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, respecting social distancing, others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. I must ask Members in the Room to wear a face covering, except when seated at their desk, to speak sitting down and to wipe down their desk, chair and any other touch points before and after use. If the capacity of the Committee Room is exceeded or other safety requirements are breached, I will immediately adjourn the Committee. If there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for five minutes.
I will call Members to speak in the order listed. During the debate on each group, I invite Members, including those in the Grand Committee Room, to email the clerk, using the Grand Committee address, if they wish to speak after the Minister. I will call Members to speak in order of request. The groupings are binding. Leave should be given to withdraw amendments. When putting the Question, I will collect voices in the Grand Committee Room only. I remind Members that Divisions cannot take place in Grand Committee. It takes unanimity to amend the Bill, so if a single voice says, “Not Content”, an amendment is negatived, and if a single voice says “Content”, a clause stands part. If a Member taking part remotely wants their voice accounted for if the Question is put, they must make that clear when speaking on the group. We will now begin.
Telecommunications (Security) Bill
Thursday 15th July 2021
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021 View all Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 15-III Provisional third marshalled list for Grand Committee - (14 Jul 2021)
Lord Coaker
“Horizon-scanning body
(1) Within three months of this Act being passed, the Secretary of State must establish a body corporate with a remit to consider emerging and future developments for the telecommunications sector for the purposes of identifying current and emerging security threats.(2) The body must include representatives from, but is not limited to— (a) the National Cyber Security Centre;(b) the intelligence services;(c) the National Cyber Force;(d) the Ministry of Defence(e) the Home Office;(f) the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport;(g) the National Security Council;(h) the Investment Security Unit;(i) the Armed Forces;(j) OFCOM;(k) relevant industry bodies and companies;(l) relevant telecommunications and security experts.(3) The body must publish a report annually which is laid before both Houses of Parliament.”
Lord Coaker (Lab)
Good afternoon, everyone. I am looking forward to the Committee session this afternoon. Two days ago was my first Grand Committee sitting as a Member of the House of Lords, and I was impressed by the quality of the contributions. I have been moved by the intellectual power of the people here and I look forward to that. I was grateful to the Minister for her contributions and the way she tried to answer the questions, even if one or two of them were not as well put as her Civil Service brief. I appreciated that, and it helps the Committee enormously when we have that positive, constructive engagement, even if there is a measure of disagreement at times. As I said at the beginning, a Bill like this unites us all in wanting to contribute in a way that defends and secures our country and democracies across the world. It is in that spirit that I move Amendment 18 and table Amendment 25 in my name, and I know the Minister will take it in that spirit.
I also thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, very much for supporting both the amendments. I know the Committee is looking forward to his informed and experienced contribution to our discussions. Although the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is not present—he will no doubt read Hansard—I also thank him for his support for Amendment 25.
These are probing amendments that challenge the Government to explain to the Committee and the wider public their thinking and why these amendments are not necessary. Their various measures are contained elsewhere in the Bill, but it is an important debate for us to have because, as all of us have said, national security is the first duty of any Government and that includes Her Majesty’s Opposition and other parties. That is what “Government” means in total—the responsibility of us all to our citizens.
These amendments are also saying that, to secure democracies across the world in the face of the autocratic challenges and threats we see, it is necessary for us to work well not only in our own country but with our allies. That is clearly something the Government wish, as well.
Our telecoms infrastructure, as I saw yesterday when I went to Airbus—a brilliant company in Portsmouth—is clearly critical to our defence and security as well as our economic prosperity. The Bill’s impact assessment rightly highlights the threats we face, stating that the
“most significant cyber threat to the UK telecoms sector”
comes from other states. It is not a terrorist threat in the normal sense of a threat from individuals; but when powerful states can take action against us, that is significant for our country and for democracies across the world. The impact assessment continues:
“The UK Government has publicly attributed malicious cyber activity against the UK to Russia and China as well as North Korea and Iranian actors”.
That is worrying and significant for all of us.
Both amendments say that our approach to security has to be co-ordinated domestically and with our allies. That is, frankly, a challenge for any Government. As to the list of bodies I have included in the amendment, I am sure the Minister could say that I have not mentioned this or that body. However, those that I have listed are based on my own research. I am sure that other significant bodies should be on it. However, the point is that the challenge is significant. How will cross-departmental co-ordination on the current security infrastructure work at a domestic and international level? I know that the response is often that we have the National Security Council and that is why it was set up, and the Prime Minister chairs it. It is obviously incredibly important and it would be ridiculous to say that it is anything other than an effective co-ordinating body. However, that does not alter the fact that coming to the table are significant actors in their own right within the sphere. It is right to ask, how do the Government expect the new duties placed on the telecoms sector to work and be policed by all the various bodies?
The amendments also highlight the question of how we future-proof this legislation against current and emerging threats. To be blunt, it is hard enough to deal with the current threats as we understand them. At security levels far higher than those we have in this Committee, there will be those who will not only be trying to deal with the current threats but looking at what might happen, five, 10 or 15 years down the road. That is a real challenge for anyone. How do we stop those threats?
We have come to a view about Huawei. Some may argue that perhaps we should have done so two, three or four years ago but we are where we are and we have now concluded that all Huawei equipment should be out of our country’s networks by 2027. Would it not have been better to have predicted that several years ago, so that we would not have to try to stop that company’s involvement now? How does the Minister believe that the current structures and those envisaged in the Bill will deal with not only current but future threats?
The concern is shared by our allies. The recent NATO summit communiqué stated:
“NATO and Allies…will maintain and enhance the security of our critical infrastructure”,
including “communication information networks” such as 5G. I should say to the Minister—the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, will have much greater understanding and awareness of this issue—that one of the most significant moves that the alliance made in that communiqué was to confirm that a cyberattack, including on our own telecoms networks, could trigger an Article 5 response.
With the Committee’s permission, I will read from paragraph 32, as it is so important:
“We reaffirm that a decision as to when a cyberattack would lead to the invocation of Article 5 would be taken by the North Atlantic Council on a case-by-case basis. Allies recognise that the impact of significant malicious cumulative cyber activities might … be considered as amounting to an armed attack.”
I emphasise “armed attack”. We and our allies are saying, quite rightly, that the theory of deterrence is now being applied to the world of cyber. The Minister will understand the principle that an attack on one is an attack on all, so theoretically it could be one of our allies that is subject to that attack and that we come to the defence of. Again, I think that is quite right. Does the Minister have any comment highlighting how the Government see that being taken forward?
Amendment 18 seeks to establish a horizon-scanning body for our telecommunications sector, to identify current and emergent threats and produce an annual report for Parliament. The body would include representatives from the Armed Forces, relevant departments, the intelligence services and the National Cyber Security Centre, as well as industry and security experts. Can the Minister explain how the Government will watch out for future threats without such a body? How will cross-departmental work be managed? Will the new telecoms advisory council include security experts or ex-military personnel?
The Spectator is not a magazine whose political opinions I agree with, but this is so serious. The front page this week features the relationship between China and Cambridge. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, I am just reporting to the Committee what is said in a well-regarded magazine that I and many other noble Lords read. To have that on its front page, and then inside, significant articles about the relationships and the potential difficulties that they may cause for us on a security level, shows to the Committee and the wider public how difficult this is becoming. You have one of the most brilliant universities in the world being questioned in terms of its relationship with China, in a well-regarded publication. That is a challenge for us as we take this Bill through and what it means for us in maintaining our security to defend our democracy.
Amendment 25 seeks to ensure that the Government publish a long-term strategy for our telecommunications security and resilience. Can the Minister outline how she expects that to happen? We should consider how to collaborate more effectively with our allies—NATO and the Five Eyes—and consider proper resourcing of UK security infrastructure. I believe DCMS is now developing a long-term strategy to consider how international standards can be developed. Can the Minister explain how the UK will work with our allies on R&D or adoption and deployment? This is critical for the security of our nation, so it would be helpful for the Committee to understand.
I hope that the Minister takes my contribution in the spirit in which it is meant, which is to challenge in a way that I hope is helpful to the security of the nation and of our telecoms infrastructure and businesses. The last year or two have been a bit of a wake-up call for all of us, including me, as to the potential threats that there are. Given the security level that we are all at, what some people working at STRAP levels know and understand about the threats to our nation one can only begin to imagine. I look forward to the Minister’s response and to the contributions of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and other Members of the Committee. This is meant to be a probing, challenging amendment. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond in that spirit, and that we can all look forward to seeing how the security of our nation can be effectively maintained against the threats as we understand them now and as they may emerge in the future. I beg to move.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, I do not want to bang on for a long time because, in a way, this falls in with things such as the technical advisory committee. It is all part and parcel of the same thing, and we have to keep our eyes open and start forward scanning and see what else is out there.
Ofcom is not in fact a department; I seem to remember that it was set up by Europe through regulations and that originally, it reported via Parliament to the European regulators. I am not entirely sure what Ofcom’s chain of command is; I must do some research into it. Having this buried inside such a body without proper parliamentary scrutiny is unwise, so it is only sensible to embed the principle of having proper advisory committees. This is an obvious no-brainer: we need people with these abilities and skills to be advising on this stuff, and I cannot understand why there would be any objection to it.
Amendment 25 covers the very good point about long-term strategy. As was pointed out on Tuesday, our relationship with the Five Eyes could easily change. There have been efforts from time to time to drive a wedge between us, and we need to start looking at that. One cannot assume that the status quo regarding who is an ally or friend will continue for ever. The fact that we are in different parts of the globe and therefore perhaps in different trading blocs could cause undue pressure, so we must have this horizon-scanning, long-term attitude.
The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, reminded me of the Tallinn Manual and the question of when cyberwarfare escalates to actual warfare because your entire infrastructure and systems have been taken down. It is a very interesting document. I skimmed through it a long time ago, but it was very eye-opening and before we just leap in, people should take a look at it.
That is really all I have to say. This is so obvious, and I just hope that the Government are going to do something about it.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, in speaking to Amendments 18 and 25, to which I have added my name, I have in mind the very purpose of the Bill itself, which is, I take it, to ensure the security and resilience of our telecommunications capability here in the UK. The Bill as drafted places certain duties on the providers of those capabilities and gives powers to the Secretary of State to make regulations and issue codes of practice. This is all well and good, but these somewhat mechanistic, albeit welcome, measures will not by themselves result in the necessary degree of security and resilience.
As I said at Second Reading, things move quickly in the world of technology, and they will move even faster during a determined attack on our telecommunications infrastructure. If we are to respond successfully, we will need to be both agile and adaptable. The measures in the Bill will, by themselves, not ensure this.
One of the reasons why we are even considering this Bill is concerns over the position of Huawei in our telecommunications architecture, the clear channel that runs through that company to the Chinese Communist Party, and the ensuing vulnerability of our system. None of this comes as a great surprise, but we have allowed ourselves to get into a position where we are now having to play catch-up. This is largely because we spent the first half of the last decade thinking almost exclusively of the economic opportunities offered by China and very little about the associated security risks; in other words, our decision-making process was unbalanced and distorted. Without proper safeguards, we could easily find ourselves in a similar situation with regard to some future threat.
What sorts of safeguards might help prevent such an occurrence? There is no single answer to this question but at the very least we need a process that provides an appropriate degree of horizon scanning and that, importantly, draws in expertise from across technology, business and security organisations and, indeed, from across different government departments, to give us the best chance of coming to a balanced view.
That is what Amendment 18 seeks to do. It will not cure all ills but it will provide us with a mechanism to drive adaptability, not just in our architecture but in our thinking, something that is traditionally hard to achieve. Of course, the Minister may say that the Bill is not the place for setting out this kind of thing. My response to that would be: if not here, then where? The responsibilities outlined in the amendment must be met if we are to achieve the Bill’s laudable purpose.
Amendment 25 is in many ways a follow-on from Amendment 18. It calls for the deliberations of a horizon-scanning body and the ensuing policies and actions to be presented to Parliament in the form of a comprehensive strategy. Most importantly, it seeks to ensure that such a strategy is coherent with other elements of government policy, as set out in various documents, such as the integrated review, and in other legislation, such as the National Security and Investment Act. It also seeks to encourage international co-operation in this regard. I believe this is essential, since we rely so heavily on collective security for our national safety. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has already highlighted the importance that NATO now attaches to the whole area of communications and cyberspace.
Taken together, these two amendments put in place measures that would improve our agility and adaptability and thus strengthen the Bill in terms of its ultimate purpose. If the Government are going to set their face against such measures in this legislation, I ask the Minister to explain how the essential functions they prescribe are to be carried out and how Parliament can be confident of their success.
Baroness Stroud (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to speak after the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. I support Amendment 18, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and Amendment 25, which is also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton.
These amendments propose a pathway forward that would ensure we are well equipped to handle the challenges that will inevitably come our way in the next decade. Amendment 18 places a requirement on the Secretary of State to create a body designed to analyse and consider existing and emergent threats in the telecommunications sector, incorporating representatives from the major bodies of our national security matrix. This body would then be required to lay an annual report before all Members of Parliament, ensuring adequate parliamentary scrutiny and oversight. Indeed, if not for Back-Bench agitation, we might still be aimlessly integrating Huawei into our critical infrastructure, lagging behind our Five Eyes allies in recognising the security threat that such high-risk vendors pose.
Amendment 25, building on the horizon scanning outlined in Amendment 18, requires the Secretary of State to publish a long-term telecommunications strategy in partnership with the aims and outcomes of our closest Five Eyes and NATO allies. In alignment with the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, this strategy would ensure that long-termism is built into our thinking across both our economic and strategic aims in the coming decade.
We have one of the most sophisticated and advanced intelligence-gathering apparatuses in the world. We are a significant asset to our Five Eyes and NATO allies and a crucial linchpin in ensuring the international order. Yet we have been slow to respond to the rapidly changing digital landscape that we find ourselves in.
An obvious example of this is the much-discussed high-risk vendor, Huawei. It is extraordinary to think that all the way back in 2013 a report from the Intelligence and Security Committee concluded that Huawei posed a risk to national security and that private providers were responsible for ensuring the security of the UK telecoms network. Yet now, according to Ofcom, Huawei accounts for about 44% of the equipment used in providing superfast full-fibre connections directly to homes, offices and other businesses in the UK.
In a Statement to Parliament last year, the Foreign Secretary made the welcome announcement that
“high-risk vendors should be excluded from all safety- related and safety-critical networks in critical national infrastructure”—[Official Report, Commons, 28/1/20; cols. 710-11.]
and yet, due to how embedded this vendor has become in our critical infrastructure and the lack of competition, Huawei, as we have heard, is not set to be removed as a provider until 2027. It should never have reached this point. A horizon-scanning body and deeper parliamentary oversight would ensure that we are not left sleeping at the wheel again. How was it that our Five Eyes allies were significantly more alert to this risk than we were?
Furthermore, without cross-body co-ordination, the rapid advances in technology we are set to witness over the coming years will make it even more difficult to adapt to threats as they manifest themselves. GCHQ Director Jeremy Fleming suggests that the UK needs to prioritise the advances in quantum computing, as well as working with allies to build better cyber defences and shape international standards and laws in cyberspace. With quantum computing becoming more mainstream, there is a risk that a sudden increase in processing power could render existing encryption methods useless.
These are just some of the challenges we face. The future of our security and sovereignty will depend on the steps we take in this Bill. According to MI5, at least 20 foreign intelligence services are actively operating against UK interests. We have a remarkable security and intelligence community but, as we enter this new era, we must accept that our ability to adapt to emerging challenges will be the defining feature that drives us forward and keeps us ahead of other nations that would challenge our national interests.
We have seen how easy it is for a digital attack to break down our critical systems. Just last month, a ransomware attack in the US took down the entire Colonial Pipeline infrastructure, which transmits nearly half the east coast’s fuel supplies. Analysts have suggested that hackers could have been inside Colonial’s IT network for weeks or even months before launching their ransomware attack.
This issue extends into the digital space. A 2018 report commissioned by the US Senate intelligence committee, The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency—a Russian propaganda unit—revealed that there was:
“A sweeping and sustained social influence operation consisting of various coordinated disinformation tactics aimed directly at US citizens, designed to exert political influence and exacerbate social divisions in US culture”.
I posit that we may not even be aware of the scope of the disinformation and destabilisation occurring online that is challenging our sovereignty and internal security.
I support these amendments in light of the fact that it has taken considerable Back-Bench activity to alert us to the security issues posed by high-risk vendors; that we are still not thinking clearly on China; and that we need systems and structures to ensure that long-termism is built into our thinking across both our economic and strategic aims in the coming decade.
Baroness Northover (LD) [V]
My Lords, Amendment 18 would require the Secretary of State to
“establish a body … to consider emerging and future developments for the telecommunications sector for the purposes of identifying current and emerging security threats.”
Amendment 25 would require the Secretary of State to
“publish a long-term strategy on telecommunications security and resilience.”
These are very sensible proposals, and the speakers have made a cogent case. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for his wide-ranging and positive introduction to these amendments.
This is an extremely complex area, as we have heard, not only within our discussions of the Bill but beyond. We know from bitter experience that something can be flagged as a risk and then, without proper focus on it—given all that Governments have to focus on —follow-through is less than systematic. Think of pandemics, flagged, not least in the 2015 strategic review, yet followed through with little or no preparation. This picks up a theme that the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, emphasised in relation to Huawei: awareness but lack of action. Therefore, the case for a body that looks at this area in the widest sense is compelling.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for tabling these amendments and for his very generous opening remarks. He reminds us that we must remain vigilant about current and emerging threats to our telecoms networks. Rightly, he also urged the Government to communicate how we will do that in a way that makes sense to the public. Today, we are focusing on this Bill and how it is designed to protect our networks now and into the future.
As we heard, Amendment 18 calls for a body to be set up for the purposes of monitoring current and emerging threats to our telecoms sector. The amendment lists a number of committees, departments, organisations and agencies that should be represented on this body.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, asked: if not here, where? I will try to answer that question in my remarks.
I assure noble Lords that we already have established procedures to monitor current and emerging threats to the telecoms sector. The National Cyber Security Centre undertakes regular risk assessments of such threats, and those assessments are used to inform government policy. For example, the code of practice the Bill will allow us to issue will be informed by the National Cyber Security Centre’s assessments.
In addition, the Government already have forums in which emerging threats and new technological developments are discussed with industry. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked me to give examples of a particular domestic focus. This is one of them. For example, the National Cyber Security Centre’s network security information exchange is a trusted community of security professionals from across the telecoms sector who come together on a quarterly basis to discuss openly and share information on security issues and concerns. There are also established channels for the kind of cross-government and interagency working that the noble Lord’s amendment seeks to formalise. The Government do not see that it would be necessary to establish a new body corporate, which would simply risk duplicating the work of existing forums.
The noble Lord’s amendment would also make provision for Parliament to receive annual reports on current and emerging threats from this new body. The National Cyber Security Centre already publishes guidance as and when threats develop. Furthermore, as noble Lords are aware, the Intelligence and Security Committee is able to see and scrutinise the National Cyber Security Centre’s assessments of current and emerging threats. Given that there is already this provision for parliamentary oversight, I do not consider that laying a report before Parliament annually would be necessary.
Amendment 25 would require the Government to publish a long-term telecoms security and resilience strategy, covering various topics set out in the amendment, within six months of the Bill’s Royal Assent, and would require this strategy to be laid before Parliament. The Government share the noble Lord’s desire to ensure that this country is fully prepared to overcome future challenges to the security of our telecoms networks. However, the publication of such a strategy is, we feel, unnecessary because recent government reports and announcements, publicly available, already address these topics. The noble Lord will be aware that the Bill is the result of the recommendations put forward in the UK Telecoms Supply Chain Review Report, published in July 2019. That report, along with the Government’s announcements last year, has already set out our strategy for addressing telecoms security risks, particularly relating to supply chains.
In addition, we published our 5G Supply Chain Diversification Strategy last November. This includes our strategy for collaborating with allies on future network research and development, and influencing global telecoms standards. As I will touch on when we debate Amendments 24 and 28, this work is progressing well and the Government’s response to the recent diversification taskforce report, published earlier this month, sets out the steps we are taking to deliver on our goals.
More broadly, the Government’s approach to telecoms security and resilience is informed by cross-government priorities. These include the integrated review, published in March, which committed to launching a new comprehensive cyber strategy this year. The strategy will set out how we will build up the UK’s cyber resilience, deter our adversaries and influence tomorrow’s technologies so that they are safe, secure and open.
Alongside this, a national resilience strategy will ensure that our suite of systems, infrastructure and capabilities for managing the full range of resilience risks becomes more proactive, adaptable and responsive to future threats and challenges. Work is well under way to develop these cross-cutting strategies, and we will ensure that our approach to telecoms security and resilience continues to take them into account.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, know very well that there is a tension between having a greater degree of focus in a strategy and a wider scope. We believe that we have struck the right balance in this area.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked about cyber deterrence. He may be aware that the Government will shortly bring forward legislation to counter state threats of the type he described. It will create new offences, tools and powers to detect, deter and disrupt hostile state activity by states targeted at the UK. He also referred, in the context of future-proofing, to the National Security Council. Among its responsibilities is examining forward-looking strategies.
The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, mentioned the role of the FCDO. Of course, she will know that the First Secretary of State provides leadership across departments to ensure that the Government’s response to cyberthreats and our ambition as a cyberpower are fulfilled.
My noble friend Lady Stroud talked about the Government being asleep at the wheel in relation to Huawei. I think that is a little harsh. The Government have always considered Huawei to pose a relatively high risk to the UK’s telecoms networks compared with other vendors. A risk mitigation strategy has been in place since Huawei began to supply equipment to UK public telecoms providers. Obviously, the Government have announced extensive advice to manage those security risks based on the work of the experts at the National Cyber Security Centre. Most recently, the Secretary of State announced advice that providers should remove all equipment made by Huawei from 5G networks by the end of 2027.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked about the presence of security experts on the recently announced diversification council. I can confirm that a senior official from the National Cyber Security Centre will attend to provide that expertise.
The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, asked what parliamentary scrutiny there was of Ofcom. The chief executive and other senior officials from Ofcom give regular evidence to parliamentary Select Committees, including an annual scrutiny session with the DCMS Select Committee, and it also lay its annual report and accounts before Parliament.
I hope I have managed to address most of the points raised and to reassure your Lordships that, while we recognise the very valid questions that have been asked, we believe that we have the balance right in terms of co-ordination and strategy. With that, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
I have received a request to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lord, Lord Fox.
Lord Fox (LD)
I thank the Minister and other speakers for this debate, which is really important. The Minister was basically saying in her response, “Don’t worry, we’ve got this covered.” If the Government did indeed have it covered, I suggest that ripping out 40% of the 5G network at the cost of several billion pounds to the industry is a pretty poor cover. The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, that it took Back- Benchers to highlight this rather than the Government was particularly apposite.
The Minister portrayed the decision to remove Huawei almost as if it was a success of the process. Will she acknowledge that these billions of pounds are growth that we will not get, that they are investment in this country that has been wasted, and that it has put the country in danger in the process? Will she further acknowledge that there might be others who are able to help in the process of avoiding a repeat of what is a huge debacle?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I tried to present the breadth and depth of approaches that the Government are taking to address this incredibly serious and complex problem. If I may borrow the word used by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, we have tried to show some agility in responding to changing circumstances. The noble Lord will be aware that there were changes to the US foreign-produced direct product rules in May 2020 which changed the risk profile of our engagement with Huawei, and we acted on that, so I do not feel that I have to apologise at this point.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her reply and for again seeking to answer the questions. We may well have to come back to some of this, but I take the point that the Government are seeking to address current and emerging threats; I just think that this needs to be more clearly stated in the Bill. The Minister gave examples of cross-government working. We all know that there are examples of cross-government working, but the Committee is saying—I think that there was agreement across the Committee—that sometimes there is a need for a mechanism to ensure that it happens. It may be that another body will do that more effectively in the face of the threats that we face now or may face in the future—it may be that we seek to replace rather than add a body. The Government may want to consider that.
Lord Coaker
“Provision of information to the Intelligence and Security Committee
The Secretary of State must provide the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament as soon as is reasonably practicable with a copy of—(a) any direction or notice (or part thereof) that is withheld from publication by the Secretary of State in the interests of national security in accordance with section 105Z11(2) or (3) of the Communications Act 2003;(b) any notification of contravention given by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 105Z18(1) of the Communications Act 2003;(c) any confirmation decision given by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 105Z20(2)(a) of the Communications Act 2003;(d) any reasons for making an urgent enforcement direction that are withheld by the Secretary of State in the interests of national security in accordance with section 105Z22(5) of the Communications Act 2003; and(e) any reasons for confirming or modifying an urgent enforcement direction that are withheld by the Secretary of State in the interests of national security in accordance with section 105Z23(6) of the Communications Act 2003.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would ensure that the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament is provided with any information relating to a designated vendor direction, notification of contravention, urgent enforcement action or modifications to an enforcement direction made on grounds of national security.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I apologise to the Committee for having to hear so much of me in the first 48 minutes. This is a really important amendment and I will make a couple of general remarks before making some more specific comments.
