case that, more than ever, we need a broad expansive space in which to see our collective selves, not a narrowed-down public broadcaster doing only what commercial players are not motivated to do, which, ironically, is likely to result in a diet that feeds only an urban elite.
I would like to underline that it is breadth of experience, shared across class and region, across all of our fault-lines, that must be the ambition: to enjoy the talent shows, our national obsessions of housebuilding and watching other people cook; to watch “Small Axe” or “Line of Duty”; to hear the nightly news—which is still trusted above any other—as one nation. Streamers and video-on-demand services are deliberately designed to offer a personalised world. When I choose content based on my interests or characteristics, I am offered more of the same. While it feels comforting to be reflected, it automatically demotes content based on other interests and alternate characteristics. The BBC is unique in that its role is to ensure that we all see ourselves not as individual islands but in the context of each other.
Turning to the licence fee, the Committee was clear that the process should be transparent and based on the duties that are set out. It is not right that the BBC is asked to invest in infrastructure or give free licences if that takes away its ability to provide the programming that the nation demands. I support the recommendation absolutely but, perhaps somewhat controversially, I increasingly accept the argument of those who say that times have changed and that the licence fee, while still extraordinary value for money, is organised as something of a poll tax—neither based on usage nor ability to pay.
My personal view is that the BBC should have a ring-fenced settlement from central taxation. While I share the fear of political interference, I am not sure that the perennial threat to the licence fee—whether freezing it, forcing it to be spent inappropriately or legitimising non-payment—does not amount to political interference by less transparent means. It is in the national interest to fund and protect our national broadcaster, because our prosperity and identity are better held in public together, rather than as an ever increasingly divided nation distracted by its own atomised furies. Undoubtedly, it is irksome to each successive Government to feel the bite, especially when they hold the potential to defang it, but while it is a temptation to disempower the BBC, it should be resisted. Whatever our starting point, we all lose if we do not have one eye on building our common identity.
Finally, can we put to bed the notion that the battle for control of our attention is between the BBC and commercial radio, local press, Sky or even the streamers? It is, of course, the platforms—YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok—that dominate our cultural and information technologies and who fuel the ever more fragmented and personalised realities, artificially promoting false binaries and extremities at the expense of a collective experience.
Neither culture nor politics is a zero-sum game. It does not follow that, if the platforms or streamers have content, we need none in our collective hands. The PSB system offers the opportunity of a contemporary and collective vision of what binds us at a crucial time in which we are readdressing our role on the global stage and working out what being a United Kingdom means. By all means, let us continue to discuss the detail, but let us not misunderstand the purpose. As this excellent report concludes, the PSB system is more vital than ever.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, mine will be a lonely voice in this debate. As my noble friend Lord Vaizey forecast, the note that I strike will be dissonant—indeed, given the tenor of your Lordships’ debate so far, not just dissonant but atonal, jarring and downright cacophonous. I must stand back and ask whether anybody, today, would propose funding one television and radio network with a poll tax on TV sets. That you would not invent something today is of course not a knock-down argument; I am enough of a Burkean conservative to see that. There are lots of things that we would not invent today but that we rather like, such as the use of French in diplomatic invitations; those resonant phrases about monarchy in the Book of Common Prayer, like shards left over from some ancient quarrel; or, indeed, the presence of hereditary legislators in the United Kingdom, who do such a disproportionate share of the unthanked and workaday tasks and who should stay, at least until the original deal is complied with. But I am not sure that the BBC is in that category.
A poll tax to fund one station made absolute sense when there was only one station. In 1922, it was very difficult to argue with, but even by 1955, when there were commercial alternatives, it was becoming difficult to justify in theory. Now, in an age of streaming, Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube, it has become unsustainable. The report that your Lordships are debating today took the figures up to 2018, and it is pretty clear that the lockdown has accelerated the trends that it identified.
There are a number of standard oppositional arguments levelled against the BBC: that you cannot justify the licence fee if you are trying to level up; that it is a poll tax on poor people; that the Bashir affair is part of what happens when an organisation is convinced of its rectitude because it is a public service dispenser; or that it is biased. I was surprised to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, say that it was attacked by both sides and that this showed it was doing something right—I would have thought that, if you are being attacked by all sides, there is at least a case to be made that you are doing something wrong. It seems to me that you cannot have total impartiality in any broadcast or newspaper—one person’s idea of impartiality is another person’s idea of tendentiousness. The closest you can get, therefore, is to have a multiplicity or plurality of differing voices, so that out of a cacophony of clashing interpretations, the listener discerns something close to the truth.
The reality is that, as our viewing and listening habits shift, even within the corporation people are realising that change is coming. I do not think that the BBC has much to fear from change. We are creatures of habit, and there is such a thing as first-mover advantage. Thirty years after the privatisation of telecoms, BT was still by far the largest producer of landlines, with more than 40% of the market. The idea that, if the BBC moved to a subscription-only system, people would suddenly give up watching “Strictly”, “EastEnders”, or whatever programme they enjoy, just does not take account of human nature.
Some aspects of the corporation’s work may be unsustainable. For example, I never understood why the BBC needed to get into local radio—it struck me as an area already well-served by commercial operators. But the things that people regard as gems, and always bring up in these conversations—the Attenborough nature programmes and so on—are precisely the pieces of programming that would be profitable under any dispensation and that will continue to be export revenue-raisers for this country.
I finish by addressing those in the corporation who are capable of looking at reform positively. If this change is coming and technology is ineluctably moving this way, the only choice is to stand there and be pummelled by the waves or to scramble nimbly on to your board and try to ride them.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I welcome the report and endorse strongly its central conclusion, as expressed in its title, Public Service Broadcasting: As Vital as Ever. The report is comprehensive, dealing with the whole range of public service broadcasting in the context of what is referred to as the broadcasting market. I will focus on its application to the BBC and its independence.
Paragraph 184 of the report says that:
“The BBC has a unique funding model based on the licence fee which is intended to safeguard its independence from the Government and the market.”
That is independence from, first, the Government, and, secondly, the market. As far as the market is concerned, I see a glimmer of hope in the Government’s response. In paragraph 2 of the response we read that:
“The Government expects public service broadcasters to deliver high-quality, distinctive content for all audiences and licence fee payers across the UK. This is important in order to deliver … the wider objectives of PSB … In many cases this content would be underprovided or not provided at all by an unregulated market.”
So we are agreed that there is significant market failure that has to be addressed by public service broadcasters, although it would be good to hear from the Minister that this is still the Government’s view over a year later.
The news about independence from the Government is not so welcome. The BBC charter says in section 3, on the independence of the BBC:
“The BBC must be independent in all matters concerning the fulfilment of its Mission and the promotion of the Public Purposes, particularly as regards editorial and creative decisions, the times and manner in which its output and services are supplied, and in the management of its affairs.”
The important words there, which are particularly apposite at the moment, are those in the reference to “editorial and creative decisions”. You do not get to pick and choose what is meant by being independent; it is absolute. I would argue that the BBC’s independence extends to its ability to make its own mistakes.
This is certainly the position until the review of the charter in 2027. But what we now have is the introduction of the mid-term review of the charter, which has to be completed by 2024 and which is, in effect, being employed as a threat to the BBC’s independence. There was some indication of this in the Government’s formal response to the report, going back to February last year. Paragraph 21 says:
“The Government believes that the Charter mid-term review, due to take place by the end of 2024, is the appropriate milestone to consider whether the current regulatory arrangements for the BBC are working effectively and whether any reforms are necessary.”
That was uncomfortable enough, but now we have Oliver Dowden’s recent tweet:
“Lord Dyson’s report reveals damning failings at the heart of the BBC. We will now reflect on Lord Dyson’s thorough report and consider whether further governance reforms at the BBC are needed in the mid-term Charter review.”
Let us look at section 57 of the charter, which deals with the mid-term review. It says that
“The Secretary of State may undertake a mid-term review”,
and that
“The Secretary of State must determine the scope and terms of reference”.
So there is much power in the hands of the Secretary of State, without, it should be noted, any requirement for public consultation. Subsection (5) goes on to say that
“The review must not consider … the Mission of the BBC … the Public Purposes of the BBC; or … the licence fee funding model of the BBC for the period of this Charter.”
If you analyse that, and compare it to what is said in the charter, it is quite clear that the BBC’s role as a public service broadcaster is not up for review in the mid-term review. That is outside its terms, so why does the Secretary of State refer to it in his original comments on the report and again in his recent tweet?
It is important to note, therefore, that Lord Dyson’s report covered events only up to 17 April 1996. Since then, the present Government have significantly changed the BBC’s governance in the charter that commenced in 2016. So the Secretary of State’s tweet should have said, “Lord Dyson’s report reveals damning failings at the heart of the BBC more than 25 years ago, since when we, the Government, have made changes in its governance.” The tweet from the Secretary of State was totally out of order, a clear threat to the BBC’s independence and outside the terms of the objectives of a public service broadcaster.
Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, the report from the Select Committee on Communications and Digital is even more timely now than when it was published. It is wise and welcome. The noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, and members of the committee have done a brilliant job. We live in a world where there has been an explosion of competing, often inaccurate and untrusted news and information. Our public service broadcasters provide a rock of reality on which people can depend. As such, they provide a vital resource for us all.
Public service broadcasters’ mission, of course, is to inform, educate and entertain. By and large, they do all those things well. They provide impartial news and trusted coverage of great national events. They are the places people turn to for information at times of crisis—something we have seen clearly over the past year. They create wonderful, thoughtful and insightful programmes, from Kenneth Clark’s “Civilisation” more than 50 years ago to Simon Schama’s recent series on the Romantics. They give us bewitching drama that has the whole nation talking, whether “Downton Abbey”, “Line of Duty” or “It’s a Sin”. They exist, above all, as a benchmark of quality. They are, in fact, among the best broadcasters in the world. We damage or diminish them at our peril.
The committee identified a number of ways in which public service broadcasters’ value can be sustained and enhanced—for example, by extending the availability of major sporting events by enhancing the “crown jewels” list. I am sorry that the Government did not respond positively to that when they replied to the report. I hope that they will think again. Proposals also include: reinforcing the obligation for programmes, including series—not just one-off programmes—to be commissioned from outside London and other metropolitan areas; monitoring the diversity of commissioners; ensuring that licence fee funding is not siphoned off to yet more non programme-making purposes; a new independent process for setting the licence fee; and ensuring mandated prominence in programme guides, not just for the main PSBs but for their digital versions. All these are welcome proposals. I hope that the Government will take notice and implement them.
Much has been said and written during the past week, and, indeed, in this debate, about the BBC in the wake of the Dyson report. Let us be clear: the BBC failed, not only in allowing Martin Bashir to use fake documents and dishonesty to secure an interview but, above all, in not acknowledging the error when it investigated and knew about it. The BBC failed in its basic duty to be transparent. For all this, there is no excuse. Those are not the standards expected of and insisted on for a public service broadcaster.
What must not happen, however, is for this matter to be seized on by the enemies of the BBC to tear down its place in the life of the nation. The sight last weekend of the tabloid newspapers salivating over the BBC’s discomfiture was risible hypocrisy at its worst. Some spokespeople for the Government, though happily not all, have also leaped on an anti-BBC bandwagon. In that context, I worry that the Public Service Broadcasting Advisory Panel announced by the Government seems to have an agenda that is too sceptical about public service broadcasting. There have been some arguments that the BBC should be subjected to external control—even government-directed control. That would be an immensely dangerous road to take. The BBC is a public broadcaster; it is not a state broadcaster and must never become one. Genuine independence is crucial.
Over Bashir, the BBC got it badly wrong. It must be held to account for it by Ofcom, and I supported the shift in responsibility for oversight of the BBC to Ofcom when it happened. However, the role of the BBC, like that of the other public service broadcasters, must be sustained and supported. We need our public service broadcasters. They should be impartial, informative, trusted and creative. They should part of our national life that we can be proud of. The Government must ensure that the PSBs are not damaged. They are, quite simply, too valuable for us all.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hastings.
Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate and I declare my interest as the BBC’s former head of public affairs from 1996 to 2003, notably from one year after the famous broadcast in question. I noted that this report—vital as ever—underlined the two key themes that democracy and culture are fundamental to the existence of the BBC, let alone that of public broadcasting.
Although the committee’s report is 18 months old and the debate has been held back, perhaps for obvious reasons, the issues are similar to those on which I contended, fought and debated—even with your Lordships before I became a Member—on behalf of the BBC between 1996 and 2003. In many ways, little has changed. I contended on: three successful licence fee campaigns and two successful charter renewals; critical legislation on public service broadcasting’s “must-carry” cable provisions from Baroness O’Cathain, who is no longer with us; and, of course, listed sports events, to which the noble Lord, Lord Smith, referred, along with the special engagement back in 1996 of the noble Lord, Lord Archer.
Those who were excoriated and shamed in the past week by the Dyson report—senior executives and correspondents—exposed something that was clearly a major difficulty at the time and which has some shavings of it currently. The BBC back then sought to trivialise and tantalise to get younger and more populous audiences. It is exactly the kind of attitude in the news dimension of the BBC that caused the extremely expensive and invasive attack on Sir Cliff Richard, which was endorsed by the previous director-general as legitimate journalism but then thrashed in the courts as an abuse of judgment and an unacceptable waste of public money. It gave us the appalling realities that the Dyson report considered.
