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Oral Answers to Questions
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Before we come to Question 1, I wish to inform the House that there is an error on the call list. Cat Smith’s Question 14 is listed as asking about the dismantling of county lines drug gangs. In fact, her tabled question was about steps taken to ensure that Border Force staff are trained on exemptions from requirements for covid-19 testing. I understand that Ministers have been informed and that the correct question will be answered when we reach that point.
The Secretary of State was asked—
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
All forms of hate crime are completely unacceptable and the UK has a robust legislative framework to respond to it. We are absolutely clear that the cowards who commit these hateful acts should feel the full force of the law. We will of course work with the Law Commission on its review of hate crime legislation.
Christine Jardine
I welcome the Secretary of State’s comments about the complete unacceptability of hate crimes. The dictionary defines misogyny as “dislike or contempt for”, or indeed, “prejudice against” women. Every year, tens of thousands of women in this country face emotional and physical violence, often prompted by exactly that sort of prejudice. Making racially and religiously motivated crimes aggravated offences has helped the police to tackle them, but the law does not provide the same protections against gender-based hate crimes, so does the Home Secretary agree that, if the Law Commission recommends improvements in those areas, they should be a matter of priority?
Priti Patel
First, let me acknowledge the points that the hon. Lady has made. She is absolutely right about hate crimes, misogyny and crimes against women in particular, and some of the most appalling and corrosive attitudes against women that we have seen across our society for too long. On the Law Commission report, we are waiting for its findings. I can give her and the House every assurance that we will work with the Law Commission. Alongside that important point, we will be publishing very soon—in the next few weeks, in fact—our strategy on violence against women and girls. I want to go on the record to emphasise that any form of violence, oppression, sexism or hatred against women and girls is thoroughly unacceptable and this Government are absolutely adamant in dealing with it.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Fire and rescue professionals work tirelessly to protect their communities. Currently, the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services is responsible for negotiating the pay and conditions of fire and rescue authority employees, and central Government have no direct role in this process. The Home Office will be launching a consultative White Paper on fire reform later this year.
Ian Lavery [V]
This Government should salute the courageous men and women of the fire and rescue service, who are the envy of the world, not constantly attack them. It is universally recognised that trade union membership and collective bargaining rights for workers are among the most effective ways to reduce inequality. “Brexit will not be used to reduce labour standards” was the constant cry from Government Ministers. Prove it, Home Secretary. Commitment after commitment has been given to protect and promote collective bargaining. Deliver it, Home Secretary. Stand by your word and confirm that the collective bargaining rights of firefighters within their chosen trade union will not be diminished in any way.
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Gentleman has a long association with the trade union movement, which I know he has found rewarding in every sense of the word. As I said, we are not, as a Government, involved in pay bargaining for the fire service. There is a national joint council, where the Fire Brigades Union is represented 50:50 with employers. As I am sure he will know, the FBU has accepted a pay offer for the coming year that will be payable from the 1st of this month. There will be a White Paper looking at reform in the future and we will see what comes out of that consultative process.
Mr Speaker
I do not think it is on good terms for the Minister to be sneaky in the way that he approached the answer. The underhand in there was a bit leading and I hope that we have a better relationship on all sides of this House.
Darren Henry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
From 2019 to 2022, this Government will have provided more than £242 million across the 18 areas that account for the majority of knife crime and other serious violence incidents. This money is funding violence reduction units, which will draw together all key partners to address the root causes of violence as well as targeted police action to deter and disrupt knife crime. The House has recently approved the serious violence duty in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, and we are investing more than £200 million over the next decade in the youth endowment fund to help interventions to divert young people away from serious violence.
Darren Henry [V]
In Nottinghamshire, our violence reduction unit has played a key role in strategic planning and supporting practical local work to protect our young people from harm. Can the Minister provide any reassurance that VRUs will continue to form part of our local response to serious youth violence, supported by Home Office funding?
Victoria Atkins
This Government take extremely seriously the harm that serious violence causes all people across society, but particularly young people who are dragged into gangs by gang leaders. That is why, through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, we have introduced, as I said, the serious violence duty. We are also increasing sentences for the most violent offenders. VRUs remain a key part of our work to tackle serious violence, as demonstrated by our £2.6 million invested in Nottingham alone.
Simon Baynes [V]
Youth clubs and groups teach young people valuable skills and help to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour. Will the Minister join me in praising the neighbourhood policing teams in Clwyd South, who work in partnership with youth services and local councils, including in the Ceiriog valley, where together they are involving more young people in the local rugby club and hiring a mobile BMX course?
Victoria Atkins
I am very pleased to join my hon. Friend in praising his local police, but also the local charities and other services that are working together to help young people to escape a life of crime. Sport can have many benefits. With our £200 million youth endowment fund, over the next 10 years, we will see the benefits of sport programmes, but also of other types of intervention to help to remove young people from the clutches of gang leaders. I am delighted also that my hon. Friend’s police force has received almost 100 new police officers as part of this Government’s commitment to tackling violent crime and making our streets safer with 20,000 new officers.
Paul Howell [V]
Does the Minister agree that one way to stop young people from becoming involved in crime is to give them more opportunity to be active? Would she support the efforts of people such as Sean Ivey, who, despite suffering personal attacks, including having his home, car and caravan torched, is now leading efforts to support his community in attacking antisocial behaviour? Will she look at how we can support his efforts through targeted funding for distressed communities, and can I encourage her to come to Wingate in Sedgefield to see for herself the efforts being made?
Victoria Atkins
I join my hon. Friend in commending and thanking Mr Ivey for all his efforts in his constituency to support others in Sedgefield and to tackle antisocial behaviour. Antisocial behaviour, particularly of the sort that my hon. Friend has described, is absolutely unacceptable. Next week, we have a week of awareness raising on the perils of antisocial behaviour and the tools available to our councils, the police and, indeed, to us as Members of Parliament to tackle antisocial behaviour in our communities. As a Government, we have committed an additional £7.3 million in funding, and almost 90 new officers have been recruited to help to keep County Durham’s streets safe. I am very pleased to receive my hon. Friend’s invitation, and I will of course accept.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I had the pleasure of visiting Calderdale’s early action team on Friday, where West Yorkshire police and partner agencies are delivering some exemplary work, keeping children and young people safe from crime and exploitation. However, for all the positive work they do, chronic backlogs in the criminal justice system mean that it is taking anywhere up to 18 months for cases to be heard, delaying restorative justice for often young victims. Only with a swift and effective criminal justice system will these agencies be able to do their best work in protecting young people from criminality, so what is the Government’s plan to deliver a dynamic and effective youth justice system that is fit for purpose?
Victoria Atkins
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and I know her own commitment in this area. The Government are taking a whole system approach to how we tackle serious violence. The journey of a young person who is involved in serious violence may start in seemingly tiny steps. It may be the offer of a new pair of trainers or the offer of a meal. That is how gang leaders ensnare young people into their gangs to go around the country selling drugs and so on. As part of the Government’s work, we are investing not only in very tough enforcement action, but in early intervention programmes. The youth endowment fund has just launched its toolkit, which will help local commissioners to discover which programmes work and have the best impact on early intervention. I commend that to the hon. Lady. I very much look forward to working with her and her local police force in helping to prevent serious violence among young people.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
This year, we are investing more than £130 million to tackle serious violence at local level. That includes funding violence reduction units, which draw in all key partners, including the police, local authorities and the community, to address the root causes of violence, as well as targeted police action to deter and disrupt knife crime. It also includes up to £23 million for new early intervention programmes that will help stop young people being drawn into violence in the first place.
Helen Hayes
Yesterday, I spoke to Cindy, whom I met three years ago as we both worked to support her friend whose son had been murdered with a knife. She phoned to tell me that a 16-year-old son of another friend had also been stabbed and killed this weekend. She told me:
“I haven’t called his mum yet, I don’t know how I will bear hearing her screams in my ears.”
Knife crime has risen in every police command area across the country in the last decade, doubling since 2013. Lives are being lost, families devastated and communities traumatised every single week, yet the Government have disbanded the serious violence taskforce. Why are they so complacent about the loss of young lives?
Victoria Atkins
May I try to correct the hon. Lady? First, clearly everyone in the House has heard the account she has given of her constituent and the families affected in her constituency by knife crime. We understand and we express very seriously our commiserations to the families involved. However, I do think the hon. Lady has perhaps missed the news about the violence reduction units, which we are funding, particularly in London, to help the police work together with other agencies, local authorities, local groups and so on to try to tackle serious violence both with enforcement and, importantly, with local intervention projects. Again, I very much welcome the opportunity at some point of sitting her down to talk about the youth endowment fund, for example, and to explain how that will help young people in her local communities. This Government are not complacent about serious violence or the deaths she has described. We are working very hard with the police and with local communities to ensure that these terrible crimes stop.
Vicky Foxcroft
The Government have stated that they are committed to a public health approach to tackling violence affecting young people and the Minister has just mentioned the violence reduction units, yet our 18 violence reduction units only receive short-term funding settlements. The work these units do is extremely important in tackling the root causes of violence, but they cannot formulate long-term strategies without long-term funding, so what is the Home Secretary doing to ensure that the comprehensive spending review delivers on that?
Victoria Atkins
As the hon. Lady knows, because we have discussed this many times in the past, violence reduction units are a key part of our work to tackle serious violence. We are constrained within the current spending review, with the wider problems of the pandemic and the impact that has had on Government spending, but she will know that the Government have invested record amounts in these units to get them working across the country in the 18 areas most hit by serious violence. However, we are going further than that, because through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, we are imposing a serious violence duty on every single local area across the country, so that every single area is taking the public health approach that she so commends, and rightly so.
Ellie Reeves
Michael Jonas, Ayodeji Habeeb Azeez, Jay Hughes, Levi Ernest-Morrison and Tashawn Watt are all young children and young people who have been stabbed to death in my constituency over the past few years. Words cannot do justice to the grief and anguish this has caused their families and the wider community. The Government say they are committed to a public health approach to youth violence, but youth centres, schools, health services and children’s centres have all had their budgets decimated over the past 10 years. My constituents cannot wait any longer. When will the Government reverse these cuts and take urgent action before more lives are lost?
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Lady rightly raises the names of those who have been murdered in her constituency, and of course our thoughts go to the families and friends affected by that. Of course, serious violence does not just affect the individual family; it affects the whole community. That is why we are taking this whole-system approach: very tough law enforcement, but critically, also trying to intervene at an early stage to help young people to avoid gangs, which will have an impact on the streets more widely. That is why the serious violence duty is so very important. I really hope that, on the next occasion the Labour party has to vote in support of the serious violence duty, it takes the opportunity to do so. Working together with schools, hospitals, other healthcare agencies, the police and local authorities is how we are going to help ensure that the sorts of incidents she describes do not happen again.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
As we have been watching the incredible achievements of the England football team, the epidemic of violence on our streets has been growing, with younger and younger boys losing their lives in horrific murders, including a 16-year-old we are mourning in my constituency. Many of our football heroes had tough upbringings and have spoken out about the importance of role models and mentors—adults in their lives who helped them unlock their talent. I want all our young people to be able to unlock their talent, including that small group of vulnerable people at risk of being gripped by crime, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) says, many of those adults—in youth work, in education, in social care, in the health service—have disappeared following a decade of extreme cuts. Our summer holidays should be flooded with youth work, mentorship programmes, sports clubs and mental health support, as well, of course, as good neighbourhood policing. The scale of the problem deserves an appropriate response, so will the Government today recognise the potential of our whole nation and commit to helping every vulnerable child this summer?
Victoria Atkins
May I join the hon. Lady in acknowledging the sportsmanship, the talents, the dignity and the joy that the English football team have brought so many people over the tournament? They have been the very best of us; and they have been the very best of us while facing some horrific abuse—absolutely horrific racist abuse—during the tournament, and that is not acceptable.
The hon. Lady is quite right to raise the question of role models. I know from my own son’s adoration of many of the England footballers just what powerful role models many of those footballers are to younger people. Sadly, of course, we cannot incorporate a Sterling or a Harry Kane into every youth project, but what we can do is build the structures around them. That is precisely what we are doing, with increased investment both through the Department for Education funding over the summer and through our own work in funds such as the trusted relationships fund, which is helping young people to build positive relationships with positive role models. I join the hon. Lady’s cri de coeur that we should pay full credit and respect to our footballers. They themselves tell the tale that if you have the belief and you have the talent, my goodness you can make it.
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Since 2019, we have invested over £65 million to tackle county lines and drug supply, including £40 million committed this year. Through our county lines programme, we have become smarter in our activity against these ruthless gangs, resulting in more than 1,000 lines being closed, more than 5,800 arrests and more than 1,500 vulnerable adults and children safeguarded.
Antony Higginbotham [V]
Drug dealing is a despicable crime that preys on the vulnerable, damages communities and causes misery to so many. Locally, the Burnley and Padiham neighbourhood policing team has set up a taskforce to tackle this issue. Will the Minister confirm that local police forces will continue to have the resources and support they need really to tackle this issue and rid our communities of it? Will he meet me and our police and crime commissioner, Andrew Snowden, to see what more we can do?
Kit Malthouse
I am always happy to meet police and crime commissioners and their Members of Parliament to talk about fighting crime, and I am very pleased that my hon. Friend is so embedded in the collective mission to reduce crime in his constituency. He is quite right that we are having enormous success with county lines, and that is off the back of significant Government investment. I am hopeful that police and crime commissioners can see the wider benefits of that programme in suppression of violence in their areas and will supplement the work that we are doing, but he should be assured that we will be making a very strong case in the spending round for continued investment. The one thing I have learned about the Treasury over the past few years is that it likes investing in success, and we are certainly having that with county lines.
Florence Eshalomi
I thank the Minister for his reply. He mentioned that the Home Office and officials are getting smarter, but so are gang members. They are getting so smart that even during lockdown they had the sheer audacity to use our young people to carry drugs up and down the country dressed as key workers. They are always one step ahead. They will continue to exploit our children until we have a clear definition on child criminal exploitation. It is estimated that over 4,000 teenagers in London alone are being criminally exploited. What additional steps will the Minister be taking to ensure the Government put their full weight behind addressing this real and serious issue?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady rightly highlights one of the truly despicable aspects of county lines, which is the horrible exploitation and often victimisation of young people who are driven into the awful activity. She might be interested to know that we are very focused not necessarily on them but on those who control and victimise them. Much of the activity taking place in the three big forces we are funding—Liverpool, London and in the west midlands—is in targeting those line controllers who drive that exploitation. Interestingly, more and more of them are now not just being prosecuted for drugs importation or distribution, but for modern slavery or under child grooming legislation. That means that when they are convicted, they are put behind bars in the sex offenders wing, which is something not even they see as desirable. It is proving to be a very strong deterrent.
One of the key aspects of our work is gripping the transport network, in particular rail. We are finding that where we shut down their ability to use rail and they divert to roads, their likelihood of using young people, who cannot drive and are more likely to be arrested, is dropping. All our effort is being focused not just on restricting the supply of county lines across the country, but on rescuing and preventing young people from getting involved.
Jack Brereton
There have been a number of illegal cannabis farms busted recently by Staffordshire police. Many are in derelict and abandoned buildings, including the empty former Woolworths building in Longton, which was raided for the second time in under two years recently, finding 1,500 marijuana plants. Will my hon. Friend look at what more can be done to tackle the use of empty and derelict buildings by organised gangs to cultivate drugs?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is known for his innovative approach to policy and he certainly raises something that merits further investigation. He is quite right that we have seen a growth in the number of cannabis farms across the country in all sorts of buildings. Notwithstanding the drugs they produce, there is very often disgusting oppression and victimisation taking place inside—people who are trafficked across the world to tend the plants—and we need to do something about that as well. He might be interested to know, however, that in their off-hours when police helicopters are not dealing with other crimes, one thing they do is circle around using thermal imaging cameras to find houses that are strangely heated to full blast in the middle of summer, indicating that there may be something afoot. That has been a very rewarding way of investigating those farms. I will look at his idea and pursue it further.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
Comprehensive guidance and training plans have been developed and are continually reviewed to ensure that all Border Force and frontline officers are trained in new policy, process and system changes relating to covid-19 border health measures, including those set by the devolved Administrations. That comprehensive guidance includes training and shift briefings.
Cat Smith [V]
RDI Trucking based in Preesall in my constituency provides international logistics for Formula 1 and other racing industries. Under coronavirus legislation, they are international transport workers. Therefore, as essential workers the legislation applies slightly differently to them, providing an exemption from the requirement for a negative test prior to cross-border travel. However, they have been having some issues in applying that. Will the Minister take the time to meet me and my constituent Baz Scott to discuss some of the issues he is facing in his industry?
Kevin Foster
I am certainly happy to look into that if the hon. Member provides the detail. She will appreciate that Border Force’s first priority is to maintain our defences against covid-19. However, as part of our work, we are looking to move exemption decisions away from the border and to have more automatic checking. That is in everyone’s interests, including those passengers who need to comply with the regulations and would otherwise be stood behind those trying to prove exemptions at the primary control point.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)
People smuggling is a despicable crime, often leading to tragic deaths such as the 39 we saw in Purfleet. The Government are determined to crack down on organised immigration crime, which is why we last week we introduced a new Nationality and Borders Bill, which will receive its Second Reading next week. It is also why in 2020 the National Crime Agency and immigration enforcement were involved in 750 arrests in relation to organised immigration crime.
Sir Edward Leigh
Following the ridiculous decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute illegal migrants on the grounds that they have
“no choice in how they travel”,
as if they do not voluntarily pay a people smuggler €10,000 or voluntarily get in a dinghy, or the even more absurd reason that we can rely on “administrative removal channels” when corrupt human rights lawyers string such claims out for years and nobody is ever deported, where does that leave the absolutely good Bill of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary? She wants to arrest these people in the channel. Does this decision make it even more urgent that we bring in safe havens for these people in a third country?
Chris Philp
My right hon. Friend is quite right to point out that countries such as France and Germany are obviously safe and that someone genuinely in need of protection or asylum can claim asylum quite properly and easily in such countries rather than attempting dangerous and unnecessary crossings over the English channel. Notwithstanding the CPS’s recent announcement, we can, do and will prosecute people who organise and pilot dangerous boat crossings across the English channel for gain or with the intention of avoiding immigration controls. The Bill, which will receive its Second Reading next week, critically contains provisions that will close some of the loopholes that may have led to the CPS’s recent decision and will make it clear that any attempt to arrive in the United Kingdom from a safe place, such as France, will be rightly treated as a criminal offence.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP) [V]
Each year, about 5,000 or so family members benefit from refugee family reunion rights, 90% of whom are women and children. Depriving refugees of family reunion rights would drive many of those women and children straight into the arms of despicable people smugglers through desperation to be reunited with their loved ones. Why on earth will the Government provide exactly that massive bonus to people smugglers through their nasty anti-refugee Bill?
Chris Philp
The hon. Gentleman is misinformed and misguided on this point. There is no plan to weaken or undermine the refugee family reunion provisions that have been used by 29,000 people in the last six years. In addition, in the last five or six years we have been operating Europe’s largest resettlement programme, which has seen an additional 25,000 people come to the UK directly from places from danger. Because we have these effective and well-used safe and legal routes, it is reasonable—indeed, it is our responsibility—to clamp down on the people smugglers who are exploiting migrants and charging them money to make an unnecessary and dangerous journey, often across the English channel from France, which is patently a safe country. No one needs to leave France to claim asylum. It could be quite easily and properly claimed in France.
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
Violence against women and girls is thoroughly unacceptable—the House heard my comments earlier on—and there is no place in our society for such acts. My hon. Friend will be well aware, as I have said, that we are publishing in the next few weeks our strategy on violence against women and girls.
Dr Wallis [V]
I was recently left horrified by a sexual assault that occurred just outside my constituency office. Tackling violence against women and girls begins to address the issue of female safety, but many women still do not feel safe simply walking home, so how will my right hon. Friend begin to rebuild confidence for women and girls to feel safe while walking the streets?
Priti Patel
First, I am appalled and very sorry to hear of the offence—the sexual assault—that took place outside my hon. Friend’s constituency office. There is a range of work taking place across Government right now, but importantly, he addresses the point about the lack of protection and the way women do not feel that it is safe to walk our streets. Many women around the country have sensed that and we have heard that as well in the call for evidence; we had over 180,000 people respond to our call for evidence on the VAWG strategy. He will see in the next few weeks the details of our approach because we will announce it, rightly, through the appropriate measures and means. But this is not just about policing; it is about the criminal justice system, public attitudes and how women are treated and how women are respected, and there is a lot of work that we will need to do together on this.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Shockingly, I could not agree with the Home Secretary more. I am not sure that I will say that many times in my life, but she is absolutely right that the respect of women when they come forward is very, very important. The heartbreaking cases of Bibaa Henry, Nicole Smallman and Sarah Everard have raised serious questions about police handling of reported violence against women and girls. There is currently an ongoing investigation into claims that Kent police failed to look at the incident of indecent exposure linked to Sarah Everard’s killer in 2015. There is also a probe into the Metropolitan police’s alleged failure to investigate allegations of indecent exposure in February this year. I am afraid to say that there will be a similar pattern all over the country. Can the Home Secretary tell me exactly what the Government are doing to ensure that allegations such as indecent exposure are taken seriously by police forces and that cases involving police officers as perpetrators are not ignored in the future, as they have been in the past?
Priti Patel
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. First and foremost, there should be no aspect of anybody ignoring these cases whatsoever, particularly from a policing perspective. She has rightly highlighted, I am afraid, some incredibly tragic and harrowing cases. Those of us who have sat down with family members of those who have been involved in these cases know that they are absolutely awful at every single level, so it is right that there are various investigations. There are independent investigations taking place into the cases that the hon. Lady has raised directly, and rightly so, by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, but there is no place for anybody to hide and that applies equally to the police. While we always want the full force of the law to be applied to perpetrators of violence and the most abhorrent crimes, any police involvement must also be uncovered, and that means that the police must be held to account—commissioners, chief constables, those at the highest level of policing—and I can give her every assurance that we as a Government are making sure that happens.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
The UK Government are committed to eradicating all forms of child sexual abuse and continuing to be a global leader in tackling these crimes. The Government’s tackling child sexual abuse strategy sets out our ambition to drive action across Government, law enforcement and society as a whole to combat this heinous crime in all its forms.
Mrs Miller
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. She knows that the National Crime Agency is receiving more than 20,000 child abuse referrals a year from organisations such as Facebook and Instagram. If the services are end-to-end encrypted, those referrals may not be possible in future, so how are the Government addressing this really important problem to ensure that those who abuse children online continue to be brought to justice?
Victoria Atkins
The implementation of end-to-end encryption in a way that intentionally blinds tech companies to content on their platforms will have a disastrous impact on public safety, and we remain seriously concerned with Facebook’s end-to-end encryption proposals. The safety and security of the public is at the heart of this issue, and Facebook must continue to work with us to embed the safety of the public in its system designs. Companies have a responsibility to prevent the proliferation of child sexual abuse imagery and to protect children from predators on their platforms.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
The Government will not tolerate criminals lining their pockets while causing serious financial and emotional harm to victims. We are working closely with the industry, regulators, law enforcement and consumer groups to crack down on scam callers. Additionally, since its launch last year, the National Cyber Security Centre has shut down over 50,000 scams and taken down almost 100,000 websites.
Neil Parish
Since the onset of the pandemic, many of my constituents have been contacting me to report an influx of fraudulent or scam telephone calls. The fraudsters behind these malicious enterprises often target elderly or vulnerable individuals, posing as Government agencies, telecom companies, banks or pension providers. Sadly, too many of these cases result in the scammers convincing, or indeed coercing, individuals to part with their hard-earned savings. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must clamp down on this dreadful criminal activity and ensure that there is somewhere that victims can go to immediately to get help?
Kit Malthouse
As our lives have moved increasingly online, so has crime, as my hon. Friend rightly says. Can there be any Member in the Chamber who has not received a dodgy email or text or even a recorded message on their telephone, which is becoming increasingly frequent? It is typical of my hon. Friend to point out the particular vulnerability of elderly people, who are often coming to grips with technology—many have had to do so over the past year or so for the first time in their lives—and being taken advantage of. He is right to say that we need to do all we can to help them, and through the economic crime victim care unit we are doing exactly that. We are working with the banking sector to ensure that victims are not left out of pocket through no fault of their own. Critically, we can all help the fight by reporting these emails and text messages, and I want to take a moment to say that anyone who gets a suspicious email should please forward it to the email address report@phishing.gov.uk and anyone who receives a similarly suspicious text should please forward it to 7726. The police and other services will be collating the texts and emails, and when they come from the same source, as they do on many occasions, they will act swiftly to shut it down.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
As of 30 June, the EU settlement scheme had received more than 6 million applications and issued more than 5.1 million grants of status. As we have discussed before, the scheme has been a success and we have secured the status of 5.1 million individuals.
Fleur Anderson [V]
I am disappointed not to hear the exact number. In Wandsworth, there are an estimated 41,000 EU citizens, but the gap in applications to the EU settlement scheme is not known. Can the Home Secretary say which resources she is making available to process the 500,000 or so applications that are currently in the system but have not yet been determined, and how long she would envisage allowing late applications to the scheme?
Priti Patel
As I have said, the scheme has been a phenomenal success. There are many naysayers across the country and in this House who refused to believe that even 3 million people would be registered with the scheme. First and foremost, there is an abundance of support available for applicants, including from the 72 organisations to which the Home Office has granted £22 million of support for vulnerable groups and individuals to apply to the scheme. On top of that, we have invested £8 million in communications, and that involves working with local authorities such as the hon. Lady’s to ensure that no one is missed and that all the support is in the place for them.
Kate Osborne [V]
Recent research from the Children’s Society showed that less than 40% of looked-after children and care leavers had made applications to the EU settlement scheme, with 156 local authorities positively identifying more than 2,000 looked-after children and care leavers who had yet to apply. May I ask the Secretary of State to tell the House what steps the Home Office has taken to ensure that children in care who are eligible to apply have applied?
Priti Patel
First, let me re-emphasise a point that Ministers and I have made in this House on repeated occasions. It is absolutely right that we do everything possible to give children in care the support, more often than not via their local authorities, to ensure that they apply for the scheme. We have been doing exactly that, working with councils, social services and local authorities across the country. If the hon. Lady has any particular cases she would like to draw to our attention, we would be very happy to pick them up.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
As the Home Secretary is aware, acquiring settled status has an impact on a person’s right to work and to access accommodation and other services. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that employers and landlords are complying with the right to work and rent guidance, and are not discriminating against EU citizens? Will she also tell me what protections are in place for people to submit late applications to the EU settlement scheme, so that they are not left in limbo, unable to work or at risk of homelessness while they await the outcome of their application?
Priti Patel
First, the Home Office has been very clear in the support it will provide to people and late applications. The hon. Gentleman has rightly made an important point about the right to work and the role for employers. Let me give him the assurance that we have been working with employers’ organisations and groups; this is exactly the vehicle through which, even throughout the pandemic, we have been working to communicate the need for employers to work with us to secure the settled status of many, many individuals. Finally, may I pay tribute to many of the employers who have been working with us on this scheme to guarantee that settled status for individuals?
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
I know that the whole House will join me in condemning the sickening racist abuse directed last night at our heroic England football team on social media. These young men represented our nation with pride and dignity, and we are proud of them and the fortitude they showed the country last night. Racist abuse is utterly unacceptable and illegal, whether or not it takes place in front of people—online or offline. Individuals who commit racist offences should rightly face the full force of the law. Social media companies in particular have a clear responsibility for the content they host on their platforms, and they can no longer ignore some of the appalling, vile, racist, violent and hateful content that appears on their platforms. We have been clear that if they do not stamp this out, we will take actions against them in the Online Safety Bill. It will take a determined effort and action by everyone across society, and all institutions, to end the corrosive culture of racism. On that point, the thuggish and violent behaviour we saw last night was utterly disgusting and there is no place in our society for it; these people have no right to be called fans, and they will face serious consequences for their actions. To conclude, let me say that our nation is immensely proud of our three lions, and they showed true grit and determination in their actions last night and their endeavours on the pitch.
Scott Benton
I welcome the measures set out in the Nationality and Borders Bill, and the Home Secretary’s ongoing commitment to finally getting a grip of our borders and stemming the flow of illegal immigrants across the channel. Will she confirm that the Bill will include measures for the removal of migrants to offshore centres where they can be housed while their claims and appeals are being processed?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and we have heard in the House this afternoon from many right hon. and hon. Members the absolute challenge this country faces on illegal migration and illegal entry to the UK. The asylum system is broken and it is being exploited by illegal migration issues and the criminal gangs that are exploiting vulnerable individuals. As he will know, the new Bill, which will be discussed on Second Reading next week, covers many aspects and it is right that the Government explore all options to fix our broken asylum system.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
I congratulate the England team on its fantastic achievements at the European championships. Those players, led by the inspirational Gareth Southgate, have shown incredible skill and determination on and off the pitch, taking a stand on child poverty, free school meals and so much else. They took the knee to stand against racism—a brave stance that led to their being booed by some. That booing was unacceptable and should have been condemned by all. Sadly, overnight Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka have been subject to the most appalling racist abuse. The Home Secretary spoke a moment ago about potential action in the future; have not the social media companies had long enough to get this right? What immediate action will she take to deal with this issue?
Priti Patel
Everyone in the House will absolutely join in not only celebrating our incredible football team and the resilience of all our players but fundamentally calling out the appalling acts and actions that we saw last night. It is absolutely appalling that we have seen this terrible racist abuse. In fairness to the right hon. Gentleman, he is absolutely right that the social media companies have had far too long, whether it is on racism, hatred, violence or antisemitism—the list goes on and on and quite frankly it is utterly unacceptable. I have pointed rightfully to the online harms Bill, because we do need to legislate. The message needs to go out from this House, very strongly, to all the social media companies that they need to take responsibility. This is content that they host on their platforms. We will legislate against them, and that is on top of the fact that we are absolutely on top of them right now. We are pursuing them, as we do in every single case, but they need to wake up and take action themselves.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
But we have had to wait years for the online harms Bill. There has to be a greater urgency to do more now. The awful abuse continues to happen, and it is not contained to football but happens right across society. We still have so far to go. Our footballers have used their platform to help to give voice to the millions of people in this country who are desperate for change, but change is not happening fast enough. The Government and Parliament have to respond. Absolutely all necessary resources must be allocated to tracking down the perpetrators and bringing them to justice. Will the Home Secretary confirm that the online harms Bill will be brought forward immediately and will contain the toughest of sanctions against social media companies for hosting vile material? It must also include criminal sanctions for senior social media executives.
Priti Patel
The online harms Bill, on which the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is also leading, will be brought forward and the Government have been very clear about that. There should be no room whatsoever for either complacency, equivocation or absence when it comes to social media companies taking responsibility. This House has been unequivocal in our determination to drive change directly with these organisations.
The right hon. Gentleman is right: we need the toughest possible sanctions. Social media companies are only one component part of the change that we need to see; we also need the criminal justice system to go after the individuals who perpetrate some of these online harms and the hateful content that is put on these platforms. Of course, there is never any room whatsoever for complacency on this issue, which is why the legislation will be absolutely pivotal in terms of not only bringing forward the societal change that is required but holding the executives and these very significant companies to account.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Priti Patel
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for the important points that he has aired this afternoon. He is absolutely right: both the Minister for Crime and Policing and I have been on a call this morning with police leads for football issues and the policing of football. As we have all said very clearly, there is absolutely no place for racism or violence whatsoever. Quite frankly, there is clear guidance and legislation: there are laws in place that we absolutely should apply and follow—that applies to the police as well—to go after the perpetrators and the individuals. My hon. Friend will of course be well aware of the Public Order Act 1986, but there is also the Football (Offences) Act 1991 and football banning orders, all of which play an important part in terms of the actions that everyone should be taking.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Priti Patel
First and foremost, as I have said already, there are no words to describe the appalling acts that have taken place. [Interruption.] Would the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) like to intervene? If she would be prepared to listen, she will hear that everything related to racism and hatred both across society and involving any individual is completely unacceptable. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) is right to point to Instagram, but all social media platforms, not just Instagram, are culpable. They are all responsible and it is right that we all take action against them. As I have already said, we in the Home Office are absolutely on top of those organisations. Of course, legislation is the way that we will go forward on this, but such acts are simply unacceptable. This matter will take determined effort by everyone. There is no place for booing. Individuals have a right to express themselves in whichever way—we live in a free country, and thank God we do—when it comes to tackling hatred, violence and racism. The fact of the matter right now is that what we saw overnight was completely unacceptable. It is right, both from a policing perspective and when it comes to social media companies, that there is no place to hide and that action is taken.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and I look forward to the discussion that we will have tomorrow. This is a very harrowing case and I have been following the details of it for some time. Although we will discuss the matter tomorrow, my right hon. Friend is speaking to the fact that our asylum system is completely broken. We are seeing too many abuses of the system and vulnerable people being preyed on, and that scuppers our ability to assist those who are fleeing persecution and having the most appalling and abhorrent acts forced on them or taken against them. That is why the Nationality and Borders Bill is so important. I urge all colleagues in the House to work with us and support the Bill as it comes to Second Reading next week.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP) [V]
What we have just heard is errant nonsense. If a Uyghur fleeing torture, a Syrian fleeing war crimes, or a Christian convert escaping death threats, arrives in the UK seeking protection but without a visa, under the Home Secretary’s outrageous anti-refugee Bill, that would make them guilty of an offence punishable by up to four years in prison. How on earth can she defend criminalising torture victims—victims of war crimes, persecuted Christian converts and other refugees—for seeking our protection?
Priti Patel
With respect to the hon. Gentleman’s question, I am afraid that he has not read the Bill, or the new plan for immigration, or followed the debate and the discussion. I have been absolutely clear that we will support those individuals who, as he says, are fleeing persecution and torture. It is our objective as a Government to support those individuals, but not those who come to our country by paying money to illegal people traffickers and who could have claimed asylum in many of the EU countries through which they have travelled. I am sorry that he fails to realise that flagrant abuses are taking place through the use of people smugglers and people traffickers, and that individuals could claim asylum in other countries, but are simply choosing not to do so.
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight first and foremost crucial skills that are obviously important to our labour market. Our new points-based immigration system does exactly that, not just in supporting key sectors but in giving employers an important role in filling labour market places and supporting jobs.
The Government are working with the haulage sector; the Department for Transport is leading on this right now. It has from today temporarily extended rules on HGV drivers’ hours to allow them to make slightly longer journeys where necessary. It is also providing support directly to the sector to increase the number of available driving tests so that more people can qualify and support important haulage companies across my hon. Friend’s constituency and the country.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
Priti Patel
I am very happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about the specifics of his question; I do not have that detail in front of me right now. Throughout the application process, the Home Office has worked with and supported individuals who have issues demonstrating their status through some of the measures that I have already outlined, so that their status can be secured. There are ways in which we have been doing that, and I will write to him with that information.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. First and foremost, it is always important to recognise and understand the strength of feeling around this issue. I pay tribute to colleagues in the House who have discussed this issue over the past week; they have aired many not just concerns but approaches based on evidence and information.
My right hon. Friend is right that these are matters of conscience for all Members, but at the same time it is for Parliament to decide. The debate that she has been leading and much of the evidence that she has just touched on are a matter for consideration, which Governments absolutely approach in the right way, particularly with parliamentary debate at the right time.
Mr Speaker
May I say that there is a lot of disappointment that we have not gone very far on topicals? I have let them run for longer than I normally would. I am disappointed—we really have to get the Front Benchers working together to speed up those early questions; in the end, it is other Members who miss out.
Covid-19 Update
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
Before I update the House on the pandemic, I would like to take a moment to congratulate the England football team on making history and on the way in which they have brought us all together with their skill and spirit over the past few weeks. Last night’s result may not have been the one that many of us were hoping for, but they played like heroes and the nation is proud of each and every one of them.
I also want to take this opportunity to condemn the shameful racism experienced by several members of the England team after the match. Racism has no place in football; it has no place in our society. I know that the whole House will agree that we must always show zero tolerance to this appalling behaviour.
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like make a statement on our path out of the pandemic. All the way through our fight against the virus, we have looked forward to the day when we can roll back the legal restrictions and get closer to normal life. Now, thanks to the shared sacrifices of the British people and the protective wall of our vaccination programme, we have made huge advances. Today I would like to update the House on the next decision in front of us: whether to proceed to step 4 of our road map next Monday.
As I set out to the House last week, this will be a major milestone for the country, taking us another step closer to the life that we all used to live. It means carefully removing more of the restrictions that have governed our daily lives, such as how many people we can meet, how many people can attend weddings and how many visitors people in care homes can see, bringing them together with their loved ones. We have all been yearning to get there, and we all want this to be a one-way journey, so we have acted in a measured way, taking one step at a time, and looking at the very latest data and at our four tests before deciding whether to proceed.
The first test is the success of our vaccination programme. Ever since 8 December last year, when the world’s first clinically authorised vaccine was given right here in the UK, we have been putting jabs in the arms of people at a phenomenal pace, giving over 18 million doses in just seven months. We have given more doses per capita than any other large nation. As a result, around nine in 10 adults in the UK now have covid-19 antibodies, which are so important in helping us and our bodies to fight this virus. To bolster this protective wall even further, we made the tough but necessary decision to take a four-week pause to step 4, so that we could protect even more people before easing restrictions. Since making the decision, we have been able to give 7 million extra doses across the UK. We have pledged that, by 19 July, we will have offered every adult a first dose of vaccine and given two doses to two thirds of all adults. I am pleased to inform the House today that we are on track to beat both of these targets, so as we make this crucial decision, we are in a stronger position than ever before.
We have looked not just at how many jabs we have put in arms, but at what impact they are having on hospitalisations and the loss of loved ones. This is our second test. There is increasing evidence that the vaccine has severely weakened this link—a link that was once a grim inevitability. Data from Public Health England estimates that two doses of a covid-19 vaccine offer around 96% protection against hospitalisation, meaning fewer covid patients in hospital beds and fewer people mourning the loss of a loved one. The data also estimates that the vaccination programme in England has prevented between 7.5 million and 8.9 million infections. It has prevented some 46,000 hospitalisations and prevented about 30,000 people from losing their lives, all because of the protection that the vaccines can bring.
Our third test is around whether infection rates would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS. I want to be open about what the data is telling us and why we have reached the decision that we have. Cases are rising, propelled by the new, more transmissible delta variant. The average number of daily cases is over 26,000, and this has doubled over the past 11 days. Sadly, the case numbers will get a lot worse before they get better. We could reach 100,000 cases a day later in the summer.
Hospitalisations are also rising, with sustained growth over the past month. Once again, they will rise too, but we should be encouraged that hospitalisations are far lower than they were at this point during the previous wave, just as we should be encouraged that people over the age of 65, who are more likely to have had both doses of a vaccine, made up 31% of covid admissions last week, compared with 61% in January. This is further evidence that our vaccination programme is doing its job and protecting the NHS. As more people get the jab, our protective wall is getting stronger still.
We will stay vigilant and keep a very close eye on the data, as well as on the impact of long covid, on which we are investing £50 million into new research. But on the basis of the evidence in front of us, we do not believe that infection rates will put unsustainable pressure on the NHS. It is so important that everyone still does their bit in helping the NHS to stand strong. The best thing that each and every one of us can do, if we have not done so already, is get the jab and, crucially, get both doses.
Our final test is that the risks are not fundamentally changed by new variants of concern. We have seen from the growth of the delta variant, which now makes up 99% of new cases in this country, just how quickly a new variant can take hold. However, although the delta variant is more transmissible than the alpha variant, the evidence shows that two doses of the vaccine appears to be just as effective against hospitalisation. But we know that the greatest risk to the progress we have made is the possibility of another new variant, especially one that can escape immunity and puncture the protective wall of out vaccination programme, so even as we look to ease restrictions, we will maintain our tough measures at the borders and we will expand our capacity for genomic sequencing, which is already one of the largest in the world, so that we can come down hard the moment we detect a new variant.
We have looked closely at the data against these four tests and we firmly believe that this is the right time to get our nation closer to normal life, so we will move to the next stage of our road map on 19 July. To those who say, “Why take this step now?”, I say, “If not now, when?” There will never be a perfect time to take this step because we simply cannot eradicate this virus. Whether we like it or not, coronavirus is not going away. Moving forward next week, supported by the arrival of summer and the school holidays, gives us the best possible chance of a return to normal life. If we wait longer, we risk pushing the virus towards winter, when the virus will have an advantage, or, worse still, we will not be opening up at all. We delayed step 4 by four weeks so that we could build the vaccine wall even higher. We believe that this wall means that we can withstand a summer wave. While the wall would be higher still if we waited until winter, we know the wave would be much more dangerous. So while we know that there are risks with any decision, this is the most responsible decision that we can take.
This step forward is about balancing the harms that are caused by covid with the undeniable harms that restrictions bring. These restrictions were vital to protect the NHS, but we must be upfront about the impact of keeping them just as we are about removing them: the rise in domestic violence, the impact on mental health and the undiagnosed cancer, to name just a few. So we will ease the restrictions next week while at the same time maintaining the defences we have built against this virus, like our vaccination programme, where we still need more young people to come forward; our work to support the most vulnerable; and the contingency plans that we have put in place to stay one step ahead of this virus.
But this is not the end of the road: it is the start of a new phase of continued caution while we live with this virus and we manage the risks. We are today publishing a plan showing the safe and gradual approach that we will be taking throughout the summer. It includes details of how we will be encouraging businesses and large events to use certification in high-risk settings to limit the risk of spreading infection, how we will use guidance for those who are clinically extremely vulnerable, and details of a review that we will be conducting in September to assess our preparedness for autumn and winter.
As we make these changes, it is so important that people act with caution and with personal responsibility. For example, everyone should return to work gradually if they are currently working from home, they should try to meet people outside where that is possible, and it is expected and recommended that people should wear face coverings, unless they are exempt, in crowded indoor settings like public transport.
I also want to take this opportunity to update the House on our policies for self- isolation. Last week I announced to the House that from 16 August double-jabbed adults and under-18s will no longer need to self-isolate if they are a close contact of someone with covid-19. Until then, with case rates expected to rise, it is vital that we ensure that our systems for self-isolation are proportionate and reflect the protection given by our vaccine programme. As part of this approach, we will be working with clinicians and the NHS to explore what more can be done for colleagues in patient-facing roles—this would be used only in exceptional circumstances where the self-isolation of fully vaccinated close contacts could directly impact the safety of patients—so that we can keep our vital services going as we safely and gradually get closer to normal life.
Mr Speaker, 19 July will mark another step forward in our road to recovery. Getting here has been hard fought, and it has been long awaited, but this battle is not over yet. Let us move forward in a confident but measured way so that we can get closer to normal life and protect the progress that we have already made.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I join him and others across the House in paying tribute to the England side. They did indeed unite the country, and we are proud of each and every one of them. Of course, those players did take the knee to show they were taking a stand against racism. Labour again offers them our solidarity and joins with others in condemning utterly the racist, vile abuse that we have seen in the last 24 hours.
We want to see the economy reopen in a balanced, safe and sustainable way. That means maintaining certain mitigations to contain the speed at which infections are rising, to help reduce transmission and to help to limit the numbers exposed to the virus before they are fully vaccinated. Instead, the Secretary of State has taken a high-risk, fatalistic approach, trying to game what might happen in the winter and deciding that infections are going up anyway. Instead of caution, he is pushing his foot down on the accelerator while throwing the seatbelts off. He admits that that could mean 100,000 infections a day, which means potentially thousands suffering debilitating long covid and that, as more cases arise, more may escape, with the threat of a new, more transmissible variant emerging.
Two weeks ago, the Secretary of State justified unlocking by suggesting that it would make us healthier. Today, hospital admissions are running at more than 400 a day and there are now 393 people in intensive care units, up by more than 100 since the start of July. Of course, significant increases in admissions have a knock-on effect on the NHS’s ability to provide wider care. He says that infection rates will not put unsustainable pressure on the NHS, but last week cancer patients at Leeds were having their surgery cancelled and ambulance trusts across the country were reporting some of their busiest days ever. The 111 service is under intense pressure.
At the weekend, the Secretary of State warned that the elective waiting list could rise as high as 13 million. Perhaps he could therefore define what he means by “unsustainable pressure”. What does he predict that hospital admissions will peak at? He has told us he expects 100,000 infections, so how many hospital admissions does he expect? Does his confidence mean that there will be no extra resources for the NHS this summer to get through this summer wave? He again highlights vaccination, but why are vaccination rates slowing down? What will he do to drive up rates among younger people, which are still at only about 56% of 18 to 24-year-olds? When will we begin vaccination of adolescents? Other countries are doing it—why are we not?
To rely only on vaccination as infections climb is the approach of the one-club golfer. The Secretary of State needs to put other measures in place as well. First, Labour would continue with mandatory mask wearing. I notice that his tone has shifted in the last week or so and now his view is that it would be irresponsible not to wear a mask in a crowded room. Surely it is equally irresponsible for the Government to abandon mandatory mask wearing.
Secondly, on working from home, yesterday Susan Hopkins from PHE suggested that for the next four to six weeks at least people should try their best to work from home, so will the Secretary of State guarantee that anyone who wants to continue working from home will have the right to do so?
Thirdly, we know how important fresh air is. Germany has funded air filtration systems in public buildings. Last week, the Secretary of State referred to the infection control funding given to social care, but that was not for ventilation. There are British firms that manufacture air filtration and ventilation units, so let us support those firms and British jobs, and offer grants to premises to install air filtration units. Will he also use the summer to install air filtration systems in every school?
Fourthly, as more virus circulates, more people will be exposed, more people will become ill and more will have to isolate, but some people still cannot isolate because of their finances, and those with caring responsibilities for someone who has had to isolate can also be financially penalised. Furlough is beginning to be withdrawn, so financial support for isolation will become even more urgent. Will the Secretary of State ensure that those who need to isolate can access adequate sick pay and support?
Fifthly, to get through this third wave and flatten the curve, we will need ongoing testing, and contact tracing will need extra capacity. Will the Secretary of State give local authorities the resources to lead the enhanced retrospective and forward contact tracing they need to do, and will he now abandon the proposed charges for lateral flow tests, which he is set to introduce?
Finally, when the Secretary of State was appointed, he said that any easing on 19 July would be, in his word, “irreversible”. Other countries have thought the same with their road maps, yet Israel has reintroduced masks, and the Netherlands reopened nightclubs and had to close them again after two weeks. Is it still his view that the 19th is terminus day and that everything he has announced today is irreversible, or does he agree that it would be more sensible to have regular review dates in place through the summer as we deal with this third wave and rising infections?
Sajid Javid
The right hon. Gentleman started by saying that he supports a balanced approach in a sustainable way, and that is exactly what I have set out today from this Dispatch Box. That is the Government’s approach, so I agree with him. We as the Government have set out the detail, but I am still not sure what his plan actually is. However, given that he set out those objectives, I hope he can support this plan. He talks about the risks that are involved, and I have been very up front about that. The Government have been up front: there is no risk-free way forward. Opening up is not without risk, but ongoing restrictions are not without cost, and I hope he appreciates that.
The right hon. Gentleman raised a number of questions, and one of his first was about hospitalisations. As I have said, case numbers are going up and we expect them to continue going up, but the most important difference today versus the last wave is vaccination—the wall of defence that our country has built—which has meant that hospitalisations, although they are rising as case numbers rise, are rising at a rate that is a lot slower than before. I have set out specifically regarding test 3 in a road map that we believe the pressure, with all the data we are seeing at this point, is not unsustainable for the NHS.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about vaccinations, and I am pleased he is highlighting that, especially for more young people to come forward. As I mentioned in my statement, we are ahead of the plans we set out when step 4 was temporarily pushed out by four weeks. He also asked about the vaccination of children. He knows that we have a group of expert science advisers—the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation—and this is something it is actively looking at. At some point, we will reach a final decision, but I hope he will agree with me that we should take the scientific advice on that and consider it very carefully before making such a move.
On air ventilation units, some of the £90-plus billion extra the Government have provided to the health and care system during the course of this pandemic has of course gone on air ventilation units, and we should continue to support that. A lot of extra funding has also gone to people to support them financially if they are asked to isolate, and it is important that that is both kept under review and continues to be taken seriously.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned lateral flow tests and something about charging for them. That might be his policy, but it is not this Government’s policy. I do not know where he has got that one from, but we have no plans to charge for lateral flow tests.
Lastly, 19 July is a step forward on our road map. As we have clearly set out, the pandemic is not over, but it is a very significant step forward. The right hon. Gentleman talked about reviews. I have just said that we will have a review in September to make sure that we are properly set up for autumn and winter.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
The virus today is a totally different creature from a year ago, with only one in 40 new cases being hospitalised, an average age for new cases of 25, and all over-40s being offered two jabs, accounting for 99% of the age group that have had covid fatalities to date, so the Government’s approach is entirely reasonable. However, does the Health Secretary agree that there remain, to paraphrase the late Donald Rumsfeld, a number of unknown unknowns and known unknowns, not least the impact of long covid, the potential for vaccine escape and the potential for new variants? Will he reassure the House that if the data deteriorates beyond what is currently envisaged, he will not hesitate to take decisive action, not just to save lives but to head off the need for a further lockdown which would be enormously damaging for our jobs and businesses?
Sajid Javid
I am very happy to give my right hon. Friend that assurance. He made some excellent points. I thank him for his support for the Government’s action, but he is right to point out that there is still uncertainty for us and countries across the world in dealing with this pandemic. I am very pleased to assure him that if that risk matrix changes, for example with variants of concern, we will not hesitate to take the appropriate action.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP) [V]
I would first like to associate myself and my colleagues with the Health Secretary’s condemnation of the racism sadly faced by members of the England football team after their impressive performance throughout the Euros.
Turning to covid, the Secretary of State himself has suggested that covid cases could soar to 100,000 a day once all restrictions are removed next Monday. While research shows that hospitalisation rates have, thankfully, dropped to 3% of cases because of vaccination, that would still mean up to 3,000 admissions, the same as during the first wave. Can he explain how he will avoid such a surge putting pressure on health services, which would further delay clearance of the backlog of patients waiting with other conditions?
With the likelihood of such high transmission rates, how does the Secretary of State hope to prevent the generation in the UK of yet more new variants, perhaps with significant vaccine resistance? Evidence is growing of the debilitating impact of post-covid morbidity, and the Office for National Statistics estimates that it could affect 10% of those who have had the virus, so how does he plan to avoid an unacceptably high risk of long covid in young adults and children, who are not fully vaccinated?
Finally, why is the Secretary of State ending the mandatory wearing of masks in indoor spaces and on public transport, given that they reduce viral spread and cause no economic detriment? Does he not recognise that, as vulnerable people cannot count on others wearing masks, for them 19 July will not be freedom day but the exact opposite?
Sajid Javid
I thank the hon. Lady for what she said about the English football team, but I noticed that she did not say who she supported. I hope it was England.
The hon. Lady is right to raise hospitalisations, as other colleagues have. Of course, as cases rise, which sadly they will for the reasons I have set out, hospitalisations will rise too. However, again for reasons I have set out—No. 1 being the vaccine—the rate of hospitalisation will be far, far lower than anything we have seen before. She will also know, given her experience, that the treatments available are a lot better and more effective than what we had at the start of the pandemic and during the last wave. That is also helping should people, sadly, find themselves in hospital. That is part of the three tests, test number three, that we have looked at very carefully. We have looked at the data and we of course work very closely with our colleagues in the NHS on an almost minute-by-minute basis to ensure that the increased pressure—I accept there will be increased pressure; I have been very open about that—can be met in a sustained way.
The hon. Lady mentioned the backlog. It is important to understand that the backlog built up over the pandemic because people stayed away from the NHS for perfectly understandable reasons, but we need to start to get back to normal as quickly as we reasonably can so that we can start to see more and more people in the longer term and improve the backlog more quickly.
As for masks, I believe I have answered that question. The most important thing is that our guidelines will be very clear. They will be published later today, too.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Enterprises are having to shut because key members of staff, despite having been vaccinated twice, are having to isolate as contacts. As infections increase, so will contacts who have to isolate and there is every possibility that the economy will grind to a halt. Will the Secretary of State review the need to self-isolate for those who are twice vaccinated and showing a negative test?
Sajid Javid
It is precisely for the reasons my right hon. Friend sets out, and for other reasons, that we have already reviewed the rules on self-isolation. That is why we have announced that there will be a change from 16 August. We will keep them under review.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
For the 3.8 million clinically extremely vulnerable people, the prospect of a so-called freedom day next week is actually anything but. They and many clinically vulnerable people, such as pregnant women, are living in fear of what living with covid means for them. Last Monday, the Secretary of State promised me that guidance was forthcoming. Last Wednesday, Members in the other place and charities met his ministerial colleague Lord Bethell and officials, who admitted that this was not good enough and that something more had to be done. Can the Secretary of State tell us today what support and guidance will be forthcoming and when, or is he pursuing a survival-of-the-fittest policy, whereby the most vulnerable will be thrown to the wolves?
Sajid Javid
This is one of the most important issues. As the hon. Lady says, many people are immuno-suppressed or severely clinically vulnerable. It is important that at every stage of dealing with this pandemic we are thinking of them and having them at the front of our mind. That is what I believe we have done. Of course, when people in that category are able to take the vaccine they should, but not all are able to do so. She asks about advice, and I can tell her that we are publishing it today.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
First, it is worth saying that I strongly welcome the statement from the Secretary of State. When he is back at the Dispatch Box in the autumn, as I fear he may be, announcing further restrictions, guidance or even another lockdown, one of the things that will have driven that will be hospitalisation data. The big flaw in that data at the moment is that it includes anyone who tests positive for covid who goes into hospital, not whether they have gone into hospital because they are ill with covid. That will drive poor decision making, and it is vital that it is fixed urgently. We cannot have hundreds of thousands of livelihoods and wellbeing sacrificed on the altar of dodgy data.
Sajid Javid
That is an important point from my right hon. Friend. He will know—I judge that is why he asked the question—that at the moment the figures available are “with covid”, which does not make a distinction about what is causing that individual to be in hospital, so the data are not precise and detailed enough. I think that is what he is getting at. It is a very good point and I have asked for advice on it. I hope we can start to get clearer data precisely for the reason he raises.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) [V]
Primary care is not only the frontline of the fight against covid; it is also the front door of the NHS and many staff are on their knees at the moment. May I ask the Secretary of State to help more medical students to choose general practice and to stay in it, as that is absolutely fundamental to helping more people get in to see a GP easily?
Sajid Javid
I agree. My parents wanted me to be a doctor—a GP—so they were a bit disappointed, although my mum did say that my current role might make up for it. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He knows our commitment to 50 million more appointments and to having more GPs. That remains a huge priority, which I think this pandemic has made even more important than before.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]
I join the Secretary of State and other colleagues in deploring the appalling racism shown against a football team who have shown the absolute best of our country.
The Secretary of State says that caution is absolutely vital, given the soaring infection rates. I agree, but if caution is absolutely vital, why is he weakening the measures to deliver it? The message around face masks on public transport, for example, has been downgraded from being a clear legal requirement to being an optional personal choice. As more than 100 scientists and medics said last week in a letter to The Lancet, this is reckless and risks driving up infections. He asks, “If we do not open up now, then when?”. The answer has to be: when a far higher percentage of the total population is vaccinated; when basic public health protection such as test, trace and isolate is properly functioning; when people can afford to self-isolate; and when measures such as air filtration systems are in our classrooms. Frankly, the Government seem to be pursuing a Darwinian strategy, relying on immunity by natural infection. Does he realise how dangerous that is?
Sajid Javid
I am afraid that the hon. Lady is just not being realistic. I have set out very clearly in my statement the issues around timing. No one is pretending that there is a perfect time to start lifting some of these restrictions. It therefore requires a balanced and measured approach, and that is exactly what we are doing.
Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)
Steroid inhalers, of the type used by millions of asthma sufferers worldwide, are known to be safe and cheap, and trials show that they are also very effective in reducing the severity of covid symptoms and the length of time they are suffered. Will my right hon. Friend take rapid steps to revise the guidance to ensure that this becomes an immediate part of GPs’ armoury in dealing with people who present with covid symptoms?
Sajid Javid
When my hon. Friend wants something done rapidly, I listen very carefully to him. I am pleased to tell him that the clinical guidelines have been published today that allow the central alerting system to recommend to clinicians that they prescribe inhaled steroids on a case-by-case basis for exactly the purpose that he set out. I hope that is quick enough for him.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]
I hope that I will get an equally happy response to my question. The Secretary of State has said that he is anticipating as many as 100,000 covid infections daily. If that were actually to happen, according to his figures how many people would he expect to be hospitalised, and how many would he expect to develop long covid as a result?
Sajid Javid
I can tell the hon. Lady that there are currently about 30,000 infections a day. In the last 24 hours in England, we have seen about 400 people being hospitalised. The last time that infections were around the same level—at 30,000 cases a day—I believe that more than 2,000 people a day were being hospitalised. That is what I mean when I say that the link has been severely weakened, and for that we have the vaccines to thank.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I look forward to having a look at and scrutinising the new road map when it is published this afternoon. Further to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), I am just trying to get clear the data on hospitalisations. I was told today of a lady admitted this weekend to a hospital in my region to give birth. She was, of course, tested on admission and was positive, so she is a covid-positive person in hospital. Given the advice that the Secretary of State has just confirmed to the House that he has sought, when does he think he will be able to advise us of the figures for those admitted with covid versus those admitted for covid?
Sajid Javid
I know that my hon. Friend speaks with experience, and I am glad he has raised this point again. I have asked for that advice, because it is important that we try to analyse better the primary diagnosis of anyone coming into hospital. I can understand why that was not easily possible in the early days of the pandemic, but I think we have now reached the stage at which we can provide better data, and I hope I can get that done as quickly as possible.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab) [V]
The recent report from the Health and Social Care Committee on NHS staff burnout showed that low pay was a particular issue for care workers, and that most NHS staff were working unpaid hours on top of their contracts. Those are hours that could otherwise be spent with family members like the brilliant student I met this morning, Brendan from Cardinal Newman School, whose dad works for the NHS. How does the Secretary of State plan to clear the backlog and fill the 40,000 nursing and 112,000 care worker vacancies if this Government continue to say no to the pay rise that NHS heroes like Brendan’s dad deserve?
Sajid Javid
I agree with the hon. Lady that the workers in the NHS, no matter what their role, have been the heroes of this crisis, as have care workers. I think we agree on that, and that making sure it is recognised also requires us to ensure that they are paid properly. The hon. Lady is also right to link this issue to, for example, the backlog and the huge amount of work that lies ahead. I hope she will bear with me, and in due course we will set out our response to the pay review recommendations.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. He will know that on 29 April, a pilot scheme to test and release was introduced to avoid the disruption caused by the need for contacts of people with covid to isolate for 10 days. He will also know that our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was a beneficiary of that scheme. Will he say what the results of the pilot have been, and when it might be available to the rest of us, which I hope will be before the third week in August?
Sajid Javid
I thank my right hon. Friend for his support for my statement. That scheme is very important. I have not yet seen the final results, but results are starting to come into the Department. As my right hon. Friend will know, while the pilot has been going on the Government have also made an announcement about more flexibilities for double-vaccinated people from 16 August onwards, but I will endeavour to say more about this and publish more data as soon as I can.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]
I have heard what the Secretary of State has said about masks today, but as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford)—the SNP spokesperson—there will be no “freedom day” for vulnerable people if the legal requirement to wear a mask is scrapped. Many of my constituents wrote to me over the weekend expressing concern about this issue. Along with leading scientists, trade unionists and large sections of the public, they are keen for the legal requirement to wear masks in indoor spaces and on public transport to be kept at least for now. Why can the Secretary of State not make that commitment?
Sajid Javid
I think I have set out the general approach at the Dispatch Box a number of times. As we begin to move towards a more normal position, we want to start removing the regulations and replacing them with guidelines, and then to ask people to follow those guidelines. For example, we have made it very clear that in crowded and enclosed spaces we would expect everyone to wear a mask, and we would recommend that. Given all the data that we have set out, including the vaccination rate, we think that now is the time to take that kind of more measured approach, and we will keep it under review.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
I welcome what the Secretary of State has said. On Friday I visited Blue Bay Travel, an international travel company based in my constituency which strongly supports the easing of public health restrictions from 19 July for those who are fully vaccinated. Will my right hon. Friend continue to do all he can to ensure that we help jobs and industries of that kind, which have been hit hardest by the covid measures, to recover fully as soon as possible?
Sajid Javid
Yes, I can give that commitment to my hon. Friend. He is right to raise this issue. The travel sector has been one of the hardest hit, and I hope that as we take this measured approach and start opening up more, the sector will, in terms of both jobs and opportunities, start to benefit in his constituency and elsewhere. I hope that the company he referred to in his constituency welcomes the changes we have set out so far.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
The Secretary of State mentioned the serious problems being caused in the NHS by the Government’s pinging system, but schools and businesses are also suffering. Now, in the transport and travel sector, scores of trains were being cancelled over the weekend because drivers and other train staff had been pinged. If he will not bring forward his 16 August date, why on earth will he not continue to mandate masks on public transport, both to protect staff and passengers and to give them the confidence to travel at least up until that 16 August date?
Sajid Javid
The right hon. Gentleman may know that when we set the 16 August date, and I think I made this clear in the statement last week, it was based on clinical advice—the public health advice that we received and in particular that it was better to make sure that more people are vaccinated than will be on 19 July, and I think that is valuable advice. When it comes to masks, I think I have made the Government’s position clear.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) [V]
Lifting legal restrictions is a massive relief for all those who rely on pubs, restaurants and nightclubs for their livelihoods, the overwhelming majority of which are taking their responsibilities seriously at enormous cost to themselves. Does my right hon. Friend agree that as we open up our society and economy, not only must all hospitality businesses take sensible steps to protect us from disease, but all customers must also play their part and respect venues and their staff, who are working so hard to do the right thing?
Sajid Javid
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. It is a responsibility as we open up not just for the owners of the businesses, the nightclubs and the pubs to take that sensible, measured attitude, but for customers to give a thought to those who are serving them at the table or behind the bar and to be respectful of their needs.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Last week, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s review was reported to this House as having concluded that covid vaccine certification was not necessary and would not go ahead. Since then, however, there seems to have been a review of the review, because the Secretary of State said today that
“the Government will be encouraging businesses and large events to use certification in high-risk settings”.
Can the Secretary of State tell the House now what constitutes a high-risk setting in this context, and who will be the judge of what is a high-risk setting? What constitutes “large events”, and who will judge what they are? What is meant by “encouraging businesses” and what will be the consequences for any businesses that resist the encouragement from Government in this way? Finally, how will the data that is captured in this way, which belongs to us all, be held and protected?
Sajid Javid
The remarks that the right hon. Gentleman refers to by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster are absolutely correct. As we move away from regulations, there will no longer be a legal requirement for any establishment to have covid vaccine certification, but the guidelines, which we will publish today, will be very clear that we expect corporate bodies and responsible businesses to have a system. We will continue to provide the infrastructure, where we will work with them and with the respective Government Departments. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are already talking to industry leaders and working with them, and the industry welcomes the work on a basis of guidelines, rather than regulation.
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)
A rate of 87% for first vaccinations is truly impressive, and it is in excess of all the estimates that I read about when the vaccination programme was first launched, but there is evidence of a worrying fall-off in people coming forward for their second vaccinations in London and the south-east. Can my right hon. Friend say what steps he is taking to ensure that people, especially young people, are committing to completing the vaccination course?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is right to raise this. As she says, the rate of vaccination that we have achieved in this country is the envy of the world. We want to make sure that is maintained. We definitely want to make sure that more young people are coming forward. The walk-in clinics that have popped up around the country, and the mass vaccination events that have been taking place in parts of the country, are part of that. We are also looking actively at other ways to promote the importance of vaccination.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab) [V]
A schoolteacher recently told me that some families cannot afford to self-isolate. If we are learning to live with the virus, why has the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care refused to introduce proper financial support to self-isolate, to ensure that those who test positive can safely self-isolate at home?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady will know that we have in place financial support for those who need it and who are asked to self-isolate. It is something that is important. It continues to be important, and it is something that we will keep under review.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) [V]
Thanks to jabs and far better treatment, the case fatality rate is now 0.085% and falling. Had it been so a year ago, is there the remotest possibility that jurisdictions would have embarked on restrictions of the same breadth and scope? Does it not follow that now is the right time to move to step 4 and release burdens on people, so that we can get society going? Will the Secretary of State please caution the Opposition on their undue reliance on masks? They are not the solution; vaccinations are.
Sajid Javid
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the importance of vaccination. That has been the key to getting us to where we are on our road map, which is why we cannot emphasise enough the importance of continuing with the programme. That is why we have set out that we plan to have a booster programme in September.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I have constituents who are absolutely ready for restrictions to be lifted, and I have others who are very concerned about the effect of the Johnson variant, which is prevalent in my area, so I can understand entirely the Secretary of State’s desire for balance. That balance is not provided by the Prime Minister saying one thing—usually incoherent bluster about freedom day or terminus day—and other Ministers, such as the Secretary of State, saying other things about the need to continue wearing masks. Does he understand that the continued mixed messaging from the Government is not helping us to get through this crisis?
Sajid Javid
The Government are speaking with one voice, and I believe our view is very clear.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Tomorrow, my right hon. Friend will be asking the House to approve regulations that will put thousands of care workers in England out of a job. Two weeks ago, we were promised that a regulatory impact assessment was available. As of midday today, it is still not available. When will it be available, and why has it not been made available so far?
Sajid Javid
I believe my hon. Friend is referring to the measures that the Government have already announced around vaccinations and people who work in care homes. Ideally, I would like to make sure that the impact assessment is available. I do not know the full detail as to why it has not been completed, but at the same time, I think it is important to get on with this part of building our vaccine wall. We will have more to say about it tomorrow.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware that Singapore has announced its plan to navigate from pandemic to endemic and to co-exist with the virus—they could almost have been reading my speeches and articles. Will the Secretary of State get the economy and society moving again and, in particular, take a fresh look at vaccine passports or certificates, including the vaccine card that we all carry? Let us allow our people to get back to normality.
Sajid Javid
I take it from that that the right hon. Gentleman supports the measures that I have set out today in this statement, and I thank him very much for his support.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con) [V]
I very much welcome this statement today on the back of the successful vaccine roll-out programme. However, given the rising numbers of people having to isolate and the impact this is having on businesses and our economy, can I reiterate the call to my right hon. Friend to consider bringing forward changes to the requirement to isolate after contact with a confirmed case for those who are fully vaccinated? There has to be a better way forward that does not have the economic impact that the current isolation policy is having.
Sajid Javid
I understand the importance of the point my hon. Friend has made. As I said in response to another question, the date of 16 August is based on the best advice that we can get at this point in time. He may be interested to know that, as well as the test and trace system, there is the NHS covid app. A number of people have referred to the so-called pinging. I want to take a careful look at this to ensure that it can also provide a more proportionate and balanced system, given the rate of vaccination.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
There is understandable concern among those who are immunosuppressed, particularly those with blood cancers, about the effectiveness of vaccines and I know that the Secretary of State mentioned this earlier. Can he be really clear: are the vaccines working? Will those people get booster doses early? When will detailed and specific advice on the whole range of conditions be available? I declare an interest, as somebody in my own family and many of my constituents are affected. When will they get clear advice so that their concerns can be put to one side?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue. The vaccines are working and I have set out clearly why. The Government have published much evidence on that. The booster programme begins in September and the immunosuppressed and clinically vulnerable will get priority in that; they will be in the initial cohort. The advice that I referred to earlier will be published today.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
In what circumstances or conditions does my right hon. Friend consider that it will be responsible to work in crowded spaces, such as in retail or hospitality—or, indeed, in this place—without wearing a mask?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is right to raise this and our guidelines on mask wearing will be very clear. If people are in retail spaces and they are crowded—as we know, most of them are enclosed—they should consider wearing a mask. They should be thinking not just about themselves but about the people around them and the people serving them.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab) [V]
The Secretary of State will have seen the huge and rising number of covid infections in the north-east, and the decision to remove controls will clearly accelerate that and increase concerns about the short-term and long-term impacts of covid and the risk of vaccine-resistant variants. Regardless of the proposed covid passports, businesses in the north-east—especially in sectors such as hospitality, where large numbers of young unvaccinated people work—are already struggling to function with reduced staff and customers cancelling at the last minute to self-isolate. With the Government withdrawing economic support at the same time, does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the concern that, for many hospitality businesses, the Government’s summer of high covid may be too much to survive?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady will know that there is still significant economic support in place, and of course it is the job of the Treasury to keep that under review. When it comes to self-isolation and the impact that it has on businesses, it is important, now that we have such a high level of vaccination, including in the north-east, that we can take a more proportionate and balanced approach, and that is exactly what we are doing.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con) [V]
It is great news that we are moving back to personal responsibility next week, and I thank the Secretary of State for that. However, the rates are increasing in Redcar and Cleveland. Although hospitalisations are not climbing in the same way, my concern is that more and more people are having to self-isolate due to the dreaded ping from the NHS app. We all remember the difficulties of last year when people struggled to get a test, but since then the Government have massively increased the testing capability and getting a test is no longer an issue. What more can be done to utilise this immense testing capability to prevent people from having to self-isolate unnecessarily?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is right to raise this. The so-called ping does serve a purpose and it has served a huge purpose as we have been dealing with this pandemic, particularly during the last wave. If someone is pinged, it might be very useful information to them if they were planning in the days ahead to visit a vulnerable person, perhaps a grandparent or someone, so I think it is valuable information to give people. But as I said earlier, I think we can look at the approach and make it more measured, given the high rate of vaccination, and then also, as he suggested, make more use of tests, which is exactly what we are doing.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab) [V]
What assessment have the Secretary of State and his Department made of the number of children with long covid, and when will children get vaccinated?
Sajid Javid
On children and covid—the hon. Gentleman asked about long covid—a huge amount of research is being done both in the NHS and in my Department. I mentioned, for example, the extra £50 million of funding that we are providing to do even more research and to step this up. As he knows, long covid is a problem the world over, and I hope that the UK can become a world leader in trying to help with this problem and share the research that it does with other countries. On the vaccination of children, as I said in response to a similar question, the JCVI is actively looking at this issue. Once we have its final advice, we will set out our plans.
Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s confirmation of the return of our freedoms. Knowing what we do now about the impact of some of our interventions, we must never return to those dark days. While we have taken a huge backward step in this regard, does he agree that we should use this great unlock to usher in a new era of personal responsibility? Perhaps we could start with a review of clause 125 of the Health and Care Bill, which would appear, on the face of it, to prevent UK food manufacturers from advertising their products anywhere online, not just in the UK, while conferring advantage on huge, globally recognised brands.
Sajid Javid
Obesity is a real problem in this country and others and its causes are very complex, but we do want to make sure that we have the best approach possible. My hon. Friend will know that we are planning to debate this Bill on Wednesday and I look forward to seeing him in the debate.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I want to press the Secretary of State a little further on wearing masks. He said that he has been perfectly clear, but the opposite is the case. His Government were dithering on mask wearing in this very week last year, and the dithering and mixed messages continue. He tells us that masks will no longer be compulsory but that wearing them will be expected, as the Chancellor boasts that he will stop wearing a mask on 19 July. The Government chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser say that they will continue to wear masks. Why has this important public health tool been so undermined by the dithering and mixed messages of his Government?
Sajid Javid
I believe I have answered this question a number of times during this session.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]
It is 16 months since I contracted a fairly mild bout of coronavirus, which, unfortunately, developed into terrible long covid, and the symptoms still persist all these months later. The vaccination programme has been a game changer and I want a return to normality, like everyone else, but does the Secretary of State understand that the consequence of his decision may well be more people with long covid? The money for research is welcome, but what more is he planning to do to support those with long covid with health, rehabilitation and social security measures and to support employers with the reality that sections of their workforce might be unfit for work for periods, too?
Sajid Javid
First, as I have said a number of times in this debate, opening up is not without risk, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands that keeping restrictions in place is also not without cost, so the Government have to take a balanced approach. He is right to raise the issue of long covid. As I mentioned, this is something that the Government take very seriously. I have announced another £50 million of funding for research into it. This is a problem not just in the UK; it is an issue the world over. We still do not know enough about long covid. We are learning more all the time, but it will be an absolute priority of this Government to work with people with long covid and do everything that we possibly can.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
More double-vaccinated people than ever are being asked to self-isolate because they have come into contact with someone who has tested positive for covid. That is incredibly difficult for individuals and families and of course it disrupts jobs and businesses; I have heard cases of people being asked to self-isolate more than once in the same month. May I add my voice to others across the House and ask my right hon. Friend to consider bringing forward before 16 August some form of test and release measure for people who are double-vaccinated?
Sajid Javid
Again, this is an important issue. My hon. Friend may have heard the response that I gave earlier about the test and release scheme. I am eagerly waiting to look at the results of that and see whether we can provide further flexibilities. I hope she will also welcome some of the flexibilities that we have already announced, including the changes that will take effect on 16 August.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]
I take this opportunity to condemn the vile online racism against some members of the England football team yesterday after they had given their all for their country.
The World Health Organisation has expressed its concerns about rising infections in England and the risk to the 17 million people who still remain unprotected by vaccination. But even those who have been vaccinated are at risk of long-term illness and disability if they become infected; Office for National Statistics data indicates that one in seven infected people of working age will experience ill health after 12 weeks.
May I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) in chasing the Health Secretary about his estimates of the incidence of long covid as a result of the third wave? What discussions has he had with the Work and Pensions Secretary about what that means when it comes to support through the social security system if people are unable to work?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady raises the importance of vaccination, and she is right to do so. As I mentioned earlier, according to the ONS, nine out of 10 adults in this country have antibodies, which are part of the wall of protection.
The hon. Lady is right to mention that cases will rise in this wave. We have been very open about that. I hope that she heard earlier in my statement that there is no perfect time to start opening up. The risk is that, if we do not do it now and wait until after the summer, the schools will be back, and if we wait longer it will be winter—there is a real, serious risk, which we have been advised about, that the wave could be even bigger than what is anticipated at this point. Many more people would then end up getting infected and, by extension, getting long covid.
I hope that the hon. Lady can consider all that together in a balanced way. If she would like to meet any Ministers or officials in my Department to understand the situation better, I will be happy to arrange that.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
From previous answers given, I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is now looking at the underlying settings of the Track and Trace app—I ask him to do that as a matter of urgency. Those settings take no account of vaccination status or any other behaviours; it is just a blunt, bluetooth signal. It might have had value when there were few other tools in the box, but it must now be highly questionable to condemn potentially millions of people to unnecessary self-isolation and the economic impact thereof.
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that he noted my comment that, precisely for the reasons he set out, given the high rate of vaccination, we are taking a fresh look at the app. I have asked for advice—and have just started to receive some of it—about how we can take a more proportionate and balanced approach.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]
It is clearly right to take further steps towards unlocking, but it is not the all-or-nothing choice that the Secretary of State has suggested and vaccines are not the only tool available. The wearing of masks in enclosed spaces reduces infection and therefore hospitalisations and deaths. It is supported by health experts and backed by the public. The reasons why the wearing of masks was made mandatory remain the same as when the Government recommended it all those months ago. With hospitalisations up 34% on a week ago, will the Secretary of State not put public health before the pressure from his more vocal Back Benchers and retain mandatory mask wearing for public transport and other enclosed spaces?
Sajid Javid
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is not all or nothing, which is why the Government have been very clear that as we start opening up other measures will rightfully stay in place—I mentioned earlier the border controls, the test and trace system and the plan for booster vaccines. I hope that he would welcome that.
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)
I have had the privilege of seeing some of the terrific work being done in Aberconwy by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board on the delivery of the UK vaccine throughout north Wales. Does my right hon. Friend think that the pandemic has shown us, or perhaps reheated or reinforced, the importance of working together on health matters? Does he agree that the UK Government and the devolved Administrations should now explore opportunities to work together on better health outcomes for all UK residents in all parts of the UK?
Sajid Javid
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. During this pandemic we have seen that, by working together on all types of public health issues, but especially the vaccine and its delivery, we are stronger together. We should draw some long-term lessons from that about how we can use it not only to protect against future pandemics—sadly, there will be some—but in respect of other public health issues that we face collectively to find a way to do a better job together.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
I have written to the Secretary of State to urge him to do everything that he can to protect immunocompromised people as restrictions are eased. We urgently need the results of the OCTAVE study into the efficacy of covid-19 vaccines on this population; when will we get them? In the meantime, will the Government provide antibody tests for immunocompromised people, allowing them to make informed decisions? Better communication and proper support will go a long way towards alleviating the escalating levels of concern.
Sajid Javid
On the study to which the hon. Lady referred, I will look into that and write to her, if she will allow me. Immunocompromised people and what we can do to help them has come up a number of times during this statement. I direct the hon. Lady to the comments I have already made and highlight the fact that we will publish some guidance today.
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Last week, I heard from a self-employed small business owner in my constituency of Keighley and Ilkley who has been told to self-isolate three times in the past two months, despite not testing positive on any of those occasions. Such an experience is both impractical for the individual and harmful to our local economy, so will my right hon. Friend assure me that he is exploring all possible options to remedy the situation, whether through adjustments to the NHS app or changes to the self-isolation rules?
Sajid Javid
On the app and the so-called pinging—my hon. Friend referred to an individual in his constituency who has perhaps been pinged too many times—it is right, as I have said, that we take a fresh look at any changes that we can make in the light of the success of the mass vaccination campaign. If my hon. Friend will bear with me, I think he will be pleased with our course of action.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
In response to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), the Secretary of State said that the Government speak with one voice. Well, clearly on masks they change in response to whatever the latest YouGov poll says. He has been very clear today that people should wear a mask in confined spaces, so I ask him a direct question: what is his advice to retailers? Should they insist on their customers wearing masks when they enter their shops?
Sajid Javid
The guidance that we will publish today will be very clear on that.
Sir Christopher Chope
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It arises directly out of the response that the Secretary of State gave to me. Tomorrow this House is being asked to approve the Draft Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021. When that instrument was laid on 22 June, the explanatory memorandum said:
“A full impact assessment of the costs and benefits of this instrument is”—
I emphasise “is”—
“available from the Department of Health and Social Care…and is published alongside this instrument”.
As of 12 o’clock today, I have been trying, through the good offices of our excellent colleagues in the Library, to get an answer from the Department as to when we are going to get that impact assessment. The officials at the DHSC are quoted by the Library as having said, “The impact assessment has not been laid yet”—we knew that—and, “We will be laying it at the earliest opportunity.” This is very serious, because on 6 July the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee referred to the impossibility of being able to scrutinise the legislation properly without the impact assessment. Despite the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee recommending that the debate be deferred, nothing has happened and all that the Secretary of State said in response to me was, “Well, we don’t know where it is but don’t worry about it—we’ll carry on tomorrow anyway.” That is just not good enough. I would be grateful for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, as to what we can do to ensure that we have an informed debate with the impact assessment before us.
Mr Mark Harper
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In intending to be helpful to those on the Treasury Bench, I have noticed, looking at the said regulations, that they do not actually come into force until 16 weeks after they are approved by the House. It seems to me that in four months there is plenty of time for the Government to produce the relevant information for the House and for the House to take a decision, with no detriment at all to the health and safety of anyone in our care homes.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank both hon. and right hon. Gentlemen for their points of order. I am sure the House is well aware that it is not a matter for the Chair. I will not spring it on the Secretary of State for him to give an answer on this operational matter, but Mr Speaker usually observes that it is helpful to the House for Members to have as much information as possible before them when a matter of importance is to be considered.
Sir Christopher Chope
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The explanatory memorandum falsely asserted that the full impact assessment is available. Why was the House misled in that way?
Madam Deputy Speaker
Once again, the hon. Gentleman knows that I cannot answer that question, because what is said by Ministers and their Departments is not a matter for the Chair. However, if it were to be the case that a spokesman for a Minister had suggested that something had happened that had not happened, and on which Members were trying to rely and could not rely, Mr Speaker would take a very dim view of that. It is better if Ministers make sure that their Departments give as much information as possible to Members ahead of discussions.
Jonathan Ashworth
It is indeed further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to reinforce the point raised by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). What the House is being asked to decide tomorrow is whether to proceed with compulsory vaccination for a certain section of the healthcare workforce. We have not had compulsory vaccination in this country since the 19th century, when it was tried and abandoned. This is an incredibly serious intervention. Is there a procedure by which the House can delay coming to a decision tomorrow until the assessment is published?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I do not believe there is such a procedure, as the matters on the Order Paper are a matter for the Government. I note that the Lord President of the Council has just come into the Chamber, so he will undoubtedly hear the end of this matter, although he did not hear the beginning of it and so I would not dream of asking him to comment. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that a delay should be put in place, I am sure he will be able to make reference to that when he has the opportunity to do so tomorrow.
Sir Desmond Swayne
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will it be possible—will it be in order—to question the Leader of the House about this matter, as he is about to make a statement about tomorrow’s business?
Madam Deputy Speaker
No. The right hon. Gentleman is fond of short questions and short answers, and that is my short answer. The statement that will be made after a brief suspension of the House, which I am about to announce, by the Lord President of the Council, will be, I understand, on a very narrow and specific matter, and I will allow questions only on that very narrow and specific matter. Having said all that, I am quite sure that the Secretary of State and those on the Treasury Bench have taken note of what has been said over these past minutes. [Interruption.] I am pleased to see that the Secretary of State has indeed taken note, so hon. Members have achieved what they set out to achieve. I shall now suspend the House in order that arrangements can be made for the next item of business.
Business of the House
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
I should like to make a short business statement.
Further to my statement to the House last Thursday, the first item of business tomorrow will now be consideration of a business of the House motion followed by a general debate on the Treasury update on international aid.
This will be followed by remaining stages of the Armed Forces Bill followed by a motion to approve the draft Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021.
This will be followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism followed by a motion relating to English votes for English laws.
The last item of business will be a motion relating to the appointment of chair of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
The business for the rest of the week remains unchanged and I shall make a further business statement as usual on Thursday.
The business for the rest of the week remains unchanged, and I shall make a further business statement as usual on Thursday. It may be useful for Members of the House to know that the call list will be open once the business statement has concluded and will close at 8 o’clock this evening.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for advance sight of the statement. We on the Opposition Benches, along with many on the Government Benches, have argued strongly for a proper debate and an amendable motion with a vote on international aid cuts, so I have various questions about what will happen tomorrow. He says that it is a general debate, but what will be the question? Will the debate be on an amendable motion, and if not, why not? How long will the debate be? If we are to have a vote, will he confirm that it will be legally binding on the Government, or will it be just politically binding?
This evening is obviously not the time for us to debate the merits, or rather the lack of merits, of cutting aid and undermining our legally and morally binding commitments to the world’s poorest; that will be for tomorrow. If the motion for the general debate will be votable, what would be the consequences if it were defeated? My suspicions at the moment are that this could be a Treasury road map to 0.7%, which might take a rather roundabout route, rather than this House deciding—and I know that the right hon. Gentleman is usually in favour of that, as someone who defends the rights of this House. Am I correct on that?
Finally, so that we can all understand precisely where we will be, especially as so many Members on both sides of the House have expressed such strong views, if the House votes down the motion, if there is one, on the general debate tomorrow, will international aid go back to 0.7% of gross national income in January 2022—yes or no?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The answer to the last question is yes. The written ministerial statement from the Treasury says:
“However, if the House were to negative the motion, rejecting the government’s assessment of the fiscal circumstances, then the government would consequently return to spending 0.7% of GNI on international aid in the next calendar year”—
so that is from January 2022—
“and with likely consequences for the fiscal situation, including for taxation and current public spending plans.”
The motion will be: “That this House has considered the written ministerial statement relating to the Treasury update on international aid, which was laid before this House on Monday 12 July.” The debate will be for three hours and the decision will be binding on Her Majesty’s Government.
Votes have consequences and if the motion were to be negatived, that would be a significant consequence for our fiscal situation where, I remind the House, more than £400 billion has had to be spent because of the coronavirus pandemic and yet we remain one of the most generous nations in terms of overseas aid. This is merely an effort to facilitate the House in debating an issue that is of concern to many Members because, unfortunately, some missed the opportunity to do so on the estimates days.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
Obviously, it was only on Thursday last week that we had the previous business statement, so I guess my first question to the Leader of the House would be, what has changed in the time from Thursday till today? Clearly, it is welcome that such an opportunity is being presented, but it does appear to me to be highly unusual that a general debate is being used as a mechanism to allow this vote to take place, especially when the Government themselves are bringing it forward. Is there a particular reason why the Government are using a general debate, rather than any other more substantive mechanism, to bring this forward? Beyond that, may I ask the Leader of the House what time or protected time will then to be allocated to the other items of business that were already on the agenda for tomorrow?
Mr Rees-Mogg
What has changed? Well, I do my best to facilitate the House, and very distinguished hon. and right hon. Members wanted further debate because, as I have mentioned, they had rather forgotten their early education on how estimates days work and therefore wanted a further debate. It is being provided in this way to allow the House to come to a clear decision. It will be a yes or no answer. Does this House wish to see the public finances kept under reasonable control, does it recognise that there are limits to what we can do and does it recognise that there are in fact generous billionaires who are giving money for overseas aid, which should be enormously welcome, or on the other hand do we want to hard press our hard-pressed taxpayers even further? That will be the question for the debate tomorrow, and a very clear answer can be given.
On the timings for the debates tomorrow, most of them are set out in Standing Orders, so debates under an Act are always for 90 minutes, and the motion relating to English votes for English laws, on which I think the hon. Gentleman and I will be on the same side, will have an hour.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I had proposed only to hear points or take questions to the Lord President from those on the Front Benches, but if the two right hon. Gentlemen who have caught my eye, the right hon. Members for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), are asking specifically about the narrow point that the Lord President has brought to the Chamber, I will hear them.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will resist quoting page 688 of “Erskine May” to the Lord President, but can he give us an answer to this question? He has told us about the financial numbers, but will we have an impact assessment on the number of lives lost as a result of this policy, and will the motion be amendable?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I will allow that question because it is very specific.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend is coming on to some of the topics that will be discussed tomorrow. It is in effect a deponent motion: it is passive in form, but active in meaning.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, and following your strictures, I will limit my very specific question to what is in the emergency business statement. The Leader of the House will know that the motion to approve the draft Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021 is also on a very important matter, effective compulsory vaccination for care home workers. What I am not clear about, even from his answer to the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson)—and this would be of enormous interest to many outside this House—is whether the Leader of the House can give me an indication of when he would be expecting that debate to take place. In other words, when will the remaining stages of the Armed Forces Bill finish so that that debate can start? That will be of interest to many outside the House.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend is a former Chief Whip, and he will know that the progress of business is dependent upon the loquacity of hon. and right hon. Members, which is not something it is possible for me to predict.
Sir Christopher Chope
Can I ask my right hon. Friend whether it will be possible to amend the business of the House motion to facilitate the deferral of the debate on the draft Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Those matters are matters properly for the Speaker rather than for me, but it may be possible that we could have an interesting discussion on the meaning of the word “forthwith”. I seem to remember that that topic exercised the House to a considerable degree in a previous Parliament.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Indeed we could, but let us hope that we will not.
That concludes the business statement, and I will very briefly suspend the House—for just two minutes.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill
Monday 12th July 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 View all Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
21:50 - The House divided: - Ayes: 216 / Noes: 367 - Question accordingly negatived.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I should report to the House that the reasoned amendment in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has been selected.
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I wonder how many of us here ever pause to reflect on how very fortunate we are to be able to do what we are doing right now—discussing freely a subject that many of us will feel passionate about. I suspect that most of us accept without pause that this is what democracy is all about. In short, we take freedom of speech and open debate for granted. Nothing that is precious in life should ever be taken for granted.
The privileges that we are enjoying today and that underpin any successful democratic society are essential and fundamental to a free and liberal society. Genuine academic freedom has long been a cornerstone of our world-leading universities. Their mission to stretch the boundaries of human learning, knowledge and wisdom was only possible because they were free to challenge the views of the time. Without their courage and without the bravery of those who defended their right to speak out, the world would be a much darker place today. Those challenges—those dissenting voices—have not always met with approval or agreement at the time. Some paid dearly for their intellectual independence. Take those trailblazers who argued for gay rights or women’s suffrage, or Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution was considered blasphemous and deeply offensive by many but which we now accept as simple truth.
One reason why students from all over the world flock to our universities is they know—or expect—that they will not only get a first-class education but hear a broad range of views and opinions. Academics, whom our outstanding universities similarly attract from a global talent pool, expect to be able freely and fiercely to seek out the truth. What they do not expect and should not tolerate is being prevented from hearing those views or even being silenced themselves. Freedom of speech is a fundamental right in any civilised country but especially for students and faculty in higher education, which has always been a crucible for new ideas and ways of looking at the world. Staff and students should be free to discuss, debate and debunk other views.
Fear of censure is deeply saddening and has a chilling effect and spread on campuses. There continue to be too many reported instances where students or staff have been silenced or threatened with a loss of privileges or even dismissal for airing views or opinions that others disagree with. I have previously spoken about how that growing intolerance cannot be allowed to take root and I made it clear that if universities would not protect free speech, the Government would.
I turn to the reasoned amendment, which Mr Speaker has selected. The Government have been clear that the Bill protects lawful speech only. Unlawful speech on campuses will not be tolerated. To be clear, nothing in the Bill encourages higher education providers or students unions to encourage baseless or harmful claims or bad science on campus. We should be proud of our life-saving covid-19 vaccine roll-out, and we are pleased to see that more than half of 18 to 24-year-olds have already received their first dose.
Mr Jones
It is the right hon. Gentleman. I agree totally about freedom of speech, which is one of the best things about this country and one that I am proud of, but what data is the Secretary of State using? If he looks at the Office for Students’ data for 2017-18, he will see that the instances he referred to amount to 0.009%. In an entire year, there were 17 cases among more than 500 academic institutions. What data is he basing his claims on?
Gavin Williamson
I apologise for causing such offence to the right hon. Gentleman by referring to him as “the hon. Gentleman”. It was not right to ignore the fitting status that he holds in this House. I am sure he will not take too much offence by that. In terms of what we are tackling, we are talking about principles and the need for people to feel able to speak freely and challenge ideas. One of the great challenges we face on campuses up and down the country is that so many people are concerned they cannot speak out and give their views because they may be censured by those academic institutions.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
In response to the point made by the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), had Darwin been suppressed, that would have affected 0.0001% of debates, but it would have changed the course of history.
Gavin Williamson
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. So much of the legislation that goes through this place is the nuts and bolts for things that the Government must do to ensure good government and the delivery of all the things that we wish to see. However, we must not be blind to the fact that this place is also about principle, and the principle of free speech needs to be defended. There are unfortunately too many instances where people feel as if they cannot speak as freely as they wish.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State believe in evidence-based policy making? If so, can he cite the evidence for the problem that he is seeking to address? It appears that he is manufacturing a problem in order to have today’s debate.
Gavin Williamson
We are talking about principles. We are talking about the fact that what we want to do is give people the opportunity to have that freedom. Do you know what was so saddening, Madam Deputy Speaker? When we first announced the intention that we would take this action if it was necessary—
Gavin Williamson
What we hoped we would see is universities across the country taking further action, but what was so saddening was that so many people contacted me directly to express their concerns about being able to speak freely on campus at the universities where they worked. They were not able to put down their name and address, because they were concerned about the repercussions.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) rightly said that it would be a tragedy if Darwin had not felt that he had the freedom and ability to challenge established thinking. We have to remember that there are Darwins out there who will be challenging the consensus, and we always need to ensure that all our great institutions deliver the freedoms that we expect them to deliver. We are a free and democratic society, and we should never be in a position where we are not doing everything we can to deliver freedom of speech. Does it not seem odd—in Parliament, of all places, where freedom of speech is there to be protected, relished and enjoyed—that the Labour party is not necessarily challenging and trying to amend the Bill, but wants to actively vote it down? It seems perverse that the Labour party is not supporting the principles of freedom of speech and is not doing everything we can to ensure that students and academics have as much freedom as possible to explore ideas.