Concern has been expressed throughout consideration of this Bill about the extent to which the Bill provides for parliamentary scrutiny. Parliamentary scrutiny is the important area that Amendment 22 seeks to address, and I am grateful for the support of my noble friend Lady Merron and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover.
Amendment 22 seeks to improve and prioritise national security. We have all said that we support the intention behind this Bill and the need for national security, but the sweeping powers that the Bill gives the Secretary of State must be used in the interests of securing our critical national infrastructure. Removing Huawei does not in itself do that, so there is a question of accountability here. Amendment 22 is designed to ensure greater scrutiny, focus and transparency and address the deepening hole in accountability presented by the Government. At its heart, it would
“ensure that the Intelligence and Security Committee … is provided with any information relating to a designated vendor direction, notification of contravention, urgent enforcement action or modifications to an enforcement direction made on grounds of national security”
by the Secretary of State, as soon as reasonably possible.
The Minister knows that, during the passage of the National Security and Investment Bill, noble Peers from all sides of this House repeatedly tried to ensure that the Intelligence and Security Committee had oversight of national security issues. To be frank with the Minister, it was difficult to understand why the Government were so determined not to give the committee a role. This amendment says to the Government that the ISC is the appropriate place to discuss matters of national security and that it has a unique role in assessing security implications, as even Ministers accept.
The key point is to ask the Minister how this would work. This is the nub of the amendment and goes to the heart of what many noble Lords have said. The DCMS Select Committee and many of the people who will be looking at these documents do not have the required clearance to scrutinise highly classified evidence, so should the ISC, which does have the necessary security clearance, not have a role? It is the only committee of Parliament that has regular access to documents marked “information sensitive for national security reasons”.
I am sure that many of us simply do not understand that when you look at the state security threats to the telecommunications infrastructure that have been identified by the Government, the level of clearance will not be official-sensitive, STRAP 1 or STRAP 2, it will be STRAP 3. No one in this Committee will see that. Some Members of the Committee may have seen it in the past. So how can Parliament be reassured without knowing that the Intelligence and Security Committee has looked at it? Who has oversight of it? Even the Minister will not have the level of clearance to see all of it, yet she will tell the Committee that Parliament has oversight of these matters, when none of us—or very few of us—have the security clearance to actually look at and scrutinise those threats. So how will Parliament scrutinise it if we do not have the security clearance to do that? It is logically inconsistent. Yet time and again, the Government refuse to allow the committee set up with that express purpose—namely, the Intelligence and Security Committee—the function that it was set up to do on behalf of Parliament. With respect, I simply do not understand why the Government are so resistant to that. On many of the other things that we mention, there is a debate and opinions are exchanged. But this is completely and utterly illogical.
I ask the Committee to consider this. Given that the level of security clearance needed to protect our country, its telecommunications structure and that of our allies from the threats posed by other states is above that of the vast majority of Ministers of the Crown, Members of the House of Lords and civil servants, who is to scrutinise these matters if not the Intelligence and Security Committee? I fail to understand what the answer to that is. Parliament deserves to scrutinise these matters and it should be done by the committee set up to do that because it is the only committee of Parliament that has the necessary security clearance. I beg to move.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has summed up an important recurring theme that was raised at Second Reading. The Government should take this very seriously indeed.
Oversight by a body with top-level security clearance is essential. I certainly would sleep safer if I knew this was happening. Part of this comes from the Minister’s reply when I started to query the status of Ofcom and its relationship to the Civil Service department. I gather that the relationship of Ofcom is similar to that of an agency—if it is not actually set up as an agency; it is set up as a regulatory body, I think. I remember the huge problem—debacle would be a better word—when Defra failed to bring in the new mapping system back when we were changing the way of paying farmers. Everyone knew that it was about to be disastrous. Everyone could see the train crash coming. The Minister could not do anything about it except stand at the Dispatch Box and say, “I’m not allowed to interfere. It is a separate company. We can only call it to account at the end of the year.” As a result, when it all went pear-shaped and farmers suffered disastrous and severe financial problems, the Minister was retired—and it was not any fault of his. He knew perfectly well what was going on but had no power under the structure.
This is my problem with the agency structure that was set up, I think under Mrs Thatcher, when she was trying to cut back the Civil Service so she took things off the Civil Service books to make the figures look better. We have to be very careful when we are handing huge powers or these momentous decisions to an agency. Therefore, it is important that we get into the Bill mechanisms by which we can know what is going on at the time and make sure that it is not going wrong. This oversight, certainly by the Intelligence and Security Committee, is essential—a no-brainer.
I will just mention that the same principle applies in Amendment 29 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Fox, which I did not put my name to because I thought that was unnecessary. Exactly the same thing applies to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. Rather than me wasting time speaking again, I will say it now: please will the Government start looking at this more seriously?
Baroness Northover (LD) [V]
My Lords, I have added my name in support of Amendment 22, which the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, explained so comprehensively and so well. He has picked up an ongoing theme that has been so agitating noble Lords—especially, I note, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—about the Executive increasingly and simply bypassing Parliament. I think that the noble and learned Lord will be very interested in this matter when we come to Report in the Chamber.
In this regard, I can do no better than refer the Minister to the speech by the noble Lord, Lord West, at Second Reading. He is the Lords representative on the Intelligence and Security Committee. He pointed out that this is exactly what that committee is for. It is clearly vital that Parliament has a role in what is covered under the Bill, but we also understand the potential security sensitivities here. This is where that committee can play a vital role on behalf of Parliament, but under the strict security rules under which it operates. If there are matters that the Secretary of State is withholding from publication in the interests of national security and in related areas, these must be reported to the ISC. I therefore urge the Minister to accept this amendment.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and my noble friend Lady Northover for this amendment, which I would have signed had she not done so already. We heard at Second Reading an excellent speech from the noble Lord, Lord West, explaining not only why this amendment is important but why certain figures who would normally speak in this debate are not doing so. He explained that the ISC is seeking to change its MoU. As such, he and others would not speak in this particular debate.
However, we have an analogous debate to refer to, which has already been mentioned. Those of us who are veterans of the National Security and Investment Bill have been through this already. I think the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, is the only other person in this Room who was involved in it. I certainly spent some of my life on that Bill.
We sent back to the Commons an amended version of that Bill. Your Lordships adopted an amendment not dissimilar from the one in front of the Committee today. That decision was made, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, because the BEIS Select Committee is not enabled to deal with the level of security information it needs to properly scrutinise the operation of BEIS for the National Security and Investment Act. There is exactly the same situation here. I gather, anecdotally, that the BEIS Committee is already hitting issues with getting the information it needs under that Act.
We also heard anecdotally on Tuesday of the debacle over the Newport Wafer Fab, where the BEIS Secretary of State has failed to use the power given to him by the National Security and Investment Act to do something around national security. The noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, is no longer in her place, but once again the ministry was forced by Back-Bench action to reconsider what it was doing. This should not be how things work. It is beginning to look like these are rhetorical points, rather than actually being usable. I hope the same fate does not befall this legislation and that it actually gets used rather than shelved. But in the same way as BEIS, DCMS will have a Select Committee that cannot access the information it needs to scrutinise the activities covered in this Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, notwithstanding the stifling atmosphere of this Committee Room, managed to do a very close approximation of complete incredulity over why the Government should not listen to this fantastic advice. I can say that, having gone through the last Bill and seen how resistant the Government are to advice of this sort, this is neither an accident nor a sin of omission. This is a sin of commission. The Government are very clear that they do not want proper scrutiny of what they are doing, and if this Bill remains as it is, there will not be the scrutiny that is needed. Neutering of that scrutiny is not an accident but a deliberate act of the Government.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, for tabling this amendment, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for moving it. The role and remit of the Intelligence and Security Committee, as noble Lords have remarked, have been raised a number of times in the other place and at Second Reading of this Bill, so I welcome the opportunity to clarify how appropriate oversight of the Bill’s national security powers will be provided for in the Bill and through existing mechanisms.
Amendment 22 would require the Secretary of State to provide the Intelligence and Security Committee with copies of designation notices and designated vendor directions when such notices, or parts of them, are withheld under Section 105Z11(2) or (3) in the interests of national security. It would also require the Secretary of State to provide copies of notifications of contraventions, confirmation decisions, the reasons for giving urgent enforcement directions when withheld under Section 105Z22(5), and the reasons for confirming or modifying such directions when withheld under Section 105Z23(6).
I will try to correct the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that the Government are trying to avoid parliamentary scrutiny on this particular point. That simply is not borne out by the way that the Bill is drafted. We are very clear about where parliamentary scrutiny should take place. I recognise the desire of your Lordships for the Intelligence and Security Committee to play a greater role in the oversight of national security decision-making across government, including in relation to this Bill. As I mentioned earlier, through the oversight of the National Cyber Security Centre, the Intelligence and Security Committee can request information around NCSC advice on, and activities relating to, high-risk vendors.
However, this amendment would extend the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee in an unprecedented way. As noble Lords are aware, the activities of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport are not within the ISC’s remit. That committee’s remit extends to the intelligence agencies and other activities of the Government in relation to intelligence or security matters, as they are set out in its memorandum of understanding.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked what he called the “central question” of how this will work in practice in terms of security access. My understanding is that according to the Osmotherly rules detailing how the Government may share information with Select Committees, members of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee are able to view and handle classified and other sensitive material, subject to agreement between the department and the chair of the committee on appropriate handling. Documents may also be shared with the chair of the DCMS Committee on Privy Council terms, subject to agreement between the committee chair and the department.
The advice of the intelligence agencies will not be the only factor that the Secretary of State will take into account when deciding what is proportionate to include in a designated vendor direction. As well as the advice of the National Cyber Security Centre, the Secretary of State will consider, among other things, the economic impact, the cost to industry and the impact on connectivity caused by the requirements in any designated vendor direction. The ISC does not have the remit to consider non-security issues such as the economic and connectivity implications of the requirements in designated vendor directions. The Digital, Culture Media and Sport Select Committee can consider those wider aspects and that is why it is the correct and appropriate body to see copies of designation notices and designated vendor directions that are not laid before Parliament. Any future changes to the ISC’s remit would be best managed through consideration of the Justice and Security Act 2013 and the associated memorandum of understanding.
For the reasons that I have set out, I am unable to accept the amendment and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, will therefore withdraw it.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her reply. The Government are going to have to reconsider this matter. The explanation of what can or cannot be looked at is very unclear. The purpose of the amendment is to make it clear through the legislation that the Intelligence and Security Committee would have an automatic right to look at some of the threats, rather than it being the judgment of someone, who has to consult someone else to make a decision. That is the whole point. It should not be a question of someone deciding after discussion whether the matter should go forward; there should be a requirement in the Bill that that be done.
The point that I keep making is that at security clearance level 3, hardly anyone in the country could look at this matter, but there may well be aspects of a threat to telecommunications from a state that are at that level. All that any of us is saying is that of course Parliament should not be openly told about it, but that does not mean that there should be no scrutiny by the committee set up with that express purpose, so that we have oversight and scrutiny of even the most highly classified information. It would be a great credit to our democracy if the even highest level of security threat were subject to a check, set up by Parliament.
I and the Committee are saying to the Minister that this matter needs to be reconsidered. Even the Government, in response to the debate in the other place, have said that they are going to look at the next annual report of the Intelligence and Security Committee to see whether its remit should be extended to include the DCMS Committee. The Government are therefore aware that there is a problem here and say that they will look at this issue. We are trying to horizon-scan here and are saying that this will be a problem if this proposal is not included in the Bill.
I honestly believe that the Government really are going to have to look at this. I am going to repeat that because it is so important. The Minister herself, even the Secretary of State, will not know of some of this. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, knows how many people know, but it is very few. Yet the Intelligence and Security Committee was set up to consider this issue and we are saying that there should be measures in the Bill to deal with it.
The reason why the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and I are incredulous is that this just does not logically hold together. This is not an opinion but a fact: if the Bill goes through unamended, we in Parliament will not be able to look at the security threats that people are making decisions about. It is accepted that not everybody should be told about such things—of course not—but I doubt whether Parliament thinks that this situation is acceptable. I ask the Minister to reconsider that.
Baroness Merron
“OFCOM’s Annual Report
After section 105Z29 of the Communications Act 2003 insert—“105Z30 OFCOM’s Annual Report(1) Every report under paragraph 12 of the Schedule to the Office of Communications Act 2002 (OFCOM’s annual report) must include a statement on—(a) the adequacy of OFCOM’s resourcing in fulfilling its functions under the amendments made to this Act by the Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021;(b) OFCOM’s determination of the adequacy of measures taken by network providers in the previous 12 months to comply with sections 105A and 105B of the Communications Act 2003 and regulations made thereunder; and(c) OFCOM’s assessment of emerging or future areas of security risk based on its interrogation of network providers’ asset registries.(2) The statement required by subsection (1)(a) must include an assessment of—(a) the adequacy of OFCOM’s budget and funding;(b) the adequacy of staffing levels in OFCOM;(c) any skills shortages faced by OFCOM.””Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause introduces an obligation on Ofcom to report on the adequacy of their resources and assess the adequacy of the annual measures taken by telecommunications providers to comply with their duty to take necessary security measures. It also requires Ofcom to assess future areas of security risk based on its interrogation of network providers’ asset registries.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 26, which stands in my name. As I recall raising at Second Reading, the whole point about this legislation is not just its intent but whether it can be delivered in practice. Can it do the job that it intends to do? These amendments are intended to ensure that we know we have the resources, whether in people, funding, infrastructure or whatever, to deliver the protections that the Bill is intended to offer. There are considerable questions about that.
I will focus first on the new responsibilities, remit and powers that are being given to Ofcom. As we know, there has been a vast expansion of Ofcom’s remit over the past 10 years, so it is most important that it is appropriately resourced to carry out its duties and to be very forward-looking. As my noble friend Lord Coaker said earlier, for us, the whole issue of looking forward is a particular concern in the Bill. That has been echoed by many noble Lords this afternoon. I note that reassurance is often given by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, as the Minister and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, will also seek to reassure me. But I am sure he will have picked up the feeling in the Room today that we need to go rather further than words of reassurance.
What we know about Ofcom is that experience in national security measures is not its natural and current territory, so the expansion of these duties will absolutely require people with the required level of security clearance and experience. I recall the comments of Emily Taylor of Oxford Information Labs during the debate in the Public Bill Committee in the other place. She has considerable expertise in cyber intelligence and she said at that time that Ofcom
“will have to acquire a very specific set of skills and capabilities, and that will require substantial investment and learning as an organisation”.—[Official Report, Commons, Telecommunications (Security) Bill Committee, 19/1/21; col. 72.]
I also note that a memorandum was published recently by Ofcom and the National Cyber Security Centre about how they will work together as part of the new regulatory regime. On the face of it, I thought that might provide some of the reassurance that I am sure the Minister will wish to give to noble Lords. However, I observe that while the National Cyber Security Centre will indeed be able to provide advice on national security matters, the question is whether Ofcom has the resource and the greater expertise to understand that advice. It is one thing to receive advice but another to be able to work with it. I am sure noble Lords know their own limitations. I certainly know mine when it comes to advice and expertise. For me, that memorandum did not show understanding of the limitations that there are.
Amendment 23 would require Ofcom to report annually on the adequacy of measures taken by network providers to comply with changes introduced in the Bill, empowering the Government to track the effectiveness of the legislation. That seems to be good legislation: to put it in place, to make sure it does the job it ought to do, to resource it and then to track its effectiveness.
Amendment 23 would also ensure that Ofcom will have the human and informational resources to provide an assessment of security risks based on its interrogation of network providers’ asset registers. This needs to include things such as a reference to the adequacy of Ofcom’s budget, funding and staffing levels and any potential skill shortages that might mean that it cannot do the job it is intended to do.
It is interesting to look at the Government’s own impact assessment, which states that the costs of monitoring compliance with the telecoms security requirements could be up to £49.4 million by 2029. Allied to that, Ofcom’s current budget for telecoms security for this financial year has been increased by £4.6 million; that is intended to reflect its enhanced security role under the Bill. The first obvious question to the Minister is whether this funding will be sufficient to meet the demands and to engage those with the right security skills. As a supplementary question to that, what targets does Ofcom have to seek the numbers of new staff it needs?
On staff shortages and funding shortfalls, how does the Minister consider that the Government will be aware of these problems without some kind of annual report? Furthermore, where do the public fit into this? How will they know that everything is in hand without such a reporting requirement being met? In my view, if Ofcom is to do more on security, the Government absolutely have to make sure that it is secure and able in its new role.
We spoke earlier about the absolutely crucial aspects of future proofing and horizon scanning. It seems that Ofcom also needs to be able to assess future risks to the security of UK telecoms. We know that new types of threat have emerged over recent years; for example, attacks on healthcare systems. We are also sensitive to potential future risks; for example, the dependence of cloud computing infrastructure on Amazon Web Services, the dominant vendor in this market. Clearly, dangers could arise if AWS was bought by a hostile foreign state or hacked by a hostile operator. In all these ways, we need to ensure that Ofcom is equipped not just for the present but for the future.
Amendment 26 looks at the very important matter of skills in the wider sector. We know from the Institute of Engineering and Technology that the UK economy is suffering a loss of £1.5 billion per year due to STEM skills shortages, and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has found that two-thirds of employers who have vacancies report that some are proving hard to fill, with engineering being one of the most prevalent.
Amendment 26 seeks to require the Government to publish a review of the implications of skills shortages and training support for the security of the tele- communications network and its supply chain. Again, this amendment looks forward to ensure that we can protect our security capability.
I have a few specific questions for the Minister. I would be interested to know whether he is concerned that the 2027 target for Huawei removal might be delayed due to skills shortages. Can he comment on what skills shortages have been identified as a security risk? What action are the Government taking to fill them? I look forward to hearing from him regarding these amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, Amendments 23 and 26 touch on the critical issue of skills, in Ofcom and then more widely in the supply chain. They are right to do so, but in my view they are too constrained and do not go nearly far enough. This is not the fault of the drafters—they have to propose amendments that fall within the scope of this particular legislation, and they have done so admirably—but the problem they expose goes much wider than the field of telecommunication.
We find ourselves in this discussion at least in part because of our current reliance on Huawei technology and on the associated vulnerabilities that this introduces. But why have we become so dependent on Huawei? I said earlier that in the first half of the last decade we made unbalanced decisions about our trade and security relationship with China, and that is true. But it is also a fact that Huawei was—and still is—one of the very few companies to have brought the necessary technology to market. Frankly, there were not many options open to us, so our supply chain is anything but resilient in this area.
There are two elements to this problem. One is the level of industrial commitment to and investment in critical technologies; the other is the skills base to support such industries. Both of these interlinked issues must be addressed if we are to resolve the weakness in our supply chain.
The answer does not, of course, have to be wholly national. Industrial capacity and skills that are sufficiently widespread internationally, particularly among responsible countries that abide by international law, norms and standards, would provide us with an acceptable degree of resilience. This will undoubtedly have to be part of the solution, at least in the short term, but we have to ask ourselves why, in technologies that are so important to our security and that promise such future advantage to the companies involved, we are lagging so far behind. I acknowledge that we cannot lead everywhere and provide everything ourselves, but surely an important part of our national strategy should be to put ourselves in the van of those capabilities that will shape and guard our future.
This is certainly not about direct government involvement in business decisions; that approach already has a quite sufficiently inglorious history. It is, though, about government incentives—not least through a clear strategy and consequent procurement decisions—for the appropriate industries and a national effort to provide the necessary skills base to support those industries.
Amendment 26 makes some modest proposals in this regard and I welcome them, as far as they go, but we need to go much further. Telecommunication is not the only area to be hampered by such problems, and I believe we should take a more holistic approach. I have no doubt the Minister will reject the amendment, although I stand ready to be surprised. If, however, he lives up to my expectations, I invite him to say whether the Government agree with my analysis and, if so, how they propose formally to tackle a problem that is so central to our future security and prosperity.
Lord Fox (LD)
Once again, this is a short but important debate, and one of a continuing series. In response to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, we had a short discussion that, to some extent, was crying over spilt milk about why industrial capacity in telecommunications in the United Kingdom is where it is. I think the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, largely agrees with me that it is to do with the purchasing decisions made by near-monopolistic private sector companies based on price. If that is not a lesson for the Government to take forward, we are all doomed anyway.
To turn to the detail of these two amendments, as both the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, have set out, they are about people. Without overrepeating it, I come to the point I was talking about earlier, which is that BEIS is going through a similar process. It is setting up a unit that is supposed to scan the entire industrial landscape for supposed security problems and alert the Minister to decisions that should be made about the future of those companies. These people will have many of the same skills and face many of the same issues, going forward.
First, does the Minister think there is a sufficient pool of people available to cover both these units? Is it sensible to have two units operating in parallel to, and probably in isolation from, each other, with the BEIS unit setting up a telecoms capability, which DCMS will also have? Perhaps the Minister can tell us what conversations are going on between DCMS, Ofcom and BEIS to avoid that duplication. We have already heard that there are too few people so, frankly, it does not make much sense to have two departments competing for the same people.
More broadly, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, is completely correct that there is a huge issue with the availability of people. Unless the Government pick up major programmes to train and retrain people and look at skills that are completely necessary to move forward, we will be left high and dry without the skills we need to create the sorts of industries that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, suggested we need. That will take time, so perhaps the Minister can say what the plan is. What is the process and what discussions are going on with trainers, universities and employers to deliver the skill set we need?
Of course, we would want to review all this annually, which is why these amendments are here, so the Government necessarily come to Parliament to explain how they are getting on and what they are doing. I am sure the Government do not want us to be suspicious of what they are doing, and the best way to avoid that suspicion is to be open and transparent, rather than try to operate in a black box.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, these amendments, both tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, highlight the two important issues that our short debate covered—the role of Ofcom in relation to the Bill; and skills and training, and their effect on telecoms security. I am pleased to have the opportunity to outline some of the work that has already been done in these areas, which I hope explains why we consider these amendments not to be needed.
Amendment 26 would require the Government to complete a review of, and publish a report on, the impact of levels of skills and training on the security of the telecoms network and supply chain. It would require the Government to publish the report within six months of Royal Assent.
The Government certainly agree that it is crucial that public telecoms providers and organisations such as Ofcom have access to people with the skills that they need to keep our networks safe. DCMS published research this year as part of its annual survey, Cyber Security Skills in the UK Labour Market, which found that 50% of UK businesses have a basic technical skills gap. It also found that they do not have confidence in their ability to carry out basic cybersecurity functions and do not outsource these skills.
That is why the Government have a range of programmes already in place to support the growth of cybersecurity skills. Over the past five years, work funded by DCMS has supported over 160,000 young people to forge a career in the cyber sphere. The department has also funded a range of schemes to help adults or career changers to acquire new skills, most recently through the Cyber Launchpad initiative and projects sponsored through the fast track digital workforce fund.
Clearly, there is still much more work to be done to close the cyber skills gap. However, we are making progress. When compared with the 2018 survey, Cyber Security Skills in the UK Labour Market 2021 found that organisations were less likely to report a basic cyber skills gap in areas such as firewall configuration, restricting administrator rights and patching.
Specifically on skills in the telecoms sector, we know that telecoms providers need to have access to people with the right skills to ensure that their networks and services are secure, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, rightly said. That is why we are creating a pipeline of these skills for the future, with telecoms apprenticeships currently available across the sector, and over 4,500 people starting this year alone.
The creation of the UK telecoms lab, as announced by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in the other place last November, will facilitate knowledge sharing and promote skills development in telecoms security. The lab will collaborate with DCMS, the National Cyber Security Centre, the newly established UK Cyber Security Council and industry. It will develop and deliver training packages and support the establishment of professional bodies and communities. I hope that these initiatives demonstrate how seriously the Government take the task of supporting telecoms skills, and cyber skills in particular, and why we feel that the review proposed in the amendment is not needed.
I will speak more broadly about our skills agenda. The Department for Education has targeted specific investment in key areas of learning, such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics—STEM—and technical and digital subjects, which could support careers in telecoms. That includes: £2.5 billion of investment in the national skills fund to support adults to retrain and gain the skills they need for the future; nearly £2.5 billion made available for high-quality industry-designed apprenticeships; £500 million a year towards T-levels; up to £290 million to establish institutes of technology across the country, which will be the pinnacle of technical training; and a new £18 million growth fund to support further and higher education providers to expand high-quality higher technical education.
The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, asked about the impact of skills on the removal of Huawei equipment. We have no plans or intention to delay the 2027 target for the removal of Huawei equipment from 5G networks. Indeed, BT, for example, has already shared in the media that it is making good progress on removing Huawei from 5G networks, starting in Hull. We believe that we are on track.
Amendment 23 would require Ofcom to publish an additional statement as part of its annual report, under paragraph 12 of the Schedule to the Office of Communications Act 2002. This statement would contain information about the adequacy of Ofcom’s resourcing, and telecoms providers’ compliance with their security duties. It would also contain Ofcom’s assessment of any future or emerging risks to telecommunications networks, identified by interrogating telecoms providers’ asset registries.