However, let us look at the other side. In the past year, all of us have depended extensively—yes, my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hannan—on local radio and local news. We have depended extensively on coverage to inform us of what is going on in the coronavirus pandemic in the UK and internationally, and now, of course, on vaccination detail. I am grateful to the wonderful Julia Harris, public affairs manager at the BBC’s World Service division. Her exceptional brief on domestic BBC interests and those of the World Service is compelling reading.
However, I want to add three things into that brief which I feel your Lordships will benefit from noting. During the course of last year, when so much could not be done, the BBC still did Comic Relief: live public broadcasting to raise resources for those on the edges of life in the poorest parts of the world. The BBC still hosted Children in Need, for those domestic realities and pressure points—and, especially, there was the supplemented £10 million commitment to Black Lives Matter realities, rather than organisations. As a vice-president of UNICEF, I wish to thank ITV for hosting Soccer Aid, raising nearly £11 million on behalf of UNICEF. These are unique events in the BBC’s case, facilitating financial assistance in excess of £100 million from the British people because of the trusted status of the broadcaster.
The Government’s response says that the organisations called public service broadcasters, including the BBC, must adapt, but what does it mean to adapt in this new, comprehensively platformed age in which everything is available in an instant? Certainly, to adapt does not mean to be populist and trashy. It has been my long-held conviction, from my times of responsibility at the BBC to now, that the BBC is an outstanding national and international asset, and its value is like that of our own homes, if we have one, fine wines, if we invest in them, or jewellery, museums, libraries, galleries and universities. Assets grow in value not by lowering their value to attract greater interest, but by protecting their value through the relentless pursuit of excellence and exceptionalism.
I firmly believe it is time to call out what has to be one of the most essential changes for the BBC for the future: to keep faith with its long-established public purposes. Over the last year we have all suffered the endless amount of news called “fears”: “scientists fear”, “officials fear”, “the public fears”. Fears are not facts. News should be about facts, data and information, hence the need to put right the agenda of the BBC’s news organisation by letting it be led by the World Service. We need to see the quality of World Service news in our domestic news following; that way, we will be truly informed and educated. I will give just two examples. Today, the Times newspaper refers to Russian nuclear bombers being placed in Assad’s Syria to hold up the regime. There is no mention of that on the BBC. Alternatively, with an interest in the Black Lives Matter realities of the US, there has been no mention on the BBC over the last week of America’s black middle-class. These perspectives come from having a wider, deeper knowledge, and I encourage the BBC in future to abandon the trashy attitudes of fear-thinking and appealing to popular audiences, and to go back to detail.
Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, this is an important debate on a valuable report and I welcome it, perhaps as much despite the tribulations currently facing the BBC as because of them. That is because the noise that that scandal generates may drown out other, at least as important questions which need consideration. Before proceeding, I declare that I am a director of Full Fact and the Public Interest News Foundation.
I first became engaged with the question of public service broadcasting in 1995, when, unexpectedly—to me at least—I became the Minister for Broadcasting in the last chapter of the John Major Government. Before then, it was not a topic with which I had had serious political engagement. The title of this report would have been as apt then as now, and the document under its banner could equally have been written at that time. However, thanks to technology, the world about which it would have been written would have been more or less entirely different.
Of course, unless you are establishing radio and television from scratch, you are always caught by the hangover from the immediate past. Paradoxically, therefore, while the political case is strong for public service broadcasting in some form at the inception of radio and television services with monopoly characteristics, it may, superficially, at least, appear to be weaker as the number of channels increase. Is that right, and what should the response be?
As we all know, one of the revolutionary changes in recent years is that the means for transferring information, including the media, have been transformed. The constraints imposed by spectrum scarcity have more or less disappeared, and broadcasting, which in simple terms at one point was a multipoint service, has evolved into a whole series of varying versions and combinations of point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, multipoint-to-multipoint, on-demand and mobile services. This is a revolution and, I suggest, a beneficial one which has been life-enhancing and life-improving for many people. The effect of all this is that we have in the most general sense moved from a world of scarcity to one of abundance—some might say excessive abundance—which of course poses problems, just as scarcity does.
Having ended my much-enjoyed stint as chairman of the Communications Committee in 2004, because I believe that when one gives something up one should walk away, I deliberately took a step back from engagement in the politics of the media. However, I did not leave my interest in it behind, and my involvement with the wider media world continued in some respects. It is this change from scarcity to abundance which strikes me so strongly. During the whole of this period, public service broadcasting has been at the heart of UK media thinking, and, while things keep evolving, it has remained there while being consistently challenged.
We must be clear that public service broadcasting is not only what used to be known as television; it is also radio, and, as has been mentioned, it is not only the BBC but Channel 4, ITV and Channel 5. Together, they comprise our public service broadcasters; equally, each is an interconnected part of the whole, and they should not be wantonly and rashly reverse-engineered or disaggregated. In a world of information overload, they together provide a kind of datum point at the centre of what is on offer more widely.
In recent years and months, the incidence of fake news and its younger brother, dodgy information, has been at the heart of political debate in this country, both as a phenomenon but also as an influencer of voter behaviour. In my view, public sector broadcasters’ role is to provide an accessible gauge against which people can look at these wider media offerings. Because public service broadcasting is plural in its suppliers, there is no monopoly in its source, something which is very dangerous in a free society.
Our society has a number of national services with which everyone can engage if they feel the need to do so—that is the way we do these things in the 21st century. Of these, perhaps the National Health Service is the most obvious. Public service broadcasting in some ways—but only some—is similar, in that it is available to all. Just as the NHS relates to health, ultimately, public service broadcasting, given its plural character, provides guidance and commentary on the accuracy, truth, relevance and quality of material which is so important to the political and wider social health of the nation. It is available to all and compulsory for none.
Our country, it is said, is in an unhappy political state. I believe that public service broadcasting can and does contribute to resolving some of the differences and tensions across the United Kingdom, in a way that the simple dialectic of competition in the market will not do by itself. We have inherited public service broadcasting and, as has already been mentioned, I do not suppose that anybody would invent it in its present form now. However, it is a reality and I believe it is serving a valuable purpose. We just have to remember, in the well-known words of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa in The Leopard, that it is necessary that things must change for things to remain the same.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this take-note debate. In doing so, I declare my interest as a board member at Channel 4 Television. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, for his excellent, coherent and extraordinarily timely report. I also thank him, and other colleagues, for doing so much of the heavy lifting with the statistics and the strategy —which, happily, leaves me with much of the content. Ultimately, that is what so much of this is about. Be it linear, VOD, SVOD or streaming on platforms, quality content should be at the heart of any offer.
Here is a personal story. I grew up in a grey, post-industrial West Midlands, and when I was an 11 year-old, a fabulous light was switched on, in the form of a multicoloured figure 4. Even before the broadcasts started on 2 November 1982, that was exciting enough for us to know that something new was coming to our town. Channel 4 changed my viewing habits, and through that, changed my view—with “Brookside”, “Cutting Edge”, “Dispatches”, “The Tube”, the monstrous Max Headroom, and so much more. Through the intervening 38 years, Channel 4 has been right there alongside me.
Perhaps the greatest test of any public service broadcaster—indeed, of any institution—is how it coped through the Covid crisis. Channel 4 not only informed, entertained and educated us but cheered us up. We all got our artistic streak going with “Grayson’s Art Club”, and 9.2 million of us crowded into the cake tent for the final of “The Great British Bake Off” for some sugary comfort against the Covid pandemic.
To bring us right up to speed, and already rightly mentioned by other noble Lords, we have “It’s a Sin” —three words that define what public service broadcasting is all about. Covering the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and played out in the midst of the Covid crisis of our time, it told us so much of what it is to be human—and indeed to be humane. I said at the time that the head-hurting, gut-wrenching moment on the seafront in the finale was the most powerful moment on UK television in 2021. We can come back to that point on New Year’s Eve, and it will still be so.
Then there is the cricket—the first time test cricket has been on terrestrial telly in 16 years. Some unkind tweeter said that it looked as if the same studio was used from 16 years earlier, when it was previously shown, but that aside, think of the Chennai sunshine cutting through our Covid-laden wintery skies. That is how, as other noble Lords have said, sport can cut through.
I was lucky enough to be involved in the Paralympics in 2012, and indeed to do the deal with Channel 4 for the Paralympic broadcasting rights. I knew that the channel could do something different—not just sensational sports production but something beyond that: an attitude-altering opportunity for broadcasting to create. Yes, there were fabulous sporting heats and events, but, more than that, there were programmes such as “The Last Leg”, with its “Is it ok to?” section, challenging, pushing and changing—as with “It’s a Sin”. Does PSB change stuff? Well, our recently retired Lord Speaker was moved by that programme to go back to his HIV/AIDS campaigning. That is change; that is dynamic; that is fluidity. That is what we are here for.
As for levelling up, Channel 4 levelled me up. I believe all PSBs have a role in levelling up and the build-back agenda. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that PSB is an economic, social and psychological good, and a happily heady cocktail of soft power and hard coin? With a national headquarters in Leeds, and offices in Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol and London, Channel 4, located throughout the UK and commissioning across the UK, is a channel for all the UK.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I have no direct interest in broadcasting, but I have shared a breakfast table for the last 38 years with Caroline Thomson, who was a senior figure in Channel 4, and went on to be a deputy director-general of the BBC.
There have been many excellent speeches in this debate, and I cannot think of a better defence of public service broadcasting than that which we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond; it was a fantastic speech. We also had a very good speech from the chairman of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert of Panteg, introducing his excellent report.
I share the usual complaints about the usual channels in this House, who delayed the debate on this report for an unacceptable 18 months. That should not be allowed to happen in future. However, in some ways it is fortuitous. Because of the scandal around Bashir, it is fortuitous that, at this moment, the case for public service broadcasting has to be remade—and we have heard excellent speeches today trying to do that.
The only speech that I profoundly disagreed with was that of the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. The question I put to him—fortunately, he cannot reply—is this: does he really want to end up in a world like that of the United States, where two parts of a divided country occupy their separate cultural bubbles, listening to separate media channels and using separate social media outlets? One side watches Fox, and the other side something else. Is that the kind of world we want? Is that what the noble Lord really wants? Under the policy that he advocates, that is where we would end up.
I am also surprised that, from a prominent Brexiteer, we did not hear even a bit of a defence of the BBC, as one of the emblematic parts of the global Britain that the noble Lord is supposed to favour. Surely the BBC is something of which this country can be proud—something that people all over the world admire. I remember once being with Caroline on a broadcasting trip to Los Angeles. We got into a taxi with an Ethiopian driver, who asked, “Well, what do you do?”. Caroline said, “I work for the BBC,” and he said, “Gosh, wonderful! I listened to that every night when I lived in Ethiopia, and I still do now, in Los Angeles.” You cannot get much more global than that.
I would have expected someone who is a member of the Conservative Party to be strongly in favour of something that brings the nation together—and that is what the BBC does—at times of crisis. In my own county of Cumbria, when we had the floods in Carlisle, it was BBC Radio Cumbria that people turned to for reassurance and information. It had a fantastic listenership at that time of crisis.
Similarly, if I were the Prime Minister, what would I think about the BBC? There are a lot of Cummings and goings at the moment around what the Prime Minister did, and when, at the start of the Covid lockdown. None the less, he managed to go on television in this country and address 27 million people, arguing for the policy that he had eventually decided on. I put this to the noble Lord, Lord Hannan: what vehicle other than the BBC would provide that? The noble Lord has got to rethink.
The BBC faces huge challenges. The challenge of appealing to our divided society is very difficult. Another challenge is keeping the interests of the old and young together and appealing more to the young, although in fact the old are the core vote—a lot of it Conservative vote, of course—in support of the BBC. That element gives the BBC its political strength.
I would like to see a stronger broadcasting presence in the regions. The move to Salford by the BBC, which has not been talked about today, was a tremendous thing for the north-west. I remember going there and hearing about the schoolchildren whose aspirations and motives had been transformed by the fact that they now realised that in their locality there was this significant cultural presence for which they could aspire to work.
I think there is a lot in what the report says about having an independent mechanism for determining the future licence fee. There are big issues, but on the fundamentals, as a whole nation, across our parties, we must support public service broadcasting.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the several speakers who have talked about the need to get more broadcasting content out of London. As a resident of Saltaire, I have to make a certain comment and declare an interest. We are a wonderful 19th-century model village. We have had four television crews filming at weekends in the last two and a half years, most recently for the BBC’s next series of “Gentleman Jack”, which does make it a bit difficult to get around the village.
We are all aware that the idea of public service broadcasting in the UK is now in question. The advisory panel on public service broadcasting appointed last November was tasked, in the first of its terms of reference, to consider:
“Whether the concept of public service broadcasting is still needed”.
I was happy to read that it went on to add,
“and, if so, what a modern PSB system should contribute to economic, cultural and democratic life across the United Kingdom”.
This is not just about market economics.
I welcome this report and the report in March this year from the Commons DCMS Committee, The Future of Public Service Broadcasting, which comes to very similar conclusions—no doubt to the dissatisfaction of the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. As others have, I note the firm conclusion that:
“Public service broadcasting remains essential to the UK media and losing it would leave UK society and democracy worse off”.