As we look at how we protect free speech, we should all be appalled that a report by King’s College London only two years ago found that a quarter of students believed that violence was an acceptable response to inflammatory speech. The same report showed that a similar proportion of students were beginning to keep their beliefs and opinions to themselves because they were too scared to disagree with their peers.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Gavin Williamson
If I could just make a little progress, I will give way to the hon. Lady.
I am sure the whole House would agree that this intolerance is simply intolerable. Recent research by Policy Exchange revealed that 32% of those who identified as fairly right or right have refrained from airing views in teaching and research, with 15% of those identifying as centre or left also self-censoring. This is both unwise and unhealthy. Our universities must not become spaces where ideas are debated within a narrow consensus, with those who challenge majority views subject to censorship. Last year, I warned vice-chancellors that this situation could not and would not be allowed to continue. Although some have taken action, we cannot sit by while others do not. Our students and faculty quite simply deserve better.
Jess Phillips
As the Secretary of State talks about people being scared on campus and what he has asked vice-chancellors to do, I wonder whether he has the data in front of him for sexual harassment and sexual violence cases, which are rife on our university campuses. On the deep principles that he holds, what exactly is he doing about that, and when can I expect a Bill on that? That is surely a principled priority that the Government would want to take.
Gavin Williamson
It absolutely is. I am sure the hon. Lady was about to come on to the amazing work that the Office for Students has commissioned to ensure that all universities take the action required, including looking at whether that is a condition of registration for universities, which, as she will understand, is absolutely fundamental for universities to be able to operate.
The Bill will protect lawful freedom of speech and academic freedom on campus. We are strengthening the legal duties that exist and ensuring that robust action, including imposing fines, will be taken if they are breached. The central core of the Bill is clause 1, which amends the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to extend the duties of higher education providers relating to freedom of speech and academic freedom. That will ensure that those freedoms are protected and promoted within higher education in England.
As we actively protect students from racism, antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, higher education providers will have to take responsibility and reasonably practicable steps to secure lawful freedom of speech for their staff, members, students and visiting speakers. That includes a duty to secure the academic freedom of academic staff. It will mean a change in ethos as well as culture. Providers will be under a duty to promote those fundamental values, as well as to maintain a code of practice setting out how students and staff should act so as to ensure compliance with that duty.
Freedom of speech does not begin and end with providers. As a matter of principle, every student at every university in every corner of the country should have the same freedom and the same rights. Students unions must not be allowed to silence or intimidate other students within a university. That is why clause 2 requires students unions and providers to take “reasonably practicable” steps to secure lawful freedom of speech for their members, students, staff and visiting speakers.
As now, the right to lawful free speech will remain balanced by the important safeguards against harassment, abuse and threats of violence as set out in the Equality Act 2010, the Prevent duty and other legislation, none of which we are changing. This is not an ideological effort; it is about fundamental fairness and common sense. These legal duties are key to ensuring that the higher education sector in England continues to be an environment in which students, staff and visiting speakers are not just able but welcome to freely express their views, as long as those views are lawful. The reason we need this effort is because the existing legislation provides no clear means of enforcement, nor does it give a specific right to individuals to seek compensation for breach of freedom of speech duties, leading to concerns that it does not offer serious, sufficient or significant protection.
This is why clause 3 introduces a new statutory tort that will protect visiting fellows, students and other individuals who may not be able to seek redress through employment tribunal. Though this legal route is an important backstop, we do not want all cases going to court where they could otherwise be resolved by other means. We are therefore providing that the Office for Students, the regulator for higher education in England, will play a more active role in strengthening freedom of speech and academic freedom standards in higher education.
Clause 4 imposes new freedom of speech duties on the OFS, including requiring it to promote the importance of freedom of speech within the law and the academic freedom of academic staff at higher education providers. The OFS will also play an important role in identifying best practice and providing advice in relation to the promotion of these rights.
The OFS will have a more direct route to regulate the freedom of speech duties under clause 5, which requires the OFS to set new registration conditions relating to freedom of speech and academic freedom. This clause will ensure that the registration conditions relating to freedom of speech and academic freedom are aligned with the duties on higher education providers imposed by the Bill. The OfS will be able to ensure that these are complied with by using its usual powers of accountability and enforcement, such as the power to impose fines.
As I have said, it is vital that students unions are also doing their bit to ensure freedom of speech on campus. Clause 6 extends the regulatory functions of the OfS so that it can effectively regulate and enforce the new freedom of speech duties that we are placing on students unions. The OfS will monitor compliance and have the power to impose fines.
Lilian Greenwood
When I heard the Universities Minister discussing this matter on the radio some time ago, she suggested that these proposals in the Bill could enable holocaust deniers to seek compensation. Do the Government really want to protect people like that and those sorts of repugnant views? Why is that the Government’s priority?
Gavin Williamson
As the hon. Lady will know, it is absolutely clear that this Bill will never create a platform for holocaust deniers. She is probably familiar with the Public Order Act 1986, the Equality Act 2010, which was introduced by the Labour party, and the Prevent duties introduced in 2015. If made an Act, this legislation will never create the space to tolerate holocaust deniers.
There is at the moment no direct way for anyone to complain about freedom of speech matters other than for students against their higher education provider. This scheme will provide a route to individual redress for all students, staff and visiting speakers to back up the new strengthened freedom of speech duties provided in the Bill for providers and students unions.
Jess Phillips
The Secretary of State is describing all the protections that will go to the OfS. I simply ask, will any of those protections provide for compensation and regulation in cases where people are raped or sexually abused on university campuses and have no redress? Will that freedom, for those students, be included? Will they be able to get compensation when their universities mismanage their cases?
Gavin Williamson
I refer the hon. Lady to the comments that I made some moments ago; we have asked the Office for Students to look into this whole area to see how we can get this redress. She probably noted that I mentioned some of the conditions of registration for higher education institutions that can be part of that process. That is an area that we are looking at and have asked the OfS to address directly.
The OfS will be able to make a recommendation to the higher education provider or students union, which could include, for example, a recommendation to pay a sum in compensation, or reinstate the complainant’s job or place on a course. The scheme will be overseen by the newly created position of director for freedom of speech and academic freedom within the OfS. The director will oversee the various free speech functions of the OfS, including compliance and enforcement. The provision in clause 8 means that there will be an individual in the OfS who has exclusive focus on championing these key values in our higher education sector.
Clause 9 gives effect to the schedule to the Bill, which contains minor and consequential amendments to other legislation. These amendments are necessary to give effect to the main provisions of the Bill, and to make all the relevant legislation work seamlessly and consistently.
Of course, Government action in this area cannot by itself be enough. Cultural change is essential, but, as we have seen in so many areas, such as gender equality or anti-discrimination, cultural change occurs more readily when it is backed up by law. I began by saying that many of us take freedom of speech for granted. The facts on the ground and in universities tell us that this must change. By introducing concise, clear consequences for any breach of a freedom of speech duty, these legislative changes will preserve, protect and safeguard free speech, and open debate in our universities right now, tomorrow and for years to come. Some day—not long from now—our children will thank us for what we do today. I commend the Bill to the House.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, notwithstanding the need to ensure legal protections for freedom of speech and academic freedom, because the Bill is a hate speech protection bill which could provide legal protection and financial recompense to those seeking to engage in harmful and dangerous speech on university campuses, including Holocaust denial, racism, and anti-vaccination messages.”
Let me start by making absolutely clear the importance that the Labour party attaches to freedom of speech and academic freedom. Indeed, it might be useful for me to remind the House of the histories of my party and the Conservative party on this issue. The Labour party is the party that enshrined the Human Rights Act 1998 in domestic law, guaranteeing legally protected rights to freedom of thought, conscience and expression. That Act is one of the most important legal measures we have to protect the rights of every citizen of this country. How did the Conservative party respond? By seeking to undermine those rights, voting against their enshrinement in domestic law and subsequently threatening to take them off the statute book altogether.
Nobody should be fooled into thinking that the Conservative party has now changed its stance. Recently, the Conservatives introduced a new law with significant consequences for freedom of expression. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill creates a new criminal offence if a person performs an act that causes “serious inconvenience”. It is a dangerous curtailment of the right to protest, which is fundamental to democracy. That Bill and the one before us tell the House and the country everything they need to know about how this Conservative Government really approach our right to freedom of speech and expression. A group of individuals coming together to protest could face criminal charges for causing serious inconvenience, but because of this Bill a group spreading division and hatred on university campuses would be not just legally protected but able to sue a university or student union that tried to stop them. That is what we on the Opposition Benches object to, and what the whole House should object to: a Bill that amounts to legal protection for hate speech. It has no place on campus, no place in our society and no place on our statute book.
The Secretary of State claimed a moment ago that a legislative framework—including, I was pleased to note, Labour’s Equality Act 2010, to which he referred—to prevent the spreading of hate speech is already in place, but that was not the view of the Government’s Minister for Universities, who, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), acknowledged that holocaust deniers could be protected under this Bill. If the Minister responsible for this legislation believes that the Bill protects or could protect holocaust deniers, that should be a sufficient reason for any Member of this House to oppose it.
It is right, as the Secretary of State said, that we have laws to prevent hate speech, but is not at all clear that they will prevent the kind of harmful speech that will be protected under this Bill. It may not always be the case that there is a victim of harassment as prescribed under the Equality Act if, for instance, there is a meeting to discuss holocaust denial at which only those who support those horrific views are present. Conservative Members have no response on how existing laws will prevent harmful conspiracy theorists—such as anti-vaxxers—who could be protected on campus. Does the Secretary of State’s Bill protect the misinformation that causes damage and concern about vaccines and their efficacy, such as was spread by Professor Andrew Wakefield?
Not only could holocaust deniers have their right to speak on campus legally protected, but if they feel they are denied their right, they could take universities and student unions to court to seek financial recompense. They would be able to seek a pay-out from universities, seeking to cash in on public money—students’ tuition fees—that should fund teaching and learning.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that it also opens the door to states that wish to do us harm? There is a lot of open source evidence about the Chinese communist party using students here to propagate anti-Hong Kong stories and other propaganda on behalf of the Chinese Government. Under the Bill, we would have to allow them to go ahead because otherwise they could take us to court, allowing the harm that they could do to students of Chinese origin who might take a different view.
Kate Green
As the House will know, my right hon. Friend commands great expertise on issues of national security, and the Secretary of State must satisfactorily answer his question for the House. I know he would agree with my right hon. Friend, with me and with all right hon. and hon. Members that anything that could put our national security at risk, call it into question or give succour to those who seek to harm this country would have to be prevented. If the Secretary of State can put that assurance on the record now, I know that my right hon. Friend would be grateful for it.
Gavin Williamson
Indeed, there is a great deal of concern among students from Hong Kong about the fact that they are being silenced in university campuses up and down this country. They have not had the freedom to speak on campus, which is why this Bill is so important—so that different voices, be they Hong Kongers or Uyghurs, are able to speak on campus and not be silenced by much larger groups. That is exactly why this legislation is so incredibly important. I would love to hear from the hon. Lady what freedoms she actually does think are worth protecting.
Kate Green
I am not sure whether the Secretary of State was suggesting that Hong Kong students and Uyghurs are silenced on our campuses, which is of course is what we are talking about in this Bill. I am not aware of instances that the Secretary of State has evidenced of such people being silenced on campuses. Indeed, this is a problem with his whole Bill: it is an evidence-free zone when it comes to underpinning the concerns that he says it is addressing.
Gavin Williamson
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. Sadly, she is misinformed, as there have been a number of instances where minority students have felt themselves silenced as a result of much larger groups of student bodies putting pressure on, especially within student unions, to silence them. This is why this legislation is so incredibly important; those students, be they of Hong Kong or Uyghur descent, should always have the ability to be able to talk openly and freely on university campuses so that these challenges can be properly exposed.
Kate Green
I am sorry, but I do not think the Secretary of State has been able to answer my direct question about instances of Uyghur and Hong Kong students being deterred from speaking on our campuses. He talks in general terms about some groups being silenced—I agree with him that that is wrong, and I will come on to that point in a moment—but I have asked him to present specific instances to the House. If he cannot do that this afternoon, and I understand that he may not have that information in front of him, perhaps later he will put that evidence in the House of Commons Library so that we can all examine it before the Bill goes into Committee.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, for whom I have a great deal of respect—I would like to put that on the record—but she is wrong about that. There have been instances, and I am happy to give her detail of them, of groups of Hong Kong students in British universities being surrounded, physically intimidated and verbally intimidated by students from the Chinese mainland who are also students in this country. This is not isolated; unfortunately, there is a theme of this kind. I know that she would not want to associate herself with this kind of thing.
Kate Green
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that information, which is clearly shocking. Of course, my question to the Secretary of State would be: if intimidation is involved, why are we not already using the criminal law to address it?
Mr Kevan Jones
I am sorry, but the Secretary of State, in his rant, just does not get it, does he? He knows as well as I do that the Chinese communist party is using universities—placing students and funding activities there. If this Bill goes through as outlined, the Chinese communist party will be able to propagate its propaganda, and if a university was to turn around and say no to it, it could then use this Bill to argue for freedom of speech. He may wish to give a safe haven to that type of activity, but I do not.
Kate Green
My right hon. Friend makes the point perfectly.
I want to ask the Secretary of State about some other uncertainties that the Bill creates. I think he is seeking to say to the House that the Bill would not protect holocaust deniers. However, if a university did not want to provide a room to holocaust deniers, would the proposed speakers be able to seek compensation through the tort created by clause 3? What if nobody turns up to a meeting that has been booked? Would it be lawful to advertise such a meeting? What about other forms of free speech? Will anti-vax campaigners be protected under the Secretary of State’s Bill? Does he believe that a university should be liable under the Bill if it seeks to stop the spread of dangerous misinformation from guest speakers? What about those seeking to spread conspiracy theories or to sow division in our communities? Does he really believe not only that this kind of harmful, hateful, divisive speech should be legally protected on campus, but that those seeking to peddle it can take a university to court for interfering with their right to do so? Those of us on the Opposition Benches believe that there is no place for that on our campuses, and that is why we will be voting for our reasoned amendment this evening.
We have other objections to this Bill. Actually, I cannot understand why the Government think it is needed. An assessment by the Office for Students found that just 53 out of 59,574 events with external speakers were refused permission in 2017-18. Perhaps that was an unusually slow year for cancel culture and there is a real problem. However, last year a survey found, as we have heard, that of 10,000 events with external speakers, only six were cancelled.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Is not the point that free speech is stifled because people will not even bring these events forward? The hon. Lady must understand from having sat in loads of constituency Labour party meetings how people were silenced for years under the previous Labour leader. In fact, they were driven out of her party, so surely she can understand how that is also happening in education institutions today.
Kate Green
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that my experience of CLP meetings is not that they are silent. However, he does raise a serious point about the chilling effect that I think the Secretary of State, too, suggested. But that cuts both ways. I believe that, subject to this Bill, universities and student unions will become much more fearful that if they host certain events, or allow them to be hosted, they will come under much more pressure to host other unsavoury events, and that that will mean they will stifle debate altogether.
If I may say to the hon. Gentleman, I think it will also mean that the campus will not feel like a safe space for some students. If it is possible for people to come on to campus and assert their right as holocaust deniers to have a meeting room, albeit perhaps to discuss the issue privately, the campus will not feel like a welcoming and safe space for Jewish students.
What is fundamentally wrong with this Bill is that it begins in the wrong place. It has started before we have had a proper national public debate about where we think the acceptable boundary sits between speech that is offensive or hurtful but that ought to be permitted under this Bill, and speech that is harmful, divisive and, though perhaps not unlawful, has no place on campus. I might have been more willing to accept this kind of legislation had that debate taken place across the country and had we had that discussion about boundaries and where we think we sit. Instead, the Government are in a rush to legislate, in the absence of much tangible evidence.
I was talking about the small number of events for which we have evidence that they have been cancelled. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that there will be events that we do not know about that did not take place, but we cannot make legislation on the basis of anecdote and speculation. The figures we have really do not support the idea that there is a crisis of free speech on university campuses. All I can say to the Secretary of State is that if he believes otherwise, will he call on the Office for Students to gather and publish that data every year, so that we can see what sort of legislation might be needed?
The Government’s plans, I am afraid, seem to be based pretty much entirely on a report by Policy Exchange, referenced by the Secretary of State and referenced in more than one third of the footnotes of the policy paper that Ministers published in advance of the Bill’s publication. The Government’s paper cites the report’s finding that around one in three academics—I think the Secretary of State referred to this—who identify as being politically right or fairly right have stopped openly airing opinions in teaching and research. He referenced other figures in relation to left and centre-left academics.
Let us examine a bit more of the data. Ten currently serving academics said that they were self-censoring right-wing views. I agree that widespread academic self-censorship would be deeply troubling, but the numbers we have are modest and do not, in my view, really make the case for a legislative response when the Government’s priority right now should be students’ recovery from the pandemic, making up the learning they have lost and securing their futures. Even if I am wrong, and the Secretary of State is right that there is a chilling effect on campus and that legislation is required to deal with it, do we need this Bill to do it?
Gavin Williamson
I am curious to know whether the hon. Lady can state what the acceptable level of self-censorship is that she is comfortable with.
Kate Green
The point is not whether I think self-censorship is acceptable—I do not—the question is whether legislation is the right response to it. I just believe that at a time when we have many other priorities to deal with on our university campuses—[Interruption.] There should be no self-censorship of lawful and honourable views, but it is not acceptable to make legislation and use valuable parliamentary time to deal with a small number of cases that could be dealt with more effectively without legislation. The reason I say that is that we already have the legislative framework we need on the statute book.
Section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, “Freedom of speech in universities, polytechnics and colleges”, reads almost identically to new section A1 under clause 1 of the Bill. It creates a legal duty to promote freedom of speech for students, staff and visiting speakers. Similarly, the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 already creates a duty for the universities regulator to protect academic freedom.
Kate Green
The Secretary of State should have perhaps made these arguments in his opening speech, but I will of course give way to him again, although I hope he will make time for other colleagues.
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Lady is always incredibly generous, and it is much appreciated. I hope that I always repay the compliment in return when she intervenes. I am sure she will also be able to set out the steps under the existing legislation that an academic, a student or, potentially, a visiting speaker who has been cancelled could take.
Kate Green
I think the Secretary of State is driving at clause 3 of the Bill, which would create a statutory tort. [Interruption.] I think he is driving at the need for clause 3 and the statutory tort, and I just want to express some of my concerns about that.
Kate Green
I am answering the question that the Secretary of State asked me a moment ago. The Bill means that we will be in a situation where those who wish to challenge a refusal to allow them to speak on campus—
Kate Green
No, I would not like the Secretary of State to intervene again while I am still answering the question he asked me a moment ago. The problem with the Bill and clause 3, which creates a new route for individuals, is that it is more harmful in its effect. It opens up the possibility for vexatious litigants and their lawyers repeatedly to bypass internal complaints procedures, repeatedly to bypass the Office of the Independent Adjudicator route or the Office for Students route and go straight to the courts, undermining confidence in those procedures, undermining the funding of universities and student unions and causing confusion about the routes for redress that speakers should be able to take advantage of.
I am going to make a little bit of progress, because I know that many others want to come into the debate. The Bill before us tonight is wasting legislative time by repeating provisions already found in law to address a problem that has not been evidenced by the debate so far today. I recognise that the Joint Committee on Human Rights raised concerns that the current legislative framework was complex, but the Government’s plans seem only to complicate things further by duplicating legal duties and creating new legally actionable wrongs that would operate in parallel to university and student union processes. It seems impossible that the Bill will leave the position clearer than it is currently.
Let me be generous and assume for a moment that, despite the provisions that already exist in our laws, this Bill is needed, that in the face of the evidence we have heard so far there is a crisis of free speech on campuses and that the Bill will remedy the situation. Let us see if it succeeds on its own terms. It does not. It is a mess of duplication, poor definition and ill-thought-through provisions that will set back free speech. Let me start with an easy problem: the extent of the Bill. It applies to registered higher education providers and to student unions, and immediately we appear to hit a gap in coverage. Oxford and Cambridge colleges are not included in the register kept by the Office for Students. Does that mean that if a violation of free speech takes place in a building owned by, say, Balliol college, Oxford, instead of by the University of Oxford, it is not within the scope of the Bill? Or if it takes place in a pub in the city of Cambridge owned by the university, and someone is removed from the pub for offensive but legal speech, could they take legal action against the university?
Who are members of the university for the purposes of the Bill? MillionPlus, for example, has asked whether it would cover emeritus professors. Is it desirable to risk the Office for Students, a body whose board is appointed directly by politicians, effectively becoming a state censor of controversial topics? Why does the Secretary of State believe that clause 3 is needed? Why does he think that we need a route straight to court, bypassing university complaints procedures? If he does believe that a route to court is necessary, can he say whether there will be any limit on the damages that could be awarded? Does he not understand that, as Universities UK has warned, this risks giving a free pass to vexatious litigants and their lawyers?
Even if we thought the Bill were needed, it is poorly drafted and counterproductive. Today, we are debating a Bill that has been put forward in response to a problem that exists largely in the mind of the Secretary of State. Even if the problem did exist, the Bill would not be needed because its core provisions already exist in our laws, and even if new legislation were needed, the Bill creates more problems than it solves and is poorly drafted. In short, in every way that a Bill can fail, this Bill fails.
However, the real menace is what the Bill will achieve if the Conservative party is able to get it on to the statute book. It will enshrine legal protections for harmful and divisive speech. The kind of speech that we would not tolerate in this House would be protected in universities across the country. The Bill creates a new legal framework that allows for those responsible for such harmful speech to take legal action against universities, eating into the resources that ought to be educating our young people and supporting our world-class research programmes. The Bill is unnecessary and it is poorly drafted, but above all, it is deeply wrong and those of us on the Labour Benches will not support it. I commend our reasoned amendment to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
As the Chairman of the Education Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), is now unable to take part in the debate this evening, we will go directly by video link to Carol Monaghan. Just before the hon. Lady begins, I should tell the House that after her speech there will be an immediate time limit of eight minutes, and that that could soon be reduced to a much shorter time limit, depending on how many Members decide at the last minute not to speak, which is a phenomenon that we face quite often at present. That is why we will start with a generous time limit; it is up to Members how we progress after that.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP) [V]
Education and Scots law are devolved, so I will keep my comments brief; hopefully, that will help move things along this evening. However, the issue of free speech is also pertinent to Scotland.
Many concerns have been raised about academic freedom and the role universities play in championing free speech. This Bill is being presented in a worrying climate, where particular views or political positions can lead to calls to remove lecturers from their positions or students from their courses. Free speech within the law includes the right to say things that, though lawful, others may find upsetting, but it cannot be exercised in a way that causes harm to others.
The law prohibits speech that incites murder or violence, stirs up racial or sectarian hatred or is defamatory or malicious, but, as I said, it does not prohibit speech that others might find upsetting or offensive. There is always going to be a challenge in correctly balancing that, but in a democracy it is important that those who hold views that may differ from one’s own are allowed to voice them.
Healthy debate on challenging topics has long been an important component of university life, but recently that has come under threat. According to the recent Joint Committee on Human Rights report on freedom of speech in universities, student societies should not stop other student societies holding their meetings: the right to protest does not extend to stopping events entirely. I agree with the shadow Secretary of State that there have been very few incidents, but unfortunately there have been examples of events having been stopped and speakers prevented from speaking.
Every one of us will have made comments for which we find ourselves attacked rather than challenged. An environment that seeks to close down debate is unhealthy. It is important to understand and, when appropriate, to challenge difficult points of view. The move towards a cancel culture should cause any functioning democracy grave concerns. I am a teacher by profession, and in my former life I often presented students with difficult views and difficult positions so that they could research the topic, inform themselves and produce their own balanced argument. That is how we develop our own opinions—through hearing different things that are challenging and forming our own position on them.
Although there may be some good intent behind the Bill, it should be approached with caution. To be clear, this Government are curtailing academic freedom by ordering blog posts by academics to be removed. They have told English schools not to use materials from organisations promoting the end of capitalism. I am not convinced that this Government can ever be the champion of free speech; they seem to support free speech when it suits their purposes and oppose it when Conservative ideals are challenged.
More practically, there are concerns about how the Bill will operate. Under the Bill as it is, any lecture, seminar or guest speech could end in a law suit. The Bill is almost unique in the breadth of its provision. In a normal judicial review, if someone wishes to challenge a decision of the Government, they must have standing—in other words, they must be affected by the decision that they wish to challenge—but in this Bill there is no “standing” requirement: any person, business, campaign group or organisation can sue. There are concerns that particular groups, especially well-funded ones, may be able to sue universities in respect of speakers who are there simply to provide debate and a challenging argument for students.
There are also concerns about the ability of universities to balance the new requirements with other statutory obligations. According to the Russell Group, there is a risk that the duty to promote free speech might indirectly undermine universities’ efforts to comply fully with the public sector equality duty, which includes duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and to foster the participation in university life of affected groups.
While I recognise many of the issues being discussed here today, it is important that a proper balance is struck between freedom of speech and discrimination. While the SNP will participate in the debates on the Bill, it is important to say that this is a devolved issue, and we will be participating as and when we feel it is appropriate.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Before I turn to the substance of my speech, I want to take on a matter raised by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). She was calling, “Where’s the data in this?” There has already been one set of answers with respect to the chilling effect, which we cannot measure, but the issue here is also quite important in terms of the importance of free speech.
I am a scientist by training. All the transformations in science—every single one—have been a challenge of an existing paradigm. They have often been opposed, often by the Church; we heard about Darwin, but there was Kepler and Copernicus and others at the same time. There have always been challenges to existing science. That has been a thousand times more important than anything we can measure, and we cannot judge it in advance. I just make that point about the importance of free speech. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that free speech is a fundamental principle. That is why it is a fundamental principle and why we cannot simply go on a percentage here and a percentage there.
This country—this Parliament, in fact—has for over 300 years enshrined our right to free speech in law. The 1689 Bill of Rights became a symbol of hope for the rights of people everywhere. It is the most fundamental of freedoms, and it became a symbol everywhere. In 1948— we talk about holocaust deniers; that was the most sensitive time for these sorts of arguments—it was enshrined as article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights, which said:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Today that right is under threat. I am amazed that the Labour party has not recognised that, but let us see how we get on. It is under threat in the very institutions where it should be most treasured—namely, our universities. I will return to some facts on the matter in a minute.
Freedom of speech only matters where it is controversial, when it is challenging. That is why the greatest characterisation of free speech is the one attributed to Voltaire, who said:
“I may detest what you say”—
I think that was the original phrasing—
“but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.”
I generally try not to detest or even dislike my political opponents, although there is one Labour Member who attacked J. K. Rowling in the most disgraceful terms. I would not for a second want to see him cancelled, but I want to see him here, debating the issue, because he would lose the debate. That is our protection in terms of free speech—not obliteration, but challenge.
Voltaire understood that creativity and progress in a society are dependent on acts of intellectual rebellion, dissent, disagreement and controversy, no matter how uncomfortable, but today the cancel culture movement thinks it is reasonable to obliterate the views of people it disagrees with, rather than to challenge them in open debate. The interesting element of the latter part of my career has been watching the change to this.
Social media has had an extraordinary impact. It has accelerated the growth of online lynch mobs, magnified their effect and facilitated their organisation. Today there is a terrible outbreak of intolerance in modern society: the so-called culture wars, which remind me of nothing so much as McCarthyism in the United States. When I first, as it were, came of age politically, this was still in living memory—both McCarthyism and the end of Stalinism. This is like the early stages of a totalitarian repression in other countries.
Lilian Greenwood
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman wholeheartedly regarding the concerns about what is happening on social media. Is that not precisely why we need an online harms Bill to tackle that sort of abuse rather than the Bill we have before us?
Mr Davis
Precisely. The hon. Lady prefaces the argument I am going to make, which is that we do need to use the online harms Bill as well, but this Bill is just a part of that.
As I said, the behaviour that we have seen in the online battles that have taken place reminds me of McCarthyism. If hon. Members think that is an exaggeration, I recommend that they read the account in The Sunday Times three weeks ago by Christie Elan-Cane of her mistreatment, or indeed by Suzanne Moore of hers. The incredible and repressive verbal violence, and threats of actual physical violence, alongside heavily orchestrated attacks on their reputations and work, were frightening in the extreme to people whose reputations were already well-established. It is therefore no wonder that ordinary people are terrified to speak out for fear of losing their jobs, their friends and their reputations. This is the “chilling” issue that we have been talking about.
The Bill is to correct a small—I grant you, it is small—but extraordinarily important symbolic aspect of this modern McCarthyism, namely the attempt to no-platform a number of speakers, including Amber Rudd, Julie Bindel, Peter Hitchens, Peter Tatchell and others. I hope it is just a first step in a programme to bring free speech back to Britain. I name them rather than enumerate them for a reason—because they are all established people. If established people with high reputations can be terrorised, suppressed or put down, how is it going to be for somebody without the defences that they have?
As the Secretary of State said, the Bill replaces section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act—the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston also referred to this—which imposes an obligation to take reasonably practical steps to uphold free speech on campus. The Bill replaces that with a slightly broader duty and extends it to apply to student unions as well. I think that is correct. It creates an enforcement mechanism, which was also missing before, so that students, academics and visiting speakers whose speech rights have been violated can hold higher education providers and student unions to account. Someone whose speech rights are breached by a university can lodge a complaint with the director for freedom of speech, who will have the power to investigate it and, if the complaint is upheld, fine the institution in question and compensate the victim. The students, academics or speakers will also be able to sue for denial of free speech. It is important that these mechanisms work—that is why this is important as an adjunct to the existing legislation—because the suppression of free speech in universities has a chilling effect on free speech in all of society. It is the pinnacle of free speech in our society, so if it is removed there, that facilitates and legitimises removing it everywhere else.
To come back to the point that the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) raised with me, it is important that we follow this up in other areas. In the online harms Bill, we should protect free speech from casual suppression by commercial platforms. We should look hard at the effect of organised online intimidation and seek to make it less easy, perhaps by removing anonymity from perpetrators. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston talked about anti-vaxxers. I am very pro-vaccine, for fairly obvious reasons. However, in the name of suppressing anti-vaxxers’ propaganda, quite a lot of legitimate scientists who had objections to the exact mechanisms of lockdown, raised concerns about blood clots and so on found themselves suppressed online. We have to recognise that this is not an easy dividing line to draw.
Managed free speech is a very hard idea to promote, pursue and make work. Modern communications are a major force for either good or evil. We should make sure that we facilitate the right one, and this Bill is just the first step in that important process.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I feel compelled to speak in today’s debate because higher education is absolutely vital to the success of Nottingham South. In the past, people in my city worked as makers—of textiles, cigarettes and bicycles. Now, the site of the vast Raleigh factory is the University of Nottingham’s Jubilee campus. Nottingham College’s Adams building is a former lace factory, and the old Boots site in the city centre, where ibuprofen was invented, is now BioCity, a business incubator jointly owned by the city’s two universities and using their outstanding research to support the growth of ambitious life science businesses, creating jobs and opportunities for my constituents and ensuring that Nottingham’s economy has a bright future.
I care deeply about the success of higher education and the success of Nottingham’s two world-class universities. They will need to adapt to meet the challenges of a post-pandemic, post-Brexit world and to do much more to ensure that they are accessible to every young person who wants and has the ability to benefit from an academic education, and to ensure that they are welcoming places for young people from all backgrounds that support students to learn and to thrive.
In the interim conclusion of their review of post-18 education and funding—the Augar review—published in January, the Government said that there would be
“bold investments and reforms to build a high quality, unified system.”
They committed to
“introducing a Lifelong Loan Entitlement from 2025”,
described as a “radical change”. If change is coming to post-18 education, as it clearly is, our universities must be ready to meet it, but instead of clarity on those important issues from Government, we have today’s Bill.
I also care deeply about the students who come to study in our city. I want them to have a great experience living in Nottingham. I want them to stay on in the city after they graduate. I want them to think and speak positively and warmly about Nottingham when they return to their homes across the UK and the world. I also want the young people from my constituency who go to study in other places to have good experiences. Students tell me that they are worried about the cost of living when they are studying, particularly the high cost of rent and transport. They tell me that they are concerned about their safety on the streets and on campus, particularly women students. They tell me that they are worried about their mental health and accessing the support they need while away at university.
My constituents raise other concerns. Being home to more than 50,000 students sometimes puts pressure on our city’s local services or gives rise to tensions in neighbourhoods. Rising student numbers have impacted on the local housing market over a long period. In Nottingham, we are working to address all these issues by bringing together residents, local partners, including the two universities and their student unions, and the city council. It is not easy and, in the last year, there have been particularly difficult periods, but we remain focused on finding solutions.
The pandemic has hit Nottingham hard and it continues to impact on students, long-term residents and the universities. There are real concerns about the future of our hospitality sector and our high streets and about the ability of our health services to cope with a third wave of infections. Our universities, local residents, prospective students, returning students and their parents will all want reassurance about measures to keep them safe ahead of the autumn term. They need to know how Government will support the requirement to quarantine for thousands of overseas students coming to study in our city. They want to know what the covid testing regime will look like. The youngest students want to know how they will be able to access their second vaccinations when they start at university. They want to know when they might be required to self-isolate and how they will be supported if they are. This year, many students have had to pay rent on accommodation that they have been unable to use while the part-time jobs they rely on to support themselves through education have been unavailable. They want to know what the Government are doing to protect them from such unfairness and financial hardship. These are big issues—serious concerns —that demand answers and solutions, none of which are addressed by this Bill.
The issue that this Bill seeks to address is not on anyone’s list of priorities. It is a sledgehammer to crack a very small nut, while other important issues in the sector and outside it are not being addressed. Why do we not have a Bill to address online racist abuse of the sort that we have seen in the last 24 hours? Why are we not debating the Government’s plans for better student support in order to widen participation? Why is the Government’s priority protecting hate speech, rather than the students who face racism or sexual harassment on campus, or students who are struggling with poor mental health?
Freedom of speech, and the free exchange of ideas in pursuit of truth and knowledge, is absolutely central to our universities’ whole purpose, but where is the evidence that there is a problem? The vice-chancellor of Nottingham Trent University confirmed to me yesterday that not a single event at the university has been cancelled due to the content to be debated. The Bill is unnecessary and unclear. It risks opening up our universities to vexatious and frivolous claims, and it may actually make universities more risk-averse and more cautious about whom they invite to speak.
Just a few weeks ago, some Conservative MPs seemed determined to create division among our country’s football fans by criticising the England team for visibly expressing their opposition to racism by taking the knee—freedom of speech. Today, the Government are trying to manufacture a row about free speech on campus. The Government should be working with universities and students to address the real priorities for higher education. It is shameful that they are not doing so, and that is why I oppose the Bill.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
I speak today from experience of working with universities and as an academic studying physics many years ago. What I found during that time was the importance of enabling diversity of thought, the ability to challenge ideas and the ability to propose new ideas, even though they go against the grain of what others may think.
Over 10 years ago, I worked on a project with a Russell Group university that would not allow its academics to blog because it was too scared that they might say the wrong thing. I successfully encouraged the university to set up a new website that included the big debate, which enabled academics to have a yes/no debate on the topic of the day and to provide different points of view. That is what academia and universities should be about: they should be about debating things to get to the truth.
As we have seen over the past year with covid, there have been disagreements about the science. We have seen disagreements about the ethics and morality of different issues that have impacted on us all, and we must make sure that we enable and continue that within our universities. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) mentioned earlier, the challenge is that we have to look at this issue through the lens of modern society. Ten years ago, blogs were a new thing; now, social media is everywhere, and what happens in one campus can go across the country and the world in a matter of minutes.
We see all the time the awful impact of what I call hate-mobbing—the idea that, all of a sudden on social media, one person is targeted for their point of view. In many cases, it might be because they have an absolutely abhorrent point of view and should not be voicing it in the way that they are doing, but the point is that we need to make sure that such views are debated and scrutinised. I worry that we are moving towards what I would call a swipe-left society, like with certain apps, whereby people keep swiping until they get to a point of view or debate with which they agree, and that is the only thing that they see. We must make sure that, in universities, we challenge each other and see the arguments of other points of view, to make sure that the debate is rounded and that, as I say, we get to the truth.
Andy Warhol famously said that, in the future, we would all have 15 minutes of fame, but increasingly I see that we are getting 15 minutes of shame, with people being attacked for their points of view. We have to make sure that we protect them on campus, because the academics and students of today will be in this House in 10 or 20 years’ time. They will be the leaders of our culture and society. They will be the people teaching our next generation. If they feel that they are being stifled in their view, and if they are scared of expressing a point of view that is different, we stifle them and society, and the seeds of doubt are planted now for generations to come.
There is another really important point here that we must take into account. We have talked about hate and hate-filled speech, and, of course, we do not want to give those platforms, but we also need to make sure that such views are scrutinised. The shadows are where hate festers. The awfulness of certain people’s point of view is not dismissed from their mind because they do not say it, they just hide it and get others to hide it with them, and then it becomes a movement or a moment. We must make sure that we shine a light on hate, that we shine a light on different points of view, because if we do so we can argue that, quite often, what is being said is absolutely foolish and nonsense. Anti-vaxxers are a good example of that. After a year of our inboxes being filled with, at times, utter nonsense and fearmongering, science and the success of our vaccine programme has proved that all wrong.
There is a famous phrase that I like, which is that a mind stretched by a new idea never returns to the same size. With the use of free speech, the truest form of free speech, in academia and universities, we stretch everybody’s minds and we challenge each other to have new beliefs and new perspectives. That is why I support this Bill today. We need to make sure that we protect freedom of speech on campuses more than anywhere because that is the one place where we should be challenging each other to find the truth and to be able to support that for our society and our nation to come.
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)
Freedom of speech is one of the building blocks of a democratic society. Here in the UK, we take ours for granted, and hearing a variety of opinions on every important issue helps us to form our own and helps us to choose political, societal and cultural leaders who represent our own beliefs, reflect our values, and pledge to uphold them when in public office. Similarly, we learn what we find unacceptable, what to reject at the ballot box, and how to form and strengthen our own arguments against the views with which we disagree.
I remember how sinister it seemed when Mrs Thatcher’s Government chose to ban the voices of Sinn Féin from 1988 until 1994, so that broadcasters had to use actors’ voices instead. While there were very strong arguments for doing so—I certainly have no agreement or any affinity whatsoever with the actions associated with that group, which, at the time, affected my family directly—banning the public from hearing what they had to say seemed controlling, disturbing, patronising and heavy-handed as it potentially prevented those of us with an interest in politics from forming our own full views on one of the key political topics of that era. Similarly, in a recent Bill, the Government have banned peaceful political protest and demonstrations, which is a vital way to make our views heard.
The recent trend to no-platform those whose opinions we may not like feels somewhat sinister, too. After all, universities are think-tanks and seats of learning. We must be able to hear from a variety of academics, writers and thinkers on both current and historical issues. Increasingly, academic freedom has sadly become a feminist issue, too. It is not an earth-shattering surprise that there is a worrying trend to no-platform or cancel mostly women from some universities. Recent high-profile cases include writers and broadcasters such as Germaine Greer, Julie Bindel, and Jenni Murray; and academics such as Kathleen Stock, Alice Sullivan, Rosa Freedman, Selina Todd, Shereen Benjamin and many others. Far from being just a handful of women accused of wrongthink and condemned as heretics, this is just the tip of the iceberg as many students, too, have been asking the wrong kinds of questions. Crucially, in such cases, the women and some men themselves are then considered to be banned as people and become the subject of targeted harassment, both in their places of work and across social media. It is vital that women are allowed to speak, vital that we are allowed to question, and vital that we are able to keep pushing open doors that have previously been closed to us.
Of course, academic freedom and freedom of speech must also be balanced. Students and staff have to feel safe from hate and prejudice. Recently, the all-party group against antisemitism, of which I am a vice-chair, has written several letters to the vice-chancellor of Bristol University to condemn the views expressed by one of their staff. Holocaust denial is not a legitimate opinion or a valid point of view. Perhaps those who think so have missed the testimony of survivors or the very real evidence that still exists on the sites of those atrocious acts of evil. So, too, must we be allowed to dissect our past role in the repulsive histories of slavery and colonialism. Those facts must be taught in an honest and unfiltered way in order for us to view them from where we are now and in the context of our society today.
There has to be a balanced approach, and we have to be able to entrust universities and their staff and unions with this issue, but I am not convinced that legislation is the way to go. Universities are under increasing commercial pressure, and in a more competitive market, threatening legal action over their decisions is not going to help when they have been under considerable financial strain. How do we ensure that the balance between freedom of speech and hateful prejudice is maintained? Is a set of rules and a threat of financial penalties the best way to protect freedom of speech? Why are the proposals framed around freedom of speech, not academic freedom? As the academic Shereen Benjamin writes:
“Academic freedom specifically refers to the freedom of all members of universities…to pursue whatever lines of enquiry they decide, in research, teaching and public engagement, without fear or favour.”
While I broadly support the aims of this Bill and think that it raises some really important points for debate, I do not believe legislation right now is entirely necessary; it seems a little like a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con) [V]
I strongly support this much-needed Bill. Over recent years, I have been very concerned to hear of numerous restrictions on freedom of speech in academic settings. A doctorate student told me:
“There really is no point me trying for an academic career with my political and religious views.”
A career councillor gives the advice to Christian students—students holding what many in this country would consider to be traditional faith-based views held over hundreds of years—that
“If you’re seeking a career in academia, expunge all mention of your faith or Church membership from your CV or social media to avoid difficulties which these could cause in your job chances.”
A student told me that he was stressed and worried for a long period about whether he would be disciplined in some way and that it might affect his degree, because his university authorities were investigating a private conversation that he had had with friends in a university bar or common room, which had simply been overheard by someone else and reported. The conversation was not in breach of any regulation, and there was clearly no harassment, no abuse and no threat of violence.
Universities, of all places, should be environments of genuine diversity and of open debate, free exchange and the exploration of ideas—however unpopular or unfashionable—without fear, yet there clearly is real fear today among certain academics about expressing certain views, often deeply held ones. Two years ago, a group of parliamentarians, including me, conducted a cross-party inquiry examining areas of life in the UK today that make it challenging for a Christian to live in accordance with their beliefs, and one such area we looked at was academia. One witness working in academia told us that, in preparation for giving evidence to us, he conducted a short survey. He contacted 69 Christian academics whom he knew in institutions across the country and asked them: “Do you feel your academic career would be adversely affected if you were to be public or more public about your faith?” Virtually half of those asked—34—replied yes, and not one of them on being asked was willing to be identified to our committee for fear of the potential negative impact on their career.
If I may, I will cite one more of the many concerning examples evidencing why this Bill is necessary, and it is one that involved me. I was invited by Oxford Students for Life to talk about my parliamentary campaign to outlaw sex-selective abortion. As I started to speak to a gathering of about 100 students, an attempt was made to no-platform me. A uniformed official arrived in the room and requested that the whole meeting be stopped, apparently as the event, including my views, would cause offence to students sitting in a common room on the far side of the quad opposite. They could see but could not hear me. There were many rich ironies to the situation. I was effectively being discriminated against for speaking against discrimination, for which across the world many more girls are aborted than boys, and I was being prevented from simply relating to my work that is already available in the public domain. Most of it is in Hansard. Eventually, the organisers of the meeting, the officials and the objectors reached a compromise: I could continue speaking if all the curtains in the room were closed.
That was a completely unacceptable incident. It subsequently resulted in an apology from the authorities, but it was one of the reasons why I was prompted to join fellow members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights in holding our 2018 inquiry on freedom of speech in universities. The inquiry concluded that, in universities:
“A number of factors are limiting free speech”
It revealed a plethora of such incidents—plenty of evidence that Opposition Members may like to look at—while many more are clearly never reported. One university tutor told us that he had had no idea of the extent of the issue until he started looking into it in response to our inquiry. We heard of challenges such as student groups finding difficulty in getting space at freshers’ fairs, in booking rooms for speakers, in getting approvals for speakers or simply in registering as a university society at all. I had hoped that adequate change would follow our report’s recommendations, perhaps through well enforced guidelines or codes of practice, but not so, hence the need for legislative change and this welcome Bill.
I have three final points. First, on subsections (6) and (9) of proposed new section A1 of the Higher Education and Research Act, I am concerned that the freedom for academic job applicants to express their views should not be limited to freedom in areas
“within their field of expertise.”
In many cases, academics’ expressed views may range more widely, but they should not be affected in their job applications just because of that. I ask the Minister to check with the draftsmen.
Secondly, my role as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief is primarily international facing and, as I and colleagues in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office constantly say, promoting freedom of religion or belief is a key human rights priority for the Government. We aspire to be a global leader in FORB, but I cannot speak credibly in the international community and arena about the discrimination faced by people in other countries on account of their beliefs—whether they cannot get a job, an education or otherwise; of course, much persecution is far worse—if we do not scrupulously apply the principles of article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights in this country. I hope that Hansard will put that here in full. That point is frequently made to me in connection with these issues.
Finally, let us be in no doubt that the challenges to freedom of speech and the very real chilling effect that accompanies them are not limited to university settings but extend far more widely. There is more to be done to protect freedom of speech in this country effectively, but the Bill is a good start.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I absolutely agree with lots of what has been said about how it is vital that we have robust debate. I am challenged daily by people in one forum or another—and, to be honest, that is the best part of my job. It is the bit that I like the most, and it is the bit that I would seek in our universities.
I wonder if the Secretary of State remembers when, in his time in the Whips Office, one of the Whips wrote to all the universities to ask them what they were teaching about Brexit. That Whip promised us a book, but I have checked with the Library and it is not there. So he was not necessarily writing to the universities for his book research. One wonders why he was writing to them. I look forward to the book. The Secretary of State will remember that and, no doubt, I was robust with his colleague at the time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) highlighted from the Front Bench the fact that last year six in 10,000 events were cancelled, mostly due to incorrect paperwork. I think six is probably too many—unless there was really bad paperwork—so I thought that I should read to the Secretary of State six cases that have come across my desk that I think need a Bill and Government time, rather than Twitter leaking into our Chamber. My husband always says, “It’s funny how you politicians take on issues because the internet has leaked all over you as if that’s all that matters.” This Bill feels a little bit like the internet leaking all over this magnificent building.
I will read about a very serious case of a university student being quite seriously silenced: “I am under an NDA which relates to my experiences of being raped on campus and how the university dealt with my complaint, and threatens me in a written contract of expulsion if I tell anybody about my experiences. In fact, I am breaking my NDA by emailing you and I hope you understand how strongly I feel about this issue given I am putting myself at risk to speak out about it.”
I turn to another case for the Secretary of State to listen to. This involves a university that has already been mentioned today. One woman said,
“we were very explicit—each of us—in describing exactly what had happened…this was not consensual and I want something to be done about that.”
The three women outlined their allegations of varying severity, ranging up to rape. The normal response to this sort of testimony is to lay out the options available—either to go to the police or to complain to their college or university—but the women were not told that; they were told: “It will be too onerous on you to go through the complaints system.” Complaining through the college was presented as an unappealing option. One of the women later wrote that they
“were advised that the process of pursuing any form of disciplinary action would not be worth the emotional toll it would take on us.”
One of the women in this particular case—which involved three women, so we are now up to four of our six—had to leave the university, not the perpetrator of the crimes against her.
Another case that was widely reported on in the newspapers happened at Oxford University Women’s Boat Club. When a woman told a senior scholar of her sexual assault, the professor laughed and said:
“I totally get it, I thought we had sorted it out the last time but we clearly haven’t…It’s a very toxic combination of alcohol and very young athletes at university, it doesn’t work at all.”
In a separate part of the discussion, the professor said:
“This university is not very good on these student welfare-type issues.”
There are the six cases. Where is the action on the widespread problem of sexual harassment and sexual abuse on the campuses in our country? I have just given six cases; where is the Bill and the priority for this thing that silences people whose names we will never hear? They could have brilliant scientific ideas but will leave university because of what has happened to them. Where is the regulator in the Office for Students who will provide the power to impose fines and breaches when universities do things wrong? Where is it? Where can I send this woman with a non-disclosure agreement? Perhaps the Secretary of State would like to intervene on me, because I would love to give that woman some advice.
Where is the role equivalent to the director of freedom of speech and academic freedom? Where is the £1 million in this Bill for an officer to oversee universities’ efforts in this regard? Where is the £1 million to spend on an officer who goes to every university and makes sure that the women on those campuses are safe? Where is that officer? Where is the Bill for that?
This reminds me so much of what happened in schools recently with Everyone’s Invited, which included university campuses as well. The Secretary of State comes forward and says, “We’re going to do something about this. This is horrifying. We are going to make sure that something is done about this.” These issues were highlighted five years ago. It was five years ago, 10 years ago, that the issues that I am standing here talking about today were highlighted. Where is our Bill? Where is the Bill on the sexual harassment and abuse that is silencing thousands of people on campuses in every single town and city up and down this country? Where is our Bill? Why is this the priority? This reminds me very much of the fact that I am constantly told that the Government make a priority of addressing violence against women and girls, but the amount that they are proposing to spend is £100 million less than on the boat that the Queen does not even want. It’s the internet— it’s leaking.
Where is the urgency needed for those women and men on university campuses who have been silenced by a lack of process? Where is the Bill for them? Where is the urgency? Where was the urgency five years ago when we told the Secretary of State about schools, and it took a young girl who had been raped and put back in the classroom with her rapist—the then Secretary of State being taken to court—before any regulation was even written? What do we have to do? Do I have to start a meme on the internet? Do I have to get some sort of following from the bots to make this issue heard? Where is the Bill on sexual harassment and sexual abuse, and the processes that we can take if something bad happens? Where is it? Without it, we will be stifling freedom of speech more than any list of anybody who has not been able to speak at a university.
I like to list the women who have been failed in this country, but eight minutes? Eight hours would not cut it. Where is this Bill on that element of freedom of speech—or is it just not politically expedient enough? I honestly want everyone to have the freedom to speak freely and give out their ideas. Darwin has been used as an example all day today; had Darwin been a woman who had been abused at university, none of you would be able to say her name.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
To think and speak freely is the foundation of an open society; there will be little disagreement about that across this House. One might think that the institutions that, in the words of Cardinal Newman, give a man
“a clear…view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them and a force in urging them”,
would be the champions of challenging contrasting ideas —the scions of scrutiny. It is therefore a bitter irony that some people with power in higher education today are the enemies of freedom and that many of those who are not are intimidated into acquiescence. How sad it is that intellectual freedom has to be protected by law from those with power in those institutions.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) cited some examples, and there are many. Let me just give a flavour. Selina Todd, the professor of modern history at Oxford, following pressure from trans activists—she was accused of transphobia, needless to say—was no platformed at Exeter College. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) mentioned, former Home Secretary Amber Rudd also had her invitation to speak at Oxford rescinded.
It is not only visiting speakers but academics and students in our universities who are subject to this kind of intolerance. The University of Plymouth investigated a senior lecturer, Mike McCulloch, for tweeting “All lives matter” in June 2020; a student at Leeds University was placed under investigation for questioning Black Lives Matter; and a first-year student at the University of Kent, as the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) no doubt knows, was placed under investigation for questioning whether George Floyd deserved martyrdom given his criminal record—a violent criminal record, indeed.
Those are all contestable opinions. Of course they are all matters of debate and of course some of them are contentious views, but the whole point about a free society is that we should be able to hold and express contentious views. It is worrying—more than that, chilling—that, as has been said, we are creating a cohort of young people who are hyper-sensitive: no longer daring; no longer prepared to think the unthinkable; deprived of intellectual rigour and imagination. The hallmarks of that woke culture—as we have heard, perpetuated principally on social media—are spite, hate and vitriol. Frank Luntz, the American pollster, has warned that the culture battles we have seen so far are nothing compared with what is on its way. The cultural detritus from the United States is making its way to our shores relentlessly: a culture that is intolerant of measured, principled disagreement. It has gripped many in the United Kingdom, as I have already described. I could go on with a list and I am happy to make that list available to the House of Commons Library if that is helpful to colleagues who doubt the depth of the problem.
The deliberate machinations of the few are dividing the many. We should react with horror when some of those trusted with fostering the flower of Britain’s academic youth are instead intent on producing a carbon copy of politically correct individuals: less ambitious, less daring, less imaginative than the generation that came before. Policing the thoughts of those students who disagree has become commonplace, for the defining traits of the unblinking all-seeing eye of wokery are short sight and narrow minds. George Orwell recognised that this is not simply a problem for students. Academics are subject to the same kind of faults. He said that the charlatans of his time were peddling ideas that were so stupid only intellectuals could believe them. The people who seem to want to impose their exclusive vision on us are so often ignorant of history, apparently ignorant of biology and certainly ignorant of human nature.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that we must remind people that we must hear, if not accept, other arguments, and that if we continue to raise generations who believe their opinion trumps others and that to disagree with them means to hate them, we will find ourselves in a very different UK?
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Gentleman is right that having one’s views challenged, testing ideas and being scrutinised is the characteristic of the open society advocated at the beginning of my speech. It is right that we should both have our views challenged and sometimes be disturbed by counter-arguments. It is extraordinary that feminists, notably Germaine Greer and Julie Burchill, have been no-platformed for believing in biologically based legal rights that women fought to have protected for so long.
The enemies of an open society have successfully cancelled a litany of students and academics who dared to espouse understandings of race, gender and sex which were once regarded as a priori assumptions. Those without wealth or influence to resist have too often been left at the mercy of the mob. These are the quiet everyday stories of the liberal tyranny which go unreported. These are the people who need recourse and outreached hands to assure them that the Government believe in the right to disagree and, yes, disturb—and perhaps, yes, to offend. For to be inspired means first being moved and changed in a way sufficiently startling to open up new horizons, extend boundaries and give life to opportunities. Deprived of that we are lessened, because in safe spaces where nothing disturbs there is no room for inspiration, no space for innovation. Without the freedom to say what they think, people are poorer. Without laws to defend the lawful entitlement they confer, nations are weaker. Without the chance to read and hear, contest and condone all kinds of ideas, our children are robbed of their future chance to flourish.
The Bill must pass into law in a state that leaves no room for doubters and schemers to carry on with their sanctimoniously bigoted practices. Through ignorance or inaction, we cannot condone the wicked ways of the self-appointed thought police. Make no mistake: this culture war is the issue of our age. It is the struggle of our generation. Nothing matters more. This is our battle of Britain.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD) [V]
I start by thanking the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for her incredibly powerful and moving speech. I offer her my full support and that of my party for her calls for a Bill to tackle sexual abuse and violence on university campuses.
Right now, however, I wish to speak to the reasoned amendment in my name and those of my Liberal Democrat colleagues, even though it was not selected for a vote. I believe in the right to free speech. I welcome the opportunity to challenge people whose views are different from mine and I regard freedom of speech and informed public debate as vital elements of a democratic society. I also believe that universities should absolutely welcome rigorous well informed debate because free speech is, after all, at the heart of academic freedom—the freedom to inquire and explore ideas, facts and data that are difficult and sometimes inconvenient. But the laws required to protect free speech in universities already exist in the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, so no new laws are needed to achieve that goal.
On whether academics are scared to share their own views, the Government’s own White Paper acknowledges that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has examined that issue and concluded that it is just not a widespread problem, so no new laws are needed for that either. If the Government believe that there are still concerns, surely a more effective solution would be for them to beef up the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, without having to create a whole new role or whole new piece of legislation.
On no-platforming, research has shown that in 2019-20, of almost 10,000 events involving an external speaker, just six were cancelled—that is 0.06%. Again, the evidence just does not support the Government’s claims that this is even really a major problem. It certainly does not justify the heavy-handed approach of giving the Office for Students extended regulatory powers and making it answerable only to the Secretary of State. That is an authoritarian sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The Bill gives students, staff and visiting speakers the right to sue universities and student unions for alleged breaches of free speech, with all the associated costs. That would create an open season for vexatious claims and expensive litigation—and, what is worse, universities would therefore be incentivised to stop holding events on tricky and controversial issues in the first place, for fear of litigation. The Bill would have a chilling effect because, far from protecting free speech, it would stifle it. At the very least, this legislation must include a threshold for harm, as under the Defamation Act 2013, so that that route cannot be abused by individuals or groups who do not have genuine grievances. There is no place for hate speech in universities, but as it is drafted the Bill would enable holocaust deniers, antivaxxers and more to be not only protected on campus but empowered to sue a university in court.
In conclusion, the Liberal Democrats oppose the Bill as worded. It is not based on evidence and is not proportionate. Worst of all, it actively undermines the very principle of free speech that it claims to support. Free speech is about the right of every individual to speak truth to power, but the Bill does the opposite. It gives those in power or with power the ability to determine who is free to say what. Far from protecting our freedoms, it is actually yet another example of this Government’s concerted efforts to take our freedoms away. Given that universities are already required to protect freedom of speech and that research suggests that no-platforming is incredibly rare, the Government should drop the Bill entirely. That is what the Liberal Democrat reasoned amendment sought to do.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con) [V]
I strongly support the Bill, which was a manifesto commitment in an election that gave the Government a landslide majority less than two years ago. Given a growing and worrying cultural trend across our campuses over recent years, the Government are right to bring this legislation forward. It is a matter of deep regret that the Bill is even necessary in 21st-century Britain.
It has been said previously in this House that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we know that open debate allows good ideas to drive out bad ideas—that, in essence, is the basis of the scientific method. Our places of education should be the last to succumb to the idea of one truth, but freedoms of speech, thought, expression and individuality are now being censored in increasing numbers on campuses across the country, primarily by those of a hard-left mindset but in a manner that has more in common with the European dictatorships of the first part of the last century than a democratic nation such as Britain in the current one. If we do not act now, we risk a central tenet of our democracy being lost.
University used to be a place where students would go to test theories and engage in critical thinking. As Ruth Kelly, the former Labour Education Secretary, said:
“Universities should not only welcome debate and dissent from established ways of thinking—they should actively encourage it, because that’s how we achieve progress and change. If universities were only to allow the regurgitation of the received wisdom, what would be the point of them?”
Well, what indeed?
It is a matter of regret that, too often, political agitators see free speech as something to be destroyed because they are afraid of having their arguments brought out into the open and challenged. The mob mentality is underpinned by a fanatical zeal that they are the enlightened ones and only they hold objective truth. That has given rise to the phenomenon of cancel culture, as hon. Members have said, whereby anything that challenges the prevailing thought is denounced as heretical, racist or fascist, and in many cases a combination of all three. Examples of the intolerance that has crept into academic life are ever increasing. Peter Hitchens, who was hounded by a mob of students, summarised it well:
“They had absolutely no desire to influence me or debate with me. I was an enemy, not an opponent, and so I should not have dared to be there. My actual existence infuriated them”.
The irony, of course, is that restricting free debate in such a way is deeply undemocratic. Indeed, it is a totalitarian action. This Bill is therefore necessary to prevent a dystopian, Orwellian indoctrination.
Clauses 1 and 2 will amend the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 by creating new duties on governing bodies and student unions to secure freedom of speech. I warmly welcome clause 8, which will enforce that where necessary by creating in the Office for Students a director to champion free speech in academia. Clause 3 is perhaps the most crucial, because proposed new section A6 to the 2017 Act will provide for civil claims to be made where those duties in clauses 1 and 2 are breached. That is critical because it gives the Bill teeth.
The dangers I have outlined are not, of course, isolated to universities. The campus is merely a staging ground for wider civilisation and society. Those who wish to do away with freedom of speech are attempting to dismantle the foundations of our society and to supplant them with their own totalitarian doctrine. By removing freedom of speech, dissenting voices can be silenced and submission ensured. For proof of that we need only look at recent attempts to subject British history to a radical revision and the accompanying attempts to taint our greatest heroes. This is a deliberate and concerted attempt to erode the pillars of our nation so that we are left with nothing to believe in. Once that point is reached, those responsible—the anarcho-Marxist, hard-left agitators—will be able to impose their own, ever-changing standards whereby yesterday’s truth is tomorrow’s crime.
By ensuring in legislation the sanctity of freedom of speech, I hope that the Government set a precedent to consider further actions. There are areas in which the Bill can be improved as it proceeds through its remaining stages, particularly to avoid its being neutered by contradictory interpretations of the Equality Act 2010, but there will be an opportunity to discuss that in more detail at a later stage. I support the Bill’s Second Reading and urge all colleagues on both sides of the House to do likewise.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
First, may I congratulate the Minister for Universities on the very reasonable tone with which she has advocated this Bill, and the Secretary of State on his speech? As he said, this Bill is not a battle in a culture war or an ideological effort, but simply an attempt to defend what is already legal in this country. I do not want to aggravate the culture war—which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) says, we are certainly in—but the fact is that there is a battle of ideas going on in our universities, and if we are to prevent the exacerbation of the culture war, we need this Bill, and ideally we need it to be strengthened.
Opposition Members are right in pointing out that there are very few overt instances of censorship, but nevertheless academic freedom is under sustained intellectual attack in our universities. The battle of ideas that we are in is not one in the traditional sense of a clash of opinions and the normal free exchange of ideas that universities are all about. It is much more fundamental than that. It is a battle between, on the one hand, the very idea of the free exchange of opinions and, on the other, the opinion of the radical left, going back to Marx—the idea that the notion of a free exchange of opinions is itself oppressive.
I do not think many Opposition Members are radical Marxists but, in opposing the Bill, they are empowering radicals. I want to do justice to Members on the other side of the House, so I hope you will briefly indulge some student philosophising, Mr Deputy Speaker. The radical left seems to have two strong beliefs. First, it believes that identity is psychological—that a person’s true essence and self is constructed by themselves or other people. That explains the extreme sensitivity around people’s feelings, because if the self is a psychological construct and people’s identity is basically how they feel, being hurt or offended is absolutely catastrophic. An insult is a form of violence—it is almost worse than violence.
The second belief of the radical left is that people can and do suffer what is called false consciousness: they can believe ideas that are not true and that are, in fact, harmful to their own interests. These ideas are also known as conservative opinions, such as a belief in the western political and economic model, in Brexit or in the Conservative party. That explains why the radical left does not have a problem with censorship and why it thinks that censorship is actually necessary for freedom to suppress false consciousness and allow people to discover their real selves, rather than the conservative self that the ruling class has imposed on them.
Sir John Hayes
And that is precisely why the word “heretical” is apposite, because views that do not conform in a quasi-religious way to the orthodoxy that my hon. Friend has described are regarded as heresy. Once they are defined as such, almost anything can be legitimised in putting them down.
Danny Kruger
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he will be delighted that I am about to quote someone with whom he does not strongly agree: Herbert Marcuse. No debate about universities and students would be complete without Marcuse. He is the great Marxist philosopher who basically wrote the script for the radical left. In his “Repressive Tolerance” essay, which is admirably well named, he argued for
“the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism…or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc. Moreover, the restoration of freedom of thought”—
as he calls it—
“may necessitate new and rigid restrictions on teachings and practices in the educational institutions”.
That is what we are up against. I do not accuse a single Opposition Member of believing that but, in opposing the Bill, they are empowering those opinions. We are in a very parlous state in our universities, so I welcome the Bill, its strengthening of the duty for universities to protect free speech, the extension of this duty to student unions as well, the right of academics to sue if they have been no-platformed, and the role of the new free speech champion at the Office for Students. They are all excellent provisions.
To rebut what has been said by Opposition Members, the Bill does not allow hate speech. Hate speech is illegal. The Bill does not protect Holocaust denial, which is not protected speech. Under the ECHR, Holocaust denial is not protected speech. If a Holocaust denier is no-platformed, they would have no right under the Bill to sue or challenge the university.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is there to deal with the culture of perpetual offence—someone being offended to the point that they are not willing to listen to, or engage in, constructive debate—and that the Bill allows for the promotion of freedom of difference of opinion, so that people can come together and form new ideas but do not always have to agree with what the speaker is saying?
Danny Kruger
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.
I will finish by suggesting a few improvements to the Bill that we might consider in Committee. First, we should go further than insisting that all “reasonably practicable” steps are taken to promote free speech. We should insist that all necessary steps are taken, because there is a real danger in the current wording—for instance, a university might pretend that the cost of security makes an event impracticable, which means that its opponents could effectively boycott it or ensure that it is withdrawn.
Secondly, I think that we should broaden the protections for academics beyond their field of expertise—which begs the question of how we define a field of expertise. What, if a professor of European history were to criticise the Chinese Government, for instance, or indeed criticise his or her own university for being too cosy with the Chinese Government? We need to protect those academics too.
For an academic, in that academic’s own field, there is a very important consideration about control of the curriculum—about not so much freedom of speech as the freedom to teach, and the question of who decides what academics should be teaching. We need to explore the concept of conscience rights for academics to resist a drift towards teaching that they would not accept that they should be obliged to carry out. We need some protection for dissent in the system.
As was mentioned by the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), the Bill does not insist that colleges at Oxbridge and Durham take the necessary steps to protect freedom of speech; that applies only to universities and student unions. I think we should extend the obligation to colleges. We should allow academics to appeal not just through the civil law but to an employment tribunal if their academic freedom is restricted. Lastly, I think we need to clarify the role of the Equality Act 2010, which should not be used to close down an event on the grounds that someone says it would constitute harassment or discrimination.
Mr Kevan Jones
The hon. Gentleman has just argued for extending the legislation to employment law. Is he aware that universities are covered by a system of tenure which protects their academics? That has nothing to do with employment law.
Danny Kruger
The fact is that we are extending protections to universities and all aspects of law should be covered. That should include those who are not covered by tenure—not just academics but visiting speakers, and the students themselves.
As I was saying, I think we need to clarify the role of the Equality Act. Essex University no-platformed two visiting academics who held gender-critical views on the grounds that under the Act the event would constitute harassment or discrimination, and that was quite wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) gave another example earlier.
Opposition Members think that the Bill is unnecessary because there is no real issue and no problem to address. I could not disagree more. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). I do not think we have debated anything as important as this, except perhaps the Brexit legislation, in the 18 months during which I have been in the House. To prevent a culture war, we need to allow dissident views to be given full expression.
I give all credit to the Minister, and also to Policy Exchange, the Free Speech Union, and all those outside the House who have campaigned for this law. It is very necessary, and I support it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. The next three speakers will still have eight minutes. The speaker who is 19th on the call list has dropped out, so from Beth Winter onwards, the limit will be six minutes.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) that there should be no censorship of lawful views, and that there are many pressing issues for students that this Tory Government are not addressing. However, I am convinced that there is mounting evidence that female academics’ ability to discuss their rights in law is already being curtailed in our higher education sector.
According to guidance issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in 2019,
“Freedom of expression is a key part of the higher education experience. Sharing ideas”
freely
“is crucial for learning, and allows students to think critically, challenge and engage with different perspectives.”
The guidance states that higher education providers
“should encourage discussion and exchange of views on difficult and controversial”
topics. In the last few years, however, it has come to light that many women in universities across the UK are being censored, harassed and threatened for the simple act of trying to engage in debate and discussion about the impact of gender self-identification on women’s sex-based rights.
As has been mentioned, Selina Todd, professor of modern history at Oxford, whose academic specialism is the rise of working-class women, has been given security guards to accompany her to lectures after receiving threats from activists. In late 2019, Essex University rescinded an invitation to Open University professor Jo Phoenix, who had been due to speak at a seminar about trans rights and imprisonment. Protesters labelled her a transphobe, and the seminar was cancelled. This is what concerns me: the labelling of people in that way, especially women. To seek and to ask is to learn, and not to be written off. At around the same time, a Jewish professor of human rights law at Reading University, Rosa Freedman, had been invited to speak at an event on the holocaust at Essex University, only for the invitation to be withdrawn because of her views on gender identity. Professors Freedman and Phoenix both received an apology after Essex University commissioned a review of its proceedings.
But it is not only academics whose freedom of expression is being restricted. A PhD student at Bristol University from the Dominican Republic, Raquel Rosario Sánchez, has been bullied and threatened for her involvement in events convened to discuss proposed reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. The second female rector of Edinburgh university, Ann Henderson, wrote recently of her experience of being targeted and harassed by students after she retweeted the details of an event that feminist campaign groups had organised for MPs in autumn 2018. At times she feared for her safety on campus, but received minimal support from senior management. In June 2019, feminist campaigner and journalist Julie Bindel spoke at an event at Edinburgh University on women’s sex-based rights and was attacked as she left. The individual was later charged by Police Scotland. The event was attended by a number of Members of the Scottish Parliament. Our Labour colleague Jenny Marra later said that
“never in more than 25 years of going to political meetings have I felt the intimidation that I felt then.”
In 2021, women across the UK are being censored, harassed and threatened for simply trying to debate and discuss their rights. This is a wholly unacceptable state of affairs and I call on all Members to join me in condemning these pernicious developments.
The issue that we need to discuss as parliamentarians is when freedom of speech becomes hate speech and vice versa. That is what we should be discussing in this House. We should address what is and is not legally allowed. I know that the speech I am making will probably be followed with a torrent of abuse on social media, but as Members of Parliament and legislators, our responsibility lies in speaking truth to power. Our Labour Front Benchers are right: Conservative Members tend to be hypocrites; in fact, they are hypocrites, particularly given other Bills we have seen passed through Parliament. But I understand the need for a balanced argument, and we need to be able to speak truth to power.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
First, I declare my interest as vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Durham University.
A few years ago, when I was at the Department for Education as a special adviser, I started in a roughly similar position to that of Opposition Members today. I did not think this should be a priority for Government either, but I have changed my views on that since I became a Member of Parliament. [Interruption.] Well, we will see how the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) votes tonight and whether it will be along his party lines in defiance of an overwhelming argument from the Government Benches.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) made some very clear and sensible points about cancel culture, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) did the same on freedom of religion, and my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) had some interesting suggestions on where the Government should go further. I was particularly gladdened to hear from the hon. Members for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who spoke about issues surrounding women in academia and academic freedom. The argument from the Opposition Front Bench on this hate speech has clearly been knocked down by the Government. It is a Potemkin argument. We now argue about whether the Potemkin villages ever even existed. I think we will find that the Opposition Front Benchers’ arguments do not really stand scrutiny when the Bill makes further progress through this House.
What has changed my view is recent meetings I have had at the University of Durham. As I said earlier, this is not a sledgehammer to crack a nut, as Opposition Members have suggested. When a leading academic in the politics department told me that he had been castigated by colleagues for teaching about John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty”, I found that absolutely astonishing. When I had cases where 18 and 19-year-old kids in my constituency were being cancelled within their own student societies for airing their pretty moderate views, it really surprised and worried me.
I gave a speech at South College, Durham a few weeks ago on this subject of freedom of speech. What has really tipped me over is the concern—the right hon. Member for North Durham and I agree on many things, but we totally disagree on this—about the influence of certain Governments and their financial power within the UK’s university education system. Let us consider the example of a university with 10,000 students, 60% of whom are from the UK and 40% of whom are from overseas. In the UK today, we will often find that half of those overseas students come from the People’s Republic of China and the amount of money they pay in tuition fees is equal to the income from the 60% from the UK. There is a real issue with freedom of speech if our universities are so dependent on those foreign sources of income, and that issue is present on our campuses today. I know that because I have spoken to students and academics who have been affected by it.
The key thing is that universities just wash their faces with the cash they get from UK students; the extra cash they get from overseas students allows them to do all the extra stuff they want to do. It pays for all the fancy new buildings we will have seen going up. It pays for the extra stuff universities want to be able to do, which allows them to push themselves up international league tables. That is what is really worrying me at the moment—we have a university system that is so reliant on that cash that it cannot pursue academic freedom itself any more, without the Government standing up to tell it that it has to.
That is one of the most important points about this legislation; it is there not just to protect freedom of speech, but to promote it. This addresses a point I made when I intervened on the Opposition Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). People will not put themselves forward to say things about the Uyghurs, or about Hong Kong, democracy and freedom, because they are petrified of the impact it will have on their career, faculties and students. That is why this Bill is so apposite and important. We have a duty in our academic institutions in this country, which are some of the most respected in the world, not only to protect free speech, but to promote it. That element is key, because it gives academics the freedom to challenge, and sometimes they will be challenging their own academic institutions. That is at the core of everything we have to do as we look forward.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about universities being dependent on income from overseas students. What concerns me more, and it is not touched by this Bill, is that some universities are getting investment from companies such as Tencent, which is wholly owned by the Chinese Government and is deeply involved in the surveillance state. Tencent has put a huge amount of money into the Chinese centre at Cambridge University, and Professor Nolan is telling students not to criticise the People’s Republic of China. Is that not a much bigger concern? It is not covered by this Bill.
Mr Holden
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. I am just pointing out the massive financial ties to foreign Governments, and there is an element of this Bill helping to start to break down that barrier. Anything that contributes to that is a good thing.
Let me wind up by saying that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) made some really important points about sexual assault in universities, and I hope the Minister has taken those on board. Some close friends of mine were affected by that, and the Office for Students really needs to take this forward. I hope she will use her good offices to that end.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
Freedom of speech does not include the freedom of hate speech. Given the content of the Bill, I would like to begin with a very brief comment on the hate speech being directed at our England stars. This England team represents the very best of a modern, multicultural nation. On and off the pitch, the players have shown their quality. Last night, they came within a whisker of winning the first men’s trophy in 55 years. They did us so proud. Off the pitch, from Marcus Rashford helping to feed thousands of working-class kids, to Raheem Sterling combating racism in sport, to Jordan Henderson standing up for trans rights, they showcase an inclusive, progressive England.
After last night’s agonising defeat, we have also seen the worst of the country, with disgusting racism targeted at our players. This is not freedom of speech; it is hate speech. But it does not come in a vacuum. It is promoted by those at the very top—right from the Prime Minister, who sanctions racism by describing Muslim women as “letterboxes” and black people as “piccaninnies” and by refusing to condemn so-called fans booing players taking the knee. I will say this, Mr Deputy Speaker: Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, Jadon Sancho, three lions who represent the best of modern England, have so much more worth than the vile racists trying to drag them down.
As a young Muslim growing up during the war on terror, I was sharply aware of my community being scapegoated and subjected to surveillance. Before arriving at university, I knew that many British Muslims were treated as second-class citizens. As a student, I quickly learned that this treatment extended to the university campus and that basic democratic rights and freedoms were not afforded to everyone equally.
For students and staff who are Muslim, for staff on precarious contracts and even for student activists, freedom of speech and academic freedom are routinely restricted and denied. Those freedoms are not threatened by over-sensitive students or by academics researching the British empire; they are threatened by this Government’s policies, such as the Prevent duty, which the human rights group Liberty has said is the single biggest threat to freedom of speech on campus.
Under Prevent, students have been policed and treated as suspicious and extreme simply for taking part in mainstream debates on topics such as British foreign policy, Palestine and Kurdistan. Research has shown that one third of Muslim students feel negatively affected by Prevent, and I know that many students, including some of my constituents, are afraid to take part in political debates or even to organise events on campus. If the Secretary of State for Education is really concerned by
“the chilling effect…of unacceptable silencing and censoring”,
then he should start by addressing the main sources of that chilling effect in the Home Office and his own Department.
This Government could not care less about the way our marketised higher education system restricts academic freedom. Tens of thousands of academic staff are on precarious contracts, with some living on poverty wages. At the whim of managers, they often feel unable to speak openly or to freely shape their research and their teaching for fear of risking their careers.
Rather than pushing universities to offer permanent, well-paid contracts, the Conservatives are content to sit on the sidelines while launching their own attacks on academic freedom. Whether it is Government Members demanding that the Department for Education sack academics at the University of Warwick in my constituency, or Ministers chasing critics of Britain’s imperial past off the boards of museums and cultural institutions, or Lord Wharton, chair of the Office for Students and previously head of the Prime Minister’s Conservative leadership campaign, telling Oxford academics to
“leave their personal politics at home”,
this Government and their allies are happy to silence those who dissent from their agenda, while giving free rein to fascists and holocaust deniers to spout their hate. That is what this Bill represents.
The Bill is part of this Conservative Government’s growing authoritarian agenda, whether that is the police crackdown Bill and its criminalisation of protests, their voter ID plans and their attempt at voter suppression, their Nationality and Borders Bill and its scapegoating of migrants, or this Bill and its attack on academic freedom, which they claim to protect. Instead of the Government defending the freedom of the super-rich to dominate and exploit, it is time for a Government who advance the freedom of all.
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab) [V]
As someone who has spent a large part of their adult life either studying or working in academia, including as an officer of the University and College Union in Wales, I am deeply disturbed by the content of the Bill. My experience in the sector has demonstrated without a doubt that universities host some of the most vibrant and intellectually challenging discussions in the country. It is simply untrue that they shut down or stifle debate. The measures in the Bill are excessive and unnecessary, taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The Government’s assertion to justify the Bill—that there is a crisis of free speech and academic freedom resulting in “cancel culture”—is completely baseless, and as the Joint Committee on Human Rights recently found in its inquiry on free speech at UK universities, it is not evidenced-based. The Office for Students’ own research shows that only 0.1% of requests for external speaker events by students at English universities in 2017-18 were rejected. That action tends only to take place with the most extreme speakers—holocaust deniers, anti-vaxxers and others who hold often harmful views. I remind the Minister that universities have a duty of care to their students, including LGBTQ+, BAME and female students, and are often right to prioritise their wellbeing and their right to be free of intimidation over gifting inflammatory speakers a platform to air their views.
There already exists a strong legal framework, which imposes duties on higher education providers to ensure freedom of speech and expression in higher education. There is genuine and understandable concern that the Bill may undermine existing protections against discrimination. I would welcome clarification from the Minister on a matter raised by Universities UK regarding how the Bill will interact with existing legislation and other duties relating to free speech and academic freedom. In fact, the Bill narrows the definition of academic freedom to speak out on social or political issues, enabling someone to do so only when it is
“within the law and within their field of expertise”.
I fully support the UCU’s call for the phrase
“and within their field of expertise”
to be removed from the Bill.
I also share the concerns of the UCU and Universities UK about the statutory tort element of the Bill, which enables individuals to sue a university or student union when they believe it has failed to protect free speech. That provision is ill thought-out and should be removed.
The Bill is extremely divisive, harmful and dangerous in and of itself, but crucially it also exposes the Government’s flawed priorities. In other words, it is a very convenient distraction from the real issues facing the higher education sector: the marketisation of the sector; endemic precarious and casualised employment; attacks on the arts and humanities; insecurity of research funding, and a failure to protect staff’s right to speak out against employers. Those are the kinds of issues that this Government should be addressing if they are serious about protecting academic freedom and freedom of speech.
How could a newly appointed academic researcher on a short-term contract feel confident about speaking out in a critical but constructive manner on any issue, including an employment situation, where there is no employment protection available to them? Two thirds of researchers and almost half of teaching-only academics are on fixed-term contracts. University staff ranked casualisation as the biggest threat to their academic freedom in a survey carried out by the UCU. That instability strips many of their job security, has a devastating effect on staff morale and wellbeing, and distracts from and negatively impacts on their core functions of teaching and research.
That is forcing thousands of staff in higher education across the UK—including in London, Liverpool and Essex—who are facing the very real prospect of redundancy to take action to save their jobs and challenge the Government’s inaction and failure to recognise the very real problems facing the sector. That is why I welcomed and fully supported the reasoned amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), which wholly opposed this ill-considered piece of legislation.
In the short term, the Government need to step in to underwrite the sector as we emerge from the covid-19 pandemic. However, in the long run, the UK Government must properly fund universities, end the marketisation of higher education and provide staff with secure employment, all of which would support their freedom of speech and intellectual independence.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
Now then, if we control what students in universities can listen to, we are controlling what they can think and the type of person they will become. That may work in places such as North Korea and, possibly, within the Labour party, but it has no place in our society. The Bill will strengthen free speech and academic freedom at universities. It is not the job of the Labour party or anybody else to control who we listen to. The champagne socialists, the Islington elite and the trade unions may agree with the Labour party, but most of the country do not. We fought and won a war to protect our freedoms, and freedom of speech, to my mind, is the most important freedom that we have.
Let us not forget that universities are there to supply our great country with scientists, mathematicians, doctors, lawyers, school teachers, nurses and so on, not to provide us with state-sponsored political activists who have only one opinion or one goal in life. Our young people should be able to flourish at university and be open to all kinds of debate. Let them make their own mistakes, form their own opinions and ask their own questions. We should not dictate who they can and cannot listen to.
By voting against this Bill, Labour is saying that our university students are not capable of making up their own minds. It is a bit like the Brexit debate when it told my residents in Ashfield and Eastwood that they were thick, they were stupid, they were racist and they did not know what they were voting for. Well, that ended well! It ended up with my standing here tonight.
We know that free speech is being shut down in universities in this country. Professor Jo Phoenix was due to give a talk at Essex University about placing transgender women in women’s prisons. Students threatened to barricade the hall. They complained that Ms Phoenix was a transphobe who was likely to engage in hate speech. A flyer with an image of a gun and text reading “Shut the **** up” was circulated. The university told Ms Phoenix and the event was postponed.
What about the human rights lawyer Rosa Freedman, a radical feminist law professor, whose event was cancelled amid allegations of transphobia? She received a passive aggressive email from a University of Reading student who called her views on gender politics “problematic” and warned her to “choose her words carefully”. Selina Todd, an Oxford University professor, had her invitation to a conference celebrating women withdrawn owing to pressure from trans activists who had threatened to disrupt the event.
It is a real shame that we have to legislate to allow free speech, but the biggest shame is that Labour Members will vote against the Bill and subsequently vote against free speech. Perhaps they should all come off Twitter, throw their Guardian newspapers away, leave the Tea Room, and get out there and speak to the millions of voters they lost at the last election. Let us have some free speech on the doorstep and perhaps that lot on the Opposition Benches will finally realise that they have nothing in common with the very people they expect to vote for them. Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker; that is me done.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I was going to say that it was a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), but I am not sure that it was.
The point about this is very clear: we legislate in this place to improve people’s lives and to right wrongs, and, as was pointed out earlier, we base our decisions on facts. The problem with this Bill stems from the reasons we need it. The Secretary of State was asked on several occasions to provide his evidence and data for the Bill. We have heard all the anecdotes; we have just heard a selection tonight. Clearly, some Government Members watch too much FOX TV, or some other channel, for their information. We did ask the Secretary of State for the figures, but the figures have already been mentioned. In December 2020, 61 university student unions carried out the survey. Six events out of almost 10,000 were cancelled. The Government’s own data from the Office for Students show only a tiny percentage of cancellations. In 2017-18, of nearly 60,000 events only 53 were rejected, which is about 0.1%, and the cancellation of some of those events had nothing to do with people’s views.
I take great exception to what the hon. Member for Ashfield said. I am a true defender of freedom of speech. I believe in it. It is one of the things that we should be most proud of in terms of being British. We have an ability to disagree. Sometimes it can take a heated format, but we can disagree. He should not label me as somebody who is against free speech. It is people like him who will close it down. If this legislation were needed, I would support it, but I do not think that it is needed, because, as has already been said, the legislation is already in place. We know the reason why, because we have had it explained. We just had a great example of it from the hon. Member for Ashfield. This is actually about trying to use the so-called woke agenda in a political manner. It is amplifying the message, so we get a situation where anyone who dares to question what happens or who votes against this Bill tonight is said to be against freedom of speech.
Lee Anderson
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the important points that he is making in the Chamber tonight, but the most important thing I want to thank him for is mentioning the word “Ashfield”. That is the first time ever in this Chamber that a Labour politician has mentioned the word “Ashfield”, so I thank him for that.
Mr Jones
I say to the hon. Gentleman that if he wants to make a contribution to this debate, he should read about it and properly represent his constituency.
Mr Jones
No, I will not.
We have the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, the Education Act 1994 and the Charity Commission regulations on this, all of which protect and embody the idea of freedom of speech. The Bill also gives powers to universities to regulate themselves. The hon. Member for Ashfield talked about North Korea. I am sorry, but I am vehemently opposed to Governments directing universities on what they should and should not say, do or teach. That is the beauty of academia—they are allowed to have independence —and the Bill is dangerous in that respect.
The other thing that is completely absent from the Bill is information on how it relates to some of the other obligations on universities. The hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) mentioned that he is vice-chair of the all-party group for friends of Durham University. If he is, he will have had the same briefing note that I had. The university has concerns about how it relates this Bill to its responsibilities under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, equalities legislation and other issues. What we are going to do is put in place a regulator that will oversee that—well, I am sorry, but I do not agree with that. If there were an issue with universities and freedom of speech, I would be the first to argue for legislation, but we do not need this legislation. As has been said, what we need is to use existing legislation to enable us to find the data on what is actually happening rather than having to listen to hearsay and have one case being expanded at the expense of another. And we also need not to listen to the Policy Exchange. It does not surprise me that this legislation is from the Policy Exchange. We have already had the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021. That was a terrible Bill that not only did not do what it set out to do, but took rights away from veterans we should have been protecting.
I would also like to touch on the issue of bringing law and compensation into this. I am not a lawyer. No offence to anyone who is, but I am all in favour of anything that can stop lawyers making money. This legislation is a lawyers’ picnic, frankly. It will end with huge amounts of time taken and vexatious cases. It will also lead to money that should be spent on education in universities being diverted into legal fees. I am sorry, but I am opposed to that. A point was made earlier—Durham University raised this—that an issue with the college system is that the colleges are completely separate from universities, so some may be wealthy, but others are not.
And then we have the ludicrous situation in which the hon. Member for Ashfield and others are quite prepared to spend a million pounds a year of taxpayers’ money employing 10 staff and a new director who will no doubt be part of the Conservative party job creation scheme, as we saw when Lord Wharton got the job of director of the Office for Students. That money should be going into education. There is another side to this as well: the Bill will cost £48 million and most of that will fall on universities. The money should be going to supporting universities and supporting students, and it will not be. This legislation will be a lawyers’ picnic and, actually, I think that it will get unpicked as it goes through the House because it is so full of contradictions. If there were an issue with an attack on free speech in this country, I would be one of those arguing strongly that we should act to protect it; I do not think there is such an issue. This is another example of the Government using an issue to try to put fear into people’s minds about the so-called woke agenda. They are trying to put into people’s minds a fear that anyone who questions that agenda—and I do not think that people who know me would describe me as woke—is seen as somehow not standing up for the interests of their constituency. At the end of the day, the state should not be getting directly involved in the running of our universities, deciding what they teach and how they do it. I hope that the Bill gets radically changed. If that does not happen here, it will in the other place.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
I want to touch on some legal points. Sadly, I am a lawyer—or, perhaps, happily I am a lawyer—and I would not touch this civil litigation with a 50-foot beanpole.
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of some of the points that have been raised. One of the objections put forward by Opposition Members is the issue of principle. Well, there is no objection to this legislation on principle because the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) have both agreed that the principle behind this—the reason why it is being put into law—is good. The defence of freedom of speech is an excellent concept. How anybody can object to that is beyond me. When that argument is overcome, the Opposition return to saying, “Well, it is already on the statute book, so we don’t really need it”, but that is not a reason for not supporting this legislation.
Two examples have been given of abhorrent behaviour—abhorrent statements that could be made on a university campus that would mean that a university may well open itself up to litigation. The first is holocaust denial. Clearly, none of us wants to hear holocaust deniers or see them on university campuses. The Secretary of State—at the Dispatch Box today, on a previous occasion before the House and in any number of interviews that I could read out verbatim—has said quite clearly and categorically that this legislation cannot be used to justify the spread of holocaust denial or any other form of antisemitism on our university campuses. When a court interprets legislation, it interprets the intention of Parliament. The intention of Parliament is clear. The Secretary of State has said that no university can justify welcoming or allowing on to its campus anybody who is going to talk about holocaust denial.
James Daly
No, I will not—[Interruption.] Absolutely not; there is no dispute in respect of this issue. It is the specific intent of this legislation to ensure that holocaust denial is not covered by the free speech recommendations.
James Daly
No, I will not.
The second type of behaviour that has been mentioned—the only other example that Opposition Members could put forward—is anti-vaxxers. Now, I disagree with anti-vaxxers, but do we seriously believe that anti-vaxxers should be discriminated against through this legislation to the extent of being banned from state premises and educational establishments?
What this Bill does do, which nobody has mentioned, is put universities under a duty to make whatever efforts are “reasonably practicable” to ensure that free speech happens.
James Daly
Well, then, support the legislation if that is the case.
In respect of anti-vaxxers, if the legal duty on the university is to put in place “reasonably practicable” steps, do we think it is a better option for university vice-chancellors to put forward other speakers and insist that other speakers put the other side of the argument, or do we just simply say, or allow university vice-chancellors or whoever makes the decisions to say, “Because we don’t like your view, we’re just going to banish you and not allow you to speak”?
What this debate is really about is the regulation of legal behaviour. The law exists—the Public Order Act, the Equality Act, the Prevent legislation and other legislation—because this House has voted at different times to say that certain behaviour is against the law and that the authorities should act in respect of that. I listened to the powerful speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) regarding the appalling incidents of sexual harm on campuses. That is an utter indictment of universities; it is not a reason for us to allow them and have faith in them to regulate. If they cannot regulate in respect of the most serious sexual complaints, why should we have any faith in them to regulate individuals’ ability to practise freedom of speech, which is a basic right? We cannot confuse freedom of speech with other issues. If there are allegations of serious sexual assault, we should ask police why they are not investigating these things.
In Greater Manchester, which is run by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, the charge rate for serious sexual offences is around 1%. Are we seriously arguing that that appalling record of the Mayor of Greater Manchester in respect of serious sexual offences should be taken away and we should concentrate on whether university professors are regulating serious criminal behaviour? It is a ludicrous point of view.
This whole debate comes down to a central fact. I thought that some of the comments from Opposition Members were quite dystopian, saying that we should have a debate about what we as individuals think it is right or wrong to say on a university campus. How utterly ludicrous is that? If we feel that something is not to be said on a university campus—that it is harmful or makes a person feel in fear of their safety—we have section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, which makes it an offence to cause somebody “harassment, alarm or distress”. That is all that is required to prove an offence under that Act.
It is for the law to sanction people’s behaviour, not individuals and certainly not institutions that are the beneficiaries of taxpayers’ money. This is a good Bill, it is a manifesto commitment and it is a commitment to free speech that we should all celebrate and support.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Let me declare some interests: I chair the all-party parliamentary university group and I represent an education city with a fantastic further education college, Cambridge Regional College; two great universities that are very different but both outstanding, and very well led by Roderick Watkins and Stephen Toope; and the University of the Third Age. We are brilliant at universities in this country.
There is so much talk of our being world-beating; we actually are world-beating when it comes to universities. Would it not be nice to have a Minister for universities rather than an Education team for doing us down? I am not saying that everything is perfect, because there are huge challenges, not least for students, who have had such a tough time and still face huge debt for an experience very different from that of those who went before. Would it not be nice to hear something positive from the Government Front-Bench team about the amazing work that staff in universities have done as they have transformed their practice to devise online courses to go alongside the traditional teaching methods? The Government could have been talking about that today, or the thorny issues around finance. Where exactly is the Augar review, beyond leaks and rumours?
As we have heard, we live in a world where international students play a huge role in the financing of our universities, but those students cannot be taken for granted. The Government could tell us today about the quarantine arrangements that will be needed when 100,000 students from red-list countries are expected in September—that is urgent; or about the impact of a 43% fall in the number of students applying from the EU; or about the challenges facing research when official development assistance cuts are biting and there is still no clarity on how the Horizon gap will be funded.
All those things matter, but for this Government the only thing that matters is themselves. How can they stoke up some more divisions to throw more red meat to people who do not like universities? It is pretty hard to take this pathetic Bill seriously. Is there an issue around free speech? Of course there is—there always has been and always will be. Labour’s commitment to free speech is uncontestable: as we heard from the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), it was Labour that brought the European convention on human rights into UK law. Is free speech more difficult now, in a socially media-driven, instant communication world? Yes, but it is not just universities that face that; it is a wider societal question.