I reassure the Committee that this amendment is also not needed. The Bill already contains a range of reporting mechanisms that will ensure that Ofcom’s role can be properly scrutinised. I will address three of these mechanisms in particular.
First, Ofcom will need regularly to report to the Secretary of State under new Section 105Z, providing information to assist him with the formulation of policy on telecommunications security. New subsection (4)(a) makes it clear that this report must include information on providers’ compliance with the duties imposed on them by the Bill.
Secondly, Ofcom will need to report on telecoms security in its annual infrastructure report. Clause 11 specifies that this should include information on the extent to which providers are complying with their security duties under new Sections 105A to 105D. Thirdly, by virtue of Clause 14, the Secretary of State will need regularly to report to Parliament on the effectiveness and impact of the new telecoms security framework.
The amendment would address three issues. I will take each in turn. The first concerns Ofcom’s resources, on which the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, began. As my noble friend the Minister mentioned at Second Reading, Ofcom’s security budget for this financial year has been increased by £4.6 million. This funding will allow Ofcom more than to double its headcount of people working on telecoms security, ensuring it has the necessary capacity to deliver its new responsibilities under the Bill. The noble Baroness asked specifically about staffing. Ofcom will work with a recruitment partner to secure the specific cyber skills needed to implement this work. This will include seconding in technical expertise to develop its capability further.
As we discussed earlier in the Committee, Ofcom will also work closely with the NCSC, which will share its expertise to support Ofcom’s implementation of the new regime. The noble Baroness mentioned the relationship between Ofcom and the National Cyber Security Centre. As she noted, the two organisations are in the process of developing a memorandum of understanding and have published a statement summarising how they intend to work together. The three key principles set out in that statement are, first, that the NCSC will provide expert technical cybersecurity advice to Ofcom to support implementation of the new telecoms security framework; secondly, that Ofcom and the NCSC will exchange information where necessary and permitted by law; and, thirdly, that the NCSC will continue to provide incident management support during serious cybersecurity incidents to telecoms operators and to Ofcom as necessary. That statement can be found on Ofcom’s website.
The second area of the amendment is a requirement for Ofcom’s annual report to include information on providers’ compliance with their duties under new Sections 105A to 105D. This reporting would duplicate provisions elsewhere in the Bill. Ofcom is already required to report publicly on providers’ compliance with those duties in Clause 11.
The final point in the amendment is about publishing information on emerging and future security risks. This has also been accounted for in the Bill. New Section 105Z(4)(f) already requires that Ofcom report to the Secretary of State any emerging risks it becomes aware of in its annual report on security. The noble Baroness asked about informing the public. It would be at the discretion of the Secretary of State whether to publish this information.
I can assure the Committee that Ofcom takes a forward-looking approach to regulation to ensure that it is robust in the face of market and technological developments. For example, its recent Technology Futures report looked at innovative technologies that will shape the communications industry, with input from the world’s leading technologists.
I hope that I have provided assurance that adequate and detailed reporting requirements for Ofcom are already outlined in the Bill. As I have set out, it already includes provision for reporting on Ofcom’s work, so additional requirements about skills and training are not necessary. I hope that the noble Baroness will therefore be content not to press her amendments.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I am grateful to noble Lords and to the Minister for his reply, which referred to various items in some detail. What I take from this debate is that, although I am sure that noble Lords are interested to hear of the various initiatives and actions that are in place and which the Minister has rightly emphasised, the question still remains of whether this is enough. Is this exactly what we need? I feel again that this is something of a theme in our debates throughout Committee. Nobody is suggesting to the Ministers that nothing is being done, but is it being done coherently, is it sufficient and is it what is needed? That is again left hanging in the air.
I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, who referred to—these are my words—the need for a national strategy which would, in his words, shape and guard our future. That is exactly the point of these amendments. Indeed, the Government do not do everything, but it is only the Government who have a role in bringing all the parties together and have the ultimate responsibility for security in this country, of course.
I note the helpful remarks from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, who referred to the need to work with other government departments. I would feed that into my point about the need for a strategic approach. My sense from this debate is that this is the part that is not quite clear. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked, what is the plan? We have insight into actions, but whether that is a strategy or a plan is hard to make a judgment on. The Minister indicated that 50% of companies in the relevant sector—that seems a lot—are reporting that they have a lack of cybersecurity skills. Something else that I thought was important was when the Minister spoke of a lack of confidence. We all know that a lack of confidence in any sector, particularly this sector, is problematic and must be addressed.
It is disappointing that the Minister’s response is, again, that this is not necessary and we do not need to publish or to report to Parliament, because I feel it is a missed opportunity to satisfy the country and, within that, noble Lords. It is a missed opportunity to satisfy those who have the security of this country at heart, as the Minister does, about whether the measures are enough and whether they will go fast enough, fully meet the needs of the necessary part of the industry and provide the security needed. Although I am disappointed, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
“Network diversification
(1) The Secretary of State must publish an annual report on the impact of progress of the diversification of the telecommunications supply chain on the security of public electronic communication networks and services.(2) The report required by subsection (1) must include an assessment of the effect on the security of those networks and services of—(a) progress in network diversification set against the most recent telecommunications diversification strategy presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State;(b) likely changes in ownership or trading position of existing market players;(c) changes to the diversity of the supply chain for network equipment;(d) new areas of market consolidation and diversification risk including the cloud computing sector;(e) progress made in any aspects of the implementation of the diversification strategy not covered by paragraph (a);(f) the public funding which is available for diversification.(3) The Secretary of State must lay the report before Parliament.(4) A Minister of the Crown must, not later than two months after the report has been laid before Parliament, move a motion in the House of Commons in relation to the report.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause requires the Secretary of State to report on the impact of the Government’s diversification strategy on the security of telecommunication networks and services, and allows for a debate in the House of Commons on the report.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I move the amendment in my name and thank the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Alton—he could not join us today —for their support.
The amendment is about ensuring that the intent of the Bill can be delivered, and the measures that we are all in favour of will actually happen. There is therefore a link to the earlier debates. Throughout these debates it has become clear that diversity of suppliers is needed at different points of the chain, with sufficient support for the UK’s own start-ups. That will be the only way in which we can secure proper telecoms security.
Even the Government’s 5G diversification strategy demonstrates how diversification and security are inherently linked. It states that if the status quo remains with market consolidation, it will lead to
“an intolerable security and resilience risk”.
However, as was said clearly in earlier debates, the Bill does not even mention supply-chain diversification or the diversification strategy, even though we would all agree that we cannot have a robust and secure network with only two service providers—Ericsson and Nokia—which is the number that will be left once Huawei is removed from our networks. I hope that the noble Baroness the Minister will have the opportunity to address that concern.
It is of course right to remove high-risk vendors from the UK’s networks and enable the Government to designate vendors and require telecoms operators to comply with security requirements. However, as seems obvious, our networks will not be secure if the supply chain is not diversified. All that will happen is that there will be a shift of dependency to another point of failure.
Therefore, the amendment requires that network diversification is reported on annually. That can include an assessment of likely changes of ownership of existing market players, new areas of market consolidation and available public funding. The report could also provide proper accountability for the strategy’s progress, which will lead to real action. That is what we need. We know that that was called for by the Science and Technology Committee, which criticised the current diversification strategy for not having an action plan with clear targets and timeframes for how that funding will be spent.
The Minister will expect a question on how the announced £250 million funding will be spent. We all know that there are small start-up suppliers in this sphere which are desperate for this kind of support. I should also refer to the new advisory council, which, as she knows, I will come to in a later group. There are many unanswered questions about the adequacy and independence of its advice.
We cannot have a secure network with only two service providers, which is what we will effectively be left with after the removal of Huawei. So we need a diversified supply chain, which means diversity of supply at different points in the supply chain and networks not sharing the same vulnerability of a particular supplier. That is incredibly important for network resilience. That is why the amendment has been tabled. We are concerned to ensure that national security is not put at risk due to a lack of diversification. I beg to move.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, this point is very important and has been put across very well by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron. Network diversification will increase resilience and security for various very obvious reasons. The main thing is not just the supply chain. How the internet works is that messages are split over a whole lot of different routers going all over the place. Two things happen. First, because it is split up, if they are all going across different vendors, it is impossible to intercept the entirety of the messages. If it is all over one vendor and there is a clever way of monitoring that, it might be possible to put it together. Funnily enough, if you have lots of vendors, it does not matter whether Huawei is in there or not, and you will end up with flaws.
Also, the resilience of the internet is such that if you knock out a good chunk of the routers, it will still work and automatically route around the ones that have not been knocked out. If they are all from one vendor and all have the same flaw in them at some point, whether they are friendly vendors or not, you can take the whole lot out at once. The very fact that you have a good mixture gives you greater resilience and security. Everyone seems to think that it still runs over a copper wire from one end to the other, but it does not. The IP world is very different from that. That is the main thing.
Amendment 20 is also about long-term strategy. My noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup is right about all these things. Although the amendments are not in this group, I might as well say now, rather than waste the Committee’s time later, that this lies with the principle of Amendments 18 and 25, that we need the right advisers, who can then advise on the issues that we are now discussing in Amendment 24. It all hangs together. We should not be chopping this up and structuring the Bill in a way that makes us vulnerable.
We may think that we have got the right people in, but we have clearly failed to do all this so far. This is the place to rectify our blindness. From the Minister’s comment, I think that the major change is the diversification and proliferation of civil service departments that are involved in security. That really does reduce our security. The lack of coherence will cause confusion like nobody’s business and will be very expensive.
Baroness Stroud (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 24, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, which adds a new clause to the Bill that would tackle the pressing issue of network diversification.
As we have heard, the amendment places a duty on the Secretary of State to produce an annual report to Parliament on the progress that has been made in diversifying suppliers for our critical infrastructure in our telecommunications networks and services. The report would then be debated in the other place, ensuring that there is sufficient parliamentary oversight of the successes, challenges and opportunities of our diversification strategy. As I think about it, I am not sure why the Government would not want to commit to such an undertaking. As we have already heard this afternoon, the diversification of our telecoms networks needs to be a priority for this Government and an integral part of Ofcom’s reporting on the progress of these networks.
However, it is important to note that we have a Government who understand the seriousness of this issue. Indeed, the Secretary of State told the other place on 30 November 2020:
“We must never find ourselves in this position again. Over the last few decades, countless countries across the world have become over-reliant on too few vendors”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/11/20; col. 75.]
This should never have been allowed to happen, and as I have mentioned, I fear that without the adequate parliamentary oversight that this amendment could give us, it is at risk of happening again.
Despite the reassuring statements from the Foreign Secretary, as highlighted in Tuesday’s Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, we have seen new vendors come to market that are also high risk. The noble Lord said:
“Last week, we learned that, in a deal estimated to be worth £63 million … the UK’s largest producer of semiconductors … has been acquired by the Chinese-owned manufacturer Nexperia. Nexperia is a Dutch firm but is owned by China’s Wingtech.”—[Official Report, Lords, 13/7/21; col. GC 461.]
On Wednesday, this led to the Prime Minister expressing concern after the Business Secretary had said that the Government were monitoring the situation closely but did not consider it appropriate to intervene at the current time.
This new challenge is set against the backdrop of the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, who is at the Department for International Trade, telling the House that he wants to deepen trading relations and trade deals with China, and of China having just overtaken Germany to become the UK’s biggest single import market for the first time since records began. Goods imported from China rose 66% from the start of 2018 to nearly £17 billion in the first quarter of this year.
Lord Fox (LD)
I thank the various noble Lords for their contributions. I will speak to Amendment 24, which bears my name, but I recommend that the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, reads the Chancellor’s Mansion House speech, in which he calls for a nuanced relationship with China. Failing that, she could read my speech on the first group of amendments, in which I challenged how nuanced a relationship can be with a country threatening both our security and that of its own people. At the heart of the Government’s challenge is to be all things to everyone in this argument. They are doomed to fail if they try to do that.
I turn to the amendment I am supposed to be speaking to. As we discussed at Second Reading, there are essentially three strands to the diversity strategy. The first leg is supporting incumbent suppliers. I was corrected by the Minister: this refers not to domestic suppliers but suppliers we already have, presumably— although it is not explicit—with the ones we do not want having been weeded out. The second is attracting new suppliers into the UK market, and the third is accelerating open interface solutions, which I assume helps the second of those strands in particular.
There is not a strand about growing a domestic industry; some of us—I am one of them—were confused about this. It mostly seems to be about taking advantage of other countries’ businesses that we can trust—or think we can at the moment; I refer the Committee to earlier comments by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, about today’s allies not always being tomorrow’s allies—rather than massively growing our own national capability. Bearing in mind those three legs, it would be helpful to hear from the Minister how the improvement in the domestic share of this market is planned.
In her letter to many of us on the subject of diversification, the Minister made the point that Vodafone has already attracted six new suppliers, two of which were Samsung and NEC, into the market through the open RAN deployment. I think I asked her at Second Reading when open RAN would become a significant player in telecoms delivery in this country. If she gave an answer then I am afraid I mislaid it, so can she tell us when open RAN will become a significant player or whether it is something of a sideshow? I do not mean that in a bad way; it is a recognition of where it really is in the market at the moment.
The biggest challenge I have with this is that the Government have launched a lot of strategies. They usually come with a glossy document and a picture of a smiling Secretary of State. I can confirm that this strategy is no exception. We have a very nice picture of the Secretary of State, Oliver Dowden, on page 3, but it does not come with a timeline and a delivery plan. The Government would not issue a strategy if they did not have a delivery plan, so I am sure there must be one. I think it would help us all if we understood what the delivery plan is. Perhaps the Minister could share with the Committee the timeline for the delivery of this strategy, otherwise many of us might suspect that it is something that gets only launched, not delivered. I understand that money has been put into it but, again, that does not guarantee that outcomes will be forthcoming.
This amendment has been tabled to reveal how that timeline is going and how the outcomes are being delivered. That is what it is for. It would enable the Government’s spending of taxpayers’ money on delivering this strategy to be tracked by Parliament. That seems a perfectly reasonable function for Parliament to have.
The Minister might come back and say that DCMS is being asked to lay all sorts of things before Parliament. If that is the case, I think that all of us, including me, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, who spoke very capably on this, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, and others are quite capable of coming up with a composite annual report that covers not just the items in Amendment 24, but those in Amendment 25 on strategy, Amendment 23 on Ofcom’s performance, and Amendment 26 on skills. Taken together, I am sure we could put together a composite annual report in the next round of discussions that would save DCMS having to make several different annual reports. I suspect that that might be a way forward and look forward to the Minister embracing this idea, because of course DCMS wants to demonstrate how it is delivering its diversification strategy.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate and consideration of the Government’s ambitious diversification strategy. The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, raises the important issue of diversification, which I know is of great interest to your Lordships, as it was to Members in the other place. Diversification is a key part of the Government’s broader approach to ensuring that our critical networks are healthy and resilient. That is why the Government set out their 5G diversification strategy last autumn, and we are fully committed to ensuring that this strategy comes to fruition.
Our long-term vision for the telecoms supply market is one where, first, network supply chains are disaggregated, providing network operators more choice and flexibility; secondly, open interfaces that promote interoperability are the default; thirdly, the global supply chain for components is distributed across regions, creating resilience and flexibility; fourthly, standards are set transparently and independently, promoting quality, innovation, security and interoperability; and finally, security and resilience is a priority and a key consideration in network design and operation. However, the Bill focuses on setting clear security standards for our public networks and services. As the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, pointed out, although diversification is designed to enhance security and resilience, not all diversification activity is relevant to the security and resilience of our networks. That is why we believe the amendment would not be appropriate.
The Government have already made progress since the publication of our strategy, including the creation of the Telecoms Diversification Taskforce, which set out its recommendations in the spring. Work is already under way to implement several of those recommendations. Research and development was highlighted by the task force as a key area of focus in order to promote open-interface technologies that will establish flexibility and interchangeability in the market. As raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, it will also allow a range of new smaller suppliers to compete in a more diverse marketplace.
That is why the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was delighted to announce the launch of the future radio access network competition on Friday 2 July. Through this, we will invest up to £30 million in open radio access network research and development projects across the UK to address barriers to high-performance open deployments. This competition is part of a wider programme of government initiatives, which includes the SmartRAN Open Network Inter- operability Centre—more friendlily known as SONIC Labs—a facility for testing interoperability and integration of open networking solutions, which opened on 24 June. A number of leading telecoms suppliers are already working together through this facility.
We welcome recent announcements from operators including Airspan, Mavenir, NEC and Vodafone to introduce open radio access networks into their infrastructure. This demonstrates that industry is working alongside us, here in the UK, to drive forward the change needed in the sector. We continue to work with mobile operators, suppliers and users on a number of other important enablers for diversification; for example, we are developing a road map for the long-term use and provision of legacy network services, including 2G and 3G. Alongside this, the Government have led efforts to engage with some of our closest international partners, including the Five Eyes, to build international consensus on this important issue.
We are also working to deliver on UK issues in standard- setting bodies, and working with industry, academia and international partners to ensure that standards are set in a way that aligns with our overall objectives. Ensuring that standards are truly open and interoperable will drive market growth and diversification. Through the UK’s G7 presidency, we took the first step in discussing the importance of secure and diverse supply chains among like-minded partners and the foundational role that telecommunications infrastructure, such as 5G, plays.
The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, asked how we were planning to spend the initial £250 million, which we announced to kick off work to deliver our key priorities. These priorities have been informed by the recommendations of the Telecoms Diversification Taskforce and include: establishing a state-of-the-art UK telecoms lab; exploring commercial incentives for new suppliers; launching test beds and trials for new technologies such as open RAN; investing in an R&D ecosystem; and seeking to lead a global coalition of like-minded partners on an international approach to diversification. In response to questions from the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about the growth of UK businesses, we have been clear that we are focused on investing in the UK and in UK businesses, but do not think that a UK-only solution is a wise or realistic option.
We are working closely with operators and suppliers to develop targeted measures that address the needs of industry to deliver our long-term vision for the market. We responded to the task force’s findings in July and outlined our next steps and the use of that initial investment. If the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has not seen the government response, I am sure he would find it interesting. It also sets out our plans to create a diversification advisory council, which will meet quarterly. I hope that responds to his question.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a short debate but it has been valuable in shining a light on the requirement for diversification and the need to be sure that we are in the right place. I thank the Minister for her reply and the details she gave in response to various questions, including my own. Of course, as ever—I am beginning to feel like a stuck record—the requests to ensure that there is a reporting facility, so that we know all the things in place actually work, have not been accepted.
I was interested in the confidence of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, when he suggested to the Minister that there could be great creativity employed by all noble Lords. I am sure that is indeed the case, but I say to him that I fear our creativity is perhaps not required on this occasion, although I am sure we will stand ready should it be so.
I welcomed the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, who spoke about the shifting sands of alliances and allies. That is an important point when we consider diversification. I did of course hear the Minister say, rightly, “Of course, this is not just a UK solution to our security”, for a range of excellent reasons. However, we have to be able to take our place and it is that which is of concern. It is not just that the chain is in reference to the UK but that it should take account of those shifts which the noble Earl referred to.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, again asked: “Why on earth would the Government not want to have more parliamentary oversight?”. I will leave that to others to answer, but it seems that it is not flavour of the month in the debate that we are having.
The Minister referred to my question about how the £250 million would be spent, and I am sure it was of great interest to all noble Lords to hear that. Yet it still leaves the question as to why it cannot be matter of report, of why Parliament cannot be not just reassured but informed, and have the opportunity to interrogate and to add. I have a sense that parliamentary oversight—and not just in this area—is not regarded as something which assists process, when in fact the whole experience is that it does. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Merron
“Telecoms Supply Chain Diversification Advisory Council: security function
(1) The Telecoms Supply Chain Diversification Advisory Council must discuss the impact of diversification on the security and resilience of public electronic communication networks and services at their quarterly meeting.(2) The Telecoms Supply Chain Diversification Advisory Council may advise the Secretary of State based on those discussions, and this advice must be published. (3) The membership of the Council must include members with expertise in security.(4) The appointments process for the Council must be transparent and consider the previous security experience of applicants.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment aims to probe the function of the Advisory Council in relation to the Bill.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to speak to Amendment 28, which stands in my name. It is the result of a number of recent developments, which I shall refer to. Noble Lords will be aware that on 2 July the Government published their response to the Telecoms Diversification Taskforce’s report and in it announced that the taskforce was now to transition into the Telecoms Supply Chain diversification advisory council, which came up earlier today. The Minister will recall that in response to a Written Question from me she said:
“The Advisory Council will play a key role in overseeing and offering scrutiny to the delivery of the 5G Supply Chain Diversification Strategy. We will also draw on the expertise of the Advisory Council for wider telecoms supply chain diversification issues beyond the RAN (Radio Access Network).”
That is all well and good. However—and this is the point that the amendment seeks to unravel—the Government have also announced that Mr Simon Blagden will be the new chair of this permanent council. Noble Lords will be aware that Mr Blagden was the non-executive director of Fujitsu UK during the Post Office scandal and has donated more than £215,000 to the Conservative Party.
As we have all discussed, diversification is inherently linked to security, so the new advisory council has to provide sound, expert advice that will secure our telecoms network, and we need confidence in that. The point I want to explore with the Minister, as she is already aware from Written Questions that I have submitted, is that the appointment of Mr Blagden raises a number of serious questions about the council’s independence and how the appointment will be able to benefit national security.
In addition to tabling Amendment 28, I have a number of questions to tease out all these points. It is also worth noting that in the past 24 hours there have been reports of a telecoms company, IX Wireless, having given—it has come to light through correct declarations of course—more than £20,000 to Conservative MPs, while the Secretary of State has given this same company glowing endorsement at a launch event, with a promotional film, which I have seen, showing him in his ministerial office with the executives of that company.
I should say to the Minister that it is a question not just of how things are but of how things look. Of course there will be facts on which I am sure the Minister can enlighten us. I have a number of questions in that regard for her relating to an inquiry about the appointment process that was in place for Mr Blagden. Who was involved and which Minister made the final decision? Will there be payment for Mr Blagden in his role as chair? How will the council give independent advice and what happens if Ministers reject that advice? Will there be security experts as members of the advisory council? What knowledge did Mr Blagden have of the faults with the Horizon system during his time at Fujitsu? Can the Minister confirm that Mr Blagden has no remaining financial interests in Fujitsu?
I know that the noble Baroness may not be in a position to answer those questions now. In which case, I hope that she will write to me before we go into the Summer Recess. I beg to move.
Lord Fox (LD)
Before I comment on that excellent speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, I want to return to the answer that the Minister gave on the Newport Wafer Fab issue, which proves the point that we were making on the need for the ISC to be involved. Regarding the ISC issue, the Government furnished themselves with the National Security and Investment Act, which was supposed to deal with issues such as this. However, the Prime Minister has chosen to refer it back not to the people running that unit but to the National Security Adviser, which proves the point that someone with access to national security information is needed to make decisions of this nature, rather than an organisation that does not have access to the information. It absolutely proves the point that our amendment on the ISC is completely appropriate, just as it was appropriate for the BEIS analogue of what is happening here.
The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, made an excellent speech and I am not going to attempt to adorn it either with my normal flippancy or with detail. There is just one issue that I wish to raise regarding Simon Blagden. Are there any outstanding legal liabilities from his time at Fujitsu? In other words, has his activity been fully exonerated or is there potential legal recourse? Other than that, I echo the point that perception of these issues is as important as reality. If the Government continue to operate in a black-box way, everybody will assume that things are going on that they cannot see and that should not be happening. It is therefore in the Government’s interests to be transparent about how that person in particular was appointed and how the advisory council will operate.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, for tabling the amendment and for giving me an opportunity to provide an update on the work of the Diversification Taskforce and the new diversification advisory council.
The Government recently announced the council, building on the work of the Diversification Taskforce, chaired by my noble friend Lord Livingston of Parkhead. I should like to take this opportunity to offer my thanks to him and the taskforce members for volunteering their valuable time and knowledge to their excellent review. Their recommendations and expertise will remain crucial to helping us bring greater resilience and competition to our future networks as the taskforce now transitions to the new diversification advisory council.
The Government recognise that diversification is a broad and complex issue relating to matters of security and resilience, technology and geopolitics. It is for this reason that we sought the advice of the experts appointed to the diversification task force. Many of the task force members will continue to provide advice as part of the new advisory council. In appointing the membership of the advisory council, the Government have followed all standard processes. The Government have ensured that the council comprises experts from both industry and academia across a wide range of subject matters, including security, of course.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. I will of course read it carefully so that I can again appreciate her answers to my various questions. There are some questions that I think are still outstanding, which also chime in with the question from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, regarding Mr Blagden’s links with Fujitsu and continuing potential issues in relation to that. I feel there are still some unanswered questions and would be grateful for a reply to those. I am absolutely sure that the Minister will write to me about those points.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for making the point, as I did, that there is reality and perception, and they both matter. There are clearly concerns about this appointment and about the need for assurance regarding security advice being impartial and appropriate. It is undoubtedly the case that sunlight is always the best disinfectant so, if there are any chinks of sunlight not yet coming through, I am sure that they will be forthcoming. With that, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
“Oversight by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner
(1) The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is amended as follows.(2) After section 229(3)(j) insert—“(k) the exercise by the Secretary of State of functions under section 105Z1 of the Communications Act 2003”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would give the Investigatory Powers Commissioner oversight of the power given to the Secretary of State in this Bill to outlaw the use of individual vendors.