It also says:
“Our evidence overwhelmingly indicated that public service broadcasting is as important as ever to … the UK’s image on the world stage.”
I also welcome the emphasis on bringing the nation together rather than tearing it apart, as the bitter war between partisan media has done in the United States. I was struck by the comment that Frank Luntz, the American conservative political strategist, made in the Times two days ago, in which he deplored the “unbearably toxic” polarisation of American politics and went on to say:
“I’m here to warn you that if you don’t learn from what happened in the US you’re doomed to repeat it”.
There are those on the right of British politics who are doing their best to provoke a culture war here, the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, among them. It is a wonderful way to distract attention from inequality and social and economic disadvantages, attacking liberal elites while sparing the rich from criticism. A new report from King’s College London remarks that
“culture wars are a top-down phenomenon, where political and media discussion encourage division”.
In contrast, a healthy democratic society needs to share a common discourse, and public service broadcasting as part of the mix of media helps to maintain that common ground.
We all recognise that the Martin Bashir affair has shaken the BBC’s reputation and clearly requires lessons to be learned, but we should also recognise that it pales in comparison with the behaviour of News Corporation in phone hacking and corrupt payments over several years. That has not stopped News Corporation attacking the BBC. I am bored stiff with the stream of negative stories that the Times publishes to denigrate the BBC, alongside its attempts to promote Times Radio. The Daily Mail is worse, of course, but for the full Fox News paranoia one has to turn to the Spectator or the Telegraph. Charles Moore, the noble Lord, Lord Moore, who sadly is not here today, wrote in the Telegraph on 1 May that
“the BBC’s greatest single aim is to get rid of Boris Johnson.”
That is a statement worthy of Donald Trump.
Oliver Dowden has called on the BBC to reassert British values. With all its faults, the BBC does represent British values, and is respected around the world for doing so. It nurtures and promotes British talent, at the heart of our thriving cultural sector. Its children’s TV and educational content are invaluable, including BBC Bitesize—as I discovered when teaching my grandchildren during the lockdown.
In contrast, many of those who bang on about sovereignty and Anglo-Saxon superiority sail under false flags. GB News, to be launched with union jacks flying, is owned by a consortium of American investors and British expatriates and promises us a programme called “Wokewatch”, modelled on right-wing American attack lines. The Daily Telegraph, for which the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, writes his nationalistic op-eds, has long been owned by brothers who avoided British tax by commuting between Monte Carlo and the Channel Islands. News International is headquartered in Bermuda and run from New York. In David Goodhart’s terms, these are the people from anywhere, in contrast to the staff of the BBC, who are rooted in the UK.
A purely commercial media sector, largely foreign owned, would impoverish British culture and society and undermine the sovereignty that this Government claim to be reasserting. Public service broadcasting is an important phenomenon in maintaining a coherent society and helping to promote a reasoned political debate. Yes, the corporation makes mistakes, and the toleration of Martin Bashir was a serious error. Yes, the funding model will have to be adapted as new media continue to reshape communications. Yes, it has to do a lot more to attract the younger generation. But the experience of the pandemic has shown the value of a trusted source of news and information to which all our citizens can turn. That is a vital part of a democratic, open society.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]
My Lords, I welcome the report wholeheartedly, but with one reservation, which I shall come to. I declare my interests as listed in the register, and indeed I have been public service broadcasting—if I can put it that way—for over 40 years.
One thing I have come to realise, and it is germane to the Princess Diana scandal, is that as with every other organisation I have worked for—including the NHS, ITV, the press and indeed here at the Palace of Westminster—there is a reluctance and an inability to accept criticism. I am afraid it is human nature. Like other artists, though, as a composer I really had to learn all too quickly that a degree of self-criticism is absolutely vital and constant for a thriving mind. For that reason, I rather welcome the dodecaphonic contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. It certainly lit the fuse of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle.
Many decades ago, I was a member of something called the General Advisory Council to the BBC. Forty of the great and the good, and doubtless several not so good, would assemble in the Council Chamber at Broadcasting House. People such as the Right Reverend David Sheppard, the Bishop of Liverpool, the MP Alf Morris, the actress Jane Asher and the conductor Jane Glover would give feedback and advice to the corporation to what appeared to be, I am afraid, absolutely negligible effect. It was eventually disbanded, but in embryo it was an interesting idea that faltered because, as we see in government and in fact in all areas, people just do not like to be criticised.
This has led to the “whistleblower”—a term disastrously traduced by some as being synonymous with betrayal and disloyalty. Without these brave souls stepping forward—as the graphic designer in the Diana case did, only to be promptly sacked—how are we to know what is going on? How are we to know that a whole clutch of babies are in danger in a maternity wing? In other areas of life, we salute selfless sacrifice, including ultimately life itself, so why do we not recognise the loss of livelihood when given in the interests of society?
I have recently been on two courses to keep me on the straight and narrow: the Valuing Everyone course here at Westminster and the BBC’s impartiality training. As a presenter, I was quite rightly required to do the latter by the new DG, Tim Davie. So awareness is growing, but there is a much deeper cultural and philosophical gear change that organisations such as Parliament and the BBC need to make if we are going to deliver fair and considered programmes and legislation. It has to start at the top, at No. 10, where we have to have trust in what we are being told and not feel that everything is being spun. For that reason, I hope the next chair of Ofcom will have a reputation free of the things that the Dyson report has unveiled.
It has always seemed to me that, if the BBC is doing its job, every Government, of whatever hue, should feel “got at”. As with the Lords, that is what scrutiny amounts to. Trust and loyalty have to be earned, but when they have been, we must learn to listen. We should note carefully the thoughts and suggestions of my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross, whose experience speaks volumes.
Like everyone else, I was appalled at the falsification of documents to help secure the Diana interview, which led the apology from the noble Lord, Lord Hall. I was a member of the board that appointed him at the Royal Opera House and was asked to interview him for the board. It is important to put on record that I concur with Esther Rantzen’s comments on “Newsnight” that, whatever has gone wrong—and a lot clearly has—the noble Lord always struck me as essentially an honourable and gifted man. With the other Tony—Pappano—and Monica Mason at the Royal Ballet, he transformed the fortunes of the Royal Opera House. But, sadly, the BBC is a very different and much more complicated animal. However, we must not, in the interests of this country, throw the baby out with the bath water, so I salute the restraint of the Prime Minister and the Government in not indulging in knee-jerk reactions—and I imagine that the Minister would endorse this.
I agree with the committee’s emphasis on the importance of the role of public service broadcasting, an independent licence-fee-supported BBC and the role that it plays in our lives, and the fact that it can contribute programming that is hard for commercial stations to sustain. I salute Freeview, which allows a democratic dissemination of ideas. I also hugely value arts programmes that other stations, such as Channel 4 and Sky Arts, contribute.
Here is my little caveat: I am sorry that the entire report is so television-dominated, as we have heard from other Members. There is scarcely a mention of radio, either national or local, which is hugely under threat, or even the World Service, the best soft-power vehicle that we possess. Hopefully, we are about to see and listen to another Proms season, admired universally but under threat from the post-Brexit problems of visas and work permits.
I love public service broadcasting. I think it adds a huge amount to society and the reputation of our country.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, one premise of the report that I found very stimulating is that public service broadcasters are
“struggling to achieve their mission to serve all audiences in the face of increased competition”
from streaming services
“and changing viewing habits.”
This could identify the wrong problem, and it ignores the elephant in the room. There is a serious issue of broadcasters failing to serve all audiences, but I do not think it has much to do with video on demand. There is a much more profound identity crisis, and I am glad that the Government’s public service broadcasting advisory panel has tried to dig a bit deeper and ask whether, as has already been mentioned, the concept of public service is needed and, if so, what a modern PSB should look like.
That is a bit more like it, because it seems to me that, especially in the last five to six years, there has been a growing chasm between public service broadcasters and the public. More and more of the public feel alienated from mainstream media and often feel that they are being done a disservice by PSB channels. It seems significant that we are about to see the launch of a new channel, GB News, which has already been maligned and demonised in this place. It is being launched on 13 June. The director of news, John McAndrew, described GB News’s aims as free, fair, impartial and Ofcom-regulated, arguing:
“We can sense a real hunger for something fresh and different in television news and debate.”
He is right.
It is worth noting that this new channel is headed up by Andrew Neil. He was one of the best public service news broadcasters at the BBC—but they did not know how to use him and lost him. GB News is a start-up that has attracted presenters and production talent from across the PSB landscape, and a whole swathe of young producers and employees—diverse, passionate and eager to make a difference—recruited by an enthusiasm for the project of covering stories and voices neglected by PSB channels rather than by some special HR-designed diversity charter. I think it is exciting and although, according to one noble Lord we have heard, we should be worried because of its foreign owners—my goodness, xenophobic or what?—what is to say that GB News is not a new kind of public service broadcasting? We should at least allow it to shake up any complacency.
I want to focus especially on the problems of the BBC. The BBC is an institution whose ideals I love and want to defend, but I find it increasingly hard to do so. It feels as though somewhere along the line it lost track of its public service mission. I do not doubt the BBC’s commitment to serve and reflect communities across the country but, sadly, this is conceived in rather a technical way by focusing on regional production sites and programmes commissioned outside the M25. That is all good, but why then in the same month last year did we hear of £25 million cuts to established regional programmes while a pledge of £100 million was made to a new diversity initiative? I worry that obsessing about a particular interpretation of “diversity” does not serve all audiences and does not stress what we have in common but rather plays on differences.
My fear is that there is a balkanising of audiences going on by attempting to tailor programmes to different demographics and identity groups. It is true that this reflects one aspect of modern Britain—the divisive and essentialising identity politics so fashionable in metropolitan echo chambers. It can lead to the crassest form of programme making. Look at how broadcasters do not so much cater for 16 to 34 year-olds as chase after them, flattering and fawning to prove that PSB is relevant. It is excruciating witnessing the resulting soft bigotry of low expectations. Look at the tangle that Radio 3 and the Proms get into. “Add a bit of grime and rap and the audience will love us,” you feel them saying. Too many PSBs seem convinced that the young are an undifferentiated blob with the attention span of a gnat. The irony is that what the young are watching on streaming services are complex, nuanced, challenging long-form documentaries and drama series.
Another problem that I have with the focus on diversity is that too often it neglects diversity of opinion and thought. Even though Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, used the word “impartiality” 11 times in his inaugural speech, the most common complaint that I hear about the BBC is that it is partial by offering a narrow worldview. The problem with the present strategy is that it assumes that a Geordie or Yorkshire accent means diversity—but you can talk metropolitan orthodoxies with a northern voice, believe me. The BBC may have dumped received pronunciation, but its embrace of a suite of received opinions feels even more stifling and condescending.
Often the BBC cannot hear itself. It just does not realise that it is tone deaf about diverse values and worldviews that it does not share. This became apparent to me personally in 2016. I was a panellist on Radio 4’s “Moral Maze” for 20 years. I have done all the current affairs and news programmes that the BBC has to offer—a bit of a “BBC luvvie” if you want. No doubt I was seen as a bit of a maverick, but I was accepted on the scene. However, when I mentioned that I was going to vote leave, it was met with disbelief. “But you’re an intelligent, well-educated person, Claire,” said one senior producer—and from then on, in studios and green rooms, a growing sneer. And that sneering was even more viscerally observed by audiences.
The virtually unanimous view that Brexit was a foolish, backward and inexplicable idea meant that those called public service broadcasters did not have a clue what the public were thinking and were totally shocked at the referendum result. Many news reports before and since that democratic vote have given the impression that PSBs just do not like the public.
It is sometimes suggested—it has already been said here—that anyone who makes such criticisms is whipping up grievances and fuelling a culture war. I often think it is the other way around, and I worry that the BBC is inadvertently behaving like an activist in the culture wars. There are endless examples: the bizarre statement from “Countryfile” about the UK countryside being a “white environment”, and the “Rule Britannia” saga at the BBC Proms.
It was not the Defund the BBC campaign that clipped a section of a BBC Sounds podcast featuring two young women hectoring older white women for being “Karens” who should educate themselves about their white privilege, saying, “get out of the way” and ordering them to “basically leave”. The BBC eventually deleted the clip after a backlash, but what was it thinking? “Educate yourselves, you Karens” makes the old-fashioned, patrician Reithianism sound positively egalitarian.
The BBC is owned and paid for by the public, and it has a moral duty, not just a financial one—
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, but this is a time-limited debate.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
Do not be complacent, or public service broadcasting will not survive.
Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, the way we watch television is changing. Twenty years ago, most people relied on five free-to-air terrestrial channels provided by public service broadcasters. These broadcasters now face competition from hundreds of other channels and online services, such as subscription video on demand services. SVODs such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have enjoyed rapid success. They have made available thousands of hours of content at relatively low prices and offer each viewer a personalised experience. Almost half of households now subscribe to an SVOD, while YouTube is also a major competitor.
This is at a time of widespread distrust of news, with digital technology playing an increasing role in public life. SVODs operate globally and have enormous resources, leading to concern that PSBs are priced out of the market for high-quality television, limiting their ability to create drama and documentaries that reflect, examine and promote the culture of the UK. We sought to understand the contemporary role of public service broadcasters, the financial pressures they face and the PSB compact—the obligations they take on—in the age of video on demand.