Members on the Government Benches should remember how they got their get-out-of-jail card on the vaccine: it came from universities—researchers working together, using the huge amount of detailed knowledge accumulated across institutions. Our universities are world-changing and world-beating. Are those universities calling for this legislation? Hardly. They know how difficult it is to balance the rights and freedoms of different groups and individuals because they do it every day. They have been doing it for years, since long before the “here today, gone tomorrow” lot opposite snatched power, and they will be doing it for years to come. Will there be incidents and flashpoints? Yes, of course there will, as there always have been, because freedom allows for that.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful and measured speech, and I agree with him that the problem is much wider than universities. He talked about social media, as many have, and there is an increasingly vitriolic level of debate that has coarsened and damaged discourse, perhaps irreparably and certainly profoundly. However, dealing with universities is surely part of that, and that is what this Bill attempts to do. He is right to say that it does not solve everything, but it certainly does no harm and, in my judgment, it does a great deal of good. By the way, I ought to have referred Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests when I spoke earlier; I do so now.
Daniel Zeichner
I was happy to take the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but the point about freedom of speech is that it is always difficult to deal with because, as others have pointed out, freedom allows for a fair amount of offence to be given until it becomes too much and we have to respond. However, that is a judgment call. We cannot legislate for that. It is a great irony that a Government who claim to be Conservative are promoting measures that many of their predecessors would have been very quick to criticise in other countries. A commissar for free speech? Come on! But actually, this is not the Conservative party, is it, because its boss expelled those who dared to dissent, and that is where all this leads.
Those who have looked at the Bill can see the problems. I am sure the Government will not have much interest in hearing from those who actually run our universities, but it is worth repeating what they say. Universities UK has warned that those promoting conspiracy theories could easily take the opportunity to sue universities or student unions. It has also pointed out that with existing routes of redress available, the same complaint could lead to very different outcomes depending on whether an individual went to the Office for Students, which will now have a so-called director of free speech, or whether they went down the Office of the Independent Adjudicator route. As have others have said, the likely consequence of all this is that universities and student unions will err on the side of caution and steer away from anything risky. That will lead not to more free speech but to less free speech, and for those with really outlandish views, there will be a legal stick with which to beat institutions. So, good times for the crazies everywhere—
James Daly
If the hon. Gentleman thinks that universities will err on the side of caution, does he not agree that that will essentially be restricting freedom of speech, which will guarantee a law suit? The one thing about this Bill is that it will guarantee more freedoms, because if someone does not want the risk of being sued, they will allow people to speak within a university setting.
Daniel Zeichner
I have to say that I do wonder how much time some Conservative Members actually spent in universities and how much they know about how they operate. Universities work very carefully and they are very conscious of the threats and challenges to them. Believe me, they will look at this and think it is too risky, and they will not do it. That is what will actually happen, so there will be less discourse. I just hope that there are a few genuine Conservatives on the Government Benches who can see the absurdity of all this, and who must surely at times ask themselves why they have a leader who cannot work out whether it is okay for people to boo our football team or why they have a colleague who ended up supporting our national team by boycotting it, because that is where all this ludicrousness leads.
I suspect that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said, this Bill will be savaged in the other place. I invite people to read some debates from the other place; it is astonishing to see how Conservatives from a former age are so appalled by this Government. The Bill will be savaged, but if it does make it on to the statute book, I suspect that it will be totally ineffectual and that the provisions will be unenforceable. This time last week, I was talking about the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 in Westminster Hall, and I suspect that this will be seen as a similarly ludicrous piece of legislation in times to come. The best thing the Government could do would be to drop it altogether. Our universities and our country deserve so much better. They have, of course, glimpsed a better way, a decent way, and I would hazard a guess that in about nine months’ time we will have a glut of newborn children called Gareth, but not many Gavins.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con) [V]
Last night I watched the England match with my family and, like many in this Chamber, I had never seen my country appear in a major final. We all felt that football was finally coming home, but it was not to be. But we have been here before and, as an Englishman, I have almost come to expect falling at the final hurdle when glory is within touching distance. It is important to remember that it is a team game and that blaming individuals will not change a thing, so instead, let us be thankful for our second most successful tournament ever, with the World cup only 18 months away.
There is a lot to be celebrated. How disappointing, then, to see the subsequent barrage of abuse that those unfortunate players have received on social media. Even more disappointing are the attempts by the Opposition to conflate the debate around taking the knee—and the suggestion that to be a real England supporter you must also support that—with something which is quite different and completely unacceptable to all decent people. This is the same cancel culture we see on our campuses. If people wish to, they can criticise the run-ups, the accuracy or the choice of penalty takers, but what we have seen goes beyond mere critical opinion. It is vile abuse and it should be recognised as such. Social media companies and internet service providers must do more to stamp out the cowardly trolls, and they have a responsibility to stop people doing that under the veil of anonymity. I am glad that we will be dealing with the issue later in our online harms Bill.
Many comments will be threats and abuse of a criminal nature. That is not freedom of speech or freedom of opinion, and any reasonable person can clearly see the difference. But that is what today’s debate must not be confused with. Instead, this Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill will ensure that healthy and reasoned debate is protected on our university campuses. Criminal offences will remain criminal offences, including hate speech.
When hon. Members of this House wish to criticise my stance on an issue, I do not try to prevent them from speaking, I do not demand that I am given a safe space, and I do not attempt to have them cancelled because I do not like their views. Our electorates can cancel us all through the ballot box, if they so wish. That is democracy. So why on earth do we allow this type of behaviour to flourish in our universities? It is quite incredible for organisations in which academic debate and challenging the views of others are part of the experience. We now see the no-platforming of speakers and student unions getting rid of organisations that they simply do not like. We see academics being chased off campus and spiteful open letters calling for them to be removed from their positions.
Yesterday, many condemned the behaviour of a number of football fans and the violent disorder, hooliganism and vandalism perpetrated by some, yet this is not isolated to football. It was not football supporters who tried to pull statutes down or who created a situation where the University of Bristol sought to impose security costs on a student society purely for inviting the Israeli ambassador, because of the behaviour of extreme left groups on campus.
The social justice warriors are certainly not warriors, and they also have a bizarre and warped understanding of social justice. Freedom of speech allows such people, and some Members in this Chamber, the right to hold and express their views. It is a shame that they do not believe in the rights of others to hold alternative beliefs. Some have even referred to Members on the Government side of the Chamber as “evil” in the past. To borrow a saying from a colleague, I do not believe that my opponents are evil; I simply believe that they are mistaken.
Education is one of my passions. However, I can only imagine the storm if I were ever to consider a career in academia now. When I went to university, believing in free-market economics, being a Conservative or simply having a traditional view of what constitutes a man or woman would not be controversial positions. Now, I would be accused of hate speech and screamed at by somebody with bright pink hair who would demand that I be fired, locked up or perhaps both.
Our universities are world-renowned as centres of excellence. They played a key role in our fight against covid-19, as hon. Members have already mentioned, and we must be forever grateful, but they must not turn into organisations that churn out graduates who are unable to think for themselves, tolerate the views of others, or deal with the daily challenges and realities of life. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said earlier about Voltaire, although Voltaire never actually said the line for which he is famous, a little like with “Casablanca”:
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Many of us can identify with that. It is time that some of our universities followed suit.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]
This Bill will not apply in Scotland, and I could not give it my wholehearted support if it did, because I share some of the reservations already expressed in the debate, particularly those expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan). However, I want to be clear that, as she acknowledged, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that there are problems with freedom of speech in our universities.
In 2018, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am proud to be deputy Chair, published a report into freedom of expression in universities, in which we found that there were issues and recommended some reforms. We heard evidence about a number of problems, including attempts by students to no-platform leading feminists and LGBT activists with a lengthy pedigree in campaigning for LGBT rights, simply because they had engaged in critical debate about issues around feminism and trans politics. We also took evidence from student unions, which argued that it is necessary to limit speakers who, as they put it, “cause harm through speech”. We on the JCHR were concerned that such an approach is detrimental to free speech and could prevent certain debates and viewpoints from being heard, so we were very careful to emphasise that the right to free speech includes the right to say things that, although lawful, others might find offensive.
Sadly, since 2018 the treatment of leading feminists and lesbian activists engaged in critical debate about issues around feminism and trans politics has worsened at the hands both of student unions and of university authorities. Others have spoken about the attack on Julie Bindel, a well-known feminist activist who was attacked outside an event at Edinburgh University after she had spoken about male violence towards women. Attendance at that event effectively ended the careers of two of the Scottish Parliament’s most outstanding MSPs, my friends Joan McAlpine and Andy Wightman. At the same time, Ann Henderson, the well-respected Labour activist who was rector of the university, feared for her own safety on campus after students repeatedly falsely accused her of transphobia. The university failed to take appropriate action to deal with the hostility directed against her. That was not an isolated incident. Another well-respected feminist academic at Edinburgh University, my friend Shereen Benjamin, has faced considerable problems. Both Shereen and Ann are Labour activists. Their comrades should defend them.
I have spoken before in this Chamber about the abuse, threats of violence and deplatforming directed against Professor Selina Todd, Kathleen Stock and Rosa Freedman at universities across England. Others have mentioned a recently published report on similar events at Essex University, which identified that part of the problem is that universities are not correctly applying the law under the Education (No. 2) Act 1986. The Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), raised that with the Secretary of State when she wrote to him about the Bill. In fairness to him, he did take the trouble to deal with her detailed concerns about the Bill, and copies of both her letter and his can be read on the JCHR website.
The important thing about the University of Essex report on the cancellation of one speaking event and the decision to rescind an invitation to another is that both of those events concerned gender-critical feminists. The report found that the university’s decisions were unlawful and recommended that apologies be made. It also highlighted that the university appeared to misunderstand and misrepresent equality laws, to the extent that the impression was given to members of the university that gender-critical academics seeking to exercise their right to free speech could be excluded from the institution.
Thanks to the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s important decision on discrimination law in the case of Forstater v. CGD Europe, we now know that gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act 2010. I think, therefore, that it is the Equality Act, more than anything else, that universities need to look at to solve this problem, because it is frequently being misconstrued or ignored in universities, and I am afraid to say that that is a symptom of a wider malaise. To quote the best-selling author and founder of the Positive Birth Movement, Milli Hill,
“those who are being dragged to the pyre are…in most cases, lifelong left-leaning, open minded, educated and tolerant women, often with a history of supporting minority groups”.
The efforts to silence us extend to violence and threats of violence, which many in a position of power are too afraid to condemn. There is not much point in pious words about standing up against the abuse of women but then doing nothing when that abuse is going on right under your nose. University authorities often look the other way or, worse still, participate in the witch hunts against lifelong feminists who simply want to make sure that women’s voices and women’s concerns are heard in important debates.
This Bill might not be the best way to deal with those problems as they represent themselves in the university sector. It is flawed but at least it acknowledges that there is a problem, and those who say that there is not a problem are simply ostriches with their heads in the sand.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
I do not wish to comment on the speeches of Labour Members other than to highlight one particular speech that I did find moving, which was from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). I did agree with her comments in a substantive way and I suspect a number of Conservative Members also do, so I hope the Minister is aware of that.
Ask Labour Members if they champion free speech, and no doubt they would all queue up to say, “Yes, of course”, but is there not a spectacular contradiction in this stance and their intention to vote against this Bill? The hon. Labour Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) tweeted today:
“The biggest threat to free speech on university campuses is not student societies’ no-platform policies. It’s the Tory Hate Speech Bill, back in Parliament today, which threatens student societies’ freedom to choose who speaks at their events & their ability to protect students.”
Forgive me, but is not no-platforming exactly a form of censure? Is not describing the ability—the free ability—to choose a speaker simply an Orwellian turn of phrase, no doubt because some speakers must be more equal than others?
If we want universities to be centres of discussion, debate, expression, challenge and places to develop our young brilliant minds, must we not hear both sides of a debate? A young constituent of mine recently invited me to speak at his university’s Conservative Society event. Before I was allowed to speak, the students’ union insisted on assessing me, regardless of the fact that I am, like everyone else in this House, a democratically elected Member of Parliament. How can that be right?
Freedom of speech has allowed our society to evolve, to advance and to protect the vulnerable. It is freedom of speech that gave women the vote and it is freedom of speech that decriminalised homosexuality, but an unacceptable culture of censorship—a wokery, a heckler’s veto—has been allowed to develop on our campuses and to brainwash our young minds. The parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights released a report on freedom of speech in universities in 2018, and it found that one in four students do not share their true opinions because they clash with those promoted by their university, and a staggering 40% of students stated that views held by speakers had led more frequently to cancellation of events.
This very place is seen as a bastion of democracy and free speech underpins any liberal democracy, so I will be supporting the Bill.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), whom I respect very greatly, said this has always been a challenge and a problem, and indeed he is right—there have always been challenges to freedom in universities and elsewhere—but the point is that the circumstances have changed both quantitatively and qualitatively. It is to do with the wider problem of the brutalisation of debate, but it finds form in universities in a particularly arch form, and if we do not recognise that and do not respond to it through legislation, we will be failing in our duty to universities and the students who study at them.
Marco Longhi
I thank my right hon. Friend for the intervention, which was most welcome. I wholeheartedly agree with it, and how can censorship be something that we cannot take action against?
It would be nice to know how many Labour Members agree with the Voltairean principle that has now been quoted a couple of times in speeches prior to mine—
“I wholly disapprove of what you say—and I will defend to the death your right to say it”—
or perhaps hypocrisy is the order of the day again.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab) [V]
The University and College Union has rightly argued that there is
“no evidence of a free speech crisis on campus”
and, in 2018, the Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that there was
“no wholesale censorship of debate”,
so why on earth are we here? The Government want us to believe that they are engaged in some liberal defence of freedom of speech, but it is a complete farce. The Bill is in fact a threat that tramples on students unions’ autonomy, overturns students unions’ long-standing no-platform policies, narrows the legal definition of academic freedoms and fails to address the real threats to campus free speech: the ever-failing Prevent duty, casualised employment, insecure research funding and, of course, the Government. The Bill is yet another part of the Government’s authoritarian agenda. For immediate proof of that, it is almost unique in the breadth of its provision. For example, rules on judicial review state that if someone wants to challenge a decision of Government, they must have standing, which means they must be affected by the decision that they are challenging. The Bill requires no standing, so any person, any business or any campaign can sue. What a free-for-all that will create. Where are the safeguards that the Secretary of State spoke of?
I hope that, in my short time in this House, I have proved that I am a civil libertarian. I was also a full-time National Union of Students officer, a liberation officer and the union’s anti-racism and anti-fascism convenor. I defended its long-standing no-platform policy against attack then, and I am proud to defend it today. However, I cannot say how much it irks me to find myself again making those arguments I made 10 years ago and—worse—not on a student campus or at a student conference but in the House of Commons. That is further evidence of how regressive a decade of Conservative Government has been.
The Government need to realise that while we decide who should be allowed on university campuses, for many students studying at colleges and universities those campuses are their homes. What has possessed the Government to put demands in law that students must allow anybody—even fascists—into their home and safe space of living and learning? We routinely saw that whenever speakers who espoused fascist views were even promoted as coming on to campus, racist and homophobic attacks against students increased. The Secretary of State said that holocaust deniers would of course not be allowed free rein on campus, but this ill-advised Bill does not realise that, over the years, the no-platform policy has served as the main line of defence for keeping holocaust deniers and other fascists off our campuses. Who gets to decide the remit? The Government —and they routinely pass legislation that goes against our equalities legislation without even publishing an equality impact assessment. Hon. Members will forgive me for not trusting the Government to defend liberation groups even within the law. Why should students trust the same Ministers who repeatedly endorsed the booing of England players at the start of the Euro 2020 tournament? The racist abuse now directed at them was sanctioned from the very top. Students unions cannot depend on the Government to protect them, and the Bill stops them from protecting their members.
I have heard many arguments about what should be debated and how debate should expose things, but the neo-liberal, supposedly free-speech fanatics do not seem to realise that while they are in a room putting together well-informed arguments for fantastic debates, young black, Muslim, Jewish and LGBTQ people out on the streets are being victimised, verbally abused, physically assaulted and, in some cases, murdered. What exactly is there to debate? What possible arguments are there to pose? They are basically saying that those people face discrimination because they cannot argue their case well enough.
The hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) said that we should hear both sides of any debate. Should we debate a paedophile who thinks it is okay to have sex with children? There are people who believe that children should be able to consent. Shall we debate misogynists on whether women should have equal rights to men? We have seen that on the rise with incel groups. Shall we debate people who want an all-white Britain and say that black, Asian and minority ethnic people should not have the right to live and worship as they choose, free from discrimination?
Free speech is not an absolute right. No rights are absolute in a society, because all rights come with responsibilities to others. We legislate for those responsibilities in this House. The right to live free from hate is not up for debate and it never should be. That is not stifling freedom of speech; it is exercising our human rights and defending those of others. The Bill wants to stop that. We do not expose fascist beliefs by debating them. We do not give fascists a platform to give more oxygen to their hate. If we do, we are saying that their views hold the same value as ours, and that is not true in a civilised society. The Government say that the Bill is about freedom of speech, but we know it has got nothing to do with that.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
I rise to speak in support of the Bill and to set out why it is so important that as a society we continue to hear and engage with minority and controversial opinions.
We all know what it is like to feel challenged or discomforted, even offended, by what others say or write. This experience of offence is a negative feeling of embarrassment, anger and sometimes hurt, but on occasions this uncomfortable experience can also lead to something absolutely essential for human progress: change. I am not talking about personally offensive or targeted abusive attacks on individuals, which are clearly abhorrent. That kind of persecution and intolerance has no place in civilised society. I am talking about the kind of offence or discomfort that is felt when we hear something that is deeply challenging to our deeply held points of view. It causes us a kind of emotional pain that sometimes forces a response, but history is full of great offenders: people who put forward minority beliefs that were not initially popular, but which nevertheless they sought to bring to the attention of the majority.
Some of these great offenders were, of course, completely wrong and their controversial views have died with them, but there are many others who stand out now as heroes: Churchill, with his opposition to appeasement; Fawcett’s views on women’s rights; Darwin’s findings on evolution; Galileo’s heretical views on the solar system; Martin Luther’s challenge to the teachings of the Church. All those great men and women held views that were contentious, even offensive, in their day, but through the force of argument and in time they changed the tide of opinion and brought change—change that I doubt any of us in this House today regrets. That change came because people changed their minds. Listeners, including people of influence, heard those views. Many fought to shut them down, often violently, but enough people responded differently and allowed their attitudes to be altered.
Over recent decades we have enjoyed unprecedented freedom of speech in this country. As a result, new ideas have been thoroughly critiqued, with some being widely adopted while others are rejected. But that freedom is now in danger, particularly in our universities. We have heard Members on both sides of the House speak about alarming incidents of no platforming, particularly of women with gender-critical views.
The understandable but misguided desire to protect students from harmful views is shutting down opportunities for those with different opinions to be heard. That is misguided, because the way to prevent harm to young people who are faced with views they find offensive is not to stop those views being heard—as long as they are within the law—but to prepare our young people and teach them to respond in a mature and open-minded way so that they can criticise, debate and, if appropriate, change their minds. That is why I so strongly support the Bill, which will protect free speech in our universities and secure academic freedoms.
We do our young adults and our whole society a great disservice when we do not allow students to be exposed to the ideas and beliefs that will challenge them and allow them to grow in character and resilience. When we encounter beliefs we find difficult, we have a choice. We can shut our ears, we can react with anger or we can respond thoughtfully and honestly, considering whether our own opinions need to evolve or be strengthened. This is the path to maturity and tolerance, and to individual and societal progress. I am delighted to support the Bill.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
Although I was stuck getting here, I have listened to a number of speeches. It is entirely normal for me to disagree with speakers and to find what they say objectionable, but I have to say that I heard a couple of speeches—not by the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) but by other Members who spoke before her—that I felt were verging on hate speech themselves and were objectionable to a number of minority groups in this country. I felt that the quality of some of this debate was demeaning to this House.
Alex Sobel
I will give way, although I might not agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has to say.
Dr Lewis
Indeed, and that surely is the point. What really worries people on the Conservative Benches is that what starts off with the justified condemnation of hate speech ends up by saying that people speaking in a free Parliament are verging on hate speech themselves. Can the hon. Gentleman not see the slippery slope of the argument he is putting forward?
Alex Sobel
I will make an argument about the slippery slope. I think there are Government Members, and maybe even some Opposition Members, who feel that supporting the Bill will settle some old scores, make a dog whistle to people who want to hear it and give a nod and a wink to a certain sort of constituent.
As somebody of Jewish descent whose family members came from the war generation in eastern Europe, I feel strongly that the slippery slope we are going down is one that Government Members may not be able to control. I am not saying that they are like this themselves, but other forces in society will take advantage of and utilise this type of legislation in a way that the Government will cease to have control over. It will create a runaway train effect. I do not want that to happen in this country; people like me and others in this Chamber would find it a difficult country to live in.
We just need to look at what happened yesterday to three of our brave England footballers after they missed a penalty—something that happens to every footballer during their career—and the horrendous racism that they experienced. I will come back to the subject, but I was deeply uncomfortable at some of the previous contributions to the debate and I felt that I had to raise that.
During my time at the University of Leeds—I was both a student and staff member there—the two most notorious new faces of the British far right made our campus the site of their race war. Their story tells me all I need to know about why this Bill should never reach the statute book. During my year on the executive of the Leeds University union, supporters of Claire Fox, now Baroness Fox, of Living Marxism, established a free speech society to remove the students’ “no platform for racists and fascists” policy in the name of libertarianism—maybe the reason why many Government Members support the Bill.
Two unknown first-years joined the society and when the adherents of Baroness Fox graduated, those two took over the society and stepped up their activities on campus. Many known racists and fascists were seen in their company on campus. It was difficult to administer the policy and legal framework that now exists and to vet those whom the free speech society were platforming in rooms they were trying to book out.
The two people involved were Chris Beverley and Mark Collett—now two of the most notorious fascists that this country has seen. Mark Collett was tried alongside Nick Griffin in 2006; I will come back to that. They were both in a number of notorious documentaries produced in the 2000s; I suggest that Members who do not know of them should watch “Young, Nazi and Proud” to understand more about these two characters.
The issue came to a head in Collett’s and Beverley’s attempt to overturn the “no platform for racists and fascists” policy at the general meeting of the students union. It happened to be held in the refectory that had hosted “The Who” in their seminal “Live at Leeds” concert. There were easily over 300 people there. Many, many Jewish students, as well as the campus rabbi and I, spoke against the attempt to remove the policy. Collett and Beverley were the only ones to speak in favour—and in a highly inflammatory way. Their attempt was overwhelmingly defeated.
It had been clear for some time to all on campus who Collett and Beverley really were, but the mask slipped for everybody everywhere that day. If the policy had passed, Collett and Beverley would have invited figures such as Nick Griffin and David Irving, this country’s leading holocaust denier, on to campus under the auspices of free speech. The free speech society soon ran into trouble and at the following AGM the students union fully understood the issue of these two fascists but gave them a room, fearful of legal action. The meeting did not go ahead and the society, which was acting as a front for fascism by that point, was disbanded. That was due not to any policy of the students union, but to protests by students themselves.
Just five years later, at about the same time as Mark Collett was on trial with Nick Griffin at Leeds Crown court for race hate crimes, at Leeds University in February 2006, a contributor to the university newspaper Leeds Student gave an interview to Dr Frank Ellis, in which the academic expressed support for the bell curve theory that said that there were racial differences in average intelligence. The Leeds Student also published an article by Ellis, “Time to face the truth about Multiculturalism”, in which he described the Parekh report as
“a very nasty anti-white tract”.
He then went on to be interviewed in the media, and the students union put out a statement calling for his dismissal. Leeds University condemned Ellis’s views as “abhorrent”. I had left the university by then, but I went to meetings there and objected, as a member of the alumni committee, to his continued employment. Ellis was subsequently suspended by the vice-chancellor pending disciplinary proceedings, which never concluded because he retired early.
My point is that if this law had been in place, the student union and the university would never have taken any action against these radical, far-right fascists, whose only intent is erasure of diversity on the planet: the erasure of people like me, Charlotte—I am sorry, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols)—and others in this Chamber. That is why people need to be really careful about how they use free speech. Free speech is something that we all defend—we all talk about pluralism—but it can also be a cover for something much deeper and much more unpleasant, with the consequences that we all know and speak strongly against in this Chamber every year. Yesterday we marked Srebrenica Memorial Day. This Government need to be very careful on the dark road that they are taking us down.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
First, I apologise about my voice. Like most people, two hours of shouting at a TV screen last night has left me quite hoarse. You will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that that is the only reference I will make to football today.
It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel). Although I share a lot of his concerns with regard to the Bill, I come to a very different conclusion, which is why I rise to support it. This, to me, goes a long way towards protecting our freedom of speech on university campuses. It is absolutely right that healthy debate—I emphasise the word “healthy”—is encouraged and facilitated, and opinions challenged, but in a safe environment. In recent years, we have seen a growing concern of harassment, abuse and intimidation on our university campuses, from blatant antisemitism espoused by lecturers, to imposing security costs on Jewish student societies, to no-platforming external speakers.
Not all students and staff feel able to express themselves on campus without fear of repercussions, particularly the Jewish students. During the latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas, Jewish students faced antisemitic abuse and even death threats almost on a daily basis. A Jewish student at Glasgow University was told to go and gas herself and a Jewish student at UCL was sent a picture of herself photoshopped under a guillotine. The National Union of Students blamed Israel for the rise in antisemitic incidents, before backtracking. It is absolutely abhorrent that our universities have failed to protect our Jewish students and that students do not even feel protected by the NUS.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
I am interested in the specific examples that the hon. Gentleman is giving, because surely this Bill would actually promote and protect the right of people to make exactly the kinds of abhorrent remarks that he is talking about, making Jewish students less safe on campus. How does he reconcile this aspect of his speech with his support for the Bill?
Christian Wakeford
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but I disagree with her. As we heard from the Education Secretary himself in his opening remarks, that would not be the case.
It should be a source of shame for all of us and for every university that Jewish societies often keep their event locations secret due to concerns about the safety of students. We simply cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that our Jewish students do not feel safe on campuses here in the United Kingdom. Last year, Bristol’s student union asked for a fee of £500 to safeguard the former ambassador Mark Regev. This is not an isolated incident. It should not be down to students to provide security themselves. As I have said before, universities have not just a moral obligation but a duty to ensure that all students are protected. This must extend to securing events and putting a stop to no-platforming once and for all. It is not just pro-Israel speakers who have been no-platformed. Indeed, a former Home Secretary was previously no-platformed from speaking at events as well.
It is absolutely crucial that the Government commit to ensuring that the Bill does not become a shield for those who wish to endorse poisonous views, including, as has been mentioned many times, holocaust deniers and far-right or far-left extremists. Universities must be a safe space for all students and institutions must take their duty of care seriously. After a great deal of encouragement from the Secretary of State and others, over 100 institutions have now adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. This is a crucial step in ensuring that universities take accusations of antisemitism seriously. While the IHRA definition is now being adopted, I am encouraged that the Bill gives some teeth to implementing it, because far too often we see a lack of implementation. Again, I refer hon. Members to what is going on at Bristol University.
Just last month, the University of Warwick assembly passed a motion to challenge the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The university—I hope that the shadow Minister will address this—has failed to condemn the motion, despite calls from Jewish students to do so. The Union of Jewish Students rightly asked:
“How can they claim they want to fulfil their moral duty to protect all members, which includes Jewish students, when this motion clearly disregards the wants and needs of Jewish students?”
I therefore ask the Minister what further steps the Government are taking to ensure that the definition is not only rolled out across all institutions but fully implemented. What more can be done to ensure that academics face disciplinary action for making remarks or supporting motions considered to be antisemitic under the definition? I refer again to Professor Miller in that regard. Lastly, will the Minister join me in condemning the incident in which the University of Bristol sought to impose security costs on a student society for daring to invite the former ambassador for Israel, and can she confirm that the Bill will help to stop repeat incidents of that nature?
Although the Bill delivers on our manifesto commitment to strengthen academic freedom and free speech in higher education, universities must now follow up and ensure that campuses are truly open to rigorous, healthy contestation of ideas or be held accountable. We cannot rest until all students feel safe on campus.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) [V]
One characteristic of good education settings is that there are opportunities to be challenged. Education must be a place for open minds rather than narrow minds.
Speaking personally, I found that university was an opportunity to have my view of the world challenged. As a newly minted student, I joined the Durham Union Society, a venerable debating society that is known for bringing a very wide range of speakers in front of the student body. It gave me, and thousands of other students, a chance to hear from people on a range of issues, from nuclear power to environmentalism and various forms of human rights. It gave me a chance to hear from people whose views were simply beyond the range of anything I ever heard or learned about at my school in the south Wales valleys.
I heard from Dave Nellist, the inspiration for Private Eye’s Dave Spart of the loony left, who set out a very robust defence of his view of socialism, something I had never heard or learned about in my life. I heard Peter Tatchell set out a robust defence of direct action in pursuit of his campaign about gay rights. More importantly, I heard him articulate, in a way that many, like me, will have heard for the first time at university, the long history of injustice and prejudice that needed to be addressed. We then heard and saw his commitment to that action in opposition to the appointment of a Bishop of Durham whom he regarded as having been a hypocrite on that issue.
I had the opportunity to encounter speakers representing organisations as diverse as the Monday Club on the extreme right and the British Communist party on the extreme left, and every point in between. I strongly believe that I am in good company, in that that diverse range of challenges to what I had learned and what I perceived about the world helped me to become, as I believe I am, a more socially liberal and a more enlightened person. It certainly developed my interest in and my commitment to politics.
It is clear from the engagement that I have had with constituents who are students, who are part of the academic life of many of our university campuses across the country, that there is a serious, well-founded and genuine concern that the actions of some in our university system have had a chilling effect on their ability to speak freely, to ensure that future generations of students are able to enjoy the benefit of having their prejudices and views challenged, on whichever side of the spectrum.
While I strongly welcome the fact that we will continue to have, completely unaffected by this Bill, very robust laws that tackle hate speech in all its forms and that deal with the many prejudices that we have as a society decided are unacceptable, as well as enshrined protections for people in the Equality Act 2010, through the Bill we will also have measures in place to ensure that the freedom of speech of our academics and our students and the ability of future generations to be challenged and to develop their thinking—in a way that is fundamentally important and that we see going on every day in our House of Commons and our parliamentary democracy—are preserved for future generations.
Through the Bill, we will not see a narrowing of the thinking or a narrowing of the debate in our universities, but we will ensure that they remain what they have been for generations: a place where open minds can thrive and prejudices can be challenged and where we can develop our thinking as a society in a way that then contributes to our national life. For all those reasons, it seems to me that this proposal from the Government is a sensible step. We need to demonstrate to academics and students who have these concerns that we take them seriously. If we are to be the bastion of democracy that we wish to be, we have to ensure that free speech can happen in our universities and in every other part of our education system as well. That is why I strongly support this legislation from the Government.
I hope that the Bill will bring about the great benefit of demonstrating that the United Kingdom is not just genuinely committed to tackling those who would peddle hate and prejudice in our universities and other education settings, but determined to be a place where open minds, debate and free speech can thrive for the long-term benefit of our democracy.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
With the many pressing issues that universities are facing right now, such as harassment on campus, a struggling economy, the plummeting number of students enrolling and the challenges posed by remote leaning, just to name a few, I am disappointed that the Government have chosen to spend their time focusing on a complete non-issue with this Bill. Indeed, this entire debate is surplus to requirements.
In the minds of Ministers and Government Members, freedom of speech is under relentless attack, so they have decided to pass an entirely new law to protect it. We all know that in reality, that could not be further from the truth. A recent study of 10,000 speaker events on British university campuses found that only six had been cancelled—that is six out of 10,000 speaker events. I am sure that the Minister can give the number to show that that was relatively low. Four of those that were cancelled were due to incorrect paperwork. That is an admin error, so that is something that would happen regardless. One was cancelled simply to move to a larger venue. That was not discriminatory. The other was a pyramid scheme, which I am sure the Minister would not condone.
The Office for Students found that in 2017 and 2018, just 0.9% of speaking invitations across universities had been withdrawn. I therefore find it difficult to understand the fears and concerns of Ministers. We already have the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, which sets out the protection of freedom of speech on campuses. Protections for students’ right to freedom of speech already exist, and this Bill does not make any substantive change to the already broad rights that are protected.
As it is crystal clear what the Bill will fail to do, I will focus on what it will actually do. First, it introduces a new mechanism that will allow hate-filled individuals to sue a university if they feel their opinion has not been adequately heard, which will allow extremists, racists and holocaust deniers to have a voice and a much-craved platform on our campuses. Overwhelmingly, student unions and research bodies are telling us that if this Bill is passed as drafted, universities will spend much of their time and resources fighting against such individuals. They will be spending resources on areas that I am sure students and parents would prefer them not to. With the threat of a lawsuit hanging over a university’s head, there will be a new incentive to narrow, not widen debates. Universities will avoid inviting certain speakers to campus altogether—speakers who may have stimulated thought-provoking discussion—through fear of financial repercussions.
Empowering those who peddle hate speech will not help protect free speech, and the Government must seek to better understand that. Free speech is the right to say whatever one likes and the ability to think without constraints. It does not matter if one’s opinion is unpopular, because free speech is essential to democracy. Hate speech is when somebody takes that right and abuses it so that they can bully, demonise and subjugate others, which is what the Government will end up promoting.
Within this Chamber, the ability to stand up and speak out freely is both essential and cherished. This Chamber illustrates the importance and benefit of free speech each and every day. We are doing that right now in this debate. However, if a Member of the House were to begin to say something vulgar, racist or hateful, the Speaker would quickly interrupt, end the speech and demand that the comment be withdrawn. Why is that? Although we theoretically have the right to say something in a free society, we use our judgment to reject hate speech that threatens, incites, harasses and demeans, because it has no place in a tolerant world. Universities should enjoy the same latitude that we do. This Chamber safeguards itself against elevating hate speech each and every day, and I have never heard the Government try to dismantle this practice, so I ask them simply to uphold in our universities the same standards that we all work to here in Parliament.
Finally, I politely ask the Government to turn their attention to far more important issues facing higher education in this country. We are all waiting for the online harms Bill, which I am sure universities, students and lecturers will welcome, so I would be grateful if the Government could let us know when that will be coming back.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
University students have never had such a raw deal as they do today. Sky-high tuition fees lumber them with decades of debt. Living costs soar, along with private sector rents. Thousands suffered lockdowns and virtual learning last year, without a reduction in what they were charged, and sexual harassment and assaults on university campuses are at shocking levels. But what is the issue that the Government choose to legislate on? Giving peddlers of hate speech the right to sue universities or student unions if their events are cancelled. The Minister for Universities, the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), admitted that this would include Holocaust deniers and, in her words, views that would be “hugely offensive” and “hugely hurtful”.
The star of David around my neck was a gift from my friend and comrade Ria on the occasion of my bat mitzvah. It was bought from a market on the site of the former Jewish ghetto in Poland, and I wear it proudly—not only as a symbol of my faith, but as a reminder of the millions killed because they were like me. Even if Ministers try to row back from their declaration of guaranteeing platforms for holocaust deniers, will they now come up with an official list of what hate speech is protected and what is not? Will their hierarchy of hatred allow denial of the Srebrenica genocide, the 26th anniversary of which was yesterday, or will they accept that giving fascists the legal protection to demand restitution from the courts is a terrible idea?
Fascists incite hatred and oppose our right to live in a non-violent democratic society. We are not obliged to accept their bile or their attempts to fundraise and recruit when given a platform. When Nick Griffin was given a seat on a “Question Time” panel, the British National party reported 3,000 new membership applications and raised thousands of pounds. That platform did not allow his views to be challenged; it validated them and grew the cancer of extremism that he represents.
What academic merit is there in the denial or distortion of the Holocaust, or in the kind of ideology that saw a Member of this House killed? How many more people have to be murdered before we realise that these are not ideas that can be debated away? My grandfather Edward Nichols, of blessed memory, did not go to fight Hitler in the marketplace of ideas. That generation had the right idea, and we must do so too.
Communities, including university communities, are not obliged to welcome violent, degrading or dangerous lies from genocide deniers or virus deniers. This Government’s lack of commitment to free speech is made clear by their planned crackdown on protests in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. This is a tawdry piece of vice-signalling to groups who wish students were not so in favour of social equality. This is a bad Bill that offers nothing to students or to society. This is a matter not of cancel culture but of consequences culture. This Bill and the rhetoric around it are nothing more than imports from Trump’s playbook in the United States, in furtherance of this Government’s nonsense culture wars.
Rightly, we do not have an absolute right to freedom of speech in this country, be it in respect of our libel laws, the criminalisation of hate speech, the Government’s push to have universities adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism or universities’ statutory duties under the Prevent strategy. Even in this Chamber, as was rightly mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), we do not have freedom of speech, whether that is in the fact that when we say “you” in the Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, we refer to your good self, or that when my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) accidently named me earlier, he got a little ticking off for it.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West said, this is about creating a better culture of debate, so what is the purpose of this Bill? What free speech does it extend beyond the limitations in existing legislation? It does not do that, as those restrictions on absolute free speech remain in place. This was never a policy designed to address the problems in the university sector, and it is revealed as even more cynical and shoddy today as we condemn the racist abuse of our national footballers by the kind of vermin who have received tacit endorsement from the very highest levels of government. As Tyrone Mings rightly said, this Government do not
“get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ & then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against, happens.”
This Bill is yet another dog whistle from a Government who are unleashing forces that they will not and cannot hope to control. Let us scrap it and move on to things that really matter to our constituents.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab) [V]
I am pleased to be speaking in this debate as chair of the all-party group for friends of Durham University.
Let me be clear: I support freedom of speech. I want students and academics to feel comfortable discussing and promoting unpopular views in order to challenge conventional wisdom. After all, that is a vital part of university. However, I do not believe that freedom of speech should mean freedom from consequences. Under this legislation, universities and student unions could be forced to roll out the red carpet for holocaust deniers, transphobes anti-vaxxers and others with deplorable views, and if they do not, they risk being fined or sued. This is not a free speech Bill; it is more of a hate speech Bill.
Aside from being problematic morally, it is not clear how this legislation will work in practice. Durham University has told me that it still does not know how it will fit in with its existing duties. For example, the university subscribes to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, but now could be compelled to host holocaust deniers or face sanctions. Alternatively, speech around gender identity that might be allowed under this legislation could be in violation of the university’s policies on equality and trans rights. The university could therefore be forced to break its own codes of conduct, which are designed to protect staff and student welfare, or face fines. This is clearly wrong. Does this legislation supersede universities’ duties under education legislation, Prevent and employment law. It is all a bit of a mess.
What is especially frustrating is that this Bill is aimed at tackling a problem that does not really exist. Although Tories love to decry the so-called cancel culture at our universities, a study of 10,000 university speaker events found that just six were cancelled. As we have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), four of them were cancelled for incorrect paperwork, one was cancelled to upgrade to a bigger venue, and one was a pyramid scheme. The words “moral panic” come to mind. In fact, Durham University has informed me that, far from encouraging a wider range of views, the threat of sanction could actually result in a more risk-averse speaker programme. The thing that really irritates me about this legislation is that there are so many other issues in higher education that need fixing. Freedom of speech is threatened less by wokeness and more by insecure work and limited funding. Students are concerned about the cost of rent, tuition fees, levels of sexual harassment and so much more, so where is the legislation to address those issues?
The Bill shows that the Government are more concerned with stirring up a culture war than addressing the real problems in society. It will only make life harder for students and staff in Durham who were already over-burdened by introducing more bureaucracy into education. It is just the latest example of the Government’s twisted priorities.
I will finish by saying to the Government: stop playing politics, scrap this Bill and introduce some measures that will actually improve higher education.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]
I have to confess that I have some sympathy with the Universities Minister, recognising that she will soon be winding up this debate. She is a decent Minister who knows the real issues facing our universities and their students, and I am sure that she knows that this Bill is nonsense. She has certainly struggled to explain its impact. She knows and she has admitted that it will protect some hate speech, but she is having to defend it to play her part in stoking up the culture wars that are at the heart of this Conservative party’s electoral strategy.
Let us be clear: free speech is at the heart of our values. We on the Labour Benches have a long record of protecting it, but it has too often been used by the Conservative party as a political football. I remember 35 years ago, with unemployment at a post-war high of 14% amid the deep gloom of that Tory decade, when Margaret Thatcher produced the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, requiring universities to uphold freedom of speech. I played my part then in drafting the code of practice for the University of Sheffield to ensure our compliance with the legislation. The Act was followed by a series of speaker meetings orchestrated by Conservative students to provoke a reaction and fuel division.
Then, almost 10 years later, with John Major’s Government struggling, out came the free speech dead cat again with the 1994 Education Act, which this time decided that too much free speech of the wrong sort was a bad thing and tried to limit the activities of student unions.
Now, with the mismanagement of covid leaving the UK with one of the worst recessions and worst death rates in Europe, the Government’s flawed Brexit deal hitting businesses in every sector, people at work facing insecurity and rising inequality across society, free speech is again rolled out as a diversion, a “look over there” tactic. With no irony, they are introducing this Bill the week after Ministers were cracking down on free speech with the anti-protest provisions of the policing Bill.
As the Universities Minister acknowledged on Radio 4, this is a Bill that empowers holocaust deniers and other purveyors of hate speech by giving them the powers to make vexatious complaints against universities. As if that did not do enough to fuel the culture war, it also creates a new director for freedom of speech at the Office for Students with a full-time responsibility to keep the issue alive. No doubt it will be another job for another Conservative crony with undue influence over academic debate. Does the Minister really believe that this is the most important addition to the IFS team? Is it more important, for example, than a director of learning remediation to deal with the lost learning experiences for both new and current students as a result of covid? Does she not recognise that the financial and legal liability in the Bill could be a chill factor on open debate, requiring universities to spend more on lawyers and less on students, but, of course, the Bill is not about the real priorities. I represent both of Sheffield’s universities and more students than any other Member of this House. Over the last year, I have received hundreds of emails from students, from parents with children at university, from staff working hard to provide the best possible learning during the pandemic against a backdrop of confusion and late decisions from the Government; I have received none on free speech.
We could have spent our time better today looking at the issues that are being raised. We could have discussed the recommendations of the report by the all-party parliamentary group for students, which involved two of the Minister’s Conservative predecessors and argued for a learning remediation fund to assist universities to provide access to experiences, specialist facilities and equipment for skills development and more—those things that students have missed during the pandemic. We could have discussed our case for proper hardship funding in respect of rents paid for unused accommodation by students who have lost out from part-time jobs that dried up in hospitality and retail sector. We could have considered why students in England have been treated far worse than those in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, with an average of only £43.70 allocated per student in England for hardship support while those in Wales received an average of £400 per head, Northern Ireland £500 per head and Scotland £80 per head plus other support packages.
We could have talked about the issues for staff who have faced enormous pressure and made huge efforts to move entire courses online, delivering the best possible teaching but knowing that some of the learning experiences would inevitably be lost. We might have asked why the latest guidance for teaching in the autumn has been issued too late, after timetabling has been done, making things more difficult than needed. We could have been considering the quarantine arrangements for the new session, as those of us on the all-party parliamentary group for international students have been arguing. We could have discussed the vital role that our universities will play as we rebuild our economy after covid. Instead, we are faced with this sorry Bill. The Government really need to deal with the priorities that we face. I hope that they will drop this unnecessary Bill.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab) [V]
Despite finding no time to legislate for social care reform or employment rights, the Government can find time to protect antisemites and people whose only aim is to cause deep hurt and offence. These are clearly the wrong priorities for us as a Parliament and for the country. The Government should drop this Bill, which has dangerous and deeply troubling consequences, as my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) so eloquently pointed out.
It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who is on the all-party parliamentary group for universities and chairs the all-party parliamentary groups for students and for international students. I thank him for all the work that he has done in the House to highlight the plight of students. That brings me to what is really troubling my constituents.
No. 1: Jewish families have contacted me as a constituency MP, very worried about the welfare of their children and young people in universities where they have faced abuse. I do not believe that the current Bill seeks to address that issue. In fact, it could make it worse. I have also had briefings from the organisation Tell MAMA, which has explained how Islamophobic attacks have happened against students on university campuses. I am not sure how this Bill would address those sorts of concerns. Not only that, but first-year university students have been contacting me for the last 12 months—first, before they gained access to university, during the exams fiasco—asking how on earth the Secretary of State could have kept his job despite such a huge level of incompetence.
There have been images on our television screens over the last 12 months of international students queuing around the block for food banks because they have not been able to get part-time work due to covid. The broken loans system is an international disgrace. The Government really need to address the financial pressure that students are under. My local university, London Metropolitan University, offers courses for nurses. If nurses need assistance while they are studying nursing—which, of course, is a very much needed occupation with covid and was beforehand due to the shortage of nurses—the fees are still £9,000 a year. Of course, there are also other living costs over the three years. Nurses can come away with a loans bill of £50,000 and then start at the local hospital—Whittington or North Middlesex—on a starting income of about £25,000. How nurses could ever pay off those ridiculous loans should trouble the Government, not this Bill.
Where are the results and outcomes and the action that the Government will take as a result of the Augar report? Or is it just growing dust and mould on shelves? What about the need to face down the uncertainty and try to clarify the situation for students who are studying in September 2021? We have 10 days left before recess in which we could debate urgent issues such as whether students will be studying under a hybrid system; whether they will be studying in person or remotely; whether they will have to undergo quarantine if they come in from abroad; what will happen to European student numbers, which have dropped because of Brexit; how Horizon will be funded; and how the short-term contracts that currently face so many women academics can be put on a proper employment footing.
While we are on the subject of women, how will the issues for women students raised so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) be addressed? These are real questions. We need proper services for women who have experienced sexual violence, and we need firm action against perpetrators.
Universities are not the enemy. This Bill will cause more paperwork and bureaucracy for a sector that is already struggling. Instead, we need a proper debate on the issues that matter. I hope that the Government will listen to the contributions made this evening, including the serious ones from my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds North West and for Warrington North about how determined a small far-right group can be to use legislation that is not carefully worded to cause mayhem, as well as the contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield Central and for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) about how we can work together. We need to see urgent action and to be in the real world, not stoking culture wars.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and her heartfelt sentiments on behalf of students in her constituency. During the pandemic, students from Luton North have got in touch with me about so many of the worries that the Government have put in front of them. There was exam chaos last year, and students worry that they will see the same repeated again this year. They were sent back to covid-filled universities last September and have had to pay for accommodation that they have not been in because of the pandemic. Some universities have moved to permanent remote learning, for the same costs as an in-person degree. There have been missed graduations and freshers weeks, a growing sense of crisis in young people’s mental health, and all the rest of it.
This has been a hard time to be a student. But can the House guess how many students from Luton North have got in touch with me about no-platforming or the need to balance out the debate on anti-racism and anti-fascism? Zero. With everything that is going on at the moment—everything that is facing young people—how can this Bill be a Government priority?
One thing that people in Luton North do talk to me about is the impact of the Prevent duty on campuses and in our schools. Of those who reported being affected by Prevent, 43% felt unable to express their views or be themselves on campus. Only a quarter of Muslim students say they feel entirely free to express their views on Islam in university contexts. This means that Muslim students are less involved in student democracy, more likely to feel there is no space for them and less comfortable engaging in political debate on campus. That is simply not right.
Prevent is the real block on freedom of speech on campuses, but it is mentioned only briefly in the Bill’s 21 pages. Given how students, and Muslim students especially, feel that their freedom of speech is being restricted on campus by Prevent, I hope that the Government will change the Bill to help all students to feel more welcome on campus. Seriously: how can a Government talk about free speech when they actively seek to criminalise young people who talk and share opinions on issues that we should all be talking about, from Palestine to plastics in our oceans?
The Government simply cannot have it both ways or take people for fools. This Bill is not really about freedom of speech though, is it? It is about stoking a culture war. It is about enabling those who profit from hate, silencing young Muslim students and students who care about climate change. The Bill is nonsensical and hypocritical, like the Home Secretary’s attempt today to condemn the same sorts of racism that the Conservative Government have courted and continue to stoke with divisive Bills such as this and the upcoming Nationality and Borders Bill.
What it boils down to, ultimately, is that Conservative Members are worried—really worried—about the fact that even when they won a landslide victory in the election, only 22% of 18 to 29-year-olds voted for them. That is not because young people are a bunch of liberal, snowflake, red, left-wing, knee-taking, no-platforming work warriors who need to hear balanced debates and will then, all of a sudden, discover how to vote Tory. No: it is because since we last had a Labour Government, 11 years ago, they have seen their fees more than trebled and their education maintenance allowance axed, and most of them are stuck renting at extortionate cost with little prospect of owning their homes in parts of the country.
While we talk about values, young people see a Home Secretary obsessed with deportations and not their own safety. They see a diversity-bashing Prime Minister and a dog-whistle Tory party which spends its time insulting even our English national football team for having the audacity to speak out against racism and try to get food into the bellies of kids who are going hungry because of the Government’s shameful policies. No amount of so-called balanced debate will ever cancel out those facts, no matter how hard the Government try to punish young people in this country.
If the Conservative party really wants to fix its electoral prospects with the optimistic, dynamic, hopeful and yes, sometimes radical new generation of our country, perhaps it should stop stoking a culture war and just get on with helping those young people to live freely and securely and realise their ambitions, just as a Labour Government would do. Young people want and deserve hope, not hate.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
It is the principled eloquence of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) that gives me hope for the future of our country. I feel that the country is safe in the hands of her generation and people like her.
I have listened to the whole of the debate, and I say this. We are in the midst of what in other eras we would have called a plague. Nearly 130,000 members of our community have died. Many of them faced appalling deaths, alone, isolated from their loved ones. Moreover, poverty runs rife among our people. More than 40% of the children in my constituency are living in poverty. It took a footballer to force the Government to act to secure a basic meal for many of our children, and what did he get last night from some of the racist scum populating our country? More racist abuse.
With so much scarring the lives of many of our constituents, with so many wrongs to be righted, what is the House debating? A proposal for a law to legislate against behaviour when there is barely any evidence that it exists. The Office for Students found
“no evidence of free speech being systematically suppressed”.
It went on to say:
“Our experience to date is that providers are working hard to be compliant with their duty under section 43 of the 1986 Education Act.”
Selina Todd has been referred to tonight. She is my friend; I helped her to launch her recent book. I was contacted before the event by a students club urging me not to attend and not to participate. I went ahead, because, as I explained, disagreement with Selina was best dealt with in discussion, and it was left at that: an agreement to disagree.
If any incidences arise of the suppression of free speech, laws and institutions already exist to protect freedom of speech in higher education. There is the Human Rights Act, which, I remind the House, the Conservative party voted against. The Education (No. 2) Act 1986, passed by a Conservative Government, contains section 43, which has been referred to and which requires universities to
“take such steps as are reasonably practicable”
to secure freedom of speech. There are already regulatory bodies to ensure that those provisions are protected and enforced. The Office of the Independent Adjudicator deals with student complaints that cannot be resolved through internal processes of individual universities. Likewise, if academic freedom is being infringed, employment law and employment tribunals can address that.
This is interesting and I have not witnessed it very often, but Universities UK, the National Union of Students, the University and College Union and even the Russell Group are united in opposing this legislation. I say to the Government: do not insult the intelligence of Members of this House or, more importantly, the intelligence of the British people. This is a grubby political stunt, worthy of the derision it has received tonight. It is a propaganda exercise in this Government’s persistent provocation of the culture war, as many Members have suggested. But how far does the logic of this policy go? Who is next—further education establishments, schools, Government-funded charities and community groups? If not them, why are the universities being singled out? The logic of this policy is ludicrous.
If Ministers want to know the real issues in universities, they should go to Liverpool and Leicester and speak to the lecturers who have been forced on to picket lines because they are being sacked. They should visit any college and talk to lecturers about how their profession is being casualised, their wages frozen and cut, and their pension put under further threat. They should speak to the University and College Union and see what its members are up against at the moment. None of the issues that are so relevant to higher education, students and lecturers is being addressed by the Government, who are more interested in divisive culture wars than in solving the real issues faced by our universities and the people of this country.
The legislation should be dropped. I am fearful. As others have warned, be careful what this Government wish for, because they could open up serious division in our society and on our university campuses, and open up a can of worms that the fascist right will exploit.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I seem to follow the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) in various debates, but I have to say that the content of his speech was very much the opposite of what I want to say.
I will explain my specific point of view. I do not take for granted the right to speak and to speak freely. I treasure and cherish the right to do that in this House. Whenever I speak, I know that there are many in this Chamber who may not agree with me, and I accept that because I understand that we are all different and have different points of view. That is their right, but the fact is that that does not take away my right to speak, as long as I speak with courtesy, manners and respect. I have always tried to do that with everyone in this House, even when my opinion might differ from theirs, and to express my views in a way that is every bit as heartfelt, strong and sincere as them. I have always maintained that freedom of speech does not mean freedom to berate, belittle or bad mouth individuals, but we must be allowed to hold different opinions in a respectful manner.
I am referring to the intrinsic rights that we hold dear. Every day I look at the world and I grieve when I hear someone say, “If you don’t agree with me, you shouldn’t speak.” I do not subscribe to that view, which seems to be most strongly held in universities throughout the country. That is why I believe that the Government’s stance is correct and proper, and why I will support the Bill’s Second Reading and cast proxy votes on behalf of my party colleagues as well.
We must remind people that they must hear if not accept other arguments. If we continue to raise generations who believe that their opinion trumps others, that they are right and others are wrong, and that to disagree with them means to hate them, we will find ourselves in a very different United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
We all long for a place of tolerance, which needs to be given to all people, to those who believe in no gods and those who believe in one God—as I do, because I have a faith and I believe very much in it. I know that others in this Chamber have the same faith, while others have a different faith. Each person has a right to speak of their faith and belief.
I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. We speak out for those with Christian beliefs, for those with other beliefs and for those with no beliefs at all. Why do we do that? Because we have respect for other people. I do that on behalf of Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Ahmadis, Jews, Baha’is and Shi’as because I believe they have the right to their beliefs as I have a right to have my belief. I will speak as strongly for them as I do for people of my own belief, because that is what I believe and what I seek to achieve in this House. I understand that that is what the Government are trying to achieve.
To provide some examples, I read of a shocking case against street preachers—I say this because I am a Christian and I have strong faith—who were drawn into speaking on abortion and other sensitive issues in an attempt to silence them having their rights upheld by the rule of law. I will quote what the judge said in his deliberation in one case, because it is important to have it on the record:
“Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence.”
We should be able to say words without bringing people to anger. He went on:
“Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.”
In Northern Ireland we had the case, which was known worldwide, of the Ashers cake sale. I will not rehearse the case in the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I just want to put this on the record. It was a case where those with a strong faith like myself were taken to court for not baking a cake for a certain group of people. They took their case to court. The Christian Institute helped them and they won their case, but those people were dragged through the court because they had a belief. This is about respecting other people. I just see in society today that so much happens in a different way. This is a principle that we must live by and I believe it should be clear in universities.
Today is 12 July, Madam Deputy Speaker, and in Northern Ireland we had a celebration of Orange culture. I am wearing my lodge tie—Kircubbin LOL 1900—because I came straight from the parade on to the plane for this debate. We had a fantastic celebration of our Orange culture in Newtonards, as there was across the whole of the Province. The people who watch those parades—I know them, because it is my constituency—are from all sides of the community. They are there to celebrate and enjoy it, and to have respect for other people. What a great thing it is to have respect for other people. I believe that is an example of people from all communities coming together. It may not necessarily be something they want to be a part of themselves individually, but they are happy to come along, support and enjoy not just the good will as there was in Newtonards today but that time together—[Interruption.] I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I did not realise there was a time limit— that is my fault. I will come to an end. My apologies.
I will finish with this quote from the Christian Institute:
“Freedom of expression is central to the health of a democratic society. It allows us to seek truth and object to injustice. Without free speech, a society effectively closes the door to the exchange of ideas that can lead to positive change. So we need to be vigilant to protect this vital freedom for future generations.”
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I thank the hon. Gentleman.
Jim Shannon
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. All I want to say is that I support the Bill.
Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)
The Bill is a damaging non-solution to a non-existent problem that only exists in the minds of this reactionary Government and their outriders. Trade unions, led by the University and College Union, rightly argue that there is no evidence to support the notion of a free speech crisis on campus by what the Government deem to be intolerant or even oversensitive students and staff. A 2019 Policy Exchange report, which claimed to find evidence of a free speech campus crisis and which was cited repeatedly in the Government’s own White Paper, which informs much of the Bill, has since been discredited. For instance, one of the report’s main examples of no-platforming at Cardiff University did not happen at all—the event went ahead as planned.
Democratically elected student unions who represent their student bodies much like trade unions in the workplace have long adhered to a no-platform policy formed in response to the fascist groups who sought to exploit and subvert democratic platforms to promote hate, racism, fascism and holocaust denial. The Government do not understand that if someone is allowed free rein to espouse racist, hateful or discriminatory views without challenge, it can directly contribute to a culture where people of my class, my race and my gender no longer feel safe. Yet no-platforming is an incredibly rare outcome: of the 62,000 requests by students for external speaker events at English universities in 2017-18, only 53—less than 0.1%—were rejected by a student union or university. Despite that, the Government have created a self-serving narrative of an imagined free-speech crisis to force through this authoritarian legislation.
The Bill fails to secure for staff the ability to speak out against their employers and will empower the Office for Students, with appointments by the Government, to interfere politically in university and academic life, thus seriously imperilling academic freedom and democratic norms. It also narrows the legal definition of academic freedom in a way that is almost unprecedented in British law. Unlike rules on judicial review, there will be no standing requirement, so any person, business or campaign can sue universities. The threat to freedom of speech and academic liberties therefore comes not from the imagined free-speech crisis but from the Government and their hugely disproportionate legislation.
As the University and College Union rightly highlights, the much graver threats to academic freedom take the form of casualised employment, sustained attacks on the arts and humanities, insecurity of research funding, the Prevent programme, Government interference with the academic research agenda—especially on decolonisation —and targeted redundancies. More than two thirds of researchers and almost half of teaching-only staff in the higher education sector are on fixed-term contracts. Widespread insecure employment strips academics of the ability to speak and research freely and curtails chances for career development. Indeed, the proposed compulsory redundancies across England’s universities including at Leicester, Liverpool, Aston and Chester, are alarming. In Leicester and across the UK, university management must listen to the workers’ demands and withdraw compulsory redundancies. The Government must end the marketisation of higher education, which restricts academic freedoms, and instead encourage universities to work constructively with trade union representatives to protect higher education livelihoods.
Many aspects of higher education need urgent redress. For too long, universities have been treated as private businesses and left at the mercy of market forces while top salaries have soared and students have paid more for less. Tuition fees have trebled and maintenance grants have been scrapped, leaving the poorest graduates with an average debt of £57,000. Education must be a universal right, not a costly privilege. The Government must properly fund our universities, scrap tuition fees and cancel student debt. Instead, they are pushing through this legislation that solves none of the real issues facing the higher education sector and will instead compound the problems that they claim they wish to solve. They must end their divisive culture wars, stop stoking the fires of hate, abandon the power grab over the higher education sector, commit to properly supporting the freedom, wellbeing and funding of all staff and students and scrap altogether this free hate speech Bill.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I thank everyone who has participated in today’s debate. The Bill uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut—so said my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper). As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) succinctly put it, the Bill will result in legal protection for hate speech.
With this Bill, the Government are seeking headlines. The Bill is mostly about headlines, but of course Labour supports free speech. Labour is the party that has done more than any other when it comes to free speech—just look at our record. In fact, Labour introduced two significant pieces of legislation in this regard: the European convention on human rights, and the Equality Act 2010. Without exception, every one of my colleagues has risen to extol their support for free speech.
The Government are fooling no one with their claims for the Bill, as was laid bare by the contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who chairs the APPG for students and who talked about the numerous attempts by successive Conservative Governments to use the free-speech dead cat. Many will have listened intently to my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), who made it absolutely clear that this legislation would facilitate the likes of David Irving, Nick Griffin and others to spew out their antisemitic, racist hate speech on our campuses. My hon. Friends asked what hate speech will be allowed. Both called the legislation dog-whistle politics, over which the Government will lose control. What we have before us would be more aptly titled the hate speech protection Bill—a piece of legislation that would protect antisemites, holocaust deniers and people whose only aim is to cause deep hurt and offence.
The Government claim to be advancing the people’s priorities, but this issue is certainly not one of them. One would have thought that the Government would prioritise an inquiry into the covid pandemic; the greater number of challenges that the higher education sector faces; the impact of the pandemic on education, as we have heard; the mental health crisis; or the fact that violence against women is endemic. On the last point, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) asked the Secretary of State about his failure to address violence against women. She pointedly asked where that Bill is, but the Secretary of State remains silent.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) asked why the Government have not prioritised support for students throughout the pandemic, which has exposed enormous inequality. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) spoke of the ongoing crisis in mental health on our campuses and asked why it is not a priority. Instead, the Government have manufactured a Bill to once again distract from their own failings. They claim that they have evidence and data, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said, the Government are in an evidence-free zone.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) said, the Bill is motivated by the cancellation on university campuses of just six scheduled events out of 10,000 last year. Four of those were cancelled due to incorrect paperwork, one was moved off campus, and the other was a pyramid scheme. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) asked, why is the Secretary of State so attentive to a virtually non-existent problem? Why was the Secretary of State not fighting his corner for the £15 billion of catch-up funding that was proposed by Sir Kevan Collins, rather than meekly accepting the £1.4 billion pittance? He would rather focus on six, or truly two, cases where people were not heard on campus.
The Bill is a charter for hate speech. Many people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana), reminded us that the Minister for Universities, the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), was unable to deny that the Bill would create a legislative safeguard for holocaust denial. Why are we devoting our attention to a Bill that provides legislative backing to help holocaust deniers, racial supremacists and other preachers of hate gain special access to university campuses? The simple truth is that the existing legislation—section 43(1) of the Education Act 1986, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which includes Prevent duties, and the Higher Education and Research Act 2017—already covers the issues that the Bill seeks to address. The 2017 Act established the Office for Students and states that the governing body must take
“such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured within the provider.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) questioned why, despite those existing powers, this Bill seeks to create a range of new obligations on higher education providers and to give the OfS new powers to fine an institution.
My hon. Friends have questioned throughout the new tort enabling individuals to seek compensation through the courts, which will result in universities and student unions having to spend more significant time and money fighting legal battles against vexatious and frivolous claims. What is the unintended consequence? Institutions and student unions will naturally become risk averse and avoid inviting speakers for fear of financial repercussions if they are subsequently cancelled. Remember that many HE institutions and colleges are actually quite small—maybe 2,000 or 3,000 students—and will certainly not be able to cope administratively or financially with the additional burdens placed on them. The result will be fewer speakers, fewer debates and an overall reduction in free speech.
Then there is the threat to academic freedom with the inclusion of a new qualifying concept of
“within their field of expertise”.
Perhaps the Minister would elaborate on how academic freedom will be limited in practice and on who would decide. Increasingly, and I have to agree with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), this begins to sound like the McCarthyism that started in the US in 1950s, but it is McCarthyism against our university sector. As we have heard repeatedly from Labour Members, this is a Bill that claims to safeguard, yet perversely will have the reverse effect in numerous unintended consequences. The idea that this Bill could actually facilitate holocaust deniers to speak on campus should itself send a chill through the public consciousness. Likewise, it would enable other anti-science brigades to hold court on campus. Perhaps I could paraphrase the late Donald Rumsfeld, and suggest that there may be intended unintended consequences. That is to say that the Government may not have fully thought through the forms and scale of damage to the higher education sector, but it seems they would not be dissatisfied with the turmoil of litigation and the financial impact they have unleashed, because this is the precursor to their attack on the sector.
Finally, let me turn to the Office for Students and its central role. If we needed to understand what was going on here, we could do no better than start with the appointment of the new chair to the supposedly independent OfS. I know the Prime Minister is a recent convert to the love of dogs, but appointing his poodle? Of course, one of Lord Wharton’s first acts was to make an £8,000 donation to the Conservative party, which is two months’ pay from his two-day-a-week job. Now we have what many are describing as an “Office for Stooges” overseeing higher education, and that is how free and independent speech will be in future. It is a body whose purpose now is to do the Government’s bidding, particularly when central to this legislation is the appointment of a tsar for free speech and academic freedom. That is chilling—one person with all those powers.
I will be voting for our reasoned amendment. Given that there is no serious evidence to suggest there is a problem with freedom of speech on our campuses, instead of addressing the urgent problems faced by students and higher education institutions, the Bill is yet another case of the wrong priorities from a Government who seek to divide rather than unite. I invite the Minister to explain why the public should trust this Government when it comes to free speech. After all, this is a Government who shut down Parliament illegally—this place, illegally—as well as a Government who interfere with the independent selection of members of parliamentary bodies and the selection of museum trustees. They are even a Government who tell the National Trust not to explain the history of certain of its properties that were funded on the proceeds of slavery. That is sinister.
The Government should drop this Bill and get on with addressing the urgent needs of the country, where people are more concerned about how they are going to pay their bills this week and this month, and where inflation is ripping through people’s hard-earned income, with an economy that has become so distorted and so riven by inequality in the past 11 years that we the people were more vulnerable to the pandemic even before the Government managed to mismanage the crisis. The public simply want good government and a Government who understand that politics is all about priorities, and that is why I urge all Members to vote for our reasoned amendment.
The Minister for Universities (Michelle Donelan)
We have heard a range of views today, but the House is united in an understanding that free speech is the cornerstone of democracy and a liberal society. That was passionately articulated by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and many others, who shared an endless list of examples of the curtailment of free speech on our campuses.
Disappointingly, though, there was disagreement from those on the Opposition Benches over the role that the Government should take to protect and promote free speech. On the Government side of the House, we believe that standing up for free speech is a key responsibility of any democratic Government, we believe that students and lecturers should not be silenced, and we are prepared to stand up for free speech and not just make tokenistic soundings regarding its value. That is why we are bringing forward this legislation to deliver on our manifesto pledge.
Some hon. Members questioned whether there is a problem on our campuses. Tell that to the countless academics and students who have shared their experiences with me. Tell that to the students and academics whose stories have been shared by hon. Members today.
Mr Kevan Jones
The hon. Lady has just said that she has countless examples. Will she, after the debate—if she does not have it with her now, that is fine; I accept that—publish the data on which the Bill is based? That would at least show that there is some evidence behind the Bill, rather than just the hearsay she is telling us about.
Michelle Donelan
I am confused about how the right hon. Member cannot recognise the evidence. We have heard from so many hon. Members today who have shared examples: my hon. Friends the Members for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) and for North West Durham (Mr Holden); the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry); the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield); my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings; the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), and my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton and for Dudley North (Marco Longhi).
Numerous studies have shone a spotlight on the problem, but they only document the tip of the iceberg, given the nature of the chilling effect outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). Think for a moment about those who feel too afraid to speak out for fear of repercussion, and feel that they have to self-censor. Our universities should always be bastions of freedom and intellectual discussion. That point was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell).
As my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) stressed, how can we expect society to progress or opinions to modernise unless we can challenge the status quo? The intolerance and influence of some has led students and academics to self-censor their views. Those individuals are some of the best and brightest, yet their ideas go unexpressed. Imagine the potential loss here—we will never know. We can, at least, look back at the past. Where would we be now if the views of 100 or even 200 years had never been challenged? As a woman, I doubt I would be an MP, let alone Universities Minister.
No one can deny the massive impact that covid has had on students, universities and staff. However, to address the question asked by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) as to why we are doing this now, I would argue that covid has highlighted the value of personal freedoms that many of us used to take for granted. That is on top of the fact that the British public placed their faith in us to deliver on a manifesto—and deliver we certainly will.
We have heard from some Opposition Members that we need cultural, not legislative, change. I remind them that current legislation lacks an enforcement mechanism. Yes, some universities, including Essex, have got their house in order, and we recently saw a strong commitment from the Russell Group, but as so many speakers today have highlighted, there is a problem. We also know the crucial role legislation can play, and has played, in cultural change; take gender equality, race discrimination and human rights as examples.
A number of Members spoke about how higher education providers will have to balance competing duties. It is important to remind the House that they already have to do that. However, the Bill places a duty on providers to take reasonably practicable steps to secure lawful free speech. It does not supersede the Prevent duty or the Equality Act. The requirement to take reasonably practicable steps is right. It cannot be sensible to require providers to act unreasonably or to ignore their other legal duties. The Bill will give providers further clarity, because the new director will give advice and issue comprehensive guidance.
I want to be very clear: this Bill only protects lawful free speech. Harassment, racism, discrimination, hate crimes, and incitement of violence or terrorism will have no place on our campuses or in our society. In fact, I vehemently believe that we should defend and safeguard freedoms on all fronts, from freedom of speech to freedom from persecution.
Christian Wakeford
What we have heard from those on the Opposition Benches, in trying to suggest that holocaust deniers will be supported in going on to our university campuses, is clearly fearmongering. Will the Minister set the record straight and highlight that that is not the case and that we are supporting our students?
Michelle Donelan
I absolutely confirm that, and I agree with my hon. Friend.
Some Members have asked how the Bill will interact with the Government’s work to combat antisemitism. Antisemitism is abhorrent and will not be tolerated in our universities, which is why we have encouraged more than 100 higher education providers to sign up to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition. Regarding the specific question of holocaust deniers, any attempt to deny the scale or the occurrence of the holocaust is morally reprehensible and has no factual basis. In many cases, those who deny the holocaust have links to neo-Nazi extremism, antisemitic violence and intimidation. There are numerous reasons why someone who denies the holocaust should not be invited to speak on campus, and nothing in the Bill gives them a right to a platform.
Mr Kevan Jones
I agree totally with the hon. Lady and I do not think for one minute that she is promoting those individuals, but what is to prevent a holocaust denier who has been denied the opportunity to speak at a university from using the legal framework in the Bill to sue that university? The legal action might not get anywhere, but the university would have to spend a lot of time and effort defending itself.
Michelle Donelan
I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention.
The European Court of Human Rights has held that holocaust denial is not protected speech under article 10 of the European convention on human rights and as such is intolerable in a democratic society. I will put on record again, just as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did before, that there is no place in universities for an extremist views that masquerades as fact but is complete fiction while grotesquely seeking to misinterpret global history in a deeply offensive way. To be absolutely clear, the Bill does not override the existing duties under the Equality Act regarding harassment and unlawful discrimination. The public sector equality duty, the Prevent duty, hate crime and, of course, criminal law may apply. That point was excellently articulated by a number of Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly).
The Opposition raised the issue of anti-vaxxers. We have one of the world’s most successful vaccination programmes, with over half of 18 to 24-year-olds already having had their first jab. The Bill categorically does not give the right to a platform to anti-vaxxers who may make baseless claims. This makes me wonder whether the Opposition have, in fact, read the Bill. We will not be supporting their amendment today, as it serves only to highlight their desire to inhibit free speech. The hon. Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) argued that the Bill would result in universities refraining from inviting speakers. The reality is that it places a duty on providers to promote free speech, and they will be investigated by the director if they fail to meet that duty. The importance of the new duty to promote was clearly articulated by the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones).
I want to note the powerful speech by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). I agree 100% that abhorrent sexual harassment has absolutely no place on our campuses, and every university should have a robust complaints process. Two weeks ago, I wrote to all universities stating the Government’s clear view that non-disclosure agreements should not be used in these circumstances, and the OfS has produced a statement of expectation and is looking at creating a new registration condition. I recently met the founders of Everyone’s Invited, and I would also be happy to meet the hon. Member to discuss this important topic.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) raised the issue of security costs resulting from no-platforming, and cited the example of the Israeli ambassador. Higher education providers should not be no-platforming by the back door. The Bill is clear that reasonably practical steps should be taken to secure freedom of speech for visiting speakers, and I expect the Office for Students guidance to make it clear that this applies to security costs.
The Bill will protect numerous views that are alien to me and to many in this Chamber, but it is not only naive but dangerous to suggest that defending the right of a view in any way endorses a specific view. Surely, as politicians, we should all agree with the sentiment of Evelyn Hall, who stated when summing up Voltaire’s views:
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
It is disappointing that not all Opposition Members understand this simple principle, which is much at the heart of the Bill: not a right-wing, anti-woke agenda but an agenda that allows all views and ideas to flourish. We have an immeasurable pool of talent in our students and academics, overflowing with ideas and values that will drive forward this country to build back better, and now is the time to unlock their potential.
Universities should not be echo chambers but petri dishes of new, thought-provoking ideas, concepts and visons. That is why this Government are making good on their manifesto commitment to tackle the pattern of self-censorship and its chilling effect by protecting and bolstering free speech and academic freedom. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Business without Debate
Delegated Legislation
Public Health England: Relocation to Harlow
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]
It is a huge honour to be doing this debate under your chairmanship today, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank Mr Speaker for granting this debate. Today I would like to update the House on the desperate need for the creation of a new state-of-the-art public health science campus that is fit for the 21st century. This debate is timely as we seek to recover from the devastating covid-19 pandemic that has plagued us for far too long.
In September 2015, the then Chancellor, George Osborne, announced that the Government would be investing £350 million to create world-leading public health laboratories in my constituency of Harlow, Essex. The original intention was for Public Health England’s headquarters and scientific functions to be relocated to our town. I pay special tribute to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, my hard-working constituency neighbour. You are not just a Deputy Speaker, but the right hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing), and you have worked hard with me for a long time on supporting Public Health England. I give thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), with whom I share a constituency office. She has done so much on this issue. I know she will be speaking tonight, and I strongly welcome her solid support, as I do yours, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the move of Public Health England’s successor body to Harlow.
I understand that Public Health England is being disbanded and that the organisation is due to be replaced by the newly formed UK Health Security Agency. I have been well assured that this new organisation will also require modernised laboratories. Previous problems have not turned to dust. The current facilities available at Porton Down and Colindale remain exhausted, burned out and ultimately no longer fit for purpose. Significant funding has already been committed to the Harlow site—I understand that the total amount of money spent on project thus far is approaching £250 million.
In a vote of confidence in response to my recent parliamentary question, the Minister explained that a further £120 million-worth of investment has been agreed for the period spanning 2021 to 2022 in Harlow. That shows a real commitment from the Government. I thank the Minister, the Department of Health and Social Care, and in particular the former Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), for the continued support for the project and for my constituency of Harlow.
Not only has significant investment taken place, but the plan for the creation of a public health science campus in Harlow is now mature and shovel-ready. Considerable site demolition work has been completed. The buildings have now been stripped to their core and the drainage and power systems are beginning to be installed. Contracts are being drawn up and construction proper could start this year.
In this debate, I would like to outline three reasons why the campus remains necessary and why Harlow is still the best location for the Government’s investment. I am pleased to have met Health Ministers, the Chancellor and senior officials at Public Health England to discuss these matters over the past months. First, the need for updated facilities has become even more important given the current public health context. We must learn lessons from the covid-19 pandemic. We should be looking to the future and onwards to the horizon as we climb down from the coronavirus mountain. We cannot afford to be too cautious. Given that there will be ever-increasing public health spending, the Harlow plant provides excellent value for money. Furthermore, the Harlow project has been designed with the threat of a novel pandemic infection in mind, as has been emphasised on the Government’s own website, which states:
“Early learnings from COVID-19 clearly show the importance of an integrated public health response and the need for rapid sharing of data, information, new laboratory tests and other innovations, coordinated and led from centres like Harlow.”
Those learnings have strengthened the case for the campus, which will place Harlow as one part of the public health system for the development and application of a range of public health interventions. Those can then be adopted across the country.
The construction of a new campus with world-leading laboratory facilities will surely go a long way in improving our resilience and ensuring preparedness for future pandemics. The project will provide a reassuring message for us to give the nation while managing continued uncertainty and scrutiny. This hub could be a shining beacon of hope in the stormy sea from which we are emerging.
Secondly, Harlow’s location within the area covered by the UK Innovation Corridor makes it the ideal place for the creation of such a campus. The London-Stansted-Cambridge corridor is a driver for growth in data sciences as well as life sciences and that sets it off as a unique set of opportunities. Creating the campus in Harlow will mean that our nation’s core microbiology, epidemiology, genomics and data science capabilities will be close to major universities in Cambridge, Essex, Hertfordshire and north London, and the Wellcome Sanger Institute as well as leading life science multinational companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca. The east of England could be set to become the public health science capital of the world. We could lead the way in research, science and technology.
The importance of the project was even referenced in the UK Innovation Corridor’s submission to the 2020 spending review. It stated:
“The creation of a new public health science campus represents an enormous recognition of the region as being at the forefront of UK science, research and innovation. It is integral to enabling the Innovation Corridor to fully realise its potential in positioning the UK as a scientific superpower.”
In addition, Harlow itself has a tradition of life science and public health investment. The proximity of the campus to the town’s enterprise zones and science park makes Harlow and the science hub the best location for business and research partnerships. The new Harlow hospital, expected by 2025, will also create greater opportunity for health science partnerships, skill sharing and research.
Thirdly, the project will bring significant benefits to the Harlow constituency and surrounding area and fit neatly with the Government’s commitment to level up disadvantaged areas. The Government should be looking to distribute research capacity widely across the UK, rather than concentrating investment in the big capital cities.
Harlow is the second most deprived town in Essex and has some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country. Even before the pandemic, jobs, growth and educational attainment had stalled. Much of this is rooted in a new town legacy of ageing infrastructure, poor housing stock and poor perceptions of place, by which I mean disused buildings, some levels of antisocial behaviour and low economic capital. The Government are committed to a levelling-up agenda. I have worked hard to ensure that the Harlow constituency has received great investment. Harlow has been given £81 million for the M11 junction 7a, hundreds of millions for our new Harlow hospital, major investment for our enterprise zone and science park, and most recently £23.7 million as a result of the towns fund bid.
Further to that, Harlow College, one of the finest further education colleges in England, is also bidding, with other colleges in Essex, for a new institute of technology. The bid comes on top of a £2.5 million upgrade of the college and the creation of a £12 million advanced manufacturing centre. Public Health England is also helping to provide skills for Harlow and the surrounding area with its construction hub, which was opened at Harlow College in October 2019. We have further exciting developments taking place, such as the Harlow and Gilston garden town project, which could bring thousands of new homes. It is reliant to an extent upon the creation of a new public health campus in Harlow, as that would bring jobs to sustain this new influx of people.
The creation of a new public health science campus in Harlow would be the golden thread that would tie all this investment together; it is the linchpin upon much else rests. The project represents an opportunity to drive forward Harlow’s growth strategy and address some of the socioeconomic challenges faced by our town and the surrounding areas. The impact that this project will have on Harlow is clear, as it has been estimated that it will create 2,900 gross permanents jobs and generate about £80 million a year across Essex, through employment, skills, STEM— science, technology, engineering and maths—local procurement and support for the local economy.
Madam Deputy Speaker, your place in the Chair tonight signifies your vote of confidence in and hard work for Public Health England. I welcome the Government’s investment in PHE and the vote of confidence of £120 million this year in the Harlow plan. Clearly, things will be different with the new UK Health Security Agency. However, for the reasons I have outlined, the Government could not have made a better decision than by investing in Harlow. First, the public health context and the need for new facilities makes this project ever more crucial. Secondly, Harlow’s location is second to none; our town is part of the innovation corridor and has a long history of life science investment. Thirdly, this project is an essential part of the Prime Minister’s levelling-up agenda and will transform our town by bringing jobs, skills, growth and opportunity.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words, for pointing out how extremely important this project would be for my constituency of Epping Forest, which is next door to his constituency of Harlow, and for setting out the case so well.
Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is also a real honour to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), and I congratulate him on securing this important debate. I commend the argument he has made. The powerful argument does not recognise boundaries; the economic opportunity that he outlines knows no boundaries, including parliamentary boundaries. The economic and strategic benefits of the PHE successor moving to Harlow will also have a powerful benefit in my constituency.
Hertford and Stortford is a beautiful place to live and work, but we too have pockets of deprivation and we too are part of the Government’s levelling-up agenda. We are also building thousands of new homes in the Harlow and Gilston garden town project. The success of that flagship project is so important; as far as I know, it is part of the biggest release of greenbelt land ever. That project is dependent on people and place making—on having skilled jobs for people to do, making it a vibrant new place to live and work.
My constituency is also at the very heart of the Innovation Corridor. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the Innovation Corridor, I am passionate about the strategic benefits and synergies of siting the public health science campus in this globally renowned cluster for life sciences and healthcare. The corridor is part of an ecosystem and by its very nature every ecosystem is complex; it is not just a case of plonking somewhere down randomly. We need to think about housing, skills and infrastructure. We have all this in the London-Stansted-Cambridge corridor. Harlow is at the heart of that, but so is Hertford and Stortford. We really do want to make the absolute most of the clusters and skills that are at their peak in our part of the Innovation Corridor.
I know that this is part of the Government’s strategic objective to attract investment into our area, particularly foreign direct investment. At the APPG for the Innovation Corridor’s recent annual general meeting, we heard from people in North Carolina and Canada, and asked them, “What are the drivers of success?”. They said that it is about clusters and strategic thinking; that is a crucial part of the success. The campus, with its wider benefits for my constituency, my county and the Innovation Corridor, will be a further step in making the area a scientific global superpower. I commend it to the Minister and again congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow on allowing us to have this debate.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for securing this debate and for driving home so eloquently the three core threads of his argument. I pay tribute to him, to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), and, Madam Deputy Speaker, to you; your passion for your area overflows, and I know that you too have been acting and listening tonight for your constituents in Epping Forest.
Our experience of tackling the covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow said, the fundamental importance of an integrated health response in the United Kingdom. It has illustrated how critical it is to bring together scientific and public health expertise with operational agility. It has underlined the importance of public and private sector collaborations to deliver world-class science and innovation. Getting this right, as my right hon. Friend outlined, is critical to the future security of the nation, and it has arguably required a fundamental rethink of how the public health system and the national health service will work together.
The establishment of the UK Health Security Agency and the Office for Health Promotion are crucial to this new way of working. I am going to focus on the UK HSA, because that is the organisation that has a distinct bearing on what we are talking about this evening. Public health transformation is happening at pace and the UK HSA will be fully operational by October. It will focus on protecting the public’s health and ensuring health security for the nation. It will prevent threats by deploying the UK’s scientific, genomic and analytical capabilities to tackle infectious diseases and public health hazards such as the one we have faced in the past 18 months. It will be science-led, maintain the highest science and research standards and respond to the threats that may come upon us at pace and scale.
Our immediate priority is to manage the current delta variant while working to ensure that UK HSA has solid, firm foundations. Part of that work is to ensure that the underlying operating model for the national science hub is the right one. UK HSA is responsible for the science hub initiative. The principle remains to deliver a step change in public health science and research capabilities with genuinely world-leading facilities that, as the House would expect, we need to ensure are sustainable in every sense of the word.
I am aware that, prior to UK HSA’s creation, one of the key reasons for considering the campus at Harlow was its strategic location, as so eloquently laid out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and his parliamentary neighbour my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford. As we heard, it is wonderfully placed in the east of England, near to major cities and close not only to the vibrant life sciences industry that my right hon. Friend spoke about but to some of the key aspects of academia.
Throughout the UK we currently have a number of leading centres for life science research and innovation. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, the UK Innovation Corridor between London and Cambridge is one of the fastest growing in Europe and something of which we should be proud as a nation. It is widely recognised in the key areas of genomics and data science. With academia, the Wellcome Sanger Institute and leading multinationals we have the rich environment for academic and commercial partnerships to which my right hon. Friend referred. As we have seen in the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, such partnerships are critical to the future success of the public health response here in the United Kingdom.
As a town, Harlow has ambitious plans for the future and for levelling up. As my right hon. Friend said, it has potential to realise. That lies at the heart of the Innovation Corridor, and anchor institutions play a vital role. As my right hon. Friend said, Harlow recently won support worth over £23 million to underpin local regeneration projects. The local garden town development will bring new housing and improved transport. Further Government support is being sought that, if successful, could take investment for Harlow to over £100 million. Alongside that, the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow is at the vanguard, being one of the six hospitals in the Government’s ambitious hospital building programme. There is definitely a bright future for Harlow. The science hub programme is working with my Department to support the transformation in public health. This will take into account learning so far from the pandemic response and the implementation of the UK Health Security Agency.
In conclusion, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow on his judicious timing of this debate, coming as it does ahead of recess and in the run-up to the official establishment of the UK Health Security Agency in October. I know that his backing for science to be centred in Harlow will be heard and I am sure that we will go on to have further discussions on this interesting topic.
Question put and agreed to.
Members Eligible for a Proxy Vote
Member eligible for proxy vote | Nominated proxy |
|---|---|
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Imran Ahmad Khan (Wakefield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
James Brokenshire (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudon) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Sir Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Con) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP) | Jim Shannon |
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con) | Mr William Wragg |
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
James Daly (Bury North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mims Davies (Mid Sussex) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP) | Ben Lake |
Mark Eastwood (Dewsbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind) | Stuart Andrew |
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale (LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance) | Wera Hobhouse |
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind) | Stuart Andrew |
Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP) | Jim Shannon |
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kate Griffiths (Burton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Grundy (Leigh) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP) | Ben Lake |
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba) | Kenny MacAskill |
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
James Heappey (Wells) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Darren Henry (Broxtowe) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Howell (Henley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Levy (Blyth Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John McNally (Falkirk) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) | Owen Thompson |
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) ( LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP) | Jim Shannon |
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con) | Peter Aldous |
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Anum Qaisar-Javed (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP) | Jim Shannon |
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC) | Ben Lake |
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Grant Shapps (Welwyn Hatfield) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Sir Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op) | Chris Elmore |
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
David Warburton (Somerset and Frome) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
John Whittingdale (Malden) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC) | Ben Lake |
Gavin Williamson (Montgomeryshire) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) | Wera Hobhouse |
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP) | Owen Thompson |
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con) | Stuart Andrew |
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab) | Chris Elmore |
Draft European Union and European Atomic Energy Community (Immunities and Privileges) Order 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 to sit only in the places clearly marked. I also remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should still be worn in Committee, unless speaking. Hansard will be most grateful if Members could send their speaking notes by email to hansardnotes@ parliament.uk.
The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft European Union and European Atomic Energy Community (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2021.
It is a pleasure to appear under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie.
The purpose of the draft order is to implement the agreement we have reached with the European Union that gives the EU delegation to the UK, and its staff, privileges and immunities. It is customary to grant such privileges and immunities to diplomatic missions and international organisations to enable them to function. The agreement is broadly in line with global practice, but includes important provisions to ensure that immunities and privileges do not impede the proper administration of justice.
Before I go through the draft order in further detail, please allow me to set out the policy context. As right hon. and hon. Members know, the United Kingdom left the EU last year on 31 January, after which the EU opened a delegation to the UK. That delegation replaced the European Commission representation and is responsible for representing the interests of the EU and co-ordinating among the 27 EU member states. This Government are clear that we want a relationship with the European Union based on friendly co-operation. The delegation plays an important role in that regard, including on the implementation of the trade and co-operation agreement.
Let me now turn to the details of the draft order. The order treats the EU delegation in broadly similar terms to those offered by other non-EU Governments globally. There are also important provisions to ensure that the immunities and privileges do not impede the proper administration of justice. The order categorises staff at the EU delegation as either “diplomatic agents” or “staff members”, and contains provisions regarding their family members.
EU staff who have been notified to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as diplomatic agents would be immune from civil, criminal and administrative jurisdiction in the United Kingdom. That includes all enforcement measures. The person of a diplomatic agent would be inviolable in respect of their official acts. That means that the diplomatic agent cannot be arrested or detained for actions carried out as part of their duties. Their residence, baggage, official papers and documents would also be inviolable.
For staff members, the draft order will accord immunity from the criminal, civil and administrative jurisdiction of the UK only in respect of their official acts. Staff members also receive inviolability of their official papers and documents, and inviolability of the person, only in respect of their official acts.
Furthermore, the draft order provides certain fiscal exemptions for the delegation and its staff. Those include exemptions from direct taxes on assets, property, income and the delegation’s operations. There is also an exemption from paying council tax.
Finally, the draft order sets out the provisions to allow the UK to request that those immunities and privileges be waived in certain circumstances. For both diplomatic agents and staff members, there is a complete carve-out from immunity and inviolability in respect of any alleged road traffic accidents and offences.
To conclude, the draft order implements the agreement that the UK has reached with the EU regarding its delegation in London, in line with global practice. It enables the delegation to conduct its activities in the UK, while ensuring and upholding protections for the effective administration of justice. The European Union delegation plays an important role in the UK-EU relationship, supporting a partnership based on friendly co-operation. I welcome the opportunity to hear Members’ views on the order and I commend it to the Committee.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hosie. I appreciate the Minister’s introduction of this statutory instrument, which we are happy to support. Like him, I believe that outside the EU, we need to use opportunities to build a better relationship between the UK and other countries. Of course, the European Union is very much included in that consideration. We need to foster strong ties with our allies and partners across the channel, and we hope that the instrument will make a contribution to rebuilding some of the bridges that have, unfortunately, been burned over the last few years.
The legislation will give immunity to certain representatives and staff from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community in the UK following the recent co-operation agreement within that framework. It is a welcome step forward that that has been agreed and is being put in place, but the Government’s approach to the issue has been slow and reckless to the point of unnecessarily souring that relationship.
We recall reports at the beginning of this year that the Government were not rapidly expediting the process of granting diplomatic status to the European Union, and I think it is rather shameful that they took so long to ensure that our relationship with the EU was put back on a proper and formal footing. In the end, it came across as petty political point scoring, which soured a relationship that was already going through a very challenging process of negotiation. I do not think that helped to move our rapprochement with the European Union in the right direction. What is done is done—that is water under the bridge—and there are lessons to be learned for the future on trying to build a positive and constructive relationship.
I have some technical questions. First, the instrument was laid before the House on 17 May, and the commencement article states that it will come into force
“on the day after the day on which it is made, or the day on which the Agreement enters into force for the United Kingdom, whichever is the later.”
I assume that the agreement is in force, and therefore that the powers in the statutory instrument will commence forthwith, but will the Minister clarify the precise date on which the immunities will be brought in as a result of this secondary legislation?
Secondly, the explanatory memorandum states that Scotland will pass its own legislation owing to devolved competence, but when will the Scottish piece of this jigsaw puzzle be put in place?
Finally, the Government have confirmed that, as part of the agreement, information on the EU will be provided regularly. What sort of information will it be? How will that be shared and what will be contained within in? It would be useful to hear that from the Minister. The bottom line is that we welcome the statutory instrument and the Minister’s introduction of it.
Nigel Adams
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for the order. It is absolutely appropriate that we crack on and put it in place. As I set out in my opening speech, the EU delegation plays an important role in the relationship between the UK and the European Union. We are committed to relationships with the EU based on friendly co-operation, and that is exactly how we intend to proceed.
The order confers on the EU delegation the immunities and privileges that are necessary for the delegation to function effectively and conduct its activities in the UK. As I said in my opening remarks, that is in line with global practice and, importantly, the order ensures and upholds protections for the effective administration of justice. We expect those who enjoy immunities and privileges in the UK to comply with our laws, however, and we take a firm line with those who do not. The obligation to respect UK law is set out in the establishment agreement and is binding as a matter of international law. Staff members do not have immunity beyond official acts, other than those persons notified to us as diplomatic agents.
The hon. Gentleman raised a question about Scotland. We understand that the Scottish Government intend to lay their order in August, with the expectation that it will be sent to the Privy Council in October. We have notified the European Union of that.