Lord Fox (LD)
I am moving this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, in whose name it is, who unfortunately could not come today. He figured that this would be taken on day three of the process, but we have got ahead of ourselves. I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, for his support for this amendment when he spoke to the second group. It is appreciated. I know that he has had to leave.
As Comms Council UK has pointed out, new Clause 105E is not the only new clause to give the Secretary of State extensive powers; there are others. New Clause 105Z1, for example, gives powers to the Secretary of State to outlaw the use of individual vendors, potentially with no parliamentary oversight, if the Secretary of State considers that it would be contrary to national security.
Clause 15 creates a scheme for dealing with particularly high-risk vendors by inserting new clauses into the Communications Act 2003. These empower the Secretary of State to give designated vendor directions where they consider it
“necessary in the interests of national security”
and the requirements imposed are
“proportionate to what is sought … by the direction.”
The designated vendor direction can impose wide-ranging requirements on providers on their use of
“goods, services or facilities … made available by a designated vendor specified in the direction.”
While vendors are entitled to notice of their designation if “reasonably practicable” to do so, they are not entitled to be consulted or informed of the reasons for the designation if the Secretary of State considers it contrary to national security. Vendors are also entitled to notice when directions are imposed on providers or when a designated vendor direction is revoked, but this right does not apply if the Secretary of State considers it contrary to national security.
The effect of all this is that, while a vendor may know of its designation, the providers with which it does business can have various restrictions imposed because of their relation to the designated vendor without the vendor knowing the reasons or possibly the existence of such directions. This is complicated but serious, and in several scenarios the vendors would have no real prospect of mounting any legal challenge, even under the closed material procedures provided for in the Justice and Security Act 2013.
Cutting to the chase, this amendment would give the Investigatory Powers Commissioner oversight of the power given to the Secretary of State in the Bill to outlaw the use of individual vendors. Without this, we are telling suppliers that they essentially have to operate without full legal protection. I cannot help thinking that this will discourage the future investment we need. I am interested to hear how the Government think they can mitigate an essentially Orwellian situation in which people find themselves in an adverse legal position but they do not know why, and sometimes they do not even know that they are there. I beg to move.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Fox, for tabling this amendment. I do not have too much to add to this brief and interesting debate, but I take the opportunity to thank the Constitution Committee for its report on the Bill.
At Second Reading the Minister said:
“Oversight of the Investigatory Powers Act regime by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner is considered appropriate because of the potential intrusion into the private lives of individuals as a result of the use of covert powers. The national security powers in this Bill are very different from those in the Investigatory Powers Act”.—[Official Report, 29/6/21; col. 747.]
However, she did not say why it would be wrong for the commissioner’s remit to change. This is the one point I put to the Minister, and it would be helpful to have a response.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Clement-Jones, for tabling this amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, says, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is a victim of the speedy progress we have made in this Committee.
Like them, I recognise the importance of proper oversight and scrutiny in the use of the Bill’s powers. The amendment they tabled aims to give the Investigatory Powers Commissioner oversight of the Secretary of State’s power to issue designated vendor directions. The Bill already contains effective mechanisms for oversight of the Secretary of State’s use of those powers to give a designated vendor direction or designation notice. It requires the Secretary of State to lay copies of designation notices and designated vendor directions before Parliament. That will provide Parliament with the opportunity to scrutinise their use.
As the Committee has heard, on very rare occasions the Secretary of State may choose not to lay a designation notice or direction before Parliament because to do so would be contrary to the interests of national security. Where this is the case, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee will be able to view such directions and notices, so there will be oversight there.
On the legal point that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, raised, designated vendor directions and designation notices are subject to ordinary judicial review principles. The Secretary of State will issue designation notices and designated vendor directions only where they are necessary in the interests of national security and the requirements in the directions are proportionate.
The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 provides a frame- work for use by the security and intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies and other public authorities to obtain communications and communications data. The role of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner is independently to oversee the use of these powers, ensuring that they are used in accordance with the law and in the public interest. The regime set out in the Investigatory Powers Act is not directly comparable with the new powers and framework set out by this Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, noted. The reason for that is that oversight of activity by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, as authorised by the Investigatory Powers Act, is considered appropriate because these powers often involve balancing important questions regarding the right to privacy.
The national security powers in this Bill are very different from those in the Investigatory Powers Act. They focus on protecting public telecommunications networks and services from the threats posed by high-risk vendors. That is different from questions about individual citizens, their communications and their communications data. That is why we respectfully disagree with the suggestion by the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House and feel that it would not be appropriate for the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to have an oversight role in respect of this Bill.
Briefly, that is why the Government disagree with this amendment and hope that the noble Lords, Lord Fox, will be content to withdraw it.
Lord Fox (LD)
I thank the Minister for his response—but not much. There is a tendency, which has come through in this and lots of other Bills, for representatives of Her Majesty’s Government to stand up and completely ignore important committees of this House. The Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee are not any old committees; they are very serious. The way in which their advice—or rather more than advice—has been dismissed across the board by both Ministers in this debate is a serious development. I implore representatives of Her Majesty’s Government to take those committees more seriously, because their not being observed is somewhat an abuse of process.
That said, I will read the Minister’s response in detail, with a suitably socially distanced lawyer to advise me. I do not think we have heard anything that makes this amendment less needed but, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Definition of public electronic communications network
In section 151 of the Communications Act 2003, in the definition of “public electronic communications network”, at the end insert “, including—(a) landline communications systems;(b) mobile data, audio and video networks;(c) digital surveillance networks;(d) satellite delivered networks;”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies the definition of “public electronic communications network”.
Lord Fox (LD)
We are down to the irreducible minimum. During my Second Reading speech, I asked the Minister about the range of technologies covered by the Bill. I do not recall getting a meaningful answer, so I thought I would try again using this as a probing amendment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, talked about the creativity of your Lordships. I am now going to test your memory functions, which I know can sometimes be stretched in this House. I would like your Lordships to cast your minds back to 2003, the year when the Nokia 1100 mobile phone was introduced. Few noble Lords will remember the number, but most of you will remember the phone. It was an iconic phone that took over mobile telephony. For those who would like to see one, I have two and, for as long as 3G is available, they will continue to work. More than 250 million of these basic GSM phones were sold. It was the best-selling consumer electronics device in the world at that time—the state-of-the-art communications device—and was discontinued in 2009.
Meanwhile, at the same time, the Communications Act 2003 was introduced to regulate machines such as the Nokia 1100. This has not been discontinued but has enjoyed several patches along the way. As I have said, this is a probing amendment seeking to clarify the definition of “public electronic communications network” within the 2003 Act. I think you see what I have done; I have tried to illustrate that the world has changed a bit since 2003.
The amendment seeks to amend Section 151 of the Communications Act by adding a contemporary definition of the range of communication networks that increasingly have emerged since the Act was conceived, when Nokia ruled the roost. It would introduce a new clause to the Bill that would define the “public electronic communications network” as
“landline communications systems … mobile data, audio and video networks … digital surveillance networks … satellite delivered networks”.
My first question to the Minister is: in her opinion and that of the department, which of these categories is covered by the Bill and which is not? I also have some specific scenarios that I would like the Minister to consider. The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, will be pleased to note that they are focused on the consumer—an issue she addressed earlier in the week.
First, when broadband or 5G are delivered by satellite, whether by the BEIS-owned OneWeb or the Musk-owned SpaceX, to what extent is the satellite element covered by this legislation?
Secondly, when a facial recognition camera captures an image, sends that image to a database using a closed network and, in turn, contacts either a public sector or private sector operative via a smartphone, which part of this—if any—is covered by the legislation?
Thirdly, data is being relayed back and forth over smart speakers—Alexa and its, or her, colleagues—so do these transactions fall within the purview of the Communications Act or the Bill? For example, with smart speakers, does the Bill cover only the transmission and not the speaker itself? If that is true, what, if anything, covers the security integrity of the speaker and its software?
My fourth question concerns data travelling between smart meters, home thermostats, camera doorbells and the ever-increasing internet of things. How is their security and integrity protected by the Bill? If the answer is that they are not protected, where do these modern manifestations of communications fit in? How is the security of these things being protected for the consumers of today?
This is not just a piece of legislative housekeeping. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised other potentially risky companies in his speech on Amendment 1; at Second Reading I raised a range of other companies. I will not repeat them but they are in Hansard. These are just a few of the businesses involved in the sorts of activities that I have just outlined, so by understanding which activities are included in the Bill we may start to understand which companies and technologies it includes. It is about how satellites, cameras, smart speakers and the internet of things fit in the purview of what is now called communications. Times have changed since 2003. Can the Minister please update us? I beg to move.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Fox, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Alton, for tabling this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, has set out why they believe this definition of a public electronic communications network is needed. I also appreciated his reference to the importance of consumers, who, after all, are core in all our discussions.
It is important to hear from the Minister whether she believes that this definition is limiting for security purposes and what impact it would have. Perhaps she can advise on whether she feels that anything is missing which should be in there. Would this definition inhibit the future-proofing ability of the Bill? I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
Baroness Barran (Con)
This amendment seeks to clarify the definition of a public electronic communications network contained within Section 151 of the Communications Act 2003. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for moving it. It aims to do this by including specific examples of networks and systems covered by that definition.
In response to the noble Lord’s first question, three of the suggested examples in the amendment are already covered by the current definition of public electronic communications network, to the extent that they are electronic communications networks
“provided wholly or mainly for the purpose of making electronic communications services available to members of the public”.
These three examples are: landline communication systems; mobile data, audio and video networks; and satellite-delivered networks.
However, as the noble Lord explained, the amendment also refers to “digital surveillance networks”. I understand that the noble Lord is referring principally to CCTV and other similar technologies of the kind used by law enforcement and local authorities for specific surveillance purposes. These types of technologies have been raised by a number of noble Lords in previous debates, including the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Fox. Such closed networks do not fall within the definition of a public electronic communications network as set out in Section 151 of the Communications Act. That definition refers to an electronic communications network that is provided
“wholly or mainly for the purpose of making electronic communications services available to members of the public”.
I emphasise “wholly or mainly”, because the noble Lord gave examples of where services might be provided which could reach a member of the public, but not “wholly or mainly”.
The powers in the Bill are intended to create a stronger regulatory and legislative framework to protect against the security threats to our public electronic communications networks and services, such as those provided by companies such as BT and Vodafone. Public networks are those most widely used by businesses and the public and it is right that the Bill should focus on the protection of those networks. Furthermore, any change to the definition of public electronic communications networks to include CCTV and other similar networks to which the noble Lord referred would affect other sections of the Communications Act beyond those relating to security. That is because the current definition of a public electronic communications network is used across Chapter 1 of Part 2 of the Act, and not only in Sections 105A to 105D, which this Bill replaces.
The consequences of such a change would be wide-ranging. For example, Section 127 creates a criminal offence of improper use of public electronic communications networks, as defined by Section 151. If the definition changed, the scope of those caught by that offence would also change. It would also affect other legislation that makes reference to the Act’s definition, such as the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 or the Insolvency Act 1986. Any such change to the definition would therefore have substantial unintended impacts for providers of digital surveillance networks and for many other entities, including Ofcom, of course.
The noble Lord also asked how the security of digital surveillance networks could be assured. There is of course already legislation and extensive guidance in place to assure security and prevent the abuse of information gathered by CCTV and surveillance camera networks. As noble Lords will be aware, the Information Commissioner’s Office is the UK’s independent regulator for data protection and is responsible for providing advice and guidance on compliance with the UK’s data protection laws. All organisations in the UK that process personal information must comply with the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued a specific data protection code that provides recommendations on the use of CCTV systems to help organisations comply with the Data Protection Act.
The Information Commissioner’s Office’s code and the Data Protection Act ensure that any personal data gathered via CCTV and similar networks is kept confidential and subject to the highest protections, including secure encryption of data. Where closed networks, such as CCTV and other similar surveillance technology, are used by public bodies or within critical national infrastructure, there are specific arrangements in place. Lead government departments, advisory partners —including the National Cyber Security Centre—and regulators work with infrastructure owners and operators to manage and mitigate the risk of security issues. There are, therefore, already adequate measures in place regarding safe deployment of CCTV and other similar surveillance technologies within the UK. Indeed, we are strengthening the actions we can take in this area.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, there are more Bills to follow; I fear that I am being drafted into the purchasing Bill and the other Bill that the Minister just mentioned.
The Minister is wrong to conflate data protection with security—we are talking not about data protection but about security. There is a big difference between the role of the ICO and that of security. I do not think that that helps answer the questions that I was asking.
Perhaps this is for the Bills to come rather than today’s Bill, but there is something about the collective threat. If everybody’s smart meter is shut down that is a national emergency, not a personal emergency. There is a national security issue around personal data devices and somewhere, whether in this Bill or those to come, there needs to be the recognition that collective security happens when everybody’s systems are secure from threat. If I were a terrorist, it would be much easier to do those kinds of things than doing some big, national thing that is protected by the National Cyber Security Centre.
That is the point of what I am putting forward. The internet of things increases the security risk to every home all the time. Similarly, every time someone turns on their GPS locator, they are putting themselves into a system that is followed. The Minister carefully used the phrase wholly or majority use data. Increasingly with cars and satellite navigation systems, and when we move to electric and autonomous locations, all that data is becoming publicly available. In other words, my car is fed into your car, which is fed into her car to make sure that we do not run into each other. The idea that somehow you can draw these lines and say that only 10% of the data is used in a public way and 90% is not starts to become irrelevant, if it is not already. That is what I am trying to highlight.
I did not expect for a minute the Minister to say that the Government would amend Section 105 of the Act. The point was to really highlight this issue, because if the Government do not address it in this way or another then personal security on a mass level is compromised, which then becomes a national security issue. That was the point of the amendment. Having raised it, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)
My Lords, that concludes the Committee’s proceedings on the Bill. May 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 while others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. I ask all Members to respect social distancing and wear face coverings when in the Chamber, except when speaking. If the capacity of the Chamber is exceeded, I shall 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.
Railways: East Coast Main Line
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Beith
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with London North Eastern Railway about proposals to change the frequency of services north of Newcastle on the East Coast Main Line.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con) [V]
My Lords, my department has had regular discussions with London North Eastern Railway about the May 2022 timetable proposals for the east coast main line. LNER and the department are committed to improving services for passengers served by this important route, and I encourage all noble Lords with an interest to engage with LNER’s public consultation to ensure that their views are considered.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, the consultation document to which the Minister has referred says that the structure of the timetable for May 2022 is fixed, which leaves little opportunity for change to be made. Given that it involves halving Berwick-upon-Tweed’s hourly service to London to a train every two hours, with longer journey times, can she assure me that she will personally take steps to secure a proper review of these plans, which cannot be squared with the Government’s levelling-up agenda?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
My Lords, the Rail Minister has challenged the department to investigate all options for increasing regional connectivity. It is the case that Berwick-upon-Tweed will retain its current level of service, but there will be a change to the balance of the services. Yes, there will be fewer fast trains to London, but there will be more services to the Midlands and the south-west on CrossCountry.
The Lord Bishop of Durham [V]
My Lords, I declare an interest as a regular LNER user. I have a lot of sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Beith. I recognise that connections from Darlington, Durham and Newcastle are northwards as well as southwards. Will the Minister comment on how local services such as those from Bishop Auckland to Middlesbrough and the possible reopening of Durham to Sunderland need to be invested in for the economic growth of the north-east as a whole?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
My Lords, this Government are investing billions of pounds in the railways, particularly in the north, through the Restoring Your Railway Fund and the other schemes that we are bringing through the rail network enhancements pipeline. Of course we are looking at regional connectivity of the type that the right reverend Prelate mentioned, and I will take his comments back to the department.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, as a resident of Inverness, I have a great interest in being sure that there will be one train each way from Inverness to King’s Cross in future.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
My Lords, my noble and learned friend knows that there are daily services at the moment between Inverness and King’s Cross, and I reassure him that they will and are proposed to remain in operation under the May 2022 proposals.
Lord Sentamu (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest, in that I live a mile and a half from Berwick station. Most of us find these cuts to be stringent in terms of the daytime service, going from a train every hour to a slower train every two hours. Locals are shocked, as are businesses, tourism and residents—and I am one of them. Knowing that it is good to use the train instead of our cars because of the environment, how can we have confidence that these services, which are being so slashed, will be there for us to use them? Will the Government really look carefully at what is proposed and, since this is a public utility, will they as guardians protect it? I just hope that this is not the beginning of the resurrection of the spirit of Richard Beeching.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
I welcome the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, back to your Lordships’ House. In doing so, I recognise the concerns that he has raised about Berwick-upon-Tweed. I am sure that he will join many other people in responding to the consultation. It is true that we have had to make difficult trade-offs within the timetabling options, given the capacity available, but we are trying to maximise the benefit of the £4 billion that we have invested in infrastructure and rolling stock. The proposals on the table now actually increase revenues by £60 million a year, so we feel that we are getting good return on taxpayers’ funding.
Baroness Quin (Lab) [V]
My Lords, although the LNER proposals help my local station, Alnmouth, which I am pleased about, none the less I support the comments by my fellow Northumbrians, the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu. Surely, if levelling up means anything other than warm words, we need far quicker action on rail and road network investment north of Newcastle.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
The noble Baroness is quite right, in that we have an ambitious programme in the rail sector but also in roads. She will know that we have a programme of work on the A1 and on several projects around the north-east. She makes a very important point. The Government are well aware of the opportunities to invest in the north-east.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, it is estimated that Berwick could see a cut of 72 trains a week. Does the Minister agree that this is totally contrary to the principles behind the Government’s transport decarbonisation plan and the principles behind levelling up? The root cause of the problems is inadequate infrastructure capacity, long past its date for upgrading. What are the Government going to do about that?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
The Government have already invested, and are investing, billions of pounds in the railway system, including in the north-east. The noble Baroness mentioned once again the changes to the services in Berwick, and I will not dwell on that because I believe I have covered it, but I will say that there always difficult decisions to make. For example, Edinburgh gets more services out of this, which improves union connectivity. Edinburgh will have additional, faster trains to London. There will be a four-hour journey time. That will be highly competitive versus taking an aircraft.
Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]
As part of these proposed timetable changes, which LNER says
“involve a series of trade-offs,”
services on the TransPennine Express between Newcastle and Manchester will be reduced from twice an hour to once an hour, and an increase in the frequency of services between Teesside, Sunderland and Newcastle will be postponed. Given that Northern Powerhouse Rail has still not been confirmed, is this not further evidence that the Government are backing off from increasing direct interconnectivity of northern cities? Is it not unfortunate that, in the trade-offs, local and regional services would lose out to increase services to London and the south-east?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
I am not entirely sure that the evidence supports the noble Lord’s last comment, but I accept that there are difficult trade-offs. Railway capacity is not expandable immediately, so one always has to work with the capacity available. We have spent £4 billion on upgrading the infrastructure and the rolling stock. We must make sure that we use that capacity to best effect. As I have already said, there would be a significant increase in revenues from these proposals.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
The LNER services southwards from Northallerton, my local station, and Darlington are being severely cut in the 2022 timetable. Darlington to Stockton was the first railway line in the country and very much serves the levelling-up programme. Effectively the Government own LNER, so please could they help to make sure that the effective service we currently have carries over to 2022?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
As my noble friend will know, there will be some service changes. She has outlined what they are, as have many other noble Lords. Other areas will see an increase in services. I reiterate that there is an opportunity to respond to the consultation. I know that my colleague in the department is pressing Network Rail, the train operating companies and our officials very hard to make sure we can retain as much regional connectivity as possible.
Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]
My Lords, following the remarks of my noble friend Lord Rosser, is the Minister aware of the comment from Transport for the North in Rail magazine, which states that the east coast mainline revisions mean that the north-east is losing trains to Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh in favour of trains to London, and that this does not reflect the levelling-up agenda? Does she agree it is important to focus on the local and regional services, where the demand is greatest?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
Unfortunately, I did not see that comment, as I do not read Rail magazine; potentially, I should. We have to reach a balance here. We cannot focus on only one type of travel. What we and LNER have tried to do is get the right balance to ensure we are meeting customer demand and providing value for money for the taxpayer.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the 9.30 am from Edinburgh to King’s Cross yesterday, on which I was due to travel, was cancelled. The stories going around were that this was because there are continuing problems with cracks in Azuma trains, which would be extremely worrying. Can the Minister confirm whether this is the case?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]
I can confirm that safety is paramount on our railways. At the moment, there is just one LNER set out of service. Repairs are obviously ongoing and will probably be finished by the end of the summer. I reassure noble Lords that this is being done in a fashion that is safe and that minimises disruption for passengers.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked. We now come to the second Oral Question.
Bahrain: Human Rights Abuses
Lord Scriven
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Prime Minister discussed human rights abuses in Bahrain when he met the Crown Prince of Bahrain on 17 June.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, with the permission of my noble friend Lord Scriven, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The Prime Minister and the Crown Prince discussed a wide range of measures, as outlined on the GOV.UK website. We regularly raise human rights priorities and any areas of concern with the Government of Bahrain, including at senior levels. The Foreign Secretary raised social and justice reforms with the Crown Prince during their meeting on 17 June, and the UK continues to engage with the Government of Bahrain to support their reform agenda.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. The UK has a close relationship with Bahrain but is pressed on what it raises on human rights. I flagged to the noble Lord last night the case of human rights defender Dr Al-Singace, who has a PhD from Manchester University and who was arrested on his return to Bahrain in 2010 and sentenced to life imprisonment for his peaceful opposition to Bahrain’s Government during the Arab spring. He is currently on hunger strike. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others have called for his immediate and unconditional release; the UK has never done so. Can the noble Lord tell us whether the Government will now do this before it is too late?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
As the noble Baroness says, our relationship means we are able to raise cases directly with Bahrain. We continue to monitor the case of Dr Al-Singace. We have raised the case at a senior level with the Bahraini Government, and we urge anyone with concerns over a particular case to raise those with the oversight bodies in Bahrain. We continue to encourage the oversight bodies to carry out swift and thorough investigations into any such claims.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, of course, there are proper concerns about human rights in Bahrain, as there are in all Middle East countries. Does the Minister agree that these concerns should be put in the context of the continuing efforts by Iran to destabilise the country by propaganda and by shipping vast quantities of arms, including explosive devices, to the country, and in the context of the very positive role that Bahrain has in the Middle East, particularly in respect of the Abraham Accords?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, we remain committed to the promotion of universal freedoms and human rights, and are more likely to bring about change through engagement, dialogue and co-operation. Our strong relationship with Bahrain has flourished for more than 200 years; we co-operate on defence, security, trade and regional issues, such as those the noble Lord mentioned.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, a year ago this week, Bahrain’s courts upheld the death penalty for Mohamed Ramadan and Hussain Moosa. Following commitments made in the other place by the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, what representations have Her Majesty’s Government made to the Government of Bahrain on the death penalty?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The UK remains opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances and all countries as a matter of principle. The Government of Bahrain are fully aware that we are firmly opposed to the death penalty, and our good relationship allows us to have honest dialogue and raise points on that. We raise the matter regularly, both at ministerial and official level, publicly and privately, including during the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa’s most recent visit to Bahrain.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]
My Lords, I am sure the Minister will agree that influence can often be exerted through the interchange of culture and sport. Amnesty International has identified the Grand Prix in Bahrain as being a huge event through which we should try to put pressure. Are efforts being made in this direction with, for example, Formula 1?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I will have to double-check the point that the noble Lord raises about Formula 1 and write to him to confirm that, but he is absolutely right to highlight the role that cultural exchange—sport, music and the arts—plays in strengthening our relationships and standing up for our fundamental values.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, earlier this year I raised with the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, the detention of children in Bahrain, following reports of their physical abuse and forced confessions. What assessment have the Government made of the Bahraini authorities’ response to these reports of alleged human rights abuses against children? Will they make further representations to ensure this does not happen?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, if the noble Lord will bear with me, I have an answer on that point. There are many pages and a lot of information and I want to make sure the noble Lord gets an answer.