Our evidence overwhelmingly indicated that public service broadcasting is as important as ever to our democracy and culture as well as the UK’s image on the world stage. A wide range of witnesses and contributors have said how PSBs help to inform our understanding of the world, reflect the UK’s cultural identity and represent a range of people and viewpoints.
We are all aware of the competition faced by BBC and its budget and editorial problems, but, in most people’s minds, it is a national treasure, always reliable and mostly open to criticism. The BBC has always had a culture of reinventing itself as time moves on. Lastly, the BBC is the only place to get correct news from in most third-world countries, and it is extremely useful for that purpose.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, I first welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, to the Front Bench; I hope that she has a very long stay. I am just passing through, but it was a great pleasure to hear what she had to say. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Jimmy Gordon, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, who sadly died during the Covid crisis.
However, my first duty is to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, and the members of his Select Committee, including the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, my noble friend Lady Grender and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who spoke today. Although delayed in coming before the House, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, pointed out, the report has proved to be most timely.
Our debate takes place in the shadow of, and the fallout from, Lord Dyson’s report into the methods used by Martin Bashir to obtain his interview with Princess Diana in 1995 and the failure of the BBC to investigate promptly and properly concerns about those methods. To borrow from Shakespeare, what has been revealed were grievous faults, and grievously has the BBC’s reputation suffered as a consequence.
We now of course have a feeding frenzy, calling for radical reform of the BBC. It is often led by financial and political vested interests that have long wanted to see the BBC underfunded and marginalised. Perhaps the only genuine link between today’s debate and Lord Dyson’s report on the errors and misdeeds of 25 years ago is Prince William’s observation that:
“In an era of fake news, public service broadcasting and a free press have never been more important.”
As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, pointed out, before rushing to yet another round of governance reform in response to events of 25 years ago, let us remember that the BBC’s new chairman, Richard Sharp, and new director-general, Tim Davie, were both appointed by this Government quite recently. They will work to a governance structure again created only recently by this Conservative Government. This recently introduced governance provides for the BBC a unitary board to run the institution, but with Ofcom as a wholly external regulator, ensuring that the BBC is held to its charter and agreement obligations.
As recently as 18 March, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, in response to a question of mine, said:
“The Government have been very clear about the value of the BBC, particularly in the pandemic, during which it has served to educate, inspire, inform and act as a crucial and reliable source of news.”—[Official Report, 18/3/21; col. 437.]
Lord Reith could not have put it better.
The pandemic has conclusively demonstrated the importance of having well-funded sources of education, information and entertainment freely available to every household in the UK. Of course, there has been an explosion of choice from the subscription streaming services, which has been a welcome distraction for many of us. However, these are all US-based, cost money, do not offer news and analysis and do not reflect British culture or the nations and regions of the UK.
The PSBs are key to the framework that sustains British culture, exports it abroad and helps to ensure that the soft power the UK has exerted around the world for decades is still potent today. Despite the overwhelming financial muscle of the subscription video on demand services, thanks to the multibillion-dollar corporations and American hedge funds behind them, the UK still punches well above its weight in the audio-visual export market. The vast majority of that comes from PSB investment. It is the interactive nature of the ecology delivered by the PSBs that brings the cultural and economic benefits to the UK.
Just before Christmas, Ofcom published its consultation on the future of PSBs. The Ofcom headline was that the UK media sector is a success story, with public service broadcasting at its core. Lest it be thought that I am concerned only with the BBC, let me point out that ITV plays an important part in that success.
It was a stroke of genius by the Conservative Government to create ITV as a regional confederation in 1955. I was born in the north-west and I still think of myself as coming from “Granada land”. The late Lord Bernstein brought to Granada an ethos and a regional identity which is still reflected in ITV today, and ITN remains a worthy competitor to the BBC, Sky News and Channel 4 News. While talking of Channel 4, I entirely endorse the very powerful speech given by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. To even consider the privatisation of Channel 4 would be an act of ideological vandalism.
The report we are debating reminds us of the value of PSBs, and we should embrace it in its entirety. However, there are two particular recommendations I commend to the House. First, the recommendation for an independent and transparent process for setting the licence fee is urgent. Even as we speak, the BBC is negotiating behind closed doors with the Government for a licence fee settlement from April next year. There is no transparency, and the Government have not been slow to show their teeth over the last few days. The committee recommended that the Government
“should establish an independent body … the BBC Funding Commission, to oversee the process for setting the licence fee”.
It also stated explicitly:
“In the current competitive and fast-moving environment the BBC needs to be properly funded.”
That funding commission would consult and make recommendations to the Secretary of State. The Government should demonstrate their commitment to transparency by setting up such a commission immediately.
Secondly, there have been increasingly urgent calls, including from Ofcom, to update the prominence regime so that PSB can be found easily across all platforms by consumers. As the report states,
“the current regime is centred on linear TV, which will increasingly devalue over time”
and the prominence regime must be
“updated for the digital age to reflect new ways of accessing content.”
This legislation cannot wait, and there is no reason why this could not be put into the online safety Bill to ensure its safe passage.
I hope that the Government will use this report and the recommendations it contains as a road map in plotting the way ahead on PSB. My noble friend Lord Wallace and others talked about the dangers of deregulation. In a debate in this House on 25 March 2003, speaking from these Benches on the Second Reading of the then Communications Bill, I quoted the distinguished American broadcaster, Ted Koppel, speaking about the Reagan Administration’s deregulation of American broadcasting in 1987. He said:
“We are ripping down those institutions, large and small, within which democratic culture was intended to be undertaken. Institutions that once destroyed, amidst the whimsical destructiveness of the market, will be extraordinarily difficult to reconstitute”.—[Official Report, 25/3/03; col. 669.]
That is a warning from the past, but it is a warning about the future. That is the crossroads at which we now stand. The members of this committee will be able to look back with pride on the work they have done. Let us hope that the Prime Minister and his Government will be able to look back with similar pride on the decisions they are about to make on the future of a media ecology which has been essential in determining how we speak to each other and how we speak to the world.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, before I get into the subject matter, I too would like to join my good friend the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in congratulating my noble friend Lady Merron and welcoming her to our Front Bench. As she demonstrated today, she will add greatly to its talent with her thoughtful and reflective comments and observations. I also pay tribute to my late noble friend Jimmy Gordon who, as a member of the committee, I am sure made many fine contributions and had great knowledge and experience of the media world.
The Communications and Digital Select Committee, led by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, has rendered the House a great service in delivering this report on public service broadcasting. The stellar cast of contributors responding to it today has amply demonstrated its value. The timing of today’s debate—as others have noted —could not have been better, as it has stimulated a thoughtful debate on the media’s role in its current form. The downside, of course, has been that the report itself has been so delayed.
The noble Lord made a passionate and persuasive case for public service broadcasting in an ever-changing media environment, challenging the Government to play their role in ensuring it has an active place in a mature democracy. The noble Lord’s questions themselves to the Minister today would provide ample material for a further debate.
Recent events, not only the Bashir findings from Lord Dyson but also the launch of Times Radio, GB News and so on, will be cited by some as evidence that the role of public service broadcasting is diminished and therefore that it should receive less funding. The opposite is actually true; we need to retain a strong offering from public service broadcasters to keep other platforms honest and ensure access to a plurality of views and a range of quality content.
One area where the Government disagree with the committee is on the list of free-to-air sporting events. The Government were quick to oppose the European super league proposals—and quite rightly; we agreed wholeheartedly with that. But there is concern across many sports that a lack of availability on free-to-air diminishes public enthusiasm. It is positive that the Football Association Cup rights held by BT are going back to ITV, and the buzz around the return of test cricket to Channel 4 demonstrates that the Government should look again at listed items.
The report rightly identifies the positives that public service broadcasting investment has in supporting the creative sector, which has had a tough time over the last 14 months. Investment from Netflix et cetera is also important, but it is not a zero-sum game. We want a range of quality programming across different platforms, as that will enhance the UK’s global reputation. Netflix itself acknowledge this, saying that a strong BBC is in everyone’s interest.
I am glad to see that the Government are committed to working with employers to make a success of apprenticeships. They need to look again at how the apprenticeship levy works, as the model envisaged under the system does not align with the short-term placements you often see in the creative industries and broadcast sector. Government also should have done more to support creatives during the pandemic, rather than excluding many, particularly freelancers, from help—not least because they are all part of the media ecosystem, working in PSBs and streaming services alike.
On questions such as how to engage young people and reverse the decline in viewing figures for public service broadcast channels, it is clear that finding solutions will take time. The decision to make BBC Three online only may not have been the right one, but that experiment has at least provided additional insight and data to help inform future decision-making.
I take the view that there will always be a place for public service broadcasting, but that the role it performs will have to change over time—as it has continuously in the past. Public service broadcasting provides a platform. It should concentrate on quality. It should provide a benchmark for integrity and honesty and be prepared to be fearless. But I did agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, when he said that public service broadcasters need to take more creative risks. In modern times that might seem like a tall order and, while it might irritate and annoy from time to time, if it fulfils that brief it will be doing its job.
It is clear that the public value public service broadcasting and, so long as it has public support, it is a model worthy of political support. The noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, has made the case for public service broadcasting and the last year has, as many noble Lords have said this afternoon, demonstrated its enduring value as a trusted source of information and news in an era of fake news. We would be wise to reflect on that before any opportunistic moves are made to disturb our current media landscape. In particular, the Government would do well to take the broader view expressed today by the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, on the future of the BBC as a key element of the public service platform.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, it has been an absolute pleasure to listen to this debate this afternoon. I echo the thanks of other noble Lords to my noble friend Lord Gilbert for securing the debate and for all his work with his colleagues on the committee. Although 18 months have elapsed since the publication of his committee’s report, the issues which it raises are, as we have heard, no less topical now than they were then. I acknowledge the delay in holding this debate, but I know that my noble friend understands that we experienced exceptional circumstances. I also join other noble Lords in welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, to her place. I feel I shall have constructive but positive challenge across the Dispatch Box, and I look forward to that very much indeed.
As set out in our written submission to the committee, the Government are clear that public service broadcasting provides significant cultural, economic and democratic value to the UK. It is free at the point of use, universally available and works for the public benefit to foster shared experiences, stimulate learning and reflect communities from across the country. As the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, mentioned, it has also celebrated major charitable events during the past year. As the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, noted, evidence from Ofcom shows that PSB programming remains popular and valued by UK audiences.
However, as many noble Lords noted, in a changing media landscape, there is growing consensus that public service broadcasters need to adapt—in the words of my noble friend Lord Hannan, getting on our surfboards, although I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, will be joining him on a surfboard. Therefore, the legislation and regulation in this area need to evolve to ensure that we have a regulatory framework that is fit for purpose.
With that in mind, the Government are working closely with Ofcom and the sector to consider those issues as part of their strategic review of the future of public service broadcasting. As set out in our response to the committee’s report, the Government want to ensure the continued health of a strong, successful and sustainable PSB system, one that is capable of bringing the nation together through shared experiences, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, put it so eloquently; that represents and serves audiences in all parts of the UK; and that remains at the heart of our world-class broadcasting sector, which is among our greatest soft power assets, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Lords, Lord Liddle and Lord Bhatia, all noted. I very much hope that we will be able to set out our next steps on that later this year and, within that, a strong, independent and trusted BBC is vital.
I start with a brief reflection on recent events at the BBC and try to set the record straight again on this Government’s attitude towards it. I agree with the spirit of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, that the ferocity of emotion—those are my words, not his—about recent events is because all of us personally and individually care deeply about the BBC as a national institution. On Lord Dyson’s report on the Martin Bashir interview, noted by many noble Lords in the debate, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said—and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, quoted, it reveals
“damning failings at the heart of the BBC”.
We are now reflecting on that thorough report and considering what further governance reforms might be needed as part of the mid-term charter review.
I will comment on the mid-term review, but so many noble Lords have questioned the Government’s attitude to the BBC, including the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, that I shall just quote from a reply by my right honourable friend the Minister for Media and Data in a debate in the other place last week. He described the BBC as
“a priceless national asset, and one of the most serious consequences of the revelations of the past week is that its reputation and trust in it have been badly damaged. It is essential that it retains its position as the most trusted and reliable broadcaster in the world, and there is work to be done to restore that reputation.”—[Official Report, Commons, 24/5/21; col.52.]
We need to use all our energies to focus on the wider challenges that public service broadcasters, including the BBC, face and resolve them, rather than constantly questioning the Government’s attitude towards them.
On the mid-charter review, I cannot accept the suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, that the Government’s behaviour is impacting on the editorial independence of the BBC, which, we are crystal clear, is important. I very much welcome the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, accepting the need for constructive criticism. Sometimes a need for transparency and accountability are seen as criticism, but they are obviously essential.
In response to my noble friend Lord Gilbert’s question about what we mean when we say that we will consider further governance reform, as the Secretary of State has said, the mid-term review provides an opportunity to look at issues such as the performance of the BBC board and the effectiveness of the regulation of BBC by Ofcom. We will start preparations for that now, ahead of the review starting formally next year. Many people in the other place and in your Lordships’ House have used the phrase “never again”. This is an opportunity to check whether the new governance system that we introduced, to which the noble Lord, Lord McNally, referred, would have worked had the events of 25 years ago occurred under this regime.