The hon. Gentleman also wanted to know when the order would come into force. The agreement will be signed by both the United Kingdom and the European Union on 21 July, and will come into force on the day after, so he was right in his assumptions.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the delay in reaching the agreement. We have always been clear that the EU delegation and its staff would receive the immunities and privileges that they need to carry out their roles effectively. The negotiations involve a range of complex issues that take time. I am pleased that we have reached an agreement with the EU that gives the delegation its privileges and immunities, which, I reiterate, are in line with global practice. I also make it clear to the Committee that the order includes important provisions to ensure that immunities and privileges do not impede the proper administration of justice.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Electricity Capacity (Amendment) Regulations 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Chair
We have moved to 1 metre-plus social distancing in General Committees. Members should still sit only in places that are clearly marked. Mr Speaker has stated that, unless Members are exempt, they should wear masks in Committee, except when speaking.
The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Electricity Capacity (Amendment) Regulations 2021.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.
The draft regulations were laid before the House on 21 June. Before I outline their provisions, I will briefly provide some context. The capacity market is at the heart of the Government’s strategy for maintaining security of electricity supplies in Great Britain. It secures the capacity needed to meet future peak electricity demand under a range of scenarios through competitive, technology-neutral auctions, normally held four years and one year ahead of the relevant delivery year. Those who win capacity agreements, known as capacity providers, commit to providing capacity during period of system stress in exchange for capacity payments. Capacity payments are funded by electricity suppliers, who recover the cost from electricity consumers. Since its introduction in 2014, the capacity market has succeeded in ensuring secure electricity supplies at a low cost to consumers.
To ensure that the capacity market continues to function effectively, we regularly make adjustments to legislation, based on our experience of managing the market’s annual cycle. This instrument makes three technical improvements that will address issues that we encountered over the past year. A number of capacity providers had agreements terminated last year but were unable to transfer their obligations to other providers through the secondary market due to legislative barriers. The instrument aims to remove those barriers, and so improve the flexibility of the secondary trading regime, making it easier to replace capacity that closes prematurely and at short notice, and reducing risk to security of supply.
In the past year, there were a large number of appeals by prospective capacity providers whose applications to participate in the capacity market had been rejected. This was often for minor administrative errors. The instrument aims to make it clearer that the capacity market delivery body, the organisation that administers the capacity market, can accept information that corrects such errors when determining these appeals. This will reduce the risk of applicants being rejected for minor administrative errors, and prevent a detrimental impact on competition in the auctions.
Finally, we recently introduced new requirements on capacity providers that, if not met, could result in reductions to their agreement lengths. Given that such a reduction could have a significant impact on the viability of capacity providers’ projects, it is right that those in that situation have the right to appeal. The draft instrument will therefore allow capacity providers who have had the duration of their agreement reduced as a sanction for non-compliance with certain requirements the option of appealing the decision to the Secretary of State.
Alongside this instrument, we have put forward an amendment to the capacity market rules; it was laid before the House on 5 July. The amendment makes necessary changes that complement this draft instrument and a number of other technical improvements; most notably, it updates carbon emissions limits and extends some coronavirus easements, both of which were introduced last year.
In conclusion, this instrument introduces a number of technical provisions that are intended to address issues identified through the annual delivery cycle of the capacity market, and that are therefore necessary to enable its continued efficient operation. I commend it to the Committee.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, although I fear that there will not be much chairmanship of today’s proceedings required. I say that because the instrument is pretty much wholly non-contentious. It makes a number of sensible revisions to how the capacity market works, particularly in respect of those aggrieved would-be capacity market entrants who have been excluded from participating in capacity markets, often not for terribly sensible reasons—it will ease that problem considerably.
The instrument does not make any major changes to the operation of the capacity market. It essentially does a number of things that will undoubtedly make the operation of a capacity market a little more straightforward.
We need to draw a distinction between this SI, which makes, shall we say, some lubrication easements for the capacity market, and the principle of the capacity market itself. That is where we start to get into areas of controversy: the Minister mentioned just how important and central the capacity market is to the Government in their management of the energy market as a whole. I would say that, on the contrary, the capacity market at the moment is mainly an arrangement to provide free money for a number of providers who probably would provide anyway. They get money for being around to guarantee that they will provide. I might also note that that is not actually to provide any energy for anybody—it is to guarantee that they will be there, should the need arise for capacity to be provided.
We have seen in the capacity market, which is now about seven years old, a number of instances in which some quite perverse outcomes have occurred in the market provision. For example, one is the inclusion of nuclear power in the capacity market auction process when, as most people will know, it is actually very difficult to switch a nuclear power station off so that it does not provide. A nuclear power station bidding into the capacity market arrangements, and saying that it will provide, is the most egregious example of free money for doing what it would have done anyway.
The original purpose of the capacity market was largely to ensure that the price under capacity restraints would not go to such a high slot outside the major hour-by-hour provisions. Investors might fear that the Government would intervene if energy prices got high enough to have an effect on capacity, when there were tight capacity margins. That has not materialised. There are no tight margins these days, generally speaking. Indeed, as the market progresses with further provision of capacity and interconnection, that will be even less of an issue. The low price of capacity market auctions indicates, among many other things, that capacity margins—
The Chair
Order. We have plenty of time, and while I do not wish to test my skills in the Chair too much, and the hon. Gentleman is making some very interesting points, I remind him that the debate should be limited to discussion of the instrument in question.
Dr Whitehead
Thank you, Mr Stringer. I intend to bring my remarks to a close shortly. Subject to your guidance, I think that my remarks are generally in line with the statutory instrument, because these are considerations for the better running of a capacity market that has problems ahead. The wider and the narrower issues are related for that reason.
The Minister has heard me speak about the capacity market before. It is due for a second five-year review shortly. The last review, in 2019, when it had been operating for five years, was, I thought, a pretty complacent document. It did not address a number of the issues that I have started to explore this evening. Although the changes that we are talking about today are pretty non-contentious and straightforward, and have the support of the Opposition, I hope that the Minister will accept that there remain wider controversies about the capacity market, and that she will take them as seriously as possible, particularly in that second review. I hope that she will consider whether the market is the best mechanism for ensuring a reliable capacity supply in future; she will know that various alternatives, such as a strategic reserve, were mooted when the capacity market originally came in. I hope she will look at that very seriously when the wider issue comes up for debate at a not-too-distant time. Meanwhile, I look forward to a number of other non-contentious debates as we secure marginally better working of the present system, pending arrangements for a future system that is fit for purpose.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks, which were careful and considered, as ever, and for his support for the statutory instrument. The Government continue to believe that the capacity market is the right mechanism at the moment for delivering security of supply at low cost to consumers, but we will of course continue to review it and ensure its ongoing efficient and effective operation in the years ahead. I absolutely note his point that the next review will be an opportunity for consideration as our energy mix continues to change to include more renewables and cleaner energy sources. It will be an opportunity to think about whether the capacity market continues to be the right tool.
The draft regulations respond to three specific technical issues that we have encountered in the past year in operating the capacity market. They introduce increased flexibility for market participants and the capacity market delivery body, so that the market continues to deliver its objective of guaranteeing secure electricity supplies at the lowest cost to consumers. I therefore commend them to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Amanda Solloway
We need only look at the recent state of the sector report by Community Energy England, which identified 424 active community energy organisations across the United Kingdom run by 396 volunteers, to note that community energy projects can contribute to achieving net zero, not only by stimulating clean growth, but by acting as catalysts for raising awareness. As the hon. Member for Bath and my hon. Friend for Barrow and Furness pointed out, the promotion of behaviour change and the ability to build communities is a key outcome for us to achieve our 2050 goals.
[Official Report, 1 July 2021, Vol. 698, c. 144WH.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway):
An error has been identified in my response to the debate secured by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse).
The correct response should have been:
Amanda Solloway
We need only look at the recent state of the sector report by Community Energy England, which identified 424 active community energy organisations across the United Kingdom run by 3,096 volunteers, to note that community energy projects can contribute to achieving net zero, not only by stimulating clean growth, but by acting as catalysts for raising awareness.
Cabinet Office
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
It is clear that nothing is clear about the way this Government are procuring goods and services with public money, and it is these dodgy deals that anger my constituents who play by the rules while government fails to. Following the National Audit Office report and the Boardman review’s recommendations on process and practice, process in governance, and conflict of interest and bias, what progress has the Minister made in implementing those recommendations? Will she publish an update on the Government’s actions and place it in the House of Commons Library? In auditing these contracts, will she ensure that they have fulfilled what they promised to do?
Julia Lopez
Yes, I believe that the Public Accounts Committee will be updated on the second Boardman report in July. With regard to the first Boardman report on communications contracts, we are working through all the recommendations. I believe we are up to 20 of 24, but we will endeavour to complete that process by the end of the year.
[Official Report, 29 June 2021, Vol. 698, c. 133.]
Letter from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend/the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez).
An error has been identified in my response to a question from the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell).
The correct response should have been:
Julia Lopez
Yes, I believe that the Public Accounts Committee will be updated on the second Boardman report in July. With regard to the first Boardman report on communications contracts, we are working through all the recommendations. I believe we are up to 24 to 28, but we will endeavour to complete that process by the end of the year.
Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Motor Neurone Disease (Research)
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Judith Cummins (in the Chair)
I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will also be suspensions between debates. I remind Members participating physically and virtually that they must arrive for the start of debates in Westminster Hall. Members are expected to remain for the entire debate.
I must also remind Members participating virtually that they must leave their camera on for the duration of the debate, and that they will be visible at all times, both to one another and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks at westminsterhallclerks@parliament.uk. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and as they leave the room. I also remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn in Westminster Hall.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 564582, relating to research into motor neurone disease.
Motor neurone disease is a rare disease that is sadly all too common. It is the most common neurodegenerative disease of midlife, and many younger people are also affected. It is currently a terminal and incurable progressive condition. Progression is rapid, with one third of people dying within a year of diagnosis. Because people with the condition generally die so quickly, only 5,000 people in the UK live with the disease at any one time. However, MND is not rare. One in every 300 people across all communities develop MND in their lifetime, and about 200,000 of the current UK population will die of MND unless effective treatments are found. It is diagnosed in 200 Scots every year, and more than 1,500 people in the UK.
Currently, the only drug available to directly affect MND is called Riluzole, or Rilutek, but I am told that it has limitations, so it is hardly surprising that the petition achieved more than 110,000 signatures. The petition calls on the Government,
“to significantly increase targeted research funding for motor neurone disease”.
It seeks
“new investment of £50m over 5 years”
to kickstart an MND research institute, which the petitioners argue
“would lead to better, faster and more definitive research outcomes and hope for those with MND.”
In their response, the UK Government recognise the immediate challenges faced by people with motor neurone disease and reiterate their commitment to supporting MND research, which is welcome and I hope gives some encouragement that common ground may be found to take the issue forward. I will return to the Government response to the petition in more detail shortly, with some questions that I hope the Minister will address when responding to today’s debate. First, I want to pay tribute to the amazing work carried out by the petitioners and the charities and individuals involved in tackling MND on a daily basis.
George Wilson “Doddie” Weir created the petition and is one of rugby’s most recognisable personalities, earning 61 caps for Scotland during a successful playing career. He represented the British and Irish Lions on their successful tour to South Africa in 1997, and won championships with his two club sides, Melrose and Newcastle Falcons. In June 2017, six months after receiving his diagnosis, Doddie revealed he was suffering from motor neurone disease. From then, his mantra has been “I’ve just got to crack on.” Five months on from going public, Doddie and his trustees launched and registered the charity, My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, with a shared vision of a world free of MND. The No. 5 is special for the foundation. It features in its name and is a reference to Doddie’s playing number for his clubs and the jersey he wore when he earned 61 caps for Scotland.
On meeting Doddie, albeit virtually, last week, I was struck by the positivity and the energy that he continues to have four and a half years on from his diagnosis. Doddie is not the only high-profile personality to succumb to this terrible disease and face up to it. The most recognisable scientist of modern times, Stephen Hawking, defied it for 55 years. Rob Burrow, another rugby great, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in December 2019, just two years after ending his playing career by captaining Leeds to a record-extending eighth super league grand final. He described the disease as follows:
“First it comes for your voice. Then it takes your legs. It tries to rob you of your breath. But it can’t sap your spirit.”
Inspirational as these people are, that does not portray the difficulties of living with MND. Everyone living with it is inspirational. They understand that what is holding back progression in the development of effective treatment and a cure is a lack of targeted funding.
I have heard testimonies from Emma, a young mother diagnosed with MND at 37, who can no longer stand, and David, diagnosed in 2012, who accepts that he is lucky because of the slow progression of his MND. Both consider themselves lucky still to have a voice. Indeed, everyone I met during my research for today’s debate is excited about the progress made thus far, but they also know that MND research is disparate and needs to be targeted. I urge the Government not to dampen the growing expectancy that currently exists among the MND community and to meet the requests of the petitioners.
I would now like to go through the official Government response to the petition in some detail, and to comment and question the Government on it. The response stated:
“Over the past five years, the Government has spent £54m on MND research, through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) via the Medical Research Council.”
Yet according to a written parliamentary answer of 14 January this year, the National Institute for Health Research
“funded no Motor Neurone Disease-related projects”
during 2019-20. Can the Minister provide details of any MND-related projects or programmes that received funding from the NIHR over the past five years? The same answer detailed £5 million of MND-related projects funded by the Medical Research Council during 2019-20. Can the Minister provide details of any other MND-related projects or programmes that have received funding from the MRC over the past five years?
Analysis carried out by the Motor Neurone Disease Association, MND Scotland and the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation shows that the figure of £54 million of Government spending over the last five years, which is repeatedly cited in written parliamentary answers, includes general neurological research that often has no tangible link to MND. The same analysis shows that funding for targeted MND research stands at less than £5 million annually, which is more in line with the £5 million allocated in 2019-20 that was detailed in the parliamentary answer of 14 January.
Another passage says:
“The Government remains strongly committed to supporting research into dementia and neurodegeneration, including MND.”
While funding into dementia research is much needed and very welcome, it is reported that, in about 5% of cases of motor neurone disease, there is a family history of either MND or a related condition called frontotemporal dementia. Frontotemporal dementia is just one of the many clinical features of MND, yet dementia features 10 times in the UK Government’s response to this petition. It is therefore understandable that the MND research community, who are all experts in their field, appear to be united in their assertion that MND research should not be adjoined to dementia research. Therefore, I wholeheartedly agree with Ammar Al-Chalabi, professor of neurology and complex disease genetics at King’s College London, when he says that it is no longer appropriate for MND to be tagged on to dementia research initiatives.
Another passage in the response says:
“The UK Dementia Research Institute has significant investment in MND research, with a particular focus on the mechanisms that cause the disease.”
Again, this is positive, but can the Minister give details of that significant investment in MND research? Additionally, the statement talks of research that focuses on the causes of the disease, not treatments. That is an area that needs to be focused on. The MND research community have called for targeted funding for MND research because it understands the substantial progress that has been made in establishing much of the basic science around MND and have identified the need to progress to research into treatment.
Another passage in the Government response said that the 2019 Conservative manifesto committed to doubling funding for dementia research, including MND research, including MND research, and the Government are putting plans in place now to deliver that commitment. I checked that manifesto and there is no mention of MND nor of neurodegeneration; there is only mention of dementia. Can the Minister detail what the plans are specifically for MND and say how much funding will be targeted on MND research?
In another passage, the Government response says:
“The Government has been working to establish a rich ecosystem for neurodegeneration research in the UK. Significant elements are the UK Dementia Research Institute, Dementias Platform UK, NIHR Dementia Translational Research Collaboration, and Join Dementia Research.”
Given that four dementia-related organisations are mentioned in a response to a petition calling for targeted research funding for MND, does the Minister accept that the lack of a pioneering MND research institute, which would attract targeted funding, remains a barrier to progress in finding effective treatments and a cure for MND?
Another passage in the Government response says:
“It is not usual practice to ring-fence funding for particular topics or conditions.”
However, it appears from the Government response that funding for dementia has been ring-fenced. In addition, recent global efforts to find a vaccine for coronavirus, including involvement with numerous research institutes, show how quickly progress can be made when funding is ring-fenced for conditions. Those efforts also enabled the fast development of a coronavirus vaccine. People living with MND need fast development of an effective treatment and a cure because of the rapid progression of this disease. Considering recent scientific developments, the UK Government’s levelling-up agenda and the current economic climate that puts charitable funding at risk, the time is right to increase significantly targeted research funding for MND and invest £50 million over five years to kickstart a pioneering MND research institute.
In conclusion, the research for new therapies requires a truly multidisciplinary and pan-national approach, spanning the entire translational pathway. Establishing a virtual MND translational research institute, which the petitioners call for, will deliver that. There is no doubt that extra MND research funding from the UK Government is needed to support effective patient treatment and medicines, in the hope that a cure for MND can be found soon, because that is what the petitioners and the sufferers of this disease need.
Judith Cummins (in the Chair)
I am looking to call Front-Bench speakers from about 5.25 pm, so if Members could limit their contributions to between four and a half minutes and five minutes, I would be very grateful and we can get everybody in.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
It is a pleasure, Ms Cummins, to serve with you in the Chair this afternoon.
I am pleased to take part in the debate on this petition, which has attracted so much support from my own constituents in the Scottish borders, with my constituency of Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk ranking second in the United Kingdom for the number of signatories in a constituency. I imagine that part of the reason for this is that Doddie Weir, founder of the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, lives in the Scottish Borders. However, Doddie Weir’s impact extends far beyond the Scottish Borders. In fact, the reason we are all here today for this debate is because the petition was launched by Doddie and his foundation.
Doddie is someone I know well, and I can understand why he has persuaded so many people to support his campaign and petition. He has faced his fair share of challenges on the rugby pitch and has a remarkable list of achievements to his name: 61 caps for Scotland; representing the British and Irish Lions; and playing locally for Melrose as well. However, Doddie has said on numerous occasions that the greatest challenge he has faced is off the pitch—battling motor neurone disease.
In June 2017, Doddie revealed that he was suffering from MND, and within months he and his trustees launched a registered charity—My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. The way in which Doddie is driven to champion fellow sufferers and research into this devastating and currently incurable disease is both admirable and inspiring. His selfless work has been vital in raising awareness and generating millions of pounds for such an important cause. Doddie and the foundation have generated huge momentum among individuals, sports clubs and other organisations to raise awareness and vital funding for MND research and support. I was honoured to raise money for the cause by running the London marathon in 2018.
Many other borderers have completed challenges for My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. There are too many to mention in this short contribution, but challenges such as Lions Trek for Doddie and the Coast to Coast in 24 hours come to mind. The Prime Minister also threw his support behind Doddie’s Active Inter-District challenge, which raised more than £1 million.
At the crux of this debate is a devastating disease—a rapidly progressing neurological condition that leaves individuals unable to walk, talk, eat and, ultimately, breathe. One in 300 people develop it in their lifetime, and a third die within a year of receiving their diagnosis. My Name’5 Doddie Foundation provides practical help through grants, and funds research into this terrible disease. It gives considerable sums to the MND Association and MND Scotland to provide support for individuals and their families living with motor neurone disease. Overall, it has raised more than £8 million since 2017. It has granted more than £3 million to medical research projects, and more than £1 million has been given through grants to help sufferers of MND.
In March, when I asked the Prime Minister about funding for MND research in Prime Minister’s questions, I was reassured to hear that the Government have spent £54 million on research over the past five years through the National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation. I am also glad that the Government are putting in place plans to deliver their 2019 manifesto commitment to double funding for dementia research, which includes MND research. However, it is crucial that we redouble our efforts to consolidate the work that has been done. It is vital that Governments across the UK, the research community and charities work together in the hope that, one day, we can find a cure.
I pay tribute to Doddie, My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, MND Scotland and the MND Association. Those organisations are dedicated to supporting sufferers of MND and their families, and are striving relentlessly to find a cure for this horrible disease.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Cummins. Like me, you will be well aware of the position of Rob Burrow, the former Leeds Rhinos player, who had an illustrious career as a rugby league player. He is lending his strong support to Doddie Weir’s campaign for more work to be done on motor neurone disease because of the devastating effect on him, once a super-athlete. It has reduced him to someone who knows that he is enjoying the last of his days on a kind of borrowed time—not the way any super-athlete would expect to end.
I also want to talk about the sheer humanity brought out by motor neurone disease. I have lost friends to this horrendous disease. A very good friend of mine, Steve Mycio, who worked with me when I was a police and crime commissioner—he was the deputy chief executive at Manchester City Council—had a sharp brain and a keen intellect and was a very powerful runner, but when motor neurone disease struck him, it was not long before it had a devastating effect on him. Because he was such a strong character, he did everything he could to make sure life continued as normal. He described the consequences of losing the use of both arms and falling flat on his face as almost comical, but he lost the capacity to do things he had taken for granted for so long. It is such a cruel disease.
The wife of another friend of mine said to me after he died, “Actually, death was a blessing. He didn’t want to live locked into a condition that left him at the mercy of his brain, but not with the use of his body.” That is the reality of MND. That is why this debate and the petition are important. We need research, and I hope the Minister will be able to give us some proper answers today.
When I talk to neuroscientists they say that they believe it is possible to find, if not a cure, at least pharmaceutical solutions that can take people forward on their MND journey, and maybe control MND in the long run. The prospects are truly enormous. The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) made a very good speech. It is right and proper that the funding for MND be there in its own right, not simply linked to other neurodegenerative diseases. Nevertheless, the possibility of cracking the code for MND gives hope, so neuroscientists tell me, that we can begin to look for cures and solutions to other neurodegenerative diseases.
We know that a third of those who contract MND will be dead within a year, and for others the prospects are not good. There may be 5,000 people at any one time suffering from this disease, so £50 million as an investment in stopping that kind of suffering makes human and societal sense. In the end, it makes financial sense, because if we invest now and concentrate efforts, there is a possibility of seeing results very soon. It could be world-advancing science, and this country has the neuroscientists and researchers capable of taking it forward. I join very strongly the demand of the e-petition that we make this investment in an MND translational research institute. It can make a material difference. It can stop the human suffering that MND causes. That is worth spending some of our money on.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab) [V]
I thank the Petitions Committee for arranging a debate on this important topic. We have seen during this pandemic the transformative impact that medical research can have. Whether by creating vaccines on a timescale that was previously thought impossible or identifying effective and low-cost treatments for people with covid-19, the research community has saved millions of lives around the world during this pandemic, but the level of investment related to covid-19 is not replicated for other conditions.
We are discussing motor neurone disease, which received only £3.5 million from the Medical Research Council in 2019-20 and no funding at all from the National Institute for Health Research. As we heard earlier, the Government have claimed that they invested £4 million over the last five years in MND research, but as the MND Association found, much of that was spent on general neurological research rather than MND-specific programmes. For a condition that has such a major impact on the lives of people living with it, that is simply not good enough. Failing to invest in that research means condemning more people to go on living with, and eventually dying of, motor neurone disease.
As we have heard, although there may be only 5,000 people living with MND at this time, that is not because it is rare. The condition affects one in 300 people across their lifetime, but many of them will die within a year of diagnosis. That means that, without an effective treatment being developed, 200,000 people alive in Britain today will die from MND. Over the last year, we have rightly poured money into projects looking at covid-19. We now need to use the advances that we have made as an inspiration to prioritise medical research for a far wider range of conditions.
One of the many reasons that motor neurone disease should be a priority is the insights that it can give us into other neurological conditions. MND progresses rapidly, which means that we are able to pioneer and trial treatments on a realistic timeframe, potentially opening the door to treatments for other conditions, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, which are far slower to develop. The ask from the motor neurone disease community is simple: £50 million for research spread over the next five years to develop an MND translational research institute. That comparatively modest investment has the potential to transform motor neurone disease, to make real progress to make MND treatable, and to accelerate treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
Rather than investing in piecemeal projects, that funding could bring together a new central institute to oversee and co-ordinate a range of research into MND. This would allow knowledge and breakthroughs to be shared widely, potentially accelerating our progress.
Part of the Government’s life sciences vision is addressing great healthcare challenges, including by improving translational capabilities in neurodegeneration and dementia. That is exactly what this proposal for an MND translational research institute addresses, so will the Minister commit to significantly increasing funding for MND research over the next five years and provide hope to everyone currently living with motor neurone disease? In finishing, I thank Greg Broadhurst and Alison Railton of the MND Association and all the campaigners who are raising awareness of this disease and supporting those living with it and their family carers.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Cummins. I am grateful to the petitioners and those who signed this petition. The purpose of the petition is to seek to secure an increase in targeted research funding for motor neurone disease with a new investment of £50 million over five years to kick-start a pioneering motor neurone disease research institute. We do not need to stand here today and wonder how it could be done, because I hold in my hand an excellent proposal from the Motor Neurone Disease Association, My Name’5 Doddie Foundation and MND Scotland for how to make progress on a UK motor neurone disease translational research institute, but of course it needs £50 million over five years, as colleagues have spoken about. I understand that about 185 of my constituents signed the petition, which closed on 6 July. They would like progress, and I would like progress, which is why I am here to speak up for them.
We have heard from colleagues that motor neurone disease is not rare, but it is devastating. It is the most common neurodegenerative disease of mid-life, which is a sobering thought for those of us who have just turned 50. I join the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation in calling on the Government to invest this £50 million. Of course, £50 million is a large sum of money when viewed from the perspective of an individual, but taken over five years and viewed from the perspective of the Government, it seems to me a reasonable sum to invest when progress could be so possible.
I just turn to the charities’ briefing, where they set out the opportunities:
“Despite limited investment, MND is one of the fastest moving sectors in UK health and biomedical research. Current trials hold real promise of a licensed treatment in just 2-3 years for some forms of MND…Counterintuitively, MND, with its relatively low prevalence, is incredibly valuable to research into the more common neurodegenerative diseases such as the dementias. The very rapidity of MND progression makes it easier to pioneer and trial treatments in a realistic time frame.”
It also says that there is increasing interest in MND research from global pharmaceutical companies, and that although the size of the MND market is not insignificant, drug companies also see this as a route to the treatment markets for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. That really points to what could be possible if the Government are willing to find this sum of money for a research institute. I implore Ministers to make the case to the Treasury to do that, because this significant cash injection is needed to fund this virtual research institute. I have had a number of exchanges with Ministers in letters and parliamentary questions. I think we need to be clear that the £54 million cited takes within it a broad spectrum of research. What is being asked for is targeted research, specifically on MND. It is about getting this plan done.
It would be reasonable for Ministers to ask what success would look like, and I am happy to say that, on page 15, the proposal sets out what success would look like. I will just make four points. First, the institute would maintain relentless progress and urgency in ensuring a continuous pipeline of treatment candidates, with at least 10 novel drug compounds prioritised into pre-clinical and early-phase human studies by year five. I believe that would count as tremendous progress. Success would also involve: the deployment of an innovative, on-demand clinical trials platform; learning rapidly from each and every trial, successful or not, through newly developed biomarkers; and, crucially, driving nothing short of a total revolution in the consultant-patient discussion, making sure that the offer of a trial of treatment would be the expectation from the very first consultation upon diagnosis, as opposed to the exception, so that it would become part of every patient’s care plan.
Because of the particular characteristics of motor neurone disease, and because of the particular sum involved and the nature of the proposal made by the charities and everybody else involved, I implore the Minister to look carefully at how this proposal can fit into the Government’s plans. I think we are still passing the Bill to establish the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, the research institute. If we are not going to do this with this money—if we are not going to make this kind of progress, this fast, in people’s interests—whatever are we passing that Bill to do? Please, do back this proposal.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Ms Cummins, for chairing this afternoon’s debate. I also thank the petitioners for their strength in putting forward the petition we are debating today: I know that for many of them, this issue will be personal. For myself, as a clinician who worked in neurology, I worked with many people with motor neurone disease. I am also a constituency MP who is supporting my constituents, and my uncle—a radical academic in his day—sadly was lost to MND.
One in 300 people is likely to have MND, and once diagnosed, life passes all too quickly, so in opening I put on record my thanks to all those who have supported people with MND over the past year, in what has been the most challenging of all years: the clinicians, the families, the carers, the Motor Neurone Disease Association, and the wider community. At times, it has seemed that covid-19 has been the only battle the NHS has had to face, but its dominance has compounded the challenges that others have had in other areas of medicine. Although we have seen so many miracles in the NHS over the past year, we are now calling for another miracle, which is for the Government to release vital research funding. As clinicians, we want to do everything we can for our patients, and it is frustrating and stressful when we can see the solutions, but do not have the means to deliver them.
As we have seen, when we put the necessary investment into prevention and cure, it provides hope, and our nation has been given that hope about covid-19 by the brilliant scientists who have developed the vaccine. We want that research to lead to a new path for people with motor neurone disease. Of course, we understand that scale matters, and that is why so much focus has been given to the pandemic. However, when a third of a million people at any one time across the globe has motor neurone disease, we can see that scale is important for that disease, too. As internationalists, we must work across borders to ensure we find the right science and solutions in medicine. To date, the cause of MND is largely unknown, and the cure is yet to be found. Most research has been based on bettering somebody’s prognosis over a shorter period, and enhancing their quality of life while they are able to hold on to it.
Although the Government are one source of funding, uniquely in the UK the charity sector funds medical research, accounting for about 51% of all funding through the generous donations of 7 million people, research trusts, and funds. That sector funds about 17,000 researchers in all, and the basis of research in the UK needs to be thought through again so that big pharma is not taking some of the resourcing and the long-term profits, to ensure reinvestment in research and more money going into that area.
Back in 2014, MND had a funding boost through the ice bucket challenge, which certainly increased research opportunities. However, this pandemic has had a significant chilling impact on medical research over this past year—one we can ill afford—as research scientists have had to find work elsewhere. Charities themselves have had fundraising opportunities stopped and their shops shut, and Governments have not stepped in to support the charities that are behind all of this important medical research, not least on motor neurone disease. That is why the proposal to create a bespoke £50 million fund over five years to invest in a specific MND research institute, making the UK a global leader yet again, is so important for all of us. I therefore urge the Minister to seriously consider this proposal, not least because the Association of Medical Research Charities came together last year and made a proposal for a life science charity partnership fund, with £310 million invested over a three-year period, to address the deficit that they have experienced during the pandemic. The Government have not come up with the resources to meet that challenge, which is grossly disappointing.
I trust that the proposal before us will be acknowledged, because for every £1 invested, there is a 25p life-time return in benefit, which far outstrips the value that other investments made by Government can bring. If health and science development and research is a major industry in the UK, valued investment in that research will bring long-term economic benefit, as well as real personal benefit for those involved.
As our melting pot of research enables world-class research to move forward, as well as enabling innovation here, I trust that the Minister will respond positively and bring real hope to the thousands of families who need to know that hope is on the horizon.
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on the way he introduced the debate—I agreed with all his points. I do not have the expertise of the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) in this area, but I wish to make a number of points, mainly on behalf of a friend of mine.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says that most people with the disease will die within two to three years of developing symptoms, as we have already heard, with only 25% alive after five years and just 10% after 10 years. I certainly appreciate that, in the light of the global coronavirus pandemic, the Minister has many calls on her time. Of course, many of these illnesses existed before the pandemic and still do now, and they have to be dealt with.
A local Southend guesthouse owner who happens to be a friend of mine had to work 12 hours a day to recover financially from the first lockdown but developed problems with his left hand and leg. Physiotherapy did not help, and pain spread to the entire left-hand side of his body. An appointment was made with a neurologist, and it was revealed that he had motor neurone disease and had only two to four years to live. He is no longer able to work and is having difficulties obtaining financial support.
That upsetting story about my friend is, unfortunately, replicated throughout the country. Relevant up-to-date information about symptoms and how to check for motor neurone disease should, I believe, be widely accessible and discussed in hospitals with relevant communities to raise awareness of the disease.
Furthermore, people living with terminal illness often die before they get the benefits that they need, which is ridiculous. I am very pleased that the Government have announced that they will reform the benefits system for terminally ill people. I hope that is done as a matter of urgency so that patients and their families do not have to spend their valuable time battling for financial support.
The best way to treat a disease and to find a cure is to fully understand it, so as we have already heard, specific research targeted at motor neurone disease, not just general neurological conditions, is very much needed. Increasing Government funding from less than £5 million annually to £50 million annually over five years—I know that is a lot of money—would not only help to fund a new research institute, but help us to discover effective treatments and save the Government in healthcare, social care and benefits in the long run.
If we pioneer the way in motor neurone disease research, it would truly put our country on the map again, at the forefront of international scientific and medical discovery. I was delighted to sign the letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) to the Minister, in which he asked for more investment from the Government in specific motor neurone disease research. That is much needed and would benefit neurovegetative diseases such as the dementias.
At business questions recently, I asked the Leader of the House to find time for a debate on research into motor neurone disease. In his answer, I was told that our 2019 manifesto
“committed to doubling funding for dementia and neurodegenerative disease research”.—[Official Report, 22 April 2021; Vol. 692, c. 1150.]
I hope that that is done urgently and that research into motor neurone disease receives its fair share.
In conclusion, one in 300 people will develop motor neurone disease in their lifetime and there is currently no cure. That is not a small percentage of our population. We need more investment, and I hope that the Minister will commit to it.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) [V]
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) for introducing this important petition to the House.
I thank the 110,700 people, including 225 of my constituents, who signed the petition and campaigned for an increase in much-needed funding for urgent research into motor neurone disease. I pay tribute to constituents in West Derby who have been diagnosed with motor neurone disease and to their families and friends.
The petition has one clear ask: new Government investment of £50 million over five years to kickstart the pioneering MND research institute. That call is based on the assessments made by the Motor Neurone Disease Association, MND Scotland and My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. The Government, in their response to the petition, claim that they have spent £54 million on MND research over the past five years, but analysis by the MND Association shows that the figure includes general neurological research, often with no tangible link to MND. I therefore urge the Minister to come back with the package of targeted support that is needed.
Today, I will speak about a friend and constituent, Mark Maddox, his fight against motor neurone disease and how his work exposed me to the heart-breaking impact that it can have. I will do everything I can to assist in this campaign moving forward.
I first met Mark a decade ago, when I helped to coach his youngest son’s football team—he will laugh, watching this, at the word “coach”. Mark was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2010. It was my first experience of the disease, with the impact that it had on him, his family and friends. Mark is an absolute legend of the local football scene both in Liverpool and at Altrincham football club, where between 1996 and 2006 he made 349 appearance as a tough-tackling captain and centre-half. The bravery with which he has tackled the disease was hewn from that background.
After being diagnosed with motor neurone disease, Mark ran three marathons, skydived, did bike rides, released an album and, in 2011, fronted a nationwide campaign through every football league in the country, reaching more than 2 million people through match-day programmes. He also appeared on Manchester United TV—despite being a huge Liverpool fan—BBC North West and various radio stations, as well as LFCTV making a mini documentary about Mark. That was all done to raise awareness and funds for the campaign to fight this cruel disease.
Mark was told at diagnosis that he would be lucky to live beyond a year—that was 11 years ago. Mark believes that the love and support he receives from his family—his wife in particular—his friends and often complete strangers have helped him to get through to this day. Over the past decade, however, Mark has become increasingly frustrated with the Government’s lack of understanding of people with motor neurone disease and their families and of its devastating effects. He wants change.
To finish, I urge the Minister to listen to Mark and the many other people who have been diagnosed with motor neurone disease and to say, “No more!” Motor neurone disease stopped Mark achieving great things in football and, with world-leading UK scientists on the cusp of major breakthroughs in MND research, we need a commitment from the Government: for a vital increase in the funding that will accelerate the discovery of treatments; and to pledge the funding needed to kickstart a pioneering motor neurone disease research institute. Together, we can work to end motor neurone disease so that people diagnosed, like Mark and countless others, can fulfil their potential.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Cummins. Like others, I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) for presenting the debate today and for the meticulous, detailed and caring way he laid out the statistics and what motor neurone disease means to so many people in this country.
The statistics are frightening. One in 300 of us, as we have heard, can be struck by motor neurone disease in our lifetimes, but because it claims lives so rapidly we are never as a society fully aware of its impact, of the number of lives disrupted, families torn apart, and the suffering in our own communities. I am sure many of us, as has already been mentioned, have experienced the trauma of watching someone we know and love fighting this debilitating, progressive and ultimately always, at this point in time, fatal effects of motor neurone disease.
Like others, I want to pay tribute to all of those who have done so much to raise this petition and bring this debilitating condition to public attention. Almost 400 people in my constituency of Edinburgh West signed it, and I know that many more of them are aware and determined that we should make a difference—many because my constituency is also the home of Scottish rugby, of Murrayfield, the site of many of Doddie Weir’s on-field achievements. For my generation, seeing him on a rugby field or hearing his name in a commentary was reassurance that Scottish rugby was in safe hands. I say “on-field” because the work he is doing to raise awareness and his campaign for research is also a magnificent achievement.
However, it should not be left to those battling the condition to come up with a solution. We have already heard that just £5 million a year is targeted at motor neurone disease research. That is “targeted”. We know that there is general neurological research, but we need to know more about this specific condition itself. That is why it is so important that we have this £50 million investment over five years to establish a virtual motor neurone disease translational research institute and to consolidate the UK’s position as a global leader in neurological disease research. We have also heard that research into motor neurons could open the door on other conditions, and there are practical and financial implications for society and the NHS of being able to relieve people of this burden.
The Motor Neurone Disease Association, MND Scotland and the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, who have jointly submitted a bid to Government for this year’s spending review, are undertaking a task—a crusade almost—for so many people in this country who are struck by this cruellest of conditions. I say to the Government that £50 million over five years is not a lot in monetary terms, but it could be so much in terms of progress against this disease.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab) [V]
I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) for the eloquent way he introduced this debate. I will try to be as brief as possible so that everyone can get in. I want to address my remarks to the Minister directly. She has heard why we are here. More than 100 of my constituents signed the petition, and quite a few of them, including myself, have had experience of motor neurone disease affecting either family or friends. It is a brutal, savage condition, but we meet people all the way along the road dealing with this dreadful condition, and they all work on the basis that there will be light at the end of the tunnel, and the light that we see now at the end of the tunnel is research.
Like others, I have been using the Government’s figure of £54 million investment without realising that only £5 million was directly targeted. The sense I get from people at the moment, and from the associations and charities that work in this field, is one of optimism that we could be close to a breakthrough in identifying how to predict, prevent, treat and cure this condition. The sense I get is that a little more money, distributed effectively and invested wisely, could tip us over the edge in tackling this condition.
I say to the Minister that the problem we face is fragmented funding sources and the lack of certainty and predictability about the scale of investment that will really help us to bring the science together and tackle the issue effectively. We will assist her in lobbying the Treasury. We are at that stage in the spending review process when departmental bids are going in and hard negotiations are well under way. We will help her in those negotiations, because not only do we believe that we are on the cusp of a breakthrough but it chimes with everything that has been said by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and successive Health Secretaries about how we need to invest in life sciences, link with the pharmaceutical industry, and in that way become world leaders.
In the context of the overall spending review, this is not a great deal of money to be asking for on such a critical issue, which affects so many of our constituents and their families in a heartbreaking way. We will support the Minister as much as we can in her submission on this matter. The £50 million that we are talking about over a five-year period is a drop in the ocean in comparison with some investments in other conditions. Many of us believe that we are clearly on the edge of something big that could, again, chime with what the Prime Minister has been saying about how we can be world leaders in the field of life sciences research.
I urge the Minister to take on board everything that has been said by this cross-party group of Members. Behind us, literally hundreds of thousands of people are looking to the Government for the small step forward that could provide us with such an immense breakthrough.
Anum Qaisar-Javed (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Cummins. I welcome the petition and thank each and every person who signed and shared it. This is democracy in action.
I reiterate the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) that extra research funding is essential to support patient treatment and medicines in the hope that a cure for MND can be found soon. The work carried out by organisations and charities such as the MND Association and MND Scotland has ensured that MND research is rightly at the forefront of political debate. I also reiterate the comments made by my colleague the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) that the work done by the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation goes beyond the constituency that he represents and where Doddie lives.
It is important to acknowledge that 1,100 people across the UK have been diagnosed with MND. It is thought that diseases related to motor neurones affect approximately 5,000 adults at any one time. Today, we have heard colleagues from across the political spectrum unite. Every one of us has gained an understanding of how debilitating MND can become. While research into this life-limiting illness continues, we recognise that additional funding is required to further advance the ambitions of experts who believe that getting a cure is becoming closer than ever.
As the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) stated, the numbers are frightful. After developing symptoms, most people with MND will die within two to three years. About 25% of people live beyond five years, and that reduces to 10% at 10 years. Additional funding for research will be vital to extend life after diagnosis and improve quality of life by slowing the disease’s aggression.
Although today we are discussing research and funding, they cannot be seen as isolated factors. There are clear links between research and investment in palliative care standards to improve the quality of life of those with MND while research continues to develop. As the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) said, we need progress and targeted support.
On a personal level, I remember scrolling through Twitter back in 2014, in the middle of a hotly contested referendum on Scottish independence, and seeing politicians united in their support for MND research. Gordon Aikman, the director of research for the Better Together campaign, who had previously worked for the Labour party, was diagnosed with MND. I pay tribute to him because I was always in awe of him. I never knew him and had never met him, but I always felt a strong sense of resilience from him. His campaign was fearless and forceful, and was exactly what was needed to put MND high on the agenda. He championed more investment, research into MND and general awareness of the disease.
Campaigns have been absolutely vital in raising awareness of MND. The Scottish public raised £500,000 in the ice bucket challenge, through which more than £7 million was raised in the UK and more than $100 million worldwide. Such challenges may seem trivial, but their impact is profound. As well as raising incredible sums of money, they generate awareness. That is commendable, but we cannot rely on the generosity of the public and internet trends to ensure that the UK leads the way in pioneering research into devastating diseases.
In Scotland, the Scottish Government are committed to ensuring that neurological patients can access the care, support and information they need, and that they can understand their condition following diagnosis. Between 2015 and 2018, they committed more than £700,000 to research for motor neurone disease. Additionally, in 2019, about £400,000 was invested over three years to fund two postdoctoral posts at the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh to research and develop new treatments for MND.
Recent University of Edinburgh research found a problem with MND patients’ nerve cells, which could be repaired by repurposing drugs approved for other diseases. It found that the damage to nerve cells caused by MND could be repaired by improving the energy levels in mitochondria—the power supply to the motor neurons. In fact, it discovered that in human stem cell models of MND, the axon—the long part of the motor neuron cell, which connects to the muscle—was shorter than in healthy cells, and that the movement of the mitochondria, which travel up and down the axons, was impaired. The scientists showed that that was caused by a defective energy supply from the mitochondria, and that boosting the mitochondria caused the axon to revert to normal. Although the research focused on the people with the most common genetic cause of MND, the researchers said that they were hopeful that the results would also apply to other forms of the disease. The results of the study are now being used to look at existing drugs that boost mitochondrial function.
The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) spoke about an international approach to tackling MND. The results from the University of Edinburgh show what can be achieved in a single research centre. The MND research strategy now needs to move beyond single centres and small collaborations that answer narrow research questions towards a large-scale, co-ordinated approach to tackle every aspect of the translational pathway, with the multi-disciplinary expertise available nationally and internationally, and rapidly find and develop new effective therapies for MND. As my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk stated, the search for new therapies requires a truly multidisciplinary, pan-national approach spanning the entire translational pathway. Establishing a virtual MND translational research institute, which the petitioners have called for, will deliver that. We must also note that researchers have developed a line of thinking that suggests that delivering a cure for one neurological disease may in fact make possible effective treatment for others. This is because the disease processes are closely linked. As the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) has said, not only would additional funding from the UK Government result in an increase in MND investment, but it may contribute to tackling other neurological diseases. Does the Minister recognise this, and will she commit to action and not simply words?
The UK Government should follow the lead of the Scottish Government on universal free prescriptions. Although we are specifically discussing research and investment, we must also bear in mind that around one in every 300 people, across all communities, will develop MND in their lifetime. It is not an age-specific illness, and people will experience different circumstances in the early stages of MND. The Government support available must not systematically target those who have this debilitating illness. Free prescriptions are just one way that we can improve the quality of life of those who have been diagnosed with MND while research is still ongoing. Will the Minister commit to considering that?
There is no doubt that extra MND research funding from the UK Government is needed to support effective patient treatment and medicines, in the hope that a cure for MND can be found soon. As the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) noted, over the last year we have poured money into the pandemic response and, as we look forward, additional funding into MND research will transform people’s lives.
I conclude by noting that Members today have contributed in an eloquent manner. Many have spoken from personal experience, including the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) and for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). I therefore hope to hear a positive contribution from the Minister and an actual commitment from the UK Government to help to transform MND research.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
It is pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Cummins. I thank the 110,000 people who signed the petition, including 49 from my own constituency. I also thank the Motor Neurone Disease Association, the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation and MND Scotland for their tireless campaigning on this really important issue.
All hon. Members have spoken very powerfully and personally about the scale and impact of motor neurone disease, including on their constituents, friends and colleagues. While those who suffer from this disorder face a very fearful future at the moment, there is a real opportunity here and, if we seize it, we can transform people’s lives for the better. However, we have to deal with the significant and fundamental challenges in the existing research funding model, and we have to move beyond single centres and small collaborations to a large-scale, international, collaborative and co-ordinated approach. We know from experience that that is how fundamental change is achieved, and that is what we are calling for today.
I do not simply want to make the case that this funding should be provided and this model adopted for a moral reason—to stop appalling human suffering—although that is clear and unequivocal. Supporting this proposal should be a major part of how, after covid-19, we build back a better country that draws on our amazing nation’s world-class strengths in science and research, and that uses the potential of the NHS for clinical trials. Not only will doing so lead to the development of new drugs and treatments that will transform the lives of people with MND and their families and, potentially, those with dementia and other conditions, but it will help to create the high-quality, high-skilled jobs we need, so that we have an economy that is fit for the future.
This case is based on three areas. First, the economic case for funding investment in this sort of research is that if patients get earlier diagnosis and better treatment, and their condition is kept stable earlier on, that delivers better value for money. Treatments in the late stage of MND are up to nine times more expensive, so such investment will ultimately help to deliver better value for money. Secondly, we have real opportunities here for the UK research and pharmaceutical sector, because MND, as many hon. Members have said, is one of the fastest growing sectors in UK health and biomedical research. If that is the case, we should be trying to turbocharge that research and development and give it backing from the broad range of public, private and charitable research funding. That mixed economy approach is a huge strength of this country, and in MND we need to build on that. Thirdly, although everybody has rightly said that the debate is about having very specific funding for research into MND, we know that there may be very valuable results out of it for advances in the treatment of other degenerative disorders, such as dementia, which is a huge issue facing this country.
What now needs to happen? I do not need to repeat what hon. Members have said, but we need to bring this together into an MND research institute to implement rigorous clinical research programmes and sustainable MND trials programmes, linking up with the NHS, to provide infrastructure to accelerate treatments and bring them to market in a partnership between our research and industry, and support world-leading drug discoveries and development. If the Minister has not already, will she meet those involved in this sector from the medical research charities, universities and industries, and bring them together, alongside her colleagues from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury—we need a cross-Government approach on this—to go through the proposal in detail and look at the value for money, as well as the patient outcomes that it would develop?
On the point that my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) rightly made, will the Minister also meet the Association of Medical Research Charities, if she has not already? During the pandemic, all medical research charities have seen their income slashed, and we really need a plan to get that research going again. As my hon. Friend said, the Association of Medical Research Charities has proposed a life sciences charity partnership fund, so that all the research done and the skills, knowledge, people and expertise do not go to waste because of the pandemic, and so that we get this back on track.
Let me end where I began. If we want to build back a better country after this pandemic, we need to think and work differently rather than in the same old ways. We are world leading in science, research and the pharmaceutical sector. Alongside our NHS, with the potential that leaves for clinical trials, it is a no-brainer that this is an area that we should focus on. I ask the Minister to raise her eyes, sights and mind to think about all the potential that this could bring for sufferers and their families, and for the life sciences, in which Britain leads and should continue to lead in future.
The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) and congratulate the petitioners on securing this important debate. I pay particular tribute to the petitioners and to the charities, the MND Association, MND Scotland and My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, for leading the campaign that has brought us here today. I also thank all hon. Members who have spoken so powerfully, sharing the stories of people suffering from this cruel disease and adding their voices to the petitioners’ campaign.
The petition was started in the name of Doddie Weir, the Scottish rugby legend, who has been an inspirational figurehead, campaigning for a world free of MND, since he revealed in 2017 that he was suffering from the disease himself. I had the good fortune to meet, virtually, Doddie and others with MND at a recent roundtable event and I, too, was inspired by their campaign for a brighter future for people living with MND. Doddie’s charity, My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, works tirelessly to raise funds for research into a cure and to provide grants to people living with MND. I want to express my immense gratitude to Doddie and to everyone living with MND for giving their voices to this campaign and sharing their experiences of this awful disease and their hopes for the future. I know that people living with MND will be listening to the debate today and looking for hope. It is to them and to the more than 100,000 people who stand in solidarity with them that I address my remarks.
MND is a brutal condition that has a devastating impact on those who are diagnosed, and on their families and loved ones. As the petition has highlighted, MND can progress very rapidly, and tragically there is currently no effective treatment and no cure. We still do not know exactly what causes motor neurons to die off. Although a small percentage of cases are genetic, the majority of people with MND have no family history of the disease. There is only one drug treatment for MND, and it may slow the disease’s progression for some people. The lifetime risk of developing MND is as high as one in 300 people.
We are making great strides in research, which I will talk about shortly, but we still have a way to go in our research to understand the disease mechanisms and to identify effective treatments. Before I address that progress and our plan to accelerate MND research, I want to speak about how the Government are currently supporting people with MND. Through specialised services delivered by the NHS, people with MND are receiving treatment and support to ease their symptoms and to support their continued independence for as long as possible. That includes the prescribing of complex communication devices to help people with MND to communicate as effectively as possible; offering non-invasive ventilation to support respiratory function; and delivering personal care and support for the needs of the individual.
In 2019, the National Neurosciences Advisory Group published a toolkit for improving care for people with progressive neurological conditions, including MND. That toolkit is helping commissioners to improve the pathways for people with MND, enabling quicker and more accurate diagnoses, services that are more co-ordinated, flexible and responsive to the rapidly changing needs of the patient, and improved choice in end-of-life care for people with MND. That is so that people with MND receive the best possible care. However, although the NHS is delivering that specialised treatment and support to people with MND, we know that it is not the same as a cure.
In recent years, researchers have made major advances in our understanding of MND. For example, we now know more about the types of MND that have a genetic cause, for which gene therapy might be an effective treatment. Although that accounts for only about 10% of people with MND and we still need treatments for the remainder, it is an important development. Researchers are also making progress in the development of the MND register and MND biobanks—data resources that are aiding researchers in understanding the disease. Through the development of novel biomarkers, scientists have more effective ways to monitor responses to treatment in clinical trials; and through innovative and flexible trial designs, researchers are able to conduct faster and cheaper trials, which will deliver potential new treatments to patients more quickly.
I can assure hon. Members here today that this Government are committed to supporting research into MND. I have heard the request from campaigners for Government to invest £50 million to create an MND research institute, and I understand why petitioners are asking for this. However, ring-fencing funding for particular diseases can stop great science. That is why the Government make funding available for researchers in all areas to apply for. Awards are granted in open competition and determined by the quality of the science. Through those funding mechanisms, the Government are supporting a wide range of research into MND.
In 2019-20, UK Research and Innovation, through the Medical Research Council, spent £16 million on MND research. That included research that aims to increase understanding of the causes and genetic mechanisms of MND and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—ALS—a form of MND. For example, scientists at the UK Dementia Research Institute are working to increase understanding of the root causes of ALS and frontotemporal dementia, and to identify ways of protecting brain cells from damage. There is significant overlap between the genetic causes of MND and some types of dementia, which is why the UK Dementia Research Institute, funded in partnership with Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Alzheimer’s Society, has made significant investment in MND research.
At the Francis Crick Institute, which is co-funded by the Medical Research Council, Wellcome and Cancer Research UK, researchers are working with stem cells to investigate the earliest molecular events of MND. With support from the Department of Health and Social Care, the National Institute for Health Research is directly funding MND research, for instance the Lighthouse phase 2 study, which is a clinical trial of a drug repurposed from the treatment of HIV. This study, involving 300 people with MND, will test the effectiveness of the repurposed drug in improving survival rate, function and quality of life for people with MND.
Rachael Maskell
I am grateful to the Minister for outlining all the research that is being done. However, the benefit of a virtual research institute would be co-ordination, to ensure that there was real focus on bringing about a real resolution for people with MND. Having a piecemeal approach will not provide the real focus that is required. Will she recognise that and therefore reflect on the ability to bring forward such a proposal in the comprehensive spending review in the autumn?
Helen Whately
I thank the hon. Member for her point; I will come on to say a bit more about that, and I assure her that I have absolutely heard her argument. However, I am addressing as I go some of the comments and questions raised by hon. Members during the debate, one of which was a request for some examples of research. I have just mentioned one, but there are a couple more that I want to give.
At the NIHR Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre, researchers are trialling the safety and efficacy of a drug called tauroursodeoxycholic acid, or TUDCA, as a treatment for people with ALS. The NIHR is also funding research to enhance support and care for people with MND, with ongoing studies looking at nutrition, diet and therapies to improve psychological health.
Over the past five years, the Government have spent almost £60 million on research into MND and we are currently working on ways to boost this research even further. The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk and other colleagues asked about the total figure of nearly £60 million over the five-year period from 2015-16 to 2019-20. That includes research funded by the Government—through both NIHR and UKRI—focused solely on MND; research on MND and frontotemporal dementia, the causes and mechanisms of which have a substantial overlap with MND; research on neurodegenerative conditions that have many commonalities with MND; and spend on research infrastructure within NIHR, supporting MND studies. I hope that that provides some greater clarity on the research spending. In addition, the Government fund research on the structure of the nervous system, cell biology and genetics, and mental processes such as learning and memory. UKRI supports that research with around £30 million of funding per annum.
Mr Steve Baker
I am listening to my hon. Friend the Minister with great interest. Of course, following the relative merits of these different programmes is slightly beyond my capabilities in biological science, much as I try. May I invite her to meet the proponents of the research proposal—it compares business as usual, if I may call it that, with the potential results of the proposal —so that she can hear directly from them the advantages that could be gained from it?
Helen Whately
I would be delighted to meet the proposers. I was just coming on to talk about a recent roundtable that I hosted, together with the NIHR Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre, which focused specifically on boosting MND research. It brought together researchers, charities, people with MND and funders to consider ways that we could boost research into MND. Government officials are now working with those who attended that roundtable to take things forward, and to encourage and support MND research proposals.
On the particular point about a research institute, applications for funding for research infrastructure, just as for research itself, can and should be made to NIHR or UKRI as appropriate. Bids can win funding through that process, which includes peer review and evaluation. A strong case for this institute has clearly been made in the debate. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), and I assure all who are listening that the Government are working with MND charities and researchers on ways we can boost research.
I end by again thanking the petitioners for bringing this issue to the forefront. MND has an enormous impact on individuals and families, and I pay tribute to everyone across the country who is supporting people diagnosed with the condition, and to the incredible and life-changing research that is being undertaken. The Government are committed to working together with the MND community to catalyse further investment and to accelerate progress so that, one day, we will achieve a world free from MND.
Martyn Day [V]
I thank the Members who have taken part in the debate. I trust that the Minister will have seen that there is a considerable degree of both consensus and urgency. Given the quick progression of MND, sufferers simply do not have the time to wait. Urgent action is needed to give them hope, and they need that hope now. The ask is relatively modest in the grand scheme of things, especially given that 200,000 current UK citizens will die from this appalling disease if nothing is done. To slightly misquote Doddie himself, it is time to crack on with it. I hope the Minister will bear that in mind.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 564582, relating to research into motor neurone disease.
Water Safety
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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David Mundell (in the Chair)
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Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab) [V]
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 576563, relating to water safety.
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. The number of accidental water-related deaths in the UK every year is sobering: from 2009 to 2020, there were 7,000 water-related fatalities, and almost 3,000 families have been impacted by fatal accidents in water over the past 10 years. Just last year, 30 people under the age of 20 died from accidents in the water. Every single death is a tragedy. The lead petitioner, Rebecca Ramsay, lost her 13-year-old son Dylan 10 years ago this month. Like so many children and teenagers, Dylan had gone for what he thought would be an innocent swim with his friends on a summer’s day. He was an intelligent young man, a talented athlete and a strong swimmer, but tragically he lost his life when his body went into shock in response to the plummeting water temperature, causing him to drown. Losing your child is every parent’s worst nightmare, but sadly, Beckie’s family are far from the only ones to lose their son or daughter in this way.
I know that the Government’s written response to this petition came as an enormous disappointment to Beckie, and to other families that I met on Friday ahead of this debate. Ministers have pointed out that water safety is already on the curriculum, and it is true that since 1994, water safety and swimming have been mandatory as part of the primary curriculum in England and at key stage 3 where necessary. However, although it may be on the curriculum and some schools undoubtedly do a fantastic job of delivering it, the experts and expert groups I met before today’s debate, including the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Swim England, the Swimming Teachers Association, the Royal Life Saving Society and Mike Tipton, professor of human and applied physiology at the University of Portsmouth—many of whom deliver water safety lessons in schools themselves —all said exactly the same thing: in practice, it is just not happening in every school, and where it is, it is often delivered to a poor standard.
That is a real shame, because I think that water safety is something pupils are keen to learn about. One of the reasons I was keen to lead this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee is that the issue of water safety has been consistently raised with me when I have visited schools in Newcastle. So many times, I have asked primary school children, “What one thing would you like me to ask the Prime Minister to change?” expecting to hear answers such as, “More play parks” or “Ice creams on hot days”, but water safety comes up again and again. Perhaps because they have grown up close to the River Tyne, children are anxious to learn how to be safe in and around water. Although it is true that children generally are taught to swim at school, the idea that swimming is what safety in the water is all about is a dangerous misconception. That cannot be emphasised enough.
Many of the parents I spoke to ahead of this debate told me that their children were excellent swimmers, but, sadly, it was not enough to save them. Like Dylan, Fiona Gosling’s 14-year-old son Cameron was fit and healthy, loved sports and outdoor pursuits, and was a good swimmer, but cold water shock was something he had never learnt about. While out with friends near Bishop Auckland, he jumped into the River Wear. Tragically, when his body hit the water, it could not cope with the drop in temperature and his heart stopped beating. Jack Pullen, who lost his life in a river accident in Manchester in 2016 aged 16, was not a strong swimmer. He was with friends who were, but, sadly, they were unable to save him when he got into trouble in the water.
The water on the surface of the River Etherow had appeared calm on the surface, but it is believed that there might have been strong undercurrents and hidden hazards beneath the surface. Jack’s uncle, Chris, told me of his concern that there are so many dangers in the water that children are just not aware of. Something that Beckie Ramsay said about this really struck me. She said that by having school swimming lessons, perhaps giving children a curiosity about the water but neglecting the wider safety aspects, we could be teaching children just enough to get them killed.
Water safety is about having the knowledge to recognise what a rip is, why we should not go in, knowing there are parts of the beach where the tide might come in and trap us, and knowing what cold water shock is and what to do about it. It is about having a healthy wariness of the water and knowing how deceptively dangerous it can be outside the relative safety of a swimming pool. We only need to watch the Royal National Lifeboat Institution programme “Saving Lives” to see that most water accidents occur because people do not know those things. It is about lack of knowledge, not physical fitness or swimming ability. I am a big advocate of swimming. It has so many physical and mental health benefits, and it is a skill that saves lives, but on its own it is not enough. We need to ensure that water safety is also taught in every school.
I know headteachers are tired of politicians telling them to do more to address societal problems when resources are so tight. Since 2010, schools have had to stretch declining per pupil funding to meet more and more Government requirements around mental health, careers education and many functions that local authorities used to undertake, but can no longer afford. The Government have now increased funding, but analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies points out that the end result will be per pupil funding in 2022-23 that is no higher in real terms than it was in 2009-10. In effect, the Government will be giving schools the same amount of money that they had 11 years ago, while expecting them to do more with it. So I want to be clear that if we want schools to do more on water safety, as the petitioners advocate—it makes sense since almost all children go to school—schools should absolutely be given the extra resources that they need to do it.
In anticipation of the Minister’s response, I want to say that the petitioners know that the curriculum already includes requirements on swimming and self-rescue in a range of water-based situations. That is not the issue here. The problem is that that is not achieving the hoped for outcomes in terms of water safety knowledge and saving lives, and that is what we need the Government to do something about. I ask the Minister: is the Department for Education confident that the statutory requirements ensure that all children are taught water safety to a high standard in school? Are pupils really going into year 7 knowing what a rip current is and how to get in and out of it; that tides go in and out and can trap us; and what we should do to give ourselves the best chance of staying alive if we experience cold water shock? If not, will the Government now consider supplementing the curriculum with a requirement for children to receive class-based water safety instruction before they leave primary school?
Secondly, how are we checking on progress against the curriculum? The families and experts that I met repeatedly pointed out failings in the school accountability system and hoped to see an enhanced role for Ofsted. To take just the statutory requirements on swimming, according to a recent report from the all-party parliamentary group on swimming, in 2019-20 just 77% of year 7 pupils were able to fulfil the requirement of swimming 25 metres unaided.
It is a depressing but not surprising reality that the income-based inequalities in attainment that we see more broadly in the education system also affect this. Swim England forecasts that by 2024-25, just 35% of year 7s in the most deprived areas of England will meet the statutory requirement. Sadly, the emerging pattern is that local swimming facilities are now most under threat in those very same areas.
West Denton pool in my constituency sadly closed during the first national lockdown and will not reopen due to the financial impact of the pandemic. It was located in a neighbourhood that already suffered from significant heath inequalities, falling in the top 10% in the country, according to the 2009 indices of deprivation. I worry that not only will that compound the problem of children from less affluent backgrounds disproportionately failing to meet the statutory requirements, but that a lack of high-quality swimming facilities may lead to more children swimming in open water, which we know to be a much more dangerous environment.
Despite the statutory requirement in England, in response to a freedom of information request, Ofsted confirmed that after searching 25,000 inspection reports going back 13 years, it found that fewer than 10% mentioned anything to do with swimming. Where they did, it was usually only in a very general sense.
I know that Ofsted would say that it has to take a rounded view of schools and that it is not its role to check that each statutory requirement is being met, and I know the degree to which Ofsted and inspections genuinely drive school improvement is a hotly debated topic, but when so many children leave primary school unable to meet a key statutory requirement, and there are such grave concerns from families, campaigners and experts about what seems to be a more or less systemic failure on water safety, surely there is a role, if not for Ofsted, for the Department for Education, in looking at what more the school accountability system could be doing.
As 2021 looks like it will be a year of staycations, I worry that we will see more people swimming in open water on hot summer days, unaware of the dangers. The open waters of England are a far cry from a beach in Spain with a lifeguard. The parents of Michael Scaife, who died at age 20, after saving a friend who got into trouble in the water, have been part of a campaign to warn people that even on the hottest days, water can remain very cold, and people will still succumb to cold water shock very quickly. This is somewhat outside the Schools Minister’s remit, but I would be grateful if he let us know what the Government are doing to promote water safety, in particular to children, in this year of staycations.
Lastly, I know that the Minister will mention that the DFE has relaxed some of the rules around the use of PE and the sport premium, updating guidance to clarify that such funding can be spent on swimming and water safety. I am sure that that is welcomed, but water safety is not a sport; it is a survival skill, and it is not an optional extra. Accidental water deaths are a UK-wide problem. They are not confined to certain communities or parts of the country. This cannot be targeted at specific pupils or schools; it must be set at a standard that is deliverable across the country, with all pupils entitled to receive proper water safety instruction, just as they do with fire safety or road safety.
Accidental water deaths are a hidden pandemic that has been going on for years. Education is prevention, and that has been proven many times over. We have more children dying in the water than on bikes, yet we have campaigns for cycling proficiency; more than in fires, yet we have campaigns for smoke detectors. Road safety education programmes have reduced the rate of road fatalities by half in the United Kingdom, and a national campaign to teach fire prevention through schools led to significant decreases in deaths. In the same way, by getting water safety into schools and ensuring that it is delivered, we can break the cycle by giving every child that life-saving knowledge.
Before I finish, I want to mention the story of Evan Chrisp from Newcastle to demonstrate just what a difference a little knowledge can make. Three years ago, Evan and his friends went to Beadnell bay in Northumberland to celebrate finishing their exams. A rip current caught hold of Evan, and he was swept into the North sea. As he lost sight of the beach, he remembered what he had heard on a Royal National Lifeboat Institution advert:
“Everyone who falls unexpectedly into cold water wants to follow the same instinct—to swim hard and to fight the cold water. But, when people fight it, the chances are, they lose.
Cold water shock makes them gasp uncontrollably and breathe in water, then they drown. But if they just float, until the cold water shock has passed, they’ll be able to control their breathing and have a far better chance of staying alive.”
By following that advice, Evan was able to cling on to consciousness for around 45 minutes before he was rescued. He did not learn that at school—he remembered it from a one-minute advert that just happened to have played before a film he went to see at the cinema, but he credits it with saving his life.
Evan is getting on with his life and studying at university now, and I know how lucky he feels to have survived, but too many other families have lost their children and are having to learn to live without them. Beckie Ramsay told me of the deep sadness she has felt over the past 10 years watching Dylan’s friends grow up, knowing she will never see her own son get married or enjoy being a grandmother to his children. It is not the way life should be. Since Dylan’s death, Beckie has dedicated herself to campaigning for better water safety and has gone into schools up and down the country.
Other parents I have spoken to have done the same, but I also know how tired they are. Beckie has said that after 10 years of speaking to about 170,000 people in schools up and down the country, she feels we are no further forward. They want to save other families from going through what they have, but we cannot leave this at the doorstep of bereaved parents, who have enough to deal with as it is. Society must carry that responsibility, and the best way to deliver that is through schools. It does not need to be expensive or take up a huge amount of time. Professor Mike Tipton’s research has shown that something as simple as a 20-minute classroom-based lesson can make a significant difference and be retained by children, just as remembering that one-minute advert saved Evan’s life.
There is a huge amount of readily available expertise in the National Water Safety Forum that the Government could draw on. Its chair, Dawn Whittaker, contacted me on Friday to say that it would be keen to support the Department for Education with an enhancement to the curriculum, and produce a credible and robust classroom-based lesson plan and content to support schools to deliver mandatory water safety education. She said it could be delivered by the end of the year with the support of the Department. Will the Minister commit to taking the National Water Safety Forum up on that offer?
Ms Whittaker is also chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council campaign on water safety and told me she would be happy to support discussions on the inclusion of a requirement in the fire service national framework for the fire and rescue services to contribute to the delivery of water safety in schools. That could reduce the burden on teachers and schools, and I urge the Minister and his colleagues at the Home Office to consider it too.
Water accidents are highly preventable if we just get this teaching into schools and make sure it is being delivered. We already know what we need to teach and how to teach it; we just need to get on with it and make it happen. We owe that much to the memory of Dylan, Cameron, Jack, Michael and the countless others who have lost their lives in the water.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I am pleased to be able to speak on such an important matter. I extend my gratitude to the Chair of the Petitions Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), the other Committee members and all those who signed the petition, which allowed us to be here today debating this issue in Parliament.
This petition was created because of the heartbreaking loss of Dylan, who died from drowning 10 years ago. I want to put on the record my thanks for the tireless campaigning of Beckie Ramsay and all those who know all too well of the dangerous consequences of our waterways. I send them my deepest condolences for their huge losses.
There is hardly anything more painful in life than losing a child. Just over three years ago, I was contacted by a distraught father, Mark Scaife, about his late son. I asked a question of the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), at Prime Minister’s questions about the death of Michael Scaife, who sadly drowned in the Jubilee river in Slough. I urged the Government to do more on water safety education to ensure that children are taught about the potential dangers of open water and the impact of cold water shock and rip currents.
At that time, the then Prime Minister acknowledged that there is more to do on water safety, yet it seems that very little has changed since then. With other members of the former all-party parliamentary group on water safety and drowning prevention, I have made representations —as have the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, other organisations and headteachers of schools in Slough and across the country—for sufficient resources, but sadly to not much avail.
Drowning is still one of the highest causes of accidental deaths among children. More than 55% of parents admit that they would not be confident that their child would know what to do if they fell into open water. Even before the pandemic, almost one in four children could not swim the statutory 25 metres when they left primary school. While the national curriculum calls for pupils to be able to
“perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations”,
sadly awareness around water safety on waterways is clearly still not good enough. We must ensure that every child has knowledge of the vital swimming and water safety skills that might be needed to save their life or the life of somebody else, particularly considering that 44% of drowning fatalities happen when the victim had no intention of entering the water in the first place.
Throughout the pandemic, things have seemed to decline further, with much of the progress made on swimming lessons and education lost. Some 1.88 million children missed out on swimming participation throughout the 2020-21 academic year, with children living in deprived areas even worse off. Assuming that there are no catch-up lessons and nothing further is done, 1.2 million could leave primary school over the next five years unable to swim. This will result in worse outcomes for our children later in their lives and could even result in further tragedies. Despite this, the latest from the Government is that they have
“no plans to review current curriculum expectations for water safety”.
Their abysmal plan for education does not recognise the scale of the challenge. We must hear from the Minister concrete steps to ensure that our children do not fall further behind and that the disadvantage gap does not widen; and exactly how the Government will reduce the number of drownings.
I know we are all here to speak because we want to prevent further tragedies and devastation for families across the UK, and to speak out for those who have lost loved ones—for parents who have lost children in the most horrific circumstances, where in some cases these events could and should have been avoided. It is their resilience and strength that has brought us all here. I hope the Minister will listen to their concerns and take much overdue action to save lives.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)[V]
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I am grateful, as always, for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I support the principle behind the petition. The Government must review and, if necessary, enhance curriculum content on water safety. This is a change that the 109 people in my constituency who signed this petition want to see, and I know that there will be many more residents in our area who support improvements in water safety education.
Clacton is a wonderful place, happy to call itself the sunshine coast, which the vast majority of people enjoy in perfect safety, but due to some ignorance of the sea and its habits, we have had our fair share of tragedy. In 2018, local teenager, Ben Quartermaine, was swept out to sea while swimming with friends off Clacton pier. His body was found two days later. In 2020, another local man, Paul Lee, was found lying face down in the water off Clacton pier after going for a swim from the beach. These are two difficult and memorable incidents for the community, but unfortunately they are not isolated. Our hard-working lifeboat and coastguard teams at Clacton and Walton are regularly called out up and down the sunshine coast—something I have experience of as a former volunteer. I take this opportunity to thank all those involved in those hard-working teams across the country. They often work in the worst conditions imaginable and do it for nothing more than their time, although some do receive the reward of a well-earned beer, traditionally bought by the rescued for the lifeboat crews at Walton-on-the-Naze.
Given my experience in this area, and as a yachtsman as well, I am pleased that some of our local schools provide additional water safety lessons, especially after what happened to Ben and Paul. However, these are not universal across the country, and time and again visitors to our area get into difficulty. As an area so beautiful and so close to London, it is not surprising that we get our fair share of visitors, and as has been observed in the debate, we are likely to get many more staycationists. This disparity in the standard of water safety education in coastal and urban areas concerns me, and I believe it led to another tragedy in 2019, when two siblings from Luton died while swimming at Clacton after getting into difficulty.
I recognise the good work that is already being undertaken to educate all children about water safety, as set out in the Government’s response to the petition, but it is not enough. We are starting with a blank slate, and we must acknowledge that many people are able to enjoy the water safely because of the content in the curriculum and the work of organisations such as Swim England. Nevertheless, as has been said, there were still 254 deaths in UK waters from accidental drownings in 2020, an increase of 34 on the previous year, so I believe that there are too many avoidable deaths, which troubles me. It is the young who are most at risk of drowning, according to the World Health Organisation.
In short, our approach to water safety education has had some success, but it is not there yet and there is more that we can do to protect those most at risk, so I was disappointed to read that the Government had no plans to review current curriculum expectations. Surely we need to look at that again. Figures show that inland open water, such as rivers, canals, lakes, reservoirs and quarries, continue to be the leading locations, with 58% of deaths. How do we deal with that? Males continue to represent 78% of deaths. How do we better educate men and young boys about the dangers?
Almost half of those people had no intention of entering the water, with 107 either walking, slipping, tripping, falling, or being cut off by the tide or swept in by the waves. What educational resources can be put in place to stop those accidents? That is what a curriculum review should focus on. Doing so would ease the pressure on our hard-working and overstretched lifeboat crews and other emergency services and would prevent the terrible incidents that leave such a scar on our communities and the families affected. With that in mind, I ask the Government and the Minister to consider again implementing such review.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the Chair of the Petitions Committee, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for presenting the petition, and all those who signed it. We live in a country that is not only surrounded by sea but has many rivers, from the west coast up to the north coast and all down the east coast, many of which are extremely tidal. I swim in a nearby river, the Parrett, when it is going out to sea. When the tide turns, it is impossible to swim against it. The tide will take a swimmer away faster than they can swim. As long as they know what they are doing and can handle it, they can cope with that, and with the cold water, but what has been raised by so many today is the fact that it is the cold water, its strength and its direction of travel, that shock many people.
We have a very experienced Education Minister here this evening, who I am sure can find solutions, because it is about teaching our children to swim, and teaching them about the dangers of cold water. Lakes and other things have undercurrents. At the moment, the weather is not too brilliant, but when we have great weather lots of youngsters often jump in the water because it is something that they really enjoy. They might be egged on by others to do so, and many tragedies have happened.
I wanted to raise a case involving a constituent of mine, Andrea Corrie, who sadly lost her 19-year-old son James in 2005. James was a strong swimmer, who tragically lost his life in a drowning accident in the River Thames at Kingston after a night out with his friends. His family was told that cold water shock was most likely the reason he could not get out of the water. I highlight James’s story to emphasise how serious the issue is. On average, 400 people drown accidentally each year in the UK. That is one every 20 hours on average, and 44% of those who drown did not intend to enter the water. Drowning in the UK accounts for more accidental fatalities each year than fire deaths at home or cycling deaths on the road. I think many members of the public would not think that that statistic was right.
We need to do more to prevent drowning incidents around our shores and in inland waterways. Mrs Corrie has been a tireless campaigner on this issue, working alongside the RNLI on its Respect the Water campaign. Her determination to bring positive change out of her family’s tragedy is inspiring. We must raise awareness of the dangers of our waters, so that more families like Mrs Corrie’s do not suffer the same heartache.
This year, during what is likely to be a very busy post-lockdown summer around our coasts and inland waters, water-safety measures are more important than ever. We will be seeing a lot of people coming to the west country in particular this summer, and we welcome them, but it is safety that really matters. However, the issue does not stop with simply raising awareness of the dangers of cold water; education has a key part to play. The earlier children become aware of the dangers that lurk in inviting-looking pools of water, the better they will be equipped to help themselves if they get into trouble.
I think that there are three key things we can do, moving forward. First, we must raise awareness of the dangers of British waters through advertising campaigns such as the RNLI’s highly effective Respect the Water campaign. The adverts highlight the dangers and unpredictable risks of British coastal waters and the way in which waves, tides and hidden currents can drag people out to sea in seconds. We have only to remember the tragedy of the cockle pickers in order to understand the dangers in some waters. Where there is a very flat beach, the tide comes in incredibly quickly. Again, I do not think that people, unless they have actually experienced really strong tides, realise the speed at which that happens. These campaigns have already saved lives, and I think we need to look at other campaigns that can warn of the dangers of inland waterways.
Secondly, we must ensure that all schoolchildren are taught how to swim, and make sure that they catch up on lessons missed after the disruption of covid. The point was made by other speakers that in some deprived areas it is much more difficult to get access to swimming pools and access for those schools to take children to swim. Schoolchildren are required to learn to swim under the national curriculum, but only 77% of year 7 pupils could swim 25 metres unaided in 2020. A recent report by Swim England and the APPG on swimming forecast that that would drop to 43% by 2025 as a result of lessons being missed during the pandemic. It is vital that lessons are caught up on and that those rates are increased and not decreased. I am sure that we will hear from the Minister about how that can be done.
Learning to swim in a pool is the first important step, but we could also do more to ensure that schoolchildren know how to stay safe in open water. There is so much difference between swimming in a swimming pool and being in a fast-flowing river. The Swim Safe initiative is very good for teaching children about water safety in lakes and in the sea. This provides more practical and realistic training on staying safe in and around our waters.
Thirdly, we could look at how we reduce the risks posed by canals and rivers in towns. We need communities to carry out risk assessments and take steps to mitigate those risks. Local safety plans could save lives by preventing people from suffering slips, trips or falls near water. Let us be blunt: when pubs and other hospitality establishments are close to water, it would be quite nice for them to have—without putting everybody off coming to their establishment—something there to tell people just to be a little bit aware when they leave the establishment in order that they do not fall in the water. If it is very cold water and the person has been drinking, it will have an even greater effect on them. Without being a complete nanny state, we just have to point out to people that there are real risks, and I think it is up to some of these establishments—dare I say it?—to have some messaging there that can make people aware. We need to install more public rescue equipment along the waterways, too. We could also ensure that these communities raise awareness of the dangers of such things as drinking alcohol near these spots, which can be dangerous.
In summary, we have a very able Minister who has great experience,, and if he can combine a strong public awareness campaign and thorough practical education for schoolchildren with a more local approach to water risk, we can prevent many families from suffering in the way my constituent Mrs Corrie has suffered.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
It is an unexpected pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, but a pleasure none the less. I pay tribute to the Chair of the Petitions Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell). The beauty of the Petition Committee is that it often brings to the House stories and issues that are sadly hidden under the headlines of the day. Yesterday, she chaired an evidence session with people who have been directly affected by this issue, and I think she did a fantastic job of conveying not only the breadth and depth of the policy challenges that we face, but the emotion and passion that the parents and families of affected people expressed to her yesterday. We all benefited from that.
Beneath the headlines are deeply personal issues that often result in loss, grief and tragedy. The debate covers one of those issues. The challenges that people face do not always fall into a neat policy box or splash on the front pages, but they matter. On issues such as the ones we are discussing, there are even questions of life and death. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Petitions Committee for giving voice to challenges on water safety.
I express my sincere condolences to Dylan Ramsay’s family, who set up the petition. Their courage has taken tragedy and channelled it into a positive campaign for change so that no others suffer as they have suffered. As the author of the petition writes:
“It will soon be the 10-year anniversary of Dylan’s death. I never want you to feel the pain I do.”
I am sure that all parties in the House would agree that no parent should have to experience that pain at all, yet all too often, they do.
According to the National Education Union, approximately half the people who drown each year are under the age of 15. Whether that is down to youth, inexperience or something else entirely, it means that mums, dads, brothers and sisters are grieving when they should be watching their family member grow and thrive. Those statistics speak for themselves, and they demand action.
There are two aspects to this challenge. First, how adequate is our school curriculum? Dylan’s family argue that the curriculum must properly prepare our children for the dangers of open water, and the Labour party agrees. If we do not teach kids how to keep themselves safe in water, from cold-water shock to rip currents, how can we expose them to so much risk when they explore the water alone? We expect drivers to learn theory to keep themselves and others safe on the roads. Given the clear risk posed by open waters, it is unclear why swimming should be any different.
I represent a constituency in the city of Brighton and Hove. It is a waterfront constituency like the Minister’s, which is, in fact, the constituency I grew up in and know well. I spent a lot of time in the water there as a child and young person. I experienced tragedy earlier this year when Gareth Jones, a volunteer for my local party and somebody I called a friend, lost his life to the sea in January. At 69, he was an older person, but his family was robbed of a very loving family member. It is very interesting that his son Robbie, a young person, said recently to the press:
“I grew up in Brighton from the age of eight, and I’ve never been taught about the dangers of the sea and different tides.”
Those are the dangers to which his father was lost, and of which he, as a son and young person, is now all too aware.
In the city of Brighton and Hove, which enjoys all sorts of sea activity—sometimes, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) mentioned, people go in after a drink or two—we are very aware of these issues. However, young people in particular who are growing up locally should be far more aware not just of the benefits of exercise at sea but of the challenges that come with it.
The Government point out in response to today’s petition that water safety is a mandatory part of the curriculum for physical education at primary school. However, if the proportion of young people dying at sea is so high, the current requirements cannot be working well enough. Perhaps, as the NEU suggests, teachers are not being properly supported to deliver the teaching in such a specialised and life-critical discipline; perhaps provision of high-quality water safety lessons is variable across the country; or perhaps the existing requirements simply do not go far enough. In any of these scenarios, the Government must be more open to reform than they have been to date. They cannot pretend that the problem no longer exists simply because of a basic curriculum requirement.
The second dimension is the problem that relates to swimming ability. The all-party parliamentary group on swimming points out that, even before covid, almost one in four children could not swim the statutory 25 metres when they left primary school. This situation has only been exacerbated by the pandemic, as 1.88 million children have missed out on swimming participation throughout the 2020-21 academic year, with classrooms and swimming centres being shut to limit the spread of the virus. The implications are shocking. The APPG suggests that, without additional top-up lessons, up to 1.2 million children will leave primary school over the next five years entirely unable to swim.
If young people are not confident with the theory of water safety and over a million of them are not even able to swim, we are risking far more of the terrible incidents that we continue to see year upon year. I am sure that the ambition to tackle this problem is shared across the House, but I have to ask the Minister for more action. The Government’s educational catch-up proposals featured nothing on extracurricular activities or wellbeing. Labour is committed to this issue. Our own children’s recovery plan promised to invest in activities for sport, music, drama and book clubs, helping every child to recover on learning, social play and wellbeing. Our plan would ensure that schools have the time and resources to offer proper water safety lessons, pending a review of curriculum adequacy. What is more, it would give kids more time back in the pool, including after school. Labour wants our kids to learn and grow in the water under proper supervision, so that that figure of 1.2 million can be tackled properly.
The authors of this petition have identified a clear problem, and Members from across the House and the APPG on swimming have suggested solutions. Now it is time for the Government to listen and to act, because the safety of our kids at sea cannot wait any longer.
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, which is a first for me, at least.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), the Chair of the Petitions Committee, for bringing forward this debate on increasing curriculum content about water safety as part of swimming lessons, and to Rebecca Ramsay, who created the petition.
Please let me start by expressing my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Dylan Ramsay. Even 10 years later, the pain for the family will be as strong today as it was 10 years ago. I welcome the commitment and determination of Rebecca, Dylan’s mother, to help to raise awareness of water safety, particularly through the work of the Do it for Dylan water safety campaign; and I have listened carefully to the powerful speeches from the hon. Members for Newcastle upon Tyne North and for Slough (Mr Dhesi), and from my hon. Friends the Members for Clacton (Giles Watling) and for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish).
The recent annual data on water-related fatalities published by the Water Incident Database showed that we must do all we can to eliminate the tragedy of children and young people drowning. In 2020, of the 176 people in England who drowned as a result of an accident or natural causes, 20 were 19 years old or younger. Water safety is a vital skill, which is why it is a mandatory part of the curriculum for physical education at primary school. The curriculum states that, in addition to being able to swim 25 metres unaided and use a range of strokes effectively, pupils should be taught to perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.
Data from the 2019-20 Active Lives children’s survey states that 77% of children surveyed in year 7 report that they are able to swim 25 metres unaided, the same as the previous year. The data recognises that schools and teachers need additional support to teach about water safety in a way that is relevant to real-life circumstances. That is why the Department has worked closely with the swimming and water safety sector to take forward a number of actions. The PE and sport premium can be used by primary schools to support swimming through teacher training and top-up lessons for pupils not able to meet the curriculum expectations by the end of core lessons.
Some 45% of teachers reported that they had used their premium funding to improve the teaching of swimming since 2017, according to a 2019 DFE report on schools’ use of the premium funding, and the Department has worked with Swim England to produce additional guidance for schools on how they can use their premium funding to support pupils to swim and to be taught how to be safe in and around water. Funding for the PE and sport premium has recently been confirmed for academic year 2021-22 at £320 million.
Swim England has published a series of guidance documents on school swimming and water safety for schools, parents and swimming teachers. These include a specific guidance document on teaching water safety at key stages 1 and 2. This guidance document provides schools with a clear approach to ensure that pupils receive comprehensive water safety education, covering aspects such as the water safety code, cold water shock, keeping others safe, and how to recognise hazards in different environments.
Schools play an important role in ensuring that all pupils know how to be safe in and around water, providing opportunities for children who may otherwise miss out on swimming activities outside of school. This is more important than ever, as children’s access to swimming and water safety lessons has been limited through covid-19 restrictions. Again, the Active Lives survey data reports that swimming proficiency differs depending on affluence, as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North pointed out, with 84% of children from the most affluent families being able to swim 25 metres unaided, compared with 41% of those from the least affluent families.
That survey also reports that 23% of children surveyed took part in swimming activities at least once in the past week, a 6.2% decrease compared with data from 2018-19. That is why new online water safety lessons have been made available through Oak National Academy in response to the covid crisis, and those lessons align with Swim England’s water safety guidance for primary schools. I am grateful for the support provided by organisations such as the Royal Life Saving Society UK, Swim England and the Youth Sport Trust in the development of these new online lessons. They have shared resources, quality-assured the content, and ensured that lessons are inclusive.
It is important that all pupils have opportunities to be taught to swim and about water safety. That is why the Department has included a specific focus on swimming and water safety in our grant programme to increase opportunities for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities to take part in PE and sport. The most recent programme, Inclusion 2020, was completed in March 2021. That programme has resulted in new resources, self-assessment tools being developed, and continuing professional development lessons for teachers.
Those new resources are available to schools through a new inclusion hub on Swim England’s website, providing high-quality, inclusive resources. The Department has recently completed an open competition for a new grant focused on increasing PE and sport opportunities for children with SEND. This consortium programme will be led by the Youth Sport Trust, and will involve Swim England and include the development of additional inclusive school swimming and water safety resources and training that schools will be able to access.
The Department is working to better understand specific challenges and barriers for children from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. For example, data from the 2019-20 Active Lives children’s survey shows differences in swimming participation among different ethnic groups. The Department is working with the Black Swimming Association to better understand the barriers to increased participation and to raise awareness of water safety.
Supporting schools to make the best use of their facilities is key to ensuring that pupils have access to high-quality lessons and extracurricular opportunities. In February, the Department announced an additional £10.1 million to improve the use of school sports facilities. That funding can be used to support schools to open swimming pools outside the school day and to fund the additional cleaning, signage and sanitation that they may require in order to be coded secure.
The funding was provided to all 42 active partnerships across England. More than half indicated in their delivery plans that they will work directly with schools to support the effective use of pool facilities. That includes Active Dorset, which focuses on children in year 7 who are unable to swim 25 metres, having missed out on swimming and water safety lessons in year 6 due to covid restrictions. The aim is to provide free pool access on school sites between 3 o’clock and 4.30 pm for pupils in that group.
I welcome the swimming and water safety sector’s ongoing work to raise awareness of water safety, and the range of resources and programmes that it delivers to children and young people. This year, the Department continued its support for the Royal Life Saving Society UK’s Drowning Prevention Week in June, and I am pleased with early reports that the school-focused element of the campaign was delivered to more than 680,000 children.
The Department will continue to support schools to provide opportunities for all pupils to learn to swim and to be taught water safety, in particular recognising the new challenges brought about by covid restrictions. I will be delighted, of course, to meet the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North, other hon. Members and outside organisations that want to help provide more resources for schools—in particular, for example, in the new relationships, sex and health education curriculum, which has an important first aid element in it—and enhance the resources for the delivery of the PE national curriculum. Finally, I pay tribute once again to Rebecca Ramsay for her important work in raising the profile of swimming and water safety, as she has.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank the Minister for that response and hon. Members for their contributions this evening.
I want to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), because I met Michael’s father, Mark, on Friday, alongside the other parents who have lost their children in water accidents. It was an incredibly moving meeting, and I know that the fact that he has his MP’s support will mean a lot to Mark, as will the speech that my hon. Friend made.
The hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) also spoke incredibly powerfully about experiences in his community, and made the case for reviewing the curriculum. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) spoke from personal knowledge and experience of the issue, supported the petitioners’ call for teaching the dangers of cold and tidal waters, and shared the tragic experience of his constituent, Mrs Corrie, with the loss of her son, James. Once again, James was a strong swimmer —we hear that over and over again.
I reiterate to the Minister what I said in my opening comments: we know that this is on the curriculum. The problem is that it is just not happening in a consistent way. In many cases, it is not happening at all. That is not my view; it is what five water safety experts from five different organisations and the bereaved parents I spoke to, many of whom have spent years campaigning and speaking in schools, all say. They all reported the same experience. They desperately want the Government to do something about it.
I urge the Minister and the Secretary of State to consider supplementing the curriculum with a requirement for children to receive class-based water safety instruction before they leave primary school, with accountability for ensuring that it happens. The National Water Safety Forum has a huge well of expertise to draw on. As I said, its chair has indicated that it is ready and willing to support the Department for Education in drawing up a plan to get that into the classroom as quickly as possible. I am grateful for the Minister’s offer to meet the campaigning groups to see how we can make that happen.
Unlike many other major public health issues, there has been no comparable campaign on drowning prevention, but on 28 April this year the UN adopted its first ever resolution on global drowning prevention. It requests all member states to develop a national drowning prevention plan and measurable targets, put in place effective water safety laws, promote the research and development of innovative drowning prevention tools and technology, and make water safety, swimming and first aid part of the school curriculum. The resolution also introduces a new UN World Drowning Prevention Day, on 25 July each year.
I hope Members will do what they can to join the initiatives on this year’s World Drowning Prevention Day by groups such as the International Drowning Research Alliance, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and many others who work tirelessly to try to eradicate a problem that tragically claims so many lives, but is largely preventable with the help of low cost interventions.
In a letter to the DFE that she was kind enough to share with me, Beckie Ramsay said: “In the past decade I have sadly met with many families who have different stories, but all with the same outcome. One thing that comes across over and over again is that parents only learn about cold water shock when either trying to work out the cause of their loved one’s death or at their loved one’s inquest”. Isn’t it time to break that cycle? When it comes to safety, knowledge is power, and education saves lives, but what we are missing is any universal availability of this life-saving knowledge.
On behalf of the petitioners, I urge the Government to support their campaign to get water safety into schools and ensure it is delivered properly. We did it for road and fire with life-saving results. Now let us do it for water.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 576563, relating to water safety.
Written Statements
English Votes for English Laws
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
Today, I am informing the House that the Government intend to bring forward a motion for the House of Commons to consider whether to amend the Standing Orders to remove the English Votes for English Laws procedure from the legislative process in the House of Commons.
The English Votes for English Laws procedure, which was introduced in 2015, amended the legislative process for the purpose of providing MPs representing English constituencies—or those representing English and Welsh constituencies—the opportunity to have an additional say on matters that applied to England—or England and Wales only.
It also applies to legislation introducing a tax measure that affects only England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which must be approved by a majority of MPs representing constituencies in those areas.
The English Votes procedure does not apply to the legislative process in the House of Lords, although it is the case that amendments made in the Lords which apply to England—or England and Wales—only are subject to a double majority vote in the House of Commons.
The procedure was introduced as more powers were being devolved to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd but does not reflect the unique nature of the UK Parliament and the principle that all parts of the UK should be, and are, represented equally in the UK Parliament.
The introduction of the procedure in 2015 added additional stages to the legislative process in Parliament and in doing so introduced complexity to our arrangements and has not served our Parliament well. This Standing Order reform is a sensible change that will ensure the effective operation of the legislative process.
Removing English Votes for English Laws does not change the fact that MPs with constituencies in England—and indeed MPs who represent constituencies across the UK—have a strong voice and role in the UK Parliament.
It is a fundamental principle that all constituent parts of the United Kingdom should be equally represented in Parliament, and Parliament should deliver for the whole UK. The operation of this procedure—and the constraints on the role of certain MPs—does not support this aim.
Rather than maintain this procedure, the Government shall on 13 July bring forward a motion in the House of Commons so that MPs can debate whether the English Votes procedure should be removed from the legislative process.
[HCWS169]
Education Update
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Today, Ofqual and the Department for Education published joint consultations outlining detailed proposals for alternative arrangements for awarding general qualifications in 2022 and vocational and technical qualifications in academic year 2021-22.