In response to the recommendations in the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry report and by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Bahrain has undertaken reforms of its juvenile justice system. We have consistently promoted and supported Bahrain in adopting a whole-system approach to youth offending, from diversion and prevention through to rehabilitation and resettlement of young people. We welcome the recent ratification by His Majesty the King of the corrective justice law for children and will be monitoring its implementation.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I am sure the Minister is aware of the recent report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Democracy and Human Rights in the Gulf on the Integrated Activity Fund and the Gulf Strategy Fund—I declare an interest as an endorsee—which concludes that Her Majesty’s Government have been deceptive and misleading about the £50 million in funds, putting the UK at risk of complicity in human rights violations in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Will he respond to the report, consider its recommendations and tell this House why the Government refuse to be transparent about how this money is spent?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, the FCDO’s international programme and, within it, the Gulf Strategy Fund, is a vital tool in promoting positive change and reforms across the world, including in the Gulf. We now publish an annual summary of the GSF work on GOV.UK. We will not publish further information where doing so presents risks to our staff, programme suppliers and beneficiaries, or where it may hinder our relationships with our international partners and therefore our ability to influence their reform efforts, but we will provide annual updates.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, do the Government accept, informally, double standards applying to human rights in the Gulf versus the UK?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, if we want to bring about change in the world, we have to engage with those we wish to see improve their records on human rights. We do not shy away from raising human rights concerns with other countries, and we make this point very clearly in public and in private.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, referred to the plight of Dr Al-Singace, and 73 year-old Hassan Mushaima is in an identical position. Both are political prisoners, obviously, and have been detained for 10 years for their peaceful political opposition to Bahrain’s dictatorship. Both, in fact, participated in an event held in this House in 2010, and in 2012 the Foreign Office said it was “very disappointed” over a decision to uphold their life sentences, due to the court’s reliance on torture-tainted confessions. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the European Parliament have called for their immediate release. Why have our Government failed publicly to call for their release? Is the Minister willing to do so today? Did the Prime Minister raise our continued disappointment—presumably—at their continued unjustified detention with the Crown Prince when they met?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, we continue to monitor the cases of Mr Mushaima and Dr Al-Singace and, where we have concerns, we have raised them at senior levels with the Bahraini Government. The policy of Her Majesty’s Government on torture is clear: we do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or mistreatment for any purpose. We urge all allegations of this nature to be reported to the appropriate national oversight body, whose duty it is to carry out a full and independent investigation. We will continue to raise concerns about human rights with the Government of Bahrain wherever we have them.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked. We now move to the third Oral Question.
Police and Crime Commissioner By-election
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Thomas of Gresford
To ask Her Majesty’s Government (1) what estimate they have made of the cost of Thames Valley Police’s investigation into Councillor Jonathon Seed subsequent to his election as the Police and Crime Commissioner for Swindon and Wiltshire on 6 May, and (2) following the finding that Councillor Seed was ineligible to stand, what estimate they have made of the cost of the resulting by-election.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con) [V]
My Lords, the police investigation is ongoing and the Home Office does not hold details of the cost. A by-election is due to take place on 19 August. We will not know the exact cost of running the PCC election until all election expense claims have been submitted by the returning officer and have been scrutinised and settled.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]
The estimate by the council is that the cost will be £1.4 million. Are we talking in those terms? The Electoral Commission was perfectly clear in the advice that it gave, and drunk-driving has been an imprisonable offence since 1925. Mr Seed says that he disclosed his conviction to the Conservative Party when applying to be its candidate and was told to go ahead. He refused to answer questions from ITV News, which could have given him time to withdraw, but then he did withdraw. So who is paying for all this? Does the taxpayer have to stump up every time a disqualified candidate stands in an election? Where is the power and what is the process for recovery from the party or person involved?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, as to who pays the bill, it is fair to say that public funds, wherever they come from, ultimately come from the taxpayer, but the polls are funded out of the Consolidated Fund. On disclosing his conviction to the local party, I have no information on that. I really do not know whether that is the case or not. The issue is that it is entirely up to the candidate to disclose that conviction—albeit it was many decades old, it is still incumbent on the candidate to disclose it.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, must we not hope that, when the new PCC for Wiltshire is finally elected, they prove to be someone who keeps their word—unlike the previous incumbent, who announced an independent inquiry into the fatally flawed Operation Conifer, which treated Sir Edward Heath so shamelessly, and then reneged, saying it was up to the Home Office? The Home Office then said it was up to the police and crime commissioner, playing a disgraceful game of pass the parcel with a dead statesman’s reputation. Is it not the duty of the Home Office to take action to rectify injustice where a commissioner fails to do so?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, I have every confidence that the new PCC, when he or she is elected, will have the confidence of the public.
Lord Bach (Lab) [V]
My Lords, is the Minister aware that, in the opinion of many, the provision under Section 66 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, which states that
“A person is disqualified from being elected as, or being, a police and crime commissioner if … the person has been convicted … of any imprisonable offence (whether or not sentenced to a term of imprisonment in respect of the offence)”,
is far too wide in scope? It has meant that individuals, however young they were and however minor the offence may have been, are automatically excluded, for life, from being a police and crime commissioner. Of course, it goes without saying that any serious conviction involving actual imprisonment should disqualify an individual. Will the Government look at this issue again, and might they consider a minor government amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will be debated in your Lordships’ House later this year?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
I think that what has happened in this election has thrown up some obvious gaps in the process. On what the noble Lord says about the stringency of standing for office, he is absolutely right—PCCs have the most stringent requirements of all UK elections. But it is right that we should be quite strict about the people who are elected to uphold law and order.
Lord Paddick (LD) [V]
My Lords, Members of Parliament guilty of misconduct can face a recall procedure. What plans do the Government have for a recall procedure for police and crime commissioners?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, there is not a recall procedure, but the noble Lord will know that there have been PCCs whose conduct has been called into question, and there has been remedy in that.
Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, following on from the question from the noble Lord, Lord Bach, can I suggest that the Minister looks also at the Elections Bill coming before both Houses in the near future? This is another opportunity to narrow the extraordinarily wide range of reasons for barring candidates for PCCs. They are so wide that they are far broader than reasons for banning Members of Parliament or the Prime Minister.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My noble friend is right; they are incredibly stringent. They were set out in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 and would, of course, require primary legislation to be amended. That is not within the scope of the Cabinet Office Elections Bill. My noble friend outlines that there certainly appear to be gaps in the process, and the Cabinet Office is looking at that.
Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]
Previous convictions do not necessarily preclude anyone from appointment as a police officer, as account can be taken of the nature and circumstances of the offence, age at the time the offence was committed and the number of years since the offence was committed. Neither do previous convictions for an imprisonable offence preclude a person becoming Home Secretary, and thus accountable to Parliament for the police and having regular direct contact with chief constables and commissioners, as happened following the pulling down of the Colston statue in Bristol and repeatedly during the Sarah Everard vigil in London. In view of this, do the Government really have no plans to review the strict rules on convictions for an imprisonable offence that preclude people from standing for and taking up the position of police and crime commissioner?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
I remind the noble Lord that the high standard was set with cross-party agreement and with the support of senior officers, because PCCs hold police forces, whose duty is to uphold the law, to account.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
My Lords, my good friends and relations who live in Wiltshire are incandescent at the thought that they might have to pay for the rerun of this election. Is this not the worst example of a party—in this case the Conservatives—failing to exercise due diligence in selecting the ineligible candidate in the first place? What plans do the Government have to introduce legislation to deter and penalise this sort of attack on democracy?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, as I said earlier, it is entirely up to the individual to declare convictions, whether recent or historic. As I have said before as well, setting such a high bar for election had cross-party agreement. The Cabinet Office will look at some of the gaps inherent in this first and most recent situation that has happened.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]
My Lords, can the Minister advise on whether the Government are working with the Electoral Commission and other bodies to look at whether the advice and guidance to candidates seeking election needs to be enhanced or revised to help avoid the recurrence of this sort of costly error in the future?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, we will work with appropriate parties to ensure that we can iron out some of those gaps which have taken place over recent months. It is clearly not a good situation for the public, as the electorate, or indeed the taxpayer.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked. We now come to the fourth Oral Question.
Policing: European Championship Final
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Addington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the policing of the 2020 UEFA European Championship final on 11 July.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con) [V]
My Lords, we condemn the scenes of violence and disorder that took place at Wembley Stadium and in central London on Sunday. I am grateful to the police for their efforts to restore public order in hugely testing circumstances and to deal with those committing violence and other criminal offences.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, it is easy enough to condemn these actions, but it is quite clear that there was a breakdown in intelligence on the part of the police force and that the stewarding arrangements and the police support at the stadium were inadequate. What steps will the Government take to make sure that this is corrected, bearing in mind the damage that this has done to our bid to host the World Cup in future?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, the noble Lord touches on a point when he says that some of the stewarding was deficient on the day. However, I would like to put this in the context of the whole of the Euros tournament. The vast majority of events ran smoothly, and it is a real shame that a few people have ruined it for the majority. It is also of great regret that some 19 of our brave police officers were injured on the day.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]
Does the Minister agree that stewards are not paid, trained or kitted out to be substitute security staff, let alone riot police? Many were incredibly brave, sustaining injuries and trauma. Will the Government ensure that every single steward who worked last Sunday—for the minimum wage, I might add—is provided with counselling from the public purse?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
I understood the noble Baroness to say that stewards were not paid, and then that they were paid the minimum wage. However, no matter what, yes, they should be trained; yes, they are brave and we are grateful to them; and, yes, there are lessons to be learned from that event.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, however one looks at this sorry state of affairs, there is no doubt about the fact that the stewards at the ground and the police in and around it behaved with great professionalism to protect the safety of fans. However, there were obviously grave failings that go to the top of the Met, and surely someone, including the Commissioner, must take responsibility for these failings, apologise and explain how this will be improved in the future.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, as I said, there are certainly lessons to be learned, but I for one am incredibly grateful to the police for the role that they played. Some 19 of them were injured, and of course there are lessons to be learned from that day. However, there was a surge event and on the whole the police did incredibly well to manage it.
Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)
My Lords, the Minister and I come from the north-west of England—Greater Manchester—where clearly we have tribal loyalties to football clubs. But this is about information. On the day that Manchester United’s football ground was invaded and broken into and a Premiership match was abandoned, that was fully on the internet, everybody knew what was going on and very little happened. What happened at Wembley is a mirror image of that. These people see this happening, see that there are few consequences, with no arrests or prosecutions, and try it again. It is only by the grace of God that nobody was killed at Wembley, and I just hope that, instead of apologising, the Minister actually does something.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, I will not at this point state which team I support, because that might get us into another row. However, I agree that lessons have to be learned. I understand that there was very regular communication on what was going on, and I think the police on the whole did a very good job. As the noble Lord says, it is a very good thing that nobody was more injured than they were, particularly the police officers. Nineteen officers were injured but, thankfully, none died.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con) [V]
My Lords, I attend a lot of football matches in London and went to two of the European Championship games. The police do an exemplary job in policing football matches, and let us not forget that arrests have fallen by 50% in a decade. I was astonished to learn that the police can reclaim policing costs from football clubs only if they are in the ground, and that of the £48 million a year it costs to police football matches, they get only £5 million back. Will the Minister look at this legislation so that the police can start to reclaim the costs from the football clubs and not have this artificial situation where the football clubs keep them out of the grounds in order to save money?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
I totally agree with my noble friend in praising the police for the exemplary job they do, and I will take his point back.
Lord Pannick (CB) [V]
My Lords, people who attended the match told me that the chaos, the threats and the violence caused by thousands of drunken and ticketless fans outside the stadium, many of whom forced their way inside, made this a frightening experience. That was especially because there were very few police officers to be seen. I do not understand how the Minister can say that the police did a good job on this occasion. It is surely all very well for the Minister to say that lessons need to be learned, but I suggest to her that the lesson that should be learned is that someone in the police service should take responsibility for all this and should resign.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, as regards the chaos outside, the noble Lord is absolutely right. In fact, I understand that many of the people who did not have tickets had no intention of watching the match; they came to cause trouble. On the numbers of police, I understand that almost 2,000 officers were deployed to Wembley on Sunday. To put that in context, it is the size of an average police force.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
The scenes at Wembley were frankly appalling, and they ask serious questions of the police and the authorities. Given the risk, why was there not a greater police presence at the gates and turnstiles? All of us have seen the shocking scenes and images on social media, so what people in the country want to know is how many of these individuals are being investigated and how many have been arrested so far.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
The noble Lord will know that this is obviously an ongoing investigation, and therefore I cannot comment on exact figures at this point. However, as I say, almost 2,000 officers were deployed to the stadium on Sunday. It was a very unfortunate episode and I am not in any way trying to defend it. What I am trying to defend are police’s efforts to restore law and order when chaos broke out.
Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]
I hope the Minister has seen the videos shown on Italian media of Italian fans being beaten, apparently as they came out of their stand, by so-called British “supporters”—better described as “thugs”. That video shows it taking place for a substantial time before any stewards arrived. The stewards do then intervene, rather bravely, but there is no sign of the police. These individuals are clearly identifiable on the videos. Can we have some assurance that all these videos from social and professional media are being circulated to the police and that prosecutions will take place where individuals are identified?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
I can certainly assure the noble Lord that all the evidence that is being put forward from Sunday is being considered and taken forward by the police. Perhaps I may join him in saying that it is an appalling situation where our non-home fans are beaten and I reassure him that the police will do all they can to bring these criminals—“thugs”, as he says—to justice.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I spent many years focusing on ways to tackle hooliganism and subsequently on the preparation for a secure and trouble-free London Olympic Games. Does the Minister agree that it is incomprehensible that the FA and the police did not erect barriers hundreds of metres away from the stadium, as we did in London 2012? That would have prevented tailgating, which was flagged as a major concern in the semi-final. Does she also agree that such an approach must be comprehensibly built into the bid documentation for the 23rd World Cup, to demonstrate that security firms, stewards, the police and volunteers are far better prepared for that tournament, along with far tougher lines against racially provoked attacks, both physical, verbal and online, which quite simply have to be stamped out if we are to earn the right to host the World Cup?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
I totally agree with my noble friend. On the racial attacks, the Prime Minister could not have been clearer about his abhorrence for and willingness to deal with them than he was yesterday. On lessons learned from the Olympics, I agree with my noble friend. I am sure that that will be considered and that the House will be kept updated on the progress made.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to Oral Questions to the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, the noble Lord, Lord Frost. There will be three Questions, with 10 minutes allowed for each, and we will proceed in the same way as for other Oral Questions.
Before I call the first Question, it may assist the House if I make a short statement about the sub judice resolution. I have been advised that there are active legal proceedings on the legality of the Northern Ireland protocol. I assure the House that Members may make full reference to the challenge to the Northern Ireland protocol, which is a judicial review of an issue of national importance.
I am also advised that there are active legal proceedings and open inquests in relation to historical Troubles-related deaths. Mr Speaker made a Statement in the House of Commons yesterday; I share his view that this is an issue of national importance. When cases relate to issues of national importance, the Lord Speaker can allow reference to the cases in the House. I am exercising that discretion to allow limited reference to active legal proceedings and open inquests in relation to historical Troubles-related deaths. However, references to these cases should be limited to the context and the events that led to the cases and not include details of cases nor the names of those involved in them. Members of the House should be mindful of the matters that may be the subject of future legal proceedings and should exercise caution in making reference to individual cases.
I also remind Members of the presumption that court orders, such as anonymity orders, will be respected in Parliament. I draw attention to the report of the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions, which made clear that
“privilege places a significant responsibility on parliamentarians to exercise it in the public interest. The presumption should be that court orders are respected in Parliament; and that when a Member does not comply with one he or she can demonstrate that (it) is in the public interest.”
Post-Brexit Financial Settlement
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Moylan
To ask the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) what assessment Her Majesty’s Government have made of the European Union’s consolidated budget report for 2020, which states that the United Kingdom has liabilities of €47.5 billion as part of the post-Brexit financial settlement.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) (Con)
My Lords, the Government’s regular update to Parliament on EU finances has been published today by my right honourable friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The Treasury estimates that the current cost of the net financial settlement is £37.3 billion. This remains within the previously published central range. The €47.5-billion figure is an estimate produced on a different basis by the EU for its internal accounts processes.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, these are large sums—larger even than those we were discussing yesterday when we discussed the cuts to overseas aid. It appears that the EU is the final arbiter of what we should pay. I understand that there are circumstances when you might want to give a trusted friend details of your credit card, including the three numbers of the back, but if that trusted friend is abusing the card, is it not the right policy to cancel it?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, it is of course a legal obligation to make the payments to the EU that were agreed in the withdrawal agreement. They were heavily negotiated in some detail at the time, and of course we stand by them. It was a general difficulty, with a very large sums that we were paying to the European Union, that underlaid the referendum vote in June 2016.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
Surely the Minister is not surprised by this figure, which was predicted not just by the European Union but by the OBR and other organisations. He will recall the campaign that claimed we were paying £350 million a week to the European Union when the reality was less than half that. How can we now believe Ministers in a Government where the Prime Minister is a stranger to the truth?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, we are not surprised by these figures. As I said, the details of how they are calculated are set out in the withdrawal agreement in exhaustive detail, through several dozen articles. The question to which the noble Lord alludes has been sufficiently debated. There are different views on this question but what is clear is that, before we left the EU, we were paying very substantial net sums into it.
Viscount Ridley (Con) [V]
My Lords, RTE reports that our 2021 payment is to be €6.8 billion whereas, in the latest Budget Red Book, table C.6 on page 97 shows our 2020-21 sum as £10.4 billion—nearly twice as much. The sum for 2021-22 is £11 billion, so the discrepancy is not likely to be due to year-end differences. The difference is several billion pounds, which is a big number by any standard. As Senator Everett Dirksen said 60 years ago:
“A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”
Can the Minister explain the discrepancy?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I do not think that any of us on this side of the House feels particularly comfortable paying large sums to the European Union, but it is an agreed outcome in the withdrawal agreement and we stand by it. There are differences in the calculation methods between the EU arrangements and ours. For example, their figure does not include all the receipts we will receive in future, there are different ways of forecasting and so on. We are not surprised that there are some differences. What matters is our own calculations and that we are comfortable with the bills when they arrive, which we are.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
Does the Minister accept any responsibility for failing to negotiate this bill properly, or are he and the Prime Minister unfamiliar with how divorce works?
Lord Frost (Con)
This is one of the occasions when I can disclaim direct responsibility for that particular part of the negotiation in the previous withdrawal agreement. I have been known to be a little uncharitable at times about every aspect of the work that was done by my predecessors but, in this case, on the withdrawal agreement, they did a good job. Given the legal framework and commitments, it was always likely that the outcome would be in this broad area.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The Minister negotiated at length to agree a formula for calculating the UK’s contribution. Whatever we think of the amount, there was some degree of transparency in this. In the interests of transparency, can the Minister tell us whether he played any role in advancing the interests of Aquind Ltd, owned by a former Russian executive, in the Brexit negotiations? I would welcome an answer to my letter to him on this important matter, but perhaps he could tell the House now whether he ever raised the Aquind project in negotiations with the EU.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness to the Front Bench. I look forward to debating such issues with her on what I hope are many occasions in the future. The link between the EU budget and the question she asks is possibly a little tenuous, but nevertheless I am happy to say that I received her letter and obviously will reply shortly. I have never met Mr Temerko and I have no recollection of discussing his business with any Ministers or anybody else. We are establishing what correspondence, if any, there was with me or my office last year, and will reply.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, certain people have tried to make mischief with this figure. What we need—I think we have now had it from the Minister—is a clear statement that we will stand by the agreement that we negotiated. If he can say that, I am sure that it will find favour on both sides of the negotiating table.
Lord Frost (Con)
We certainly stand by the financial agreement that we negotiated in the withdrawal agreement. As I said, it was very carefully negotiated at some length, and of course we stand by it and the payments that are due under it.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am particularly grateful to my noble friend for committing the Government to this legal obligation; that is very welcome. Will he further confirm that the sums of money being discussed in this Question are going towards the Horizon programme, which is in the present spending review, and from which many UK companies will benefit greatly?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, yes, these are significant sums, and the sums involved in the Horizon project and programme are also significant. We have a difficulty with the Horizon programme, in that, at the moment, our participation is still being blocked by the EU, even though all the legal processes behind it are in place. We very much hope that that block can be lifted soon and that UK universities and others with an interest can participate in the programme.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, just this week, the Minister told the protocol sub-committee in this House that the European Union had dumped 800 regulations on the UK to apply to Northern Ireland without any consultation or prior warning. As the European Union continues to show intransigence and a determination to show no flexibility whatever to the working of the protocol, is it not time for Her Majesty’s Government to hold back any more payment until the European Union shows itself to be more reasonable?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, where threats have been made in this process, they have overwhelmingly come from the European Union side, and we regret that. I do not think it would be right for us to hold this legal obligation in hock to progress on the protocol, which is not to say that we do not think the progress on the protocol and implementing it in a pragmatic, proportionate and appropriate way is not important. It is extremely important, but it is not the same thing as the exit bill.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked, and we move to the second Oral Question to the Minister of State.
Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick
To ask the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) what steps Her Majesty’s Government will take to promote the benefits and opportunities of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) (Con)
My Lords, I have spoken to many businesses and business organisations in Northern Ireland about this issue. The reality is that Northern Ireland’s economic links are overwhelmingly with the rest of the UK, rather than with Ireland or other EU members. The way that the protocol is currently operating means that any economic benefits it may generate for some are more than counterbalanced in general by the barriers it currently creates between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
Has the Minister met the new Minister for the Economy in Northern Ireland, Invest NI and other promotional agencies, including the Northern Ireland chamber of commerce, and, if not, when will he meet them? Is he aware that in its latest quarterly review, the Northern Ireland chamber of commerce said that 67% of its members believed that
“Northern Ireland’s unique status post EU Exit presents opportunities for the region”
and that 47% believe that
“Northern Ireland’s trading status will present benefits for their business”?
That includes Northern Ireland biggest wine wholesaler, which said in today’s newspaper that business has grown exponentially due to the new trading arrangements.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting the new Economy Minister in Northern Ireland, although I expect to do so soon. To be fair, there is a range of opinion on the benefits of the protocol, even in the business community in Northern Ireland. All I can say is that I do not think I have spoken to a representative of that community who has not expressed some concern about the barriers that are placed on movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The degree of concern may vary, but it is always there, and it is a matter of significant concern to us, too.
Lord Caine (Con)
My Lords, as one who has consistently pressed for the defects in the Northern Ireland protocol to be remedied, I very much look forward to seeing the Government’s proposals on the way forward next week. Does my noble friend agree that a good start would be to remind the EU of its obligations to ensure that the protocol
“should impact as little as possible on the everyday life of communities in both Ireland and Northern Ireland”,
as well as
“the importance of maintaining the integral place of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom's internal market.”?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I very much agree with my noble friend’s comments. It is very clear that the obligations set out in the protocol to which he refers are not being fully met at the moment. There clearly is an impact on the everyday life of communities in Northern Ireland, goods are clearly not circulating as freely as they could or should, and we need to find a new balance in this question. We will be setting out our proposals to that effect next week.
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, will the Minister clarify the highly charged phrase that he and a director in the Cabinet Office used before the Lords protocol sub-committee yesterday—namely, that the European Union “dropped” 800 new measures on Northern Ireland last week without notice? Are those measures technical amendments to the existing legislative instruments that apply mainly through Annexe 2 to the protocol, or are they new legislative instruments that the EU thinks should apply to Northern Ireland? In either case, can he explain how the Northern Ireland Assembly, as the legislature responsible for implementing them, is being kept informed of such developments?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I do not think that was highly charged language; I think it was an accurate description of the situation when we received a communication containing 600 to 800 pieces of legislation and pages. That is a significant event. New legislation not within scope of the protocol is obviously covered in a different way; this is obviously legislation that is within scope. Technical amendments can of course be quite significant, and the task of assessing that and ensuring that we understand the statute book in Northern Ireland is significant. That is why we should like more warning, more process and more discussion of this matter.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
Can my noble friend confirm that the overall balance of benefits and disadvantages of the protocol is tilted against Northern Ireland at present, given that Northern Ireland trades more with the rest of the United Kingdom than with the Republic of Ireland, the rest of the world and the European Union put together, a phenomenal statistic that should always be borne in mind? Does he agree that firm action needs to be taken to deal not only with that trade imbalance but the societal and political instability which also need to be taken into account when one assesses the benefits and disadvantages of the protocol?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. The balance of advantages and benefits in the protocol is not solely economic, although the economic links are clearly very strong with Great Britain. They are to do with society, politics and the sense of identity, which, it seems, has been undermined in places by the operation of the protocol. It is reasonable to take that into account in our overall assessment. Diversion of trade, societal disturbances and so on are obviously very important factors when we come to consider what action is necessary in this matter.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
Yesterday, the Minister told the Northern Ireland Sub-Committee that in his view the protocol was causing societal disruption and weakening of identity, as well as trade friction. If he is right, it is vital that Her Majesty’s Government do nothing to make that precarious situation worse. Does he agree that any trade arrangements involving significant relaxation of import checks could make his problems with the protocol harder to resolve, and will he therefore ensure that the impact on communities in Northern Ireland is properly taken into account by his colleague, the International Trade Secretary?