The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, asked about the wider scope of the review. I have set out the scope—addressing governance and regulation issues only—but we have been clear that we will look at the future of the licence fee model ahead of the next full charter review, which is by 2027.
A number of noble Lords raise the issue of the licence fee settlement for the BBC, including the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, my noble friend Lord Gilbert, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Baroness, Lady Merron. We are already in discussion with the BBC and S4C on the next licence fee settlement, which is due to take effect from April 2022 for at least five years. As the Secretary of State has said publicly, this is an opportunity for the BBC to consider how it can offer best value for money for everyone across the UK. I note the call to improve the transparency of the settlement process. The Secretary of State has undertaken to publish formal correspondence between the Government and the BBC and S4C on the Government’s website, and he will lay his final determination before Parliament to allow time for debate before the settlement takes effect.
A number of noble Lords raised the issue of the concession for the over-75s. Your Lordships will have heard me say on too many occasions in this House that it is clearly the responsibility of the BBC to deal with that issue, and we encourage it to do so urgently.
Turning more broadly to issues affecting public service broadcasting, a number of noble Lords talked about the importance of wider diversity in our broadcasting. My noble friend Lord Holmes spoke very eloquently about the value of regional broadcasting and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, had particular local reservations. But when we talk about diversity, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, put very clearly, we are not talking about just location of production but about commissioning, subject matter, workforce and diversity of thought. Recent commitments in this area have been warmly welcomed by the Government.
As noble Lords will be aware, Ofcom is undertaking a review of PSBs at the moment. I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, that the Government have encouraged Ofcom to be very ambitious and innovative in its approach to the review and to explore all issues that it sees as relevant. We look forward to receiving its recommendations this summer.
The noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, raised the issue of the Public Service Broadcasting Advisory Panel. As I hope I have made clear, the Government are absolutely supportive of a modern system of public service broadcasting that remains relevant and meets the needs of UK audiences in future. Your Lordships set out very clearly some significant strategic challenges facing public service broadcasters, and that is why the Government have brought in an advisory panel to provide independent expertise on these critical issues.
My noble friend Lord Gilbert, the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and other noble Lords raised the issue of prominence. We recognise the need to ensure that high-quality public service content is easily accessible to UK audiences. We have committed to act on Ofcom’s prominence proposals and we will take forward legislation on this as soon as the timetable allows.
My noble friend Lord Gilbert asked about the terms of trade. I am pleased to say that Ofcom heeded the advice of the committee and issued a call for evidence late last year to see whether any changes were required. The Government look forward to receiving its recommendations.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about the importance of radio. On behalf of the Government, I echo his recognition of the incredible role that radio, particularly local radio, has played during the pandemic.
My noble friend Lord Gilbert and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, talked about the apprenticeship scheme in the creative industries. DCMS has been working closely with industry and the Department for Education on introducing additional flexibilities to the apprenticeship levy. We hope this will start increasing the number of quality starts in the creative sector from next year. I will pass on your Lordships’ observations to the Minister for Digital and Culture.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, asked about archiving and, in particular, the national film archive. As set in the government response, we strongly encourage non-PSBs and SVODs—I am not sure that is in the Companion, but anyway—to entrust guardianship of their screen content to the BFI National Archive, making it a reasonable contribution to the BFI. I reassure him that we are monitoring progress in this regard and remain open to considering the full range of options to deliver on this, including statutory support for collecting, as currently exists for the PSBs.
We are involved in an ambitious set of plans in a rapidly changing and important sector. I feel that much of what I have said is about the future, so I will reflect briefly on some of the actions we have taken since the publication of the committee’s report to protect UK public service broadcasting. These include: adding the Paralympic Games to the listed events regime, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, referred, in recognition of their special national significance; setting out a clear and transparent process for the present licence fee settlement; as I mentioned earlier, introducing additional flexibilities to the apprenticeship levy, which we hope will really start to translate into an increasing number of quality starts in our world-class creative sector; launching a £500 million film and TV production restart scheme to ensure productions could restart after Covid restrictions were eased—many commissioned by PSBs; and supporting the wider screen industry through the launch of the UK global screen fund, which will help independent film and screen content made in every corner of the UK to export to markets around the world.
Looking forward, this will be a busy year for public service broadcasting. We have already had the conclusion of Ofcom’s Small Screen: Big Debate Consultation and the publication of a report by the DCMS Select Committee in the other place. In the summer, we are likely to receive a report from Ofcom, and in the autumn the PSB advisory panel will meet for a sixth and final time. The Government have already committed to updating the UK’s system of prominence when the legislative timetable allows. We will consider outputs from all these different processes carefully and set out our steps later this year.
I close by thanking my noble friend Lord Gilbert and his colleagues on the committee once again for their important work, and for their ideas, analysis and recommendations. To be clear, the Government continue to consider them and use them to inform our strategy as we go forward. I have greatly enjoyed the debate this afternoon and look forward to carrying some of these issues forward with your Lordships in future.
Lord Gilbert of Panteg (Con)
My Lords, I will be brief. I thank all noble Lords for this excellent debate, with special thanks to members of the committee, past and present. I enjoyed the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Merron; it is great to see her on the Front Bench, in full grip of what I think is the best brief in government. I was moved by the tributes to Lord Gordon. He was a giant in the industry, but that was nothing to his reputation in Glasgow, which we visited during the inquiry and where literally everyone we met knew Jimmy.
Listening to the debate, it is clear to me that the industry will look very different in the years ahead—I do not disagree with everything that my noble friend Lord Hannan said. It seems to me that, in 10 years from now, the funding will look very different too. However, my noble friend Lord Holmes hit the nail on the head when he reminded us that it is all about the content. As the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, said, our mission is not to see public service broadcasting survive but thrive.
I thank the Minister for her reply. I also thank her, her ministerial colleagues and her officials for their support and co-operation with the committee’s work, and I would be grateful if she would pass that on. She gave full and measured responses. I welcomed her reaffirmation of the Government’s commitment to public service broadcasting and her recognition, again, of its vital economic, cultural and democratic role. I was very glad that she recognised so clearly the role of the Government in helping PSBs navigate the challenging future they face. I beg to move.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now resume. I ask all Members to respect social distancing.
Immigration Rules: Statements of Changes
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Green of Deddington
That this House regrets that the Statements of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC813, HC1043 and HC1248), published respectively on 22 October 2020, 10 December 2020 and 4 March, do not provide clear and comprehensible descriptions of the changes proposed, nor of their likely effect. Special attention drawn by the Secondary Legislation Committee, 33rd and 40th Reports, Session 2019–21.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB) [V]
My Lords, I originally laid three Regret Motions in protest at the Government bouncing through a huge change to the immigration system with minimal discussion in this House. In the new Parliament, they have now been consolidated into the single Motion before us. Statutory instruments have long been used for the endless and minor adjustments to the Immigration Rules that become necessary from time to time, but this was a massive reform of the entire system. Furthermore, it was a matter of considerable public concern and should therefore have been properly scrutinised.
I will focus on the trenchant report by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on HC813, which deals with immigration matters; I will not deal with asylum today. This report considers the statement of changes in Immigration Rules, which runs to 500 pages, with an Explanatory Memorandum of 50 pages. My Motion declares that these documents do not provide a clear and comprehensible description of the changes proposed, nor of their likely effect.
The scrutiny committee had three major criticisms: first, that major developments of policy should not be included in such instruments; secondly, that it had proved difficult to identify the actual intent of the policies; and thirdly, that it was difficult to see whether any important protections had been lost. On the first point, these are not just major policy developments; they amount to the most significant change in our immigration system for half a century.
On the second point, the actual intent of these new policies is now clearer from the Government’s New Plan for Immigration, which was published two days ago. It is, indeed, a cause for concern. For example, the level of skills required is to be reduced from degree level to A-level. At a stroke, this massively increases the pool of labour from abroad on which employers can draw. The Migration Advisory Committee has called this requirement “very important” in practice. Furthermore, the general salary threshold is to be considerably reduced to £25,600 a year. An even lower threshold—£20,500—will apply to so-called new entrants. That salary is only just above the national living wage. The effect, therefore, can only be to reduce the incentive for employers to train British replacements.
As for the loss of important protections, one example is that employers will no longer be required to advertise in the UK before looking to fly in workers from around the world. This comes at a time when UK unemployment, especially among the young, may well be increasing rapidly. Overall, the scale of the changes to the work permit system is simply huge. They involve opening up approximately 7 million UK jobs—I have said that before, and I say it again: 7 million UK jobs—to new or increased international competition from all over the world.
The Government have declined to say the number of people worldwide who would meet the new and lower requirements, but it must run literally into hundreds of millions. Obviously they will not all come, but the Government’s impact assessments have, in our view, rather limited credibility. Nor does any of this take account of the Government’s undertaking to accept, including for settlement, as many as 5.4 million British nationals overseas now in Hong Kong, who might decide to move to the UK at some time in the future.
The upshot is that we are being launched on a course with very serious economic and political consequences, but without any effective discussions in this House, as I keep saying. Given all the uncertainties, it would surely be common prudence to have measures available to bring the numbers under control.
The Government have repeatedly promised “firmer control” of immigration. Indeed, during the last election the Prime Minister confirmed on television that this meant reducing it—yes, reducing it. Meanwhile, a recent opinion poll finds that nearly 60% of the public—nearly 30 million people—think that the level of immigration to the UK has been too high over the past decade. It is therefore very concerning that the Home Secretary, when presenting her new plan for immigration, refused to say whether the result would be an increase or decrease in net migration. She said that she did not want to get into “the language of old”.
This comes after a period of 20 years in which foreign net migration has averaged nearly 300,000 a year and has accounted for over 80% of our population increase. Even today, it requires us to build 300 new homes every day to accommodate the new citizens. The truth is that the arrangements incorporated in these statutory instruments are much more likely than not to lead to a considerable increase in net migration and regrettably to deep concern among those most directly affected.
Finally, I fear that it looks as though those who voted in the expectation that immigration would be effectively controlled and reduced, whether at the time of Brexit or in the 2019 so-called red wall election, will all be very disappointed. I am afraid they may well feel that they have been deceived.
Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I agree with the wording of the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Green, although not with many of the views that he expressed. He is surely right that such major changes to our Immigration Rules, whether for immigrants or asylum seekers, require proper and constructive debate that is not carried out in an hour and a half in the late afternoon, without our ability to come to terms with the real issues involved.
From my experience of both Houses, the Immigration Rules have always been difficult for Parliament to deal with, but we have never had such a problem as the noble Lord described. They have been difficult because they are normally unamendable, which means that we cannot properly engage with the issues. We cannot easily identify the changes or make our voice heard if we disagree. My plea, which I have expressed before to the Minister, is that if there are to be changes to the Immigration Rules—I assumed that they would be more modest than the ones we face today—they should be published in draft and debated by the House before they are presented in their final form. That gives us a slight chance, at any rate, of influencing the outcome. These proposals should never be put forward in a way that such major changes have to be taken, as it were, in one gulp.
We await the sovereign borders Bill, but it is not totally clear which of the Government’s proposals will be only in the rules, in the Bill or in both. That is another cause of confusion. Are we to await the sovereign boarders Bill in the hope that we can make more impact? That would be when the noble Lord, Lord Green, would be able to have his say on the arguments he has put forward.
There can be no doubt that people smugglers are vile, and that catching them and preventing them from doing what they do—risking people’s lives—is very important. But I have to take a different view from the Government. I do not think that the proposals put forward to us will deter traffickers; indeed, they may well encourage them. This is now a well-worn argument, but if we close legal routes to safety for people seeking asylum, the only recourse they have is to go to the traffickers. The traffickers will be rubbing their hands with glee at the Government’s proposals.
I urge the Government to be more sympathetic to family reunion, especially in the case of children who want to join family members here. We know that there are children in northern France, in what has replaced the “jungle” near Calais, and on the Greek islands. Some of these young people have family links with the UK. What is to become of them now that the Dublin III provisions have stopped? Will there be any way in which they can apply to come legally? After all, they reached the Greek islands and northern France before they knew of the Government’s proposals—although I doubt that that would have had any effect.
The Government are saying clearly—and regrettably —that an asylum seeker will be inadmissible if they have travelled through or have a connection with a safe third country. But—I repeat—what about those who have a connection to this country? Have the Government reached any agreements yet with other countries to take people who will be refused on the basis of their proposals? Can we have a list of the countries that have said that, yes, they will take them on the basis of our policy? I doubt that the Government will find any. In any case, if we say that they have not travelled the way we would like them to, what about those who have a connection with this country? Would not the French or other people say, “Well, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander”—or whatever the expression is—“and surely, if they are following that policy, why shouldn’t we?” I just think it is unworkable. In any case, it does not take much thought to realise that, if all European countries had followed that policy, the million or so Syrians who went to Germany would still be in Greece, Italy or Malta. We cannot allow the accident of geography to put such enormous responsibilities on some countries without the costs being shared.