These consultations, outlined in “Proposed changes to the assessment of GCSEs, AS and A levels in 2022” and “Arrangements for the assessment and awarding of Vocational and Technical Qualifications and Other General Qualifications in 2021 to 2022”, will end on 1 August for GCSEs, AS and A levels and on 26 July for vocational and technical and other general qualifications. These changes will be for one year only.
The Government have made clear its intention that exams and other assessments should go ahead in the academic year 2021-22. In order to ensure that they can go ahead fairly, however, we must recognise that students in the 2021-22 cohort have experienced significant disruption to their education, and we are proposing that exams and assessments in 2021-22 should be adapted to take this into account.
For GCSEs, AS and A levels we are proposing a package of measures that includes four elements: in those GCSE subjects where it is possible to do so without undermining the assessment, a choice of topics on which students will be assessed; advance information about how exams will be focused for the majority of GCSE, AS and A level subjects; reducing the burden of non-exam assessment in some subjects; and allowing students to have access to support materials in the exam room in a small number of subjects.
For vocational and technical qualifications and other general qualifications, the consultation sets out a suite of proposed measures for those qualifications that are included in performance tables including adaptions such as streamlining assessment, early banking of assessments and providing revision guidance. The consultation focuses on the impact of the measures proposed and updating the existing vocational and technical qualifications contingency regulatory framework to reflect our aim that exams and assessments should go ahead in 2021-22.
The consultation seeks the views of students, parents and carers, teachers, school and college leaders, FE colleges and universities, employers and others before decisions are made on final arrangements. We intend to announce decisions for GCSEs, AS and A levels early in the autumn term and for vocational and technical qualifications and other general qualifications in early August.
As well as these proposed adaptations, Ofqual is considering how best to grade qualifications in 2022 in a way that is as fair as possible to students in that year, those who took qualifications in previous years, and those who will take them in future. Ofqual has statutory responsibility for the maintenance of standards and for public confidence in qualifications, while taking account of Government policy. Ofqual will make a decision once 2021 results are known, and will announce its decisions in the autumn.
We are also continuing to work with Ofqual on contingency plans in case it does not prove possible for exams to go ahead safely and fairly in 2021-22.
[HCWS170]
Official Development Assistance Budget
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)
The Government have acted on a scale unmatched in recent history in responding to the twin health and economic emergencies, with over £400 billion of total support for the economy since the start of the pandemic to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods, and to support businesses and public services.
But the damage inflicted on our economy and the public finances by coronavirus has been immense. We have suffered the biggest recession in 300 years. Last year we borrowed nearly £300 billion—equivalent to 14.3% of GDP—the highest since world war two. Debt as a percentage of GDP reached nearly 100%, the highest since 1962. This year we are forecast to borrow the second highest amount on record during peacetime—second only to last year. This is clearly unsustainable, and the economic damage of coronavirus cannot be fixed overnight.
That is why we have had to take difficult decisions to get borrowing down and restore the public finances—including by increasing corporation tax, freezing income tax personal thresholds and maintaining public sector pay at current levels.
As part of these difficult decisions, we took the decision last year to temporarily reduce the ODA budget to spend 0.5% of gross national income on overseas aid in 2021. The International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015 clearly envisages situations in which a departure from spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA may be necessary: for example in response to “fiscal circumstances and, in particular, the likely impact of meeting the target on taxation, public spending and public borrowing”.
Spending at 0.5% of gross national income for this year means we will still spend more than £10 billion to improve global health, fight poverty and tackle climate change. In 2020 we were one of only two G7 countries to meet the 0.7% target, and the only one to do so each year since 2013. Based on the latest OECD data, spending 0.5% GNI as ODA in 2021, as we plan to do, would mean that the UK is still the third largest donor in the G7 as a percentage of GNI.
As we have made clear since that decision, this is a temporary measure and the Government are committed to the 2015 Act and to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA once the fiscal situation allows. That is why we are today setting out the responsible fiscal circumstances under which we will return to 0.7%.
Consistent with the fiscal principles set out at March Budget 2021, and with the principles contained within the Conservative Party 2019 Manifesto, the Government commit to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA when the independent Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal forecast[1] confirms that, on a sustainable basis, we are not borrowing for day-to-day spending[2] and underlying debt[3]is falling, as explained in more detail below.
At the upcoming Spending Review the Government will set the ODA budget for 2022-23—and provisionally for later years—in line with these tests and the latest fiscal forecast.
Each year over this period, the Government will review, in accordance with the 2015 Act, whether a return to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA is possible against the latest fiscal forecast. If it expects to meet the fiscal tests described above in the following financial year, the Government will increase overseas aid spending above 0.5% of GNI to 0.7% of GNI and such that these tests are still met. Once the Government have spent 0.7% of GNI as overseas aid in a given year, these tests will no longer apply to overseas aid spending and the Government will return to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA year on year.
The Government will continue to act compatibly with the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015, under which accountability is to Parliament. The Secretary of State will lay a statement in Parliament in accordance with section 2 of the Act in relation to each calendar year in which the Government do not spend 0.7% GNI on ODA.
A motion will be tabled by the Government alongside this written ministerial statement asking the House of Commons to consider this approach, for debate tomorrow. If the House approves the motion, recognising the need to manage the public finances responsibly and maintaining strong investment in domestic public services like the NHS, schools and police, then the Government will continue with the approach set out in this statement. However, if the House were to negative the motion, rejecting the Government’s assessment of the fiscal circumstances, then the Government would consequently return to spending 0.7% of GNI on international aid in the next calendar year, and with likely consequences for the fiscal situation, including for taxation and current public spending plans.
[1] By fiscal forecast, we refer to the final post-measures official forecasts by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) as published in their Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
[2] By “not borrowing for day-to-day spending”, we mean when the fiscal forecast shows a sustainable current budget surplus. The current budget deficit counts all receipts and all current spending, but excludes spending on net investment.
[3] By “underlying debt” we mean public sector net debt—excluding the Bank of England—as a % of GDP. PSND ex BoE is the amount of debt the public sector owes to private sector minus the amount of cash and other short-term assets it holds excluding the liabilities and the liquid assets held on the Bank of England’s balance sheet.
[HCWS172]
Employment and Support Allowance
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
I am pleased to confirm that the exercise to correct past Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) underpayments and pay arrears, following conversion from previous incapacity benefits is now complete. All cases have been considered, reviews completed where the information has been provided, and arrears paid where due1.
As set out in the final statistical publication published on www.gov.uk, as of 1 June 2021:
600,000 cases have completed the review process; and
118,000 arrears payments totalling £613 million have been made.
1 Completion rate is 100%, rounded to the nearest 1%. Fewer than 100 cases were outstanding as at 1 June 2021.
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, 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.
Medical Devices (Northern Ireland Protocol) Regulations 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bethell
That the Grand Committee do consider the Medical Devices (Northern Ireland Protocol) Regulations 2021.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, the statutory instrument that we are discussing today relates to the regulations for medical devices within Northern Ireland. It reflects the application of EU regulation 2017/745 on medical devices, which I will hereafter refer to as the EU medical devices regulation, under the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol. As noble Lords will be aware, the protocol agrees to continue applying certain EU rules in Northern Ireland to recognise the unique status of Northern Ireland within the UK and to uphold the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It is important to remember that this instrument does not apply the EU medical devices regulation within Northern Ireland. That legislation took automatic effect in Northern Ireland from 26 May this year, under the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol.
The EU medical devices regulation contains some flexibility areas, where states have the discretion to make policy decisions and adjustments. This instrument therefore makes provisions to apply in Northern Ireland where it serves to align Northern Ireland policy with Great Britain. This is to deliver the Government’s commitment to the pragmatic implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol. In creating the provisions in this instrument, we are minimising the impact on economic operators and the public in Northern Ireland, as the Northern Ireland protocol pledges.
The Medical Devices Regulations 2002, hereafter referred to as the 2002 regulations, will continue to be the relevant regulations for in vitro diagnostics in Northern Ireland, and will operate alongside the EU medical devices regulation and this instrument on the regulation of medical devices and active implantable medical devices.
I shall give some background. This instrument achieves the Government’s commitment to align Northern Ireland with Great Britain, where permitted, in four areas. First, it implements national adjustments for Northern Ireland in areas where the EU medical devices regulation grants member states the ability to make national policy decisions. This has been done in a way that will align with policies in place in Great Britain. Secondly, it sets out the fee structures that keep fees aligned with those applied in Great Britain. Thirdly, it sets out the enforcement regime for activity and violations under the EU medical devices regulation in Northern Ireland. Lastly, it makes amendments to existing regulations, to take account of the application of the EU medical devices regulation in Northern Ireland.
I will first describe areas of national flexibility where this instrument makes provision to change default positions under the EU medical devices regulation to maintain Northern Ireland policy with that of Great Britain. The Government currently permit the remanufacturing of single-use devices, which the EU refers to as reprocessing, so long as the remanufacturer adheres to strict requirements. The default position of the EU medical devices regulation is not to permit remanufacturing unless there is national legislation in place to support it. This instrument does just that. This means that the remanufacturing of single-use devices can continue to take place in Northern Ireland, as well as in Great Britain, so long as requirements under the relevant legislation are followed.
The instrument also introduces provisions so that the MHRA can continue requiring custom-made devices, ranging from dental appliances to orthopaedic moulds, to be registered before being placed on the Northern Ireland market. Provisions are also contained in this instrument that uphold our national requirements for clinical investigations, which are crucial for ensuring that the safety of participants is protected. They do so by maintaining the MHRA’s ability to authorise clinical investigations for all risk classes of medical devices before they can commence. Furthermore, it upholds the requirement for all clinical investigations for custom-made devices to be subject to MHRA assessment. The Government remain committed to delivering improvements to patient safety, and this instrument means that we can respond proactively to any concerns.
By amending the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021, this instrument provides the MHRA and district councils in Northern Ireland with inspection powers and powers to serve enforcement notices for breaches of the EU medical devices regulation within Northern Ireland. This will ensure that the MHRA has the enforcement powers it needs to ensure patient safety is prioritised and high standards are maintained for the people of Northern Ireland.
The MHRA charges fees to cover the costs associated with certain aspects of the regulation of medical devices. This instrument details fees which may be charged for activity under the EU medical devices regulation in Northern Ireland, keeping them identical to those charged in Great Britain under the 2002 regulations for similar services. This upholds the Government’s commitment to ensure that there are no disadvantages to economic operators in Northern Ireland as a result of the Northern Ireland protocol. This instrument does not introduce any fees for new requirements under the EU medical devices regulation.
Finally, this instrument makes technical amendments to other legislation, including the 2002 regulations, to reflect the application of the EU medical devices regulation within Northern Ireland. This will ensure the regulatory landscape operates effectively in Northern Ireland. Officials in the Northern Ireland Executive have been kept informed of the progress of this instrument and I am hugely grateful for their continued collaborative approach. As the nature of the changes in this instrument are technical in many instances, the impacts of the instrument do not meet the threshold for impact assessments, hence these are not provided.
In conclusion, this instrument upholds the Prime Minister’s commitment to the Northern Ireland protocol and to minimise the impact on the activities of economic operators and the public in Northern Ireland. The significance of our public healthcare system has never been clearer than during the Covid-19 outbreak, and this instrument will ensure that the UK’s exceptional standards of safety are maintained within Northern Ireland. This is something we must support. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has withdrawn, so I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]
My Lords, as there are more than half a million of these devices on the market, it is understandable that effective regulation should be in place and workable. It is also clear that most of us will need one of these devices at some time in our life. It is to be hoped that these regulations will give patients more information and choice, and that they will benefit from more up-to-date therapies. I ask the Minister this: what will be the effective way of seeking expert opinions on the wisdom of a proposed new operation that does not necessarily involve a medical device? It would be helpful to have a second opinion on whether it is likely to be feasible and safe.
As there are often notoriously long delays in obtaining answers from official bodies, and we are talking about regulations now, has any thought been given to placing a regulation to require answers within a certain time?
There has been discussion about a robust financial compensation mechanism to ensure that patients are dealt with fairly and justly for the damage caused by defective devices and by their inappropriate use in certain parts of the body. For instance, the mesh which caused so much damage in operations for incontinence is used widely and safely in hernia operations. Could the Minister tell the Committee who will operate these compensation mechanisms? Who will decide whether compensation is justified and how much to award?
Lord Empey (UUP) [V]
My Lords, in his introduction, my noble friend the Minister talked about upholding the protocol and upholding the Belfast agreement. I say to my noble friend that the protocol, and what is flowing from it, including what we have before us today, drives a stake through the heart of the agreement because it breaches one of the fundamental principles—but that is an argument for another day.
The Minister also referred to enforcement regulations. What we are trying to do here is to circumvent the imposition of rules and regulations on these devices that will be made by the European Union and ratified by the European Parliament as we move forward. We will have no say or role in any of that—neither will the Minister—so we are trying to pretend that we are not simply rule-takers here. We are trying to indicate that we are doing something that will have an impact and minimise the damage. That is basically what this is about.
I would like to know from the Minister what the future will hold. The United Kingdom and the European Union basically start off on the same page, because we spent 43 years as part of that union and were involved in all the standards that were set up until this point, but those will diverge over time. I want to know from the Minister what his and the Government’s approach will be if, over time, these regulations start to diverge.
We saw on the vaccine issue that the European regulatory regime operated at a much slower pace than our own, here in the United Kingdom. What would be the implications in future if devices were conceived and made available in Great Britain, under whatever rules might apply, but had not been accepted in the European Union? Would people living in Northern Ireland not get access to such devices in future? That is at the core of our concerns over this and a whole range of other items that will arise from the protocol.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his clear introduction to these regulations. I want to take the opportunity to comment on just one aspect of these arrangements: the processes for a conformity assessment on medical devices placed on the market in Northern Ireland.
A European conformity assessment, a CE mark, is to continue to be recognised in the Great Britain market until 30 June 2023. Likewise, the certificates issued by EU notified bodies will continue to be recognised until that date. It seems to me that, if one is a Northern Ireland-based manufacturer of a medical device—the Explanatory Memorandum estimates that there are some 300 such businesses—for the next two years the CE mark should be a sufficient basis for placing a product on the market, whether in the EU, Northern Ireland or Great Britain. I would be grateful if my noble friend were in a position to confirm what I say or correct me.
If a Great Britain manufacturer is meeting EU requirements then, from 2023, it will require a UK conformity assessment, but this in itself will not enable its product to be placed on the market in Northern Ireland—hence the references in these regulations to the “UK(NI) indication”, which appears to become of greater significance after 1 July 2023. From that time onwards, British manufacturers will be required to adopt dual marking and conformity assessment through two systems, with the attendant cost and complexity. Obviously, the same is true for non-EU third-country suppliers.
At the heart of this problem is the failure of the trade and co-operation agreement to provide for mutual recognition of conformity assessments, given the simple fact that, as my noble friend Lord Empey adverted to, our MHRA undertook 40% of the most significant assessments in the EU. We do not have divergent technical standards; what we have, unfortunately, are divergent political priorities. I personally do not blame Theresa May’s negotiators for our failure to secure that mutual recognition.
One option now would be to roll forward our recognition of European conformity assessments—the CE marking—beyond 2023. Frankly, I do not expect that to happen, because it would undermine the role of the MHRA and British notified bodies, but can my noble friend explain what the position will be for Northern Ireland manufacturers post 1 July 2023? Given the principle of unfettered access to the UK market, will they be able to sell in Britain on the basis of their CE mark or will they require dual marking? This regulation makes provision for the UK(NI) indication, which is useful for UK manufacturers using a previous EU approval and for British devices to access the Northern Ireland market, but it seems to me no more than a face-saving approach to cover the harsh reality that we are going to put our highly successful medical devices sector through significant additional cost, disruption and bureaucracy.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP) [V]
My Lords, I begin by thanking the Minister for his clear explanation of the purposes of this secondary legislation. The statutory instrument is necessary, of course, only because of the Northern Ireland protocol, as the Minister made clear. That protocol means that EU law is applied to Northern Ireland across a wide range of matters without any elected Member of the Stormont Assembly or this Parliament having any vote on the matter.
On Friday, in evidence to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said that
“you need to have broad consensus”
to make the protocol work between now and four years’ time,
“and the fact we don’t have it is what worries us so much.”
He has also said previously, in speaking to the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee on 16 June, that
“the protocol depends on consent. It is very difficult to operate it if there is not consent and willingness from one segment of Northern Ireland opinion”.
I am sure the Minister will confirm his agreement with his ministerial colleague on this vital issue.
So we have before us this afternoon a situation where the EU regulation on medical devices entered into force in Northern Ireland directly on 26 May, and Northern Ireland is now subject to the EU regulatory system for medical devices and not the UK one. This statutory instrument is necessary to try to meet the challenges and practical applications of the EU directive applying directly to Northern Ireland. Whatever the mitigations, it would be better in every sense if Northern Ireland were simply in the same regime as the rest of the United Kingdom. Most medical devices, and £600 million-worth of medicines, are brought into Northern Ireland every year, 98% of which are from Great Britain. As has been mentioned, there are 300 operators of medical devices in Northern Ireland affected by this SI.
Following up on what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to, can the Minister confirm that the CE marking will be required indefinitely for devices placed on the Northern Ireland market by manufacturers, unlike in the rest of the United Kingdom? Can he confirm that the somewhat bizarre UK(NI) marking will be needed if a UK-notified body undertakes third-party conformity assessment? Can he also confirm that, to place a device on the Northern Ireland market, Great Britain manufacturers will need to appoint an EU or Northern Ireland-based authorised representative? The complexity and extra bureaucracy of all of this, and the cost to the taxpayer, need to be called out and quantified.
The applicability of the EU regime in this area adds not one jot to the safety or security of the people of Northern Ireland. Having Northern Ireland under the UK regime for medical devices would not harm or endanger the EU single market in any way. The whole basis of this SI is unnecessary and undemocratic.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Frost, has indicated that the EU is yet to respond to 12 papers tabled by the UK Government. Can the Minister indicate in his response whether any of them relate to medicines or medical devices?
Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, the changes that the EU MDR introduces will affect medical device economic operators in Northern Ireland, estimated to be about 300, and any prospective UK notified bodies. This instrument does not implement the EU MDR itself, but updates the statute book to allow us to implement the EU MDR effectively and addresses areas of national decision to align with policy that applies in the rest of the UK. Specifically, these areas of national decision allow for the continued practice of allowing the reprocessing of single-use devices, if reprocessors adhere to the requirements of an original manufacturer. The instrument will also give the MHRA powers to serve enforcement notices for breaches of the EU MDR.
The instrument will correct current legislation where required, introduce relevant enforcement provisions and outline the fees structure for Northern Ireland. It will introduce provisions in areas of flexibility allowed for under the EU MDR, to allow Northern Ireland to continue to align with Great Britain policy, where possible.
In addition to the 2002 regulations, the instrument also makes amendments to the following retained EU law: namely the Blood Safety and Quality Regulations 2005, to include a reference to the EU MDR alongside the reference to the 2002 regulations; and the human tissue regulations 2007, to include a reference to the EU MDR in order to maintain the scope of the regulations.
I believe that this instrument will protect the safety of medical devices that will be used in the UK and Northern Ireland.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation. In moving this SI, he made a very brave attempt almost to make it seem as if it is terribly normal and wonderful and no one should be worried about anything in it. In fact, he has made the best of a bad job because, as the noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Dodds, said, the reality is that this SI is not something we should even be thinking of discussing, let alone supporting.
I accept that some of the moves in it are to make things a little better for the 300 or so device manufacturers in Northern Ireland, and to make it seem—as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, it is almost a pretence—as though there is nothing wrong with what is happening. It is particularly sad to say today—and I hope that everyone has had a good Twelfth of July, at the commemoration and celebrations going on in Northern Ireland—that we are in a situation where the protocol is now dividing Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom, more and more. What we have seen today will be the first of many inevitable divergences, not just in this area of medical apparatus and medical issues but throughout, because we are left in the situation where the European Union is going to make those laws.
As has been said by many of us, over and again, and as has been said today by the noble Lords, Lord Dodds and Lord Empey, this is completely undemocratic. No one has been asked about this. From 21 May, we have simply had to take what the European Union has said on this issue. Whether it is right, wrong, good or bad is not the issue; the issue is one of basic democracy and consent. It is even in the Explanatory Memorandum, which talks about allowing
“Northern Ireland to continue to align with Great Britain policy where possible.”
Who decides “where possible”? It certainly will not be the people of Northern Ireland; it will be when and where it is permitted under the EU.
We are now a little colony of the European Union for certain regulations within the single market. The reality of this has to be accepted by the Government. This will be one of many SIs; I am not prepared to simply nod them through in future. The Government will have to face up to the fact that, if they try to nod them through, many of us will vote against them. We will not win, but the reality is that we have to show the Government that what they are doing is undemocratic and not in the interests of the United Kingdom.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of these regulations. I accept what the statutory instrument is intended to do. However, I have some questions, as I want to see streamlined processes with no impediments to the supply of medical devices into Northern Ireland or to those that are currently under construction. There are about 500,000 medical devices, ranging from sticking plasters to dental implants to hip replacements, so they have many forms and functions. We are trying to achieve pragmatic solutions under the protocol to ensure that there are no impediments to their supply.
I have several questions for the Minister. Does the existing legislation on medicines and medical devices, which was approved in Parliament last year, have corresponding legislation in Northern Ireland to ensure that people with particular mesh problems will have a resolution and see an improvement to their health?
Furthermore, on the protocol, what discussions are taking place in the joint committee and the specialised committee with the EU on the exportation issues relating to the transfer of medical devices and medicines, to ensure that they will all continue to be supplied post December 2021? For example, the Royal College of Podiatry and the Ethical Medicines Industry Group are seeking mutual recognition agreements for the supply of those medicines and medical devices post 2021 as part of the protocol. What progress has been made in this regard? What evidence is there of working together to arrive at a long-term solution that avoids unnecessary regulatory complexity and duplication?
Given that the risk of medicines leaking into the EU single market from Northern Ireland in an unregulated manner is very slim, an agreement that permits medicines licensed for use in GB to be supplied to Northern Ireland only without additional checks would deliver on both sides’ needs. What steps are being made in this regard by UK and EU negotiators?
Do the common frameworks on blood safety and quality, on organs, tissues and cells, and on public health intersect with the protocol? What pressure can be brought to bear on the Northern Ireland Executive to sign off on these common frameworks, which deal with technical and policy divergence between Whitehall and the devolved Administrations? I look forward to the Minister’s responses to these issues on this important matter for the people of Northern Ireland.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for a non-urgent statutory instrument that was tabled on 16 June and is being debated at an appropriate time, after MPs and Peers have had the opportunity to look at it in detail. I am sure I am not alone in looking forward to more of these in future. I also thank him for his helpful explanation at the start of this debate.
These regulations set out the mechanism to adjust legislation to ensure that the use of medical devices complies with both the EU’s and Great Britain’s regulations. As the noble Lord, Lord McColl, said, most people in Northern Ireland are likely to need to use one of these devices during their lives, so it is important that we get it right. He also referred to the problems with certain devices covered in the Cumberlege review. Can I further refine his question to the Minister? Which Minister will be responsible for the delivery of the Cumberlege review in Northern Ireland? Will it be the Minister in Stormont or the Minister in Westminster?
Even though it has been made necessary by the Northern Ireland protocol, this SI appears to have been come to sensibly, solving the problem without the noble Lord, Lord Frost, or the Prime Minister immediately blaming the EU. That has to be encouraging because an enormous amount of detail has to be sorted out. The noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Dodds, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hoey and Lady Ritchie, set out their frustrations with these regulations as an inevitable necessity resulting from the Northern Ireland protocol. From these Benches—over the past three years, at least—we have warned about the problems of what became the Northern Ireland protocol and the position that it would leave Northern Ireland in, which we deplore. However, given that this Government pushed through the Northern Ireland protocol with the withdrawal Act, we believe that the issues with the implementation of the protocol will be solved only by the EU and the UK working together to find a solution.
It appears that this SI might be one of the first to take that route. This is at least better than the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, going to the Irish press just after 21 June to accuse the EU of adopting a theological approach to the protocol that is frozen in time, only a few days after the European Commission had announced its proposals for, among other things, medicines entering NI to be exceptionally regulated by the UK. That is a step forward, despite the concerns raised by the Northern Ireland Peers.
This SI lays the pathway for current legislation to be amended, including the creation of a criminal offence. Can the Minister say what scrutiny there will be by Parliament of this specific offence nearer the time? The Explanatory Memorandum makes it plain that this is not
“to address a deficiency in retained EU law”
but because of the withdrawal Act, as has been mentioned. It is good to have that confirmed, although some detail is about the UK elements of its parallel regulation. We are just going to have to become used to this, but I have some questions about the fees for applications and inspections.
Paragraph 12.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that “fees for services” will be
“kept on par with those charged in Great Britain, despite there being additional resource requirements to carry out the work under the EU MDR. The fees … will therefore be below the cost recovery level.”
Which Government will bear the cost of that extra work if it cannot be recovered from the manufacturers? Will it be the UK Government or the Northern Ireland Assembly? I hope the answer is the UK Government because the Northern Ireland Assembly should not have its budget penalised because of the Prime Minister’s decision to support the Northern Ireland protocol. In Regulation 12(1)(a) of the SI, in relation to “Prior authorisation of clinical investigations by the Secretary of State”, will the Secretary of State have these powers elsewhere in the UK or does this relate only to Northern Ireland?
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations and for the opportunity to debate them. This debate takes place in the context of the Northern Ireland protocol, a protocol signed by this Government and now readily disowned by the very people who agreed to it. When the noble Lord, Lord Frost, says that it is not right to view the protocol as a definitive text, that does not reflect well on our country, its Government and the people who signed it at the time, said that it was excellent and denied that it would create a border in the Irish Sea. It is a bit rich of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, to protest, given her role in getting us to where we are.
However, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that this is an attempt to find a way through on the important matter of medical devices. The SI addresses the fact that, although under the Northern Ireland protocol medical devices regulations are fully applied in Northern Ireland, the MHRA remains the Province’s regulator; there therefore needs to be provisions for enforcement, fees et cetera so that those elements of MDR that allow for national decision—such as on the reprocessing of single-use devices, custom-made devices and so on—are consistent across the UK.
What does this mean for people in Northern Ireland? What impact will there be if the EMA and MHRA depart markedly from each other’s regulatory regimes, and what would that mean for businesses? At the moment, you need a CE mark to go to market, as least as long as the Northern Ireland protocol holds. That is potentially advantageous for NI patients versus GB ones, as the vast majority of products will be CE marked and will continue to be so. However, as the ABPI has said, there are 600,000 medical devices approved in the EU and, at the moment, they are all available in Great Britain. Surely the test of the new UK regulations will be how many of them are still available in three, five or 10 years’ time. I hope that the Minister will be able to address those issues.
I seems to me that the final decision concerning the availability of a product would ultimately be a matter for the EU. Is it the case that, for those products authorised under the decentralised procedure by one member state acting as a reference for another member state, the MHRA would be able to suspend the use of a product only if one of the 27 member states had triggered a review of that product?
I have a couple of other points. I could see no mention of in vitro diagnostic medical devices. Will they come as another statutory instrument? I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that. Can he tell the Committee what plans he has to update the House on a regular basis on the supply and regulation of medicines and medical devices in Northern Ireland to ensure that regulatory alignment and mitigation against adverse consequences are undertaken?
Finally, on enforcement, the instrument will also give the MHRA powers to serve enforcement notices for breaches of the EU MDR. How many people are these enforcement measures expected to affect? Manufacturers will need to take a number of steps to ensure that their goods can still be sold after the 2023 deadline, as noble Lords mentioned. What discussions have the Government had with the sector? Can the Minister confirm that the threshold to obtain the UKCA certification mark will largely be the same as that for the CE mark?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, as a responsible Government, it is absolutely imperative that we deliver on the Northern Ireland protocol and do so pragmatically to minimise the impact on the activities of economic operators and the public in Northern Ireland. As was intimated by the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Brinton, we are trying to find a way through. I believe that this instrument achieves that and, in doing so, ensures that high standards for patient safety are maintained throughout the United Kingdom.
I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and other noble Lords who asked similar questions that the Government are fully committed to a system of medical device regulation that prioritises safety and safeguards public health. As such, the department has sought to minimise any disruption to patients and industry by providing consistency in policies where that is possible and ensuring a functioning statute book for the regulation of medical devices in Northern Ireland.
My noble friend Lord McColl asked about an advisory body. No formal advisory body is currently planned, but we will take his suggestion on board. NHS Digital is working with industry on a surgical devices register and, as such, is extremely engaged with industry in the manner to which he alludes. On the matter of deadlines, I agree with him about the importance of high service levels, but that is best left for management, not for secondary legislation. Compensation is covered in a large number of fora, including the courts, and is best left there.
I reassure my noble friend Lord Lansley about the Government’s commitment to unfettered access. As set out in the Government’s Command Paper of 20 May 2020, the UK’s approach to the Northern Ireland protocol ensures unfettered access to Great Britain for Northern Ireland businesses. It protects the territorial integrity of the UK by safeguarding Northern Ireland’s place in the UK’s customs territory and keeps goods flowing between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, applying measures that help to maintain food supplies and, of course, the flow of medicines. This includes access for medical devices from Northern Ireland businesses that are CE or CE-and-UKNI marked. The CE or CE-and-UKNI marking applies to Northern Ireland now and after June 2023.
My noble friend Lord McColl asked about mesh. We wholeheartedly commit to demonstrating to the patients and families who have shared their experiences during the Cumberlege review, and to anyone else who has suffered, that we have learned from them and are changing and improving because of what they have told us. The SI focuses on implementing the EU medical devices regulation in Northern Ireland under the specific powers of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which would not extend to making changes to the regulations to respond to my noble friend Lady Cumberlege’s review. The Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021 provides the powers for future regulations that have patient safety at their heart, and we are reflecting on the lessons from the Cumberlege review for future regulations. We will consider questions on the responses.
The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, on the 300 manufacturers are extremely well made. I reassure him that we are committed to implementing the protocol, but we must do so in a way that is sensible, balanced and attuned to the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland. As the noble Lord has already noted, my noble friend Lord Frost and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland have recently made public statements on the Northern Ireland protocol. The Government are carefully considering next steps and will set out their approach to Parliament before the Summer Recess.
I reassure the noble Lords, Lord Dodds and Lord Empey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hoey and Lady Ritchie, that the Government are committed to adopting a pragmatic approach to regulatory divergence, seeking to minimise the impacts wherever it is possible to do so. I cannot emphasise enough that the changes contained in this instrument are essential to delivering on that commitment. The instrument does so by providing consistency between regulations in Northern Ireland and Great Britain where we are not constrained by the EU medical devices regulation. The instrument also ensures that when a medical device complies with the EU medical devices regulation and is a qualifying Northern Ireland good, it can be placed on the market in Great Britain without needing to meet any further regulatory requirements.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, asked about future regulation. I reassure him that for a two and a half year period after the end of the transition period, devices compliant with EU medical devices regulation and EU in vitro diagnostics regulation can be placed on the Great Britain market as part of the UK’s acceptance of EU-regulated CE goods.
In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, the UK will be consulting shortly on the future of Great Britain’s medical device regulations which will include a review of the elements of EU medical devices regulation and EU in vitro diagnostic devices regulation which benefit patient safety and patient access. Work on the future Great Britain regulatory regime will explore any risks around regulatory divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
To the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, as I said in my opening remarks, by keeping the fees in Northern Ireland the same as those charged for equivalent activities in Great Britain under the 2002 regulations, this instrument ensures that there are no financial deterrents which may cause any disadvantage for Northern Ireland manufacturers or those carrying out clinical investigations.
By way of summing up, I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate. I reassure all noble Lords that as a Government we are fully committed to ensuring that patient safety in all parts of the UK is prioritised and that high standards are maintained within Northern Ireland. I am enormously grateful for the support shown by many noble Lords for these measures, and I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
The Grand Committee stands adjourned until 3.35 pm. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.
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 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 next debate is one hour.
Medical Devices (Coronavirus Test Device Approvals) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bethell
That the Grand Committee do consider the Medical Devices (Coronavirus Test Device Approvals) (Amendment) Regulations 2021. Special attention drawn to the instrument by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, 8th Report.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, one in three people with coronavirus show no symptoms and are potentially spreading it without knowing. Testing will remain vital to controlling and containing the spread. To do this we will need a reliable supply of high-quality tests available to everyone, giving people and businesses the confidence to be recalled to life.
We should be proud of how we have risen to the challenge of this pandemic. We have grown our national diagnostics capability dramatically, with laboratory capacity now at around 614,000 PCR tests a day. The Government have to date administered 218 million tests in total, delivering around 1.1 million a day. The UK has one of the largest testing diagnostic capabilities in the world.
We have a growing market. More than 1,000 organisations are undertaking accreditation through UKAS to deliver testing services. Tests are already available on the market and their presence is growing, from use in film and sports to huge potential markets in events and workplaces. We estimate that around 97 million LFD kits are reaching our market each week, and this is increasing.
It is therefore clear that the quality of the tests available is critical, yet I know at first hand, through our stringent procurement of tests, that more than 75% of tests that we considered failed. Some tests were up to 17% less effective than they claimed. That means that, in the real world, a highly infectious person would be significantly more likely to get a false negative. These tests do not work in the real world and can in fact harm public health, causing people to spread the disease in the false belief that they are uninfected. Bad tests will increase mortality; I will not stand by and let that happen. Even meeting the low bar of CE marking has proved too much for some. The MHRA has taken action against 80 companies, including seizing approximately 48,000 non-compliant tests.
There is clear evidence of the risk that businesses and individuals can buy tests that are, frankly, not good enough. I will not settle for low-quality CE-marked tests that manipulate their instructions for use or construct their own rigged validation. I will not have them for the NHS and I do not want them mis-sold to my fellow citizens. We must act now. I have already regulated the more mature services side of the market through accreditation, but we must close any loopholes on the goods side by regulating the quality of the tests themselves.
I know it is frustrating for the producer of any high-quality test to see its product lost in a sea of lower-performing tests, often at lower prices, as some rivals have not put in the work to assure their tests and ensure the sensitivity and specificity to be useful in the real world. We want to support businesses developing quality tests through a rigorous validation process. This will set those quality tests apart.
When we conducted a public consultation earlier this year, more than 75% of respondents agreed with the need to implement a minimum performance standard for Covid-19 tests on the UK market. Indeed, one of the consultation responses highlighted:
“Current performance claims are unreliable and can easily make use of cherry-picked data. There are no set standards for sensitivity and specificity to be evaluated against, and therefore no objective way of comparing 2 tests.”
This was also reflected in what manufacturers have told me on numerous occasions. Manufacturers welcome this legislation. Many see this as an opportunity to make the market more equitable and fairer to those who strive to deliver a good product.
A cornerstone of these regulations is the register of quality tests that they will make available to anyone in the world. It will separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of tests. Empowered by this information, individual consumers and companies will be able to make informed, prudent choices when buying kits for themselves, their families or their workforce. This will provide consumers with clear and comparable information, not the miasma of confusion that some companies exploit. Either their test meets the Government’s standards and can be sold or it does not. Any manufacturer that tries to avoid these standards will face the force of the UK’s regulatory enforcement agencies. I am not interested in burdening businesses with bureaucracy but, in return, I expect businesses to engage with the scientific process openly and honestly and, when they fail, to be candid about it.
Although some may see this as a radical intervention in the market, I am reminded of Dr John Snow, the father of epidemiology. When the evidence is clear and you need change to happen quickly, radical action is no vice; it is a virtue. The change can be as simple as removing a pump handle, as Dr Snow did to prove that the source of cholera was in London’s water supply, or acting to ensure consistent standards that bring the best of business creativity to bear for the public good.
I want people to know that the tests they buy will be as good as those they would receive under the NHS, and therefore trust the results. This will empower people to take charge and make their own decisions about managing their personal health. Our experience of the pandemic shows why we urgently need to level up the whole pathology infrastructure in our country. This legislation will not only remedy the immediate market failure but be an example of effective regulation that we can build on in future.
Freedom requires vigilance. If we are to be free of this pandemic, we need a wholesale culture shift in how we manage disease. We are reliant on one another, as fellow citizens in the shop, pub or workplace, to safeguard each other’s health. Each of us needs to take responsibility as an individual. If we feel sick, take a test. If we might have been exposed to someone who was sick, take a test. If we have been somewhere where there is now an outbreak, take a test. This legislation is about empowering people to take personal responsibility for their health and giving them quality tools that they can rely on to do so.
This regulatory regime will not achieve that legacy in isolation but it will be part of the paradigm shift in how we manage disease going forward to a more proactive testing culture. It will ensure a market that provides choice to consumers through high standards and clear information; certainty to producers through clear and consistent regulation; and lessons for government to apply to future regulations. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I do not wish to be at all critical of the figures that the Minister gave in his first few sentences regarding our capacity and what we have been able to do in our laboratories. I suspect, by the way, that he has a new speechwriter, as his speech was slightly different from what I have heard from him before. The reality is that I put my name down for this debate for one simple reason: last week’s reports that the Government intend to charge for devices that are currently free on the NHS. These regulations are about tests for sale.
The eighth report from our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee is a masterclass in drafting. It clearly states that the market is “overwhelmingly dominated” by free NHS tests. Paragraph 3 states that
“the Government want to support a ‘thriving private sector market for COVID-19 detection tests’”.
Paragraph 4 says that these regulations are
“for a time when privately bought tests play a more significant role”.
Well, they certainly will be when the Government start charging for NHS tests. It is a £3 billion market, after all—at least I think so, from the figures I have seen.
In April, when the tests were first brought out, we were told that handing them out—and, indeed, encouraging people to take them—was vital to getting the country back to normal. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has been very critical of the failure to supply documentation when the regulations were laid. In at least two paragraphs of its report, the committee makes it clear that free NHS tests must continue.
It is clear that the Government want to charge for the tests. I understand that the promise—and I have made checks—was made to supply them free only until the end of next month, August. There has been no commitment to go beyond that, hence the rush to get these regulations through. Quite clearly, that is what it is all about. It is being pushed through at this last minute, a few days before the Recess, so that the Government can abandon free tests at the end of August. I realise that the Minister has come briefed on the regulations and I am asking about something extra, but let us face it: it was predictable that this would be raised. He has not taken any opportunity to say anything about the maintenance of free tests. I think that is sad because he is going to be asked that repeatedly until the Government are clear about their intentions.
My final point is a question: why do we need to buy the NHS Test and Trace kits for the lateral flow test, the one being given out by local chemists, from one of the Chinese Communist Party-approved companies? How do we know they are not made with slave labour? What kickbacks go to that corrupt political party? What efforts are being made to get them made in the UK—dare I say Europe—or, indeed, Commonwealth countries? We now have the capacity to check the tests in laboratories. Why have we not done something about manufacturing capacity? Why are we reliant—we appear to be reliant—on the fix of the Chinese industrial structure, which is controlled by the Communist Party or it cannot operate? In winding up, the Minister has the chance to be clear. I do not expect him to answer everything, but it would be useful if he would say that the Government intend to pursue free NHS tests for a period beyond the end of August. After all, that is in Recess. We will not have time to query that, as we are not back until 6 September, so that decision would be taken outwith Parliament sitting, and I do not think that would be right.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, following on from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and particularly referring to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, I shall cover a number of additional points that the committee raised and seek the Minister’s advice on them.
These are welcome regulations providing rigorous quality approval processes for all Covid-19 tests sold in the United Kingdom. It is essential that tests currently sold outside the NHS do not lead to an unregulated black market developing. As we emerge from the lockdown phase and work towards a more open market based on personal responsibility and extensive, easily available testing, confidence, clarity and a strong legal framework need to be the guidelines for all such products.
I have a number of questions for my noble friend the Minister in this context. Are the proposed minimum standards to be employed exactly the same as the standards already in place for tests used by the NHS? If not, will he set out the differences? Will the proposed mandatory processes be clear and well publicised for manufacturers of molecular and antigen tests? In particular, I am interested in the process envisaged for PCR tests since it focuses on genetic material—RNA—and is new in the mainstream pharmaceutical market. In this context, is it envisaged to widen all testing on RNA-based vaccines and medications? This area of medicine impinges on major ethical issues in an area of science that is gathering pace and that many see to have advanced 10 years or more as a result of the substantial investment made in RNA-based vaccines and medicines during the Covid period.
I invite my noble friend to follow up on the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, regarding addressing the problems with the accuracy of lateral flow tests. They are disturbing and have rocked public confidence, with 75% not meeting the performance and quality standards of the NHS tests. If we want public support for test and trace, the whole edifice of confidence collapses if there is no confidence in the accuracy of the market-based tests whose failure in turn blurs, and indeed damages, confidence in NHS tests.
Like other noble Lords, I think timing is important. It is difficult to read these regulations and believe them to be, as described, “rapid”. As I understand the position, existing tests will continue to be available in the UK market and will be required to submit their application only by 1 September. The validation process will then have to be completed by 31 October for them to remain on the market on 1 November. That means that potentially substandard products can continue to be supplied to the market for another three months or more before these regulations take effect. It is regrettable that this approach was not considered a year ago, or very early this year at least.
Can the Minister provide an update on the recruitment process required to put the DHSC validation team on a more suitable long-term footing? When do we anticipate that it will be completed? Is £6,200 sufficient to cover the proposed costs? How many applications do the Government expect as a result of these regulations?
In closing, I note that local authority trading standards are being asked to ensure that unapproved tests are removed from sale. From my experience of the Consumer Protection Act and the many hours of debate on subsequent consumer protection legislation—as applicable to, in my case, the secondary ticket market, which trading standards are being asked to oversee—I know that one of the consistent calls from all sides of the House is to increase resources to trading standards. Trading standards are constantly subject to a regular flow of additional responsibilities generated by legislative action taken in Parliament. Is it the Government’s intention to ensure that any additional resources for these purposes will be made immediately available to trading standards? If so, what do they estimate these to be?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his introduction to these regulations. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker: my noble friend has acquired a rhetorical flourish or two today.
We can see the powers that we debated on the Medicines and Medical Devices Act coming into use already. The powers in Section 15 are being used for this purpose, but my noble friend will of course recall that Section 16 related to the criteria, including the effect that any regulations made would have on the life sciences industry in the UK. The Explanatory Memorandum argues persuasively that this validation process will increase the resilience of the supply chain and may even encourage domestic suppliers. It also refers to the discount available to SMEs, which is welcome. But paragraph 12.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that an impact assessment would be published in time for the parliamentary debate. I could not find one yesterday or today. Will my noble friend say where it is and whether it confirms that it is the Government’s clear view that the life sciences industry and SME interests are fully protected?
There is a clear case for validation of these tests, given the reported failure rates of tests submitted for public procurement, to which my noble friend referred. We need to use lateral flow tests to support the return to school in the autumn, to enable employers to bring their staff back to their workplaces, and to counter outbreaks—in particular with large-scale surge testing—when we have achieved a lower prevalence again, which I hope will be in the late summer.
Studies including the Cochrane review, published in April, suggest that lateral flow tests will reliably confirm that someone without Covid is negative; in that sense, they have very high specificity. Where their sensitivity is concerned, they will confirm infection in someone with symptoms in an average of 72% of cases, but will on average identify the infection in asymptomatic cases only 58% of the time. Those results will vary according to the location and experience of the tester—where it is done and by whom. We need these tests to work at home and not just in the hands of healthcare professionals.
I support the regulations but I have three issues to raise. First, the tests procured by the Government will not be subject to validation because that would essentially be duplicatory, as the test approval is based on that same procurement process. But that procurement process has been used by the Government principally for the procurement of the Innova tests, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, made clear, are essentially manufactured by Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology in China. The Government, of course, had an intermediary company—Disruptive Nanotechnology, in Northampton—which, as far as I can see, was effectively a non-trading company at the end of December 2019. It is Innova Medical Group that is essentially the intermediary.
Innova is a Californian company. It is reported that it has sold 380 million tests to the Government. But on 10 June, the Food and Drug Administration issued a safety communication that the Innova rapid antigen tests should be withdrawn. Indeed, its communication suggested that the people who had them should simply throw them away. The question I come to is this: if we are confident in the Innova tests, what has been the nature of the discussions we have had with the Food and Drug Administration? My understanding is that, essentially, the Food and Drug Administration took the view that Innova was advertising the tests for use with asymptomatic people, but that they were authorised for use with those who have symptoms and that their sensitivity is greater for those with symptoms. Is that why the FDA issued its class I recall on these tests? That being the case, why did my noble friend say when he introduced the regulations that it is really important that we have tests that work for those who are asymptomatic? These tests are not sufficiently specific for those who are asymptomatic.
I know that it is a legal case, so my noble friend might hide behind his inability to speak about it, but why has Mologic, a Bedford company that has a track record, found it necessary to sue the Government in relation to their validation processes for the public procurement? What does that tell us about the validation they propose to use for this purpose?
I have two very quick other points. To put at rest the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, could my noble friend update us on the plans announced last month for Innova and Sharp packaging to build a factory in Caerphilly to produce up to a million tests a day, starting in July—this month? It is absolutely right that we should have leading medical technology companies in this country and manufacturing supply alongside them.
Thirdly, to further endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said, could my noble friend explain what the Government’s intention is on charging for tests, particularly for employers, who will want to institute testing regimes to bring their staff back into their premises and to protect the public and their customers while doing so? They have had 18 months, in many cases, during which they have lost revenues. Should we really expect them to meet this further cost at this stage? Their taxes will sustain us in the future, but should we not now support them to get back to work? I would be grateful for my noble friend’s response.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, in her place.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, of course these Benches welcome the general thrust of the regulations—that tests should be safe and that there should be a standard across the UK. However, we also raise the same issue as a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about their timing, and ask why this is emergency legislation. I am afraid it is becoming a bit of a trend that the Government bring things through in emergency legislation. If the instrument had come through a different route in which we had a lot of time, we could have asked many of the questions that we are now asking, and improved and amended the legislation to deal with some of the issues. This is so important, because this is about testing and trying to give the country a sense of what the new normal will be.
The underlying basis of this is a significant change of public health policy. I am not aware of any other infectious disease where public health policy on testing is left purely to the market—unless the Minister can advise otherwise. There is a real issue of this being about not just market failure but the role that public health, public health professions and the public sector will play to ensure that this works.
I say that because, without being linked to the test and trace system, there is a sense that testing in itself will become not as effective as it could be. This SI assumes that public policy will be for most testing to be done outside the NHS, and possibly for a charge. So once these tests are approved and there is a standard, how do mandatory tests then get into the tracing part of test and trace? There is no legislation at present to suggest that has to happen. Employers, or particularly an individual at home, could take a test and it turn out to be positive. Coming back to what has been said many times before in the House and in Grand Committee, if people feel that they cannot afford to self-isolate, they are not going to give details about them being positive.
The question is: if this becomes predominantly a market-driven approach, done by employers and businesses bringing in customers, as the Explanatory Memorandum suggests, or by individuals at home, how does that then trigger tracing? How will it trigger a person having to inform somebody, either locally or nationally, through test and trace, that they are positive? Significantly, how will tracing then kick in to help ensure that the chains of transmission are dealt with as speedily as possible, particularly since evidence suggests that 48 hours is the maximum time before the chain continues to spread?
Regulation 39A says that the Secretary of State can make an exemption for tests coming on to the market which are not tested. In what circumstances does the Minister feel that the Secretary of State would be able to use the power under Regulation 39A? How will it be reported to Parliament or to the public, so that they know whether the test they are getting—or potentially buying—has not been through the statutory testing regime?
I want to further explore something mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Rooker. It is to do with the Innova test and the recommendation in the email from the Food and Drug Administration, which said that this test should be thrown “in the trash”—that was the exact quote. Since it was a class I recall, I need to know what extra testing or analysis has been done by the UK Government based on what they have seen from the FDA and that recall. When was that done and what is the outcome of that testing or analysis, based on the extra evidence that has come from the FDA?
Finally, I would like to ask whether free testing will still be available on the NHS. If it is to be available, a number of questions arise. If I could have free testing on the NHS and it is not means-tested, why would I buy a test, unless certain categories of organisations will not be allowed to use the NHS test? At the moment, people going abroad are not allowed to use the free NHS test. Is it anticipated to be the same for organisations such as businesses—for their staff and for customers coming in, et cetera? What thought has been put into that?
These issues, and the others which noble Lords have raised, are important because this is a matter of public health and of how we contain the virus in the most effective way possible, while keeping people safe. I come back to my opening remark: this is not emergency legislation. It should have been laid normally before Parliament, so that we could have dealt with it and tabled amendments. I would have hoped to make this better, to keep people safe and to deal with proper testing across the UK.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, the importance of this SI is underlined by the decision of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to draw the regulations to
“the special attention of the House on the grounds that they are politically or legally important and give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.”
The noble Lord, Lord Scriven is quite right: this is not emergency legislation. Here we are, more than a year in. It is not an emergency. However, this is a very important statutory instrument. My noble friend Lord Rooker and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, have outlined many of the questions that need to be addressed, but I need to put the Minister on notice that, depending on his answer to this debate, I may oppose it here in the Grand Committee and take it to the Floor of the House.
I am very concerned listening to this debate. I was concerned when I made my own notes, and I am even more concerned now listening to other noble Lords. This is not just about the quality of testing; it is about the market of testing, and that is quite different. That is why the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee was concerned about a major change in public policy. Putting a major change in public policy through in Grand Committee under these circumstances is probably not a good idea and does not make for good legislation.
We absolutely support a quality approval process for all Covid-19 tests in the UK. It is important that the new process is rigorous to ensure that all tests, including those for sale, meet the relevant quality standards, especially if such tests are to play a greater role in the long-term management of Covid-19. In the meantime, it is essential that free NHS tests continue to be available. This is all the more important given the rising case numbers and the Government’s insistence on going ahead with the removal of all restrictions, including the legal requirement to wear face coverings on public transport, in a week’s time.
Given the importance of reliable high-quality testing devices for the effective management of Covid-19 in the long term, can the Minister explain why the new validation process was not introduced earlier? Given that the DHSC says that as part of managing Covid in the long term the Government will want to support
“a thriving private sector market for COVID-19 detection tests to supplement and support testing led by NHS Test and Trace”
and to
“encourage the private sector to bring a number of testing products and services to market to meet the differing needs of businesses and individuals”
and provide consumer choice, how will we ensure that all the tests available will meet the minimum performance standards? According to the department, the new quality requirements introduced by this instrument
“will make the UK private testing market more competitive, as manufacturers will need to improve the accuracy and speed of their tests in order to outcompete competitors”.
Can the Minister confirm the timeframe for shifting to a private testing model? How much will these tests cost and who will bear the brunt, employers or employees? Will there be waivers or business support for vulnerable workplaces, including hospitals, care homes and schools, as well as other key workers where frequent testing is key to protecting the vulnerable and often to things such as keeping a school open? Does he agree that it is essential that free NHS tests continue to be available, given the rise in case numbers and the Government’s insistence on going ahead with opening, as I have already said?
I would like to have some more information about the August cut-off point. During the procurement of lateral flow device tests for the NHS, only 25% passed through all stages of validation including the assessment for performance and quality standards under the current regime. The 75% of the LFD tests assessed as not meeting performance or quality standards of the NHS still qualify as fit for market. The DHSC says that rapid intervention is therefore required to address this. Does rapid mean now or a year ago?
Department of Health and Social Care data showed that six out of 10 positive rapid test results at schools between 4 March and 17 March turned out to be wrong. It is therefore legitimate to ask whether the real reason that we are backing away from them is because they do not work for self-testing and do not represent value for money. What is going to happen next? The Minister needs to set out the timescale. Can he confirm that if the third-party approach is to be considered, these contracts will go out for public tender?
Does the Minister share my concern that the department’s explanation appears to suggest that less accurate tests can be of diagnostic value for the NHS if such tests are used by clinicians who are able to consider other factors and information and therefore put any tests into a wider clinical context? Finally, what extra resources will be available to local authority trading standards teams for testing enforcement activities?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I start by assuring the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and others that when we look at this validation SI, our overarching objective is safeguarding public health. That is the primary impact of this regulatory regime for the validation of Covid-19 tests. I think noble Lords agree that high-quality tests are essential to avoid public health risks in future.
I will just clarify one key point. When I said that 75% of tests did not meet those standards and that only 50 of the 280 we had looked at passed, I meant that we rejected and never bought the 75% and were limited to only a smaller number of suppliers. That created a bottleneck in the supply of tests, which noble Lords will remember as a terrible feature of the pandemic last year which severely inhibited the progress of our campaign against this awful virus.
The importance of tests was bitterly showcased last year because of the dangers of one person potentially causing an outbreak in the whole community. Therefore, the primary purpose of the regulatory regime we are debating today is to safeguard public health.
The UK Government are clear that we want to be a world leader in agile regulation; this will encourage businesses from the UK and elsewhere to research and manufacture tests in the UK. We need that because when the pandemic began at the beginning of last year, we had neither a domestic diagnostic industry nor institutional experience of how to assess and validate tests. Those were functions that we had to build from the ground up. This SI puts in place mechanisms for encouraging a domestic industry and the standards to assess that industry.
British manufacturers and pharmaceutical research and engineering firms have led the way as part of a global effort to combat the virus, keeping the NHS supplied with kit, tests and medicines. We engaged with them thoroughly. A consultation has been published, and I would be glad to distribute it to noble Lords. They resoundingly support these measures.
If companies do not want to improve the quality of their tests to meet our standards, they simply will not sell their tests here. I see the loss of poor-quality tests from the market as positive, as it will leave more market share for high-quality tests. That is a message I give to all those manufacturing tests that cannot make the standards.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who asked a number of perceptive questions about the role of free testing and the policy in this area, that reports in the press are not to be given the credibility he suggests and that we have not moved on as far as he suggests. However, it is true that we have always established the principle that the Government cannot provide every single test for every single purpose. That is for two reasons. For instance, travel is essentially a voluntary matter, and it is not right for the taxpayer to pay for tests that people take in order to conduct a voluntary matter.
The other reason is pragmatic. We will not be able to sustain or have a resilient diagnostic system in this country if the state is the only player and we have no private capacity to lean on. That was our experience last year and it damaged us greatly. Countries that had private diagnostic capacity, such as Germany, survived much better and had much more capacity to lean on. So we are looking to evolve the way we do testing in this country and I will be glad to update the House when those plans are fully formed.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, the role of asymptomatic testing will undoubtedly evolve when a large proportion of the country is vaccinated and when vaccination greatly reduces the link between infection and hospitalisation, whereas the role of PCR testing will become more important as we move to a situation where there may be new infection. We hope that R will be below one, and these changing dynamics will have a profound effect on the provision of diagnostics.
In answer to my noble friend Lord Lansley’s questions, we are enormously engaged with UK manufacturers. We have a Make programme, with a substantial team that is fully engaged with the UK diagnostics industry. I pay testimony to SureScreen, one of the key suppliers to test and trace, for the incredibly valuable contribution that it makes to our procurement. I am grateful to all those partners that supply test and trace and the NHS with tests, but we are doing everything that we can to support the UK industry.
In reply to my noble friend Lord Moynihan, the standards are the same for the NHS as the validation for test and trace. We are trying to bring about a situation where the test you take in a test and trace or NHS capacity will be exactly the same one that you take in a private capacity.
On timing, we are moving as quickly as we can and we have heavily resourced this area. In fact, our major constraint has been our desire to take these measures through Parliament in the usual fashion. On costs, the programme currently washes its own face, but we are conscious of the pressure of costs on manufacturers and we very much hope to bring the costs down.
I completely share the sentiments of noble Lords who mentioned trading standards. It has already performed an important task in holding test distributors and service firms to account, and I am enormously grateful for its interventions in the market.
We have completed an impact statement but we are waiting for final comments from the RPC. As soon as it is available we will make the statement available to parliamentarians. We have assessed that the direct costs to business of this policy are made up of £6 million annual equivalent for the validation programme and £165 million in forgone profits for manufacturers either not applying for validation or for products that do not pass validation. As the Covid-19 diagnostic market inevitably shrinks, forgone profits fall year on year from £647 million in year 1 to £35 million in year 6.
On my noble friend Lord Lansley’s question about whether NHS tests will need to undergo validation, all tests used by NHS Test and Trace have already undergone rigorous clinical evaluation, providing confidence in their performance. The Government’s proposals aim to ensure that all tests available in the UK meet the same high standards.
My noble friend Lord Lansley asked about the sensitivity and specificity of the LFD tests, and his points were very well made. The LFD test is for infectiousness. An extremely mild infection that is not in itself infectious will not necessarily be picked up by an LFD in the same way that it will by a PCR, but that does not invalidate the effectiveness of LFDs in breaking the chains of transmission.
On the taking of tests, our experience has been that, after one or two goes, tests taken at home are just as good as those being taken by clinicians in the laboratory. In fact, it is a testament to the British public that they have been as diligent and thorough as they have been in using their swabs.
I completely understand noble Lords’ concerns about the FDA press release and its concerns about the Innova tests. I assure them that MHRA colleagues were entirely involved in the intense conversations with the FDA and have satisfied themselves that the FDA’s concerns were not applicable to the UK market. We continue to maintain the purchasing of Innova tests based on validations that we in the UK have done for ourselves.
My noble friend Lord Lansley mentioned inward investment. We really hope that many firms, both British and from overseas, will invest further in the UK. We are working hard to build up a UK diagnostics industry from relatively humble beginnings into something that is muscular, innovative and makes the very best use of UK science. I hope that I will be able to make announcements on that in the near future.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked how the costs of tests will be regulated. The cost to the public will be governed by the marketplace. I am pleased to say that the costs have come down dramatically in the past year; it is my hope that they will continue to come down.
As we move beyond the pandemic, we must consider its legacy. After World War II, our grandparents left us the NHS as its legacy. As they turned their tools and talent against fascism, so too they turned them against disease, and they moved from the business of taking lives to saving them. In the same way, we must ensure that this greatest test of our nation since World War II leaves an equal legacy for our grandchildren. I hope that a revolution to our approach to diagnostics will be that legacy, with proactive, not reactive, healthcare and disease management. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that our intention is for good-quality, well-regulated Covid-19 diagnostic tests to be a small but integral part of that legacy and for us to learn lessons to support the NHS in saving lives for generations to come.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
The Grand Committee stands adjourned until 4.35 pm. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.
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, 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 following debate is one hour.
Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the Grand Committee do consider the Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.
Relevant document: 8th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con) [V]
My Lords, these draft regulations will be made under the powers conferred by the Channel Tunnel Act 1987. They will make the necessary amendments to domestic rail operator licensing legislation to enable the implementation of a bilateral agreement between the UK and France on the recognition of rail operator licences for the Channel Tunnel and cross-border area. This will support the continued smooth operation of Channel Tunnel traffic when the temporary arrangements expire on 30 September 2021.
The regulations will also provide long-term certainty, clarity and confidence to cross-border operators, both current and prospective, regarding the future operator licensing framework for the Channel Tunnel. They will apply to England, Scotland and Wales, although the main operative provisions will, in practice, apply only to the Channel Tunnel and cross-border area. The regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure, as set out under the Channel Tunnel Act, and Schedule 8 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.
The regulations amend the 2005 railway operator licensing regulations, which updated the rules for the licensing of passenger and freight train operators in Great Britain established under the Railways Act 1993 by introducing a new EU form of licence. This was done to reflect changes to EU operator licensing laws. The 2005 regulations introduced the requirement for operators running services on the basis of the new EU form of licence in Great Britain to hold a statement of national regulatory provisions, or SNRP. SNRPs supplement licensing requirements, covering, for example, the provision of information to passengers, membership of industry bodies and third-party insurance conditions.
The regulations also amend the Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were introduced to correct deficiencies in the 2005 regulations arising from the UK’s exit from the EU, to ensure that they continued to operate effectively post exit. As well as converting the EU form of licences issued by the Office of Rail and Road, the ORR, to “railway undertaking licences”, the 2019 regulations provided for the continued recognition in Great Britain of European licences for a period of two years from exit day—in other words, until 31 January 2022.
Following the end of the transition period, there is no longer automatic mutual recognition of licences between the UK and the EU. The recognition of UK licences for the Channel Tunnel is currently provided for by an EU contingency regulation that expires on 30 September 2021. These operator licensing regulations, and the proposed bilateral agreement that they implement, will ensure the continued recognition of operator licences for the Channel Tunnel when the current temporary arrangements expire. This will have a significant positive impact on cross-border operators, by providing long-term certainty on the licensing requirements for the Channel Tunnel. It will also reduce the administrative burdens on them, by enabling them to operate in the Channel Tunnel and cross-border area without the need to hold two separate licences—that is, one issued in Great Britain and one issued in the EEA.
Under the regulations, EU licences will be recognised up to the first border crossing station in the UK only, which is Dollands Moor for freight and Ashford International for passenger services. This mirrors the extent of the recognition of UK licences in French territory under the proposed bilateral agreement, and so ensures equivalence.
The regulations, and by extension the agreement that they will implement, are fully compatible with the Government’s fundamental red lines in the Channel Tunnel negotiations with France, which are to support the continuation of cross-border services while conferring no role for the EU courts or the European rail agency in UK territory and avoiding dynamic alignment with EU law.
Information-sharing provisions are included in the regulations to give effect to requirements of the proposed bilateral agreement. Under these requirements, the ORR will be able to share information with the equivalent French authorities in relation to, for example, any doubts as to the validity of a licence or compliance with licensing requirements on the part of either a European licence holder operating a Channel Tunnel service in Great Britain or an ORR-licensed operator operating a Channel Tunnel service in France.
The regulations will also ensure a level playing field regarding the licensing requirements for operators on the French and UK sides of the Channel Tunnel and cross-border area by disapplying the current UK requirement to hold an SNRP for EU-licensed operators of Channel Tunnel services, up to Dollands Moor or Ashford International only, and ensuring that no equivalent additional licensing requirements will be in place for UK-licensed operators on the French side—it will be the same either side. Again, this will support the recognition of those licences on a fully reciprocal basis under the bilateral agreement.
To conclude, the regulations will reduce administrative burdens on cross-border operators and enable them to plan their businesses into the future with confidence. Most importantly, they will support the long-term continued smooth operation of cross-border services through the Channel Tunnel. I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con) [V]
My Lords, I find myself in a uniquely privileged position today because, when looking at the Order Paper this morning, I was rather amazed to see that my role here has been defined as “all other speakers” and I have been afforded no less than 10 minutes to make a speech. This is almost unique in the last 15 months, but I want to placate my colleagues, or at least reassure them, by saying that I do not intend to use all of that time. Still, it was a marvellous bit of news this morning, and I hope it will be replicated in future debates.
Since the Channel Tunnel opened in 1994, I, like many millions of other UK and European citizens, have been able to travel on dry land between our states in comfort and at speed. I have occasionally used the shuttle when I have required my own car to be with me on the continent, but I must, and want to, declare an interest: I hold the record of being one of the most-travelled Eurostar train service passengers, thanks to the weekly journeys that I undertook during the 17 years that I served as a Member of the European Parliament, commuting to Brussels and Paris. I commend Eurostar on its trains and service, which got better and better during those years, with the provision of new facilities at the terminals, as well as its rolling stock.
The Covid crisis has of course presented it, and other cross-channel transport operators, with serious financial challenges. Although that situation is not directly addressed in the legislation that we are considering today, I hope my noble friend will understand that merely expressing positive and good wishes may not be sufficient. I hope it will not be long before Eurostar and others can enjoy renewed growth and prosperity, but the company may need more help, as others have received from Governments on both sides of the Channel.
Having said that, I wish to spend a moment on the treaty of Canterbury, signed by the late Baroness Thatcher, as our Prime Minister, and President Mitterrand of France in Canterbury Cathedral in 1986. It is not perhaps the most exciting thing in history to have happened in Canterbury Cathedral but it is probably close to it. As noble Lords will recollect, this was the treaty that allowed the Channel Tunnel to be constructed, in which the legal and territorial structure for its operation was laid down. A new border between France and the UK was created below the seabed, halfway across.
This was followed up by a protocol signed in November 1991, which effectively juxtaposed national control bureaus at Fréthun near Calais and Folkestone in the UK. This was in itself a unique territorial exchange, allowing security and frontier arrangements to be operated in full co-operation and harmony. Over the years, it has worked very well in protecting both France and the UK, as well as preserving respective immigration rules and policies. It will no doubt please some to know that all this was, and is, based largely on bilateral agreements between France and the UK. The international interest in the Canterbury treaty at that time was from the United Nations. Any modification of the protocol should be by exchange of diplomatic notes.
Of course, although the basis of the tunnel relationship is bilateral, as my noble friend the Minister said, there are consequences for rail operators of our leaving the EU, which is why these provisions are now required. The original pre-Brexit regulations were approved in 2005, as she said, and gave cover for EEA-issued operator licences. In the aftermath of our withdrawal, new regulations were put in place in 2019 to cover the two-year period until September this year.
As my noble friend the Minister said, we now need to renew the regulations to protect the rail operators of Eurostar and freight services until a new agreement with France is, hopefully, concluded and ratified. I understand that the shuttle and Eurotunnel are protected under alternative provisions. Perhaps my noble friend can advise on how the ongoing discussions on the bilateral arrangements are proceeding. I understand that the technical details are agreed. I assume that there are no political or other impediments to the satisfactory conclusion of this.
As a former Leeds MP and Yorkshire MEP, may I press my noble friend a little further? I know it is a long time ago but, in 1987, when the then Channel Tunnel Bill referred to earlier by my noble friend passed through our Houses, a number of MPs from outside the south-east of the UK supported it and allowed the scheme to proceed on the basis of clear promises that there would be direct services from northern cities such as Leeds, Newcastle and York to European cities such as Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. These have essentially not materialised; no doubt plans remain on the table. Perhaps my noble friend can elaborate on how this might be taken forward and any possible linkage there might be to the HS2 network in due course. It would be very positive if we tried to bring this about because we all know that, with COP 26 being hosted in this country later this year, the environmental benefits of electric trains cannot be underestimated. We have the opportunity to give fresh endorsement to this form of travel. Can my noble friend also confirm that, in view of the separate EU legislation covering Eurotunnel, there are no risks to the continued smooth running of the shuttle?
Obviously, I fully support these protective measures to cover us for the time being. Not only should we welcome them; we must also look for the enhancement of services using this vital piece of infrastructure, ensuring its use to rebuild positive relationships with our European neighbours after an undoubtedly fraught period.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, I am a firm fan of both Eurostar and the shuttle service through the tunnel. I mainly take the Eurostar to Brussels for family reasons but I have gone on to a number of other locations on that excellent service. One of the things I have really missed in the last 15 months is those regular trips through the Channel Tunnel.
Given the months of political wrangling about whose responsibility it was to prop up Eurostar, it is a relief to see that at least this aspect of Channel Tunnel services seems to be progressing in a straightforward manner. This SI has a limited application but is nevertheless fundamentally important in keeping people and trade flowing between the UK and the EU and mainland Europe.
When there are so many stories of additional post-Brexit hurdles for those wanting to do business with the EU, it is important that this SI is presented in anticipation of the UK and the EU reaching an agreement at the end of September. I join the request to ask the Minister to update us with the latest information on the discussions with the EU. Is this agreement firmly on track? Can we be confident about it? I have a sense of Groundhog Day about these regulations, as I recall a similar measure in preparation for Brexit in 2019.
The SI is to be welcomed, especially because of the increasing awareness of the environmental importance of encouraging international rail transport, both passenger and freight. EU countries have recognised this and there is strong growth in the number of long-distance rail services being launched to replace air travel. I thoroughly recommend the journey using the Channel Tunnel through to Lille then taking the TGV further south. It is a brilliant and luxurious way to travel, even in standard class. The need to replace air travel applies to both passenger and freight travel. France has even legislated to prevent short domestic air journeys. I hope that the UK Government will similarly work to encourage long-distance rail in our country and use HS2 in the way in which it should be used to encourage that.
I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister about the level of freight services through the tunnel in the last 18 months during the pandemic. I am especially keen to look at the levels of freight using the tunnel pre and post Brexit. We know that passenger travel has been heavily hit but freight should be flourishing, especially because of the shortage of HGV drivers. The two specialist freight operators using the tunnel are sure to be well placed to take some of the heat out of this situation. I look forward to the Minister’s comments in the hope that she can reassure me that freight is flourishing.
Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]
I thank the Minister for her explanation of the purpose and content of the regulations. It was very helpful and almost led me to rewrite parts of what I am going to say.
Before I go any further, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, on noticing that he had been given 10 minutes to speak, compared with me, who has six minutes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who also has six minutes. I hope that the Government Chief Whip will at some stage explain why this state of affairs happened. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, wondered whether it would ever happen again; I assure him that precisely the same thing does happen again in the next SI we have to deal with.
I also noted the noble Lord’s comments about the possibility of through trains between the north and Europe. I suspect that I am in the same boat as him in wondering why it is not possible to link up HS2 and HS1; the situation at the moment appears to be that there will not necessarily be a link.
I come back to the regulations, which, as the Explanatory Memorandum states,
“provide for the continued recognition of EEA issued rail operator licences … for the Channel Tunnel and the cross-border area”
and
“make the necessary amendments to domestic rail legislation to support the implementation of a UK-France bilateral agreement on the mutual recognition of rail operator licences”,
which, subject to final checks, is to be implemented and ratified. I, too, look forward to the Minister’s response on what progress is being made in those bilateral discussions.
The Explanatory Memorandum refers to
“cross-border operators, both current and prospective”
for whom these regulations are intended
“to provide long-term certainty … regarding the future operator licensing framework for the Channel Tunnel”.
Can the Minister say who the current operators referred to are and whether there are currently any further credible prospective operators on the horizon?
In paragraph 3.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum, there is a reference to
“information sharing by the Office of Rail and Road … in respect of holders of railway undertaking licences issued by the ORR”.
The Minister made reference to this matter in her opening comments. Is this sharing of information a regular occurrence? Did she cover all the issues involved in information sharing in her helpful comments, or are there other issues involving information sharing in addition to the ones she mentioned?
As the Minister said, and as the EM explains, the 2005 regulations, which are amended by these regulations,
“introduced the requirement for operators … to hold a Statement of National Regulatory Provisions … SNRPs supplement licensing requirements, for example setting out specific third-party insurance requirements over and above the general licensing requirement for adequate insurance to be maintained.”
The EM states:
“The requirement introduced by the 2005 Regulations … to hold a SNRP will be disapplied by the Regulations for operators relying on such licences to operate services through the Channel Tunnel and up to … Dollands Moor or Ashford International station.”
It says that this change
“is deemed necessary to support the mutual recognition of licences on a fully reciprocal basis.”
Yet it also says this:
“The impact of disapplying this requirement, if any, is expected to be very limited in practice given the very limited geographical scope of the exemption and given that all cross-border operators currently running services through the Channel Tunnel do so on the basis of a UK licence.”
Can the Minister confirm that this change in respect of an SNRP has no impact on the situation as it is at present or on any current operators of services through the tunnel? If I am wrong in thinking that, can she say what current arrangements and current operators are affected and in what way? Can she also say what the change in respect of disapplying the requirement to hold an SNRP will represent from the current position for any future EEA operator of rail services operating services
“through the Channel Tunnel and up to (but not beyond) Dollands Moor or Ashford International station”?
Finally, the Explanatory Memorandum states that
“the transitory provisions … which provide for the continued recognition of European licences in Great Britain”
will continue in force
“until they expire at 11pm on 31 January 2022.”
It also says that the “current EU contingency legislation”, which provides for the continued recognition of GB operator licences in the French half of the tunnel and immediately beyond,
“expires on 30 September 2021”.
Paragraph 7.8 of the draft Explanatory Memorandum states:
“If … the bilateral agreement is only ratified by both sides after the expiry period of the transitory provisions, the Regulations provide for the amendments to the transitory provisions not to take effect, as the transitory provisions will themselves be spent by that point.”
What happens at midnight on 30 September 2021, when the EU contingency legislation expires, if the bilateral agreement has not been ratified by then by both sides, and what happens at 11 pm on 31 January 2022, when the transitory provisions on the continued recognition in Great Britain of European licences cease to have effect, if the bilateral agreement has not been ratified by then by both sides?
Like the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, I await the Government’s response to the points that have been made in this debate with interest.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate. There were lots of warm wishes for continental train travel; I add mine to them. We all enjoy going on the train, whether it be in a vehicle or on Eurostar. We obviously closely monitor the impact of Covid on Eurostar—I know that my noble friend Lord Kirkhope was interested in this—and all transport services. All being well, I hope to see their passengers and other customers return soon.
Turning to the regulations under consideration today, I start by providing a bit more colour about the status of the discussions with France; I think all noble Lords were interested to hear how we were getting on. My officials have been in active and regular discussion with their French counterparts since the beginning of the year to secure this bilateral agreement on the recognition of the rail operator licences for the Channel Tunnel and the tiny cross-border area either side of it. I assure the Committee that the talks have been highly constructive. Agreement has been reached in principle at the technical level and it is now subject to final legal checks. It is expected that the agreement will be signed before the end of September, then provisionally applied by both sides for a limited period to support the continuation of services in the immediate term once the current EU contingency measure expires.
The agreement will still need to be ratified through the UK Parliament; this will of course be done as soon as possible thereafter. It will be done via the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 process, rightly giving Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise the text in full before it is ratified. I am not sure whether this will reassure the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, but it will certainly inform him: we have been clear with our French counterparts that the regulations will not receive ministerial signature and become law unless and until the related bilateral agreement is signed by France or, failing that, a EU contingency measure is extended pending the final conclusion of the agreement. Something will thus have happened by 30 September to maintain the smooth running of services. It does not strike me that it would be in anyone’s interest for that not to occur.
In the extraordinarily unlikely event that France does not ratify the signed agreement, for whatever reason, we could also revoke these regulations in future. There is no risk that the UK will continue to recognise EU licences indefinitely without that being fully reciprocated by France. We do not think that we will end up in that situation. We absolutely believe that the agreement will be signed and that we will be able to put in place in the immediate term while it is being ratified by the UK Parliament.
On the disapplication of SNRPs, the disapplication of the requirement to hold a SNRP in the UK half of the channel and the immediate cross-border area will ensure equivalence with the licensing requirements applicable to UK operators on the French side, so it will be the same. Given the extremely limited scope of the regulations, disapplication of the SNRP requirement is expected to have almost no impact in practice. It is therefore considered acceptable in the interests of reciprocity. In practice, there are no current operators to which this disapplication will apply; I know this was of interest to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. All the cross-border operators—the two freight operators, GB Railfreight and DB Cargo UK, and the passenger operator, Eurostar—do so on the basis of a GB licence. They are scooped up in the SNRP requirement anyway by having a GB licence.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also asked whether there are any credible prospective operators. I am not aware that there are any at this moment in time but, should one wish to come forward, we would obviously welcome its involvement in the market. Any future operator of rail services, if it was an EEA operator that went beyond either Dollands Moor or Ashford International, would in any event have to have an ORR-issued railway undertaking licence, so they too would then be subject to the SNRP requirement. We believe that the situation we have works very well. It is time to be pragmatic and, in practice, it makes no difference.
On stakeholder views and the impact on operators, the amendments in these regulations will in reality have a very limited impact on cross-border operators. Indeed, the measures being introduced will have a significant positive impact in that they will be able to continue the smooth running of cross-border operations. We did a survey on the draft regulations and sent it to Channel Tunnel stakeholders. DB Cargo, Eurostar International Ltd, Eurotunnel, the Rail Delivery Group, the Rail Freight Group and High Speed 1 Ltd responded; all were highly supportive of the regulations and recognised the importance of securing this continued smooth running. A couple of concerns were raised but they were outside the scope of the regulations or related to the geographic scope of recognition in the UK. Obviously, we have chosen to mirror that closely to what they do on the French side, where you go up to the first station for either passengers or freight; that is the cross-border area, so to speak. We continue our discussions with these stakeholders and keep them informed as to how the bilateral negotiations with France are going.
To give noble Lords a quick heads-up, it is also worth mentioning that this is just one element of what we are discussing with the French at the moment. We are also discussing train driver licences, safety certificates and the overarching safety rules applicable to the Channel Tunnel. Again, these discussions are going well. We will bring more regulations to your Lordships’ House in the autumn and we will have the opportunity to scrutinise them in full. In any event, there are robust and effective contingency agreements and arrangements in place for those matters at the moment.
My noble friend Lord Kirkhope asked a question about services from Europe to the north. I will write a letter to him, if I may, because then I can explain more generally our plans for rail in the north and how they might link into European services.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, asked about pre-Brexit and post-Brexit freight volumes. I do not have that information to hand, unfortunately; again, I will happily write to her.
If I have missed anything else, I will ask officials to look through Hansard very carefully and make sure that they pick up everything I have forgotten.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
The Grand Committee stands adjourned until 5.10 pm, which is really quite soon. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.
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 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.
Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) and the Biofuel (Labelling) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the Grand Committee do consider the Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) and the Biofuel (Labelling) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021. Special attention drawn to the instrument by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, 8th Report.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con) [V]
My Lords, the purpose of these regulations is to introduce E10 as standard petrol across Great Britain while ensuring that the current E5 grade remains available to those who need it. E10 petrol contains up to 10% renewable ethanol, double the amount that can be blended into today’s E5 grade. Increasing the renewable ethanol content can reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 750,000 tonnes, helping us to meet our ambitious climate targets.
The regulations also update labelling requirements that must accompany the sale of E10 to ensure that fuel consumers have the right information. Finally, the SI makes some necessary amendments to the Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) Regulations 1999 to correct for deficiencies and replace references to EU directives following the UK’s exit from the European Union.
Introducing E10 allows us to cut carbon emissions from cars, motorbikes and other petrol-powered equipment in use today. This is done by simply increasing the limit to which renewable fuel can be blended into standard petrol. It is one of the very few measures available to us today with an immediate impact.
E10 is a proven fuel that is already in use across the world, including in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the US, to name but a few. We also have a valuable bioethanol industry in the UK that will benefit from increased demand; indeed, following our policy announcement, one large facility operator has already announced that it is recommencing production. These facilities play important roles in their local economy, employing hundreds of skilled workers directly and supporting thousands of jobs in the wider community.
That community includes the agricultural sector, with locally grown feed wheat used to produce ethanol. By-products, such as high-protein animal feed, are used by livestock farmers in place of soya products. It is vital to support these industries as we endeavour to build back greener, with low-carbon industrial hubs crucial to our path towards net zero by 2050.
Introducing E10 is part of a wider set of measures to encourage renewable fuels. Overall renewable fuel blending is incentivised through the renewable transport fuel obligation, or RTFO, obligating larger fuel suppliers to supply renewable fuels. However, because the RTFO allows for different ways to meet targets, it has proven insufficient to remove market barriers for the introduction of specific fuel blends such as E10.
As RTFO targets have increased over the past three years, fuel suppliers are now blending very close to the 7% biodiesel limit for standard diesel and 5% bioethanol limit for standard petrol. If we want to increase renewable blending further, we need to take additional measures now. While most diesel vehicles are approved to use only a maximum of 7% biodiesel, known as B7, the vast majority of petrol vehicles—over 95%—are cleared to use E10 petrol. Our immediate focus is therefore on E10.
Fuel suppliers and retailers have made it clear to us that, for technical reasons related to vapour pressure, the best time to introduce E10 is at the same time as the change from summer to winter fuel specification. This happens every September. To ensure we reap the full greenhouse gas benefits of E10 introduction, we have consulted separately on increases to the RTFO from January 2022, allowing for a short transition period. We will announce the next steps on the target increases soon.
While 95% of all petrol vehicles can use E10, some older vehicles cannot. That is why this instrument includes provisions to keep the current E5 petrol available in the higher octane super grade. The super grade is available nationwide but in areas with less coverage, such as in parts of Scotland, exemptions are available to ensure that everyone can access the fuel they need. We have also launched a comprehensive communications campaign involving local radio, roadside posters, social media and information on the forecourts. This informs motorists of the changes to petrol that will happen this summer and directs vehicle owners to the online compatibility checker, ensuring everyone can be clear on the right fuel for their vehicle or equipment.
The SI also makes amendments that are required following our departure from the European Union. We have replaced references to EU legislation with references to domestic legislation to ensure the ongoing operability of the fuel standards. It is also important to note that, as a result of this amendment, all petrol supplied in the UK will still meet the same standards as apply across Europe.
In proposing this statutory instrument, the Government have carefully considered a balance of interests. It recognises the need to maximise our efforts to decarbonise vehicles on the road today and support our domestic renewable fuel industry, while maintaining access to a suitable petrol grade for all. I believe introducing E10 petrol this September strikes that balance. I beg to move.
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that exposition of the regulations. I hope that her colleagues in the Department for Transport will take the opportunity, over the next few months, to listen to their colleagues in Defra because at the same time as considering this measure we are taking the Environment Bill through the House, which faces in a very different direction from that which underlies this measure.
Biofuels, as in taking human food and burning it in vehicles, are a scam. They cause much more environmental damage than alternatives and are absolutely not the way we should be going. Biodiesel, for instance, seems to contain quite high proportions of palm oil, sourced from the expansion of palm oil plantations at the expense of forests—putting “a tiger in your tank” in a way that Esso never intended. Bioethanol involves taking food that could perfectly well be used by humans and burning it. It puts pressure on landscapes which could well be used for rewilding and to bring nature back into this country, in a way that the Environment Bill majors on. I would welcome an integrated approach to where we get our transport fuel from.
The basic direction in favour of electric must be right; getting electricity from sources other than the destruction of the environment must also be right. I very much hope that this is the high-water mark of a failed European policy and that we will see no more of it.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, these regulations involve the transition from E5 to E10 for premium petrol. I thank the Minister and her officials for their previous assistance and help in explaining the purpose of these regulations. However, I share the concerns just expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has some harsh things to say about the way the regulations have been presented. It says that
“issues are raised in the Impact Assessment … that are glossed over in the Explanatory Memorandum”.
Specifically, the committee cites
“the role of E10 in propping up the UK’s struggling ethanol production sector”.
The impact assessment mentions the reason for this problem being lower than expected demand for ethanol across Europe. What are regarded as the reasons for this lower than expected demand? It may be that there is a sound reason for that, which could be increasing awareness of the disadvantages of ethanol as a solution to the problem of how to make our petrol less polluting by reducing emissions from it, or it could involve other European countries finding an alternative solution.
The second thing the committee cites is
“comparative CO2 savings from ethanol and other biofuels.”
It believes that there needs to be more clarity here.
Thirdly, the committee talks about
“the long term costs to motorists as E10 delivers lower miles per gallon.”
Taking this last point, although a gallon of E10 petrol might emit less CO2 than E5 petrol, if it burns faster and allows you to do fewer miles per gallon, surely the CO2 savings are all but, if not entirely, cancelled out? The picture is further complicated by the fact that E10 can actually be anything between E5.5 and E10, so changes or improvements are likely to be gradual. Is the Minister convinced that this is really the right way to go to reduce CO2 emissions? Are the Government convinced and confident that this is not their version of Gordon Brown’s ill-conceived push to encourage us all to buy diesel cars?
The Minister says that the industry supports this measure. It would, would it not? The ethanol industry is said to be struggling, so it would be bound to support this measure. The Government also say that the industry will not introduce E10 unless mandated by the Government. I am concerned that the Government are being led by the industry rather than by the environmental needs of the country and the needs of drivers.
Clearly, I support efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport, which are now the largest single source of those emissions in the UK, but the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, rightly criticised the fundamentals of this. Ethanol production is mainly from crop feedstocks: wheat, sugar beet or corn. This is controversial as it takes up farmland that could be used for growing food. We are increasingly aware of the importance of growing more of our own food in the UK and relying less on imports because their environmental footprint is larger. Biodiesel is made from waste cooking oil, but the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, pointed to problems with that too.
The impact assessment warns that ethanol could at least temporarily replace other biofuels such as biodiesel, which has a higher greenhouse gas saving. Even if this does not happen, it will enable the Government to achieve only 7% of their additional transport savings required under their fifth carbon budget. That leaves 93% to be tackled by other means.
My question to the Minister is: why are the Government not being bolder? We no longer have to wait and work at the pace of the EU. EU targets are more than a decade old and have certainly led to significant improvements, but we now face real urgency to do something in this country. There is still another 14 years of sales of petrol and diesel vehicles before the Government’s 2035 target comes into view. The Government must devise new ways to counter the increase in average emissions from new cars as drivers opt for larger vehicles. Despite the technology being there, the emissions are going up on average—not down, as they should be.
Far-distant targets are not effective. We now need annual targets so that there is a constant process of improvement. We need a system of tax rewards and penalties to encourage faster take-up of the less polluting models, with the greatest rewards for those buying ZEVs.
Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]
I once again thank the Minister for her explanation of the purpose and content of these regulations. As she said, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, premium petrol in the UK is currently blended with up to 5% ethanol, known as E5 grade. These regulations require the ethanol content to be increased to up to 10%, E10 grade, with effect from 1 September this year, to meet future emissions targets. E10 petrol has been approved for sale in the UK since 2011 but no supplier has chosen to move above 5%.
The E10 petrol requirement will apply only to filling stations with an annual fuel throughput of over 1 million litres per annum. What percentage of petrol sales by litres is through filling stations with an annual fuel throughput of 1 million litres or less per annum?
The E10 requirement is that premium 95 grade petrol contains at least 5.5% ethanol all year round, but how does that help us reach blending of up to 10% in a meaningful way? What is the Government’s objective with these regulations as far as the E10 level of blending with ethanol is concerned, because 5.5% seems an inadequate increase from the current requirement?
As the Minister said, biofuel blending levels are generally driven by a separate government scheme, the renewable transport fuel obligation, with the next RTFO increases planned for 1 January next year. The Explanatory Memorandum indicates that during the period between these regulations taking effect on 1 September 2021 and the RTFO amendments in January 2022, the policy will cost the motorist around £87 million per year and decrease CO2 savings. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee queried why the start of these regulations could not be aligned with the complementary increase in the RTFO targets from 1 January next year, or alternatively why the date of the RTFO target increase could not be changed.
The committee accepted that the Department for Transport’s response on these two points was persuasive but said it would have been even more convincing if the relative costs of the extra disruption to the industry
“were estimated for comparison with the impact on the consumer and on CO2 savings.”
Can the Government now provide that estimate of the relative costs of the extra disruption to the industry if the existing schemes were synchronised for this changeover?
The SLSC commented that while the Explanatory Memorandum indicates a negative impact on consumers during the changeover period, the impact assessment indicates that, due to lead times, the effects of implementing the two regulations separately may not be as great as they first appear. The committee said that the reply on this point from the Department for Transport made the consequences of transition to E10 less clear, and suggested that this House might wish to ask the Minister for a clearer view of the effects of introducing the two sets of regulations three months apart. I am now asking the Minister for that clearer view.
The SLSC said that issues raised in the impact assessment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has said, had been glossed over in the Explanatory Memorandum on the instrument—issues such as the role of E10 in propping up the UK’s struggling ethanol production sector, the comparative CO2 savings from ethanol and other biofuels, and the long-term costs to motorists as E10 delivers lower miles per gallon.
On the UK’s ethanol production sector, capacity has regularly been seriously underutilised. Significant amounts of bioethanol supplied under the RTFO come from outside the UK. UK producers have said that if the UK does not introduce E10, it is likely that the domestic industry may not remain viable. Could the Government spell out in their response, with some specific facts and figures, the impact of E10 on the UK’s ethanol production sector?
The SLSC commented that the Explanatory Memorandum was based on the assumption that increased ethanol content by changing to E10 was the only way forward. However, the impact assessment indicates that the greenhouse gas savings from the additional ethanol are lower than the savings from other biofuels such as waste-derived biodiesel, but concludes that, provided that the RTFO target is suitably adjusted, E10 will result in longer-term reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Could the Government explain why blending petrol with ethanol is perceived as the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gases, taking account of all the environmental considerations to which reference has been made?
The Explanatory Memorandum appears to suggest that the additional costs to motorists of the switch from E5 to E10 will be transitional, since those costs and the decrease in CO2 savings will be only until the RTFO targets can be increased, yet the impact assessment indicates there will be significant long-term costs to consumers because E10 fuel is less efficient. The impact assessment concludes that fuel costs for petrol cars are estimated to increase by 2.3% as a result of moving from 5% to 10% ethanol content, meaning additional fuel-supply costs to consumers of E10 petrol of £701 million over 10 years because of the reduced miles per gallon. Further costs of £169 million over 10 years are estimated for consumers whose vehicles will accept only E5 petrol. Could the Government clarify what the position is? Are the additional costs to motorists transitional until RTFO targets can be increased, as per the Explanatory Memorandum, or are they long-term, as per the impact assessment?
Lastly, the SLSC concludes that the Explanatory Memorandum presents a rather sketchy view of the rationale for, and the consequences of, the proposed change to E10 petrol, and recommends that whenever the policy requires an impact assessment it should be made available alongside the published draft, which did not happen in respect of these regulations. What consideration have the Government given to this recommendation from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to today’s debate. I also thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for raising various matters, a number of which have been echoed by noble Lords today. Most recently the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned that the impact assessment was not published alongside the draft SI. That impact assessment was already a public document, but we will certainly take that away and I hope that will not happen again. Perhaps we should make sure that we signpost noble Lords to previously published documents where we possibly can.
A number of issues have been raised, and I will of course write with further details if I am unable to cover them in my remarks. This is very much a question of balance; there is an awful lot of balance to be had here. Anybody working in the field of transport knows that there is no silver bullet to solve carbon emissions in transport. The solution will be in a large number of interventions, some of which will have to happen over a large period of time. We will be publishing the transport decarbonisation plan fairly soon, and that will set out the firm foundation on which our thinking is based.
I shall start by addressing the wider focus on E10, which is the last low-hanging-fruit option for renewable fuel blending. Again, it is about balance: it works alongside the RTFO. There are literally no other short-term options for reducing emissions from road transport immediately, so we have to consider not only the balance of what the intervention is but how quickly it can achieve the goals that we need to achieve. We know that using waste biodiesel blended from fossil diesel saves more carbon dioxide per litre than bioethanol. That is true but we are up to the limit on biodiesel—up to 7%. Our only option now is therefore to increase petrol to E10. We also know that the vast majority of cars can use E10 successfully.
The interaction with the RTFO is really important. I noted that there are many reasons why the gap has arisen between the E10 implementation and the changes to the RTFO, including the technical reasons relating to the vapour pressure and the switchover of the type of petrol that is sold on the forecourt. However, we also know that the RTFO target can be changed only at the start of each calendar year because it is a market-based scheme; participants will of course plan their compliance through the whole of the year, so if we changed it mid-year it would be the same as a retrospective change and therefore deeply unwelcome. So the introduction of E10 in September, followed by increasing the targets in January, allows for a transition phase. We expect that during this phase blending will be ramped up, and that existing fuel stocks will be used up.
It is worth noting, as did the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that the fuel for E10 can be from ethanol of 5.5% upwards. This flexibility is intentional to ensure that the overall RTFO targets can be delivered cost-effectively, based on market prices for different biofuel options, and to allow for seasonal and geographic variations. There would be no point in mandating immediately a much higher percentage for blended petrol.
Furthermore, the changes were made under two different pieces of legislation and different powers, so that has had an impact on how we can introduce this measure. There is of course a need for a comprehensive communications campaign, so there was always a need too for a date, at some stage in future, in order that consumers are well aware of what they will be buying when they go to the pumps in September.
I turn to the carbon savings in the four-month transition period between the introduction of E10 and the increase of the RTFO targets at the beginning of next year. The impact assessment did not specifically model the impact of the four-month period between these two interventions. A snapshot of the annual modelling suggests costs of around £29 million, with an emissions-saving reduction of around 0.07 megatonnes of carbon dioxide, but that shortfall in emissions savings —if it happens, because again these are assumptions—would be recouped by the end of January next year following the RTFO target rise. As I say, there will be a net overall carbon dioxide benefit of around 0.73 megatonnes by the end of 2022.