Lord Frost (Con)
We agree, of course, that it is very important that the situation in Northern Ireland remains calm, and we are very glad that it has. Nevertheless, it is clear that there is a high level of political concern about the situation that currently subsists. It is very important that all of us—this Government, the European Union and everybody else with an interest—act to respond to that political difficulty and show that we can respond politically and solve problems that have arisen, rather than suggest that they do not exist.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]
I am puzzled by the Minister’s reply to the Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie—it almost sounded as if he is not very proud of his protocol. It seemed to me and to many in Scotland that Mrs Foster had a point when she talked about the best of both worlds. However, looking ahead, there clearly is a problem with the democratic deficit in relation to new EU single-market laws applicable in Northern Ireland thanks to the protocol. How does the Minister propose to mitigate this problem? Does he agree that the Partnership Council and the parliamentary partnership assembly could play some role and will the Government endorse strong Northern Ireland representation in both?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I learned a good deal of what I know of negotiation at the feet of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, so wherever we have got to is at least in part thanks to his tutelage over the years. On the issue of the parliamentary partnership assembly and the Partnership Council, the parliamentary assembly is, of course, a matter for Parliament. We are in close touch with those involved as to how it should work but its composition is not a matter for the Government, although we obviously strongly support its work. On the institutions created by the withdrawal agreement and the TCA, we seek to ensure that all the devolved Administrations, including Northern Ireland, can participate in the most appropriate way.
Baroness Suttie (LD) [V]
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has just said, it is a peculiarity of our times that the Opposition Benches are left to defend the imperfect protocol that the Minister himself negotiated. Does the Minister agree with Julian Smith, who said in May this year that Northern Ireland is in a
“unique position … compared to other parts of the UK to maximise two major markets, Britain and the EU”?
Do the Government have an action plan to promote these opportunities for businesses in Northern Ireland?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I obviously have the highest respect for my right honourable friend Mr Smith but the problem with that analysis comes back to the point made earlier that Northern Ireland’s economic links are overwhelmingly with the rest of the UK. A bargain in which there is greater access to a smaller part of the trade in return for difficulties with the larger part is obviously not a bargain that totally stacks up.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Question to the Minister of State and I call the noble Lord, Lord Liddle.
Trade Agreements
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Liddle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps Her Majesty’s Government are taking to ensure future trade agreements (1) are compatible with the terms of the United Kingdom-European Union Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and (2) take into account relevant regulatory changes by existing trading partners and international organisations.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) (Con)
My Lords, the trade and co-operation agreement that we have agreed with the European Union does not require us or the EU to align rules with the other party. This ensures that the UK is in control of its own legislation and that we are free to make other free trade agreements around the world. All these trade agreements are capable of accommodating the consequences of regulatory changes by either party, now and into the future.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his Answer. The purpose of my Question was to explore the priorities and processes that determine the Government’s trade policy. In a way, what I am asking is the mirror image of the replies that he gave on the Northern Ireland protocol. As far as I can see, the Government’s trade policy is focused very much on the Asia-Pacific region, which brings benefits but not terribly big ones by comparison with the overwhelming importance of our trading relationship with the European Union. Do the Minister and the Government’s trade policy recognise that fact and that it will be the case for decades to come? Do the Government take into account that any divergences that we negotiate from EU standards in other trade agreements are bound to cause some friction in the EU relationship? Does he accept that they are going to make the Commission more reluctant to explore—
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
The noble Lord has asked his two questions.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
—the flexibility that he is seeking in the Northern Ireland protocol and does he want to build on the spirit of the trade and co-operation agreement to deepen the trading relationship with Europe?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, this is clearly an extremely complicated issue and a lot can be said on the subject. I am not sure that I entirely agree with the noble Lord’s underlying judgment. Our trade with the EU has been falling fairly consistently for a decade or two now. Our trade with Asia is rising. Most people think that that is likely to continue to be the case and that the strategic emphasis on Asia is right. As regards the relationship between our regulation and other countries’ regulation through FTAs, of course there are choices to be made, but they are the same choices that every country in the world engaging in an independent trade policy undertakes. They seem to manage it and I am sure that we will as well.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, when granting the data adequacy decision, the European Commission imposed a four-year sunset clause over fears of UK divergence from GDPR standards, especially in transfers of data to third countries. The Government are none the less forging ahead with international agreements on data transfers such as with the US, the trans-Pacific partnership and Asian countries. Their recent digital policy paper envisaged the Information Commissioner having a key role in communicating the benefits of data sharing—there was me thinking that the Information Commissioner’s role was to safeguard privacy rights. Have the Government done an assessment on the dangers that their data policies could pose to the adequacy decision?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, we are obviously very pleased that the EU granted us data adequacy last month. We think that that was the right thing to do and a correct reflection of the situation. The EU grants data adequacy to other countries around the world as well which do not operate identical or close analogues to the EU’s legislation. That does not prevent the grant of adequacy. We think that it is entirely consistent with security of data to look at our own ways of doing these things and that is exactly what we are reflecting on.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that the UK does not intend to align its regulations with the EU’s in order to help the situation in Northern Ireland? Does he agree that there are other ways of reducing the administrative controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, such as a veterinary agreement based on mutual recognition of underlying product regulations, as the EU has agreed with New Zealand?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I have said it before and I will say it again: we will not align dynamically with the rules of the EU on agri-food or in other areas. That was the approach that we took into the negotiations last year and that is the consistent approach now. My noble friend is absolutely right that there are other ways of doing this and he is absolutely correct to point to an equivalence-based veterinary agreement as the way forward. That is exactly what we have proposed to the European Union and I am very hopeful that we can discuss that at the Specialised Committee created by the withdrawal agreement when it meets on Monday.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, the free trade agreement between the UK, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein was signed on 4 June. This is a most important agreement between friends and trading partners of the UK, yet Parliament to date has had no opportunity to scrutinise it. Does the Minister regret that? Can he tell us when the agreement will be laid before Parliament?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, this is a matter for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Trade rather than for me. There are, of course, procedures under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, which sets out how such treaties will be considered by Parliament; I think that is the intention. Obviously we welcome the fullest possible debate on the contents of that treaty.
Lord Udny-Lister (Con)
The Minister had to sit through some very difficult negotiations and, some would say, a lot of attempted bullying by the EU. Can he confirm that any trade agreements are for the benefit of the UK and will avoid alignment where it is not to our benefit, and that enormous benefits will flow in the course of time from the trade extensions and the deal with Japan, the deal with Australia and now the potential deal with the CPTPP, which begins to be tantalisingly close? Can he assure the House that he will be looking at them and the benefits and not listening to the EU?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Trade is obviously responsible for most of those negotiations. I am in 100% agreement with her that they offer huge opportunities for this country. The ability to trade freely with a larger number of countries around the world, while setting our own rules in a way that suits us and this economy, will be of huge benefit to us in years to come and we are all looking forward to that.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
The Minister has admitted that the extra barriers caused by the protocol have had a dampening effect on free trade, but he does not seem to accept that the extra barriers between us and the EU similarly have an effect on the freedom of trade and the amount we will export to the EU, which is still our nearest and biggest market. Indeed, exports of food and drink—our major export industry—fell by 47% and increased by a mere 0.3% outside the EU. We have to continue to trade with Europe. Will he set out how the Government propose to reverse the export fall to Europe?
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness is a little over-pessimistic about where things stand at the moment. The latest trade figures, which came out last week, show that our exports to the EU are now well above the average levels of last year and are almost at the levels of 2019 and 2018. Our business has done a great job in dealing with that. I have never sought to hide the fact that leaving a customs union creates new barriers. I am very happy to see that our businesses are dealing with them very successfully. They are different in nature from barriers within a country, and that is the difference between some of the effects that we are seeing with our exports to the rest of the European Union and the chilling effect on trade within the United Kingdom because of the way that boundaries currently operate.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.
Hereditary Peers By-election
Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Bill
Thursday 15th July 2021
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Agnew of Oulton, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Covid-19
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I thank the Minister for taking this Statement, although I have to say—and I know this is not in his gift—that Monday to Thursday is probably too long a gap, but taking the Statement today might in this case prove useful because we have seen the reaction to the nearing of so-called freedom day, nationally and internationally. We have also seen the Government becoming progressively more cautious. That is not surprising because in England 42,000 Covid infections and 49 more deaths were recorded yesterday, hospital admissions have increased to more than 500 a day, up 50% on last week, and we now see routine operations being postponed and cancelled.
The NHS is rightly focused on waiting lists, which are at their highest level over the past decade at 5.3 million, and 336,733 people have been waiting more than a year, more than 76,000 have waited for at least 18 months and more than 7,000 have been waiting for two years. Emergency care is grappling with some of the highest summer demand ever, and this is in the context of NHS staff being exhausted and facing burnout. The NHS is also losing a significant number of staff to self-isolation, which has led to much reduced capacity due to infection control. As infection rates get worse and increase, what is the Government’s plan to deal with this situation?
Since Monday we have seen an increasing number of announcements and questions about how to safeguard against further increases in infection and the impact it is having on our NHS, schools, businesses and communities. Indeed, our own Lord Speaker wrote:
“Members are still expected to wear a face covering both in the Chamber, in indoor crowded spaces and when moving around the Estate, in line with general advice from Public Health England and the Chief Medical Officer. Members are strongly encouraged to use the testing facilities provided.”
On these Benches we intend to follow that advice, and I regret that some Members have already abandoned their masks when moving around the building and in the Chamber. We have staff to look after us who may not yet be fully vaccinated and, anyway, have no choice but to be here and who will continue to wear their masks to protect us. We should afford them the same consideration. Does the Minister agree?
On the “Today” programme a few days ago Professor Graham Medley, the chief modeller for the SAGE committee said: “Wearing face masks is worth it but only if everyone does it, not just 70%. I understand the Government’s reluctance to actually mandate it. On the other hand, if it is not mandated, it probably won’t do any good.” In other words, my understanding is that unless more than 70% wear masks, the protection for those who are still vulnerable will not work.
I fear we have been here before, with the Government back-pedalling and, in doing so, creating confusion and ambiguity—exactly the circumstances for the virus to thrive and mutate. The guidance issued by Ministers yesterday was stronger than businesses expected, many of which feel that they have been led astray, given the Government’s repeated characterisation of 19 July as “freedom day” and the end of most restrictions. The truth is that the guidance is hardly different from the current rules, except that businesses are now “encouraged” to keep many of their Covid adaptations rather than required to do so. Businesses now have just five days to decide how to implement the rules and how to communicate that to their customers. Does the Minister accept that the Government’s mixed messages have left many in legal limbo?
The new guidance gives little clarity to the 3.8 million extremely vulnerable people who are being told to avoid all unvaccinated people. How are they supposed to know whether or not someone is vaccinated? Does the Minister share the concerns raised by charities and patient groups that guidance has effectively told the extremely vulnerable to shield, without backing that up with any formal support from the Government for working or food shopping? Government advice to the clinically extremely vulnerable is to go to the shops at quieter times of the day after 19 July. I am not sure if that can be dignified as “support” for those most at risk of serious illness from Covid-19.
Is it true that the Government have not had anyone in post to deal with the clinically extremely vulnerable for three months, since Dr Jenny Harries was appointed chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency? If that is true, it is deeply concerning and it may explain why the Government have failed to prioritise support for these 3.8 million people.
What are the contingency plans for surging hospital admissions, which may remain high until the end of August, as called for by members of SAGE? The new guidance also says that businesses should encourage customers to check-in using the NHS app or otherwise leave their contact details. Can the Minister confirm reports that plans to reduce the sensitivity of NHS contact tracing have been reduced because of the surge in cases? What assessment have the Government made of the effectiveness of the app as an infection control tool, given reports that more than 20% of adults and a significantly greater proportion of young people have actually now deleted the app and many more are ignoring the advice to self-isolate?
I turn to those working from home. Despite the lifting of guidance to work from home, the Government say they expect and recommend a gradual return to offices. This is very confusing. What protection is proposed for those who are vulnerable, and for whom “freedom day” is not freedom day but a further lockdown day? If their employers demand that they return to work, even if they are immunosuppressed, for example, travel and enclosed places pose a threat to them. Under these circumstances, we need to be grateful for the good sense of the Mayor of London in following the science. Sadiq Khan has said that Transport for London will continue to enforce the wearing of face masks on services in the capital beyond 19 July.
While industry bodies said on Tuesday that no domestic train operators or major bus and coach firms will require customers to wear masks, the city mayors and others are calling for mask wearing on all public transport. Does the Minister agree with them? If Tracy Brabin, Andy Burnham and the other mayors had the power to enforce mask wearing to protect drivers and passengers, they would do so. They are doing the Government’s job for them.
What support are the Government going to give those areas with the lowest vaccination rates? Local authorities in London have, variously, 35%, 36% and 42% of their populations vaccinated. Does the Minister support the leaders of those authorities who say that they wish mask wearing to continue until they have got their populations caught up with vaccination?
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, the Prime Minister told us 10 days ago that we were heading for “freedom day” and that all the data was going in the right direction; all restrictions would be lifted, and now was the time to take personal responsibility for our behaviour and for the Government essentially to step back. The Secretary of State’s Statement on Monday confirmed that, although with a marginally more cautious note about taking care. I echo particularly the comments made just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about the mixed messaging in the new guidance for business and on returning to work, which conflicts with what was said both in the Statement and by the Prime Minister.
However, since the Prime Minister’s and Mr Javid’s confident assertions on Monday, there has been an outpouring of disbelief from senior scientists and doctors. Cases are currently doubling every nine days, and yesterday there were 42,000 new daily cases—a level last seen at the beginning of the January total lockdown. If there is no slowing of that doubling rate, we will have hit 100,000 new daily cases by the beginning of August. And that is before the Government’s expected extra cases as a result of “freedom day” on Monday.
Ministers constantly say that there are fewer people in hospital, that fewer people need ventilation and there are fewer deaths, but what they do not mention is that those numbers are a matter of ratios, and that with the current level of cases our hospitals are already reporting A&Es with the equivalent of a winter surge and more wards being turned into Covid wards for patients. A letter published a few days ago in the BMJ, initially signed by 1,000 doctors, is at over 7,000 signatures and still rising. The data is already clear that the surge in new cases from three weeks ago is increasing hospital admissions right now. So what are the Government doing to support and protect our NHS from this sharp increase and pressure on doctors, nurses and hospitals right now?
While many people are being responsible, still following the guidance and using their face masks, sadly there are many who are not. I was talking to a young security guard who told me that, this week, she is finding it impossible to persuade people to put masks on in their local shopping mall, despite the fact that the rules are still in place. Yesterday, my local community pharmacist told me in despair that two people arrived separately asking him for PCR tests as they each had Covid symptoms and thought all the previous rules had just finished. Not for the first time, much of this is about the Prime Minister’s muddled communication style. In the light of the fact that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are going to retain the face mask mandate, and that the metro mayors, including Sadiq Khan and Andy Street, would like to do so, will the Government please reverse the lifting of the face mask mandate immediately, so that it remains in place, especially on public transport?
I turn to the new guidance for the clinically extremely vulnerable. I have to say that I have never read such an inconsistent and contradictory formal guidance note from the Government—and I have read a few. You should stay at home to be safe but if you cannot work from home, go in; you must remain socially distanced from everyone outside your bubble, even if they do not have to; you must not mix with unvaccinated people, outside or inside. I ask the Minister to tell me how on earth you know who is unvaccinated. As one of the CEV, do I stand in the doorway at opening time at my local greengrocer’s—a quiet time—and shout out to any customers and staff, “Anyone not vaccinated in here”? Of course not. The inevitable logic of this is the restart of shielding but without any of the previous support.
Worst of all, on Friday evening Public Health England put out a press release in which it mixed up advice to the clinically vulnerable and the clinically extremely vulnerable by citing vaccine efficiency research relating to the former in advice to the latter. That paragraph has been repeated in the formal guidance published on Monday. It is plain wrong. In a total administrative muddle, no one has gone through the nine pages of this guidance and updated it, so it is littered with references to the need to follow other rules and guidance for the general public in place at 17 May and 21 June, all of which goes next Monday. Please will the Minister ensure that the guidance is reviewed immediately to remove these anomalies?
All this, and the lack of answers to my questions last week about who the clinical lead is on the clinically extremely vulnerable, tells us 3.8 million former shielders that we have been not just forgotten but thrown to the wolves. Please will the Government actually review the guidance to keep the CEV group safe and provide the support that they need?
I also gave the Minister notice of the following two questions, as they both concern urgent and slightly unusual elements of lifting restrictions. First, for a couple of weeks now, Malta has said that it will not accept UK citizens who have received particular batches of the AZ vaccine manufactured in India, about 5 million doses of which have been given in the UK. Earlier this month, the Prime Minister reassured the press, saying:
“I am very confident that it will not prove to be a problem.”
However, holidaymakers are being turned away from Malta right now. When will the Government resolve this problem?
Secondly, those thousands of wonderful people who came forward to take part in the AstraZeneca clinical trials have been told that their vaccine status cannot be put on the NHS app, which means that they cannot go abroad, either to work or on holiday, or do certain jobs in the NHS that require this evidence. In early June, there was a blog on the BMJ website that set out these problems, but three months on from this issue being initially raised, there is still no resolution. It is utterly wrong that these publicly-minded people have now been left in limbo. Can the Minister say when this problem will be resolved and their vaccine details uploaded?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, I am enormously grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Brinton, for their thoughtful questions. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, put it extremely well: we are at a delicate inflection point. It is a moment when the whole country needs to be cautious about rushing into change, but it is also a moment when the vaccine is having an enormous impact and change is therefore appropriate.
Infection rates are rising dramatically, but we cannot avoid the fact that hospitalisations and deaths are holding relatively steady. Today, there are 2,970 Covid patients in beds and 470 on ventilators. This is a massively smaller proportion than in the pre-vaccination spikes, when the connection between infection, hospitalisation and death was much firmer and more profound. At the same time, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, rightly pointed out, waiting lists are huge and the gap for diagnostics for severe diseases, such as cancer, is extremely concerning. It is our responsibility to step up to that deficit and not be wholly distracted by Covid. This is therefore a moment when we have to balance competing demands on our healthcare; we are trying to hit the right balance.
On masks, I pay tribute to the Lord Speaker for his leadership in this area and on asymptomatic testing. I saw his Twitter post where he was being swabbed for his LFD test—a commendable sign of leadership. He and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, are entirely right: we should wear masks out of consideration for others, including others who may not have had the vaccine or may not be able to have the vaccine. However, it is also entirely right that central government cannot mandate every aspect of human behaviour for months and years to come. I take great pleasure in the sight of local leaders using their influence to inspire the public in this matter. I remind the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that DPHs are able to bring in mandatory measures where there are areas of outbreak. People need to know that the wearing of masks has an impact, and we are hopeful that they will go along with that. Although legal restrictions are being removed, the guidance will recommend that masks continue to be worn in certain situations, and businesses will be encouraged to support staff and customers who continue to wear masks.
In line with businesses, public services have always been free to set their own entry policies as long as they meet their existing obligations, including under the Equality Act. Public services must continue to protect workers and others from risks to their health and safety, including from Covid. That is only right and fair.
On the very important question of the immuno- suppressed and the immunocompromised, both noble Baronesses made extremely powerful points. I want to express in very clear terms my personal sympathy for all those who have concerns about the impact of the vaccine and for whom the rise in infections presents a very real threat to their health. However, I flag the Public Health England report on the clinically extremely vulnerable group as a whole. It makes it clear that there is little reduction in vaccine effectiveness for them compared to those who are not in high-risk groups, with between 76% and 93% effectiveness after a second dose. The PHE data also suggests reduced effectiveness for the immunocompromised and the immunosuppressed, particularly after one dose, but effectiveness after two doses is much higher. These general figures mask substantial variations, which we have discussed before—we would expect this between one set of compromised systems and another—but future studies will provide much more granularity on that. It is not right, however, to suggest that all those with compromised immunities are left unprotected by the vaccine.
The guidance for those who are clinically extremely vulnerable was updated and published on 12 July, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, pointed out. This confirms that changes to social distancing rules in step 4 will also apply to the CEV, who are advised to continue considering additional precautions that they may wish to take on board. I hear very clearly the noble Baroness’s points about anomalies in the guidance; I will take those back to the department and try to tidy up the documentation as she advises.
I can inform the House that we are writing to NHS clinicians to update them on them on the latest position regarding vaccine effectiveness for these groups and provide information on potential treatment options currently under development, such as monoclonal antibody therapies and novel antivirals, as well as access to antibody testing. This guidance will support clinicians in their conversations with patients. This is such a variegated group that that kind of personalised advice is critical.
The interim JCVI advice is that all clinically extremely vulnerable people, including immunosuppressed individuals and their household contacts, should be prioritised for a booster vaccine in the autumn. We are continuing to invest in the OCTAVE study, which will provide further data on patients with suppressed immune response. Interim results for the immediate response to the vaccine will be available from the middle of July.
We are absolutely focused on ensuring that the population is given clear guidance. The NHS app is undoubtedly an area that needs to evolve. Its effectiveness as a technological tool in giving people counsel and advice when they have been in close proximity to someone with the infection is extremely valuable. We are looking at ways in which that value can be enhanced.
On the specific question of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, about Malta, it is for member states to determine what they accept at their borders regarding vaccines. Foreign travel advice recently published for Malta misleadingly reported that it would not accept the specific batches received from the Serum Institute of India in the UK. This has now been resolved with agreement from the Maltese Government, and Malta is now accepting proof of vaccination from any Covid vaccine administered in the UK.
Turning to those who, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, rightly pointed out, stepped forward for the critical AstraZeneca vaccine clinical trials, being on a vaccine trial absolutely should not disadvantage them. The Government intend to take any action available to ensure that that is the case. We are working with clinical research sites to add participant information of vaccine clinical trials to the national immunisation management service—NIMS—to allow participants to access their NHS Covid pass for both domestic and international travel purposes.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
We now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that I can call the maximum number of speakers. I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins of Tavistock, has withdrawn so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud.
Baroness Stroud (Con)
My Lords, on 9 July a Department of Health and Social Care press release claimed that, for those who are immunosuppressed, vaccine effectiveness after a second dose is 74%, with
“similar protection to those not in an at-risk group.”
But this was based on an extremely small sample size. In response, Blood Cancer UK’s chief executive Gemma Peters said that
“its ‘confident, definitive assertions’ about the level of protection given to the UK’s 230,000 blood cancer patients could not yet be supported by the ‘wider body of evidence on vaccine efficacy in the immunocompromised’”.
I am aware that my noble friend the Minister has already commented widely on this issue, but could he comment specifically on those with cancer, particularly those 230,000 blood cancer patients? What intention do Her Majesty’s Government have to clarify this guidance and ensure that the immunosuppressed have access to the necessary resources to help improve their understanding and decision-making?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the position of the immunosuppressed is one that we have a huge amount of sympathy for. Those who have blood cancer face a particular challenge. I was very grateful to meet Blood Cancer UK and discuss this matter. The PHE report makes the very clear point that those with suppressed immune systems may have a very strong vaccine response, particularly after two weeks after two doses. Just because someone has a suppressed immune system, it does not mean that the vaccine has left them completely unprotected. I completely accept that the responses of one group and another group may be quite different and it is difficult to lump everyone together. That is why we are investing in the OCTAVE study; I am hopeful it will be published by the end of the month. That will provide some, but not all, the information we need to elaborate on that guidance.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD) [V]
My Lords, with government scientists predicting that up to 4,800 people a day could be admitted to hospital with Covid if England rushes back to normality at the same time as health experts are predicting a surge in flu and other respiratory viruses likely to lead to severe pressures on the NHS, what contingency plans are the Government putting in place to deal with these pressures without leading to the backlog of other much-needed care and treatment growing ever bigger? Will these contingency plans be published?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, we acknowledge the risks. The noble Baroness is entirely right about flu; the relatively low levels of both flu and RSV in the last 18 months mean that many will not have the immune system that they normally would, and flu is a present danger. That is why we are working so hard on the flu vaccine programme and bundling Covid boosters and flu vaccines for those in the right prioritisation lists. I encourage absolutely everyone to make sure they get their flu vaccine when it comes around. Given the range of uncertainties, we are working with the NHS on its plans for this winter. We will ensure that the service has what it needs to meet those challenges.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, what progress is being made in negotiations with the USA for double-vaccinated citizens of both countries to travel between the two countries, with non-NHS vaccines being accepted and without quarantine being required?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, following the G7 we pulled together a joint task force with USA colleagues to address the precise point that the noble Baroness alludes to. That joint task force is working extremely hard to resolve the various practical, epidemiological and virological arrangements for the kind of green-list corridor that we would like to have between our two friendly countries. I am hopeful we will be able to make announcements on that shortly.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]
I would be most grateful if the Minister could follow on from the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and tell us when these plans will be published. The statement says
“we do not believe that infection rates will put unsustainable pressure on the NHS”,
yet we know that the lambda variant, if it should come into the UK and spread, is probably antibody resistant. We know that already, last weekend, some emergency departments had waiting times of around eight hours because they were under such pressure from patients plus staff sickness. We know that it is completely inhumane to expect parents of a sick baby to go into work if the child has RSV during the winter, so those members of staff will inevitably take unpaid leave if they are not allowed to take leave to look after their child.