Furthermore, I would argue that it is against the 1951 convention to penalise refugees for unauthorised entry to a territory. It is expressly forbidden. The Government say that they legally have right on their side. Well, I have talked to the UNHCR—which, as far as I am concerned, is the custodian of the 1951 Geneva convention—and it seems to me that we will be in for some legal battles to resolve that. Frankly, I think that the Government are wrong on this.
Some of the briefing we have had explains that the Immigration Rules concede that leave outside the rules is “theoretically possible”. The question is how to make this possible. In the words of the Home Office, such leave should be granted where refusal
“would result in unjustifiably harsh consequences”.
How can this be challenged? It is an argument of a Home Office official or Minister against the applicant. That is not a workable way forward.
I fear that another consequence of the Government’s proposals will be an increase in the backlog of applicants. The Home Office is already grappling with an enormous backlog. Frankly, I think this will make the situation worse.
To end on a positive note, where I can agree with the Minister, I think community sponsorship is a good idea, but it has to be worked out and the Government have to publicise the scheme and help to make it less bureaucratic.
Lord Horam (Con)
My Lords, many of your Lordships will have had great pleasure from reading a book by the American author Bill Bryson called Notes from a Small Island. It is an apt title: we are a small island. When the American forces came to England in the Second World War, the troops were briefed about our country. The first line of the briefing was, “Think South Carolina”—because it is exactly the same size as England. Of course, the big difference is that South Carolina, even today, has only 5 million inhabitants; we have 56 million inhabitants in England.
We are a very crowded country, so population policy is very important to us. Since net immigration accounts for about two-thirds of population growth, immigration policy is especially important. That is one reason why I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Green, has put down his regret Motion today, and I support him in doing so.
The UK has always had a substantial amount of immigration, and many people who originated overseas, or whose parents did, have made brilliant contributions to this country in many different fields—business, academia and, most recently, healthcare. Until 20 years ago, all this was accomplished with a net immigration level of no more than 50,000 a year which, although there were a few incidents, was largely accepted. The change came when the Blair Labour Government introduced, without consultation, a whole raft of measures to increase immigration, as a result of which the net annual rate soared from less than 50,000 to over 300,000 a year. This is not just immigration; it is mass immigration.
The difficulty has been that the new immigrants went into poorer, working-class areas, because that is where housing was affordable. The result was devastating for many working-class communities. The effects on Dagenham, for example, are described by the Labour and trade union activist Paul Embery, a native of that area, in his book, Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class. The local people appealed to the Labour leadership for help, but it did not listen—which is one reason why the Labour Party has lost so much working-class support.
That is a problem for Labour, but it became a problem for the whole country when immigration became such a big issue in the European Union referendum. There was a direct line between the neglect of immigration issues by the liberal elite and the vote to leave the European Union, which has had such momentous consequences for our country and is so deplored by that same liberal elite.
Since 2010, the coalition and Conservative Governments have had the task of dealing with this problem. So far, they have not done well. The numbers had not come down before the pandemic. But I do believe that the present Home Secretary, unlike so many of her predecessors, understands the problem and is giving it the attention it needs, most recently in this week’s strategic document.
This is a sensible basis for policy-making, but I would add a number of riders. First, the issue of immigration is looked at almost exclusively from an economic perspective at the moment. The members of the Migration Advisory Committee are almost all economists. I am an economist myself, so I am not likely to underplay their importance, but this is wrong. There are demographic, social and environmental viewpoints which are equally important in looking at this issue. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson said, we need a democratic authority staffed by demographers, social scientists, environmentalists and climate change experts as well as economists, and they should be asking, “What is the right number of people for these crowded islands?”
Secondly, we should wind down as soon as feasible the separate health and care visa. Why are we, a rich country, continuously recruiting doctors, nurses and care workers from poorer countries that have fewer of them per head of population and need them more than we do? Where is the morality in that? Should we not think of the effect we are having on these countries by taking their skilled workers, as well as our own selfish interest? Why have the NHS and medical colleges so totally failed in their manpower planning that more than 40% of doctors in the UK come from overseas? In Germany and France, it is less than 10%.
Finally, a cap should be set on the number of work visas issued, just as it is in other countries such as Australia and Canada that use the same points-based system as we do. We need that cap, because we need employers to concentrate not on the lazy option of recruiting overseas but on improving the skills of the settled population. Improving people’s skills, particularly in left-behind areas, is at the heart of the levelling-up agenda. Just at the point where we are making real progress in the number and quality of apprenticeships and the funding of further education, it would be foolish to take the pressure off employers in this area.
Of course, I accept that the current immigration situation is rather unreal as a result of Covid, but the Home Secretary has promised a review next year of how the new system is settling in. When that happens, I hope that my noble friend and the Home Secretary will look carefully at the points I am making, because they are certainly supported by many Members of this House, and by even more Members of the other House. If they are properly taken into account, we will have a policy which works in the long-term interests of the British people in this small island of ours. That is what the people themselves have for a long time been calling for, and this time they should be listened to.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, for securing this important debate on his Motion to Regret. Last year, several Members of your Lordships’ House cautioned against the major extension of the Government’s capacity to make law with minimal recourse to Parliament in the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act. Today, at the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, and not of Her Majesty’s Government, we have 90 minutes to examine three statutory instruments relating to the Immigration Rules, one of which runs to 507 pages. All three were subject to the negative resolution, which involved little or no scrutiny of such important areas of life. Your Lordships’ House last defeated Her Majesty’s Government by praying against a negative resolution 21 years ago. Is the Minister satisfied with the level of scrutiny that these statutory instruments have received? Would she agree with me that it would have been better to publish them first in draft and to seek the views of both Houses in a debate?
My detailed comments are confined, because of time, to HC1043. They revolve around three questions to the Minister. First, do these rules meet the Home Secretary’s aspirations for her department’s handling of cases post Windrush? Secondly, are they feasible to implement? Thirdly, are the rules in HC1043 consonant with our obligations under the convention and protocol relating to the status of refugees?
We read in the Explanatory Notes to HC1043 that the purpose of this instrument is to
“Enhance our capacity to treat as inadmissible to the UK asylum system asylum claims made by those who have passed through or have connections with a safe third country.”
I should be grateful if the Minister would explain how an automatic presumption of refusal is compatible with the Home Secretary’s ambition, in her response to the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, for a Home Office that
“sees the ‘face behind the case’.”
On returning people to such safe countries, we did not negotiate to remain part of the Dublin regulations. We have no bilateral agreements with any European country with which to enforce these rules. In the absence of Dublin, are the Government engaging in blarney? The Home Office today published statistics for the first quarter since the rules came into effect, alerting us to the fact that 1,053 people were issued with notices of intent, meaning that the department is looking at the possibility of return for these people. It records that none has been returned on inadmissibility grounds. Will the Minister explain the mechanism for returning such individuals in conformity with the rules but in the absence of any agreement to do so? Will she concede that the rules on inadmissibility are unworkable?
I should say, before I ask my final question, that I understand the Government’s animus against people smuggling—that is terribly important. Lastly, it is reasonable to suppose that most people seeking safety find refuge in the first safe country they reach, and they do. However, there are always reasons why some do not. What the Home Office might consider safe is not universally experienced as such. There are also linguistic, cultural and family ties to be taken into consideration in seeking a destination, as well as access to routes. Furthermore, the refugee convention makes no such requirement of those fleeing persecution that they must do so in a specified geographical radius. To do so would be to burden many countries already dealing with enormous refugee issues.
Therefore, by making in law an automatic presumption against any claim from someone who has not arrived in the UK, except in a prescribed manner and prescribed place, is the Minister confident that we meet our obligations under international law? Would it not be far more effective to establish effective and legal routes which asylum seekers can readily access? That would reduce the demand upon which organised crime is currently feeding. I look forward to the noble Baroness’s response.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, has ploughed a lonely furrow on immigration for many years; not just a lonely furrow but a furrow that many Members of your Lordships’ House think it is quite improper to plough. But outside, in the real world, the issues that lie behind the noble Lord’s prayer and his comments reflect the real concerns of our fellow citizens, as repeated surveys and opinion polls have shown. It is always easiest to run with the crowd and bask in the rumbles of approbation from around your Lordships’ House, but I fear that, from time to time, we have to be prepared to consider inconvenient truths. That is why I am speaking this afternoon in support of the noble Lord.
I have two points to make, the first of which flows from my chairmanship of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and picks up some of the points that other noble Lords have made. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and our sister committee, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, under my noble friend Lord Blencathra, have a number of concerns about the way that secondary legislation is being handled, not just here—I am not trying to get at my noble friend on the Front Bench—but generally in the Government. These are skeleton Bills; they are unduly long and complex regulations; and there are inadequate Explanatory Memoranda and impact assessments. And, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, these regulations introduce changes that should more properly be introduced in primary legislation, with its higher level of scrutiny.
I am also afraid to say that the statutory instruments that the noble Lord has prayed against have a number of deficiencies in them. We have already heard about the length of HC813 and the range of subjects it covers. We have heard about HC1043, and the fact that the guidance was put on the government website only one hour before the regulations came into effect. We can, do and should argue and discuss immigration and its implications, but not many people around your Lordships’ House would disagree that it is an important subject. As has been pointed out by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, five and a half months after these came into effect, we have 90 minutes to discuss them and no chance to make any changes—we are to just wave them away after a 90-minute debate. We can and we should do better than that.
My second and final point is entirely personal. Some Members of your Lordships’ House will be aware of my interest in demography—the study of changes in our population, up or down, and the consequent impacts on the lives of all of us. Last year, I published a pamphlet, kindly referred to by my noble friend Lord Horam, entitled Overcrowded Islands?—the question mark is important. I was very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for giving a plug for the pamphlet at Question Time, on Monday last. I am agnostic about the conclusions, but I argue strongly that we fail to consider the impact of these policies in sufficient depth and over a sufficiently long period into the future. I ask Members of your Lordships’ House not to pigeonhole these remarks as an attack on immigration. I fully recognise that some immigration refreshes and reinvigorates our cultural and economic life, and fulfils some of our moral duties to the world as a whole. But it is about scale and the consequent impact of that scale on the lives of all of us.
The latest ONS projections, adjusted for the pandemic and for Brexit, suggest that by 2040, in the half century since the Blair Government opened up the country to widespread immigration, as referred to by my noble friend Lord Horam, the population will increase by 13 million people, which is just over 20% of the population. Should we be worried about this for ourselves? More importantly, should we be worried about this for those who come after us? We might be worried about risks to our supplies of food and water. We grow only 50% of our food, and the Environment Agency says that by 2035 we shall be running short of water. We might be worried about risks to our ecology; our songbirds have declined by 75% in the last 40 years. We might be worried about risks to our environment; we are currently tarmacking over our countryside at the fastest rate in history. And in our rush to build fast, we are creating identikit housing estates built to low standards, devoid of any vernacular style and, too often, devoid of any sense of community. Do the economic benefits really accrue to us all? Or, as many of us fear, do they accrue to the already better-off and the new arrivals themselves? And good luck to them.
In none of these challenges is population growth the only factor, but it is the most significant factor connecting and linking them all. If the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Green, are realised—and I sincerely hope they are not—the magnitude of all the above challenges will multiply exponentially. That is why the noble Lord has done the House a single service by tabling this regret Motion today.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I agree with a substantial amount in the speeches that have preceded me, and I agree wholly with the process objections to the way these statutory instruments are being handled. I think there is merit in trying to stimulate the wider debate about what the Government’s immigration policy actually is, which the noble Lords, Lord Horam and Lord Hodgson, have both launched into.
I was a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee at the time we considered these instruments, and our very able officials who looked at these huge documents complained that even the Explanatory Memo on the first of the instruments—the 507-page one—
“was not clearer on the policy aims of these changes and what the impact will be.”
On the second of the instruments, they complained about
“insufficient information to gain a clear understanding”
of what the Government were trying to do. So, we look forward greatly to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, so she can elucidate what this is all about.
If I could just make a political remark about Brexit, the whole debate on immigration was about taking back control. It is clearly not control by the British Parliament, is it? Surely, the Minister must recognise that. It is hardly, I suspect, taking back control to Ministers, because I doubt many of them will have gone through these 500-page statutory instruments in great detail. All we are talking about is Home Office officials trying to interpret what Ministers want in these statutory instruments. I suspect that the record of the Home Office, in the way that it has mishandled other questions, will prove to be repeated in this instance.
On the substance of the issue, clearly, the referendum was won on the basis of cutting back EU immigration. All the time, however, non-EU immigration was always higher than EU immigration, yet it was completely neglected in the public debate. Where are we going on non-EU immigration now? There is clearly something of a circular effect on EU immigration, as people who came here for economic reasons are going back, at least to some extent, because prospects are not so good as they once were.
However, what is going on regarding non-EU immigration? Is what the noble Lord, Lord Green, says true, which is essentially that immigration is being opened up to people with level-3 qualifications from all over the world? We deserve an answer from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. If that is the case, it is a huge change of policy that ought to be debated fully in hours-long debates in Parliament because it is the kind of issue that the public are concerned about. I believe in immigration, and I am quite liberal on immigration questions. In a diverse country, we win more from it than we lose. However, one has to have immigration control. One cannot just be open to the world. The question is: what numbers are the Government contemplating? Will they give us an answer on that?