Exactly how the suppliers meet their RTFO obligations at the end of 2021, and the speed with which they ramp up the ethanol blending, is unknown due to commercial sensitivities. However, we can say with certainty that by introducing E10 we are maximising the available capacity for biofuel blending in the coming years and providing the space to increase the RTFO targets as a step change in 2022.
Noble Lords have noted that biofuels produce different emissions reductions from their fossil fuel comparator. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, mentioned the impact of blending biodiesel. It is often made from used, or waste, cooking oil and saves more carbon dioxide per unit of energy delivered than for ethanol, although the difference is relatively small. As a result, where ethanol displaces waste biodiesel in the fuel mix delivered under the RTFO, the actual emission saved can be reduced. That is why this has to happen along with the changes to RTFO targets from the start of next year; again, it is all about balance.
Turning to the costs and the impact on the motorist, although we believe blending the petrol at E10 is unlikely to alter the pump price of standard 95 octane petrol, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, pointed out, drivers might experience a small reduction in miles per gallon. This will vary quite significantly by vehicle and the specific fuel blend used by that supplier, as well as the driving style. The overall reduction in miles per gallon is similar to driving with the aircon on, or with underinflated tyres.
Based on simplified assumptions and a potential worst-case scenario, the impact assessment estimated that each litre of E10 could contain around 1.7% less energy, which could result in increased fuel costs of around £70 million per annum. However, the industry has also suggested that there could be a change to the energy content, because different blends have different energy content according to the constituent parts of the petrol. This assumption could therefore be very much the worst-case scenario.
On incompatible vehicles, we again feel that there will be a very limited impact. Of the 5% of vehicles that are currently incompatible, the vast majority are classic or cherished vehicles, so fewer than 1% of the cars that are everyday run-arounds cannot use E10. As I have mentioned, we will make sure that E5 petrol will be available to owners of incompatible vehicles. It should also be remembered that those who own classic or cherished cars often use the higher super grade anyway, so they will see no difference in price. Again, the estimate of £70 million that might be added to fuel costs is very much a worst-case scenario. It assumes that all incompatible vehicles currently do not use the super grade, and we know that is not the case.
I turn to the bioethanol sector. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, suggested we were being led by the nose by industry. There are two different industries here and they both want it, while being on slightly different sides of the coin. We have the bioethanol industry and the traditional fossil fuel suppliers, and those suppliers want us to give them a kick because in Germany they did not give the industry a kick and have not had a very successful rollout of E10.
I have already mentioned that the bioethanol sector is a valued sector in this country and that, for the time being, it is essential that we look at all different ways of reducing our carbon emissions. Bioethanol is one of those and will provide highly skilled jobs and support the agricultural community, but I accept my noble friend Lord Lucas’s point that environmental concerns are also critical. Biofuels, supported under the RTFO, comply with strict sustainability and minimum greenhouse gas savings criteria. There are protections for biodiversity and land use change, such as deforestation. I will probably write more in a letter because I am aware that I am running out of time.
These regulations are about balance. We need to balance the need to maximise our efforts to decarbonise vehicles on the road today and support our domestic renewable fuel industry, while maintaining access to a suitable petrol grade for all. I believe that we have achieved that balance and that by introducing them now, with changes to the RTFO in January, we will achieve our ambitions.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
That completes the business before the Grand Committee this afternoon. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.
House of Lords
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.
Colombia: Human Rights
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Browne of Ladyton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made as to whether the reported killings of civilian protestors in Colombia has put the government of that country in breach of its commitments to respect human rights and democratic principles, as set out in the UK–Andean Countries Trade Agreement of 15 May 2019.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con) [V]
My Lords, the United Kingdom remains concerned about reports of human rights violations in Colombia and we have raised our concerns with the relevant state actors since the protests began. We welcome the Colombian Government’s commitment to transparent investigations into allegations of excessive force and to take appropriate action against those responsible. The British Government attach real importance to the principles underpinning the UK-Andean Countries Trade Agreement and expect our partners to do the same.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
I thank the Minister for his reply. The UK’s 2019 continuity trade agreement with Colombia commits the UK Government to respect human rights and democratic principles. The violence towards and killings of civilian protesters committed by the Colombian security forces were not only totally unacceptable but in violation of that trade agreement. On 17 January, the Foreign Secretary told “The Andrew Marr Show” that
“we shouldn’t be engaged in free-trade negotiations with countries abusing human rights”.
What, if anything, will the Government do to hold the Colombian Government to their trade agreement commitments, if their investigations show what is obvious to everyone?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that it is important that we hold countries to their human rights commitments. The actual trade agreement is, of course, yet to be ratified by Colombia. Nevertheless, through the direct engagement of both our embassy and my colleague, Minister Morton, who is responsible for our relations with Colombia, we have spoken directly with the Colombian authorities, which are now pursuing a full range of investigations into alleged misconduct by the police. We welcome those steps that are being taken to strengthen justice and accountability.
Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)
My Lords, it is not just the reported killings that are cause for such concern but the return of another familiar tactic from Colombia’s long civil conflict: disappearances. Human rights groups say that they have recorded up to 700 cases in recent months. What representations have the UK Government made to the Colombian authorities about this aspect of the protests?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]
My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness that it is important to focus specifically on the concerns that she has highlighted. We have made representations through ministerial engagement and regularly do so through our embassy on the ground. We continue to support transitional justice within Colombia as a key part of our work.
Baroness Coussins (CB) [V]
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the FTA was breached when the Colombian police targeted clearly identified journalists and human rights defenders in the recent protests, seriously injuring many of them in an attempt to prevent them from reporting? What, if any, specific representations has the UK made to the Colombian Government about this, especially as we recently co-hosted the Global Conference for Media Freedom?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]
My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct. We have prioritised media freedom in our work globally and I can assure her that we have raised a broad range of human rights abuses and concerns arising particularly from the recent protests. In this regard, we welcome the concerted attempt to look into investigations and hold to account those who have committed these crimes.
Baroness Goudie (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is concerning to learn that 83 people recently suffered gender-based violence during a social protest in Colombia. One young woman who was arbitrarily detained was only 17 and was allegedly raped by the police. She committed suicide as a result. As the UK has taken the global lead on prevention of conflict related to sexual violence, what representation is it making to the Colombian Government on the alleged sexual assault?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]
My Lords, I will certainly follow up on the noble Baroness’s specific case and ensure that an appropriate representation is made in my capacity as the Prime Minister’s special representative on preventing sexual violence, particularly in conflict—that means building post conflict, as well. This is a key priority for our Government.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, on a number of occasions, most recently in May, I have raised with the Minister the question of Britain’s training programme with the Colombian police. We have heard from the reports of the demonstrations about violence committed by the police, involving between 26 and 44 deaths and, as my noble friend said, sexual assault. Can the noble Lord explain exactly what measures we are taking to ensure that the Colombian security forces are held to account for their human rights abuses?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]
My Lords, the noble Lord is correct that he has raised this issue. We continue to ensure that our training of overseas law enforcement officers is fully supported by reviewing all training initiatives and ensuring that human rights are at the forefront of direct engagement. The 220 investigations that I have alluded to are specifically into misconduct by the police. These cases are now open and we are monitoring and following their progress.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]
My Lords, anyone who has travelled in Colombia knows that it is both one of the most beautiful and one of the most violent places on earth. Agencies such as Human Rights Watch have identified the lack of separation between the police and the military as contributing to the use of force and live ammunition to control protesters. Does the Minister agree that one way we might attempt to use any influence that we have would be to push for greater separation between these agencies?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord and will take that forward. I agree with the premise that we need to see a clear demarcation in the responsibilities of the police.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my interests as recorded in the register. A recent ruling from the transitional justice court named 10 Colombian army officers as responsible for murdering 120 civilians and disappearing 24 in 2007-08. These cases relate to the so-called “false positives”: the Colombian state stands accused of killing close to 6,500 civilians, dressing them as guerrillas, during the Uribe presidency. Given the hostility to the transitional justice court from certain quarters in Colombia, can the Minister repeat Britain’s support for this institution and welcome the positive engagement of former FARC commanders, who have recognised their role in crimes during the armed conflict?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am happy to confirm the Colombian Government’s long-standing commitment to assist former guerrilla fighters in their transition to civilian life following the peace agreement. We remain committed to this and since 2015 have given over £63 million of support directly to Colombia through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]
Can the Minister comment on whether the Government joined in the condemnation by the United Nations of the violent repression by the police of protests in Colombia in May, which left at least 18 people dead and 87 missing? What other steps are being considered?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]
My Lords, I confirm to my noble friend that we have made representations through discussions at the United Nations. As I said, we continue to make representations through my colleague, Minister Morton, and our ambassador to Colombia.
Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, if reports of the killings are correct, should we not cancel the trade agreement?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]
My Lords, as the noble Lord may recollect, the trade agreement has specific articles contained within it, Articles 1 and 8, which ensure that human rights are upheld. We will continue, because Colombia is yet to ratify the trade agreement, to uphold that aspect of it. Equally, as we lend support to Colombia, it is important that we ensure improved trade and prosperity for all Colombians.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and we now move to the next Question.
E-scooters
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Ludford
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to tackle the illegal riding of e-scooters.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con) [V]
My Lords, enforcement of road traffic law and how available resources are deployed to tackle illegal riding of e-scooters is an operational matter for chief officers, according to local police plans. The Government will continue to support the police by ensuring that they have the tools needed to enforce road traffic legislation, including those related to electric scooters.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, this Government claim to represent the party of law and order, and certainly they often talk about crackdowns, but, when it comes to e-scooters, they have allowed, even encouraged, de facto legalisation without the necessary legislation to protect riders and the public. This has caused problems to escalate out of control in a wild west of lawlessness, where riders are terrorising pedestrians, especially those with disabilities and visual impairment. The Government have also failed to regulate the sale and use of private ones, which probably number in the hundreds of thousands. Why are this Government refusing to act on e-scooters and keep people safe?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, in terms of the concerns that the noble Baroness expresses, I completely agree with her, which is why trials have been rolled out over the country, which will end in March of next year. In terms of what those trials have yielded, the Metropolitan Police service has seized over 1,000 e-scooters in the last month. I also concur with the noble Baroness in her view about vulnerable people, which is why rented scooters, which are legal, have horns that let people know that they are coming.
The Lord Bishop of Chichester
My Lords, e-scooters represent one of the dangers to cyclists in ever-increasing number using the cycle lanes. Will the Minister consequently ensure that consideration of a ban of e-scooters might include consideration of a cycle lane code, like the Highway Code, for greater safety of users?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, that is one of the things being suggested. As a cyclist myself, as I said when I answered the last Oral Question on this subject, it is quite terrifying for these things to come up behind you. You cannot hear them, you cannot see them until they are upon you, and they go really quite fast. So, at the end of the trial, I am sure that all those things will be taken into consideration.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am a big fan of e-scooters and am delighted that the Government are carrying out these trials. Does the Minister know how many miles have so far been travelled on legal e-scooters hired under the Government’s pilot schemes, and is there any estimation of what contribution they have made to reducing both congestion and pollution in our cities?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, somewhere I have the figures for how many miles have been driven on them, but what is certain is that they have reduced congestion. But the trials will be the perfect way to see that they can be used in a safe way.
Lord St John of Bletso (CB)
My Lords, the proliferation of privately owned e-scooters appears out of control, with traffic police turning a blind eye to measures of enforcement. What measures can be taken to avoid e-scooters being driven on pavements or retrofitted to increase their speed, and to prohibit e-scooter drivers from carrying a passenger?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, several measures can be taken. You can get a penalty fine of £300 and six points on your licence, or ghost licence, for uninsured use of these scooters, a £100 fine and three to six points for no driving licence, and a £50 fine for driving on a pavement.
Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)
My Lords, the reality is that our streets are becoming a nightmare for the young, the old, the blind and the disabled. Will the Home Secretary tell the Mayor of London that, although it is an operational matter, some confiscation of e-scooters is not enough and zero tolerance should be imposed on our pavements for e-scooters and bicycles? When did the Minister last see a police presence on the streets of London outside the precincts of Westminster?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
I can confirm to the noble and learned Lord that I was on the streets of London on my bicycle on both Thursday and Friday and I have actually witnessed police seizing these e-scooters, as referenced by the figures that I gave earlier. And, just to come back to my noble friend Lord Vaizey, I can tell him that 5 million kilometres of journeys have taken place since the trials began.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
The Government have let the problems associated with e-scooters escalate out of control. Retailers are not being held to their legal obligations and pilot schemes are so numerous that it is effectively back-door legalisation without any of the rules. Does the Minister accept that the Government instead should have legislated a couple of years ago with some basic, simple rules on minimum age, maximum speeds, licences and helmets?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, it is probably worth saying that it is not out of control. The statutory instrument for the trials was laid in June 2020, and you can own a private e-scooter but you cannot legally use one on the road. So the rules are clear and I have gone through the figures for how many e-scooters have been seized. But I do not think that there should be an outright ban on them. We should evaluate the trials as and when they finish next year.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, the Minister referred to the end of the trials, but, as we have already heard, for disabled people the unchallenged use of e-scooters on pavements is a nightmare that is happening now and needs to be addressed now. When will the Government take responsibility for ensuring that the law is enforced and pedestrians protected?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
I thank my noble friend for his question, which he asked me a few weeks ago when we had the previous Question. I can inform him that DfT Ministers have held four round tables with groups representing vulnerable people. He is absolutely right that e-scooters can be extremely hazardous to people who are hard of sight or not swift on their feet. The last round table we had on this matter was last month. Clearly those groups have raised concerns about the trials and, when the trials finish, we will be able to evaluate the framework for the use of these scooters.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
Police numbers are still considerably lower today than they were in 2010, and on top of this, the population is higher than it was just over a decade ago. Do the Government agree that, if police numbers were still at 2010 levels, the police would have more resources to stop people using e-scooters illegally, which would also be a greater deterrent to the illegal use of e-scooters?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
The noble Lord will know that the Government remain on track—in fact, ahead of track—to deliver the number of 20,000 more police, because we have recognised that the demands on the police are changing and therefore that more police to tackle various types of crime are needed on our streets.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, the combination of e-scooters and the new electronic bikes, both often ridden dangerously fast along our pavements, is a real threat to the safety of pedestrians. They are also very nippy for criminal activity. What are the Government proposing to do to regularise the position now, not next March? We really want action, not round tables.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My noble friend has a point about the here and now. I said earlier that the police had in the last month seized 1,000 e-scooters that should not have been on the streets—or indeed, as noble Lords have said, on the pavement. They are in a different category from the e-bikes. You have to put some effort into propelling e-bikes forward, whereas scooters are entirely self-propelling.
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.
Steel Sector
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Allen of Kensington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their industrial strategy for the steel sector.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord will know that we recognise the importance of the steel sector to the UK economy and in supporting other domestic industries and local communities. Our broad action, led by the steel council, to create a competitive, sustainable and low-carbon future for the sector supports our plan for growth, which succeeded the industrial strategy published more than four years ago.
Lord Allen of Kensington (Lab) [V]
I thank the Minister for that reply. I welcome the Government overturning the decision of the Trade Remedies Authority on the removal of safeguard tariffs. I fear that, if they had not done this, the consequences for the industry would have been severe. Another severe problem for our steel sector is that the energy costs applied to steel production in the UK are far higher than those of our foreign competitors. Will the Government look urgently at what we can do to reduce this competitive imbalance?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord makes a very good point about the high energy costs. We have provided more than £550 million in relief to the steel sector since 2013 to make electricity costs more competitive. Of course, we continue to keep the matter under review and to have discussions with the sector.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
If Britain is to have an industrial future, it needs a domestic steel industry. It needs a low-carbon industry to replace one that is a large emitter of carbon dioxide—as are the foreign industries from which we have been importing increasing quantities of steel. To create a low-carbon industry which employs electric arc furnaces and uses hydrogen as a reducing agent requires considerable investment. It also requires protection from foreign competition by a stringent carbon tax. Are the Government prepared to overcome their usual reluctance by providing funds for this investment? Are they prepared to impose such a carbon tax on imported steel?
Lord Callanan (Con)
We have supported the steel sector extensively over the years and I outlined some of the money that we have spent. The noble Viscount will know that decisions on taxes are of course a matter for the Chancellor. I am sure that if there are any actions, he will hear of them directly from the Chancellor.
Baroness Redfern (Con) [V]
My Lords, among the Government’s aims to level up and on the net-zero agenda for the British economy, there is a true agenda for steel. The Government have also expressed a desire to improve public procurement of steel. Will there be further proposals so that the tendering process for steelworks contractors includes requirements to provide supply chain plans, advertise steel supply opportunities, report on the origin of steel ultimately used and, finally, justify why they have not used UK-made steel?
Lord Callanan (Con)
We are working hard to make sure that UK producers of steel have the best possible chances of competing for and winning contracts across all government procurement efforts. The joint industry-BEIS Steel Procurement Taskforce, launched on 12 March, shows our willingness to support the sector and aims to work with it to promote the unique selling points of UK steel.
Lord Grantchester (Lab) [V]
The Government’s recent U-turn to bring forward emergency legislation to extend steel safeguard tariffs is good news, but this goes back to 2017, when the House first debated the Trade Bill. It is a mess of the Government’s own making. Can the Minister explain how the Trade Remedies Authority will be urgently reformed to prevent more anguish and uncertainty for the steel sector as well as for other businesses and industries?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I am pleased that the noble Lord welcomed the decision that was taken with regard to the recommendations of the Trade Remedies Authority. Of course, we keep all these matters under constant review but, as I said, we will continue to work with the sector to see what new opportunities there are and how we can help it in future.
Lord Oates (LD)
Can the Minister tell the House what plans the Government have to exploit the UK’s lead in the manufacture of the electrolysers used for green hydrogen production—manufacturing which is based in the great steel city of Sheffield—in order to make the UK the global hub for green steel production?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord is quite right that hydrogen-based steel making is one of the many technological approaches we are looking at for the sector’s future. We announced the £250 million clean steel fund to support the UK steel sector to transition to low-carbon production, and we plan to establish the net-zero hydrogen fund with £240 million of capital co-investment to 2024.
Lord Udny-Lister (Con)
My Lords, the steel industry is badly undercapitalised and needs investment, both in labour and capital, so that it can modernise. This has already been asked but, first, will my noble friend agree to look again at energy costs? Even with the government subsidy, they are still way above those of our European—and certainly Far Eastern—competitors. Secondly, will he look seriously at putting a tax on scrap metal, which would ensure that it stayed in this country and was used in the newer electric arc furnaces, thereby making them viable?
Lord Callanan (Con)
My noble friend is right to point to the problems for the sector. I mentioned in an earlier answer that we have provided more than £550 million in relief to the steel sector for its electricity costs but, of course, we keep these matters under constant review. We are aware of the problems that high electricity prices cause for the sector. On his question on scrap, we want to ensure that the metals recycling market continues to work effectively for all stakeholders, whether that is for metals recycled by steel producers or the cast metal sector.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, the UK steel industry has shrunk drastically over the last quarter of a century. In 2019, we produced just 7 million tonnes, which put us eighth in the league of EU producers. Does the Minister have in mind a figure for what the UK steel industry should be able to produce in order to fulfil the plan for growth? Will he also say whether in providing subsidies for automobile manufacturers in the UK, there is a stipulation that they should buy their steel in the UK?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I understand the points that the noble Baroness makes. My noble friend Lord Grimstone is looking forward to considering the outputs of the procurement task force. However, we should recognise the importance of continuing to treat suppliers equally and fairly through open competition. Keeping our procurement market open to international competition ensures better value for taxpayers and for UK industry.
Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]
Can the Minister tell the House what proportion of the steel being used now in HS2 construction is British steel, and whether any effort is being made to ensure that more British steel is used there?
Lord Callanan (Con)
For HS2, our 2021 steel procurement pipeline estimates that 1.95 million metric tonnes of steel are required in phases 1 and 2. So far, all reported structural steel used has been UK-produced.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
In view of the climate emergency that we are all facing, the Swedish Government have pushed forward on their aims to be fossil fuel-free by 2024, using the hydrogen technology that somebody has just mentioned. How many years behind are the British Government?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I know that the noble Baroness feels passionately about these matters, and we share her enthusiasm for decarbonising the industrial sectors as quickly as possible. She will know that decarbonising UK industry is a core part of the Government’s plan for a green industrial revolution, which I am sure she will support. The industrial decarbonisation strategy commits the Government to work with the steel council on the implications of the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation for UK-based steel makers to be carbon neutral by 2035.
Lord Razzall (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will obviously be aware of the significant role of GFG in our steel industry. Have the Government permanently ruled out the provision of finance to GFG and its plants? If this is only temporary, are the Government investigating GFG and, if so, which departments are doing so and is the Minister confident that a conclusion will be reached shortly?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Ultimately, it is of course for the company to manage its commercial decisions for the future and to find a successful buyer, but we hope this company succeeds with its plans to refinance. With regard to investigations, the noble Lord will know that I cannot comment.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my membership of the Community trade union, which represents steel-workers, and my former role as Member of the Scottish Parliament for Motherwell and Wishaw—a proud steel-making constituency, where the number of jobs today is a fraction of what it was in the past but where real quality steel is still made at the Dalzell works. Therefore, I ask the Minister to confirm today, on behalf of the Government, that they will work closely with the Scottish Government, who have a role in both procurement and decarbonisation. We need all levels of government in the UK to work together to ensure a strong future for the UK steel industry, in Scotland as well as the rest of the UK.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I can certainly give the noble Lord the assurances that he is looking for: we will work with all partners, domestic and international, in order to ensure that the UK steel sector has a viable future. Of course, we all know the challenges that it faces, but we are committed to doing what we can to help it. I mentioned the steel council, which was reformed, with government, the industry and the trade unions working together to produce a viable future for the industry. It has met twice already and will meet again further this month, chaired by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have now been asked, and we now come to the fourth Oral Question.
United Kingdom–European Union Parliamentary Partnership Assembly
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
To ask the Leader of the House when she expects a motion to be brought before the House of Lords to establish and constitute the United Kingdom–European Union Parliamentary Partnership Assembly.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, it is a matter for Parliament to consider the potential shape of the parliamentary partnership assembly, within the framework set out in the UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement. I understand that informal discussions involving Members of both Houses are ongoing.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
The partnership assembly is an important organisation: it will be able to get information from and make recommendations to the Partnership Council, which is where the EU and our Government will take decisions—so it is clearly of importance to this House. Could the Minister assure us that he will do everything possible to make sure that it is set up before the Recess so that we can choose our representatives to it and it can get going? Will he also do everything that he can to facilitate a report back to this Chamber from the parliamentary assembly, once it is set up?
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, the Government are wholeheartedly in favour of dialogue between Parliament and the European Parliament, but, as the noble Baroness knows, the primary impetus from the UK side for establishing a parliamentary partnership assembly needs to come from both Houses of Parliament, which is why Members of both Houses are working on a proposal. Reporting back to the House by the PPA, once it is established, is something that the PPA itself will need to decide upon in due course.
Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the treaty itself specifies that these arrangements should be set up—this is a responsibility for Government and not to be offloaded on to Parliament. Are the Government not encouraging the Leader of this House and the Leader of the House of Commons, for example, to immediately engage with the European Parliament so that we have a proper operation up and running by the time we return in the autumn? The Government cannot entirely dodge responsibility and shove it on to parliamentary procedures; it is in a treaty signed by the Prime Minister.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, the UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement—the TCA—makes explicit provision for a parliamentary partnership assembly, but on a permissive basis. It is implicit in the wording that this must be for the two Parliaments to establish. However, I can tell the noble Lord that, at the very first Partnership Council meeting, both the UK Government and the EU encouraged the establishment of the parliamentary partnership assembly. At a government level, we look forward to seeing the final proposals from both Parliaments and to providing support to the process where we can.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, in its April resolution on the trade and co-operation agreement, the European Parliament said that it wanted the parliamentary partnership assembly not only to monitor the full implementation of the agreement but also to make recommendations for improved co-operation. This Parliament currently has a serious scrutiny deficit with regard to the Government’s Brexit activities under the TCA and the withdrawal agreement. Why is the European Parliament often condemned in some quarters as somehow undemocratic, when it would have much greater democratic powers and aspirations than our own?
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I do not accept what the noble Baroness has said about the transparency that we seek to bring about. We are enthusiastic about the setting up of the parliamentary partnership assembly, as I have said. We hope that the plans progress quickly. In this House, we have my noble friend Lord Frost, who regularly answers questions about the discussions and negotiations that are currently proceeding. It is not in any way our desire to have a process that lacks transparency.
Baroness Hooper (Con) [V]
My Lords, until the parliamentary partnership assembly is established, what other channel of communication exists to inform our Parliaments, in the UK and the European Parliament, of the decisions and recommendations of the Partnership Council? Are there any means by which recommendations can be made to the Partnership Council—because we all know how long transitional periods can last?
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, it is open to my noble friend and indeed any Member of this House to table a Parliamentary Question or a debate on a related subject, so I hope that my noble friend will feel able to elicit information that she needs from Ministers in that way.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB) [V]
I know first-hand of the warmth that the European Parliament feels towards the parliamentary partnership assembly. In his capacity both as Deputy Leader of the House and deputy leader of his party, could the Minister return that warmth? Does he agree that there should be a strong interparliamentary dimension as part of a successful mix in our new relationship with the European Union?
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his work on behalf of the House in his capacity as chair of your Lordships’ European Affairs Select Committee. He makes a very good point, and one thinks of other parliamentary assemblies that are perhaps analogous in some respects, such as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and that of the OSCE, although their respective functions are of course different and distinct.
Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I hope that I am mistaken in detecting a lack of enthusiasm on the Minister’s part, uncharacteristic of him as that is. Does he agree that, in addition to the bodies that he mentioned, the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly might represent a good working model for the proposal of an EU parliamentary partnership assembly? Does he agree that it has the following characteristics: it has both Houses, it has all nations and regions and it is resourced by the UK Parliament? Could we make some progress on this, please?
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord may be aware that, in the intercameral discussions, the interests of your Lordships’ House are being represented by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. I feel sure that he will have heard the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in this debate.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, when I was an extremely junior Lords Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office during the coalition, I was struck by the number of my Conservative colleagues who had no personal contacts, even with conservative Members of other Parliaments across the European Union. On a number of occasions, I was also struck by requests from Conservative Ministers asking me to make informal contact with Ministers in other Governments because I knew them through the European liberal network. Do the Government recognise that informal cross-Parliament and cross-party contact in the very intricate relationship that we will have with the European Union as an outside country would be extremely useful for us as a Parliament and for his Government as a Government?
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, yes, indeed, and that is why there is explicit provision in the trade and co-operation agreement for the setting up of a PPA. We were and remain enthusiastic for the kind of dialogue that the noble Lord is so keen on.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to hear that my noble friend is keen to set up this body, and I understand that the EU Parliament itself is ready. Surely, it is very important that this Parliament get on with building mutually beneficial relationships in order to discuss important programmes such as Horizon, Euratom and others, and issues that are relevant to both EU and UK citizens. Does he agree that important ideas can be killed off by inaction?
Earl Howe (Con)
I agree with my noble friend’s last remark, but I can assure her that there is no inaction in this instance. I understand that a letter addressed jointly to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Speaker was received last month from the President of the European Parliament, David Maria Sassoli, confirming the recent decision of the Conference of Presidents to establish the standing inter-parliamentary delegation of the European Parliament, so the process is moving forwards at the European end as well.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.
Hereditary Peers By-election
Business of the House
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
That Standing Order 44 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on Thursday 15 July to allow the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Bill to be taken through its remaining stages that day.
Lord Ashton of Hyde (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.
Health Security (EU Exit) Regulations 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bethell
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 21 April and 7 June be approved.
Relevant documents: 1st and 6th Reports from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 5 July.
Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Minister, I beg to move the Motions standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Occupational Pension Schemes (Climate Change Governance and Reporting) Regulations 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 8 June be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 5 July.
Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Minister, I beg to move the Motion standing in her name on the Order Paper.
Afghanistan
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, first, I am sure that the whole House would like to pay tribute to the more than 150,000 UK personnel who have served in Afghanistan during the past 20 years. Their bravery and professionalism have denied terrorists a safe haven and helped Afghanistan build its institutions; they have trained and advised Afghan forces and supported the advancement of the rights of women and education for girls.
Those crucial advances were made with huge sacrifices: 457 UK service men and women lost their lives, and many thousands more and their families continue to endure physical and mental injuries. More than 70,000 Afghan civilians lost their lives, and while progress has been made, there remain huge challenges. We owe a debt of gratitude to our Armed Forces and they should be proud of their work and achievements.
In his Statement—which I unfortunately did not get to hear under our current arrangements—although the Prime Minister confirmed that our presence in Afghanistan as part of the international military effort was never intended to be permanent, he rightly conceded that we cannot
“shrink from the hard reality of the situation today.”
Progress made is not necessarily the same as those gains being secured and irreversible. Given the sacrifices made, the Government need to be clear about their ongoing commitment to Afghanistan.
Most of the UK personnel have already left, following the decision of the US Government in April that all US forces would leave in September, when, according to the NATO summit decision, operations were coming to an end. Can the Leader of the House explain the engagement the UK Government had with the US prior to that decision being taken? Did the Prime Minister suggest a different course of action? Did he offer a different timescale, or did he discuss how we could contribute to a lasting settlement?
Many in your Lordships’ House with direct experience of military action engagement have concerns about what happens next. We share those concerns, both for the stability of Afghanistan and for the remaining potential security threat to the wider world, including the UK. It would be helpful if the Minister could say something about the Government’s assessment of the possible return of al-Qaeda. There is evidence that the Taliban is making gains on the ground, and hostile states are now exploring options to fill any military and diplomatic vacuum. Serious questions therefore remain about the future stability of the country. The Prime Minister said in his Statement, which we have not heard:
“We are not about to turn away, nor are we under any illusions about the perils of today’s situation and what may lie ahead.”
Therefore, when the Prime Minister says that he will use
“every diplomatic and humanitarian lever to support Afghanistan’s development and stability”,
what does that actually mean in practice on the ground?
Nobody wants to see British troops permanently stationed in Afghanistan, but we cannot simply just walk away without seeking to ensure that it will not lead to bloodier conflict and wider Taliban control. I do not know if the Minister heard the same BBC interview as I did, in which General Sir Nick Carter outlined three possible, credible outcomes from withdrawal. The first is that the Afghan Government remain in power, supported by what is now a well-trained army. The second, and the most worrying, is that the country fractures and the Government collapse, which would lead to the Taliban and others making advances. The third outcome, which he described as the most hopeful, is a political compromise, with talks, which chimes with the Government’s statement that there must be a peaceful and negotiated political settlement. How are our diplomats supporting that process?
Also, how are we supporting the Afghan Government? Actions have to follow words, and, as we withdraw troops, we are also withdrawing financial support—unlike the US, which is determined to boost development and military aid. We have to ask why. Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world, but our aid fund to the country is being cut by more than £100 million. Why are we out of step with our allies on this? Have the Government assessed the security impact, as well as the social impact, of those cuts?
I am sure that many in this House were relieved to hear the Prime Minister say that we owe an immense debt to the translators and other locally employed staff who risked their lives alongside British forces. The Minister will have heard that issue raised in your Lordships’ House many times over the past few years. The risk to those staff and translators does not disappear when we leave: the likelihood is that it increases. Some staff have already been forced to flee to neighbouring countries, and some have ended up in refugee camps.
Last week, an FT editorial commented: “It is a matter of days, not months, that are critical for the interpreters and their families. The UK has opened up relocation schemes, but it is not enough.” Since the Government launched the new Afghan relocation assistance policy in April, how many applications have they received and how many have now been processed? Will she give a commitment that that will be kept under review and updated if the situation on the ground changes?
The recent NATO summit communique said:
“Withdrawing our troops does not mean ending our relationship with Afghanistan. We will now open a new chapter.”
I have commented previously from this Dispatch Box that we want the UK to be a moral force for good in the world. What we do next in relation to Afghanistan will be a test of the Government’s commitment to that.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, when the UK first committed troops to Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the mission was clear. It was to destroy al-Qaeda’s ability to mount any further international terrorist attacks from the country. As the Statement makes clear, in this crucial respect the mission has been a success. However, while this is undoubtedly correct, it does not begin to give a balanced picture of the state of Afghanistan as the final British troops leave.
While the original mission was limited to destroying al-Qaeda, it rapidly became something more ambitious: to replace the Taliban regime with one which more closely fitted western norms of behaviour, not least in respect of the treatment of women and girls. At one level, this too has been a success: there has been a series of democratically elected Governments; there has been the education of millions of girls, and there has been a degree of economic development, particularly in and around Kabul, but there has not been stability. The Taliban never went away, and it is now rapidly filling the vacuum left by the departed NATO forces. However depressing this situation is, the Statement is undoubtedly correct that the UK on its own is not in a position to fill the void created as American troops return home. For the United Kingdom, the Statement reflects harsh reality.
Anyone who has heard recent testament of young professional women in Afghanistan who now fear for not only their livelihoods but their lives or who sees the pathetic attempts of thousands in Afghanistan to sell what little they have to leave the country before the Taliban returns cannot avoid the conclusion that the broader aims of the international intervention in the country are under real threat. The Statement says that the UK will not turn away from Afghanistan and that we will use
“every diplomatic and humanitarian lever”
to support the country. If true, this would be very welcome, but what is the commitment likely to mean in practice?
Let us start with aid. The Government are dramatically cutting the amount of development aid they are giving the country, including a 70% reduction in programmes for women and girls. This is harsh and perverse. Will they now reverse these cuts, or are they in reality breaking their promise to maximise their humanitarian response?
After much dither and delay, the Government have recently allowed Afghan interpreters who have worked with British forces to relocate directly to the UK. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, pointed out, and as we heard in Questions in your Lordships’ House last week, they are not automatically doing so for such interpreters currently in third countries. Will they now agree to do so not just as a matter of course but as a matter of conscience?
American intelligence currently believes that, as things stand, Kabul could fall to the Taliban within six months. Do the Government share this assessment, and are there any circumstances in which they would consider renewed military intervention to prevent it? The Taliban has claimed that it has changed and become less harsh, not least in its attitude towards women and girls, but such statements are widely mistrusted and not borne out by recent evidence. What diplomatic pressure is the UK seeking to bring to bear in association with its international allies and through the UN to ensure that the Taliban keeps to its commitments?
Today’s Statement reflects the fact that liberal interventionism, as expressed after the twin tower bombings, cannot succeed unless there is a broad consensus in the country where the intervention takes place to follow the norms set by western liberal democracies, but in countries where there is no history of democracy and where there remain deep tribal and regional fissures, and where no such consensus emerges, it is bound ultimately to fall short or fail.
The challenge now is to support those in Afghanistan who seek to promote democracy and tolerance and to put as much pressure as possible short of military intervention on the Taliban to moderate its policies. This will not be easy, but we owe it to the 457 British military personnel who have died in Afghanistan, to the thousands who still carry physical and mental scars and to those thousands of young Afghans, men and women, who are desperate for a brighter, tolerant future for their country to do whatever we can to prevent a return to the horrors of the past.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their comments, and I wholeheartedly endorse their tributes to our brave personnel who served in Afghanistan, to our NATO allies and, of course, to the people of Afghanistan. I also align myself with the comments made by both about the need to make sure that we do not lose the gains. I completely accept that there are many challenges ahead, but progress, particularly in relation to civil society and helping the development of the Afghan Government, cannot be lost. I hope to cover some of those issues as I go through my remarks.
The noble Baroness asked about discussions around the decision. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary spoke to US Secretary Blinken before the NATO announcement, and he has had numerous meetings since, as has the Defence Secretary, who met his counterparts from the US, France and Germany, and, of course, the Prime Minister discussed Afghanistan directly with President Biden on 10 June and at the NATO summit. There was also a lot of discussion about it at the summit.
The noble Baroness asked about the threat of al-Qaeda. We assess that al-Qaeda is now less active in Afghanistan than before 2001, but the group has not ceased to exist and remains a threat to both Afghanistan and the international community, so Afghanistan remains a counterterrorism priority. That is why we are working closely with the US and NATO allies to ensure that we are able to protect our shared interest in tackling terrorism, and we will continue to do that.
The noble Lord and the noble Baroness asked about the political process. We have provided crucial capacity-building and technical advice to the Afghan Ministry for Peace and training for the Afghan negotiating team. We have enhanced the inclusivity of the negotiations through capacity-building support to the Afghan negotiation team, women’s networks and civil society organisations to help build women’s meaningful participation and representation, an issue touched on by both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness. We are working closely with international and regional partners to further support peace efforts. The noble Baroness and noble Lord are absolutely right, and we have been very clear about it, as have all our international allies, that any political settlement must protect the progress made in the country, particularly around protection for women and minority groups.
The Prime Minister also spoke to President Ghani on 17 June and underlined our commitment to supporting Afghanistan to achieve a stable and democratic future following the withdrawal of troops. He gave his personal support, and they resolved together to continue working to counter the terrorist threat in Afghanistan. Those discussions will continue through international fora and directly with colleagues in the Afghanistan Government.
I reassure the noble Baroness that we remain committed to working with the US, NATO allies and international partners to support the ongoing training and mentoring of the Afghan defence force, and we will continue to provide financial and sustainment support until at least 2024. That is a commitment that we have already made. Obviously, we are extremely proud of the role we played during our 20 years in Afghanistan in helping to build that defence force and the resilience it has shown. It has been leading the security in Afghanistan for the past six years, and it has been a privilege for us to work with it.
The noble Lord and the noble Baroness asked about our international support. We will continue to support Afghanistan with more than £100 million of development assistance this year; it will remain one of the largest bilateral recipients of UK aid. We will continue to be a significant contributor to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, through which we will support rural development, building resilience to climatic shocks and infrastructure development. We will also continue to work to consolidate the substantial development gains that have been delivered since 2001. Through our Afghanistan multiyear humanitarian response programme, we will continue to provide urgent life-saving assistance and respond to immediate humanitarian need.
The noble Lord rightly talked about the significant progress that has been made in Afghanistan since 2001, not only on women’s rights but on the rights of minority groups, media freedoms, freedom of expression and access to education. It is imperative that we continue to work to protect this, and we will do so with our international allies and the Afghan Government to ensure this.
Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness asked about the ARAP relocation programme. The noble Baroness is absolutely right; we owe a huge debt of gratitude to interpreters and other locally employed staff who risk their lives working alongside UK forces in Afghanistan. We have already supported more than 1,500 former Afghan staff and their families to create new lives in the UK. The noble Lord is right that the ARAP process requires applicants to be in Afghanistan, as they are likely to face the greatest risks, but those in a third country seeking help to relocate can also contact the Afghan Threat and Risk Evaluation Unit for advice, which they will be given, so they can also access support through that. We are significantly accelerating the pace of relocations, in parallel with the military withdrawal, because we understand and accept that the situation for some in the country has changed. We will do all we can to continue to support those people who wish to relocate to the United Kingdom.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, we come now to the 20 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that we can hear from the maximum number of speakers.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
The Statement highlights some of the progress made on women’s participation and girls’ education, but in recent weeks we have seen thousands of brave women protesting in the streets for the freedoms that they know the Taliban will deny them. I fear for their futures. What programmes focused on women and girls will the UK Government support in the months and years ahead?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I thank my noble friend for her continued passion on this issue and for continually holding our feet to the fire. I reassure her that we remain absolutely committed to supporting women and girls in Afghanistan. She will be pleased to know that there are now 3.6 million girls enrolled in school, which is 27% of children enrolled. Since 2013, UK funding has enabled over one-quarter of a million girls in Afghanistan to receive an education. We will continue to support programmes such as the Girls’ Education Challenge fund, the second phase of which was launched in 2020 and supports more than 70,000 marginalised girls to access education. It is one of the many programmes we will continue to support.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB) [V]
My Lords, the Prime Minister referred more than once last Thursday to working with our friends on an “outside-in approach” to counterterrorism. Does that mean that we will have contingency plans with NATO allies, including offensive air operations, whether or not that is in direct support of Afghan government forces? If not, what does outside-in mean?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I can tell the noble and gallant Lord that we will continue to support and train Afghan institutions, including the national police and the national army, and strengthen their ability and the ability of the defence and security forces to counter security threats. That and other capacity-building work is aimed at increasing the self-reliance of Afghan forces in the fight against terrorism. We will continue to work shoulder to shoulder with them.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I am someone who thought it absolutely right to go in to remove al-Qaeda in 2001 and who has always been a passionate supporter of the potential for humanitarian military intervention, but we have to acknowledge that this has not gone as well as we hoped. Why are the Government so reluctant to set up an objective inquiry into lessons learned from the Afghan experience of the last 20 years? It has been a tremendous cost, in human blood, disablement and treasure. We owe it to the people who have suffered to examine this question very deeply.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, and I hope I can reassure him by saying that there have been reviews. After the conclusion of Operation Herrick in 2014, there was a thorough internal review. As he will know, some of the further lessons that have been learned have played a key role in helping to shape our integrated review, so I do not think it is fair to say that no lessons have been learned. However, he is right that we are not at this point minded to consider a Chilcot-style public inquiry. We are not convinced that the benefits would outweigh it, and we are concerned that such an inquiry could take far longer and be far more expensive than Chilcot, which itself took seven years and cost more than £13 million. The relevant time period in Afghanistan was twice as long. However, I reassure the noble Lord that we have learned lessons and continue to do so. We will continue to use the integrated review to follow them through.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as an ambassador for HALO, a charity that is active in both mine and ordnance clearance in Afghanistan. I accept that the Government’s intentions are good, but we must take account of the reality of what is happening. Units of the Afghan army are taking their uniforms off and handing their arms and equipment to the Taliban. In those areas that the Taliban now controls, it is already barring girls from school and undermining the rights of women. How in those circumstances, when that is happening locally, can we trust what may be agreed nationally?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I thank the noble Lord. As the Statement set out, while we have had some achievements in Afghanistan, particularly in security, he is absolutely right and we accept that significant challenges remain. We are very proud that, alongside our allied forces, we have helped to train, advise and assist the Afghan national security forces to build them into an increasingly capable force, notwithstanding what the noble Lord said, in providing security. In particular, we helped set up the Afghan National Army Officer Academy, which delivers 70% of the army’s combat leaders annually, equating to 5,500 highly trained officers to date, of which around 330 are women. I do not dispute that there are challenges ahead, but we have made real gains and will continue to support those important institutions to help bring peace to their country.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
My Lords, seeing young girls in school and everything that means for the future of Afghanistan reassures me and, I am sure, many others who served there that our efforts were not in vain. The question is whether they will still be in school in three years’ time. That is probably down to the effectiveness of the Afghan national security forces in countering the Taliban. I worry sometimes when we seem to suggest that the answer to all these problems is simply to shovel more cash into Afghanistan. To pick up on my noble friend’s previous answer, I seek her reassurance that we will continue to offer practical training support in the Afghan National Army Officer Academy by having people there, as that is why it has been successful over the past few years.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right. We are extremely proud of our achievements with the officer academy. Of course, we will continue to work with it and listen to the kinds of support that the Afghan people and Afghan national security forces would like to ensure that they can do their extremely challenging job.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)
My Lords, in the Statement the Government seem to rely on the Taliban undertaking that it will prevent any group or individual, including al-Qaeda, from using Afghanistan to threaten the security of the US and its allies. In their reliance on this undertaking, what support are they providing to Pakistan, Nigeria, Mali and Mozambique—the list goes on—in terms of their safety, freedom or security, or do the Government believe that those countries are dispensable or unimportant in relying on the Taliban to stick to its pledges?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
We certainly do not consider our international allies in the way the noble Baroness seems to suggest. We all need to work together internationally to support the Afghan Government. As NATO partners have said, we have been very clear that this military withdrawal comes in the context of a renewed regional and domestic push for peace in Afghanistan. As she rightly says, the terms of the US-Taliban agreement involve commitments it made on preventing international terrorism in its territory, including its relationship with al-Qaeda, which it must deliver on. However, we will work with all international partners to provide the support we can to the Afghan Government.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
The Leader of the House will be aware that the Prime Minister informed the Commons on Thursday that he had pledged to President Ghani that the UK would continue to support the Afghan national security forces with at least £58 million annually. Given that any settlement between the Afghan Government and the Taliban is bound to mean the Taliban’s involvement in government, what would be the policy of the UK towards maintaining these current levels of support in those circumstances? What safeguards would there be to ensure that the money is used for the purposes intended?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
Of course we will work to ensure that any funding goes to where it should, and I am sure we will keep things under review as the situation goes on. The Prime Minister has been very clear to President Ghani about our commitment to support him and his Government and our resolve to counter terrorist threats going forward. Of course all these things will be under review as we work together, but we have a close dialogue with the Afghan Government, and that will continue, to make sure that we can support them in the best and most effective way that we can.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Statement emphasises the defeat of transnational terrorism in Afghanistan using Afghanistan as a base, but we all know that transnational terrorism has moved: first to Iraq and Syria and now to the ungoverned Sahel. We understand that Britain now has a significant commitment of forces to the Sahel, in co-operation with the French and as part of a UN agency, but this is not reported to the UK Parliament very frequently. Would the Minister give some commitment that the role of UK forces committed either to the UN operation or to co-operation with the French, across the Sahel, will be reported more fully to Parliament so that we can understand the rationale and the nature of the threat they are facing?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am very happy to speak to my noble friend Lady Goldie and have her contact the noble Lord for such a discussion.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con) [V]
My Lords, we went into Afghanistan to stop it being a global terrorist base. We did it successfully for 20 years and, obviously, we could not stay permanently. Surely now it is up to the Afghan people to decide their own future, but we must ensure that the Taliban are left in no doubt that they must honour the undertaking referred to in the Statement or, yet again, face the consequences. In that connection, I hope that the Pakistan Government will reinforce that message.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I thank my noble friend. He is absolutely right. As I have said, we are under no illusion about the significant challenges that remain within Afghanistan, but there have been achievements. As he rightly said, our primary objective, when we deployed to Afghanistan 20 years ago, was to ensure it was not used by al-Qaeda as a successful base for further international attacks. In that mission, we have been successful; there has not been a single successful terrorist attack launched on the West since then, obviously notwithstanding what the noble Lord said about terrorist threats in other areas. That has been the achievement of our very brave Armed Forces and the people of Afghanistan, and we must not forget it.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, Afghanistan and beyond, including the Sahel corridor, must become and continue to remain a priority. Aspects of the Statement’s cautiously optimistic messaging disguise ominous signals on the ground, all underlining these perilous times. Does the Leader of the House remember that it was the lawlessness in Afghanistan that resulted in the original acceptance of the Taliban entering Afghanistan from the Pakistan borderlands, and one of the contributory factors to the lawlessness was heroin production? What was accomplished to stem the industry during our time in Afghanistan, or is the industry carrying on as before?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
We have provided mentoring and support to dedicated units in the counter-narcotics police of Afghanistan. Since 2010, these units have seized 18 tonnes of heroin, 70 tonnes of opium, almost 1,700 weapons as well as $3 million and $100 million of assets. So, we have been working with the Afghan counter-narcotics police to tackle this trade and we will continue to do so.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab) [V]
Would the noble Baroness agree that, given the rapid advances currently being made by the Taliban, there is little incentive for them to enter into peace talks, and so the turbulence is likely to persist for some time? Given that, what will be the effects on food aid to the needy? What advice are we giving to the aid agencies? What is the effect on the functioning of our embassy? Are we withdrawing personnel at the moment?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
The UK embassy in Kabul will remain open after the end of the Resolute Support Mission. We take the protection of our staff extremely seriously and will keep security under constant review. In the immediate term, there will be a small number of troops, consistent with a diplomatic presence, that will remain to offer assurance to the international community in Kabul as we transfer to the end of the mission.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, the British Armed Forces are to be applauded for their commitment and tenacity on behalf of us all over the last 20 years to keep us safe. Would the Leader of the House say if there will be a residual garrison remaining in Afghanistan to protect British interests, such as consul buildings, and does she believe the Taliban when they say they have changed their views on the emancipation and education of girls and women?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
All UK troops assigned to NATO’s Resolute Support Mission will draw down with allies and partners, but as I said in my answer to the previous question, in the immediate term a small number of troops consistent with a diplomatic presence will remain to offer assurance to the international community in Kabul.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, the departure of the allied forces from Afghanistan under the current circumstance is, frankly, heartbreaking, especially for the families of the 457 Armed Forces personnel who were killed and indeed for the many who came back without legs and other limbs. It is absolutely heartbreaking. Should the Taliban take over in Kabul, as seems depressingly possible, it will be a failure of policy over the last 20 years. It will be a disaster not unlike that of the first Afghan war, the history of which should perhaps have been studied more closely by those who committed troops in numbers to Afghanistan in 2005. If the Taliban should become the Government in Kabul, what would be Her Majesty’s Government’s intention—would we then recognise the Taliban as the Government of Afghanistan?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am afraid that I am not going to speculate on issues like that. We strongly support efforts to energise the Afghan peace process. The Taliban have no military route to realising their political goals, so if they wish to play a political role in Afghanistan’s future, they must share the goals of stability and security for its population and engage meaningfully in the peace negotiations.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)
My Lords, many faiths—including a thriving Sikh population of many thousands—have had to flee Afghanistan because of the hardening of extremism, resulting from repeated invasions from Britain, then Russia and, more recently, America and the West. Bombs and missiles cannot change mindsets. Would the Minister agree with the statement by former Prime Minister Theresa May that Britain should stop being the self-appointed policeman of the world? It is a policy copied by others that creates ever more refugees in a suffering world.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
There has been significant progress in human rights in Afghanistan since 2001, as I said, in connection to women’s rights, the rights of minority groups, freedom of expression and access to education. We will continue to work with the Afghan Government and international allies to protect this.
Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)
My Lords, what recent discussions have the Government had with the relevant authorities in Pakistan? It is acknowledged that Pakistan can play a crucial role in influencing the Taliban and securing the peace process, that could avoid another decent into civil war in Afghanistan. If there have been no such discussions with Pakistan, would the Leader of the House say why?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am afraid that I do not have a running list of every negotiation happening, but I am very happy to go back to colleagues and write to the noble Baroness with recent contacts.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl)
My Lords, as it happens, today is Malala Yousafzai’s 24th birthday—an exceptionally forceful reminder that the right to education and the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan simply cannot be ignored. I accept the unwillingness to give a running commentary of who we have or have not talked to. However, we know that things are not going to get any easier. Will the Minister undertake to give more precise details of how the Government intend to, first, deal with Pakistan in that relationship and, secondly, ensure that the right to education for girls will continue to progress in even a slightly comparable way to the progress we have made so far?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
As I said, I have already made a commitment to write on Pakistan, so I shall do that.
Baroness Goudie (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the Americans, in their discussions with Britain, discussed giving freedom and assistance not only to Afghanistan and other countries but to the women peacebuilders and those women at the peace table. How many women are we going to assist and bring to Britain or a safe country, and how long will it be before the Government make these arrangements? The women are at great risk and some, as noble Lords will know, have already been murdered.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
As I said in earlier answers, the Afghan relocations and assistance policy was launched on 1 April. We are speeding up that process to ensure that anyone whose life is in danger in Afghanistan can access this programme and build a new life in the UK.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, all listed speakers have asked their questions. There will now be a short pause before we commence the next business.
Environment Bill
Monday 12th July 2021
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Environment Act 2021 View all Environment Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 16-VIII(Rev) Revised eighth marshalled list for Committee - (12 Jul 2021)
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
I will call Members to speak in the order listed. During the debate on each group, I invite Members, including Members in the Chamber, to email the clerk if they wish to speak after the Minister. I will call Members to speak in order of request. The groupings are binding. A participant who might wish to press an amendment other than the lead amendment in a group to a Division must give notice in debate or by emailing the clerk. Leave should be given to withdraw amendments. When putting the Question, I will collect voices in the Chamber only. If a Member taking part remotely wants their voice accounted for if the Question is put, they must make this clear when speaking on the group.
Clause 97: Local nature recovery strategies for England
Amendment 226
Lord Teverson
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that an area’s adjacent territorial waters are included in a Nature Recovery strategy
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, as some of my amendments are associated with nature recovery network strategies, I once again declare my interest as chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership.
I know the Minister has assured us that the marine environment is included in the Bill. It hardly has a high profile, yet our national waters, including the EEZ, have an area of 885,000 square kilometres, whereas the terrestrial landmass of the United Kingdom is a mere 242,000 square kilometres, so that marine environment is three and a half times larger. My contention is that it is just as important and should receive at least the same amount of interest. Last year we had the Fisheries Act, and the Government made it very clear that that was not a piece of environmental legislation. It dealt with fisheries management plans, but those were not environmental management plans. Indeed, we gave credit that the Fisheries Act had a number of objectives relating to the environment and climate change, but that was not the mission of that piece of legislation—yet nature recovery in our marine area is just as important as in our terrestrial environment.
I was interested to see that one of the Government’s targets is to have good environmental status for our marine environment. In 2019—two years ago—they published an appraisal of progress made on having good environmental status for our marine environment, looking out beyond our territorial waters to our economic zone as well. I am afraid to say that of the 15 areas the government report focuses on, in six we managed not to meet targets at all; in five we made partial progress on those targets; and in four we actually achieved them.
I will take the Committee through some of the areas where good environmental status targets were not achieved: commercial fish, non-commercial fish, benthic habitats, invasive species, marine litter and breeding birds. None of those was achieved. There was some improvement in pelagic habitats, the food web, underwater noise, cetaceans—primarily dolphins, as we know them—and seals. As far as I can see, things such as seagrass, which is hugely important not just for the marine habitat but for carbon capture, were not covered at all in that report.
We have a real crisis and challenge out there in the oceans that surround our island and islands, so that is why I have tabled these amendments. The first one is to ensure that local nature recovery networks include not just the land area but the adjacent territorial waters—that is, out to 12 nautical miles—of those areas. They have to be included in those plans. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said on another marine amendment some days ago, it is not just the fact that they are two different environments; they are connected—literally—so it is important for that reason too that nature recovery networks include marine, littoral and territorial areas.
But it would clearly be unreasonable to ask, say, Sussex or maybe even more so Cornwall to look at its whole EEZ stretching way out into the Atlantic, yet EEZs also require important help in terms of nature recovery out to the 200 nautical mile limit. So, to be practical, I have tabled separate amendments to propose that the Secretary of State should be responsible for creating, producing and revising nature recovery networks for those offshore EEZ areas. Indeed, it would make a lot of sense if they tied up with marine management organisations and marine planning areas, but, again, those plans are not primarily environmental ones. They are mapping and usage ones. They are not primarily environmental plans, but they should come together to do that.
In the other amendment I put down—Amendment 246—I tackle highly protected marine areas. I have to give good credit to the Minister and the Government in this area, because, since I laid down that amendment, at the early stages after Second Reading, the Government have opened a programme and asked for bids for pilots for highly protected marine areas. So there is progress on this already, and, to some degree, this amendment is now redundant—but I would be very keen to hear from the Minister the progress on that and how he sees the timescale in terms of rolling out beyond pilots.
At the moment, we have some 372 marine protected areas around our shores. They cover some 38% of our total waters. That sounds impressive, but the regimes for those marine protected areas are extremely weak in many cases and certainly do not protect the seabed and all the habitats. These highly protected marine areas absolutely have to be done in consultation with the fishing industry and other commercial interests, but it is so important they are rolled out quickly, effectively and as soon as possible. That is why these amendments are important.
In Cornwall, as I have said before, we were lucky enough to have one of the pilots for the nature recovery networks. When we started work on that, Defra may not have been “against” it—that is perhaps too strong a word—but it did not see marine as being included in that pilot strategy. We went ahead and included it anyway, because you cannot talk about the environment of the far south-west peninsula without including marine; it is just impossible. The Minister could hopefully make my amendments redundant—not the EEZ ones, but these amendments—by confirming that it is now government policy that nature recovery networks, when it is appropriate and there is an adjacent ocean or territorial waters, should be included within those nature recovery network strategies. That is my clear message and question. I beg to move.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, with all his expertise. The Government bring legislation to this House so that we can help them improve it—so the expertise in your Lordships’ House can be of benefit to the Government and of course the nation. So I really think that, if the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, were not a Lord already, he would deserve some future honour for all his hard work in contributing to our work here and to the Government. He has highlighted another example of how this Bill has passed a suite of legislative measures without reference to water—to territorial waters, to the sea.
We looked at agriculture and fisheries: they do not tie together in any coherent way, and I do not understand how we can keep on passing legislation that does not tie up. Without these amendments, we are at risk of seeing our seas and fisheries as being separate from the rest of our environment and all our ecological activities. This sort of silo thinking would undermine the realities of the inseparable ecosystems and natural systems. I would be particularly concerned and upset if an upland authority had a nature recovery strategy that failed to take into account what was happening to its downstream neighbours and, ultimately, to the seas where the watercourses will end up. An Environment Bill that allows for that eventuality is fundamentally inadequate and incoherent, with no basic understanding of the environment.
I am sure the Minister will take time over the Summer Recess to ensure that this Bill fits with the Agriculture Act and the Fisheries Act. I am sure that is going to be a priority, so these two important ecosystems can be integrated into the mechanics of this Environment Bill. The alternative is that, inevitably, in a few years’ time, the Government of the day will have to bring in new legislation to try to patch up these incoherencies, with perhaps a decade of lost opportunity to heal the environment in that time. It is much better that we work together now to get it right.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I just want to make a couple of quick points in support of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and I completely agree with her.
According to Greenpeace, supertrawlers spent 5,590 hours fishing in UK protected waters. I had a meeting, by chance, with Minister Prentis from the other place about four weeks ago. She was on her way to Brixham, and she said that about 80% of our fishing fleet’s catches were as a result of bottom trawling. Bottom trawling is effectively like bulldozing your house every time you have lost your car keys. It is an absolute travesty for the seabed, and I do not see any reference at the moment to curbing and taming this industry. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, these are simultaneous ecosystems that come together, and what happens with fish farming, especially in the north of England, is putting incredible quantities of pollutants into our waters for the sake of cheap fish. It is sold to the consumer on the grounds of being healthy, but the salmon that are reared in this way are unhealthy, unhappy and covered in sea lice.
Finally, in terms of policies not adding up, will the Government agree to stop giving out new oil and gas leases with the North Sea in mind? How is that going to fit with our marine protection commitments at COP? I hope the Minister will answer those three questions.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for, as ever, giving us an excellent explanation of why he has tabled these amendments and for raising these very important issues. I also thank the Minister for confirming in the earlier debate that net gain will be extended to major projects in the marine environment in the future, once a suitable approach has been developed. This is certainly a step forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, rightly made the point that our coastal territorial waters are in urgent need of protection and recovery, and, if we do not use this Bill to make that happen, what other opportunities will we have? The latest Committee on Climate Change adaptation report has highlighted concerns about the quality of our terrestrial waters. It says:
“There is clear evidence that warming seas, reduced oxygen, ocean acidification and sea-level rise are already affecting UK coasts and seas … with effects seen in seabed-dwelling species, as well as plankton, fish, birds and mammals.”
It also reports that there has been a decline in the overall condition of protected coastal sites.
So, on the one hand, we need to tackle the hazardous pollution, including plastic waste, that has led to the failure to meet the environmental targets to which the noble Lord referred. On the other hand, there is an opportunity to harness the power of nature in our coastal waters to sequestrate carbon through the growth of seagrasses and seaweed, such as at the innovative kelp farm being developed in Shoreham. But a strategy is needed to provide a framework for the change, which is why preparing and publishing a nature recovery strategy for the UK exclusive economic zone seems such a good idea. It is also why linking our coastal waters into local nature recovery strategies will ensure that those initiatives do not end at the shoreline.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, rightly referred back to our consideration of the then Fisheries Bill and our frustration that sustainable fishing was not allowed to be at the heart of the Bill, despite all our efforts. As a result, it seems that fishing quotas are very much business as usual, and overfishing—above the recommended scientific limits—remains rife. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, that this continues to be unacceptable and needs to be addressed by the Government. A nature recovery strategy would allow the opportunity to revisit that strategy, taking different criteria into account.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, that we need a joined-up strategy between the Agriculture and Fisheries Acts and the Environment Bill. We have said that all along; every time a Bill comes along, we ask, “How come these pieces of legislation do not speak to each other?” She is right to raise again today our need for a joined-up approach.
Finally, I am pleased that the noble Lord has given us the opportunity to implement the recommendations of the Benyon Review into Highly Protected Marine Areas. The limits of the current standard marine protected areas are all too obvious, as damaging human activities are still allowed to destroy the marine habitat. Therefore, we very much welcome the definition of highly protected marine areas as those that allow the recovery of marine ecosystems while prohibiting “extractive, destructive and depositional” human activities. We welcome the amendment that sets out that the proposals for the initial locations should be published within six months of the Bill passing. The noble Lord said that he felt that the Government had caught up with his amendment; he might be on to something, but I feel that there are great advantages to having this spelled out in the Bill just to make sure that that progress is followed through. These are indeed key amendments, which could help to transform the quality of our marine environment. I hope that the Minister agrees and will feel able to turn these into government amendments, which I am sure would receive widespread support.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his powerful advocacy for the marine environment throughout these proceedings and, indeed, last year throughout the proceedings on the Fisheries Act, in which he knows I had some involvement.
I will focus first on Amendments 226, 227 and 229. I sympathise with the intention behind this group of amendments, but the Government do not agree that this is the right approach. Local nature recovery strategies build on the important role that local authorities play as local leaders and decision-makers within their areas, as the noble Lord will know from his time spent on the Cornwall pilot. Clearly, actions taken on land can affect the marine environment and vice versa, and we should not create false barriers to nature’s recovery.
As such, our intention is that local nature recovery strategies should integrate with existing spatial plans of marine areas. This is in order to understand the area’s current uses and its potential in adjacent marine areas. It is something that we have explored through recent pilots, which, as I said, the noble Lord has kindly supported. However, local authorities are not best placed to produce marine strategies, as these areas are largely beyond their remit and authority. I believe that requiring this would lead to significant complications and potentially unhelpful duplication with existing processes. It would include duplication with the Marine Management Organisation, which is England’s main marine regulator and manages the licensing of marine activities, recreation and fisheries beyond six nautical miles. The inshore fisheries and conservation authorities also manage fishing out to six nautical miles and any marine nature restoration strategies should include their input.
Amendment 233 would require the Defra Secretary of State to create a nature recovery strategy for the United Kingdom exclusive economic zone for England. The Government already have a strong framework in place to ensure ocean recovery through the UK marine strategy. Its goal is to ensure that all UK seas are of good environmental status, exactly as the noble Lord’s amendment would require.
In March this year, we published the updated UK Marine Strategy Part Two, setting out the monitoring programmes that we will use to assess progress towards our updated good environmental status targets. This will be followed by the update to our programme of measures, which will set out a comprehensive list of measures to help to achieve good environmental status. As the UK already has a strategy for ocean recovery, this well-intentioned amendment is not needed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, generously welcomed the Benyon Review into Highly Protected Marine Areas. The Government published their response to the review on World Oceans Day 2021 and accept the majority of its recommendations. In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about when we will designate HPMAs, that will be done in 2022. We do not agree that HPMAs should be only within existing marine protected areas, which was recommendation 13 of the report, and we will consider designating HPMAs outside the current MPA network to ensure that we can maximise nature recovery. Existing governance structures of ALBs were beyond the scope of the Government’s response to this review.
I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, also asked about joined-up thinking, which I know has concerned a number of noble Lords throughout the passage of this Bill, the Agriculture Act and the Fisheries Act. A number of measures in all three Acts will have benefits for the marine environment. The Fisheries Act will benefit the environment, as will the Agriculture Act. They have all been put together at a policy level and have been thought about comprehensively.
Amendments 246, 247 and 251 aim to create highly protected marine areas. The Government have committed to designate HPMAs by the end of 2022, using the definition of the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, as set out in his review, which was carried out before he joined the Government Front Bench. The Government will work with their arm’s-length bodies and stakeholders to identify a list of potential pilot sites for highly protected marine areas. On 5 July, we published the ecological criteria that we will use to identify highly protected marine areas and we will create a list of potential sites this year. We plan to designate pilot sites in 2022 as marine conservation zones, with higher levels of protection than existing zones, using powers under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009.
I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, had a number of concerns about controlling harmful marine activities. Introduced under the Marine and Coastal Access Act, marine licensing is a process by which those seeking to undertake certain activities are required to apply for a licence. The requirement for a licence extends across much of our territorial seas, including the foreshore, and covers a diverse range of activities, from depositing a marker on the seabed through to large-scale developments. Authorisation or enforcement decisions must be taken in accordance with the appropriate marine plans.
In answer to the noble Baroness’s other question about drilling for oil and gas and refusal of future licences, I refer her to the Ten Point Plan and to the energy White Paper, which address her questions on oil and gas exploration. The Government have had to tread a careful dividing line and balance between keeping energy costs as low as we can while fulfilling our commitments to the net-zero target.
I assure the noble Lord that the requirements of the amendments are already covered, as the Government have committed to identifying potential sites this year and pilot sites designated as marine conservation zones in England will be covered by the protected site strategy clause. I thank the noble Lord for raising this important issue, which I know is close to his heart, and I hope that he is reassured by the Government’s commitments in this area. I ask him to withdraw his amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, would like to ask a question of the Minister before he decides how to dispose of his amendment.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I will sum up in just a moment but I have a question for the Minister. I am very disappointed by her reply. It seems to fly in the face of what nature recovery networks are all about. However, I will come on to that later.
The Minister said that local authorities are not competent to deal with these issues—for example, the six-mile limit. However, she mentioned in particular IFCAs, which are the inshore fisheries and conservation authorities. They are nominated partly by the Marine Management Organisation—I agree with that—but appointments to them are also hugely influenced by local authorities. Local authorities are already hugely engaged in the first six-mile limits; they already have duties in that area. When it comes to the Marine Management Organisation and its licensing, which is within that same area as well, it has to talk to a number of statutory organisations before it can make decisions—for example, Natural England and the Environment Agency—and it has a concordat with local authorities to discuss those developments with them as well. Local authorities are already hugely involved in that area. Why not make it so that there is some structure to that within at least the six-mile limit, so that those decisions become coherent and make more sense—they are also probably more quickly made by the Marine Management Organisation and IFCAs—and so that the whole system becomes better and more efficient, and works for the environment as well? That is my question to the Minister.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I take the noble Lord’s point, but the three coastal pilot areas that we considered—Cornwall, Cumbria and Northumberland—all took very different approaches to voluntarily including adjacent marine areas in their pilots. There will be a sense of duplication in what the noble Lord is suggesting, because the spatial assessments of a marine area, capturing current uses and signalling future potential, are led by marine management organisations. To go further than that, I would like to take this back, consider it and perhaps write to the noble Lord if I can add any more flesh on those bones.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)
I beg the noble Lord’s pardon; forgive me, I had not spotted the notice—I also have a request from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, to ask a question of the Minister.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I wanted to return to the question of sustainable fishing, which was mentioned by, among others, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. On 22 February, I asked a Question for Written Answer on what the Government’s strategy is for reducing quotas is fish stocks fall below their maximum sustainable yield. The Answer, which was rather long-winded, ended up saying:
“Where appropriate, they will set out actions to improve data collection and ways to establish sustainable harvest rates.”
My question for the Minister today is: is now the appropriate time and, if so, what action will the Government be taking to ensure that fish stocks are harvested at or below MSY?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I am sorry, my briefing does not include that sort of detail. May I write to the noble Lord with an update on the maximum sustainable yields and how we are faring?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)
I call the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and apologise again to him.
Lord Teverson (LD)
No, I apologise for speaking at the wrong time. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for their support on this amendment. I am seriously disappointed because, if nature recovery networks are right for the land, they are also right for our oceans. For land areas, all sorts of different authorities, whether it is Natural England, the Environment Agency, local authorities, national parks, or even the police, deal with all these areas of environmental enforcement and environmental policy. The nature recovery networks—and this is the reason I support them so strongly—bring those together within a context with a plan and structure, meaning that natural growth in biodiversity and the quantum of nature can start to happen.
Yet it is just all too complicated, apparently, for our marine environment. I do not get that, and I think it is unfortunate. I welcome the Minister’s progress on highly protected marine areas; I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, that one can never be certain until something is in the Bill, but I suspect that this particular thing may not get into the Bill, so I welcome the Minister’s comments in that area.
I am hugely disappointed about the marine environment. I know all the MMO inshore and offshore marine plans, but they are not primarily focused on environment; that is not their purpose. They include elements of it, but it is not why they are about. I was on the board of the MMO when they were written and created—they still have not all been approved yet—and I highly welcome them. They are important, but they are not what this is about. In the meantime, however, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)
My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 234. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Clause 102: Species conservation strategies
Amendment 234
Lord Chidgey
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires Natural England to prepare and publish species conservation strategies.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, I speak in particular to Amendments 234 and 241 in my name. The Government have shown a commitment to tackling the issue of the poor quality of our rivers and freshwater environment. Issues around pollution and declining freshwater biodiversity have been a constant refrain in the media for some time. Freshwater species have declined by 88% since 1970—a greater decline than seen for species in forests or oceans—and one-third of freshwater fish species faces extinction. England is the home of 85% of the world’s chalk streams; we have a global responsibility to protect these ecosystems.
Species conservation strategies can potentially play an important role in conservation, although there is a call to avoid them becoming a default setting for managing the impact of development on nature. The purpose of “must” instead of “may” in this amendment is to strengthen the clause and to underpin the requirement for a conservation strategy for improving the conservation of species. This is not intended to mean all species, but those whose conservation is probably most at risk; for example, salmon and sea trout, where it is thought that there is not as yet a clear conservation plan in place. There is a range of plans, such as the Environment Agency’s salmon five-point plan, but these have not led to any meaningful action in terms of the broad threats in our rivers and coastal waters.
Amendment 241 aims to create a new designation of protection for chalk streams. This analysis has been prepared with the assistance of experts from the Angling Trust and the Catchment Based Approach—CaBA—a restoration group under the chairmanship of Charles Rangeley-Wilson. It is preparing a report to government on the need for restoration and greater protection of chalk streams in England: the chalk stream restoration strategy. This group, made up of representatives from water companies, conservation NGOs and statutory agencies, including Natural England and the Environment Agency, will publish the chalk stream restoration strategy in September. The report will make a series of recommendations, looking at the three elements that make up action to restore our chalk streams to a near-natural state: action to reduce and mitigate the impact of overabstraction, to reduce pollution and improve water quality, and to restore the habitats and ecological functioning of chalk streams. The report is currently out for public consultation.
The first recommendation of the report is supported by all the companies and agencies involved in the report’s production and from stakeholders’ responses. This recommendation is for
“an overarching protection and priority status for chalk streams and their catchments to give them a distinct identity and to drive investment in water-resources infrastructure, water treatment and catchment-scale restoration”.
Currently, few chalk streams have protected site status. We have drivers, such as priority habitats status and the water framework directive but, thus far, these have failed to deliver enough improvements for chalk streams, principally because they lack statutory drivers for investment. Stakeholders are united in the view that there is a clear need for a status mechanism via designation, which can add impetus and drive investment across multiple policy levers. These include water company price review processes; ELMS local nature recovery and landscape recovery; local nature recovery strategies; biodiversity net gain; and protection through the planning process. A new designation should deliver an integrated approach to the protection of the chalk stream channel, its floodplain, surrounding catchment and aquifer, leading to nature and biodiversity recovery at the landscape level.
This amendment would require Natural England, along with Defra and the EA, to explore the appropriate mechanism for introducing a new category of protections, which may include the adaptation of application of an existing mechanism to protect chalk streams. In doing so it would consider including a statutory biodiversity target for chalk stream catchments in the Bill that would elevate the status of all chalk streams and provide long-term certainty about government ambition and commitment to protection and restoration. It would also consider a new form of designation or statutory protection for all chalk streams through a Green Paper on habitats regulation, and a stronger policy steer for chalk streams, for example through the ministerial guidance on river basin management plans and the strategic priorities statement to Ofwat.
Such a status for chalk streams would drive the investment and resources that have been severely lacking—not only for chalk streams, but, as the first report of 2020-21 from the Environment Audit Committee in the other place, Biodiversity in the UK: Boom or Bust, made clear, for the protection and advancement of biodiversity more broadly.
These are not exclusively chalk stream measures. Many other types of river and stream are also in great need of investment. An integrated approach to restoring all types of habitat and associated species through restoration of natural ecosystem function—particularly natural catchment function—will help to deliver multiple biodiversity benefits, alongside a wealth of natural capital associated with restored aquifer recharge, tackling pollution at source and natural flood management, to quote Natural England in 2018.
Nevertheless, the draft report argues that the global rarity of English chalk streams provides a potent justification for singling out this river type, among others. There are other justifications. One is the fact that chalk streams are under particular stress because they flow through a highly developed landscape. They have been particularly stressed by historic management and have distinct biodiversity, cultural and heritage value. For hydrological reasons, they are less capable of self-repair than higher-energy rivers.
There is also a common misconception that chalk streams exist only in the wealthier home counties of Hampshire and Berkshire. In fact, chalk streams are distributed from west Dorset to north-east Yorkshire, and many flow through less affluent parts of our landscape, and through numerous towns and cities, as well as the rural idylls most frequently depicted.
For example, the Eastleigh Angling Society has more than 850 members. Eastleigh, a constituency that I had the privilege to represent, owes its origins to railway development and manufacture, together with other heavy industry outlets. Yet the River Itchen flows through it. There are also several urban chalk streams, including the Wandle and Cray in Greater London. So I ask the Government to support these proposals for the designation of chalk streams. I beg to move.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, and his eloquent advocacy for chalk streams. I will speak primarily to Amendment 235, in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The aim of our amendment is to ensure that the primary purpose of species conservation strategies is to support the recovery of nature rather than to facilitate development.
At first sight, Clause 102 looks very good. It requires Natural England to publish a strategy for improving the conservation status of any species. It must do this for a “strategy area”, which could be as large as the whole of England. The strategy has to spell out which habitat features are important for the species in question and how they may be improved. Natural England must also give an opinion on any consents or approvals that could adversely affect the conservation status of a species, as well as measures that could be taken to compensate for any adverse effects. Planning authorities must co-operate with Natural England in preparing and implementing any conservation strategy, and “have regard to” the strategy.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lord, I am delighted to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, because the 10 amendments I have in this group very much follow the line of thinking that he just enunciated. Before I speak to my amendments, I will comment on Amendment 293A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. I support what he is trying to do; it is time that the shooting interests got rid of lead shot in shotguns and we moved to a different form of ammunition. I know that my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury will wax more lyrical on that than I can, but I support what the noble Lord is trying to achieve.
I can break down my 10 amendments into different groups, but their purpose is to try to make this part of the Bill work better, in the same way as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, is trying to do with his amendment. It is right that the Government are adopting strategies to protect nature. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, mentioned district-level licensing of the great crested newt.
My Amendments 237 to 240 are designed to make certain that the measures are integrated into local nature reserve strategies and are fit for purpose. By that, I mean that we need to look to wider considerations than just surveying, zoning and compensating or mitigating measures against impacts from activities such as development. My amendments suggest that species conservation strategies need to encompass all factors, as identified by scientific evidence, not just habitat, and that management measures need to reflect that. I have gone on before about management being the forgotten part of the way to improve nature and biodiversity, but it will be hugely important in areas such as this.
There ought also to be a defined basis for favourable conservation status, so that progress can be judged against it and a timescale for the strategies’ application established. That seems logical. Without that, species cannot continue to receive special protection, despite success in improving their conservation status. As we all know, managing nature is difficult to get absolutely right. In some cases, a species may be a factor in the decline of another at-risk species, so if the conservation status target has been achieved, that could make its management in support of the conservation of a more threatened species more acceptable. There is undoubtedly a role for us humans in all this.
I turn to Amendment 242. The Explanatory Notes to Clause 102(4)(e) suggest how Natural England applies the mitigation hierarchy in relation to activities such as development. I am concerned by the clause’s wording of
“adverse impact … that may arise from a plan, project or other activity”,
because I think it could limit the use of management tools that, based on scientific evidence, are needed. My amendment would include more than just the development impacts and merely requiring Natural England’s opinion on a matter.
Amendment 244 is similar to my Amendment 236, which is an amendment to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. As I said, I support his amendment, but I believe the Secretary of State should publish
“and make available for consultation”
his guidance. It is all very well the Secretary of State publishing guidance, but unless it is properly consulted on, it might not be as effective as it should. Both my amendments require consultation on the guidance. I do not mind whether it is reflected in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, he supports me, or we support each other, as long as we get this clause changed.
Amendments 248 and 249 are to Clause 103. The point of Amendment 248 is that the conservation and management of protected sites need to be based on science rather than opinion. I hope that the Minister will agree with me on that. His fellow Minister, my noble friend Lord Benyon, certainly agrees on that, because, when he answered a Question on pesticides—I do not have the quote with me—he said that scientific evidence was essential to get it right. If scientific evidence is right for pesticides, it is also right in this instance. Amendment 249 seeks to include “landowners”. It is right that everybody with any legal interest is properly covered in this clause, and the omission of landlords does not help.
Amendment 252 to Clause 104 refers to new subsection (3B), which applies to all species licences issued under Section 16(3) of the previous Act. I feel that the existing wording of “no other satisfactory solution” is weak and without meaning. I suggest a different form of words, taken from the general licence, so I hope it will be acceptable to my noble friend. I also feel that
“detrimental to the survival of any population”
needs legal definition, so I propose the use of “status” instead of “survival”. “Population” can mean anything from an individual site colony to the total number of that species in the UK. Therefore, scale should come into any definition of “detrimental to the survival”, as reducing a population at local level may not have a bearing on the overall population due, for example, to infill from the current year’s young of that species.
I have not put down an amendment on my next point, but I raise a question for my noble friend, for clarity. Could he tell me—as it is not clear in the Explanatory Memorandum or when I read this part of the Bill—what are the Secretary of State’s powers? Does the Secretary of State retain the power that he needs? This has not happened in Wales, and there has been a major problem, because the Secretary of State has not been able to retake control, as has been seen here in England in 2019, for general licensing relating to Sections 16(1)(c) and 16(3)(c). I support the Secretary of State being able to take control and I hope that my noble friend will be able to confirm that this is in fact the case.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 293A, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch, the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, for whose support I am extremely grateful. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and I thank him and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for their support for the interloper amendment in this group, which I hope does not divert too much attention from their respective meritorious amendments.
Lead ammunition use creates multiple problems for which a straightforward solution exists, and that is to ban its use, and by so doing further catalyse the manufacture and sale of available non-toxic alternatives. In accepting that there are other ways to achieve the same objective, what is proposed by Amendment 293A is—by an amendment to Section 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981—to ban the use of toxic lead shot
“for the purposes of killing or taking any wild animal”
and requiring this regulation to come into force on 1 January 2023. In the circumstances, this is sufficient time for such a change.
There are no safe levels of lead, which is why regulation has ensured removal of lead from petrol, paint and drinking water. The last largely unregulated release of lead into the environment is from lead ammunition. Some 6,000 tonnes of lead shot and lead bullets are released annually into the UK environment, putting at risk the health of people, wildlife, and livestock, and causing persistent and cumulative environmental contamination. The body of evidence of risks from the toxic effects of lead ammunition is overwhelming and growing, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. Perhaps 10,000 children from the UK hunting community alone are estimated to be at risk of impacts on their IQ and other deficits due to frequent household consumption of lead-shot game meat. Lead poisoning from ammunition ingestion kills an estimated 75,000 water birds per year, plus hundreds of thousands of gamebirds and numerous birds of prey. Domestic livestock is put at risk when feeding on ground which has been shot over through direct ingestion of shot or when feeding on harvested silage from such ground.
Regulation of this sort would benefit the health of people, the intellectual development of children, the health of wild and domestic animals and food safety in restaurants and retail outlets. UK policy is lagging significantly behind the practices and organisational policies of many ammunition users. The vast majority of the shooting community is now behind this change too. I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, who has a lifetime of expertise in this regard, will pick up on this point. The National Game Dealers Association has committed to sourcing all game, including gamebirds, duck, venison, and wild boar, from lead-free supply chains from 1 July 2022. Supermarkets and game dealers are suspending sales of lead-shot game meat and our own food outlets here in the Palace of Westminster will not sell you food containing this poison. To continue to allow the circumstances which potentially may occasion the sale of poisoned game from other outlets is no longer justifiable. Yet up and down the country, the health of children is being put at risk wherever lead-shot game meat is consumed by them. In recognition of this and the hundreds of thousands of wildlife lead poisoning deaths each year, health professionals, conservation and shooting organisations and wild game retailers are calling for change.
Non-toxic ammunition is widely available. It is effective and comparably priced. In the 1990s, both Denmark and the Netherlands banned the use of all lead shot, with no impact on the number of hunters, proving that a change to using sustainable non-lead ammunition is possible without impact on the sport. The UK Government have been dealing with the issue and legislation around the problem of lead poisoning from lead shot since 1991. The detail of the multiple costly stakeholder groups, compliance studies, risk assessments and reviews set up by Defra and the Food Standards Agency are well known to the Minister. In 1999, partial regulation focused on protecting wetland birds. However, studies have found the current law to be ineffective at reducing lead poisoning in water birds due to a high level of noncompliance.
Now is the time for policy change. It is now 30 years since the first UK working group on lead shot in wetlands, and one year after the nine main UK shooting organisations—recognising the risks from lead ammunition, the imminent impacts of regulation on lead ammunition in the EU, and the likely impacts on UK markets for game meat—called for change on lead shot.
An identical amendment was debated in Committee in the other place on 26 November 2020. Rebecca Pow, in responding to my honourable friend Fleur Anderson, who moved the amendment, supported the intent of the amendment, and appeared to agree with all the arguments for the ban. Indeed, I expect that the Minister knows and agrees with all the arguments too. He is a well-known advocate of this policy, and probably has deployed all of them himself at one stage. In the debate in the other place, Rebecca Pow, while conceding all the arguments, did not accept the amendment because it did not extend to single-use plastics, of all things. She said that all aspects of the sport needed to be considered and that, as it did not “cover clay pigeon shooting”, it was therefore deficient. She alleged difficulties of detection or enforcement action and, as its extent concerned devolved matters, required legislative consent motions from devolved Administrations—all reasons not to accept the amendment.
These are all alleged impediments that can be overcome, if the Government are willing to engage with the amendment. Set against the continuing known risk to children’s health, none of them can be allowed to be fatal to this amendment, particularly since banning toxic lead gunshot is now the Government’s stated position too. On 23 March, the Government agreed to move further towards a ban, and, in Rebecca Pow’s name, Defra published a press release. In it, she is reported as having said:
“Evidence shows lead ammunition harms the environment, wildlife and people”.
But then she went on inexplicably to announce the commissioning over a two-year period of yet a further review of the evidence and a consultation. During that time, lead ammunition will continue to harm wildlife, the environment, and people.
The effectiveness of an amendment of this nature, as a similar ban has proved in Denmark and the Netherlands, is that it will, at a certain date, remove the demand for lead shot. Only regulation will provide a guaranteed market for ammunition manufacturers; ensure the provision of game, free of lead ammunition, for the retail market; enable cost-effective enforcement; and, importantly, protect wildlife and human health. Action on this issue was recommended in 1983 in the report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution on lead in the environment. As Fleur Anderson in the other place said, action is clearly
“long overdue. Now, at last, is the time to act.” —[Official Report, Commons, Environment Bill Committee, 26/11/20; col. 704.]
My simple question to the Minister is, if not now, when?
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord as a fellow advocate. I endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, in moving his Amendment 234, on the need to ensure balance in chalk streams, and their protection. We should recognise how popular the sport of angling is and what a wide ecosystem the chalk streams serve.
I particularly support Amendments 235, 236, 242 and 244 and congratulate my noble friend Lord Caithness on his work in this regard; I lend my support to him and my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury in this regard. I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said about Clause 102. I will concentrate on subsection (5), which says:
“Natural England may, from time to time, amend a species conservation strategy.”
I enjoyed the noble Lord’s cautionary tale on newts and I will share with him a cautionary tale that caused a lot of grief in north Yorkshire at the time. This was a case of bats in the belfry of St Hilda’s church in Ellerburn, in the constituency of Thirsk, Malton and Filey, which I had the honour to represent for the last five years that I served in the other place.
I entirely endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said about achieving balance; part of that balance has to be the rights of humans—in this case, to worship in a place of worship in the normal way. The level of protection that was afforded for years by Natural England defied all logic. I know that this caused a lot of grief within the Church of England and I pay tribute to the work done not just by local parishioners but the Church of England nationally. I do not think that St Hilda’s church at Ellerburn was alone in this regard. The parishioners and worshippers had to evacuate the church, which was effectively closed for human use. There was a huge cost to clean up the church—noble Lords can imagine the damage that was caused by bats flying around in the numbers that there were. As far as I understand it, eventually an accommodation was reached with Natural England.
My greatest concern is that these species should be kept under review. Badger baiting, for example, was finally outlawed in 1968—I forget the actual date—when badgers became a protected species. But these things should always be kept under review. Grey squirrels are now running out of control in many parts of the country and it is almost too late to go back and protect the red squirrel in its natural habitat. So I am very taken by Amendment 236, with its simple request that the proposals be made available for consultation. I would argue that this should be informed consultation for a substantial period of time—at least 12 weeks—so that all parties can be reached.
I hope that we can reach a balance not just between nature and human use but between rural life and urban dwellers. I am not an expert like the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, but one could probably argue that bats now are fairly commonplace in many parts of the country, where they have extensive natural habitats and do not have to occupy dwellings such as churches or, in many cases, farmhouses. Giving them have a higher order of protection than humans who are trying to ply their trade or, in the case of Ellerburn church, to worship, is frankly beyond the realms of logic and common sense.
So I endorse the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and, in particular, my noble friend Lord Caithness, and I hope that, by reviewing the level of protection and the health of an individual species, common sense and logic will prevail.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. There is a huge amount of good in this group and I will be somewhat selective in what I cover. I begin with Amendment 241, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, and thank him—on behalf of many people in the UK, I am sure—for his championing of chalk streams. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, referred to how these are held in great regard by anglers, but we should not forget the great regard in which they are held right across the country.
I note that, just last month, the River Cam became the first UK river to have its rights declared, in a special ceremony organised by the local group Friends of the Cam. At that ceremony, a version of the Universal Declaration of River Rights, drawn from indigenous principles and river victories around the world, was read out. A lawyer at that event noted that, while of course legally this had no effect, it showed the strength of feeling and the desire to protect the River Cam and its tributaries. I note also that the River Frome in Somerset recently had a by-law drawn up to offer it some protection. It is now for your Lordships’ House to encourage the Government to show a similar level of concern to that we are seeing in affected communities.
Amendment 234, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, is a classic “must” replacing “may” amendment. We are talking here of course about species conservation strategies. As other speakers have done, I will focus briefly and in particular on Amendment 235, which has cross-party and non-party support; had there been space, the Green Party would certainly also have attached our name to it. We have already heard in considerable detail how important this is, but it really is worth reflecting that the experience of species conservation strategies thus far has been that there is a real risk of focusing on facilitating development rather than protecting species and, crucially, the ecosystems that are fundamental to the continued existence and importance of those species. The great crested newt has already been referred to, but that is just one case where we have failed to see alternative, less damaging solutions considered, including on-site avoidance or mitigation of impacts. What these amendments, particularly Amendment 235, would do is ensure that the mitigation hierarchy is always followed in species conservation strategies. This is absolutely crucial. I also particularly note my support for Amendment 248, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness; the stress on evidence is pretty hard to argue with.
Finally, I will take a little bit of time on Amendment 293A, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, referred to this as an “interloper amendment”, but I think rather that it is a simple, clear, effective, deliverable amendment to the Bill, and it is hard to see why the Government should not accept it. We have already heard a little about how damaging lead ammunition is, and it is worth going back to the history. Nearly six years ago, Defra got the completed report of the Lead Ammunition Group, which recommended that lead ammunition be phased out. That group was set up at the suggestion of the RSPB and the WWT. The evidence is that, when lead shot goes out into the environment, birds—particularly those who feed on grain over fields—collect and eat it, then predator and scavenger species such as crows and raptors can eat those carcasses, accumulate the lead and die. We know how much pressure many of our raptors continue to be under from illegal persecution, and it is crucial that we protect them from this unnecessary threat.
In putting a sense of scale on this, I am indebted to Tom Cameron, a lecturer in aquatic community ecology at the University of Essex. He has calculated that, if a commercial shooting estate offered a single day of hunting pheasants with an expected bag of 200 birds, a 1:3 kill ratio might be expected. Using a standard game load of 32 grams of No. 5 lead shot, with each cartridge containing around 248 pellets, that would be 25 kilograms of lead shot from just one day of fairly typical shooting. As the academic says, you could argue for doing a full calculation across the country, but
“it’s clear that it’s a lot”
of lead being put out into the environment—and wholly unnecessarily.
I also note a new study published in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature, which showed, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, that significant numbers of shooters are comfortable with moving away from lead shot. I also compliment the noble Lord on discovering that noble Lords in this House are protected from the risk of ingesting that lead; however, many children in our society still are not.
The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, referred to a study conducted last year in lockdown that showed that the voluntary phase-out, which was supposed to begin in February 2020, was not working. It is worth noting a detail from that study on pheasants bought from game dealers, butchers and supermarkets around the UK. Of 180 birds examined by the scientists, 179—all but one—had been shot with lead. A year into this voluntary five-year phase-out, it clearly is not happening. This amendment is simple, clear, extremely deliverable and—to come back to the word “evidence”— extraordinarily well-evidenced. I very much hope that we see the Government taking action.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I rise to offer a few words regarding the amendments of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, particularly Amendments 236 and 248, which seek more specificity around the objectives and methods of consultation for species conservation and protected site strategies. As I have repeatedly noted—maybe I sound a bit like a stuck record—the well-intentioned setting of environmental strategies and goals is in danger of belabouring beleaguered farmers and land managers with yet more confusing, conflicting and expensive mandates that will limit their ability to operate productively, if at all.
As the NFU has long stated, it is not possible to go green if you are in the red. However worthy the objectives of species and site protection laid out, they will never be met if we drive farmers and rural businesses out of business. I trust Defra will keep this in mind as it develops policy under these provisions, and I hope the Minister provides substantial assurance that a balance will be met between nature and rural business.
Separately, I will address Amendment 293A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and others regarding the necessary prohibition of toxic lead shot. It comes as no surprise to your Lordships that Earls of Devon have hosted and supported shoots for many centuries, including of both wildfowl and reared game birds, in which both lead shot and, more recently, non-lead alternatives were used. Contrary to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, I understand that the industry is taking positive voluntary steps to move away from lead shot, as well as single-use plastics, and on a five-year timeline that allows for the development of suitable alternatives that can equal the effectiveness of lead. I do not, therefore, see that it is necessary to legislate for such a change, particularly in such a short timescale.
The principal danger of setting an unduly short timescale is that the industry is left with inadequate alternative loads, which will only increase the likelihood of injury and suffering to quarry. The essential development of alternatives will take time, and the industry, on which many thousands of rural jobs depend, particularly in deprived areas of north Devon, should be permitted to take the time necessary to make these essential changes.
Finally, I note the considerable concern about children eating lead. If we can get children and families eating game—pheasants and partridges—it will be a blessed thing. If we can remove lead from the game before they do so, it will be even better.
The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and to hear his expertise. I offer my support for Amendment 235, so ably addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and others. I have sat with the noble Lord for a number of years, recently in our environment and energy committees, and his grasp of environmental issues and experience influenced many of our conclusions, so it is a pleasure to follow up by supporting this amendment.
The Bill would be improved if the objectives on which the conservation strategy should focus were in the second paragraph of this clause. I, like many noble Lords, would like to see the Government bring forward their own list of objectives at the next stage of the Bill, as most of us would not like to see the Secretary of State hand Natural England a completely blank sheet, as if it were the inheritors of the desired Henry VIII powers.