Lord Bethell (Con)
The challenge presented by workforce illness in the NHS is acute at the moment. It is one we are very conscious of, and the noble Baroness is entirely right that parents who have a sick child must stay at home. Not only is that humane; it is also infection control wisdom. That puts the pressure on. That is why we have prioritised vaccination among healthcare staff, and we are prioritising the boosters for staff.
In terms of managing emergency services, we are conducting a huge marketing campaign around the use of NHS 111 so that people can book their slot and be directed to the right kinds of services because, as the noble Baroness knows, many people who turn up in emergency departments are not necessarily in the right place for the conditions they present.
In terms of variants of concern, we are keeping an eye on lambda, beta and all those that may present a vaccine escape risk. We will take whatever steps necessary to address their threat.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
My Lords, I remind your Lordships’ House of my interest as deputy colonel commandant of the Brigade of Gurkhas. Since I last raised the plight of unvaccinated Gurkha veterans in Nepal, I am delighted that the Government have acknowledged their duty of care to them under the Armed Forces covenant. Previously my noble friend has said that our priority is to vaccinate “our people” in the United Kingdom. Now that we seem to be struggling to find people to give the first vaccination to, since there are fewer than 50,000 per day, can I simply ask him again when we will vaccinate our people —our Gurkha veterans are absolutely “our people”—in Nepal? When will they get their vaccines?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend for his campaign on Nepal. His remarks are heartfelt, understood and heard clearly. We all recognise the debt we owe, not just to those from Nepal who have served in Her Majesty's Armed Forces, but their families and the entire nation for their contribution throughout Britain’s history. The PM has announced that the UK will donate 100 million doses over the next year, and the majority of those will be donated to COVAX. My honourable friend in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will be best placed to clarify the precise arrangements and where Nepal will stand in that supply chain.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]
I wonder if the Minister could help me a little with the Government’s logic. Care home workers on zero-hour contracts are to be forced to get vaccinated without even a single guaranteed paid day off to recover from side-effects. A significant step change on domestic Covid passports is to be decided on by businesses themselves and regulated by them, despite all the problems with testing and tracing. Yet something as light touch and common sense as wearing a mask in shops and on public transport is not to be a legal requirement. What is behind this mask aversion and confusion—scientific evidence or Trumpian culture wars?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, in terms of care home staff vaccination, we are in the midst of a consultation on the subject. The noble Baroness should not necessarily pre-empt the consultation. We take into account the views of those we are consulting with. It is a measure that has caused an enormous amount of concern both here in the Chamber and with the public. It feels right that we should be consulting on a measure that ultimately protects the elderly and vulnerable.
In terms of certification, the ultimate use of certification in domestic surroundings has not been fully decided. At this stage, with the country enjoying the benefit of the vaccine, it seems right to be leaving that to businesses to decide how they wish to use it themselves.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, I want to follow on from the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. The Government believe that passive smoking poses risks to individuals; hence they ban smoking in offices, pubs and other public places. The science has persuaded the Government that, during a pandemic, the wearing of masks in public places helps prevent individuals from passing on Covid to others, which even those who have been double vaccinated can do. In the Statement, the Government say that it is expected and recommended that masks will continue to be worn. Can the Minister explain why smoking should be governed by government diktat, but mask-wearing should be a matter of personal choice?
Lord Bethell (Con)
The noble Baroness makes her points extremely well. I support the ban on smoking in public places for exactly the reasons she describes. However, I do not support a mandatory, legal ban on sneezing, although I do not like people sneezing in my presence. We have to strike a balance between mandation and voluntary arrangements. We also have to choose the right people to make these decisions. Central Government cannot make every single decision on every single matter. I recognise the concern of both the public and of noble Lords in this Chamber about masks. It feels right to leave it to local decision-makers, politicians and companies to take the public with them and to enforce this measure which, I entirely agree, is of benefit to us all.
Lord Haselhurst (Con) [V]
My Lords, with the number of infections rising and restrictions continuing to ease, can my noble friend say whether the supplies of vaccines and the capacity to administer them allow the vaccination programme to be further enlarged? This would give us a better chance of overcoming the undoubted risks which, unfortunately, remain.
Lord Bethell (Con)
We have an established vaccine run rate and programme, and we have in place the supplies to meet those targets and to fulfil the commitment to vaccinate all those who step forward for vaccination by the end of July. My noble friend may be referring to either a third or booster shot with a variant vaccine. Negotiations and clinical studies are taking place at the moment. We are cognisant that the vulnerable, elderly and those in high priority groups may need further vaccination in the autumn. We are putting in place all the plans necessary to deliver this.
Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I return to the confusing advice on masks. In the early weeks of the pandemic, some of the worst levels of deaths occurred among transport workers. They were inevitably faced with potential infection for several hours a day. It was particularly true of bus drivers, including a very good friend and neighbour of mine who died from Covid a few months before his retirement. With the advent of compulsory mask-wearing on public transport, driver hospitalisation and deaths fell dramatically. With rising infections and more unpredictable variants, what on earth is the rationale for not making masks mandatory on public transport and in other situations where staff are dealing with an increasingly maskless public?
Lord Bethell (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that very touching personal testimony about his neighbour who passed away. It is an important account of many who have put themselves at risk. The PHE report on high mortality groups includes bus drivers, taxi drivers and many who perform an important public service that puts them in front of the general public and therefore at risk from this virus. We absolutely support the wearing of masks. Published guidance will continue to recommend that wearing a face covering will reduce the risk not only to yourself but to others, particularly in enclosed and crowded spaces. The noble Lord asked about whether mandation should be in place and for whom, and I do not wish to duck his point The mandation of masks on public transport is best left to those who run it, which is why we have moved away from legal rules to an approach that enables personal judgments and the intervention of businesses and local leaders.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, much uncertainty and changing dynamics surround travel—Malta and the EU have already been mentioned. To flip that around, can the Minister kindly explain the rationale as to why government advice has belaboured ad nauseam travelling from the UK, yet my wife is able to travel to the UK from Portugal?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, our intention is that, later in the summer, those who are fully vaccinated will not have to quarantine when arriving in England from an amber list country. This will benefit the noble Lord’s wife, and I hope she will take advantage of it. When it comes to travel, caution is still the principle because travel exposes us to proximity to people in very confined areas. It also raises the possibility that variants of concern will come back with travellers returning from abroad. We have worked so hard and done so much to keep those VOCs out of the UK that it is not just right to give up these efforts now. Those arrangements are under review and will change if the risk assessment changes.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, I have listened very carefully to the Minister but I did not quite hear the answer to the questions asked by the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler and Lady Finlay, about the forthcoming pressures on the NHS. The hospital I was at on Tuesday morning is, I was told, working at full stretch; it is at winter levels in July. Covid is taking up ICU beds and stopping elective surgery now, even before the pressure starts. There are constant references in the Statement about not wanting unsustainable pressures on the NHS, but we are putting such pressures on it by allowing the figures to rip without seeming to have proper back-up services and resources. Can the Minister answer the questions from the two noble Baronesses?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I thought I had answered the questions put by the two noble Baronesses. I will seek to answer the noble Lord. He is absolutely right: our hospitals are working flat out but this is not mainly because of Covid. As of 11 July, hospital admissions in England were running at 502 a day. As of 13 July, there were 2,970 patients in hospital in England with Covid, of whom 470 were on mechanical ventilation. Catching up on all the backlog—not Covid—is what is consuming the hospitals and making them run so red hot. This is the focus of our healthcare system at the moment, and it will remain so for some time to come. We are under no illusions: there is a massive backlog which includes many people who have not come forward with symptoms of severe disease and will need to be addressed and treated. This is a huge national project that we are undertaking.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, in his answer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, the Minister made a comparison which suggested an equivalence between mask-wearing and sneezing. The website MedExpress says:
“Sneezing is…an involuntary release of air that helps the body to get rid of irritants in our nose and throat”.
Does the Minister wish to reconsider that comparison and acknowledge that mask-wearing is a voluntary action available to everybody?
Lord Bethell (Con)
The noble Baroness obliges me to confess that, as a young man, I mastered the art of controlling my sneezing, and I am pathetically proud of this. I should be glad to share the skill with her should we have the opportunity to spend some time together.
Baroness Prashar (CB) [V]
I want to return to the question of masks. As we have already heard, the ending of the mandatory wearing of masks is causing anxiety and insecurity among clinically vulnerable people. Would the Minister agree that, given that the wearing of masks reduces the spread of the virus and causes no harm to the economy, it would be sensible to make it mandatory? Secondly, guidance recommends good ventilation in enclosed spaces. What assistance are the Government giving to those who need to install air filtration systems?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I will be crystal clear on this matter. The noble Baroness is right: the wearing of masks is important—for yourself and other people— which is why the Government continue to recommend that people wear them. However, the question was about mandation, and, as I said earlier, it is not reasonable for the Government to mandate minute aspects of our life in perpetuity. We have made a decision on that and passed the responsibility to individuals, local leaders and those who do outbreak management. I completely understand and hear loud and clear people’s concerns, but, were we to mandate it, what is the option for the country? Are we going to issue tens of millions of fines to those who do not wear masks? If they do not wear them, will we lock them up in prison? We tried extremely hard on that policy, but I am not sure whether it had any further rope to run.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the direction in which the Government are now proceeding. I quote from the Statement:
“To those who say, ‘Why take this step now?’, I say, ‘If not now, when?’”
There is regulation fatigue, and the Government are facing up to the need for, let us say, a managed process forward. I draw the Minister’s attention to this statement in the Statement:
“We are today publishing … details of a review that we will be conducting in September to assess our preparedness for autumn and winter.”
Could a copy of that review be placed in the Library so that we can all see what it has to say and, if necessary, offer our observations to the Minister to help the further development of what is turning into a policy that I can be fully behind?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, winter is a challenging time for the NHS, and, during an average winter, seasonal respiratory conditions drive an increased demand for hospital beds, as my noble friend knows. That will add to the already intense pressure that the NHS is under. Plans are being put in place. The circumstances are changeable. If there are any plans whatever that can be published, I will ensure that they are sent to the noble Lord and placed in the Library, as requested.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, the Statement from the Minister says that the Government will
“expand … capacity for genomic sequencing”,
which would help in the detection of any new variants. Could the Minister define how and when that expansion will take place?
Lord Bethell (Con)
Enormous expansion has already taken place: we have brought together the existing dispersed genomic sequencing capacity of the country and brought it to bear, both at the PHE headquarters in Colindale and in Cambridge, where a huge array of sequencing is going on. We have also brought sequencing into Leamington Spa, where, as the noble Baroness may know, we have a large industrialised diagnostics centre, so that sequencing can be done as soon as we have turned around the PCR testing. We are running at around 30,000 or 40,000 sequences a week, which is a dramatic increase on the past, but we continue to invest in this capacity.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, would my noble friend give consideration to putting a full-page advertisement in every paper, with guidance? This must be clear, coherent and consistent. Would he also—I am sorry to press him on this again—tell me when this consultation over care-home workers will conclude? President Macron has already decided that this will happen in France. A third of the people who died were in care homes; they are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. It is essential that those who look after their intimate needs are themselves vaccinated.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I will definitely consider the idea of a full-page advert, and I am grateful for that suggestion. I would also be very interested to receive a submission from my noble friend to the consultation, and, if he would like to copy me in on it, I would be glad to make sure that it gets through to the right people.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have listened carefully, and the mask obsession here seems to mask a certain reluctance to ever allow normal to return, even if it means a terrible toll on jobs, livelihoods or non-Covid health—so I am glad to hear the Minister being more balanced. However, I will bend the stick and ask him whether he will concede that many millions are demoralised that the Government’s irreversible freedom day comes with so many caveats that it feels like parole with an electronic tag and house arrest hanging over us like a sword of Damocles? Can we not get a bit more balance? On data, according to PHE on hospitalisations, of those who spent more than one night in a hospital with the delta variant at the end of June, 39% were patients who had gone to hospital with different conditions—so could the hospitalisations data perhaps be clarified, because I think that that would reduce fear and give a bit of perspective?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness slightly underestimates the significant step that the Government have made in order to take advantage of the vaccine, try to get the economy moving and address the very considerable backlog that we have in the NHS. The Prime Minister deserves some praise for the way in which he has moved emphatically in this direction. Therefore, I am a little bit surprised that the noble Baroness has not done more to recognise that point. On the data, I would be glad to look at the number that she describes. It is not one that I recognise, but I would be glad to correspond with her on it.
Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2021
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Williams of Trafford
That the draft Order laid before the House on 12 July be approved.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con) [V]
My Lords, this Government are committed to taking all necessary steps to protect the people of this country. Tackling terrorism in all its forms is a critical part of that mission. The threat level in the UK, which is set by the independent Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, remains at “substantial”, which means that a terrorist attack in our country is likely.
Terrorism by its nature is a fluid and changeable threat. It is therefore right that the Government continuously consider whether new action is necessary, adapting our response to the evolving picture. The concerns that this Government have regarding extreme right-wing terrorism are well documented. The use of these hateful ideologies to prey on young and vulnerable people is utterly abhorrent, and we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to crack down on such activity.
The threat posed by terrorist organisations varies, depending on the group’s ideology, membership and ability to train members. Some groups focus on radicalising, and promoting and encouraging terrorism, and some prepare and commit terrible acts of violence against innocent members of the public. Terrorist groups can now recruit, radicalise and train individuals from a distance, distributing terrorist material at the click of a button. The use of the internet for these purposes has had a huge impact on the threat and the way that we respond to it.
We have a duty to our allies, as well as to our own people, to tackle groups that inspire and co-ordinate international terror. While we can never entirely eliminate the threat from terrorism, we will always do all that we can to minimise the danger that it poses and to keep the public safe. Some 77 terrorist organisations are currently proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000. Thanks to the dedication, courage and skill of counter- terrorism policing and our security and intelligence services, most of these groups have never carried out a successful attack on UK soil. Proscription is a powerful tool for degrading terrorist organisations, and I will come on to explain the impact that it can have shortly.
The group that we now propose to add to the list of proscribed terrorist organisations, amending Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000, is the Base, a predominantly US-based militant white supremacist group. The group’s actions, such as seeking to train members in weapons and explosives, along with an ideology which aims to divide communities and stir up hatred, are entirely contrary to our values.
It may be helpful for me to provide some background on the proscription power. Under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary has the power to proscribe an organisation if she believes that it is currently concerned in terrorism. If the statutory test is met, the Home Secretary may then exercise her discretion to proscribe the organisation.
The Home Secretary considers a number of factors in considering whether to exercise this discretion. These include—and are relevant for this group—the nature and scale of an organisation’s activities and the need to support other members of the international community in tackling terrorism.
The effect of proscription is to outlaw a listed organisation and ensure that it is unable to operate in the UK. It is designed to degrade a group’s ability to operate through various means, including: enabling prosecution for the various proscription offences; supporting take-downs of online material associated with the group; underpinning immigration-related disruptions, including excluding from the UK members of groups based overseas; and making it possible to seize cash associated with the organisation.
It is a criminal offence for a person to belong to, support or arrange a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation. It is also a criminal offence to wear clothing or carry articles in public which arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. The penalty for proscription offences is a maximum of 14 years in prison and/or an unlimited fine.
Given its wide-ranging impact, the Home Secretary exercises her power to proscribe only after thoroughly reviewing the available evidence on an organisation. This includes open-source material, intelligence material and advice that reflects consultation across government, including with the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The cross-government proscription review group supports the Home Secretary in her decision-making process. The Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe is taken only with great care and after consideration of the particular case, and it is appropriate that it must be approved by both Houses.
Having considered all the evidence, the Home Secretary believes that the Base is concerned in terrorism and that the discretionary factors support proscription. Noble Lords will know that I am unable to comment on specific intelligence, but I can provide the House with a summary of the group’s activities.
As I have said, the Base is a predominantly US-based, militant white supremacist group that was formed in 2018. It draws influence from a collection of essays by prominent national socialist James Mason that advocate the use of violence to initiate the collapse of modern society through a race war and the subsequent creation of a white ethno-state. This ideology is known as accelerationism.
The Base has links with other internationally based national socialist groups, such as Atomwaffen Division, which was proscribed by this Parliament in April, along with some individuals, and it seeks to provide training, guidance and networking.
The Base almost certainly prepares for terrorism. While it outwardly seeks to promote itself as a self-defence and survivalist group, and refutes any claims that it is involved in terrorist activity, the training that it provides is highly likely to be paramilitary in nature and preparatory to offensive action. This training would almost certainly enhance the intent and capability of trainees to conduct terrorist acts. Members of the Base have engaged in weapons and explosives training.
The Base has almost certainly promoted or encouraged acts of terrorism and elements of its membership will almost certainly continue to do so. In late 2017 the group’s founder released a series of videos that cover topics such as lone-wolf activity and leaderless resistance, and advocate guerrilla warfare.
It is essential that our strategy to counter terrorism allows us to tackle the full spectrum of activity. This includes confronting the threat from groups that prepare for acts of violence and mass murder and unlawfully glorify horrific terrorist acts, so that they are prevented from stirring up hatred and division in our communities.
When groups without a physical presence in the UK are proscribed, particularly groups like the Base, it is important to consider the wider impact that proscription has. Proscription of the Base will aid the police in their work to disrupt the threat that extreme right-wing terrorist groups pose to our national security by supporting efforts to remove online content associated with this group. It will build on the robust action that the Government have already taken in proscribing National Action, Sonnenkrieg Division, Feuerkrieg Division and Atomwaffen Division. Proscription sends a strong statement that the ideology of such groups is unacceptable in the UK, and that the UK is a hostile environment for extreme right-wing terrorism.
Our message is clear: we will always take every possible action to counter the threat from those who hate the values that we cherish. The safety and security of the public is our number one priority. I therefore commend this order to the House.
Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said in her introduction and I will not repeat the Explanatory Memorandum for this SI. Does the Minister agree that a large proportion of the Muslim community does not agree with terrorism and that these terrorists are acting in their own personal interests?
Lord Paddick (LD) [V]
[Inaudible]—the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia. I thank the Minster for explaining this order and I again express my thanks to those in the police and security services who work tirelessly to keep us all safe.
We have seen in recent weeks the hideous face of British racism and the disgraceful failure of senior members of the Government to support the anti-racism stance taken by the England football team. I quote from the Times opinion piece by the Conservative noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, published yesterday:
“In the contest between Priti Patel and Tyrone Mings there will only be one winner, and it won’t be the politician.”
As the Minister has explained, that is why proscribing extreme right-wing terrorist groups such as the Base is so important. I quote the Home Office press release:
“The Base has celebrated and promoted the use of violence in an attempt to establish a fascist, white ethno-state by means of a race war, and members are known to have engaged in weapons and explosives training. Its founder has also published a series of videos under his alias covering topics including”,
as the Minister has said,
“lone wolf activity, advocating guerrilla warfare, and leaderless resistance.”
When we considered the last proscription order on 22 April, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark—I warmly congratulate him on his appointment as the Labour Party Chief Whip in this House—and I questioned why it had taken so long to proscribe Atomwaffen Division when a cursory search of various news articles showed that it was linked to Sonnenkrieg Division, an organisation that had been proscribed 14 months previously. The Minister replied:
“The noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Paddick, pressed me on why we are bringing these measures forward now. Obviously, there is information that the Home Secretary receives that I cannot discuss, and she will make decisions based on the intelligence and legal information that she receives.”—[Official Report, 22/4/21; col. 1978.]
With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, if the challenge were that there did not appear to be information in the public domain to justify the proscription, the noble Baroness may have a point, but that is not the issue. The question is why, when there appears to be overwhelming evidence in the public domain that an organisation should be proscribed, it is not proscribed earlier. Any delay in proscribing such dangerous and divisive organisations runs the risk of people being influenced and atrocities being perpetrated. As MI5’s Ken McCallum warned yesterday, racism is fuelling the far-right threat in the UK.
This order proscribes the Base. I quote a BBC article published on 24 January 2020, almost 18 months ago. It says:
“The Base is a major counter-terrorism focus for the FBI. Seven alleged members were charged this month with various offenses, including conspiracy to commit murder. Court documents prepared by the FBI describe The Base as a ‘racially motivated violent extremist group’ that ‘seeks to accelerate the downfall of the United States government, incite a race war, and establish a white ethno-state’ … In social media posts that year”,
which was 2018, “Norman Spear”, an alias used by the founder of the Base,
“posted imagery and videos by the outlawed British terrorist group National Action, praised al-Qaeda, and asked for volunteers possessing various skills, including with weapons, for his new organisation”.
That is not the information that the Minister has just given us; it is information from a BBC article 18 months ago.
An article in the Guardian newspaper, published on 24 January, the same date, states:
“The white supremacy group, which has regional and international cells, extols the virtues of an all-out race war while specifically targeting African Americans and Jewish people”.
Here we have evidence from the FBI that this is a dangerous terrorist organisation, that it was promoting the UK proscribed organisation National Action and had international cells. There appears to have been, in January 2020, almost 18 months ago, sufficient grounds to proscribe the base, yet the Government are bringing forward this order only now.
After the debate on 12 April, the Minister dismissively derided my internet research. In this case, there are various serious questions for the Government to answer. In the face of overwhelming evidence from the FBI in the public domain, published by reputable news organisations 18 months ago, that this organisation should be proscribed, why has it taken the Government until now to ban it? To say that there is information that the Home Secretary receives that cannot be discussed is simply not good enough. Of course we support this order, but we would have supported it 18 months ago, when it should have been introduced.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for explaining this order. As she said, terrorist groups now recruit, radicalise and train individuals from a distance, distributing terrorist material at the click of a button. Young people, mainly young men, are sucked into a world of conspiracy theories, fascist propaganda, race hate and quasi-military action. The use of the internet for propaganda and training purposes has had an impact on this potential threat to our way of life; it also means that the Government have to respond to this threat in a sophisticated and direct way. The Government, quite rightly in the Opposition’s view, have a responsibility to act to protect young people from being sucked into this world and to protect the public from the race hate, bombs and bloodshed that these groups promote. We will support today’s order.
This is the third white supremacist hate group that Parliament has proscribed in the past year. The group, called the Base, was founded in 2018 and has been operational since then. That was three years ago. There have been TV programmes about it and there is plenty of information on the internet on its activities, so the question of delay arises—the central point that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made in his contribution. Is the Minister satisfied that this group and far-right groups like it are properly monitored and that action, such as today’s proscription order, is put in place in a timely manner for the protection of the public? My honourable friend Mr McGinn, in the other place, asked about the status of the proscription review group and the Minister, Chris Philp, described proscription as a powerful tool to degrade terrorist organisations. I would be grateful if the Minister could update the House on the work of the review group—for example, on how often it meets, whether she believes that the current review process is working satisfactorily and whether there is there a robust strategy within which it works. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, spoke in some detail on the information available 18 months ago, in January 2020, and made the point that there seemed to be enough information available 18 months ago to ban this group, so why the delay?
As I understand it, ministerial responsibility for dealing with these types of potentially terrorist groups currently lies with the noble Baroness. This is following the resignation of Mr Brokenshire. Yesterday in the debate in the other place, fulsome tributes were paid to Mr Brokenshire, which I am sure were well deserved. My honourable friend the Member for Barnsley East, Stephanie Peacock, in yesterday’s debate expressed a desire to meet the Minister to talk about another far-right group that is potentially terrorist in its nature; she referred to the details of that group yesterday and her work through the relevant all-party group in looking at potential right-wing terrorism activity. I hope that the Minister will meet my honourable friend so that she can explain the nature of the threat as she sees it.
There are 77 terrorist organisations currently proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000. Four are far-right groups and the majority are Islamist groups. Last October, the new director-general of MI5 warned that violent far-right terrorism was now a threat, with eight of 27 serious terrorist plots stopped in the final stages in the past three years linked to neo-fascist and racist groups. Online chat forums and video games are used as recruitment tools. The number of those under 18 among those arrested over the last three years has almost trebled. I believe that this trend is worrying and getting closer to home. The use of hateful ideologies to prey on young and vulnerable people is wrong and abhorrent and the Government have a responsibility to do everything in their power to crack down on them.
I close by paying tribute to the dedication, courage and skill of counterterrorism police and our security and intelligence services. We should be grateful that most of the proscribed organisations have never carried out a successful attack on UK soil.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. Just to go to a general point, a decision to proscribe must be based on evidence that a group is concerned in terrorism, as defined by the Terrorism Act 2000, and it must be proportionate.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, challenges me on why we are making this decision to proscribe now. Decisions on whether and when to proscribe a particular organisation are taken after extensive consideration and in light of a full assessment of available information. It is important that the decisions we take are based on robust evidence and do not adversely impact on any ongoing investigations, and, in order to keep the public safe, it is not appropriate for us to discuss any specific intelligence that led to the decision to proscribe. I know that will frustrate the noble Lord, but that is the situation.