A criticism of the Home Secretary is that she likes to pretend that she is pursuing a tough immigration policy. One gets all this stuff about how people who arrive here claiming asylum who have not come by a legal route are going to be sent back. It is not clear, of course, whether any country is prepared to take them back and I very much doubt whether any European countries through which the asylum seekers have travelled would be prepared to do so. There is a lot of bluster about the toughness of the Government’s new asylum policy, but is it a cover-up for the fact that, actually, our borders are being opened up in a totally unprecedented way to non-EU citizens? The British people deserve an answer to that question.
Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]
My Lords, I want to highlight how immigration has been great for Great Britain. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Green, for giving us this opportunity. As an immigrant myself, I have seen that benefit first-hand. I am the first ethnic minority president of the Confederation of British Industry.
I have seen how immigrants helped grow the UK economy. A study from Oxford Economics showed that immigrants have made a positive net contribution to UK GDP. On average, each migrant European worker, for example, will, over the lifespan of their stay, contribute £78,000 more to the economy than British citizens. The majority of migrants who have come to the UK are of working age. Data from the Migration Observatory showed that, in 2020, 16% of the working population was born abroad. Foreign workers bring different skills that have a positive impact on business productivity. They are able to fill skills gaps and labour shortages in the jobs market that would otherwise be left unfilled or taken by underqualified staff. Migrants also fill shortages in the higher-skilled sectors that have fewer specialist individuals, such as in IT, engineering and accounting. Migrants bring specialist knowledge and international experience that improve businesses’ existing products and processes. That allows businesses to do more work in a more effective way by sharing knowledge across teams, which increases profit.
I have seen the power of a diverse workforce in my own business by building Cobra Beer, which is a household name in this country, from scratch with just two people and building a team that became a mini united nation with people from all over the world. They had different backgrounds and different mindsets. That diversity made a buzz and innovation, made us more creative and resulted in high growth.
Migrants’ international connections are highly valued by businesses and allow firms to tap into foreign markets. Deloitte’s surveys have shown that more diverse companies are more innovative. McKinsey’s surveys have shown that the companies that embrace diversity and inclusion are more profitable, with the top quartile being 39% more profitable than the bottom quartile. So immigration works.
The new points-based immigration system is an opportunity for UK business to attract the brightest global talent. The system has many different routes, including a skilled-worker route that will ensure that the best and most skilled workers have the chance to come and work in the UK, and contribute to our society and economy. The system will help create a firm but, we hope, fair system that will contribute to creating a high-wage, high-skilled and high-productivity economy.
However, the reality is, as we have seen at the CBI, that businesses are not engaged with this new points-based system as much as they would have liked to be because of the disruption caused by Covid-19. We are making clear to the Home Office that it should make sure that the system is easy and simple to use for business in time for many more users to begin to engage with the system, and we will be watching that carefully and feeding back to government.
I am president of UKCISA, the UK Council for International Student Affairs. The new graduate visa system launches this year. Last year more than half a million international students came to study at UK universities, many of them studying for masters and PhDs. International students are an export and an import. They bring inward investment and contribute £26 billion to our economy. They are one of the UK’s strongest elements of soft power, with more world leaders educated at British universities than in any other country except for the United States of America.
From this summer onwards, businesses can employ students for up to two years on the post-graduate work visa and three years for PhD students. This gives the students a great opportunity to get work experience. On 4 May, the UK and India announced a young professionals scheme that will allow those aged 18 to 30 from each country to work in the other country for up to two years. This is attractive for business, especially in the IT and technology sectors. It can be used as a means for many highly talented young Indians to take on a wide range of jobs in the UK. Partnerships form part of the UK Government’s commitment to deliver an immigration system that attracts talented individuals from India and around the world, while enhancing UK-India co-operation on ensuring that the system is fair and secure.
Looking ahead to the next academic year, I am chancellor of the University of Birmingham, and we are concerned about the international students coming in, particularly from what might be red-list countries at that time. Will we be able to offer all our international students vaccinations when they come to the UK? I believe that the Government have agreed to this. Can the Minister confirm that all international students will be able to be vaccinated in the UK on arrival, if they have not already been vaccinated? Furthermore, will the Government ensure that international students do not have to quarantine in hotels even if they come from red-list countries? Universities are prepared to make quarantine preparations on their campuses. International students pay so much to study over here, with fees, living costs and travel costs. Spending almost another £2,000 for quarantine is unaffordable. Where is the capacity of the Government to house tens of thousands of internationals students that may be coming from red-list countries at the time? The capacity does not exist. Universities have shown that they can create a Covid-safe environment for their students, including with mass testing. Let us allow them to do that and give confidence to students that when they come to study here in the next academic year they will be in a safe and secure environment at their universities.
To conclude, without immigration, Britain, with just 1% of the world’s population, would not be one of the sixth largest economies in the world. Immigrants have enriched and always will enrich our country in every way.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, I find myself in the rather curious position of greatly regretting elements of the SIs we are debating now, particularly HC 1043, while entirely disagreeing with the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Green, in introducing them. I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, and seek not to repeat it but just to associate myself and the Green group with his comments.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, just indicated, the UK is a nation of immigrants. About 9% of the UK population, or 6.2 million people, are immigrants—and if anyone perhaps is on a crackly remote line and cannot hear my accent, to be clear I declare that, yes, I am one of them. It is also worth noting that 5.5 million Britons live in other countries around the globe. It is about an equal balance. We are a nation of emigrants as well as immigrants.
Listening to the noble Lords, Lord Green, Lord Horam and Lord Hodgson, I found myself feeling that I was trapped in another age. The world has changed but we are back in the old ways of thinking. We know that a significant number of people have left the UK since Covid and Brexit, perhaps 1 million EU citizens and a significant—probably very large—number of Britons have chosen to leave as well. Just this morning I spent my time at two sessions—first with the Westminster Forum on food security, then with Building magazine talking about retrofitting our homes. Both those industries are tearing their hair out, saying, “Where are we going to find the workers? Where are we going to find the skills?” I very much agree that we need to train and develop our own workforce, but the numbers simply do not add up. We are in a situation, as the UK has been for decades and centuries, of looking around the world for people to come because we need them.
To address the point by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, about the environmental impact: the UK lives a three-planet lifestyle. We have to cut consumption, particularly by the wealthiest. Consumption and inequality are our issues. That is where the environmental action needs to be.
All those people who have been invited and welcomed to the UK, and then they face a dishonest, discriminatory and often chaotic hostile environment. I will focus particularly on those likely to be affected by HC 1043, because those seeking refuge are most likely to be affected. The invaluable Refugee Action briefing for this debate noted that with the current backlog of asylum claims, 76% of people are waiting for more than six months. Many have been in limbo for years. What does that mean?
I often think back to a young woman I met in Southampton. As a 19 year-old, she had been forced to flee Zimbabwe; she had been persecuted and abused by the security forces there. She had been in the UK for a decade, waiting to get status in an uncertain immigration situation. She said to me, “I feel like I am in a cage. I am locked into this tiny cage, and there is a person walking past outside this cage with the key for the cage hanging from their belt. I’m pretty confident that one day they will pick up that key and open the cage, but I’ve been a decade—a third of my life—waiting for the cage to be unlocked.” I very much fear that HC 1043 will bring in the same situation for many more people. If asylum claims are treated as inadmissible on the basis of the method of arrival, people are going to be left in indefinite limbo. There are not return agreements, and it looks very unlikely that there will be. Then there is case-by-case negotiation, using many resources.
The Government say they want to tackle people trafficking and are concerned about this situation. On Monday I heard some powerful testimony from young people from the Safe Passage international young leaders scheme, the Hummingbird young leaders scheme and the Kent Refugee Action Network youth forum. I asked those young people, “As you were coming here and reached the UK, what sort of decisions did you make? What sort of information did you have? What sort of choices did you have?” They said, “When you’re dashing out the back door in fear of your life and the police or the army are coming through the front door, you just dash.” Of course. All the way along the line, they have had to make calls to just seek safety. That is what people are doing and what our lack of providing them with safe routes to reach the UK is forcing them into. That is the practical reality.
My very brief final point is that, as the Freedom from Torture briefing points out, HC 1043 is in contravention of Article 31 of the refugee convention. It is a moral and practical wrong to bring this in. We are in a world in which the rule of law is under grave threat. Look at Belarus, Hungary or many other nations. We need to defend the rule of law, not go back on agreements that we have previously made.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, it is not evident from my accent, unlike that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that I was only a few months out of Ireland when I was born. So, I was almost an immigrant, and my father most certainly was.
My first point goes back to that made by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and others: what is Parliament for when we are debating things that are so far past? I understood not only that we were taking back control but that the function of the British Parliament was to debate major changes in law and practice before they came into operation. That has most certainly not happened. I ask the Minister to take back to her department —and to her Government, because this is not just a Home Office matter—the way we feel we are being treated. We are being treated not as legislators but as rubber stamps, and that is not acceptable.
In my long career in politics I have never known debates on immigration to be either clear or popular. They are not clear because people get confused between asylum seekers, illegal immigrants and legal migrants, and they are seldom without emotion because people project their fears on to others, and the others are often those migrant communities. People feel threatened. I noticed, when I was in the Labour Party many years ago, how threatened many working-class Labour supporters felt by migration. We should not get away from that. One of the problems that the Labour Party has now—if the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, as its sole representative on earth, does not mind me saying so—is that many people at that level feel that there are some subjects they can no longer talk about within the political framework, and I am afraid that will have to change.
I draw attention to the huge number—I believe my noble friend Lord Horam referred to this—of doctors and nurses that we strip out of the third world. We let them be trained there and then we bring them into this country. Of course, they do valuable work but they do it away from the communities in which they grew up, which are often far less well-endowed than us. Any approach to immigration needs to be accompanied by an expansion of training places for those skilled migrants that we are pulling in, particularly from the third world.
I turn to the 2016 vote and what came out of it. People got completely confused. When I was canvassing for Remain in Cambridge, I was stopped by someone who was very angry with me and said: “Look, we don’t want these Nigerians here.” That was a total misunderstanding of what it was all about.
Now, without a second thought, we have signed up for something like 5 million citizens from Hong Kong to come and live here. There has been no debate about it. We have various prognostications as to what we want in the way of new housing, but no one mentions where 5 million new citizens are going to go. Will it be like Canada, where Vancouver has become a south-east Asian city? It could well, but we need a debate about it.
We also need a debate about illegal migrants and asylum seekers and the difference between the two. As the Minister will know, I have asked on numerous occasions how come we cannot stop boats crossing the Channel. How come it is apparently not an offence to illegally enter the country? People suddenly appear here and, frankly, it is worth taking the chance, but it should not be worth it. That is something we need to tighten up on because there is a world of difference between people-smuggling and immigrants and migrants coming into the country and leaving. On balance, I tend to be closer to the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, than to the noble Lord, Lord Green: the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, has outlined the advance and contribution made by migrant communities, and it is enormous.
The biggest attraction of the United Kingdom is the English language. Wherever you go in the world, if people know a handful of words outside their own language, they will be in English. We are seen as a magnet because we have a reputation for being a free, decent and incorrupt country. We should not sacrifice freedom, decency or our lack of corruption, so we have to make a policy and a framework that will work within that, and that will encourage genuine migrants but crack down on the illegal businesses that are flourishing.
Lord Paddick (LD) [V]
My Lords, it is not often that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, but to the following extent I do. The changes to the Immigration Rules contained in these statements are, as many other noble Lords have said, complex and bewildering. The Home Secretary heralds such changes as simplifying immigration law, but that is akin to simplifying pi by rounding it to the first 500 decimal places. It is only the most glaring changes that stand out, unless you are an immigration lawyer. How can Parliament hold the Government to account in such circumstances, when the changes have already come into effect and the other place has not even debated them yet? I am talking about more than just scale and complexity. As the noble Lord, Lord Green, said, the Home Office has the ability to make substantial changes through these statements.
Many of us were outraged that the Government, in their New Plan for Immigration, sought to treat genuine asylum seekers who have a legal right to claim asylum in the UK less favourably, just because they arrived in the UK by irregular routes. However, in these changes to the Immigration Rules, the Government have gone further, so that the Home Office does not even have to consider whether there is any merit in the claim, if the refugee has travelled to the UK through any so-called “safe” third country—unless, after six months of desperately trying to deport the refugee, it has failed to do so.
Previously, under EU Dublin III, if a refugee had claimed asylum in another EU country, their application could be ruled inadmissible and they could be returned to the country where they made their first claim. Under these new rules, an asylum claim can be ruled inadmissible just because the refugee travelled via a so-called “safe” third country, whether or not they have previously claimed asylum, and whether or not any of the countries through which they have travelled is willing to take them back. In fact, the rules allow the UK to send a refugee to any “safe” country in the world that is willing to take them, even a country the refugee has never been to and has no connection with.
Can the Minister confirm that, for six months, the substantive claim for asylum will not even be considered in such cases? The noble Lord, Lord Frost, has confirmed that the European Commission is not allowing bilateral agreements between the UK and EU member states, so all this means is that genuine refugees who arrived in the UK via irregular routes will be kept in the UK at taxpayers’ expense for an additional six months before their application is even considered.