The Bill goes on to list the activities that Natural England will be required to fulfil in setting out its species conservation strategy. These would be clearer and more focused if the objectives were listed. Of course, any list may turn out not to be perfect and again, this spills over into what power there will be to make amendments and who will exercise it. This question is similar to that in a later group of amendments we will deal with, in which we will consider the powers a Secretary of State should have to amend regulations in the light of experience.
The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, is an example of the expertise he holds in this area. The House benefited from hearing from him.
My noble friend Lord Caithness has many amendments in this group, and I support him in his efforts to bring greater clarity to these clauses. His Amendment 252 relates to the clause dealing with wildlife conservation licences. When we were dealing with environmental targets, the Minister introduced an amendment that allows him to make regulations to manage species abundance. As I am sure he is well aware—other noble Lords have spoken of this—he may set the targets but, as is increasingly accepted, much of this can be achieved only by other species management. Making sure that the legislation is fully appropriate is increasingly important. In this area, management becomes a question of having feet on the ground.
Only a few days ago on the “Farming Today” programme, there was a report on an RSPB reserve—in Wiltshire, I think—which made sure that all its habitat was suitable for encouraging many endangered small birds. However, this did not happen until it began to deal with what were termed “generous predators”—I find this a rather descriptive phrase—such as foxes, all kinds of corvids and stoats. My noble friend Lord Caithness’s amendment makes sure that the issue of licences is approached in a practical way. Experience in this field will be what counts, so I will listen with interest to the Minister’s response.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]
My Lords, I will add a few words in support of Amendment 235 in the name of my noble friend Lord Krebs and others. Of the various amendments in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, I single out Amendment 242, which seeks to give an express power to Natural England to amend, update or withdraw a species conservation strategy.
The point to which my noble friend Lord Krebs’s amendment is directed is that a species conservation strategy—the “recovery of nature”, as he put it—needs careful planning if it is to achieve its objective. Natural England, which will be responsible for producing these strategies, is well equipped to do this. It already has expertise in dealing with protected species and sites for their conservation and protection, but the strategies will have to be shared with and explained to local planning authorities. Their full co-operation is essential to the success of this strategy.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am delighted to be speaking in this short debate. I added my name to Amendment 235, so well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, but I have very little to add to what has been said.
The poor old great crested newt, which keeps getting mentioned, has had a bit of a bad press. I think it is because of its name, people saying that some of our laws and regulations make it difficult for developers and that “you only have to find a great crested newt and that will stop it”, but even if it is not a flagship iconic species, it is just as valuable. I mentioned the great crested newts of Uxbridge in my maiden speech in the other place in 1997. We have them in several very small pond reserves belonging to either the London Wildlife Trust or the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust.
I say to my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, speaking as a member of the Bat Conservation Trust, that bats have a highly protected status. They are easily interfered with. There is an active “bats in churches” study group, because bats can cause disruption within churches, causing dismay to congregations, but they are far from common and increasing. Only the other night I was delighted to use my bat detector to discover some pipistrelles, the commonest species, flying around the garden. We must be careful.
However, I support the idea that we want to be flexible in some of these areas. There are species that may start off needing complete protection but do very well, and their position then endangers other species. My noble friend Lord Caithness put it very well when he talked about managing these things. It is a mistake to think that we can just let nature take care of itself. The majority of our landscapes and habitats are manmade. We interfere and if we are not careful, what we do can cause even more problems.
I had forgotten about Amendment 293A. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, said when introducing it, it is perhaps not in context with some of the others. I do not agree with the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that we need more time. We have had as much time as possible. The toxicity and the need to stop it has been raised for years. I have been active on this for many years and my impression is that the game shooting organisations know that this is coming and will be prepared for it. I have spoken to cartridge makers and so on. They have alternatives. A lot of the ideas about the alternatives not being as good have been proved incorrect. To score some points back with my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, the Danes have got it right. It does not interfere with the sport. It is a toxic thing that should be removed.
If my noble friend the Minister wants some help on this, perhaps he can speak to the Treasury. If it could put an incredible surcharge on lead shot, perhaps we could force it out of the market, but the best way is to start by saying that it should not be used for killing wild animals and birds. The toxicity of clay shoots is terrible because it is in the same area. In various places they have had to close while they detoxify the area. It is appalling and incredible that in the 21st century we still allow this toxic chemical to enter the food chain of not only wildlife but humans.
I say to the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that I welcome the use of game in diet. It is a great thing, but we should not be doing it while there is lead in there.
The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 293A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, whom I congratulate on bringing this matter forward. I have added my name to the amendment. I declare an interest as a former chairman of the Firearms Consultative Committee at the Home Office. I am a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers, a former chairman and former president of the British Shooting Sports Council, a former president of the Gun Trade Association and a member of BASC and the GWCT. I hope your Lordships will deduce that I know a little about shooting and lead shot.
As we have heard, lead is acknowledged as a poison. It is banned in paints, petrol, fishing weights, water and a raft of other products. Recently, nine major quarry shooting associations—as I said, I am a member of BASC—came together in a statement, saying that their intention is for the shooting sports to cease the use of lead shot, or toxic shot, within five years. Waitrose, the supermarket chain, has told me that it will sell only game shot with non-toxic shot from next year. The National Game Dealers Association, which sells the vast majority of game-bird meat and game meat in general intends to do the same by July 2022. The vast majority of my game-shooting friends and acquaintances, and the majority of those to whom I speak in the game-shooting world, are already planning to move to non-toxic shot in the coming season, including myself.
The technology of steel shot, biodegradable wads and recyclable cartridge cases is being rapidly moved forward by cartridge manufacturers such as Eley Hawk. Indeed, I am personally actively making the switch as quickly as I can. The move away from lead shot is gaining momentum all the way through America, Europe and other countries.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said, the Lead Ammunition Group recently conducted a major inquiry into lead in shooting. I have to say that it was not done just by the bird-watching enthusiasts, as she said; it was actually done by the shooting world as well. It was led by a gentleman called John Swift, who happened to be the chairman of BASC at the time, so I think that it ought to have a little credit for that.
We have been around this lead racetrack, so to speak, ad infinitum. I repeat that lead is a poison—we all know that. It should not be permitted to enter the food chain, full stop. I agree with noble Lord, Lord Krebs, entirely: Her Majesty’s Government need to place all in the game-shooting industry in a position where they know with what timescale they must comply. This would give assurance to them and mean that they can make the changes necessary. Many of them will have to retool equipment—as I say, lead shot is on its way out—and manufacturers such as Eley Hawk are having to change their ways, and are doing so very successfully.
However, this does not happen overnight. Many guns—London Best guns, for instance—that were built a long time ago to shoot lead shot cannot shoot steel shot, so that has to be looked into as well. This is quite a complicated subject—not an easy “We’ll do it today” job. If the Government were to make up their mind and push the shooting industry into this a little harder, with a date that we know we comply with, that would be a very good thing, and I would strongly support it.
The market for game and game meat is of course substantial. The game dealers and the supermarkets are changing their ways. Waitrose tells me that, by the time it goes toxic-shot-free next year, it may well be able to sell more than a million more game birds— that is just one supermarket chain. That is good for the shooting industry. We need to be able to find decent new markets where we can sell this excellent low-calorie meat.
I am very aware that this amendment probably requires further work, so I ask my noble friend the Minister—we had a brief conversation outside the Chamber before this debate started—if he would very kindly meet with the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and me as soon as possible to discuss this further before Report.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, the discussion on this grouping has been quite lengthy. I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, in thanking my noble friend Lord Chidgey for his excellent championing of chalk streams in this and earlier groupings. I very much hope that the Government will respond positively to the suggestion of this new designation for chalk streams. I will not speak for long because most points have already been covered.
I added my name to Amendment 235 of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on species conservation strategies, and I very much support his comments. We need to ensure that they support nature recovery and not faster development. It is right that, as the comments that have been made by noble Lords around the Committee showed, there is unanimous support for this amendment. That is indicative of the level of concern that we have about what the Government might be proposing in terms of future planning reforms coming down the track. If we can get this clear in the Environment Bill, that could give us some level of assurance. For those reasons, we on this Bench also support the 10 amendments of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who is looking to make these species conservation strategies work better. They are a good tool, but they need to work better, so we support all those amendments.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
We have had a really interesting debate—it has covered quite a lot of areas. I offer our strong support for Amendment 241 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey.
I am enjoying our Committee debates, particularly last week’s. Many concerns have been raised about the condition of our chalk streams. We know that they have particularly pure, clear and constant water from the underground chalk aquifers, and they flow across gravel beds, which makes them absolutely perfect sources of clean water and ideal for lots of wild creatures to breed and thrive in. However, we also know that too many have been overused and undervalued, drained almost dry in places and polluted in others. Research shows that a third of the water that we take from our rivers is wasted. The Angling Trust has said:
“The fate of England’s chalk streams is the litmus test in terms of how this country treats its environment.”
So we thank the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, for tabling this amendment for better protections for our chalk streams, which are so badly needed. Again, I offer our strong support.
We also strongly support Amendment 235, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, which would ensure that the primary purpose of species conservation strategies is to support the recovery of nature, rather than to facilitate faster development. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, the debate today has shown huge support for his amendment. A strategic approach to species conservation is essential to preserving biodiversity and enabling nature’s recovery. This should include protecting, restoring and creating habitat over a wider area to meet the needs of individual species. Strategic approaches to species conservation are clearly essential. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, talked about her experience of bats, for example. It is vital that we enable this recovery of nature. Between 2013 and 2018, 46% of conservation priority species in England declined. We know that many of these species would benefit from a strategic plan resulting in all relevant public bodies taking appropriate actions to save and restore them. The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, asked for clear objectives to be set out, and this is clearly important.
The proposal for species conservation strategies must also be understood in the context of the net-gain offsetting that we already discussed in Committee last week. Our fear is that there could be unintended consequences. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, outlined his concerns that, sadly, the overall result could be to allow the destruction of habitats and protected species in return for new habitat creation elsewhere. A developer could be licensed to proceed with activities that destroy habitats and species in return for contributing to habitats that support the wider population of that species. We share the noble Lord’s concern that this could allow a developer to proceed without protecting every specimen of a protected species and without always undertaking the appropriate site-specific survey work. We do not want to speed up development and reduce costs, which would ultimately do the opposite of what the Bill is trying to achieve.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, mentioned the importance of planning authorities having a clear understanding of what is required, and this will be needed if these proposals are to be implemented well. We need to contribute to the conservation of certain species but, if that is managed badly or applied inappropriately, we could end up with it being nothing more than a shortcut to getting around some of the protected species obligations. Can the Minister confirm that, where species conservation strategies are used in cases of development planning, species’ needs will dictate the outcome, with the overriding presumption and priority being for on-site or local, rather than off-site, mitigations? Will he also confirm that biodiversity net gains will be additional to meeting the legal and policy requirements within the species conservation strategies?
We are looking for some serious reassurance from the Minister that the species conservation strategies will not lead to perverse outcomes. We need to ensure that they are delivering gains for nature rather than gains for developers. Can he also confirm that site-specific impact assessments at the time of planning or of other consent applications will still be carried out to ensure that all impacts are identified and addressed? We need assurance that each strategy will be framed around the conservation objectives of the sites concerned, as well as any other conservation considerations.
I will now move on to the amendments tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who made some very important points in his introduction. I am sure that noble Lords will support his important aim; all we want to do is to make this part of the Bill work better, and his amendments ably try to do that. We need to look to wider concerns that encompass all factors, not just habitats. The noble Earl made an important point when he talked about management being a forgotten activity that will help deliver success to our conservation strategies, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, supported him in that. The noble Earl, Lord Devon, also asked for assurances from the Minister about support for farmers and rural businesses. Again, this is an important area that must not be forgotten.
Turning to Amendment 293A, in the name of my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton, I thank him for his very detailed introduction. I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, for sharing his extensive knowledge and experience of this matter. As the EU proceeds towards a ban on all lead ammunition, UK policy is lagging significantly behind the practices and organisational policies of many ammunition users. As my noble friend Lord Browne said so eloquently, there are no safe levels of lead—it affects all major body systems of animals, including humans. As the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, said, regulation has ensured removal of lead from petrol, paint and drinking water. The last largely unregulated release of lead into our environment is from lead ammunition. We have heard that non-toxic ammunition is widely available, and guidance on its use is provided on the website of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation—BASC.
We have also heard in this debate that the UK shooting community is preparing for change, which is coming, but voluntary efforts to move away from lead shot have always failed. We need leadership from government, with legislation, if this change is going to happen. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said, this amendment is deliverable. Finally, I ask the Minister: what progress is his department making in bringing this legislation forward and ending this practice?
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)
I will start with Amendment 234, tabled by the noble Lord, Chidgey, and Amendment 235, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, but first I will offer some words on the overall objectives of species conservation strategies. The strategies will be developed by Natural England for species that are under threat and would benefit from a more strategic and focused approach to improve their conservation status. They will identify priorities for the species and bring together relevant public authorities, ENGOs and any other interested parties to identify the bespoke solutions needed to tackle the threat each species faces.
I understand the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, to ensure that the strategies contribute to nature’s recovery, but Clause 102 already guarantees this. In line with the intention behind the measure, subsection (1) specifically defines the purpose of a strategy as:
“for improving the conservation status of any species of fauna or flora.”
Subsection (4) elaborates on the elements that the strategy may contain, including creating and enhancing habitats with the explicit purpose
“of improving the conservation status of the species”.
The mitigation hierarchy is also set out in subsection (4), as we are clear that each species will require a bespoke approach to avoidance or mitigation of harm or the creation of compensatory habitat. It is important that Natural England is given a power in the Bill to create strategies where they are likely to have the biggest possible impact. Changing “may” to “must”, as suggested by Amendment 234, would therefore change that power into a duty to create strategies, and this would place an unreasonable obligation on Natural England to create a very large number of strategies, including for species which would see little or no benefit. We think that it makes more sense for Natural England to focus its resources where strategies can provide the most benefit for key species in decline.
Natural England is already working with relevant conservation groups to develop the first strategies; others are in the pipeline, including—to answer the noble Lord, Lord Krebs’s question—for the dormouse and water vole. I think he said that it is also the case that the district-level licensing approach is not considered to be something that would work for bats. That is our view as well, so we will not be using that approach.
On Amendment 241, I share the determination of the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, to protect our chalk streams, as many noble Lords do. Restoring our internationally recognised and important chalk streams is already a government priority. Species conservation strategies, however, are bespoke, targeted measures to help protect specific species at risk. Although they will by their nature and design help restore the habitats and ecosystems without which those species cannot flourish, they are not the best mechanism for achieving that specific aim. While activities to help a particular species may involve necessary actions to improve habitats such as chalk streams, the focus needs to remain on the species itself.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
My Lords, I have received one request to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
My Lords, I heard what my noble friend the Minister said regarding the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. Does he not agree that even if we banned the use of lead ammunition in killing wild birds and animals, although it would not address target and clay pigeon shooting, surely that would set the whole thing off? Would it not be a great first move to make?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I am very keen for us to make progress as quickly as we can. I understand frustrations with the REACH process. My understanding is that that process is best placed to deliver the change we need despite the time that it takes. If it is possible to move more quickly, given that we know that the science is pretty clear and that alternatives exist, I would certainly be open to pursuing those opportunities. If my noble friend would like to join me in my meeting with my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury, he would be very welcome.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
I thank all noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have spoken in support of my amendment. The vigour of the debate was very encouraging for me and my fellow Hampshire men and women who are trying to do something to protect our environment and the habitats that we have lived with and cherished throughout our lives.
I also thank the Minister for his remarks. It is encouraging that the Government are taking this issue seriously and are already debating with the proprietors of the chalk stream restoration strategy report, which I understand will be submitted to government in September. That being the case, I look forward to going with colleagues and friends into discussions with government beyond then to see whether we can address these issues, which are so important to our native land. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
We now come to Amendment 251A. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Amendment 251A
“Protection of National Parks
(1) In exercising their functions under—(a) this Act,(b) any subordinate legislation made under this Act, or(c) any legislation amended by this Act,a public authority must determine whether and how the carrying out of such functions would impact on National Parks.(2) If a public authority determines that their actions would have a material impact on National Parks, that authority must—(a) have regard to the purposes of National Parks specified in section 5(1) of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, and(b) so far as practicable, act in a manner that is consistent with supporting those purposes.(3) Section 11A of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 (duty of certain bodies and persons to have regard to the purposes for which National Parks are designated) is amended as follows—(a) in subsection (2), after “land” insert “or the special qualities found”;(b) after subsection (2) insert—“(2A) All relevant authorities have a duty to co-operate in the production and implementation of any relevant National Park Management Plans.”;(c) after subsection (3) insert—“(3A) In subsection (2A) of this section “National Park Management Plans” means any relevant plan or plans published under section 66 of the Environment Act 1995 (National Park Management Plans).””Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would ensure that where the decisions of public authorities impact on national parks, relevant authorities must have regard to the purposes laid out in section 5(1) of the 1949 Act. In addition, the Clause amends inserted section 11A of that Act to strengthen provisions around protecting the special characteristics of national parks.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the South Downs National Parks Authority. The 10 national parks in England are crucial for delivering our strategy for nature recovery and enhanced landscapes. They cover 10% of our land, while hosting a third of the nation’s international wildlife sites. They have a mission to create more habitats where wildlife can flourish and be enjoyed, while developing strong local partnerships with communities, farmers and businesses to make the parks a living and creative space.
They are all too aware of the significant responsibility they carry to boost diversity and deliver the commitment to protect 30% of our land by 2030. Indeed, my own authority has plans to go further than that. Meeting this challenge is currently hampered by the limitation of the powers authorities currently have under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. In a phrase that will be familiar to noble Lords in other contexts, this section requires all relevant authorities to “have regard to” national park purposes while carrying out functions that might affect a national park. Sadly, “have regard to” is open to many interpretations and as a result there have been many examples of public authorities effectively ignoring this duty and putting their own interests first.
There are many examples from around the 10 parks, but let me give you a couple from the South Downs national park to illustrate the point. Highways England came up with a proposed new route for the A27 around Arundel, which went through the middle of the national park. It was hugely unpopular. It had failed to have regard to the national park’s status or to co-operate with it in drawing up the proposals. In the end, it pulled out of a judicial review just before the hearing, and the South Downs national park was awarded costs, but a lot of time and money could have been saved if it had had a stronger duty to support and co-operate with the park in the first place.
On a slightly different level, the Forestry Commission has built car parks in our national park that have no connection to the park’s attempts to manage visitor numbers and traffic flows to ensure an overall good visitor experience.
The national parks are proud of the work they are doing to develop partnerships with local public bodies, including the production of national park management plans, but this intent has to be reciprocated and this is not always currently the case.
In the meantime, the Government rightly have high expectations of the national parks and the role they will play in nature recovery and transforming farming in protected landscapes, but the parks need the powers necessary to deliver this ambition. This is why I have tabled my amendment, which would strengthen the need for public bodies not only to “have regard to” the purposes of national parks under the 1949 Act but to act in a manner consistent with these purposes. It would build in the co-operation and consultation which already happens successfully with many public authorities and make it the norm for all.
Noble Lords will know that two years ago, the committee overseeing the Glover report on the national parks published its review; I was pleased to see that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, was a member of that committee. Last month the Government published their response to the report, to which the Minister referred when we debated earlier amendments. One of the report’s recommendations is:
“The existing duty of regard is too weak. We believe public bodies should be required to help further their purposes and the aims and objectives of individual national landscapes Management Plans.”
Since then, much of the emphasis of the report, the debate around it and the Government’s response has been concerned with the structure and governance of national parks. For example, there was a proposal to increase the number of national parks and for them to be bought under the oversight of a national landscape service—an issue we can debate another time.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to contribute to this brief debate on Amendment 251A and I welcome the opportunity to talk about the purposes of national parks. As in an earlier debate, it is important to read across to what other users of national parks are being asked to do in relation to the Agriculture Act. In considering protections for national parks, it is entirely appropriate to look those who have wider interests than just maintaining a high level of biodiversity and promoting the enjoyment of the ecosystem, very important though that is.
Here, I would like to mention in particular the interests of farmers, landowners, land managers and tourism providers. Regarding the Agriculture Act and the read-across to the Environment Bill and public money for public goods, how do we expect national parks, farmers, land managers and those plying the trade of tourism to actually be allowed to do the work we are asking them to do? It is extremely important to better integrate farming, land management and, indeed, rural development objectives and advice in this regard. Could my noble friend elaborate on how the public goods and productivity strands of the Agriculture Act, the Bill and future policy will operate to ensure that that happens harmoniously?
I pay tribute to all those involved in national parks—tourism and farming in particular have had a very difficult time. Obviously, I am most familiar with the North York Moors National Park, but I had some experience of the Lake District National Park when I was a candidate there a number of years ago. It is important that we celebrate all that farmers, land managers and those supporting tourism in the national parks do. I hope my noble friend will confirm that “having regard to” does relate to these other interests, and that they will not be compromised in any shape or form. Perhaps she can put a little more meat on the bones of what we are going to ask them to do in terms of public money for public goods, through ELMS, in the context of the Environment Bill and the Agriculture Act.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to again follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and to speak in support of Amendment 251A in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. Indeed, I would have attached my name to it, had I not missed it.
The case has already been very clearly made that we need strengthened protections for national parks—“have regard to” is simply not strong enough in this legislation. I think it is worth going back to the purposes of national parks in the 1949 Act, which include
“conserving and enhancing the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the areas specified”.
This goes back to a debate that we had some weeks ago about how cultural and natural heritage are linked, but the main point to make on Amendment 251A is about “conserving and enhancing” wildlife.
Just last week we saw a campaign launched to raise £100 million to renature 13,000 hectares of land on the South Downs. There was much pride about the fact that this would mean that 33% of the national park is managed for nature, which reports suggested exceeds a UN-backed target of 30% by 2030. Of course, that is a target for all of the countryside; one might reasonably expect that to be much higher in our national parks. Indeed, you would like to see that figure going somewhere towards 100%. Of course, that does not mean that you cannot have agricultural production associated with that; we are back to a very long-running debate about sparing versus sharing. But we must note that what we are doing now is not strong enough. We have to do much more, and we need the Environment Bill to do it.
To take just one example, the Yorkshire Dales National Park is a notorious black hole for raptors. When the national park did a consultation with the public about its management, the illegal persecution of raptors was one of the issues most raised. Just a few months ago, we saw a hideous video released by the RSPB investigations team of two buzzards being lured to their deaths in the area.
We also really need to think about whether there are not—and I am sure there are—more areas of the country that need to be protected, whether it is as a national park or in some other way, as the Glover review highlights. The South Pennines has been identified as a prime candidate for a different approach as the only upland region in England that does not currently have not a legal designation.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB) [V]
My Lords, the 15 national parks in the UK are indeed a natural treasure and one of the glories of our country, some of them have a worldwide reputation. To confine myself to the three in Wales, I know they may be a devolved matter, but the facts about them still indicate the huge significance of national parks generally. The Brecon Beacons, the Pembrokeshire coast and Snowdonia cover 20% of the land surface of Wales. They have a resident population of 80,000 people and account for over £0.5 billion of Wales’ gross added value—some 1.2% of the Welsh economy. They are internationally important examples of how working landscapes can be protected.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has set out one of the two purposes of national parks as set out in Section 5(1) of the 1949 national parks Act. These two purposes clearly chime in beautifully with the Environment Bill now before us, and it is therefore very important that they should have a specific clause within the Bill. Although there are legal protections for them under the 1949 Act, we live at a time when there is a desperate need, for example, for more affordable housing. The Government have made this a priority, and some of the checks and balances that used to be in place, in the form of the ability to prevent a particular scheme going forward, are being eroded. We saw one public reaction to this recently in the Chesham and Amersham by-election.
The amendment before us would ensure that any local authority seeking planning permission in a national park would have to take fully into account the legal purpose of the park. The Minister may argue that there are enough protections already in the 1949 Act but, given that the national parks are such a crucial feature of our environment and that the pressure for new housing is now so intense, it is appropriate that there is a special clause in the Bill which keeps these protections firmly in the mind of all those drawing up applications in those areas. Of course, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, has mentioned some of the pressures—for example, from motorways—but possible housing developments may perhaps be on the edge of a national park. No doubt it would be unthinkable for a local authority to try to put up a new housing estate in the middle of a national park, but there could be building, industrial or waste developments on the edge of a national park, which would have serious implications for its protected environment.
At a time of increasing pressure, the proposed new clause before us comes under the heading of “You can’t be too careful”, and I support it.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, is not speaking on this group, so I call the noble Earl, Lord Lytton.
The Earl of Lytton (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare an interest as a property owner with tourism interests within the Exmoor National Park, going back very many years, and I have professionally had an involvement with several other UK national parks.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for giving me advance warning when she tabled this amendment and for giving us an opportunity to have this debate. At an earlier point in our Committee, I had, through my own fault, a rather awkwardly grouped pair of amendments—Amendments 290 and 291—on an enlargement of national park purposes, which were not actually moved in that group. Although they have got a bit lost in the system, I am glad that I have some opportunity to make a few of the points here. In any event, I would rather raise them in the context of Amendment 251A.
I have enormous sympathy with this amendment. For many people, the immediate reaction might be to ask why any adjacent authority would not have regard to national park purposes. But, recalling my own experiences, I can appreciate that this might not be so. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to the A27 at Arundel. Of course, as a Sussex resident, I am quite familiar with the long-running saga of how to deal with the discontinuity on parts of the A27. But, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, mentioned, this is a two-way affair. National park authorities do not, after all, have full jurisdiction over all areas of local government authority and other aspects. It follows that they must at the very least, for their part, be able to co-operate with those bodies that exercise jurisdiction in the areas they do not control, including highways, police, infrastructure, building control, fire and rescue, services and communications, and those sorts of things.
In the past, I have attended meetings on site within national parks to discuss, in one case, the improvement of an admittedly dangerous farm track exiting on to an unrestricted A-class road. The meeting had been triggered by an incident at that location which could easily have been fatal for a motorcycle rider. But, as it turned out, this matter seemed to be of little concern in national park policy terms. The improvement required would have involved the removal of some length of hedgerow to improve sight lines. Of course, that could have been replicated on the back of the visibility splays, as opposed to immediately adjacent to the current road, but that was not acceptable to the national park authority, despite the obvious problems for farm movements and the safety of highway users. As far as I know, the dangerous exit remains some 20 years later. But I find it very difficult to understand that conservation issues should be unable to take account of public safety or the orderly exercise of farming activities. In another instance, a national park authority apparently permitted substantial works for the installation of a bulk LPG tank for commercial purposes but did not realise that, without an adequate lay-by in addition, the necessary tanker delivering fuel would totally block a narrow unclassified road serving a lot of properties and would do so for periods of up to half an hour at a time.
The issue of breadth of policy and analysis is not helped when narrow thinking occurs, and local government in all its forms, including national park authorities, is not proof against this. I could quote many other examples of the sort of thing I have already mentioned. I think that the potential flashpoints—if I can call them that—are likely to expand, as our most recent cohort of national parks have incorporated more urban areas within their boundaries.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in support of Amendment 251A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, to support the protection of our national parks.
National parks are havens for birds, animals, fish and humans seeking respite from the cares of daily life. They exist all over the world, from Chile up through North America and across Europe. We are exceptionally lucky to have a wide variety of national parks sprinkled across the whole country, from Cornwall to Wales and up to the Cairngorms in Scotland. Each has its own individuality and beauty, sometimes gentle but often rugged and wild. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, mentioned their role in tourism.
These national parks are currently protected by the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, but this should not allow us to take them for granted. Amendment 251A inserts a new clause into the Bill to provide some protection for the parks when public authorities are making decisions which could affect neighbouring national parks. The duties under the 1949 Act are supported by guidance from Defra, but this guidance is out of date and was last updated in 2005—it is not available on the Natural England website and refers to the now extinct regional development agencies and government regional offices. The current duty provides a backstop when conflict arises between competing interests. However, national parks see this as a last resort.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, laid out the reasons why the duty should be strengthened and gave excellent examples of lack of forethought on the part of public bodies. National parks have management plans; these should be promoted with public bodies, which should have due regard to them. The protected characteristics of national parks should be preserved and public bodies should have regard to both the characteristics and management plans, but this is very weak in terms of compliance and protection.
I fear I will go off on a tangent for a moment. During the passage of the ill-fated Housing and Planning Bill, there was discussion about affordable housing for those working in the parks and young people. This was in reference to Exmoor National Park, which the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to. There were agricultural workers, farmhands, firefighters and other essential workers who worked in the park but could not afford to live there. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, referred to the pressure for housing but suggested that it should be on the edge of the parks. While protecting national parks, I urge them all to have provision for affordable homes included in their management plans to enable those working in them—those who would like to—to be able to live nearer to their place of work. Unnecessary travel adds to climate change and pollution. Living close to your place of work on a national park means you may be able to cycle or walk to work.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, supported the argument that the current protection measures are not strong enough, and I agree with her. This amendment gives reassurance and provides the mechanism for local authorities and other public bodies—such as the MoD, which operates on Dartmoor and on the borders of other national parks—to take account of how their actions may affect the park, access to it and those living or working in or visiting the park in future. It should be remembered that people live in the parks. National parks should not be wrapped in cotton wool as anachronistic relics. They should be assisted to be fit for purpose today but protected from harmful developments. I fully support this important amendment.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, I welcome Amendment 251A from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and the contributions of all those who spoke about the importance of our national parks, on which I think we are all agreed. From the meres and hills of the Lake District to the chalk of the South Downs—and a lot of Wales, I must add—they are some of our most valuable landscapes.
That is why the Government commissioned the independent Landscapes Review, which set out a compelling vision for more beautiful, more biodiverse and more accessible national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. The panel’s report recommended strengthening the duty on public bodies to have regard to the purposes of the national parks and to support implementation of management plans. This would have a very similar effect to the proposed amendment from the noble Baroness.
In a Written Ministerial Statement of 24 June, the Government committed to address the review’s recommendations in full and consult on draft proposals later this year. Those draft proposals will address this recommendation. This has been an unprecedented year for the country, so work since the review was published has indeed been delayed, but the Government are working very closely with partners on their response to it. We have committed to address its recommendations in full and to consult on draft proposals later this year. I am of course very happy to meet the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, as part of the consultation, or we can discuss it earlier if that would be helpful.
The Government support the intention of the noble Baroness to ensure that our public bodies work together more effectively in our national parks. We all agree there has been a problem here. We are currently working closely with partners, including the national park authorities, to consider how best to achieve that aim through our response to the review. However, we cannot accept this amendment, as it is important to work with our partners and consult on any such changes before changing the law, particularly to understand potential implications for those public bodies likely to be affected. The Landscapes Review found strong evidence that public bodies are failing to have adequate regard to the statutory purposes of the national parks. It also found that the effectiveness of the management plans is limited by poor implementation by local partners, including public bodies. The Government take this finding seriously and are working with partners to consider carefully how to address it.
A number of noble Lords raised the question of infrastructure plans in the national parks. The 2010 National Parks Circular and the National Planning Policy Framework are very clear that national parks, the Broads and areas of outstanding natural beauty are not appropriate locations for major development. I will look into the specific cases that they raised and provide more detail on those if appropriate.
I also assure the Committee that, since the Glover review was published, the Government have been supporting important work in our protected landscapes through our nature for climate fund and green recovery challenge fund to restore nature, tackle climate change and connect communities with the natural environment. The Government have also recently announced their new farming in protected landscapes programme, which will provide additional investment to allow farmers and other land managers to work in partnership with our national park authorities to deliver bigger and better outcomes for the environment, communities and places.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh asked a number of questions, particularly on ELMS. This funding will help to drive forward delivery of the Landscapes Review on people, access, nature and job creation, responding to the public appetite from Covid-19 for better access to nature. Specifically, the fund should help to support delivery of the Landscapes Review recommendations on connecting more people to protected landscapes, delivering the new environmental land management schemes, increasing the diversity of visitors through tourism, creating landscapes which cater for health and well-being, expanding volunteers and rangers and providing better information and signs. Specifically, this funding will help farmers to shift towards delivering environmental benefits which, in the future, could be supported by environmental land management, particularly the components that support local nature and landscape recovery.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for his contribution. Sadly, I have not been able to receive divine intervention quite in time to respond to his specific questions, particularly about earlier legislation, but I will write to him and put a copy in the Library. I hope that I have now provided assurance to the noble Baroness that we share her aims for national parks: we just need a bit more time to work with public bodies, including national parks themselves, to get this right. I therefore hope she will agree to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, that we are blessed with very special national parks, each one unique in its own way. As we have heard from the contributions, everybody has their favourite and the particular one that they are a cheerleader for. We sometimes take the national parks for granted, but the experience over the last 18 months has ensured that they are back in the front line and are rightly seen as the national treasures that they really are. They have played an important part in people’s sanity, and mental health, over the last period.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, that the national parks have to be integrated into the work of the Agriculture Act—an issue that we addressed earlier when we talked about joined-up policies—and it is important that they play a rightful role in the rollout of ELMS. We welcome the Government’s proposals for farming in protected landscapes and the additional investment that will come from that, because the farming community in the national parks has to work in a way that is properly sympathetic to the landscape that we are hoping to develop there. There are special challenges, but also great benefits if we get this right.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned the South Downs ambition of 33% to protect our landscapes. I agree that we should be ambitious: every national park is unique and will have different constraints. South Downs has an awful lot of people living there and a lot of businesses already operating there. Obviously, we need to push to the limits of our capacity in order to make sure that nature recovery takes place in the widest possible area. We will obviously do that.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 255. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in the group to a Division must make that clear in the debate.
Clause 105: Habitats Regulations: power to amend general duties
Amendment 255
Lord Krebs
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would allow the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 to be amended to further new objectives in addition to existing objectives, rather than in place of existing objectives.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 255 and 256 in my name, together with those of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Jones of Whitchurch; Amendment 257AA in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle; and the proposition that Clause 106 do not stand part the Bill, in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Jones of Whitchurch.
Clauses 105 and 106 were added to the Bill by the Government two months ago without any consultation. These two clauses have important potential adverse effects that these amendments seek to rectify. First, they threaten to weaken the protection of our most valuable conservation habitats and species. Secondly, they confer considerable discretionary powers on the Secretary of State to change the rules governing environmental protection.
In order to fix ideas, I will first explain what these special sites and species are. They include more than 200 special areas of conservation protected under the habitats regulations, such as the north Northumberland coast, the North Yorkshire Moors and Ashdown Forest. They include wetland sites, such as the Humber Estuary, portions of the Essex Marshes, the Isles of Scilly and the Exe Estuary, that have been designated under the Ramsar Convention. Last but not least, they include the more than 80 English special protection areas classified under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and subsequent legislation, primarily for the protection of bird species. Between them, these three categories protect our greatest natural assets. They protect many rare species, such as the lady’s slipper orchid, the marsh fritillary, the bottlenose dolphin and the lesser horseshoe bat.
Currently, the regulations require public authorities, including the Secretary of State, to comply with the birds and habitats directives, which were the legal source of the habitats regulations. But Clause 105 gives the Secretary of State powers to swap this duty to comply with the birds and habitats directives with a requirement to comply with the new objectives set out in the Environment Bill; in other words, it changes the obligation to protect our most precious conservation sites and our most endangered species.
The Minister will no doubt say there is nothing to worry about and that the Government have no intention of weakening the protection of these sites and species. He may point to the fact that Clause 105 has safeguards built in, such as the requirement in subsection (7) that the Secretary of State must be
“satisfied that the regulations do not reduce the level of environmental protection provided by the Habitats Regulations.”
He may also say that Clause 105(9) requires the Secretary of State to
“consult such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”,
although we should note that this is a rather vague commitment; we do not know who the “persons” are.
The Minister may also argue that the habitats regulations are overly bureaucratic and that Natural England, given the swingeing cuts to its budget to which I referred in an earlier debate, will not have the capacity to deal with both the habitats regulations and the new requirements introduced by the Bill. However—and this is the central point—there is a key distinction between the requirements of the Bill and those of the habitats regulations.
The targets in the Bill are all about improving our natural environment as a whole. In contrast, the habitats regulations and related regulations are all about protecting individual sites, populations and sometimes even individual specimens; in other words, the two forms of protection are complementary and are not alternatives. Amendments 255 and 256 would speak to this complementarity by ensuring that the current protections for particular sites and species remain in place by replacing “instead of” with “in addition to”. The amendments restrict the power of the Secretary of State to sweep away existing protections while still allowing the law to continue to evolve and cater for domestic conservation priorities.
Amendment 257AA would add an additional layer of protection by requiring the Secretary of State to make changes only if they were compatible with five international conventions. It would also replace the vague commitment to consult persons who are considered appropriate by the Secretary of State with a specific commitment to consult experts, including the statutory bodies: Natural England, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and the office for environmental protection. It would also ensure that there is parliamentary scrutiny of any changes.
If the Secretary of State really means to follow Clause 105(7), these proposed amendments should simply underpin the intended outcome. If, however, the Government object to the amendments, one has a right to ask why. As a start, I ask the Minister a simple question: can he confirm that the statutory bodies I have mentioned would be consulted by the Secretary of State before any regulations were changed?
Finally, Clause 106 gives the Secretary of State power to amend Part 6 of the habitats regulations in almost any way. This part of the regulations deals with development projects. It includes rules to prevent harm to protected sites except for reasons of overriding public interest.
The habitats regulations do not stop development, but they do ensure that projects are properly assessed and that effective mitigation and compensation are in place. Projects such as the Thames Basin Heaths Partnership have shown how the habitats regulations ensure that development takes place in a way that is compatible with nature, helping to protect the remains of the UK’s vanishing heathlands while still allowing the building of many new homes. Successive reviews have found the regulations to be proportionate and effective, giving certainty to developers and environmental groups alike.
Time and again in the debates on the Bill we have referred to the conflict between conserving nature and allowing development. Time and again, we have heard that the Bill, in many ways, appears to tip the balance in favour of development and against nature. Some might even be driven to argue that the Bill is designed to protect nature provided that this does not interfere with other priorities, housebuilding in particular.
The Minister may argue, as with Clause 105, that safeguards are built in. Under Clause 106, the Secretary of State must be satisfied that protections provided by the habitats regulations are not reduced and must explain the reasoning to Parliament. But this is an entirely subjective test, left to the opinion of the Minister, rather than an effective legal safeguard. Clause 106 requires the Secretary of State only to have regard to the importance of conservation and biodiversity. It does not require the Secretary of State to consult with relevant experts, only with such persons as are considered appropriate.
At this stage, we have had no indication at all about how the powers would actually be used or what problems with the habitats regulations the Government may be seeking to address. Could the Minister give us some examples of these problems?
In my view, Clause 106 could be used to allow the Government to sacrifice our natural environment on the altar of development, sidestepping protections provided by the habitats regulations. If the Minister says, “Don’t worry, we will look after nature”, the best way to convince us of this would be to delete this clause from the Bill. I beg to move.
The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 257A, 257B and 257C. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for adding his name to them. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, so that we can debate whether the Government can be trusted to guard environmental policy and how much. In seeking to move that Clause 106 not stand part, in spite of its emphasis on conservation and biodiversity, it appears the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, would not like the Secretary of State to have any room to manoeuvre on the proposals presently part of Part 6. I declare my interests as in the register but also particularly as a livestock farmer in a national park and a member of NFU Scotland.
The Government have already passed one amendment to the wording of the habitats regulations that we were operating while we were in the EU, but it was all done so rapidly that it is not altogether surprising that they have a clause in the Bill that would allow them to modify things once the rural environment has settled down. This group of amendments is all about how far they should be able to do so as the proposal unfolds.
Noble Lords will be well versed in the Government’s 25-year environment plan, which is intended to promote a fairer society and social justice, among other things. It was published in May 2019 and outlines their proposals but still lacks many of the mechanisms they hope to be able to use to achieve this, so it remains quite difficult to predict the outcomes.
The purpose of my Amendment 257C is to remedy the fact that in neither the 25-year plan nor this piece of legislation is there a direction to the Government to consider social and economic impacts and give them due regard.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I speak in favour of all the amendments in this group—except for 257A, which appears to me to be a weakening of a Bill that is already far too weak, away from its purpose of protecting the environment. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has already powerfully and comprehensively introduced Amendments 255, 256 and the proposition that Clause 106 should not stand part of the Bill. All of these have full cross-party and non-party support. Indeed, I would have attached my name had there been space.
I will focus in particular on Amendment 257AA, to which I have attached my name, because, when I saw that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, had tabled this, I thought that this was a very neat, comprehensive and protective amendment. We have to be conducting this particular section of the debate in the light of the release in the past couple of hours of the latest draft negotiations of the Convention on Biological Diversity, together with news that the conference is now set to be delayed again, until next year. That provides for, in the current draft—alongside the 2030 protection of land and seas and providing a third of climate mitigations through nature by 2030—new goals for the middle of the century, including reducing the current rates of extinction tenfold, enhancing the integrity of all ecosystems, valuing nature’s contribution to humanity, and providing the financial resources to achieve the vision. This is not, as the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, was just suggesting, something which applies only to specific sites. This very much applies across the whole of the country.
I note that the very useful Greener UK and Wildlife and Countryside Link briefing on all of these amendments noted that, as the noble Duke said, one would assume that the Secretary of State, in light of our international commitments, would exercise this power in a manner that is compatible with our international agreements, including the updated Convention on Biological Diversity. But we have seen again and again that we currently have a Government who do not necessarily see themselves bound by international obligations. Of course, any Government can bind only themselves; they cannot speak to what Governments might do in the future. That is why we need all of these kinds of protections on the face of the Bill.
We also have to look at all of these amendments—but perhaps Amendment 257AA in particular—in the light of the promises that we heard over the past few years that we would have non-regression after Brexit, meaning that we will not go backwards. We heard from the Government again and again that we are seeking only more and stronger protections. All these amendments—but particularly Amendment 257AA—would set on the face of the Bill a promise to stick to what we are indeed committed to now.
Of course, we probably expect to hear from the Minister that this is unnecessary, but I think we all know very well that it is necessary. If it is just some extra protection or insulation, it is hard to see why the Government should have objections to that basic protection, to ensure that we live up to all those international agreements that we have signed, which we expect to be updating through international negotiations in future.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I sought to add my name to the amendments of the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, but I did so a little late so it does not appear in the current Marshalled List. However, I echo wholeheartedly the sentiments he so expertly expressed and the vital importance when setting these habitat regulations—and indeed all the various worthy strategies we have been debating in the Bill—of supporting sustainable rural development.
I mentioned previously in Committee the danger of the Bill unwittingly inflicting environmental tyranny upon our landscape. If we are not very careful, we will forget that the rural environment that we all know and love and seek to preserve is a place of work for many and was created and sustained by that very same rural enterprise that we are in danger of sweeping away. The only way that our rural landscape will survive and meet the environmental challenges of this era is if it remains a viable and sustainable workplace, supporting farming and a host of diverse rural enterprises.
I know that there is a great enthusiasm among your Lordships for rewilding and large-scale—landscape-scale—interventions in the countryside. However, the Knepp estate is simply not easily replicable, in the same way that not every abandoned mine can become an Eden Project. If we do not conserve small local rural enterprise and local business and employment, our countryside will become a suburban plaything of super-rich environmentalists, supported by a second-home-owning elite able to remote access their white-collar jobs from the comfort of their converted barn while enjoying the view. Local land management will be supported by well-meaning charitable handouts, but we will create a rural life in which there are no local jobs and no affordable homes necessary for a vibrant and diverse local community.
I will also address Amendments 255, 256 and 257AA in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I had not intended to, but given that he gave a shout-out to the Exe estuary Ramsar site and that that sits within the Powderham estate, I thought that I ought to offer a comment, particularly with respect to Amendment 257AA and the need for consultation. I would hate for the protections on the River Exe estuary to be in any way weakened. It is a remarkable landscape and it has been created and established that way over many centuries. It is currently managed by the Exe Estuary Management Partnership, which is a remarkable amalgam of vested interests, from the RSPB to local parish councils, and from Exeter City Council to boat clubs, rowing clubs, sailing clubs and shellfishers. It works incredibly well. Can the Minister in his reply say whether the consultation requirements that are proposed would include consultation with local enterprises such as the Exe Estuary Management Partnership, which is so important to the proper management of these very sensitive ecosystems?
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendment 257AA in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. As the noble Baroness said, this is a very neat amendment which wraps up an awful lot of things that the Government need to pay attention to.
Further on the thought expressed by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, that we could trust the Government, I draw the attention of the House and Minister to a project which seems to fly in the face of all the aims of noble Lords in this House and indeed of all these amendments. That is the £3.5 billion theme park called the London Resort, which is on the Swanscombe peninsula on the Thames estuary. The concept for this site, which is spread across 535 acres in Kent, is of a union jack-designed dome, a Disneyesque castle lit up by fireworks, and a Paramount Pictures entryway. It will be the first European development of its kind. It is inspired by Hollywood blockbusters and will have swords, sorcery, dragons and legends. There will even be a jungle where the ancient ruins of a long-extinct Mesoamerican civilisation will sprout out of the ground—which seems ironic. This is in partnership with EDF Energy—always a good one for a bit of greenwash—plus the BBC, ITV, Hollywood and all the rest of it. That is all online. It is aiming to be an attraction claiming to have net-zero emissions—which I personally do not believe. However, it will be built on a recently named SSSI.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and I thank her for getting down to brass tacks with an example. However, I am concerned about this group of amendments, which seeks yet further to strengthen adherence to the legacy of the EU habitats directive and to regulations made under it. When I was lucky enough to be a Minister much involved in negotiating on EU legislation, I used to attend Cabinet committees where, without revealing any secrets, the iniquities and inflexibilities of the habitats directive was a regular theme. The red tape and requirements, for example, to comply with protections in every relevant catchment even where a species or flora or fauna were abundant elsewhere, helped to fuel Brexit sentiment and the feeling that we should be able to do things our own way.
This Bill is an example in spades of not taking back real control and indeed doing far more than the EU has done on the environment. That troubles me, because we do not know how it will work out in practice, and of course the regulation powers in Clause 105—and indeed elsewhere in the Bill—are very wide. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on the need for proper consultation, and like him, I would appreciate some examples to enlighten us all before Report. I note that there is no impact assessment on these clauses; why is that?
I am highly doubtful about Clauses 105 and 106, since they leave us so close to the EU on habitats and, I fear, open to judicial review if we do things in a different way. Simpler, innovative ways of protecting our environmental jewels and changing things that the EU has decreed but do not work, has to be open to us. We want to get out of the straitjacket of Roman law and have a common-law, common-sense approach to protecting our exceptional habitats and indeed keeping countryside businesses vibrant, as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, has said.
I fear that these clauses limit our freedom too much. Moreover, nearly all the amendments in this group would make things worse and will therefore, I hope, be resisted by my noble friend the Minister. Whether you are a Brexiteer like him or not, we must all acknowledge that we have left the EU and must move forward independently.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, we are all very much in the debt of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for introducing this series of amendments and he is, of course, right to be concerned about habitats, the survival of species and all those things on which he touched.
I want, however, to focus the House’s attention on one specific matter. We debated some amendments the week before last, I think, on heritage and, underlying the debates that we have had day after day, has been a recognition that our landscape is manmade or man-moulded in its entirety. The villages, towns and cities in which we live are, of course, entirely manmade. I supported the heritage amendments, introduced very ably by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, because of my concern about buildings in general that have historic interest, and churches in particular. Nowhere else in our country is the story of our country more graphically told than in our country and town churches and, in particular, in the monuments and other artefacts that they contain.
We must get the balance right—balance has occurred time and again in these debates—because there is a real danger from one particular and specific source to the monuments in our churches. I refer to the danger of bats. Somebody may chuckle, and “bats in belfries” always raises a laugh, but this is a serious subject. I have brought it to the House’s attention before; I even introduced a Private Member’s Bill three or four years ago. But if noble Lords came with me to the wonderful church of Tattershall in Lincolnshire—one of the finest perpendicular churches in the country—they would be amazed, or would have been a few years ago, by the glory and beauty of the brasses. They have had to be covered, and in some cases hidden, because of the corrosive effect of bat droppings and urine. This is a story that can be told in many parts of the country, indeed in some thousands of our 16,000 listed grade 1 or grade 2-style churches. Nobody who cares about our country and the beauty of those buildings should dismiss this. We have to get the balance right.
I am not being so stupid or frivolous as to suggest that we try to exterminate bats as we exterminate rats. I am not doing that at all, but I am saying that there must be a real attempt to address this problem—and there is a partnership at the moment, experimental and very slow, between Natural England and English Heritage. When I raised it last time in your Lordships’ House, I had dozens of letters from all over the country. One in particular sticks in my mind, which came from somebody who worshipped regularly at the church of Abbey Dore, one of the glories of the golden valley of Herefordshire—one of the loveliest parts of our country. This particular correspondent was kneeling to receive holy communion on a Sunday morning when a bat defecated into his and the vicar’s hands. The vicar, who was a lady, was understandably distressed and so was he.
We have to wonder what we can do about this because, apart from anything else, there is a health hazard. We know—it is proven—that bats carry diseases. It is even suggested, with fairly good evidence to support it, that the pandemic under which we are still suffering at the moment originated in bats in the wet markets of China. So this is not scaremongering; this is making a serious point in, I hope, a serious way. Many of our monuments are brasses, but many are marble, which is particularly badly affected by bat defecations and bat urinations. It is not a pleasant subject, but it has to be addressed. I am very worried, because so many of our churches have been closed for so long during the pandemic—just what extra damage has been done during this period?
Again, I do not speak as a scaremonger; I am a long-standing member of the Church Monuments Society, vice-president of the Ecclesiological Society and have been warden of three churches for a total of 36 years. Like my noble friend Earl Shrewsbury when it came to shooting, I know a little bit about the subject of which I am talking. It is something that, in an Environment Bill, should be brought to your Lordships’ attention. I ask my noble friend the Minister one particular favour: perhaps the greatest expert on this subject is Professor Jean Wilson, former president of the Church Monuments Society, and I would be very grateful if my noble friend would allow me to bring her to meet him so that she can give him graphic examples and discuss this.
There are ways and means of diverting bats from churches, such as building special bat roosts or emitting certain sounds that will drive them out. There are a whole range of things that can be done. Some are being done at the moment, but this is an urgent problem. An Environment Bill passing into law which did not recognise heritage or recognise some of the glories of built heritage would be an inferior Bill. I do not question for a moment my noble friend’s interest in these things and his concerns about them, but none of us can be experts on everything, and a meeting with Professor Wilson might be extremely helpful to him. Government must have the opportunity to balance things.
I have great sympathy with many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who spoke, as he always does, with calm and quiet authority. However, from a very brief conversation that I had with him, when I told him that I would introduce this subject this afternoon, I got the impression that it was something that he had not necessarily given a great deal of thought to. I do not criticise him for that at all. He is one of the greatest experts that we have in your Lordships’ House, and we are exceptionally fortunate to have him—but this is something that I am glad to draw to his attention, and I hope that he will appreciate the fact that I am doing so. We ought to have a post-Covid survey of our churches, we ought to see how much this damage has increased, and we ought to make it a real object of Natural England and English Heritage to try to come together to address this, because much is at stake.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Cormack. I can immediately make him an offer: once full service is resumed, as I hope it will be soon, I will entertain him and Professor Wilson, and I could bring along someone from the Bat Conservation Trust to show that there is a middle way here. I do not know whether he was in his place during that last debate, when I explained my interest as a trustee of the Bat Conservation Trust. I recognise his genuine concerns, but at some stage we could probably have a good discussion over a cup of coffee and a sticky bun.
I added my name to Amendment 256 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who said everything I need to say, really—I support his sentiments entirely. I also express my concerns about Clause 106 standing part. I do not see it, as my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe does, being in any way a Brexit-related matter, just one of making sure that we in this country can have the best conservation and protection for our natural environment and species. Whether that was afforded in the EU, I do not know. I have not always been the greatest fan of some of its regulations, not so much because of the regulations themselves but because of the way in which they were implemented. The Bill is a fantastic chance for us to get ahead of our European neighbours on this.
I also completely endorse the views and sentiments of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, on the Swanscombe proposals. I brought up this matter in your Lordships’ House a while ago and we need to take it very seriously, because it is a prime example of something that maybe does not immediately look like the most appealing of natural environments but actually has the most marvellous biodiversity. Once it is gone, it is gone—and what for? A theme park. Is that really how we want to look after our nature?
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend, and I pay tribute to his work as a trustee of the Bat Conservation Trust. I press my noble friend the Minister to respond to the concerns I raised in the debate on the Amendment 234 group and ask for his confirmation that a greater balance will be achieved between the interests of bats and humans in the context of the closure of St Hilda’s Church at Ellerburn. It is extremely important that the parishioners of that and other churches know that their interests will not be subordinated to those of bats.
I associate myself with the amendments in the name of my noble friend the Duke of Montrose and the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and his co-signees, which proposes that Clause 106 do not stand part. I associate myself with all the comments made by my noble friend the Duke of Montrose on his amendment. I need say nothing more than that I support and applaud the idea, set out in his amendments, of achieving sustainable development and a balance between different uses. In particular, I support the words of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, in support of farming and the rural economy, and I hope that this group of amendments will place on record our desire that a balance be achieved.
In addition to my question about bats in the belfry in the context of St Hilda’s Church at Ellerburn, I press my noble friend the Minister to confirm the reason for the urgency for Clause 106. I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, that it was added at quite short notice and without any consultation, which is always slightly worrying. Can the Minister confirm—my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe hit the nail on the head—that this is, to a certain extent, a consequence of the EU directive on habitats being retained in UK law? Paragraph 955 on page 118 of the Explanatory Notes, which my noble friend the Minister is always keen that we read—I am one step ahead of him in this regard—says:
“The national site network of European sites provides protection for habitats designated for a particular purpose and supports delivery of international and domestic biodiversity objectives.”
I imagine that one of the main thrusts of Clause 106 is to ensure that that list is kept under review—by granting the Government the power to keep it under review—now that we have left the European Union. I urge my noble friend the Minister to continue to obtain a balance between the uses and the different interests that will be exercised in this regard.
How will the habitats regulations be applied when it comes to the planning Bill, which is coming before the House in short order?
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, we on these Benches support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, to which I added my name. He is right to raise the concerns that a number of us have about the intentions of the Government in removing the protections on our most valuable ecological sites and habitats. He mentioned some species that are very important to him; for me it is about the bitterns and nightingales. The Government are proposing, as the noble Lord rightly said, to change the present situation, where there has to be overriding public interest to remove protections for particular sites, to one in which, basically, local authorities have to satisfy the needs of the Bill and meet overall targets for improving nature.
They are asking them to do all that on trust, and as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, rightly said, the Government’s amendment says that the Secretary of State will decide whether there has been a reduction of those protections. There is no guarantee of consultation with independent experts. I hope the Minister will answer the direct question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on that point: will the Government guarantee to consult the independent experts? Without that, we must query their intentions.
There is a slightly broader point about consultation, one which the noble Earl, Lord Devon, raised. The current system works very well when there is proper consultation among all interested stakeholders in a given area, including the businesses, environmentalists and local action groups. It might work well in the Exe estuary; it certainly works well with us in the Thames basin, with the heath development framework. My local authority is working on that with 11 other local authorities, and we have managed to operate within the existing framework of the habitats directive. Meanwhile in Surrey—a heavily developed area—we are building the homes that are needed while protecting our most special ecological sites. The current consultation system is working, so there is no way we should give that up for a system in which there is no guarantee of consultation in future.
Secondly, on the point that the Government are asking us to take all this on trust, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said that there is no impact assessment. Surprise, surprise: that is because there was no consultation and it was introduced at Report in the Commons. There is no impact assessment, but there have been multiple reviews of the legislation on the habitats directive and all of them said it should be improved, not revoked. That consultation has involved businesses as well as environmental NGOs and other stakeholders. It is a shame that the Government have not introduced the improvements asked for by those interested parties over the years, rather than going for the nuclear option of suddenly throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Thirdly, I come to what worries me most about the Government asking us to take this on trust. We have had debates about why they will not include in the Bill the state of nature targets for species abundance, and they said it was because at the moment, they cannot work out the metrics: they do not have the metrics in place and must work out what those targets are. If they must work them out, why do they think it is okay to get rid of the existing system, when we do not have those robust metrics in place? We should not be removing something that is delivering protection for our most valuable ecological sites and allowing developments in hotspots such as Surrey, if we do not have the metrics to prove that we can move from a system that is working to another which may be what the Government want, but for which we do not have the metrics.
The Government are asking us to take too much on trust at this stage. It makes me think that this is really more cover for future changes in the proposed planning Bill, through which they will sweep away protections for particular sites to allow more development in these new zoned areas. I accept that we have left Europe and we need to move ahead. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said that we need to move ahead independently. I do not care whether it is independently or not; I want us to move ahead so that we better protect our environment and, at the same time, build the affordable houses we need. The existing system is working and the Government need to provide some very good answers if they are to persuade the House that it should be swept away and replaced by something unproven and not clearly argued.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, we support Amendments 255, 256 and 257AA in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and others, which allow the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 to be amended to further new objectives in addition to, rather than in place of, existing ones. Government amendments to the Bill were, disappointingly, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said in his introduction, brought in without consultation. They introduced new Clauses 105 and 106, providing powers for the Secretary of State to amend the habitats regulations. We agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, that taking things on trust is simply not good enough in legislation. This Government may say, “Yes, you can trust us”, but who knows what the future holds?
We have heard that Clause 105 allows Ministers, as, as the noble, Lord Krebs, said, to swap the duty on public authorities to satisfy the requirements of the nature directives with a duty to satisfy the requirements of the Bill’s targets and environmental improvement plans. However, the new objectives are simply not a substitute for those of the nature directives. They serve an entirely different purpose. as noble Lords have said. The Bill’s targets aim to ensure overall national improvement across the natural environment.
To satisfy the expected Environment Bill requirements, habitats and species in general need to be increasing. By contrast, the nature directive is all about protecting particular habitats and species and specific sites and populations. They form the first line of defence for some of our most precious habitats and species, and any powers to amend them must be designed and considered very carefully to avoid unintended consequences. Any protections must be maintained and built on, not undermined.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank all Peers for their contributions to this debate, and I share the strong feeling in this House that we need to protect our precious species and habitats, and ensure that our laws and regulations enable us to do that. This Bill creates a new ambitious domestic framework for nature. We have brought forward a suite of legally binding targets, including two for biodiversity, put environmental improvement plans on a statutory footing and created a range of powerful new policy levers, including biodiversity net gain. The Government’s intention is to capitalise on this new framework and, to enable us to do so, we must be able to update our conservation laws. So it is right that those laws should be updated to meet our new heightened ambition for nature restoration in this country, even while we must be clear—as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, emphasised— that whatever changes are brought in do not reduce existing protections for our most vulnerable sites and species.
Earlier in Committee, I brought forward a new clause to require the Government to set a further legally binding target aiming to halt the decline of nature. Ensuring that our protected sites can be restored to good condition to provide a safe haven for our most vulnerable habitats and species is a key part of this. That is why we are introducing a power to amend Part 6 of the habitats regulations. The twin climate and biodiversity crises present long-term challenges that threaten our future if left unchecked, so we need to ensure that we have the means to act, if we need to, to adapt some of our principal nature conservation rules to address these pressures.
The Government want to see a more nature-rich Britain, with a fit-for-purpose regulatory framework that drives the delivery of our ambition and reverses the decline of nature. A Green Paper in autumn this year will seek views on any proposed changes within the context of the Government’s approach to nature recovery. The paper will be informed by the habitats regulations assessment working group, led by my colleague, my noble friend Lord Benyon. Stakeholders will have the opportunity to influence how we can improve our wildlife laws to deliver on these ambitions. Noble Lords will know that the clause includes a number of safeguards that are designed to retain our existing protections. I will set them out here, as it is important to demonstrate that the Government do not treat this casually.
The power to amend Regulation 9 cannot be used before 1 February 2023, after the Government have set our biodiversity targets and reviewed the environmental improvement plan. In addition, Ministers will have to be satisfied and explain to Parliament that any change would not reduce our existing environmental protections, and Parliament will have a vote on any use of the powers. In addition, Ministers must consult before the powers are used. We have committed to consulting with the OEP, in particular, before these powers are used. Moreover, we will of course ensure that consultation on any proposals is comprehensive and appropriate to deliver our environmental ambitions.
In response to Amendment 257AA in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, I stress that the test that the Secretary of State must “be satisfied” that protections are not reduced is a high bar. It requires certainty on his part that there have been no reductions in protections from the existing habitats regulations. The Secretary of State will also have to demonstrate this by making a statement to this House and subjecting that statement to scrutiny. If the judgment of the Secretary of State is proven, or even thought, to be wrong, it can subsequently be challenged in court.
Looking slightly more widely, I will also address the noble Lord’s Amendments 255 and 256. I hope I have demonstrated that we want to enhance the regulatory framework to improve outcomes for nature in this country. I understand the concern that this power might substitute the protections offered by the directives with more general requirements. However, it is designed to allow requirements to specify particular protections for habitats and species. For example, we could require specific species to be strictly protected to ensure delivery of our new species abundance target. It will also provide greater clarity for public authorities on the precise requirements they are required to meet. These amendments would not allow us to reconsider existing requirements in the directives. This would deprive us of the scope potentially to clarify or improve the requirements and would therefore remove the opportunity to tailor and improve the existing legislative framework to support our domestic ambitions and international obligations.
To address some of the points raised by my noble friend Lady McIntosh, the UK, probably more than any other country, is playing a central role in reversing biodiversity loss—for example, in negotiating the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, which commits world leaders to urgent action by 2030, and goes far beyond that. I encourage anyone who has not read it to do so; it is a very ambitious document, to which 86 countries have signed up so far.
At home, we are committed to protecting 30% of our land for nature and have come forward with a duty to set a legally binding target on species abundance, which we have already discussed in Committee. We are also publishing a Green Paper later this year, which will provide the first opportunity in a generation to draw together the evidence for change to update and modernise our current patchwork of wildlife legislation, which has been developed in a somewhat piecemeal manner over many decades. We can then build a coherent system of protection to ensure that our most precious habitats and species thrive across England. But time is critical. Where the evidence is clear that amending the regulations could improve the natural environment and make the processes clearer and more legally certain to help improve the condition of our sites, we will have the means of doing so.
In response to a question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, we will provide a full impact assessment of any regulations made under the powers, when bringing them forward, in line with the approach taken to delegated powers across the Bill. My understanding is that we cannot use those powers until the metrics are in place and the targets have been set.
In response to a number of noble Lords and as I mentioned earlier, the Secretary of State has asked my noble friend Lord Benyon to form a small informal group to oversee consideration of how the habitats directive amendments proposed in the Bill, in relation to these regulations, might be progressed. This thinking will feed into the Green Paper planned for autumn this year. If the evidence suggests that amending the regulations can help improve the condition of our sites and contribute to our 2030 ambition, we will have the means to do so swiftly.
I add one further point to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. Her compelling speech described the habitats directive as having worked, but the reality is that it has not. We have experienced a dramatic collapse in our biodiversity over recent years and decades, despite the rules that are in place. It is wrong to hold them up as some kind of gold standard. That is not to say they are without value; they have been an extraordinarily important framework that, I suspect, has prevented even more damage being done to our nature and biodiversity, but it would be wrong if the extent of our ambition were to end with the status quo, which is not delivered. I reiterate to noble Lords my assurance that the Government will not do anything to undermine existing protections and will take a measured, inclusive and consultative approach to reform. In light of this, I beg that Clause 106 stands part of the Bill.
I recognise the importance of the proposal of my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, in his Amendments 257A and 257B, to encourage sustainable development and betterment. Our farmers play an enormously important role as custodians of our natural environment—a point made well by the noble Earl, Lord Devon. They play an enormously important role and their contribution will be critical to delivering nature recovery. Nature recovery and our ambitions will not be possible without them. It is not a choice of farmers versus nature, farmers versus biodiversity or farming versus beauty. As is already happening all over the country, we have to find a way to reconcile these ambitions. We are already working on guidance to support our ambition of modernising on-farm infrastructure, a vital part of the agricultural transition to improve productivity and efficiency, and to protect the environment.
Clause 105 offers the opportunity to ensure legacy EU legislation can protect and enhance our natural environment as effectively as possible. The Green Paper, which will be published later this year, will provide an opportunity to explore these issues further. I welcome discussion with noble Lords and stakeholders as part of this.
I hope I understood the question from my noble friend the Duke of Montrose. He asked me to reconfirm that the UK will adhere to those international agreements to which we have signed up. If that is what he asked, I would be happy to do so, as any of my colleagues would.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
I have received two requests to speak after the Minister, from the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I was not intending to speak to this group of amendments, especially as I was keen to keep the Minister sweet for my tree amendments in the next group, but I have become increasingly worried and suspicious. I support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and want to ask the Minister about the Government’s intentions.
Why the Government would want to put their head into this particular lions’ den mystifies me. Why were the clauses to weaken the habitat regulations introduced without consultation, late in the day in May? The habitat regulations, with protections for SACs and SPAs, are one of the jewels in the crown of EU environmental legislation. Even for Brexiteers there are such things, one of them being the habitats regulations. They give protection for the very small number of the most important priority sites and species, and there are only about 900 across the whole four nations of the UK. Quite a lot of them are in Scotland and out to sea, so it is not as if you would be falling over SPAs and SACs on every street corner and being prevented from doing anything as a result. We know that their protections are much valued by the public. They are also a bit of a coup for the UK. The UK led on negotiating these protections into EU law originally. It was the Prime Minister’s dad who played a substantial role in that, so threatening the habitats regulations is tantamount to a declaration of war. Why would the Government invite this sort of conflict? That is what is worrying me.
Clause 105 says that there will be no diminution of the habitats regulations’ requirements, but the judgment on this is left to the Minister, and, although he will consult and bring proposals to Parliament, he will to some extent mark his own homework—so noble Lords can see why I am suspicious. Speeches like that of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, stir up that suspicion even further. The government proposals could quite easily be set alongside and be complementary to the habitats regulations’ requirements. The requirement to meet the Environment Bill targets and the environmental improvement plan targets could be additional and not instead of the habitats regulations’ requirements. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, very clearly pointed out that they are not the same requirements.
In fact, of the targets that we discussed earlier in Committee, the one that the Government are prepared to move on is on species abundance, which is about species numbers, rather than habitats or sites. So the habitats regulations’ protection for these most important habitats and sites is still required. Why do the Government want to junk one of the decent pieces of EU legislation? Is it simply because it is a European law? Is the Minister being forced into sweeping the ground for a set of planning proposals that have not been seen across government yet, let alone by your Lordships or the public?
In these circumstances, Clause 106 ought to be deleted from the Bill—it is a pig in a poke, and we do not know enough about what is going to come in its wake. Above all, I would like to hear from the Minister why the Government are stepping into this maelstrom—because it will be one—and how the changes that they plan to make could be made more transparent so that your Lordships could be enabled to decide whether or not to be suspicious. I would also like to hear why we cannot have what the Minister is proposing as an addition to the existing habitats regulations’ requirements, rather than instead of them.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I am sorry that I have raised the noble Baroness’s suspicions. I have described the safeguards that are in place, and I will not repeat them because she will have heard what I said. It is wrong to imply, as I think she did, that we are scrapping the habitats directive or that it is deemed to have no value by government—that is not the case, and I hope that I made that clear in my speech. However, it is equally wrong to pretend that it is unimprovable; clearly, it is improvable and clearly we need a better or improved set of rules to deliver on the ambition that we have set ourselves. The facts make that unarguable.
However, I will go further and say that describing what the Government are doing as a “declaration of war” against nature is very hard to reconcile with an Environment Bill that has unprecedented targets. I challenge the noble Baroness to find any other country with ambitions that come even close to those that we are setting out here in relation to peat, water, waste, species, tree planting, et cetera. I challenge her to find any other country that has as ambitious an approach in relation to land-use subsidies. Indeed, I can tell her that we are the only country to have attempted, let alone achieved, the transition from the kinds of subsidies that dominate worldwide to the subsidy system that we are replacing them with, based on the condition of the delivery of public goods. Through the Bill, we are the only country to legislate to clean up our international footprint. I believe that we are introducing a world first in net gain. I could go on with many other examples. The idea that the Bill represents a declaration of war on nature is frankly absurd.
The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]
I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for expressing concern for the rural economy and farming, but the only question is whether, without this amendment, it is a continuing commitment. It was interesting to hear him thread together his arguments about the habitats directive and how it is safeguarded under the Bill.
I asked about the position on permitted development rights for farmers—perhaps he would like to write to me.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I apologise to the noble Duke if I did not answer all his questions. I will scan Hansard and write to him to fill in any gaps that I left.
Lord Krebs (CB)
I thank all Peers for their contributions to this very interesting and well-informed debate, and I thank the Minister for his reply. I listened very carefully to what he said, and he certainly made some encouraging noises. He reiterated that the Government wish to ensure that we do not reduce existing protections and that we want to create a more nature-rich Britain. I understood, I hope correctly, that there will be some Green Paper consultation on changes to the habitats regulations and that, in making any changes, the Secretary of State will consult the office for environmental protection. The Minister did not mention the other bodies that I listed—Natural England and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee—but I hope that the Secretary of State will also consult them. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, he also confirmed that there would be some form of impact assessment related to any proposed changes.
In spite of that, having listened to what the noble Baroness, Lady of Young of Old Scone, just said, I think that a number of us are not totally convinced and wonder why, if the Government’s intentions are so genuinely for nature, they are not prepared to make some relatively modest changes to Clause 105 and, possibly, if not remove Clause 106, certainly change its wording to give us in the Bill the reassurance that the Minister is prepared to give us at the Dispatch Box.
I will also comment on a few points that were made by various contributors to the debate. Many Peers, including the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, my noble friend Lord Devon, the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Hayman of Ullock, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, spoke about the balance between the needs of nature and the needs of people. None of us doubts that there is a balance to be struck, and we do not know exactly what that balance is. But what we do know, without any question—I do not think anybody in this Chamber or elsewhere could deny it—is that, in the past, the balance has been in favour of human exploitation, wealth and economy, and against nature. Otherwise, if we have not got it wrong in the past, why are we living in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world? Whatever balance we seek, it must be a balance where the needle shifts from the past towards a position on the dial where nature is given higher priority. That is what I and many other Peers who have spoken in this debate and previous debates in Committee firmly believe. I think the Minister shares that belief.
The second point is about the combination of trust, consultation and non-regression. My noble friend Lady Boycott gave a compelling example of why we should not take things on trust—why we have to look at what is happening on the ground rather than honeyed words that we might hear. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, also referred to the Government’s commitment to non-regression, which the Minister did not actually repeat but I think he implied. It is not that we do not trust the Minister, but trust is something that has to be borne by future generations of Governments and many of us would like to see some tweaking of the Bill to underpin that trust.
The final point that came up in the debate, which the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, mentioned, was the question of whether this is really all about cutting red tape. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, gave us the impression that, in her view, there is a need to cut excessive bureaucracy that we have inherited from the European Union.
I will take away and reflect on what the Minister has said, but I end with one final comment, picking up on something that the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, about the biodiversity metric. Yesterday, I read a very powerful criticism of the biodiversity metric by Professor Katherine Willis, a member of the Natural Capital Committee until it was disbanded. She argues that the metric, as currently developed by Defra and Natural England, is absolutely not fit for purpose. Among the many other meetings that he is now committing himself to, is the Minister prepared to meet me, Professor Willis and perhaps some other interested Members of this House to review these criticisms of the biodiversity metric and, perhaps at the same time, to discuss any changes in wording to Clauses 105 and 106? In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for new Clause (Environmental targets: species abundance).
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 257E. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Clause 108: Local highway authorities in England to consult before felling street trees
Amendment 257E
Lord Kerslake
“(2A) Before giving any guidance, the Secretary of State must undertake detailed consultation on the impact of the guidance with local authorities.”
Lord Kerslake (CB) [V]
My Lords, I first declare my interest as the recently stood-down president of the Local Government Association. My other interests are as listed in the register. I take this opportunity to apologise that a technical problem prevented me from speaking to my Amendment 201D last week. I plan to return to this on Report.
I shall speak today to two amendments in my name. Amendments 257E and 257F seek to require the Secretary of State to understand the impact of the new duty of consult residents on the felling of street trees on councils before the duty is set out in guidance and to allow a local highways authority to create a local exemption to the duty to consult. I am very conscious that I am tabling these amendments remotely from the city of Sheffield where the origins of Clause 108 probably lie. Although not directly involved, my family home is some 15 minutes’ walk from where some of the most contentious issues arose. Suffice it to say that the tree-felling debacle in Sheffield has been a particularly unhappy episode in the life of the city. I hope that the new Labour and Green Party administration can finally lay this issue to rest.
I can therefore well understand the desire to bring in greater requirements on councils to consult before trees are felled. However, I am concerned that, in addressing an issue particularly related to the actions of one council, we do not inadvertently create a whole set of other problems for other councils. Local authorities are responsible for the management of many thousands of trees, so this will not be a small issue. Councils generally work hard to protect and maintain the natural environment, including urban trees. That is why a lot of councils have set out their long-term vision for trees and are seeking ways to increase tree-planting, for example by working with local volunteer groups to promote trees and woodlands.
Tree preservation orders provide an established route for protecting trees as part of the local environment. Trees in conservation areas also benefit from protection in law. However, decisions on the felling of trees should ultimately remain a matter of local determination. There is a risk that the new duty will be bureaucratic, and a lot of care must be taken that it does not clash with the existing duties—for example, the statutory duty to consult if street trees are to be removed as part of a housing development.
As a whole, this Bill relies significantly on secondary legislation. We have seen quite a bit of detail on proposals to be enacted by regulation in other areas such as waste, but less in this case. My amendment would require the Government to consult fully with local government and others on the impact of the guidance before it is taken forward. It may be that the Minister can provide greater assurance today on this issue, which would make such an amendment unnecessary. I do not of course intend to push my amendment to a Division. However, it is an important issue: when we put forward legislation, we should have a clear understanding of how it will impact on individual areas up and down the country.
My second amendment, Amendment 257F, would allow local authorities to set exemptions locally, in addition to the reasons for exemptions set out in the Bill. Councils must have a workable set of exemptions, so that they can protect the public from harm and act quickly to prevent the spread of pests and diseases. I am concerned that the areas for exemption on the face of the Bill may be too narrowly defined and again have unintended consequences in their implementation.
These are two practical amendments about the delivery of policy that do not challenge the intent. I beg to move.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]
My Lords, this is the tree group of amendments: we seem to have quite a large number of them clustered together. I declare my interest as chairman of the Woodland Trust.
My Amendment 258 would give protection to ancient woodland equivalent to that already provided for sites of special scientific interest. Ancient woodlands are at least 400 years old. By their very age, they are one of our most rich and complex communities of biodiversity, both above the ground and below in the soils and mycorrhizal communities. Many of them are also historically and socially important. They have the added value, these days, of continuing to sequester carbon every year that they continue in place. They are known as the cathedrals of the natural world. They are irreplaceable—if you plant a new wood, it will not be an ancient woodland for 400 years at least—yet over 1,200 ancient woodlands across the UK are currently under threat from development: mostly housing, roads and railways. Over the last 20 years, nearly 1,000 ancient woodlands have been permanently lost or damaged. Many of the remaining fragments are small and incredibly vulnerable to pressures from surrounding land or the built environment. They are often much loved, and trampled excessively out of love by dog walkers. They are damaged by fly-tippers and subject to drift from agricultural operations. They currently have inadequate protection, hence the 1,200 currently on the threat list.
Planners and developers are warned away from developing on ancient woodland in the National Planning Policy Framework, except in “wholly exceptional” circumstances. But the NPPF is not always observed and does not apply to major infrastructure projects—and who knows what will happen to the NPPF under planning reform? Developers and planners are supposed to consult the ancient woodland inventory in order to avoid trashing ancient woodland through their development. They can see where there is ancient woodland and try to avoid it. However, the inventory is pretty out of date, it was always geographically patchy, and it does not list a large number of small sites. Very late in the day, it is now slowly being updated.
My amendment seeks to use a well-known, long-standing and comparatively easy and effective model, the system used for protecting sites of special scientific interest, to protect ancient woodland. Planners and developers have been working with SSSI rules for 70 years. SSSI status was part of the post-war settlement introduced in 1949. It is a well-known process, so we would not be inventing new bureaucracy, simply adding gently to existing regulations. I am not saying by my proposal that ancient woodlands should meet the biodiversity standards outlined in SSSI regulations, but that all ancient woodlands entered on the ancient woodland inventory would be protected from development, would be monitored in respect of their condition and would be required to be managed to reach and maintain ecological status, under the same processes that are in place for SSSIs.
I hope the Minister will seek to assure me that the England trees action plan has lots in it to help protect ancient woodland by bringing in measures to support long-established woods—woods established before 1840—for example by bringing in schemes to increase buffering around the smaller fragments, and by the removal of inappropriate conifer overplanting on ancient woodland sites. We may see targets for ancient woodlands, but there is nothing quite like statutory protection on existing highly threatened sites, and it could be so simply achieved by my amendment to stop the rot. Otherwise, our children and their children will judge us harshly for our record of destruction of these very English cathedrals of the natural world. SSSIs were an iconic part of the post-war settlement. Let us have ancient woodland protection as an iconic part of the post-Covid settlement.
I turn to my Amendment 259 on a biosecurity standard when planting trees using public money. Tree disease resulting from importing seeds, young plants, and more mature stock from abroad has been disastrous for the health and existence of our woodlands, their biodiversity and our landscapes. There is now a pest or disease for virtually every species of native tree. Many noble Lords will remember Dutch elm disease and how dramatically it changed the nature of our landscapes. We now have oak diseases, oak processionary moth, and, of course, with ash dieback we will lose millions of ash trees and change the face of the countryside and its wildlife dramatically. The incidence of new pathogens entering the UK mirrors exactly the rise in plant imports.
Amendment 259 would require the Government to draw up and implement a biosecurity standard which would apply to all planting of trees and shrubs by Governments, their agencies and contractors. The standard would include a provision that all native tree stock would be “sourced from UK growers” and be certified as having been grown within the UK for its entire life. At the moment, stock moves backwards and forwards between the UK and Europe for stages of its rearing, with all the risks of tree disease importation. The amendment would be good for woods, trees, nature and landscapes, and would represent a major opportunity for job creation in an expanded UK tree nursery industry.
The Woodland Trust’s UK and Ireland sourced and grown assurance standards will have produced 27 million home-grown trees between 2014 and 2024. More and more nurseries are taking part. We applaud the Government’s commitment to an exponential uplift in the number of trees planted, in the interests of climate change and biodiversity, and major taxpayer money is going to be invested. So there is no time to lose. We need more than a voluntary scheme; we need a statutory basis for the standard. We need a clear future estimate of the number of trees required, so that nursery businesses can grow in the UK and get on with confidence to develop a UK-based capacity to meet the demand for safe trees.
My Amendment 260 places a duty on the Government to prepare, maintain and report on a tree strategy for England and to produce targets for the protection, restoration an expansion of trees in woodlands in England. I welcomed the Government’s recent England trees action plan, which is, to all intents and purposes, a tree strategy. But it is non-statutory and, as we all know, Governments come and go and Ministers come and go. I hope that the Government are going to be consulting on tree targets of the sort I have touched on. So, if there is to be a tree action plan and tree targets, why not just make them statutory? Can the Minister tell us why he is not keen on a statutory basis for these two issues?
I support Amendment 260A in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, to which I have put my name. We will be planting 30,000 hectares of trees a year to meet our carbon and biodiversity targets. This will be severely compromised if damage, not just by disease, but by deer in particular, is not reduced to below its current level. The standard proposed would need to be based on clear evidence on tree losses following proper assessment and to be set in a framework of landscape-scale deer management plans across multiple owners. As the noble Earl will no doubt say, part of the current problem is landowners who do not undertake control and who could wreck the efforts of others around them to control damaging pests such as deer. I therefore hope that he receives support for his amendment.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, who spoke with her typical authority and strong logic. I declare my interests as set out in the register, particularly those in respect of agriculture and as chair of UK Squirrel Accord, of which more later.
I shall speak to Amendment 260A, which stands in my name, and Amendment 259 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. One plank of this Bill is afforestation. We have heard much throughout the many days of debate on the Bill about the benefits of carbon capture and the biodiversity dividend of afforestation. It is worth recalling that the level of afforestation in the United Kingdom in 1919, just after the First World War, was just 5%. Today, it is 13%, but the 2021 EU factsheet on afforestation for the EU shows that it is 37% afforested. In his very good speech at Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington pointed out that it is important to balance food production with forestry on our limited land area, but I still feel that 13% is the wrong number and needs to go up significantly. I agree with many others who have said that over the course of our many days.
The problem is that simply planting trees is not enough. Amendment 260A is about the management of the main animal damage threats, while Amendment 259 is its biosecurity analogue. The squirrel problem is very simple in that grey squirrels ring-bark trees between the ages of about 10 and 40 and suck out the sap. This damages the trees and kills many of them. UK Squirrel Accord was formed five or six years ago to try to combat this at a UK level. It comprises the four Governments, their nature agencies, the main voluntary bodies and the main commercial sector bodies. There are 40 signatories overall. It seeks to co-ordinate not only communication among those bodies so that everybody knows what is going on but the use of science in controlling squirrels, and that science will of course be able to be used for the control of deer.
The key thing at the moment is the fertility control project, which is getting to the end of its third year at the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s main laboratories just outside York. The project will do exactly what it says on the tin, which is to control the fertility of grey squirrels and therefore shrink their numbers dramatically.
This year saw a very interesting piece of academic research by the Royal Forestry Society on the level of the problem that the grey squirrel poses to afforestation. It is called An Analysis of the Cost of Grey Squirrel Damage to Woodland. It is quite a lengthy report, and I shall not give your Lordships all the details, but 777 land managers were surveyed. They said clearly that the greatest threat to them in trying to grow woodland was the grey squirrel, and 56% of them said that they were experiencing damage quotients of between 35% and 100%, with only 14% feeling that the damage quotient was less than 5%. I should say in addition that the oak tree, which is one of the most iconic species for our country, is the greatest supporter of biodiversity, with some 2,000 species supported by oak trees.
The UK Squirrel Accord and its associated voluntary bodies are extremely worried about there being safe zones for squirrels because some people do nothing. The biggest problems we see in those safe zones are patrolled by Amendment 260A. First, if you have been in receipt of a grant or if you are a public body—this is a very big problem—you must comply with the animal damage protection standard. If you are somebody else, you will be encouraged to comply with it. Given those who are interested enough to participate in the UK Squirrel Accord, I think people will obey that, but I feel that some motorway and railway agencies in particular are doing nothing at the moment and therefore have a lot of safe harbours for the squirrel.
I will say a brief word on the cost of compliance. I congratulate the National Forest Company, which has employed volunteers to help with some of its control issues, greatly reducing any costs that may be involved. I believe there is a significant number of volunteers—the UK Squirrel Accord is very much in touch with them—who would assist with that and therefore help with the cost element.
I turn briefly to Amendment 259. I feel that the science will get there for Amendment 260A in the end, and we will have sufficient scientific weapons to be able to reduce the level of grey squirrels in the country so that it will be commercially possible to plant broadleaf trees in the south of England again. We will hear about that from later speakers. The difficulty is that the disease problems associated with importing trees, particularly pest problems such as the oak processionary moth, fill me with an appalling dread. Here I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said just a moment ago. It is important to be a bit like a Chinese doctor and act before some of these problems arise, and act very strongly indeed. Both these amendments are enabling provisions for afforestation. We will not get there without them.
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am very pleased to be able to follow the noble Earl. I declare an interest as an owner of a plantation on an ancient woodland site, mostly replanted in 1986. I reckon that my cumulative loss to squirrels is about 60%. There are areas of the wood where nothing has survived except the coppice regrowth, and a lot of that is damaged. I have been trying to control squirrels throughout that time. This is a really serious problem if we want to take trees seriously, particularly if we want them to be commercial. I therefore very much support Amendment 260A. It would be a really useful way to go, getting us all working together in the same direction.
Deer are important too. Those who know the border between Wiltshire and Dorset will know the troubles the RSPB has had in Garston Wood with the herd of fallow deer it had there. It got zero regeneration at the end of the day because there were just too many deer. It has now excluded them, which is not fun for the local farmers, but at least it solves the RSPB’s problem. However, generally we have to recognise our position in this ecosystem. We are very important as the top predators—the controller of what happens with herbivorous activity—and if we want particular species and kinds of things to grow, we must act on that responsibility.
We need to start to understand how regeneration is working around us. Oak regeneration does not seem to be happening at all, something that is echoed by other people in the south of England. I do not know what circumstances need to change to make the ecology right for that. These are things that, with a big ambition for forestry, we need to understand. We do not want to have to be for ever planting trees; we ought to be able to rely on a pattern of regeneration.
I am very much in favour of the direction of Amendment 259. We need to be quite strict about the diseases that we let into this country. We have a very limited degree of biodiversity when it comes to trees and shrubs; we have about 30 different ones, around one-tenth of what an ideal temperate woodland would have by way of variety—courtesy of the Ice Ages, mostly, and the opening of the Channel but also, subsequent to that, the effect that man has on restricting the natural movement of plant species. We need, as the Forestry Commission is setting out to do, to improve our genomic diversity within species as well as the number of species that we have.
While I do not at all resent the activities of the Romans and others in bringing across chestnuts, for instance, or the buddleia in my garden—a cousin to many that are spread over the south downs—I do not think additional biodiversity hurts us. We are a very impoverished ecosystem and should be able to stand some introductions—but not, please, diseases. We have seen the devastation caused by ash dieback around here in Eastbourne. With a limited ecosystem, each disease is a big hit, and we do not want to risk more of that because it will take a very long time before we have a more diverse forest population.
However, I am not convinced by Amendment 258. As I said, I own a plantation on an ancient woodland site, and an SSSI designation would be a disaster. There is so much needed to do to make it better. The point of an SSSI is that you pick on a bit of landscape that is as you wish it to be, and the focus is then on keeping it as it is and making it difficult for people to change it. A plantation on an ancient woodland site means a lot of restoration to do, and you do not need the level of bureaucracy that goes with being an SSSI. I would be happy to have something to give it greater protection against invasion by planners but not something that stops the woodland owner from making it a better wood.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this group on the subject of trees. As we know from the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the Woodland Trust, which I think she chairs, only some 7% of our woodland is in good condition. We have a very small percentage of cover—13%—as has been noted by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and ancient woodland covers roughly 2.5% of our area.
I have put my name to Amendments 260 and 283, but I shall start with some comments on Amendments 258 and 259 about ancient woodlands and SSSIs. I very much take the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in that SSSIs can be complicated areas involving many rules. One issue that we have not tackled in the Bill, and which appals me, is that—if I have this right—the target by which to get 75% of SSSIs in good condition is 2045. I am sure the Minister will put me right if I am wrong, but it is an atrocious statement of where we are and where we intend to be if that is the case. Having said that, I can say on behalf of my colleagues that we would very much welcome this sort of amendment, even if it were not drafted exactly as at present.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has withdrawn from this set of amendments, so I call the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard.
Viscount Trenchard (Con) [V]
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, that decisions on the felling of roadside trees should remain a matter for local determination, and I support Amendment 257E. It is right that the Secretary of State should have to consult extensively with local authorities before he issues guidance on a public consultation, as provided for in Clause 108, which adds a new section to the Highways Act 1980. There is a risk that the new duty will be too bureaucratic, and care should be taken to ensure that any guidance issued does not encourage that.
I also support the noble Lord in his Amendment 257F, which allows local authorities to decide which exemptions there should be to the new duty to consult before felling any roadside trees. Councils should be free to take quick action to protect the public from harm, including against the spread of pests and diseases. Councils do not always get these things right, however, and the Committee may remember the outcry when South Tyneside Council cut down six horse chestnut trees to prevent children gathering conkers in 2004. At the time, my noble friend Lord Callanan was MEP for the north-east, and he described the pruning as
“the nanny state gone mad.”
He said that:
“In years gone by people didn’t try to rule lives in quite the same way as this. I wonder if the council will follow this to its natural conclusion and cut down all the trees in South Tyneside so that children won’t hurt themselves climbing up them.”
I hope that any guidance issued by the Secretary of State with regard to the felling of trees would aim to discourage councils from taking such disproportionate action to prevent the citizen from each and every risk he undertakes when he passes his garden gate.
As for Amendment 258 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, I think it may be unnecessary, because ancient woodland sites worthy of protection are already included within the category of sites of special scientific interest. I cannot see any sufficient reason to create a separate category of land— ancient woodland—which, as the amendment is drafted, does not even need to be of special scientific interest to qualify for Natural England’s protection.
I am not sure that I can support Amendment 259, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I understand that they think that a policy of diversity and freedom of movement, as far as flora and fauna are concerned, could introduce unwanted tree diseases, but could it not equally prevent the importing of other tree species with genetic resistance to diseases? What would Capability Brown and Humphry Repton have achieved without the exotic cedar of Lebanon or the magnificent Wellingtonia? I confess that I am sceptical about whether the Secretary of State’s adoption of a “biosecurity standard” would actually have a positive impact on the natural environment.
I have some sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in her Amendment 260, because the tree strategy is perhaps too modest in its aim to raise England’s woodland cover from 10% to just 12% by 2050. The Conservative Party’s manifesto commitment was to plant 30,000 hectares of trees a year across the UK by 2025. It is therefore impossible to measure the extent to which the tree strategy meets the manifesto commitment, which sadly shows yet another instance where the devolved authorities will not, but should, co-operate together to agree on a single national tree strategy.
Sir William Worsley, chairman of the Forestry Commission, has said that it will work with the devolved Administrations to deliver a UK-wide step change in tree planting and establishment. I am not sure whether the England trees action plan is exactly the same as the proposed “Tree Strategy for England” from the noble Baroness, but given the number of statutory targets proposed in the Bill, the absence of one for trees seems to stand out. I look forward to hearing my noble friend the Minister’s views on this.
I also sympathise with Amendment 260A, in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, my noble friends Lord Colgrain and Lord Caithness, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young. However, I am not quite sure how the standard would actually work. As the Committee is aware, deer and grey squirrels, among other species, can cause great damage to young trees. I worry that the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, now before your Lordships’ House, may become a medium for increasing restrictions on the control and culling of animals that cause damage to young trees. Does my noble friend the Minister recognise that the entire countryside and farming community would applaud him if he and my noble friend Lord Benyon were to make the sensible decision to withdraw that Bill and use the available parliamentary time to better effect?
Lastly, I will comment on Amendment 283, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and others. First, its heading refers to the burning of peat, but the text of subsection (1) refers to the burning of vegetation on peatland. As has been pointed out, the two are very different. The prohibition of the rotational burning of heather is likely to increase the burning of peat because old, dry heather is very susceptible to uncontrolled wildfires in the summer months, which are much more likely to lead to the burning of peat. My experience of assisting my father in managing moorland in Angus, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, showed that the rotational burning of heather is hugely beneficial to biodiversity. Moorland where this is practised sustains much greater numbers of butterflies, caterpillars, hen harriers, golden plover, black game and short-eared owls, besides the obvious higher numbers of red grouse.
Could the Minister confirm his remark on 18 March, that the Government will
“continue to listen to the science and keep our policy and our minds open”?—[Official Report, 18/3/21; col. 529.]
In any event, I cannot support this amendment, which I think would have an effect that is the reverse of its mover’s intent.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard. I wish to speak to Amendments 259 and 260 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and to comment on Amendment 260A in the name of my noble friend Lord Kinnoull. I once again state my interests, as far as this debate is concerned, as a trustee of Clinton Devon Estates and chair of the Cawood group.
Much comment has already been made in this debate about tree health, including the deep concern about biosecurity and tree diseases and the need for a tree strategy. Given the Government’s ambition to plant 30,000 hectares of trees each year to improve tree cover and for climate change mitigation, and with the perilous state of tree health in Britain, the need for a tree strategy is undeniable. As has been said already, it was a tragedy when we lost our elm trees to Dutch elm disease; what a lovely tree the elm is. Our ash trees are now at risk from ash dieback, not to mention our larch. We have in our garden an ash tree that will have to be felled soon because it is infected. A recent forecast predicted that more than 90% of ash trees will be taken out by ash dieback. Most of our fence lines—our field divisions—in Northumberland are populated by ash trees; it is the most dominant species. Many are mapped as part of stewardship audits and are the homes of little owls, for example, and many other species, so their disappearance will be a disaster both visually and environmentally, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, mentioned.
Biosecurity is so important. We must reduce our dependence on imported tree stock. As the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, said, this does not mean that we need to ban imported trees completely, but a biosecurity plan would be able to identify the tree species that we could safely import. Outside the European Union, we can grow our own and in doing so support the rural economy. The Government should see this as yet another important opportunity.
The tree strategy should not only include our ambition to plant trees but incorporate the appropriate biosecurity measures and guidance on a species mix to minimise disease spread. I spent some time early last year in New Zealand, where large numbers of farms are being purchased and planted as part of a carbon offsetting scheme by global corporates. A lot of the planting has been indiscriminate, without due regard to soil type or carbon sequestration potential and without assessing the risk of disease. We must not make these mistakes. Identification of land quality in areas suitable for growing a specific mix of tree species to optimise long-term carbon sequestration is essential. To plant vast areas of land with tree cover—30,000 hectares a year, for example—to ease our climate change conscience and potentially become part of the carbon market without clear guidance on tree species and topography would be hugely irresponsible.
This strategy would help to reduce this risk and hopefully maximise the benefits: economic benefits; environmental benefits in terms of both carbon and biodiversity; and, importantly, public access benefits. The adequate protection of trees from a variety of predators is of course also essential, as suggested in Amendment 260A, and could be part of a tree strategy. I encourage the Minister to think about this very seriously indeed.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. I rise to commend the statements by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and her excellent moving of the amendments. She set out the case admirably. I also agree with what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and just now by the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle.
I strongly believe that ancient woodlands must be protected where possible since they cannot be created except through a process that takes 400 to 500 years. This means that all developments that would remove them or parts of them or damage them must be avoided, and only in very exceptional circumstances should an ancient woodland be harmed. There should be a presumption against all developments affecting them.
The suggestion by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, in Amendment 258 is ingenious and I have some sympathy with it. However, I am not certain that classifying every ancient woodland site—I think she mentioned 1,200 of them—that has been wooded since 1600 AD as an SSSI automatically is the right answer. As I understand it—I think the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, made this point—there is nothing to prevent any woodland being classified as an SSSI right now if it meets the current criteria. I would prefer to see ancient woodlands assessed individually and, if suitable, declared—each one on its merits—an SSSI. I must also say to the noble Baroness that I do not think that it is legally possible to mass nominate dozens or even hundreds of pieces of land and to do it en masse, whatever features are on them.
As someone on the board of Natural England who has to decide on new SSSIs or extensions to them, I can tell the House that it is an incredibly detailed and exacting procedure. Officials must produce reams and reams of scientific justification and strict legal protocols must be followed, with all affected landowners entitled to make representations and appeals. If over that two or three-year process we put one foot wrong, we are straight into judicial review territory, which I should say has never happened yet. There might be an argument for simplifying the procedure—we certainly need to do that in the case of declaring new national parks or AONBs—but, for the moment, we have to follow the current law. Thus, while the noble Baroness’s amendment is ingenious, it will not stand up.
On Amendment 259, I am 100% behind her. This is not a “little Englander” new clause. For tens of thousands of years, our native fauna have survived and developed in a habitat of native British flora. Putting it simply, we cannot have red squirrels unless we have the native woods producing the nuts, fruits and seeds they normally eat. The Back from the Brink project to recover 20 species from near extinction depends on native habitats. As colleagues will know, we face an increasing threat from diseases unwittingly imported along with plants sourced from abroad. Even if we step up biosecurity now that we have left the EU, there will still be an enormous risk of bringing in destructive bugs and diseases. Nearly every single disease or bug that has destroyed our UK trees has been imported. If Xylella fastidiosa—the most dangerous and lethal plant disease in the world—gets here, God help us. It can kill 595 different plant species in 85 different botanical families. Our countryside and all our gardens would become wastelands.
No matter how good port control might be, even if it is beefed up from the current inadequate levels, we cannot stop bugs and diseases coming in. Contractors will want to source the millions of trees and bushes needed for HS2 or Highways England road schemes from the cheapest suppliers. At the moment, they are the huge Dutch growers; that is where diseases will come in. This is why a requirement on acquiring plants from UK sources is so important. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, it will also be good business for UK nurseries, which can easily supply all that would be required in due course.
We have a huge range of UK native trees, and there is no excuse not to use them: noble Lords need only look at the Woodland Trust website to see the range of native species and all the animal, bird, butterfly and other species that depend on our native flora for survival.
Finally, I want to support Amendment 260A. We will never achieve a fraction of the new woodlands that we wish to create unless we deal with rabbits, which are no longer much of a problem, and grey squirrels and deer, which are. One day in 1990, the then Minister of Agriculture, John Gummer MP, asked me, as junior Minister, to go through the MAFF research budget and root any unnecessary or wasteful research. Among others, I found a £250,000 programme researching the effect of rabbits on new woodlands schemes, which the department was funding. There was also one on controlling rabbits, which had been on the go since the 1940s, and another that was also running at £250,000 per annum and was on something that I cannot recall. I called in officials and said, “Have you found that rabbits are eating the bark of new saplings and killing them?” They looked surprised and asked if I had seen the report’s preliminary findings. Remaining remarkably calm for me in the circumstances, I pointed out that I was a countryman and did not need to spend £250,000 to discover that rabbits eat the bark of young trees.
When I spoke to officials on rabbit control, they informed me that there had been a marvellous breakthrough in that contraceptive pills were now 100% effective if eaten by the rabbits—but they could not find any way to make the rabbits eat them. I said that we did not need to spend another £250,000 researching the effects of ferrets and shotguns on rabbit populations, which had been proven to work in the past. But the problem was—and I think still is—that the department, understandably, was looking for huggy, squeezy, nice ways to control rabbits, and we have the same attitudes today dealing with grey squirrels, the destructive American tree rats. I recommend that the Minister have a word with the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, who ran a highly successful programme to deal with grey squirrels in Northumberland. With proper funding, that should be replicated throughout the country.
We also need to eliminate the Chinese muntjac deer. They are not a native species, either, and the damage they do to our native flora is immense. I quoted that story about rabbits, but rabbits are not the main problem now: squirrels and deer are. The point is that for over 40 or 50 years we have been researching how to deal with rabbits and have not got the solution. I wonder how many years we have been researching dealing with grey squirrels. We cannot wait another 40 years until we find a solution. This proposed new clause cleverly does not state what the solution should be, but that there has to be an animal damage protection standard. That is a clever way to tackle the problem and I commend it.
To conclude the anecdote of the never-ending Ministry of Agriculture rabbit research programme, I told that story in 1998 to the new Minister, who is now the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who chuckled and said, “Don’t worry, David, we’re not so daft as to do that.” Two weeks later, he came steaming up to me and said, “You’ll not believe this, we’re still spending £700,000 on rabbit research”. Policies and Ministers change, but academic research goes on for ever. I am told that there has been an amazing scientific breakthrough in dealing with squirrels. The current research shows that contraceptive pills for grey squirrels, I can tell the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, are apparently 100% effective—but they still cannot get the squirrels to eat them. It will take 10 more years of research, the experts will no doubt advise the Minister to pay for. Omnia mutantur nihil interit: Everything changes but nothing is lost.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. Much of what I was going to say has already been said by more eminent voices than mine, and, given that I have the lead amendment in the final group this evening, I will cut my comments quite short. I support the efforts of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, to introduce a national tree strategy for England. If she does not achieve her national land-use strategy, this might very well be the next best thing. We need a consensus that is locally informed but nationally co-ordinated, so that all areas of England can grow the trees that their local topography, climate and land-use heritage recommend.
I am also fully supportive of the thoughtful Amendment 260A, which was well introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, regarding animal damage. There is simply no point in planting broad-leaf trees in the south-west of England on a commercial basis these days, as squirrels and deer execute them long before they become viable.
The Duke of Wellington (CB) [V]
My Lords, I support Amendment 259, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. It is tragic how many of our native trees have died and are dying from imported diseases. I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, will not mind me gently correcting him on one point. The giant sequoia tree—known in this country as the Wellingtonia—was imported from California many years after Capability Brown and Humphry Repton. I also support Amendment 260A, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and particularly the need, as has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, to try to find a way to control grey squirrels, who are certainly destructive of so many tree species in this country.
I now turn to Amendment 283 and wish to pose some questions. The amendment has been tabled by the much-respected noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I often agree with them on their amendments, but on this one I fear it is far too complex a matter to be solved simply by a ban on burning heather, bracken and other vegetation. I must make it clear that I have no interest to declare, other than that one of my children is trying in Scotland—which I think is outside the scope of this Bill—to regenerate heather in an area where there are no grouse and have not been for many decades. So far there, they have not burnt heather but are experimenting with cutting. Heather burning has become controversial, but it has been used for generations for moorland management and often in areas where there are no grouse.
I commend to noble Lords two papers that I have read recently. One is entitled “Experimental evidence for sustained carbon sequestration in fire-managed, peat moorlands”, published in Nature Geoscience in December 2018, and I quote from it:
“we quantify the effects of prescribed burning … and show that the impacts … are not as bad as is widely thought.”
The second paper I commend is the report of the Molland Moor project on Exmoor, where also there is no grouse interest. This study was co-ordinated by the Exmoor National Park Authority and brought together landowners, conservationists, farmers, ecologists and academics. The lessons learned from the project include:
“We can regenerate heather by burning on as large a scale as possible … We can control the Molinia and reduce the stands of bracken”.
The report comments that it is necessary to micromanage each small area, as there are so many variables. It continues:
“National policy makers must understand this. Molland Moor is hugely different”
from the moor next door.
In March, we debated the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021, which ban the burning without licence of heather on peat over 40 centimetres in depth, on sites of special scientific interest, in special areas of conservation and in special protection areas. In that debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, talked with local knowledge about terrible wildfires on Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, described a horrendous fire in Caithness and Sutherland in 2019. It burned for six days and emitted 700,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. I mention these fires as there is plenty of evidence that controlled burning in relatively small strips at the right time of year and in the right place creates, among other outcomes, firebreaks against wildfires. The risk of wildfires is greater on unmanaged moorland, as old heather becomes woody and tinder-dry. Wildfires do much more damage to peat and to the environment generally than controlled, limited burns, sometimes described as “cool burns”.
All I am saying, and I repeat that I have no direct interest, is that this is a complicated matter on which the science is still evolving. Therefore, to include a ban in the Bill would be inappropriate. I suggest to Ministers that they consider and gather more evidence. Clearly, there should be rules, and perhaps they should be in a future regulation, but such rules must recognise that no two areas of land are ever exactly the same. Of course, this general point may be one of the difficulties of the new environmental land management schemes.
In conclusion, I could not support Amendment 283, but I look forward to hearing the Minister’s view.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. I absolutely agree with him that no two pieces of land are exactly the same.
I support Amendment 260 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Jones, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, in particular proposed subsection (3) about the percentage of native woodland and the new native woodland that is achieved by natural regeneration.
I draw the Committee’s attention to the work of Professor Simard at the University of British Columbia. When she was 20, she was put to work on commercial forestry—the process of clear-cutting large areas of old-growth forest and planting individual seedlings, pine or birch, in neat and regimented rows. The thinking was that, without any competitors, trees would grow faster, taller and stronger. Instead, they were more frequently found to be vulnerable to disease and climatic stress than the older trees, which shared their patch of soil with other plants, mosses, firs and associated lifeforms. In particular, she studied the newly planted Douglas firs—great giants which provided valuable wood to the logging companies. Ten per cent of those plants invariably got sick and died whenever nearby aspen, paper birch and cottonwood were removed. Initially, when she was 20—she is now 60—she did not know why, because the trees had plenty of light and water, more than the old trees in the crowded forest. She worked through her life and in the end revealed and became the inventor of what is known as the “wood wide web”. The forest, she wrote, is like the internet, but instead of computers linked by radio waves, the trees are connected by fungi. There are centres and satellites, with the oldest trees as the biggest communication hubs. When the piece with her theory was published in Nature in 1997, it had that title of “Wood Wide Web”, and the name has stuck.
Once the underground pattern is understood, it is easy to see how seedlings can emerge in clear ground, because they have been nurtured underground by other trees, waiting for their moment to start growing. They are being fed by the mother trees—the central hub that the saplings and seedlings spring from—with threads of different fungal species, of different colours and weights, linking them layer upon layer in the strong and complex web. When the forest is cleared and the mother trees are cut down, the forests lose their way.
Professor Simard’s discoveries have kept coming, and she now finds that trees support each other in times of stress, drought or disease, and they can communicate needs and send supplies. Since Darwin, biologists have always maintained that survival is all about the selfish gene, doing anything to get ahead in the evolutionary race. But her work tosses that on its head.
We now understand that monocultures, whether of crops, trees or any plant species, are not healthy. My plea would be that in the tree strategy we understand that all new planted forests and woods must be of multiple trees. I absolutely agree with the noble Earl, Lord Devon, when he says we should start experimenting with trees, especially in the south of England, that will thrive in our newly warmed environment. But please do not let us spend all our tree-planting money on monocultures which end up leaving dead soil beneath that is not home to myriad mosses and animals and, in fact, ends up sequestering much less carbon than a mixed forest growth.
Lord Colgrain (Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register. I have pleasure in supporting my noble friend Lord Kinnoull on his Amendment 260A.
The Government are setting ambitious tree-planting targets in their various plans, which is to be lauded, but those targets in England are not only not being met but, frankly, are being missed by a mile. Partly, this is to do with the delay in providing the much sought-after grant details associated with ELMS. More importantly, in my view, it is to do with the two uncontrolled destroyers of trees: deer and grey squirrels. I know there is a body of opinion that views these two mistily as Bambi or Landseer’s “The Monarch of the Glen”, or Beatrix Potter’s Squirrel Nutkin. But the reality, I am sorry to say, is that these pests have assumed the characteristics of vermin and, between them, have made the planting of trees in many parts of England a completely uneconomic proposition.
There are now more deer in the wild in England than in the Middle Ages, and climate change will only help expand their number. By way of example, in west Kent, Knole Park had a very nice deer herd. The deer fences were completely obliterated in the hurricane of 1987, and those 600 deer became the foundation of the indigenous population of fallow deer in our part of Kent. I am sure the same has been true of many other deer parks. In answer to the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about SSSIs: a piece of council land that was adjacent, that was an SSSI, was also completely obliterated in that hurricane. The council has no money to replant that, and therefore it is never going to come back as the SSSI it once was. Looking forward to 2045, I do not think it is reasonable to assume it will, to be honest.
The grey squirrel population, not indigenous but an import gone feral, has exploded in number, to the detriment of the red squirrel, all bird life—eggs and chicks—and, most importantly, trees. Until the Government contribute to taking responsibility for its control, woodland owners, whether in the public or private sector, are being asked to put good money after bad. This amendment is intended to address this. The animal protection standard, as proposed, would ensure some accountability for public funds. It would ensure that land owned by the Government, local authorities, the Forestry Commission and agencies owning or operating public roads and railways would be obliged to undertake control against deer and grey squirrels. Given the parlous state of the public finances and, in particular, the demands being placed on the funds of local authorities, this amendment would necessitate proper commercial audit funds being invested in woodland, rather than have tree planting be a palliative feel-good factor.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Colgrain, and I add that deer are a problem in my part of Wiltshire. Unfortunately, they also eat my roses.
I am very glad to speak on the subject of trees, which make Britain so special, captured for eternity by John Constable and indeed by David Hockney. In my career at Defra, I legislated for and launched the farm woodland scheme, which encouraged the planting especially of native oak and beech trees on agricultural land, working with Natural England’s very professional predecessors. We also had a 33,000-hectare planting target for the Forestry Commission, which was quite forward looking, if one thinks about it.
Turning to the proposals before us, my impression is that local authorities and highways authorities are paying more and more attention to the need to conserve trees, so is there really a case for the heavy-handed and detailed regulation in Clause 109? There is a cost, not least to local authorities, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, that there should be consultation on any guidance. Assuming that there is a harm and that the case is made for new powers, I would be grateful for some idea from my noble friend the Minister of the caseload expected. How will the consultation take place? For example, will there be a paper notice on the tree or nearby lamp-post? Will there be any statutory consultees and how long will it take for approvals to be given? I would also welcome confirmation that the pruning of trees will not be affected and will indeed be encouraged. In my experience, councils do not keep up to date with this at all well. Indeed, I have personal experience of an overhanging tree that was missed two or three years ago, and which is causing a lot of trouble to adjoining houses, notably mine.
We also need to be aware that nature is not the only objective in road maintenance. The safety of pedestrians, cyclists and drivers is important too. The latest fashion for leaving roadsides uncut can be dangerous, certainly in the lanes around my home in Wiltshire. The lusty green growth on banks and hedges makes it tight for passing cars and can hide cyclists, causing accidents.
Turning to the important issue of cost-benefit, apparently the costs for the felling proposals total £81 million over 10 years if you top up the figures in annexe 41, on page 260 of the statement of impacts. I await a reply from officials as to whether it is right to tot them up in that way, but I think that the costs will be significant. Can we really justify this, or should we be finding a simpler way to deal with the problem of the cutting down of trees alongside housing?
Still on the subject of trees, I should add that I could not find an impact assessment on the forestry provisions in Clause 109 and Schedule 16, which are not being discussed. These appear to introduce very wide-ranging powers to regulate and perhaps ban imports of products such as beef, rubber or soya that might be associated with wide-scale conversion of forest. One obviously understands and supports the rationale for this—saving the rainforests—but it could have a huge impact on business and trade if done in the wrong way. The Bill’s impact assessment is of course out of date because it was prepared on 3 December 2019, and the Bill has not made as rapid progress as we would all have hoped. Is there a late addition on the forestry risk commodity proposals that could be shared with us before Report?
In closing, I recognise the significance of the Bill and my noble friend’s understandable wish to progress it, but there are many uncertainties for us to swallow because of the use of delegated powers. Even affirmative resolutions, favoured by my noble friend Lord Blencathra, do not allow amendment to a set of regulations in the light of parliamentary scrutiny, and it is very unusual for draft regulations to be withdrawn. That applies to the trees regulations as well as to several other sets.
That is why, on Wednesday, I shall be moving an amendment to sunset individual regulations after a five-year period to allow a review of such provisions in the light of a cost-benefit analysis. An amendment of this type might help to make some of us happier with the wide-ranging powers being taken here and the lack of clear plans showing how many of them will be deployed to deal with the sort of issues being raised in this group of amendments and elsewhere in the Bill.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB) [V]
I support Amendments 258 to 260 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. Amendment 258 would place ancient woodlands, which are clearly defined in the amendment, on an equal footing with sites of special scientific interest. The reason why it is so important to preserve ancient woodlands from the point of view of biodiversity, climate change, heritage and health of both nature and human beings has already been well spelt out, and I shall not repeat it. I shall add only that their significance is perhaps even greater than that of sites of special scientific interest; and the reasons put forward for why such sites need to be protected are perhaps even stronger in the case of ancient woodlands.
Amendment 259 requires the Government to implement a tree-planting standard that makes biosecurity an essential consideration—in particular, protecting our native trees from diseases coming from outside the UK. This welcome amendment relates to Amendment 31, on tree health, standing in my name and debated earlier in Committee. Amendment 31 stated:
“The Secretary of State must by regulations set targets in respect of trees, including targets on the overall health of tree populations, particularly in respect of native species, research into disease-resistant varieties, and progress in planting disease-resistant varieties.”
Sadly, as has been said many times this evening, the trees in this country are in a terrible state. A few years ago, as we know, the magnificent English elm, such a feature of our landscape when some of us were young, was completely wiped out by Dutch elm disease. Most recently, ash dieback has swept the whole country, from the east coast to the west coast, in just a few years, leaving a trail of thin, leafless branches. Our oaks are suffering from a blight, and so are our chestnuts.
The health of our trees must be a fundamental consideration in assessing the overall health of our environment. Ash dieback originated in Asia, where it has little impact on the local species, and has moved steadily west where, sadly, it has a deadly impact on native ash. Coming, I believe, from trees imported from Holland to East Anglia as recently as 2012, it has left a terrible trail, which breaks one’s heart to see, as I see it in west Wales.
In a highly globalised world, our native trees, like the human population, are increasingly vulnerable and susceptible to diseases, which may do little harm elsewhere but which are killers here. The need for tight biosecurity regulations and a clear standard of what is required is obvious. This requires an overall strategy, involving not just government but other public authorities, and the amendment sets that out clearly. I very strongly support it.
I also strongly support Amendment 260, which requires the Government to have a tree-planting strategy that contains targets for the protection, restoration and expansion of trees and woodland in England. This chimes in well, but in much more valuable detail, with an earlier amendment in my name, Amendment 12, on the planting of new trees. There I set out the reasons why we need to plant new trees—reasons mainly to do with climate change, which I shall not repeat here. The amendment before us requires the Government to have targets. Where I believe my earlier amendment has something to add to the present one is that that Amendment 12 said
“The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament, and publish, a statement containing information about progress towards meeting any targets set under subsection (3)(e) on an annual basis after any initial target is set (in addition to the requirements under section 5).”
Climate change is a threat of such urgency now that it is not adequate just to have targets. We need an annual report to Parliament on the progress being made to meet those targets, and this my earlier amendments sought to ensure. However, this present amendment is very welcome indeed because it sets out in detail what such a target should include, and I strongly support it.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]
It is a pleasure to follow the noble and right reverend Lord. I support the general message conveyed by most of the amendments in this group, but I single out for special mention Amendments 258 and 260 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and Amendment 260A in the name of my noble friend Lord Kinnoull.
Amendment 258 seeks to place ancient woodlands on an equal footing with sites of special scientific interest. I have to confess that it was not until I was introduced to them when I was sitting on the HS2 committee that I became truly aware of what ancient woodlands are and how much they contribute to the biodiversity of our countryside. However, that introduction made a very real impression on me, as the evidence drew my attention to what was being lost as ancient woodlands—fortunately in very small sections in my case—were being given up to make way for the railway: a matter that I know is of great concern to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I have taken a close interest in them ever since, whenever I can get out into the countryside.
As I have said on several previous occasions, ancient woodlands are not just about trees; they are, in short, havens of biodiversity of a kind that has been built up over centuries. It is all too easy to overlook what is going on at ground level. As the years go by, leaves fall, the ground lies undisturbed and a carpet is built up which gathers together a huge variety of wildlife within the soil and on its surface. There is much else above ground level, too, in the trees themselves, in that they provide food and shelter for other creatures. The older they are, the richer the habitat becomes. You cannot create, or indeed recreate, such an environment overnight, or even in a few decades. That is why we must redouble our efforts to preserve what remains of this part of our heritage as much as we can.
Of course, many sites of special scientific interest contain ancient woodlands. Indeed, in their case it is the woodlands themselves and the biodiversity that goes with them that justifies their listing in such sites. However, size matters when it comes to the listing of SSSIs and, indeed, the other elements of diversity. Many areas of ancient woodland are too small to justify that kind of listing. However, I wonder whether that is a reason for discarding the idea that they are entitled to special protection. It may be that to protect every single one of them in the kind of scheme that is referred to in this amendment goes a little too far, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, suggested. However, I would be very reluctant to rely simply on SSSIs as a means of protecting ancient woodlands. More needs to be done, which is why I support the thinking behind this amendment.
Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. He invariably has something interesting to say and, normally, when I find it is not interesting, it is about legal matters, but that is because I cannot understand what he is saying. That is my fault. I refer to my interests in the register, particularly in forestry. I begin by underlining my support for trees, tree planting and ancient woodlands for all the obvious, well-understood and generally accepted reasons.
I particularly underscore my support for the amendments of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, about pests and squirrels because, if they are not kept under control, tree planting is very difficult. I equally support his remarks and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, about stock and phytosanitary protection. It is important to point out that this is not simply a matter of having legislation in place—you need an Administration that can act when appropriate. While we were members of the EU, the phytosanitary rules would have enabled us to put stipulations in place about importing foreign stock if we were concerned about health. It did not happen because the relevant part of Defra did not do anything about it.
My focus this evening is on trees and forestry strategy, in particular the mechanics of delivering whatever detailed strategy may be put in place, rather than the ostensible purpose of the strategy itself. In many ways, this is more difficult to get right than working out the specific target to achieve. In the case of forestry, we are looking for a considerable increase in the area of the country’s land surface growing trees. Trees, however—this point was very well made by the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle—come in different types and configurations. They can be planted in large blocks, known as forests, in smaller parcels, normally known as woods, or individually. The issues they pose, as a number of speakers have said, are slightly different in urban and rural locations. These nuances need careful thought and to be built into the policy.
On top of this, increased tree planting impinges on other land uses and livelihoods either based directly on it or derived at arm’s length from it. For example, in the Lake District, which I know well, the visitor economy is dependent on the open fells. If such land is planted up, regardless of any other consideration, it may have a serious impact on other apparently superficially separate sectors of the economy. Similarly, obviously, most tree planting, which costs money, is likely to take place on land currently in agriculture. How is this migration going to be effected? Is it by making tree planting more attractive or farming less so? We know that traditional farming is facing a gloomy outlook, which is frightening many farming families. Perhaps we may see some development of the EU system of cross-compliance.
In this country, certainly since the town and country planning system came into place, rural Britain has been seen as what I might describe as the natural location for agricultural forestry. Now public policy appears to be concluding that we need less farming and more forestry in rural Britain; they are no longer as evenly balanced as they used to be. In the 18th and 19th centuries in England, the enclosure movement was precipitated by a change in farming practice responding to the increased demand for food brought about by the Industrial Revolution. These changes, which introduced a new economic and social dynamic into rural Britain, seem somewhat similar to those we are considering in this particular push for forestry and, probably more widely, in the approach to the environment.
The changes I have referred to caused, in turn, a real revolution in rural livelihoods, rural land use, rural communities and rural land ownership. That is widely recognised and understood. Are these things that the Government are happy to bring about, either as a result of these policies or as a necessary precondition of their policies achieving what they are setting out to do? In north-east Cumbria, small farmers who now see no future for their current activities are selling out to large forestry companies. Do the Government support this, do they think it is a bad development or are they more or less indifferent to it, considering it a matter solely for the invisible hand of the market?
It seems to me that the lesson of the enclosure movements, and then the system of town and country planning, is that changes in land use can have very far-reaching changes in rural Britain. These go far beyond the specific change itself. In this context, the question I pose to the Government is: in their policy for increased tree planting and forestry, do they consider the inherent and inevitable collateral consequences for the wider rural economy to be an integral part of tree and forestry strategy, meriting at least as much consideration as the planting of the trees themselves?
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, it is a challenge to follow a contribution as knowledgeable as that which we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood. I declare my interests as set out in the register, in particular as an owner of both ancient and not-so-ancient woodland. I will speak to Amendments 258, 259 and 260, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. While understanding their worthy intention, I oppose them, but I give my full support to Amendment 260A of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, as will become clear.
My reasons for opposing Amendments 258, 259 and 260 are as follows. With regard to Amendment 258, I agree with almost every word that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. There is much misunderstanding of the words “ancient woodland”. A great many woods listed as “ancient woodland” are not ancient at all, although they may occupy the site of a wood that once met that description.
In England, during the first half of the last century, many of these woods were clear-felled, principally due to the exigencies of war. After the Second World War, many farmers and landowners who were, like others, desperately short of cash, sold or leased their woods to the Forestry Commission, which then planted them according to the norms of the time, which often meant Corsican pine, spruce and similar species, without sufficient regard for their suitability or the location. Much of that woodland has been felled in its turn, and new trees, often native species, have been planted.
All I am saying is that we should be careful about how we envisage ancient woodlands. They are often anything but ancient and often distinctly commercial, so placing them on the same level as an SSSI is not always appropriate and could be distinctly counter- productive if they are to be managed commercially.
Amendment 259 is much more worthy of support, with its objective of preventing the importation of diseases, but I cannot accept a situation where native broad-leaved trees and shrubs are sourced only from UK growers and grown within the UK for their entire life. I will give two reasons. First, with our huge tree-planting ambitions—in particular in urban planting, where more mature trees are required—domestically sourced trees are unlikely to be able to fulfil this requirement for many years, as has already been said by the noble Earl, Lord Devon.
Secondly, surely science and gene editing will steadily improve the safety of imports? With the effects of climate change, we need to look at importing trees grown in more southerly climates, as mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard. Obviously, we need to stringently inspect and test such imports, but please do not forget that ash dieback was spread by wind, not soil.
I was hoping to hear from the proposers of Amendment 260 who would do all the work, and with what resources. Setting out the vision, objectives and policies is pretty simple, but that cannot be said of assembling the underlying information to see what targets are achieved. No doubt it is fine in the case of woodland and forestry owned by the Forestry Commission and other institutional owners such as the Woodland Trust, but think of the burden that this imposes on private owners without access to the generous taxpayer or charitable or institutional funding. Some of the information required may also be of dubious value. I hate to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, but there is a problem in proposed new subsection 3(c) on woodland creation achieved from natural regeneration. Where I live, the natural regeneration at present is almost exclusively ash, which is unlikely to survive Chalara.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
My Lords, it is very difficult to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, with his expertise and knowledge—much as previous speakers. I share his love of the Chilterns, not only because of the hanging beech woods, where I have often wandered around looking at the orchids, butterflies and other biodiversity, but because, about four generations ago, my family sold furniture that had been made from the beech in those Chiltern woods.
I speak, first, to Amendment 258. I was initially attracted to this because, as we have heard, the importance of ancient woodland is well understood. I was fascinated to hear the epiphany of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, following his excellent chairmanship of the HS2 committee—I am glad that something good has come out of HS2 for once—which was almost matched by the Damascene conversion of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, in his previous incarnation as a purveyor of peat. However, to me, this is about protection; whether it is a SSSI or ancient woodland, this is about whether we can protect them adequately.
As they say on news programmes, “While we’ve been on air,” though I think it was probably earlier today, I have discovered that 553 acres of privately owned woodland—I do not know if it is ancient woodland—is going to be taken, it is reported, by Center Parcs to open a new site. This area is, I think, a SSSI; it has Schedule 1 breeding birds such as honey buzzard, goshawk, firecrest, hobby and crossbill nesting there, as well as threatened species such as redstart, nightjar and lesser spotted woodpecker. I do not know how protected this will be—we heard in the previous debate from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, about Swanscombe peninsula and the threats there. If the designation means protection, that is obviously a good thing, but if it is just another designation that does not help, is it necessary? I have listened to the other arguments and I am not sure whether this is necessary. Normally, when it comes to woodland issues, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, has a lot going for her, so I am tempted by her amendment.
I move on to Amendment 259. Again, we have talked a lot about biosecurity. The idea that this should be British trees initially appeals. However, the arguments about climate change and the amount of capacity that we have with British growers—as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and others mentioned—are also compelling. The problem is not so much that they are being imported and grown elsewhere but in the actual word “biosecurity”; it is about what they may bring with them. One thing that is a problem is whether we have enough inspections for such things. There are a lot of bad things that are brought in—not just viruses or plant diseases but parasites as well. I am sure that many noble Lords know about the Obama worm, Obama nungara, which is a South American species that is very bad for invertebrates that are very helpful to horticulture. They came over, there are large numbers in France and we have now found them here. They have been coming in the soil; they are not necessarily visible. I do not know what the answer is—perhaps quarantine or something else—but it is too simplistic, I fear, to say that we must restrict ourselves to British-grown trees, however inviting that might seem.
Finally, I would like to say a few things about Amendment 260A. I agree entirely about the problem of grey squirrels. My noble friend Lord Blencathra mentioned muntjac, which not only have been a terrible curse for my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s roses—we suffer from that in our own suburban garden here in Uxbridge—but have been devastating the habitat of many birds. I think they are attributed to the decline of the nightingale, certainly in Norfolk and elsewhere, because they are eating that habitat.
I have a solution, possibly for the grey squirrels and the muntjac—and that other invasive species we are not talking about because it has nothing to do with trees, which is the signal crayfish—and that is that they are all excellent to eat. If we could just get the muntjac and grey squirrel shot, but not with lead, we could probably do a good service. Muntjac is particularly tasty.
I think it was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, who talked about plastic tree guards. There are now surveys looking at jute and wool tree guards, which may be the answer to that. Certainly, there is a problem. Some people will say that too many deer is a reason to introduce lynx—I am not sure whether that would be very popular in Sussex, or elsewhere, but I have a great deal of sympathy with Amendment 260A. I am very interested to hear what the Minister has to say, and I will not detain the Committee any longer.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I have added my name to three amendments: Amendments 259 and 260 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and Amendment 260A, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. I have listened carefully to this very interesting debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, put his finger on it when he talked about the need for commercial forestry in this country. I have spoken a lot in the past about forestry. We are not good foresters in this country—we have the ideal climate for growing trees, and we do grow trees, but we are not good foresters, and that is why our timber is in the bad condition that it is. In Amendment 260, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, proposes that the Government introduce a tree strategy. That will be hugely important because whenever we have mentioned trees recently my noble friend Lord Goldsmith has said, “Well, there is plenty of room beside riverbanks and stream-banks and unfarmed bits of land.” Yes, there is, but those are amenity trees and nothing to do with commercial woodland. We are the number two world importer of timber, which is a very bad statistic for the UK to have.
The problem with the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for commercial woodland was rightly exposed by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, who said that commercial woodland is unprofitable: nobody is growing hardwood timber commercially any more. You cannot, because of pests and diseases. That is why Amendment 260A is so important, as is Amendment 259, which deals with biodiversity.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said that there are pests and diseases for every native hardwood. If that is the case, and the Government’s strategy is what it is, commercial hardwoods have seen their day in this country. That is a terrible thing to have to say but, sadly, it is the truth. Not only do we need a tree strategy; for that we need a land strategy, because 20% of agricultural land will come out of production to go into forestry and biodiversity. Where is it going to happen? We do not know; this is all a bit pie in the sky from the Government.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester [V]
My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to speak in the same debate as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, from whose wisdom, when I was a very young bishop some 20 years ago, I learned a great deal. I also an honour to follow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who has reminded us, powerfully, of the crucial role that commercial forestry and good moorland management should be enabled to play. Hence, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my interests as set out in the register, specifically my deputy chairmanship of the Church Commissioners, which the noble and right reverend Lord famously once took to court. We are one of the foremost owners of sustainable commercial forestry in the UK and beyond.
I speak, tonight, in support of Amendment 260. I also believe that Amendments 258, 259 and 283 are worthy of further consideration, but note the arguments of noble Lords who believe more work needs to be done to get the balance right. On Amendment 260, we will not achieve the recovery in levels of forestation that our country needs unless we have clear national targets, broken down into detail, as set out here. Moreover, a tree strategy will set those targets in the context of a wider narrative and allow major landowners, such as the Church Commissioners for England, to best play our part in its delivery. As a glance at the Hansard from another place will confirm to noble Lords, my colleague the Second Church Estates Commissioner, Andrew Selous MP, regularly responds there to Members’ questions about the work of the commissioners on forestry, tree and land management best practice among our many tenants. Commissioners have also met regularly with the Minister and his colleagues, and we look forward to a continued dialogue regarding both our domestic and international forestry activities.
This country needs a tree strategy; trees are not a problem to be solved, but a core part of our heritage and our future. Our aspiration is that a tree strategy will help us to plant the right species of trees in the right places. As the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, has reminded us, it is not simply a matter of increasing out total forest cover. Planting trees on high-quality arable land, or where a large number of visitors come to enjoy open vistas, simply to meet a target would be retrograde. However, as well as adding to the total number of trees, planting them where they can assist with managing water levels, prevent flooding or help maintain soil richness, will have a huge positive impact.
To save your Lordships’ time, I have not requested to speak at this stage in support of the later group of amendments that focus on indigenous communities and forestry products imported from overseas. However, I endorse them strongly, and I can assure noble Lords that these are matters that the Church Commissioners take into full account with regard to our own overseas assets. Indeed, we are already proactively engaging with Governments around the world to look at the good stewardship of our global natural assets and protect the rights of indigenous communities.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
The noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, has withdrawn, so the next speaker is the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham.
Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]
My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendments 258, 259 and 260, and I declare my non-pecuniary interests. I was, many years ago, president of the Arboricultural Association, and I am currently an honorary fellow. What a terrific debate this has been so far, with thoughtful, knowledgeable and concerned contributions. There have been 23 Back Bench speakers, and I am number 23, so I am sure you will appreciate that I do not have a huge canvas unworked to paint.
On Amendment 258, ancient woodlands are so precious. Their value and what they contribute to our environment and enjoyment have been so well explained that I need not dwell on it again. I simply remind us all of two things. First, they can be seen as a touchstone—a bellwether for how much we really value them and, by association, our environment. Secondly, we should be judged by how seriously we take steps to protect them from damage and destruction by developments of all kinds. The biggest culprit by far at the moment is HS2, which I have spoken about before. There are 108 sites endangered by this project, 32 of them in phase 1. The photographs of the destruction already done are heart-breaking. We must surely do better.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, this varied group had attracted some 25 speakers, but some have withdrawn due to the timing. The main debate has been about trees, not some of the other amendments.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, set out extremely well the reasons for Amendments 257E and 257F and the dramatic effect that the guidance that the Secretary of State provides could have on the local authorities. It is therefore not only advisable but imperative that local authorities are consulted on the likely impact on their activities and service delivery. We have all heard of the outrage in Sheffield over the felling of trees without consultation. Local authorities need the power to act to prevent the spread of disease in trees, but local people should be consulted and understand the reasons for local authority actions.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, introduced Amendment 258 on the protection of ancient woodland, Amendment 259 on introducing biodiversity standards when planting trees, and Amendment 260 on the duty to prepare a tree strategy for England. She is extremely knowledgeable on the subject of woodlands and trees, and we support her amendments. Other Peers also spoke in favour of these three amendments to protect and expand the planting of trees. We support placing ancient woodland on the same basis as SSSIs, but on an individual basis. Some 1,200 ancient woodlands are on the at-risk register and in need of protection, so something has to be done.
Importing trees runs the risk of introducing pests and diseases into our already depleted woodlands. Growing our own trees has been discussed previously during the round of statutory instruments introduced to assist our passage from the EU. Growing our own is one way to limit the damage from pests. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has supported this.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, introduced Amendment 260A on the risks that deer and grey squirrels present to newly planted and already established trees. The majority of speakers supported the amendment. Grey squirrels in particular are typical of a non-native invasive species that has been imported from abroad, and they have decimated our own red squirrel population almost to the point of extinction. Red squirrels are beginning to make a comeback in selected protected environments—the Isle of Wight and Brownsea Island are two such—but there is a long way to go for them to reach the numbers seen in previous decades.
Deforestation has decreased overall tree cover over the decades to an appallingly low level of 13%. The damage caused by grey squirrels is enormous. The UK Squirrel Accord is working to tackle the problem, but the motorway and railway agencies are not complying. Could the Minister encourage them to comply? Unless a robust standard is set for the protection of newly planted trees from animal damage, I fear the Government are not likely to see many of the trees they plants reach maturity.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has lost 60% of his replanted ancient woodland to grey squirrel damage, and my noble friend Lord Teverson has championed biodiversity, the protection of trees and increased planting. Only 7% of our landscape is covered with trees, and only 2% is ancient woodland. A tree strategy and action plan to protect and invest in trees, based on science, is essential.
Amendment 283, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and my noble friend Lord Teverson would ban the rotational burning of vegetation on upland peat moors. I have listened to the arguments that this will protect the peat, but I am not convinced. In March, we debated the effect of wildfires on peat moors, as the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, reminded us. There are frequent wildfires on Bodmin, Dartmoor and Exmoor peat moors. Some are accidental; some are set deliberately. Wildfires are not confined to the West Country; the upland moors also suffer from them.
The managed burning of a heather moor is carried out under controlled conditions and by a patch at a time. It is a cool burn, and the underlying peat does not ignite. This is not the case with wildfires, which can rage out of control for days, with the underlying peat catching fire and spreading underground over significant distances, causing considerable damage.
Managed burning is better than out-of-control wildfires—a view supported by the noble Earl, Lord Devon. The Government have trailed their peat strategy, which is due to be published this year. However, it is a long time coming. I would rather see amendments to the way we produce and use our peat, both commercially and on uplands, dealt with under this strategy and not piecemeal, as with this amendment.
Peat takes hundreds of years to form but can be depleted very quickly. My husband recently went to the local garden centre to buy compost. He asked the owner which were the peat-free bags—there was only one variety. He stood next to a woman who was instructing her husband to buy several bags of compost with the words, “Make sure it has a very high peat content”.
The message about the finite quantity of peat is not getting through. Can the Minister say when the peat strategy for the country will be published? It will affect not only the upland peat bogs but the lowland peat moors, which are currently being exploited under licence for the benefit of the English country garden. I urge the Minister to consider Amendment 283, along with the peat strategy, when that eventually appears.
Peatland restoration is taking place in a variety of types of peatland. Restoration on the levels referred to by my noble friend Lord Teverson is very impressive: it has created new habitats and restored the water levels. On the next moor, however, peat is still being extracted. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the many and varied arguments put forward in this very long debate.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, for moving his amendments, which now seems quite a long time ago. But I am sure he has listened with interest to the rest of the debate.
I am speaking in support of the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone, to which I have added my name, and to my Amendment 283 on the prohibition on burning peat. I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for adding their names.
My noble friend Lady Young has made an excellent case for the need for a tree strategy to be included in the Bill. It is interesting that the only mention of trees in the Bill is about felling rather than planting trees. Obviously, the Government’s announcement of the England tree action plan is welcome, as is the commitment to treble woodland creation rates to meet a target of planting 30,000 hectares per year by the end of this Parliament. But I echo my noble friend’s concern that the plan lacks the clarity and targets needed to ensure an effective implementation. As noble Lords will be all too aware, government targets for tree planting have come and gone before and, at last count, we were still way behind the Government’s earlier target to plant 11 million trees.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions on this important topic. The best time to plant a tree was, of course, years ago; the second-best time is now, so I am glad that we have committed to doing so at scale. The Government committed in May through our new England Trees Action Plan to action in this Parliament to support unprecedented levels of tree planting to deliver the many benefits that trees can provide. The action plan was widely and warmly welcomed by NGOs, conservation groups and stakeholders. This Bill includes measures which will update our tree protection laws, including by increasing fines and attaching restocking orders to land rather than landowners, who could sell their land without restocking trees.
I want to start by addressing Amendment 260. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for championing trees through her support for the Woodland Trust. I have enjoyed talking to her on many occasions about this issue in recent months. I share her ambition to see more trees planted and our existing woodlands protected. It has been positive to see such support from charities and the public for our plans and ambitions, as these ambitions can be delivered only with the support of the country.
That is why the Government committed to at least trebling tree-planting rates in England over this Parliament and to consulting on a new long-term tree target under the Environment Bill. We have committed in this Bill to producing regular statutory environmental improvement plans, beginning with our 25-year environment plan. This will regularly update our natural environment policies, including for trees. Therefore, we do not need another separate, individual strategy for trees; we have a strategy for trees.
Amendment 258 proposes an amendment to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, introducing an additional differentiation between sites of special scientific interest and ancient woodland. Ancient woodlands established before 1600 are some of our most precious habitats and many are already designated under the SSSI series. The definition of ancient woodland is also already clearly established in the Forestry Commission and Natural England standing advice. However, we need to update the ancient woodlands inventory to map where they are and we are doing so, as the noble Baroness knows, alongside the Woodland Trust. Our England Trees Action Plan includes new steps to protect and restore ancient woodlands through management and restoration. Our new England woodland creation offer will fund landowners to buffer and expand ancient woodland sites by planting native broadleaf woodland. We will update the keepers of time policy on management of ancient woodland, veteran trees and other semi-natural woodlands, and we are also expanding the ancient woodland inventory to better map those ancient woodlands. The action plan announced our intention to establish a new category of long-established woodland, in situ since 1840. The Government will consult on the protections that these critical woodlands are afforded in the planning system. I also confirm that our upcoming planning reforms will not weaken our strong protections for trees but rather enhance them, with many more trees planted as well. As such, I reassure the noble Baroness that we are taking significant steps to protect and restore ancient woodlands. That said, I will look closely at her proposal. As she said, ancient woodlands are irreplaceable and need our maximum protection.
Turning to the noble Baroness’s Amendment 259, I also assure her of our commitment to increasing UK biosecurity. I know that I do not need to lecture your Lordships’ House about the devastating impact of ash dieback or Dutch elm disease, or the importance of vigilance against other threatening diseases. The Government already support the plant health management standard and certification scheme, which is an independent, industry-backed biosecurity standard available to all market sectors and it covers international supply chains.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)
I have received requests to speak after the Minister from two noble Lords. First, I call the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford.
Lord Marlesford (Con) [V]
My Lords, we have rightly heard much about the importance of protecting ancient woodland in Britain for global reasons. Is it not as important, and perhaps more urgent, to halt and prevent the loss of tropical rainforests, such as the Amazon? Has my noble friend considered the proposals that I made at Second Reading for the relief of national debt, both interest and capital repayment, equal to a multiple—possibly a high multiple—of the commercial value of the rainforest that we want to protect? Only if the rainforest were interfered with would the debt be reinstated.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. We will talk a bit about similar issues in the next debate on due diligence, but it is certainly the case that, if we want forested countries to protect what they have, implement the laws that are in place and help us to turn the tide on deforestation, there will need to be an incentive. In some part, that means financial transfer from other countries. The UK is leading efforts, with the development of a new programme called LEAF, which has already raised in excess of a £1 billion, in theory at least. We hope to continue to attract partners from the private sector and Governments, with a view to working with the main forested nations to protect the forest that they have. This is just one of many initiatives; we are working on a number of initiatives between now and COP, with a view to making a meaningful intervention, we hope, at that event.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am conscious of the hour. I thank the Minister for the initiatives that he spoke of on ancient woodland but ask that, when he continues to look at ancient woodland protection, he also raises the effectiveness of the implementation of the current planning guidance with the MHCLG, because it is clear that, if we have 1,200 cases of ancient woodlands at risk, the implementation simply cannot be working. I would be grateful if he would agree to raise that with the MHCLG and, while he is there, he could ask them about the planning reforms and get some guarantee that they will not reduce the level of protection for ancient woodland below the current NPPF and, preferably, improve it.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I have had commitments from the MHCLG that our protections for trees will be improved and enhanced, and will not move backwards, but I will continue to press home that case. I am seeing the Secretary of State in a matter of days to talk about this and a number of other issues, and I will raise the points that the noble Baroness raised in her speech today.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB) [V]
I am also sorry to delay matters. I thank the Minister for his response, but I am afraid he did not address my point about refuges and safe areas caused by governmental bodies not controlling the problems of squirrels and deer. They were listed in subsection (3) of my proposed new clause. To save time, I wonder whether he might add to his lengthy list of things a meeting to discuss that, because it is a very serious area. If we do not address that problem successfully, as I and many others pointed out, we will not be allowed to do the forestation we need.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I am very happy to meet and will be in touch.
Lord Kerslake (CB) [V]
My Lords, I first thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe, Lady Bakewell and Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for their comments. I also welcome the Minister’s response on the consultation. I am concerned about the need to get the practicalities right and, in particular, to have a workable model. That will require the extensive involvement of local government before it is finalised.
On exemptions, I still feel that the Bill is too narrowly drawn to cover eventualities when local authorities will need to move quickly. I wonder if that can be entirely covered by the Bill, in any event. I recognise the risks that local authorities will abuse such a power but, nevertheless, we have not quite got it right yet. Recognising the hour, though, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 260B. Anyone who wishes to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in the debate.
Clause 109: Use of forest risk commodities in commercial activity
Amendment 260B
Lord Randall of Uxbridge
“(ba) paragraph 3;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would change the parliamentary procedure for making regulations to specify requirements for the due diligence system to the affirmative procedure.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
My Lords, I speak principally to my Amendments 260B, 260C, 265B and 265C. Bearing in mind the hour, I will try to make this brief, but they are on important issues.
In the 25-year environment plan, the UK Government articulated an ambitious set of goals and actions for the UK, including the commitment that
“our consumption and impact on natural capital are sustainable, at home and overseas.”
I believe that the Environment Bill should reflect this commitment but, sadly, I do not think it adequately does. The goals and actions must be strengthened to tackle the growing problems caused by deforestation and drive action to significantly reduce our global footprint.
Due diligence legislation is only part of the comprehensive approach that will be needed to deliver deforestation-free supply chains and significantly reduce global footprint impacts more broadly. A mandatory due diligence framework should formalise and obligate responsible practices throughout UK market-related supply chains and finance to ensure comprehensive accountability and help prevent deforestation and other global environmental damage.
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, I have two amendments in this group: Amendments 263 and 265. I thoroughly welcome the Government’s approach in this area. We have a responsibility as the consumers of forest products to make sure that they are sourced in a way we are comfortable with. To keep blindly consuming, say, palm oil without regard to the consequences is to take less than our responsibility for what is happening. It is our demand that is driving the production, and it is therefore our responsibility. We need to find ways in which we can exercise that responsibility without encroaching on the national rights of the people doing the producing. For instance, in the case of palm oil, I think it is entirely reasonable to ask that it is produced without further encroachment on virgin forest. My Amendment 263 suggests that we should also include peatlands and wetlands within that definition of “forest”. Both of these are environments that palm oil plantations can encroach on. They are both environments of great ecological significance, and we should therefore have as much interest in them as we do in a forest.
In order to know what is going on in response to our demand for palm oil, we need some information. The obvious information we have access to is satellite records, but they are not much use unless you can tie them to what is happening on the ground. We will need some form of baseline—I hope very much that COP 26 may provide that—or a map of where things are so that change can be measured from that. We need to be conscious of the fact that it is not necessarily the big boys doing the encroaching. It can be small farmers, subsistence farmers or people working out a small living who make the first cut, and then the big boys come in behind them, reward them and move them on to the next patch of virgin forest. What we need to watch is not some small detail but the overall effect, so that we know that palm oil sourced from a particular area or country has been done so ethically.
Amendment 265 deals with how we might make that work. I am suggesting that we should be able to give our approval to an organisation such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil so that we can use it as an internationally recognised collaborative method of telling us which sources of palm oil are ethical. Then we should build some reward into that system. I am sure we would come up against the WTO again, but, as we have discussed before this evening, we need the WTO to become responsive to environmental imperatives. If a country is producing ethically farmed palm oil, we should be able to reward it with a premium, which should then go back into the process of making sure that palm oil is ethical and supporting the people producing it on those terms, so that we get a virtuous circle.
Those are my two suggestions for how we might make things more effective than they appear to be in the Bill. It is important that we look for a system that does not just deal with the import of the primary product but enables us to get at imports that contain substantial amounts of the product; otherwise, we just disadvantage our own producers. Working through something like a round table or an import tariff scheme would allow us to do that.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 264A. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, was very keen to speak on this amendment, to which he added his name, but for technical reasons was unable to do so.
I congratulate the Government on their attempt to tackle the alarming rate of deforestation. They plan to do this by prohibiting the use of certain commodities associated with illegal—I emphasise the word—deforestation and by requiring large companies to undertake due diligence and report on their activities in the relevant areas. I emphasise the word illegal because here lies the risk; the Bill as it stands risks incentivising Governments to change their laws to make sure that far greater deforestation—perhaps all of it—becomes legal. This Environment Bill will then have little or no benefit in preventing deforestation. I know this is not the intention of the Government, but I ask the Minister to consider most carefully the risk of leaving Schedule 16 as it stands.
As other noble Lords know, deforestation is a huge global problem and solving it has to be a top priority for COP 26. Just a couple of statistics will make the point. In 2020 alone, primary humid tropical forest loss covered some 4.2 million hectares—an area the size of the Netherlands. Paragraphs 2(1) and 2(2) of Schedule 16 make it clear that, as long as local laws are complied with, commodities grown on land where forest has been cleared can be traded commercially by UK companies. However, deforestation behind UK imports of commodities accounts for an area of tree loss almost the size of the entire UK. This year has seen the highest deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon in over a decade. This will only get worse without this amendment.
Apart from the Bill as it stands incentivising Governments to legalise deforestation in their own countries, even now a third of tropical deforestation is defined as legal and will not be tackled by Schedule 16, unless it is amended. Scientists in Brazil tell us:
“Currently in Brazil, approximately 88 million hectares … 4 times the size of the UK, could be cleared legally on private properties under Brazilian forest law.”
Another major issue is that laws relating to land use, forests and commodity production are often uncertain, inconsistent or poorly implemented, making the determination of legality very difficult, time-consuming, expensive or virtually impossible. Schedule 16 as it stands risks bogging down UK courts with difficult questions about the interpretation and application of foreign laws.
I know the Government have absolutely no wish to impose these problems on our industries. If they accept this amendment, they will surely provide clarity, consistency and certainty for UK businesses and for the countries of origin where deforestation is currently taking place. Leading UK companies have appealed to the Government to support a more rigorous standard than that set out in Schedule 16.
I thank the head of the Bill team and four other officials for the very helpful meeting we had on Thursday. They argued that 70% of deforestation for agriculture is illegal. Yes, but 30% is legal. Also, this is changing as we speak. The Brazilian Government are in the process of legalising forest lands. Paulo from Brazil, at a highly informative Global Witness meeting—I thank Global Witness for its incredible help on this—referred to a recent forest code which has legalised 12 million hectares of forest and a legislative package that will retrospectively legalise deforestation. The Bill encourages further legalisation to circumvent laws based on legality. This is dangerous. I understand that, despite all these issues, the Government want to work with producer countries to improve governance. This approach assumes that we are dealing with Governments who share our values—sadly, we are not.
Paulo from Brazil was appealing to the UK—appealing to me to appeal to the Minister, I should say—to introduce a strong law to prevent commercial activity based on deforested land, whether legal or illegal. He is deeply concerned about his Government’s determination to undermine our legality-based legislation.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to the five amendments in the group which either appear in my name or to which I have added my name. I will confine my remarks to them in the interests of time, but I register my strong support for all the amendments in the group, with perhaps a question mark over Amendment 265 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. It has not been explained in the amendment how relative product advantage would be measured.
I am fortunate to have been preceded by the noble Lords, Lord Randall and Lord Lucas, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who spoke about why these amendments needed to have been tabled, so I can say a lot less. I am sorry to have to speak before my noble friend Lady Parminter, in whose name Amendment 265A appears. This is an important amendment, which—given the UK’s position as a leader in financial services—in many ways goes to the heart of our leadership on both climate change and human rights issues. It has my strong support.
I will address Amendment 264ZA in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and my noble friend Lord Oates, and to which I have added my name also. The amendment has been tabled to draw attention to the current situation in which human rights abuses of indigenous peoples abound, sometimes leading to death, and to offer a remedy of sorts. In order to make local laws fit for purpose, it is critical to ensure that the UK requires businesses to have evidence that the free, prior and informed consent—FPIC—of indigenous peoples in forest communities has been obtained in the production of forest risk commodities on their land and local area.
There is a strong body of evidence which shows that FPIC reduces deforestation, reduces attacks on forest custodians and develops strong, commercially productive relationships. This is particularly important for the 80% of indigenous and community lands that do not yet have secure legal rights. FPIC is defined under international law, and commitments to full or partial FPIC are included in a diverse array of industry standards, OECD guidance and company commitments. It should be specifically included in Schedule 16 to underscore our global leadership on both climate change and human rights. I also point out that the Global Resource Initiative task force—commissioned by BEIS, Defra, and the FCDO, so this is the Government’s own body—in its report of March 2020 specifically recommended that the UK Government urgently introduce a mandatory combined human rights and environmental due diligence approach to forest risk commodities.
Schedule 16 is the UK’s first due diligence process with respect to forest risk commodities, yet it makes no mention whatever of mitigating human rights abuses through free, prior and informed consent. This is a moral and practical oversight and I look forward to the Minister’s response about how this omission can be justified.
Amendment 264A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, which I support, seeks to address the potential gaping loophole that would be set up by differentiating between legal and illegal deforestation. Does the Minister accept that the British public do not want these tainted goods? I cite the remarkable outcome of the Government’s public consultation on due diligence on forest risk commodities: over 99% of respondents supported the introduction of legislation to reduce all deforestation. When can we expect a response to the consultation?
I tabled Amendment 264B to paragraph 3 of Schedule 16 on the due diligence system as a probing amendment to see what estimation the Government have made of the acceptable level of mitigation of risk by businesses operating forest risk commodities. If the objective of Schedule 16 to avoid products consumed in the UK contributing to deforestation abroad is to be met, UK businesses must be confident that there is no more than a negligible risk that their products are linked to deforestation. Does the Minister agree that a requirement to mitigate risk without specifying the extent to which risks must be mitigated is rather vague and subjective? What consideration have the Government given to the question, as an unqualified requirement to mitigate risks leaves businesses open to legitimately take the least action required to achieve the most minimal reduction in their assessment of risk rather than the action required to genuinely minimise the level of risk? What would stop this happening? In the way that Schedule 16 is currently drafted, it is not clear to me; maybe the Minister can enlighten me. I would appreciate a thorough response from him on this amendment, maybe in writing.
Amendment 265ZA in my name would require the Secretary of State to consult stakeholders when making regulations on the content and form of annual reports on the due diligence system, and on how such reports are to be made publicly available. The amendment is, I suppose, inspired by lessons learned in the implementation of Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which introduced a requirement on businesses above a certain size to publish a slavery and human trafficking statement every year. It has become apparent that changes are needed. The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee recently published a report which concludes that the MSA is too weak and the criteria for producing the statements are in need of reform. The implication for this part of the Environment Bill is that it is important to ensure that the form and arrangements for publishing reports by a regulated person should be informed by public consultation so that lessons such as those from the Modern Slavery Act can be properly factored in. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
The final amendment in my name, Amendment 265AA, aims to strengthen the enforcement of Part 1 requirements and Part 2 regulations through a civil sanctions regime. As drafted, Schedule 16 states the potential for civil sanctions to be issued for failures to comply with the Schedule’s requirements, except where a regulated person
“took all reasonable steps to implement a due diligence system”.
However, “reasonable steps” is not defined; it could mean any number of things. The exception to liability is too broad and potentially undermines the effectiveness of the due diligence obligations. Would it not be far clearer to instead mandate a regulated person to take the steps necessary to implement an effective due diligence system, as my amendments suggest? My final question to the Minister is: why do the Government not do that? It would be far more effective to state what they actually want rather than a woolly form of words that is an open invitation to those with, shall we say, creative minds.
I will end with this reflection: deforestation is the second largest contributor to global warming, second only to fossil fuels. What happens to rainforests matters to us all. The Government should seize with both hands the opportunity presented by this Bill to play their part in stopping the wanton destruction of all rainforests, especially in this seminal year, when they hold the presidency of COP 26.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I rise to introduce Amendment 265A in my name, for the support of which I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch.
Like other Peers, I welcome the inclusion of Schedule 16 and its introduction into law of an essential means of combating the deforestation associated with the consumption of forest risk commodities in the UK. Yet the trade in these commodities is only the final stage of the supply chain; their production must also be financed and, because the UK is such an important global source of capital, British banks and financial institutions currently supply a considerable proportion of this investment.
As Global Witness reported, in 2020, UK banks channelled over £900 million into over 300 major companies involved in forest risk commodities such as palm oil, soya and beef. Between 2013 and 2019, UK-based financial institutions were the single biggest source of international finance for six major agribusiness companies involved in deforestation in the climate-critical forests of Brazil, the Congo basin and Papua New Guinea, providing £5 billion over this period. I am not claiming that all this investment financed illegal activities, but, almost certainly, some of it did. As Forest Trends reported earlier this year, over the period of 2000-2012, 49% of tropical deforestation for agricultural commodities was thought to be illegal; between 2013 and 2019, the proportion rose to at least 69%. Illegal conversion of forests for agriculture is destroying an area of forest the size of Norway each year.
The point is that these banks do not have adequate systems in place to ensure they are not funding illegal deforestation. Extending the same requirements for the exercise of due diligence to banks as this Bill would impose on importers is a sensible move. This is not merely my view. That was the conclusion of the Global Resource Initiative Taskforce of sustainability leaders from finance, business and civil society, which was established by this Government in 2019. It was chaired by Sir Ian Cheshire, who was at that time chairman of Barclays UK. In its report last year, it concluded:
“Financial institutions provide enabling financial services across the commodity supply chain and so should be obligated to exercise due diligence with regard to their lending and investments.”
No other mechanism currently requires banks to carry out due diligence for illegal deforestation. The Government have argued, in their response to the Global Resource Initiative report, that the requirements for reporting on climate-related financial information that they intend to introduce will tackle the problem—but in reality they cannot. These reports will focus only on annual carbon emissions and are not suited to identifying the links between the provision of finance for agricultural crops growing on land cleared of forest several years before; they will also not require any assessment of the legality of the forest clearance.
The reports the importers of these commodities will be required to issue on the actions they have taken to establish their due diligence systems will provide helpful information but, again, they will relate to the final stages in the supply chain—the trade of the commodities. Far better, surely, to require banks to conduct due diligence on their lending and interventions at the start of the process when the initial finance is provided.
The financial sector is one of the British economy’s greatest strengths, but it will fail to remain so if it continues to fund activities which contribute to the climate and nature emergencies. I recognise and applaud the many steps that individual banks and financial institutions are already taking to green their activities. Requiring all of them to conduct due diligence to avoid their lending contributing to illegal deforestation is hardly a radical move. Indeed, it is the minimum we should expect.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to requiring businesses to ensure that the forest risk commodities they use to have been produced in compliance with local laws, but it is only a start, as other noble Lords have pointed out. I particularly support Amendment 293B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. What we have in the Bill does not deliver on the commitment in the 25-year environment plan to ensure that
“our consumption and impact on natural capital are sustainable, at home and overseas.”
The Environmental Audit Committee’s recent biodiversity report called for
“a target to reduce the UK’s global environmental footprint”,
as does the amendment, and I support that idea.
Commitment to a target would set an ambition to do more over the next few years and allow the Government to develop further measures covering issues such as illegal deforestation, as raised by the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and financial issues, as raised by the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. I know that the Minister has a personal commitment to this issue, and I hope he can respond positively.
On a particular case which the noble Lord, Lord Randall, raised just now and previously, every year, an area of forest and biodiversity bigger than the New Forest is sacrificed to feed biomass-based electricity generation in the UK. The replacement forests take decades to mature and cannot be regarded as equivalent in either carbon or biodiversity terms. The people of Britain pay through the nose for this: they pay more than £2 million per day to subsidise those large biomass power plants. In view of the damage to forests and biodiversity caused by the wood pellet industry in the USA and Estonia, can the Minister use the Bill to review the dubious sustainability claims made by Drax, end public subsidy and ensure that the performance of a large biomass power plant is not compared with hugely polluting coal but with other green technologies such as wind and solar?
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and to express my support for nearly all the amendments in this group, except Amendments 263 and 265.
We should start by acknowledging that this is yet one more sign that campaigning works. Schedule 16 represents amendments brought by the Government in the other place which reflect the campaigning of a great many NGOs and other groups and, as other noble Lords have said, the conclusions of the independent Global Resource Initiative Taskforce. However, as multiple briefings that we have all received show, it still needs improvement to deliver on the recommendations of the GRIT and the expectations of UK consumers and businesses.
I shall not go through each amendment, but I shall start with Amendment 293B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, because it is in many ways the most far-reaching and crucial. This is the one that calls for a global footprint target. I shall start with the benefit for the UK, before looking more broadly. It would reduce the risk of future pandemics; I do not really need to say more than that. It would help safeguard against the economic costs of biodiversity decline and climate change. The WWF Global Futures report calculated that that will cost the world at least £368 billion a year, with the UK suffering annual damage to its economy of £16 billion a year by 2050. It would also support the resilience of UK and global businesses. It would help businesses to manage risk proactively. Coming back to the Government’s desire, of which we so often hear, to be world-leading, it would mean that the UK was the first country to embed the latest pledge for nature into its legislation. It is crucial.
It is worth noting that this amendment is another way of addressing the issue I addressed in the amendment I moved to Clause 1, many days ago, on reducing resource use rather than making it more efficient. We need to reduce our ecological footprint by around 75% to fit within ecological limits. The WWF global footprint report looked at some of the key issues: our material footprint needs to come down by 38%, biomass by 48%, nitrogen—for which I tabled a specific amendment earlier—by 89%, and phosphorous by 85%.
The most basic amendment that I would surely suggest the Minister has to adopt in some form is Amendment 264A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. She has already made many powerful arguments, in particular that if we do not introduce this amendment there will a perverse incentive to encourage the legalisation of deforestation. UK businesses could also benefit from this amendment. Currently, in many parts of the world laws relating to land use, forests and commodity production are numerous, uncertain, inconsistent and poorly implemented. It is very difficult to determine legality, and companies can be trapped in a regulatory, paperwork minefield from which the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, could free them. Of course, 2.1 million hectares of natural vegetation within the 133 Brazilian municipalities that currently supply the UK with soya could be legally deforested.
I come now to Amendment 264ZA in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, which calls for the recognition of customary land ownership and membership systems. Some 80% of indigenous and community lands are held without legally recognised tenure rights. We know that in indigenous and tribal territories, deforestation rates are significantly lower. Ensuring respect for customary tenure rights is an efficient, just and cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Noble Lords who have been reading The House magazine might know that I have some recommendations for summer reading in there. I would like to add an extra one: Imbolo Mbue’s second novel, How Beautiful We Were, which is set in a fictional African village and shows how it was depleted by centuries of the activities of fossil fuel companies, forest exploitation and rubber plantations, going back to slavery. We really cannot allow this kind of relationship with the world to continue.
I come now to Amendment 265A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. What we are doing here is the reverse of what your Lordships’ House achieved in the Financial Services Bill. After a lot of wrestling, we finally got a reference to climate—although, unfortunately, not biodiversity—into the Finance Bill. What we also need to do is to get recognition of the damage the financial sector does to the rest of the world, and we need to see finance addressed in all the other Bills. The UK is the single biggest source of international finance for six of the most harmful agribusiness companies involved in deforestation in Brazil, the Congo basin and Papua New Guinea, lending £5 billion between 2013 and 2019. These UK banks included HSBC, Barclays, and Standard Chartered. We simply cannot allow this to continue.
Noble Lords may not think so, but I am really trying to be brief, so I will turn to some very short concluding thoughts. If deforestation was a country, it would be the third largest emitter of carbon, behind China and the US. Some 80% of deforestation is associated with agricultural production, yet figures published this afternoon from five major UN agencies show that the number of people without access to healthy diets has grown by 320 million in the last year. They now number 2.37 billion in total. A fifth of all children under five are stunted because of lack of access to the most basic resource of all: food.
We have to stop wrecking other people’s countries. We have to ensure that our lives are lived within the limits of this fragile planet, and that everyone else has access to that same basic level of resources that is their human right.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. While I warmly welcome all the provisions that the Government have put into this Bill on this matter of due diligence, I also support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge, who moved them so powerfully, eloquently and rapidly. I pay tribute, too, to the passionate and excellent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, which was a pleasure to listen to.
I will comment first on Amendment 265A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. It is a rather ingenious and clever approach, and I was appalled to hear that British institutions—if I heard the noble Baroness correctly—have raised about £5 billion of funding for the illegal destruction of rainforest. If British banks and financial institutions are involved, we have to find ways of putting a stop to them doing that sort of thing.
The current provisions in the Bill quite rightly impose obligations on regulated persons who are trading products from endangered rainforests. As in every other business, however, the normal rule is “Follow the money”: if you want to catch illegal or improper behaviour, look at the money flows. Putting an obligation on all financial institutions to exercise the same due diligence as the companies that import and export timber would plug a potentially big gap. How do we crack down on money laundering and terrorist financing? We do it by putting an obligation on all financial institutions to report transactions above £10,000. It works for illegal money transactions, and it can work for destructive timber transactions or the financing of palm oil, soya bean or ranching projects.
I rather like my noble friend’s Amendments 265B and 265D. Why should we try to save the rainforest? The rationale for saving the rainforest is infinitely greater than just reducing carbon emissions—important though that is—or saving indigenous people or preventing mahogany and other tree species from being extinguished. The rationale is that the rainforest is the “medicine cabinet” of the world, to steal another phrase from the Prince’s Rainforests Project.
As rainforest species disappear, so too do many possible cures for life-threatening diseases. Currently, 121 prescription drugs that are sold worldwide are derived from plant sources, and 25% of western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients. However, fewer than 1% of tropical trees and plants have been tested by scientists. So we have tested 1% and are burning the other 99%, yet we are getting 25% of our drugs from that small 1%. That is a very dangerous pyramid.
A single pond in Brazil can sustain a greater variety of fish than is found in all the rivers of Europe put together. A 25-acre area of rainforest in Borneo may contain more than 700 species of trees—a figure equal to the total tree diversity of North America. A single rainforest in Peru is home to more species of birds than are found in the entire United States, and the number of species of fish in the Amazon exceeds the number found in the entire Atlantic Ocean.
So I repeat my question: how can we in the West be so stupid as to permanently destroy, or fund the destruction of, a habitat when we have not looked at 99% of the species in it? Some scientists estimate that we are losing more than 130 species of plants and animals every single day through rainforest destruction. We just do not know, yet we are carrying on regardless. Estimates of the total number of species in the world vary from 2 million to 100 million, the best estimate being that there are about 10 million species of living things, ranging from nematode worms, slugs, molluscs, plant life and fungi to trees, birds and the cuddly animals that we worry about.
Biodiversity, however, is not just about saving the red squirrels, polar bears, orangutans, lemurs and tigers—as vital and close to my heart as some of those are. Of far greater importance to the planet are the plants and bugs that we never see and are not cuddly.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB) [V]
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. In the light of what he has said, it is unnecessary for me to say anything other than to warmly endorse his words in respect of Amendment 265A in respect of the financial services industry and the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, on the longer-term plans.
I shall concentrate on one aspect only, in view of the lateness of the hour: the methods on which control over the use of forest risk commodities can most effectively be framed for enforcement in the United Kingdom. Three methods are under consideration. They can be cumulative and probably should be, and should operate together. What is essential is to examine each and see whether one can stand on its own or whether all three would work better together.
I take the first, which is the proposal in the Bill to allow the use of forest risk commodities only if local laws have been complied with. This is unlikely to be effective and indeed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, explained, it could be counterproductive. The reason why it is likely to be ineffective is that most of the localities with which we are concerned have legal and legislative systems that do not protect from deforestation because of political and economic pressure. Even if protection is initially given, there are numerous instances of retrospective validation of deforestation in contravention of local law. Such retrospective validation would make the use legal under the local law and would therefore render this method of halting deforestation nugatory. Furthermore, proof that the commodity was produced in contravention of local law is likely to cause significant difficulty and uncertainty and considerable expense if the matter comes for enforcement in the UK. Thus, in my view, the first method is unlikely to be effective.
The second method, as set out in the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, is to add a further requirement in respect of the locality: the informed consent of indigenous people and local communities. I would welcome this as a vital addition and safeguard, if the first method is to be chosen. However, although I have no doubt that NGOs and other organisations would give every assistance in establishing whether informed consent was given, I would anticipate that establishing the factual position in a UK court would be far from easy—the difficulties are obvious. However, if the first method is to be used as set out in the Bill, this would be an essential part of having effective enforcement.
The third method is that set out in the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, which is to prohibit use if land has been deforested after the commencement of the schedule as further delineated in regulations made by the Secretary of State. In my view, this amendment would be wholly effective on its own and certainly buttress the other two methods. It would leave no room for dispute as to the status of the areas from which the commodity comes, as it is an objective standard not dependent on proof or either local law or the consent of the indigenous people or local communities.
If the third method were adopted, it would give great clarity, which is essential if this law is to operate as a deterrent to industries in the UK using forest risk commodities in breach of what everyone agrees ought to be prevented. I therefore warmly support the third of the methods—that is, the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher—but if that cannot be done, we must have the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB) [V]
My Lords, I wish to support Amendment 264ZA, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and Amendment 264A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. As we know, the rate of deforestation on our planet is a scandal and an increasing threat to both our climate and the extent of our biodiversity. In some parts of the world, it is also a threat to the indigenous population who live in the forests, a denial of their fundamental human rights. Their habitat, their lives and their livelihood are often endangered by deforestation.
Amendment 264ZA, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, rightly seeks to ensure that if forest risk wood is imported, it has been felled only with the permission of the indigenous population. It is not enough just for local laws to be observed, which may be too permissive or open to manipulation by local interests; there must be safeguards for those most directly affected. Our laws cannot reach into those areas, but we can at least ensure that we do what is open to us to do in this country, which is to have appropriate checks in place for importers of forest risk material.
Amendment 264A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has a similar purpose: to do what we can in this country to prevent exploitive deforestation. It would ensure a total prohibition, except in relation to indigenous people, on importing forest risk products from agricultural land which should never have been cleared in the first place, as trees should still be standing. The noble Baroness put forward powerful arguments in favour of her amendment, strongly supported just now by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, with his important phrase about retrospective validation. A forest which should never have been felled in the first place might get some kind of legal retrospective validation, but we need to ensure that that wood should still not be imported. For those reasons, I strongly support both those amendments.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the advisory board of Weber Shandwick UK. As we have heard in this debate, deforestation poses a catastrophic threat to biodiversity and to the climate of our planet, but in addressing these issues we should show some humility and acknowledge up front that we have almost completely deforested our landscape in the UK and in much of Europe, and we need to be conscious of that in all our debates.
However, the fact remains that life on our planet will not be sustainable if the current rate of deforestation continues. We have heard a range of analogies and figures in this respect. The World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that the equivalent of 30 football pitches of forestry were lost every second in the tropics in 2019. That is a staggering rate of destruction and there are many worrying signs that it is accelerating.
I welcome the Government’s attempts to address the issue in the schedule, but they would be immeasurably strengthened by the majority of the amendments in this group. There seem to be a few main themes in the amendments. The first is around strengthening parliamentary procedures to ensure proper scrutiny of the delegated powers under this section of the Bill. Amendments 260B and 260C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, to which he spoke so clearly, seek to tackle that. From these Benches, we certainly support him.
The second theme seeks to tackle the issue of legal deforestation and the rights of indigenous people. The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is critical if the Bill is to have real effect. As we have heard, it is supported by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, who, for technical reasons, was not able to be here but was very keen that his support was underlined.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, and as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, underlined, if we continue simply with the definition in the Bill as the Government have drafted it, the Bill could end up being counterproductive, either having little effect or incentivising countries to legalise further deforestation, as the noble Baroness said.
We know that there is a particular issue in certain jurisdictions, and we have heard about the situation in Brazil, where, sadly, the President seems to have little regard either for the need to protect forests or for the rights of indigenous people. Although I understand that there are a lot of complexities around WTO rules, their main focus is around non-discrimination; as long as one tackles that and provides a mechanism that is non-discriminatory but focused on actions, that should be possible.
Amendment 264ZA, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, which I have also signed, aims to ensure that forestry commodities cannot be used unless the consent of indigenous communities has been obtained prior to their production.
There are those who claim that measures to prevent deforestation are somehow a case of westerners seeking to impose their values on other countries, having hypocritically destroyed their own forests. However, the reality is that local indigenous people suffer most from deforestation, and it is very often unscrupulous multinational, often western, firms that are responsible for destroying forests and the livelihoods of indigenous people. My noble friend Lady Sheehan and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, also set out the importance of the human rights angle in relation to deforestation. The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, seeks to address this gap, and we on these Benches strongly support it.
The third theme in this group of amendments relates to the financing of forest destruction, which is a critical area. Amendment 265A, in the name of my noble friend Lady Parminter, which has support from across the Committee, seeks to address the financing of deforestation, and is highly significant. My noble friend explained the critical role of capital, including UK capital, in funding tropical deforestation, and the fact that banks do not have the mechanisms in place to ensure that they are operating proper due diligence and not funding illegal forest clearance. As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, the watchword here is “follow the money”—that is critical. My noble friend also highlighted the need to protect the reputation of the City if we are to establish ourselves as a centre of green finance in the world. This amendment would help in all these regards.
The theme of global impact is enshrined in Amendment 293B of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, which would require the Government to set a target to reduce the UK’s global footprint. Again, this is a key amendment in tackling deforestation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said, it is perhaps the most crucial because it gets to the heart of the issue by targeting resource use, and we support this approach.
Finally, there were a number of other important amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Sheehan, including: Amendment 264B, on introducing an assessment of the level of risk; Amendment 265ZA, which, as my noble friend explained, would require the Secretary of State to consult with relevant persons before making regulations under the schedule; and Amendment 265AA, which would require a regulated person to take all steps necessary to implement an effective due diligence system, rather than the lower bar of “reasonable” steps. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, also had a number of amendments which are interesting, but we would want to understand a little more about their operation before supporting them.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, this is a really important group of amendments and I am pleased that, despite the late hour, we have managed to have a good debate around them. I will speak to Amendment 264ZA, in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch and the noble Lord, Lord Oates, but we also support other amendments in this group and thank noble Lords for tabling them. There are some very important points that need to be addressed.
In his introduction to his amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, talked about the Government’s 25-year environment plan and their commitment to ensuring that
“our consumption and impact on natural capital are sustainable, at home and overseas.”
It is therefore a bit disappointing that the Environment Bill does not currently reflect this commitment adequately.
The Global Resource Initiative task force recommended back in March 2020 that the Government
“urgently introduces a mandatory due diligence obligation on companies that place commodities and derived products that contribute to deforestation”,
whether legal or illegal under local laws, on the UK market. It also recommended that, since not all businesses have begun to commit to and implement sustainable supply chains, a legally binding target to end deforestation —as we have heard from other noble Lords—would provide the “necessary signal” for a shift in industry behaviour. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, did, we welcome the Government’s amendment that was tabled in the other place following campaigning, and the fact that Schedule 16 now includes a new prohibition on the use of certain commodities associated with illegal deforestation and requirements for large companies to undertake due diligence and reporting. However, as we heard in the debate, the provisions simply do not go far enough in progressing either the GRI recommendations or the level of action that is demanded.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, mentioned the lack of attention to human rights in Schedule 16. NGOs such as Global Witness and Forest Peoples Programme have highlighted that there is currently no mention of human rights or of indigenous peoples and others who live in forests and rely on them for their livelihoods and survival. The Bill must be strengthened to tackle the growing problems caused by deforestation and to drive action to significantly reduce our global footprint. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, talked about the appalling impact of this country’s role in deforestation. This really does need to be better recognised. Due diligence legislation is only part of the comprehensive approach that will be needed to deliver deforestation-free supply chains and to significantly reduce global footprint impacts more broadly.
Land conversion for agricultural purposes is often associated with negative human rights impacts. Beyond local laws, it is therefore critical to ensure that the UK requires businesses to have evidence that the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples and forest communities was obtained in relation to the production of forest risk commodities on their land and in the local area. Our amendment does this, although I am aware that some indigenous communities see this as just the starting point. We thank the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich—as others have done—for his support; he was unable to speak in the debate today.
We offer our support to Amendments 260B and 260C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. Schedule 16 introduces an important requirement that regulated businesses must not use certain forest risk commodities in their UK commercial activities unless relevant local laws are complied with in relation to that commodity. This is an important first step, but it does not go far enough since 30% of tropical forest destruction is defined as legal under local country laws. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, expressed her concerns that this could create a loophole, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates, also mentioned this. This loophole could risk limiting the effectiveness of the legislation and, as the noble Baroness said, could even incentivise Governments in countries such as Brazil to roll back forest protections in order to access UK markets. As deforestation is more prevalent where local laws are not enforced or upheld, this also poses challenges as to how the UK will interpret exactly what is meant by “legal”. So, we support the very important Amendment 264A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, which addresses this. This amendment also provides for an exception for forest risk commodities produced by indigenous peoples, as the noble Baroness spelled out so clearly.
We also support Amendment 265A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on finance. Schedule 16 does not address the financing behind deforestation. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, talked about the huge amount of financing that comes from the UK and the lack of due diligence. I have to say, I learned an enormous amount from her introduction to the amendment, and I thank her for it. In March 2020, the Global Resource Initiative task force recommended that the UK should require companies to undertake checks on deforestation risk in their supply chains and that similar measures should apply to finance. But the Government chose to cover supply chains only, responding that UK finance institutions can use the new information gained from companies undertaking due diligence reports to inform their decisions. However, experience has shown that this is likely to fail and that they are likely not to do so unless required to by law. This is very important as broad-based measures on finance, such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, or similar efforts on nature or biodiversity, are really not suited to the specific issues around deforestation and are unlikely to curb financing. The Bill needs to specify that UK finance institutions must not provide financial services to commercial enterprises linked to deforestation and human rights abuses, so we strongly support the noble Baroness’s amendment.
We also support Amendments 265B to 265D in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, which seek to introduce a requirement that the Secretary of State must take the steps identified through a review to improve the effectiveness of Schedule 16. Amendment 293B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, would require the Secretary of State to set a target to significantly reduce the global footprint, and we support this amendment as well. In his introduction to this amendment, the noble Lord referred to the Biodiversity in the UK: Bloom or Bust? report that was published in June by the Environmental Audit Committee, which recommended that the Government should set such a target.
We also welcome Amendment 263, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, talked passionately about global biodiversity, but it is important that we are all very aware of our own impacts on this. The production of forest risk commodities is linked to the conversion and degradation of natural ecosystems other than forests; noble Lords have mentioned savannahs, wetlands, peatlands, grasslands, and mangroves. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, talked specifically about the production of palm oil, and other noble Lords have mentioned soya as well. There is no policy justification for limiting provisions to forests when other natural ecosystems are under the same pressures from commodity production and provide the same or even greater biodiversity and climate benefits.
A large number of amendments have been discussed in this group, and it has been an important debate on an important issue. I hope that the Minister has listened carefully to the many amendments that have been debated. It is clear that noble Lords have some very serious concerns and believe that it would not take a lot to improve the Bill quite significantly on this aspect. I await the Minister’s response with interest.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I have a number of amendments to address, but before I do, I will take a step back and emphasise what these measures are designed to achieve. Worldwide agricultural expansion drives almost 80% of deforestation. A significant proportion of deforestation is illegal—in some of the world’s most important places, it is closer to 90%. Decades of voluntary action have failed to end our contribution to deforestation through the products that we buy. Our measures will change that. Businesses will be required to ensure that the forest risk commodities that they use are not produced on illegally deforested land. We will consult on the commodities to be included soon, but these could include beef, cocoa, leather, palm oil, rubber, soya and so on.
It has been said in a number of contributions today that we are lagging behind and need to catch up, but it is worth reiterating that we are not only the first country in the world to introduce anything like this legislation but the only country to do so. Of course, we must do much more, but we are doing much more. No one would pretend that this is our sole, single answer to deforestation, but it is an extraordinarily important part of our answer to tackling global deforestation.
To address one further point before I go into the details of the amendment, the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Hayman, suggested that we reluctantly accepted this amendment on the back of campaigning. It was the Government who initiated and commissioned the GRI report which made this recommendation, and we have been working for many months to get this right. It is not something that just popped in as a last-minute concession in Committee in the other place.
I shall start by speaking to Amendments 264, 264A and 264ZA, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lucas, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. Given the fundamental role of producer countries in protecting their forests and ecosystems, and the huge proportion of illegal deforestation, our due diligence requirements are based on legality, and I want to explain why. Our experience has shown that we get the best results for both people and the environment when we work as closely as we can with producer country Governments and communities —something which is crucial in this year of COP 26 and COP 15 on biodiversity. Working in partnership with timber-producing countries on implementing the timber regulation and the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade action plan has contributed to increased natural resource governance in those countries. We want to replicate this approach for forest risk commodities.
In response to comments made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Sheehan, adopting these amendments would be a departure from the Government’s approach and would come at a cost. The UK is a big market in global terms, but on our own we are not big enough to cause the shift globally that we need in the way that commodities are grown. We can have an impact but not a huge impact. To have that kind of shift, we need other countries to join us, and we know from the extensive diplomatic outreach that we have already done, and which I have been involved in, that we can only build that coalition using the approach that we have adopted, based on legality. That has been very clear in the discussions that we have had.
We are working hard right now to build a global movement of consumer and producer countries committed to working with us to tackle this problem, and we are making enormous headway. If other countries are beginning to consider doing something similar, that is because of UK leadership. Incidentally, the EU has not yet decided what it is going to do; it has announced an intention to tackle due diligence but has not committed to any particular form. But if Japan, New Zealand and even the USA—we heard—are looking favourably at doing something on due diligence, that is because of the work that the United Kingdom has done. I do not believe it would be happening without the leadership that the UK has shown. There is a tendency to self-flagellate and always see the worst in our country, but there are certain areas—and this is one of them—where I think we can be proud of the leadership that we have shown.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
My Lords, before I start I should make two apologies. One is for the rapid introduction of my amendments at the beginning of this group; I wanted to ensure that everybody in this debate got a fair chance and that we were able to finish at a reasonable time—if you can call this a reasonable time. I am grateful to all those who supported them; I am also grateful to those who tabled their own amendments. We have had a very important debate.
My second apology is to my noble friend the Minister. I am trying to squeeze a little more out of the Government, but he personally and the Government deserve a huge amount of praise for these pioneering measures. We should be incredibly proud of them and, as he said, we cannot do it on our own. To be at the forefront of this is tremendously exciting. Of course, we always want a bit more, but I could recognise, even though I am not there in person, the passion my noble friend has for this issue—as do other noble Lords in the Chamber and elsewhere. I hope we will see further things perhaps happen over the summer, but I beg leave to withdraw my amendment for now.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)
We now come to Amendment 262A. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Amendment 262A
Lord Teverson
“Collection of marine data
(1) The Secretary of State must—(a) by regulations provide that all vessels over 10 metres in length, and of whatever nationality, fishing within territorial waters and the UK Exclusive Economic Zone must be fitted with remote electronic monitoring systems and cameras for the purposes of—(i) full and accurate documentation and data collection of fish activities, and bycatch, so far as these affect biodiversity and sustainability; and(ii) monitoring compliance with fish activities, bycatch and other marine management regulations so far as it affects biodiversity and sustainability;(b) by regulations provide that all British vessels fishing outside the UK Exclusive Economic Zone must be fitted with remote electronic monitoring systems and cameras for the purposes of—(i) full and accurate documentation and data collection of fish activities and bycatch, so far as these affect biodiversity and sustainability; and(ii) monitoring compliance with fish activities, bycatch and other marine management regulations so far as it affects biodiversity and sustainability; (c) publish a timetable for the phased introduction of the provisions under paragraphs (a) and (b), the final phase of which must be implemented within three years from the day on which this Act is passed;(d) publish plans, within two years from the day on which this Act is passed, following a consultation, to extend remote electronic monitoring systems with cameras to all motorised vessels of whatever nationality fishing within territorial waters and the UK Exclusive Economic Zone.(2) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative procedure.(3) In this section, “fish activities” has the meaning given by section 52 of the Fisheries Act 2020.”Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment mandates the use of remote electronic monitoring (REM) on all fishing vessels above 10 metres in length that fish in UK waters in order to accurately monitor marine environmental data and requires plans to be published to extend REM to all vessels.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I owe the Committee an apology, as I tried to change this amendment from one group to another—the first group we did today—but then I managed to de-group it totally, so it is my fault that noble Lords are all still here. I apologise for that.
This is a serious issue. It is often said that we know less about our oceans than we do about the surface of Mars. I do not know whether that is completely true, but there is certainly a strong element of truth about it. We lack information about the ecology, biodiversity, quantity and types of species there are in our waters. Yet, unlike Mars, which I think has at least three rovers trundling slowly over its surface at the moment, we have thousands of fishing vessels sampling the ecology of our oceans every day.
I was very interested to receive communications from the Shetland Fishermen’s Association a few days ago. I know that Shetland is clearly in Scotland, although it sometimes sees itself as independent of it, and that this is an English Bill, but I will take this as an example because one of the things it is complaining about is the data on fish coming from ICES—the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. We all know ICES; it is the key data provider for us and the European Union in setting quotas, TACs and that whole area. To quote Simon Collins, executive officer of the Shetland Fishermen’s Association, on the ICES recommendations about changes of TACs in the North Sea and off the west coast:
“These numbers bear no relation to what our members are seeing out on the fishing grounds every day … With such wild swings in both directions a regular occurrence in recent years, it is clear that ICES needs to take a good hard look at the process and consider whether its modelling is still relevant.”
I have really good news for the Shetland fishermen: using remote electronic monitoring with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and very cheap technology, we can have live data of what is in the ocean, what is being caught and what is discarded. We can really firm up on the data on our marine environment. It has probably escaped the Minister’s notice that I put down a similar amendment with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, to the Fisheries Bill—or he has perhaps forgotten. One of the things which we emphasised there was not the control aspect of fisheries regulation, but the fact that this provided plentiful hard data about fisheries, the marine environment and everything that happens to be caught. That is why I brought this amendment back into this Bill, because it is equally—if not more—an environmental issue as much as a fisheries management one. That is why this amendment is important.
Following Royal Assent to the Fisheries Act, I was delighted that Defra went out and undertook two consultations around remote electronic monitoring. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister what the responses were, and when the Government are going to move those forward. I congratulate them on moving this process further forward. It is the way to sustain fisheries stocks, and it is the way, more importantly, to be clear and have hard data rather than the opaque and fuzzy data which we have on our fisheries at the moment, and our marine biodiversity and ecology more broadly. Again, here we can actually lead, and in such a way that all those nations that want to enter with their fishing vessels into our EEZ and our waters can be told, “You must do the same thing”. For those foreign vessels, most of them from the European Union, but also Norway and other Nordic islands, we can actually start the process, and have others start it as well.
This is a truly important way of moving forward. I welcome the fact that the Government took on these consultations. It would be a huge shame if they got no further. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister what the Government’s plans are for remote electronic monitoring. With this technology, we can really understand what is going on in our oceans. I beg to move.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for tabling this amendment, which I have signed. It is the latest move in his long and valuable campaign for the adoption of remote electronic monitoring of fishing vessels. I do not blame him at all for our being here late at night; I blame the Government. If they had written a better Bill, it would not have attracted 300 amendments and we would not still be here after seven days, with an eighth day in prospect.
We discussed remote electronic monitoring when considering the Fisheries Bill, and your Lordships were able to get the Minister to put a firm commitment in support of it on the record. The noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, stated:
“The Government are clear that we will be consulting on increasing the use of REM in the first half of 2021, with implementation following that. I am not in a position to give a precise date today for when this will be implemented, but I can absolutely say—and I want to put this on the record—that the Government are absolutely seized of the importance of REM.”—[Official Report, 12/11/20; col. 1174.]
That is great, isn’t it? We could all be confident that this would go in the Bill.
Unfortunately, things do not seem to be progressing particularly quickly. The latest update I could find on the GOV.UK website, from 7 May, says:
“We’ve considered all the submissions and will continue to use the evidence provided to inform further thinking on the use of remote electronic monitoring in England. We’ll engage more with stakeholders in the near future around the topics that were highlighted in this call for evidence.”
This language does not reflect the previous enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, so can the Minister here today please confirm that the Government remain
“absolutely seized of the importance of REM”?
Can he please give details of the Government’s thinking that has been informed by the consultation? It would be wonderful to know how long it will be before this thinking turns into action. Given the long lead-in times for retrofitting all the existing fishing vessels, the sooner the Government can move forward on this and articulate a specific monitoring scheme, the better. We need to embrace this technology as a matter of urgency. If the Government continue to drag their feet, it would seem that the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, has been left hanging out to dry.