The explanatory notes say:
“A stronger approach to disincentivise individuals is needed to deter claimants leaving safe third countries such as EU Member States, from making unnecessary and dangerous journeys”.
I have heard first hand from young asylum seekers who have made it to the UK, and their testimony is clear that places such as Italy and France are not safe, particularly for young unaccompanied refugees. Also, refugees are often English speaking, some with family already in the UK.
As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, there are no longer any “safe and legal” routes for refugees to take. The few routes that were open to some of them involved having to be identified by the UNHCR while they were in refugee camps, then often waiting for two years or more, undergoing numerous interviews, before finally being accepted. For many it is too dangerous to wait in such circumstances, so they make their own way.
Many of these refugees have endured years of suffering in their own country. Some have been tortured. They have faced dangerous journeys, extending over many months and hundreds of miles. Do the Government seriously think an extra six-month wait, albeit in inadequate Army barracks in the UK, will deter them? As a result, in the past six months, over 1,500 applications have been placed on hold and, despite a 24% drop in applications over the last 12 months, more than 50,000 have now been waiting over six months for their asylum applications to be determined—an increase of 71% on the year before.
There are also important questions arising out of these changes to the Immigration Rules concerning EU citizens in the UK who are awaiting the outcome of their settled status applications or who have applied late. But this totally inadequate means of holding the Government to account—with six-minute speech limits—means I cannot even raise these important questions on the Floor of the House. The whole process, and what the Government are trying to do around immigration, is a disgrace.
Lord Coaker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I refer to the register of interests and my role as a research fellow on modern slavery at the University of Nottingham. It is an honour to make my first contribution from the Opposition Front Bench. I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for her usual courtesies in welcoming me. I look forward to our future discussions.
The three instruments before us include 640 pages of policy changes. I have six minutes to speak, which would optimistically work out at over 100 pages per minute. Whatever our differing views, the whole House—including the noble Lord, Lord Green—is perhaps united on the way these changes have been made, which has lacked transparency and made scrutiny harder. The instrument published in October 2020 covers everything, from the simplification of existing rules to citizens’ rights after transition and the Afghan interpreters scheme. As the SLSC reported, its scope is “wholly unjustifiable” and makes the law less accessible. What do the Government say to that and what will they do differently going forward?
The Minister knows of our disappointment that the health and care visa did not cover significant numbers of care workers, who, alongside other key workers, kept this country going through the pandemic—though I note that “senior care worker” has now been added to the shortage occupation list. Where is the Government’s detailed plan on social care?
On the BNO route, Labour has pushed the Government to ensure this scheme is genuinely accessible. Does the support package announced earlier this year cover issues including recourse to public funds and tuition fee status? Can the Minister give an update on routes for younger people in Hong Kong born after 1997—for example, ensuring that the existing youth mobility scheme can offer a clear path to citizenship?
I turn to the EU settlement scheme. The 30 June deadline is approaching, and we welcome that guidance on the “reasonable grounds” for late applications has now been published. But for those who miss the deadline, what support will be in place to signpost them to application? We understand that the Government intend to continue funding grant-funded organisations to support late applications to the scheme, but the crucial question is: how long will that support last?
The report from the3million says that people in the middle of university admissions or mortgage applications are finding themselves impacted by the Home Office’s delay. Can the Minister please give an update on how many hundreds of thousands of applications are currently held up? What will be done to prevent people losing rights while their application is pending?
According to the latest figures, fewer than 50% of EU looked-after children and care leavers have secured settled status, with one-third yet to apply—that is only the children who have so far been identified. Could the Minister therefore give an update on efforts to identify and support looked-after children?
Buried—this is why more debate is important—in the first instrument are the really concerning powers to deport a person solely on the grounds of being homeless. Have the Government used this power during the pandemic?
The Statement published on 10 December lays some groundwork for government plans on asylum. The SLSC raised concerns that these changes
“may imperfectly achieve their policy objectives.”
We agree. The Government’s two-tiered plans for asylum take their eye off people smugglers and instead seek to penalise the refugees exploited by them.
On enforcement, how many—if any—of the international agreements needed for this policy are now in place? How many people smugglers have been successfully prosecuted since 2019? The UNHCR says that the plans are damaging, expensive and will not work, so what conversations have Ministers had with the UN and other partners since the policy was announced?
What is so far missing is the crucial information on safe and legal routes, which are vital for people fleeing situations that we can barely imagine. How many refugees will be welcomed under the new UK resettlement scheme? Where are the detailed plans for family reunion? I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Dubs for all his work on this issue. Safe Passage reports that, despite this Government’s assurances, children are facing ever-longer waiting times since Dubs and Dublin closed.
There are so many other issues that I and many other Members, whatever our views, would have wished to have had the time to cover. I close by briefly welcoming the expansion of the Afghan interpreters’ ex gratia relocation scheme and the introduction of the ARAP, which we hope we will be able to continue to discuss in future debates. Really, a debate as important as this needed more time.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I first thank the noble Lord, Lord Green, for securing this debate. To any noble Lord who thinks that this issue will not be debated time and again in your Lordships’ House, I say that that is quite wrong. This House is very good at scrutinising all aspects of government policy, and I fully expect that, when we come to the sovereign borders debate, we will spend days on end discussing this issue.
I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to his place on the Front Bench. It is slightly strange to respond to him with my noble friend Lord Kennedy—he is my noble friend—sitting on the Front Bench, but I know from my brief chat with him that he will be a very good addition to it. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will be a great Chief Whip for the Labour group.
I start with the substance of the debate. Our new plan for immigration is driven by three objectives. The first is to increase the fairness of our system so that we can protect and support those in genuine need of asylum. The second is to deter illegal entry into the UK, breaking the awful business model of people smugglers—I do not think that any noble Lords have in any way tried to lessen the severity of what they do—and protecting those people whose lives are in danger. The third is to remove more easily from the UK those with no right to be here.
We will continue to provide safe refuge to those in need and strengthen the support for those arriving through safe and legal routes. People coming to the UK through resettlement routes will be granted indefinite leave to remain, and they will receive more support to learn English, find work and integrate. The Government will also act to help those who have suffered injustices.
I will pick up on the point that I think was made by the both the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Dubs, welcoming our attempts to expand community sponsorship, because I think that is a fantastic way of always being an advocate of it. I am sure we will have more discussions about that during the next few months. We will also amend British nationality law so that members of the Windrush generation, as mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark and others, will be able to obtain British citizenship more easily.
The plan marks a step change in our approach as we toughen our stance to deter illegal entry and the criminals that endanger life by enabling it. For the first time, whether people enter the UK legally or illegally will have an impact on how their asylum claim progresses —I know some noble Lords are not happy about that, but it is to deter criminality—and on their status in the UK, if that claim is successful. We will deem their claim inadmissible and make every effort to remove those who enter the UK illegally, having travelled through a safe country first in which they could and should have claimed asylum. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, that this will be a good thing for people smugglers. We intend to really crack down on them.
The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said that for the first time we will be opening the economy to the whole world in terms of applying for jobs. He also mentioned as a side issue—it is not a side issue at all, but a side issue to this debate—about international students getting vaccinated. I confirm that immigration status is not a bar to vaccination.
I will go back to the first point made by the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, which was also talked about by the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Paddick, about the complexity of these rules making parliamentary scrutiny very difficult. We do not agree with that. The October rules made essential changes which delivered on the Government’s people’s priorities commitment to introduce a new global immigration system. The new rules are shorter, are easier to read, in a predictable structure and written in plain English. We wholeheartedly welcome and support parliamentary scrutiny; I know we will be scrutinised on this at length. We published a detailed response to the Law Commission’s report in March 2020 and provided a lengthy and comprehensive Explanatory Memorandum to support the rules.
The new rules, which, I might say to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, were actually made in the same way as they were when he was a Home Office Minister, have been structured and written so that they are easier to understand and navigate. We are trying to strip back complexity and ensure that the requirements are clear to applicants, employers and other users. This an ongoing process and we will continue to improve and develop the rules. It includes consolidating immigration legislation in line with the Law Commission’s recommendation. It is not a process that can be completed overnight, but we are determined to make progress so that the system is easier to navigate and understand for all users.
In response to the specific points in the 33rd report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which criticised the length of the rules change, it should be remembered that the introduction of the new points-based system at the end of free movement was an extremely significant milestone in this country’s approach to immigration. Those were important and wide-ranging reforms that had to be delivered before the end of the transition period. While the Immigration Rules are the technical underpinning of the immigration system, there is no expectation that applicants would need to understand them in minute detail, because they can find that clear and straightforward information on GOV.UK.
The noble Lords, Lord Dubs and Lord Paddick, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark talked about the new rules on inadmissibility. Those who fear persecution should claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach. Inadmissibility is a long-standing process designed to prevent secondary movement across Europe, and these measures have been introduced to support this principle now that the UK is no longer bound by the Dublin regulation.
In answer to my noble friend Lord Balfe’s point on accepting claims made by those who enter the UK on small boats, it has to be said that too many people risk their lives to get to the UK using unseaworthy vessels, putting not only their lives but those of our Border Force and the people who rescue them at risk. We are determined to send a clear signal that it is completely unacceptable for individuals to travel through multiple safe countries to claim asylum in the UK. I have said time and again that the only people who benefit from this are the criminals, who have no regard for human life at all.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, and, I think, the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Coaker, asked how inadmissibility provisions can work without returns agreements. The inadmissibility provisions in the Immigration Rules give us the legal basis to declare an asylum claim as inadmissible where a person has a connection to or has passed through a safe country. As I have said, we are very determined to send that clear signal that people should not travel through multiple safe countries to claim asylum in the UK. Now we are outside the confines of the EU structures, we can be much more flexible about the evidence that we use to underpin a return.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, as I knew he might, asked how we will return people to the EU without Dublin, and a number of other noble Lords asked how some of the conversations are going with other countries. We are seeking to negotiate readmissions arrangements with key EU member states that have a mutual interest in protecting against secondary movements. Unlike Dublin, the new returns agreements we seek will return an individual to any safe country—I know that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said he objects to that—that they have a connection to or has been present in and could have claimed asylum in, making it much more straightforward. We have also made a political commitment to pursue new bilateral negotiations on post-transition migration issues with third countries with which we share a mutual interest. This includes new arrangements for the family reunion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
On our international commitments, which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark asked about, we are very clear that the new rules comply with our international obligations under the refugee convention. We will only ever return inadmissible claimants to countries that are safe. If we cannot return an inadmissible claimant to a safe country within a reasonable period of time, we will consider their claim in the UK.
On the cap and the salary threshold that my noble friend Lord Horam and the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, asked about, the MAC advised that the cap be abolished, as
“it creates uncertainty among employers and it makes little sense for a migrant to be perceived as of value one day and not the next which is what inevitably happens when the cap binds.”
The MAC has said—I think I said this the other day— that if the Government want to reduce migration numbers it would make more economic sense to do so by varying the other aspects of the scheme criteria, such as salary thresholds and the level of the immigration surcharge. On the issue of numbers overall, the Government have been quite clear for a number of years now that it is not about numbers but about a fair system and people not taking illegal journeys to this country when it is dangerous to do so.
The noble Lords, Lord Balfe and Lord Coaker, talked about BNOs. I will have to provide the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, with some more information, because he made so many points that I did not quite have a chance to write them all down. We are aware that a potentially significant number of individuals plan to move to the UK via this route. We have made available £43 million of dedicated support for Hong Kong BNO status holders and their families who choose to settle in the UK. As for recourse to public funds, I am under the assumption that because they will have leave to settle in the UK, they will have recourse to public funds, but I will double check that. I will also answer the noble Lord’s question on the Youth Mobility Scheme in writing, because I am not entirely certain of the answer.
The noble Lord also asked about the shortage occupation list. As he knows, it contains skilled occupations where there is a national shortage of workers which can sensibly be filled, in part, through migration. The MAC recommends changes to the SOL where there are skilled jobs with an identified national shortage that it would be sensible to fill, at least in part, through immigration—these are set out in the shortage occupation list. The noble Lord mentioned senior health workers, and he is absolutely correct. Changes to the immigration rules in March of this year give workers in key health and care roles greater opportunity to come to the UK. Pharmacists, lab technicians, senior care workers and nursing assistants are among roles that were added to the shortage occupation list.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, stated that we are opening up jobs to the whole of the world—I would have thought that might be quite in line with his EU free-movement credentials. I think it is fair that people who have the sufficient skills and salary to come to this country should be given the opportunity, across the piece, to do so.
The Government promised to take a common-sense approach to controlling immigration, both legal and illegal, and we will deliver on that promise. I look forward to further debates on this issue in the coming weeks and months. I thank all noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Green, for taking part in this debate.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to the Government for providing time for this debate, albeit a little late in the day, and to the Minister for her responses. I was, however, alarmed that she should say that immigration policy is not about numbers; they are surely a major part of all this, for reasons that were very well explained by the noble Lords, Lord Horam and Lord Hodgson. At the same time, of course, there is a clear case for immigration, expressed very eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, although perhaps it was a little rosy at times.
Finally, for my part, my concern is not with immigration but with the scale of it. When travel, and indeed life, returns to normal, I shall be watching the numbers very carefully, whether or not they are “the language of old”. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.