The PRG operates as a cross-government group that supports the Home Secretary in her decision-making. It makes recommendations and provides advice to the Home Secretary on issues relating to the implementation of the proscription regime, including on the case for proscription name-change orders and consideration of deproscription applications. We do have several horizon-scanning processes in place to ensure we can tackle emerging threats. It might frustrate noble Lords, but, with those things in place, I think my right honourable friend the Home Secretary makes the right decisions at the right time, based on the evidence available to her.
As for meeting the honourable Member for Barnsley East, I have written to her—perhaps she has not got my letter yet. I am pleased that she is keen on this agenda.
I join the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, in his praise for the CT police and the security intelligence services. As he says, because of their work, we have not seen a major attack in this country. I join the noble Lord also in his concern about the vulnerability of young men who may be sucked into such organisations while they are impressionable and, as he said, young.
I would also like to refute the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about the Government not standing up to racism. I speak for myself: I do not think anyone would ever accuse me of that, and I am part of this Government. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has herself been, on many occasions, the victim of trolling and racism online. I have seen some pretty horrific things said about her. The Prime Minister, only yesterday, talked about the very stern action he was going to take to tackle racism in football.
I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, that a large portion of the Muslim community does not agree with terrorism. Not only do Muslims make a great contribution to this country, but Islam is a religion of peace and Muslims, I might say, are often the victims of terrorism rather than the perpetrators.
I think I have answered all questions and I beg to move.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Barker) (LD)
We come now to Committee on the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill. 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, and a participant who wishes to press an amendment other than the lead amendment in a group to a Division must give notice in the debate or by emailing the clerk. Leave should be given to withdraw amendments.
When putting the Question, I will collect the voices in the Chamber only. If a Member taking part remotely wants their vote counted if the Question is put, they must make this clear when speaking to the group.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]
Thursday 15th July 2021
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 View all Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 5-III(Rev) Revised Third marshalled list for Committee - (15 Jul 2021)
“(5A) All other post-16 education and training providers, including universities, school sixth forms, sixth form colleges, and adult and community learning providers, must also have due regard to the local skills improvement plan, as it relates to their provision.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment sets out the complementary roles of schools, colleges and universities.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I move this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie. This amendment sets out the complementary roles of schools, colleges and universities by joining up the wider education and skills system so that it better meets society’s needs and gives people the skills they need. Delivering this means ensuring that we develop the right balance of autonomy, authority and accountabilities that will enable schools, colleges and universities to focus on the complementary roles they can play together and with other partners over the long term. This must involve a genuine partnership, with providers empowered to stimulate and challenge articulated demand, rather than act as passive policy recipients. It means ensuring that this is meaningfully accessible to all and involves an effectively joined-up wider education and skills system. Colleges do not work in isolation to meet the education and training needs of their communities. Schools and universities are important parts of the system, so they should be part of the planning process. Amendment 8—in the names of my noble friends Lord Rooker and Lord Bradley, as well—therefore sets out the complementary roles of schools, colleges and universities in delivering on LSIPs.
Currently, there is a lack of a comprehensive, long-term education and skills plan that brings together all parts of the system towards the same vision. Different parts of the system have different policy priorities and initiatives. The current reform agenda is not sufficiently addressing this. It deals with only one part of the system—colleges—without exploring the need for complementary alignment with universities, schools and other providers. At the same time, this means that the role of education and skills in addressing wider policy priorities and strategies is not always recognised—for example, the role of colleges in welfare, health and net-zero policies.
There is a lack of any system to co-ordinate the 16 to 18 offer at the local and subregional level between schools and colleges. This leads to insufficient provision and limits student choice of programme—for example, when multiple competing providers concentrate on a narrow offer at the expense of less popular or minority provision.
At the university level, there is contested ground over the higher technical level 4 to level 5 provision and who is best placed to offer this, leading to unproductive competition between colleges and universities. If a whole education system approach is not taken to local skills planning, there will be a disjointed system that is not efficient or effective in its use of public money and does not best meet the needs of students and employers.
There should also be an exploration of a national 10-year education and skills strategy sitting across government, to deliver on wider policy agendas and to give stability to all parts of the system, creating a duty on schools and universities to collaborate with colleges and employers in the development of skills plans, so that the training on offer efficiently meets the need of local areas. I therefore beg to move.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
I rise to support this amendment. This is such an important issue, but I can see that is difficult as well.
When I started teaching, which was many years ago, in Coventry, it was very clear which provider offered which course. The advantage was that it was very straightforward for children and schools to know where to go for catering, engineering, electronics or whatever. The disadvantage was that it squeezed out competition, which can raise standards and creativity. It is somehow getting that balance that we are looking for. I would welcome the Minister explaining how far the Government are prepared to go to make sure that there is some sort of co-ordinated provision within each skills partnership. It makes sense to allow providers to play to their strengths and it is also essential that courses that might not be economically viable but are important for the local or indeed the national economy are supported to stay open and be made available. So it is a tricky issue and I cannot recall so far in the debate on this amendment hearing the Minister outline the Government’s views on this.
To bring universities in, my noble friend Lady Wilcox made a very strong point. In the old days, it was just further education courses that were co-ordinated, but now we have a growth in private providers and universities in these contested levels as well. So in the name of clarity for students and users, and for the needs of the economy, we need some guidance from the Government about a co-ordinated approach, making sure all areas are covered. Basically, what happens is that all providers want to provide the cheap courses, and the machinery-heavy courses do not get offered. Schools are happy to go into vocational work, as long as it is classroom-based and they do not need specialist teachers. That very often leaves the college with the courses that need highly specialised tutors and heavy equipment. I would welcome the Minister somehow making sense of all that in her comments.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
I support what my noble friends Lady Wilcox and Lady Morris have said. I strongly support the case for more co-ordination. It is not clear to me, in the Bill, how this is going to work, and I would like to hear an explanation from the Minister of how she thinks co-ordination will be made to work at a local level. The idea that a Secretary of State sitting in London can get into the question of which school should offer which course and how we deal with the problem that my noble friend Lady Morris described is not going to work.
There is the Education and Skills Funding Agency. In the period when I briefly had something to do with it—when I was advising my noble friend Lord Mandelson, when he was Business Secretary in charge of skills—I did not get the impression that that body had the capacity to do this job of co-ordination. It was basically responsible for making sure that public money was handled in an accountable way. What I would love to hear from the noble Baroness is an explanation of how central government intends to approach this question of co-ordination at local level. In my view—and here there is a big lacuna in the Bill—this is most effectively done by councils and mayoral authorities. It should be a devolved matter; it is an opportunity, in my view, to strengthen devolution within England. I do not sense that the noble Baroness shares that view. Perhaps she will explain to us, if she does not share that view, how she thinks this task of co-ordination will be carried out.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, I intended to support Amendment 40A. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Baker, intends to move it. Has it dropped out of the system? I was not informed.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
The noble Lord, Lord Baker, has dropped out; Amendment 40A has not dropped out.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)
If the noble Baroness wishes to speak to Amendment 40A, she is entitled to do so.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
I am delighted to have the opportunity to support Amendment 40A—and I hope it will be moved. It is crucial that this information goes to pre-16 year-olds, because it is at that stage they are making choices about their future. It is important that, before the vocational 16-plus stage is reached, doors are opened and aspiration is fostered and nourished. There is considerable poverty of aspiration in the years between 14 and 16. If we are to enable those young people to move into useful and rewarding further education, we shall be helping not only them but our economy.
Baroness Greengross (CB) [V]
My Lords, I am in favour of both Amendment 8, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and Amendment 40A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Baker. These amendments require schools, sixth-form colleges, adult community learning providers and universities to have due regard for local skills improvement plans. This sort of co-ordination between education providers and the community is absolutely essential if we are to ensure that people are armed with the skills they need to succeed in the modern workforce.
There is one omission from these two amendments, and it is one that is all too often forgotten: the contribution of independent training providers. Many of these organisations provide high-quality courses that fill skills shortages in their communities. Unlike other providers, they are not given equal access to funding—for example, in the north-east of England they are, in many cases, filling gaps in skills training but do not have the same access to public funding contracts as non-private education providers. These training providers, where—and only where—they meet the appropriate quality standards, should be included in local skills improvement plans, along with any other providers listed in these two amendments. Further, these local plans should incorporate both public and private education providers if we are to give our communities the best possible chance of meeting their specific skills gaps.
We live in a society that is rapidly changing and we need an education system that can meet the needs of this changing world. Sadly, to date in this country, and in much of the English-speaking world, university degree qualifications have always been viewed as superior and the other, more technical skills and qualifications have been looked down on. They have been the victim of a particular form of snobbery, in my view. It is quite clear that many of the areas where we face skills gaps are in these technical areas, and we must address this by improving the status of education providers that teach these skills, including those that are independent.
We need to change our understanding of education to something that people should participate in at all stages of life. With the changes in our economy, many jobs that people do today will not exist in a few years. Local plans should be considering not only where there are skills gaps but where there will likely be jobs that are going to disappear, and how people working in them can be retrained. Therefore, it will not just be school leavers or younger people who need training but people who may have worked in their current professions for many decades and who are now having to learn new skills if they are to remain employable.
Another factor to consider is how we promote training opportunities in new and imaginative ways to encourage people to take part. Many people, as we know, have not had a very positive experience of the education system and may resist the prospect of having to return to do further study, even if it will benefit them. For others, it may be the first time that they have taken part in any formal education for a very long time, so they may also be apprehensive about taking part. Local skills improvement plans must be cognisant of this as a significant barrier when trying to encourage people to retrain in areas where we currently have severe skills shortages. Once again, this is where including all providers—including those who are independent—is crucial, as their ideas and experience may help to ensure successful skills training delivery.
Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as a non-executive director of the Careers & Enterprise Company. I was sorry not to be able to speak last week on the first day of Committee, particularly in support of Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and on the broader debate about the relationship between local skills improvement plans and national skills needs. I sense that this debate on Amendments 8 and 40A is a continuation of that and I think that the Committee is quite rightly looking for clarification about the relationship between all forms of education and training providers and employers, and identifying skills needs and the careers inspiration that is needed. I hope that on the next day in Committee we will get on to debating Amendment 82 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and related amendments about the vital role that schools will play in shaping the careers aspirations of their pupils and the work of careers hubs.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, I wanted to comment on Amendment 40A. It appears to be drafted relating just to schools providing sixth-form education. However, evidence shows—and it is certainly the aspiration of the Careers & Enterprise Company—that pupils of all ages, even from primary school upwards, benefit from receiving careers interactions and inspiration and hearing about the different careers and jobs that are available. I would not confine the involvement of schools in the work and the shaping of local skills improvement plans just to those with sixth forms.
I hope that the Minister will take from this debate and from what Members are saying that we would welcome further details from Ministers about the way in which the whole careers and skills ecosystem, if I can call it that, will work. That is why the results from the local skills improvement plan pilots will be so important. I do not think that anyone can doubt the critical involvement not only of education providers of all kinds in knowing the need for local skills and national skills—we particularly talked about green jobs and careers in digital, technology and artificial intelligence on the first day in Committee—but also of employers through these employer representative bodies and the local enterprise partnerships too. The sooner Ministers are able to share the results of the local skills improvement plan pilots with Members, the better, as I think that that will help to explain how this whole ecosystem will operate.
My final comment relates to these two amendments. We have to be wary of overloading schools in all ways. As everybody knows, schools are busy places; there are many demands on their time, particularly in light of the challenges from the last 16 months related to Covid and teaching through a pandemic. While schools of course have a vital role to play in facilitating careers inspiration and careers education, it cannot be done without the involvement of employers and businesses from outside. That is the model behind the Careers & Enterprise Company and other local careers initiatives. I hope that Ministers will want to balance that as they continue drafting policies and evaluating these pilots going forward.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I aim to speak succinctly in my contribution and hope that other noble Lords will follow suit. I do not look forward to going on until midnight for the next three days of Committee. My last Tube goes at half past midnight and I might have a sense of humour failure if I miss it.
Amendment 8 brings together schools, colleges, universities and adult and community learning providers to ensure that all those involved with skills learning are working in collaboration. We do not need competition where different providers, including independent ones, cater for different members of the community when they all have the aim of improving skills and employability. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, says, we support the aim of complementary roles and look for a whole-education collaboration style.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, it is often left to the further education providers to provide the resource-intensive programmes. As we all know, further education is poorly served in funding, teachers and so on, so we look to the Government to do much more to support the further education sector, which is vital in any of the skills programmes.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, was not here to speak to his Amendment 40A but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, I will talk to it, because it is vital that sixth-form educators are aware of the full range of skills and employment opportunities. Far too often they are focused solely on academic achievement, which leaves out a whole load of young people whose skills are more practically based. We must take every step possible to ensure that young people are fully informed of all the work-based practical options which the country needs and which may play to their strengths in ways that A-levels do not. I absolutely support what the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said; we will come later to amendments to ensure that primary schools are included in careers guidance. Of course, some of the skills in the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, are the very ones that university technical colleges do so much to promote. I hope that we shall get a positive response from the Minister on these two amendments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for the engagement that we have had since the first day of Committee. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, that this legislation is part of the FE sector having its moment and being rescued from often being described as the Cinderella of the sector.
I re-emphasise that the local skills improvement plans will not be master plans that specify in minute detail all the provision that is to be provided by every provider to every learner in the area. They are a vehicle to give employers a more central role in local skills systems by articulating a clear, evidence-based assessment of priority skills needs and working with providers to shape technical education to better meet those skills needs, which many noble Lords have outlined. They are about employers working hand in hand with providers and key local stakeholders, such as local and combined authorities and Jobcentre Plus, and they are about agreeing a limited number of priority changes that, if enacted, will make post-16 technical education and training more responsive to employers’ skills needs.
I would also like to take this moment to update the House that we have announced the local skills improvement plan trailblazers, literally within the last hour, and I will now outline them to noble Lords. In the north of England, we have Cumbria Chamber of Commerce covering Cumbria, Doncaster Chamber will cover Sheffield City Region, the North East England Chamber of Commerce will cover Tees Valley, and North & Western Lancashire Chamber of Commerce will cover Lancashire. In the Midlands, East Midlands Chamber will cover Leicester and Leicestershire. In the south of England, GWE Business West will cover the west of England, Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce will cover Kent and Medway, and Sussex Chamber of Commerce will cover Sussex. In relation to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and others, if you look also at the strategic development pilots alongside those areas, you will see a multiplicity of providers, including FE colleges, institutes of technology and universities. By the very nature of those bids, we can see that there has been a great deal of co-ordination in these areas, with the support, where relevant, of the mayoral combined authority.
The next update to noble Lords deals with the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, made about how we prevent providers from just going for the easiest, lowest-cost qualifications. We have today announced the consultation on new funding and accountability arrangements to simplify the system and focus on outcomes rather than processes and to avoid this descent to the bottom. It will include proposals for how local skills improvement plans fit into the wider funding and accountability landscape. That is also part of the development. The trailblazers will, of course, start work very soon and I look forward to being able to share with noble Lords details of their early progress ahead of Report.
Amendment 8, which was moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, relates to broadening the duty on who should have regard to these plans; the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, also mentioned this. Clause 1 already provides for the duty to apply to the universities and sixth-form colleges mentioned in the amendment, and the large majority of post-16 technical education and training providers will be captured.
The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, raised a specific point about independent training providers; they are specifically outlined as a relevant provider within Clause 4, so they are covered. The Secretary of State will be able to lay regulations before Parliament to add local authority providers, 16-to-19 academies and schools to those already identified and subject to the duty.
Amendment 40A would require local authorities to distribute these local skills improvement plans to all schools that provide sixth-form education. The plans will be published by the Secretary of State and publicised to relevant bodies through appropriate communication channels. Obviously, designated employer representative bodies will have worked closely on the ground with the relevant providers, who should be aware of that. I have to say that, of the many criticisms the department has faced over the last 18 months, publicising guidance to the relevant people has not been one of them.
I hope that my remarks provide assurance to noble Lords on the approach we are taking to local skills improvement plans and access to them. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, will feel comfortable in withdrawing this amendment, and that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, will not feel the need to move his when it is reached.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
I agree with my noble friend Lord Liddle that local authorities and devolved Administrations are best placed to deal with local skills planning. I reiterate to the Minister that, if a whole education system approach is not taken to local skills planning, the system will be disjointed and will not be efficient or the best use of public money. I welcome the Minister’s announcement of the trailblazers pilot; I look forward to reading the reports of the projects and, indeed, the early progress reports. Therefore, although the Minister has outlined an amount of detail, I remain somewhat unconvinced. I will wait to see whether that joined-up progress takes place. However, with the approval of the House, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Rogan) (UUP)
I cannot call Amendment 10, as it is an amendment to Amendment 9.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Rogan) (UUP)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 12. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Amendment 12
“(5A) Guidance issued by the Secretary of State under subsection (5) is to be made by statutory instrument subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires guidance to be laid before Parliament as a negative instrument.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, it gives me pleasure to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, to the Dispatch Box for the first time in a Bill Committee. May I say how well she is looking? If we do indeed sit until midnight on two evenings next week, as has been suggested, that will be useful practice for her because, in a few weeks’ time, she will discover that you take sleep where and when you can get it.
I will speak to Amendments 12 and 24 in my name; my noble friend Lord Rooker added his name to Amendment 12. The former would simply ensure that the Government’s local skills improvement plan guidance could be scrutinised by Parliament in the lowest form of scrutiny we have: the negative procedure. This guidance, which relates to co-operation with an employer representative body and, crucially, the matters to which the Secretary of State might have regard in deciding whether to approve and publish a plan, would take immediate effect but would allow the House to debate it if it were so minded. That is especially important because, as many noble Lords have said, this is a skeleton Bill so the detail of much of what we are debating at this point is vague or subject to ongoing or forthcoming consultations. I understand that that is why Ministers are unable to circulate a draft of the guidance, which would have been very helpful for all of us. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure your Lordships that the draft will appear well in advance of Report and that those directly impacted will be able to develop and shape it. However, in the meantime, I suggest that this amendment is entirely reasonable and appropriate given that there has been no opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Rogan) (UUP)
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is not in the Chamber so I call the noble Lord, Lord Liddle.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I support this amendment. However, I would just like to say, with great respect to the noble Baroness, that she did not answer the question I asked her on the first amendment. Nor was it a great reassurance to me to be told that Cumbria has been chosen as one of the pilot areas and responsibility placed in the hands of the chamber of commerce. I will explain that in a moment because it is relevant to this amendment.
If you are to have an effective local body that represents private sector and public sector employer interests, first, it has to have a clarity of focus on a particular labour market and, secondly, it has to be broadly representative of the businesses in the area. The chamber of commerce in Cumbria, taking this as an example, does a lot of good work with SMEs. It does a lot of training. It basically finances itself through doing local training courses for junior and middle managers, I would say. However, it has absolutely no connection with our major employers in the county: Vickers in Barrow, or the nuclear industry in west Cumbria—that is 20,000 workers to start with. In the area that I represent in Cumbria, there is a firm called Innovia, although its ownership has changed, that makes plastic films and employs about 1,000 people in a small town, but again it has very little connection with the chamber of commerce. The same would be true of the big firms in Carlisle such as Pirelli, which manufactures tyres, and Carr’s, which is now part of a wider biscuit group. I do this little bit of local storytelling because I do not think that putting skills planning in the hands of a chamber of commerce will prove to be a satisfactory solution. I want to see an employer-led approach—I agree with that—but we need to think about how we make this work more deeply than it seems to me the Government have. The areas do have to be relevant.
That is all I have to say, although I could add one point. In 2010, the coalition Government abolished the regional development agencies on the basis that they were not sufficiently employer led and that they were too bureaucratic and covered too big an area. They replaced them with something called local enterprise partnerships. These were intended to be employer led. Initially, in Cumbria everybody said, “Good idea: let’s have the chamber of commerce being the main private sector representative.” Eventually—and this is not a party-political thing at all—it was recognised all round that this body did not actually represent the proper mix of big and small employers. We have a reasonably effective local enterprise partnership running, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood—one of the great figures of Cumbria who was a Member of the European Parliament on two separate occasions for the north-west area. He has tremendous local credibility and does a very good job. The LEP has looked at skills and done a lot of work on skills. I hear no mention of what the Government intend to do with local enterprise partnerships. They seem to be too scared to say, or too unwilling to say. I do not know quite what is going on there. I have no confidence that the Government have a grip on this. On the principle that there should be a strong, employer-led presence in determining skills policy, I totally accept that. But I just do not think the Government have thought it through.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Rogan) (UUP)
I call the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green. The noble Lord is not online, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
May I say to whoever’s job it is, it would be useful to have list of people who have withdrawn from speaking; it is really difficult to know when we are about to be called, but that is a different matter. I rise to support the amendments, particularly Amendment 24, and to agree with my noble friends Lord Watson and Lord Liddle.
I understand completely why the Minister and the Government want local voices to have a say in what the nature of the partnership should be. That absolutely makes sense. Our country is very rich in diversity, with urban areas, rural areas, clusters of villages and small towns. I can see that see that the same model for everyone might not work. If the starting point is trying to let local people feel that they have ownership of this, I can see that and I share that starting point. What I think is a recipe for disaster is not to offer any guidance and to explore with everybody exactly what the criteria might be to determine what the local partnerships are.
I am not sure whose job it is to propose what “local” means. Does it have to be negotiated locally? That could take some time. Anybody who has been to a constituency Boundary Commission review will know how tempers can rise when talking about anything that has a boundary. I am not sure who it is who comes up with the idea in the first place of what the local area is. I am not sure what the criteria are that they have been advised they should make their decision against. I am not quite sure of the process by which somebody somewhere says, “Yes, that local partnership is local and covering the right areas.” I am not sure what happens to any geographical area that no one wants and has not managed to get a place in any partnership. There are, very often, left-out areas. There will be some areas that are really popular, and everyone will want them in their area; there will be some that are really tough and challenging, and no one will want them. I am not sure how all that is to be sorted out.
What I would be looking for is to keep that idea of not forcing the same on everybody, but within a much stronger framework of guidance than we have at the moment and a clear idea of process. It puts me in mind of when, some years ago, the Government—I think it was the coalition Government actually—set out regional schools commissioners. They decided to have no regard to any existing boundaries. So, instead of following the local authority boundary or a government office boundary, they made it up as they went along. It was an utter disaster, and there were some poor people having to negotiate with more than one regional commissioner at any one time. All that happened was that bureaucracy flourished. With the number of hours that were spent by one local authority that had schools within two regional schools commissioner boundaries, it just was not a model to follow. The Government, very sensibly, got rid of it and, I think, made sure—I may be wrong about this—that it followed the government office regional boundaries. I may be wrong about that, but it certainly makes sense now, and I know we are not spending as much time trying to chase appropriate regional school commissioners.
Therefore, I cannot see any example of where this decide-it-yourself, let-us-see-what-happens, get-on-with-it model actually works. It might not be something people like but—to be honest—let us get on with the job. Let us not set up a system where we will spend hours fighting about the nature of the structure that delivers it, rather than using our resources, energy and effort on what should be delivered.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, has rather pre-empted some of what I intended to say in support of Amendment 24. I very much welcome the announcement of the first group of trailblazers. It is, of course, the intention that all areas of the country should, in due course, be covered by a local skills improvement plan. I very much agree with some of what the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, have said about how we make sure the whole system works.
Now that the first employer representative bodies have been designated, and the local areas for which they are responsible defined, it will surely still be necessary for the Government to provide and update guidance on the criteria against which further bids will be evaluated, as required by this amendment and as we learn about the experience of that first group. There needs to be a broad package of guidance addressing all the issues that we have discussed so far in our debates. That is not just on how local areas should be organised to ensure there are no not-spots, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, but also on who should be involved in LSIPs, what their role should be, what resources are available to them, what reporting and monitoring is required and so on.
It remains rather difficult, at least for me, to assess the merits of LSIPs in the abstract. I was very taken by the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, last week that the Government might share one or two model LSIPs with us to help us in our scrutiny of the Bill. Will the Minister clarify as much as she can, in her response, what plans there are for guidance to be provided, not least in time for the next stage of our own debate?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, as already discussed, local skills improvement plans will be developed by employer representative bodies working closely with employers, providers and key stakeholders. Guidance to support the publication of the plans will not expand the scope of the legislation but will provide further detail on the process and best practice to support the development and delivery of LSIPs. That guidance will be developed in discussion with key stakeholders and informed by evaluation evidence from the trailblazers announced today and running into next year.
In response to Amendment 12, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, relating to whether guidance on LSIPs should be laid before Parliament and subject to the negative resolution procedure, it is common for this level of detail to be placed in guidance rather than in statutory instruments, so that it can be updated rapidly in response to emerging best practice and changing circumstances. I can also confirm that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee did not raise any concerns about this approach to guidance.
The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Aberdare, and other noble Lords asked whether the draft guidance would be made available before Report. Because that guidance will be informed by the trailblazers, as announced today, which will run until 2022, I am afraid that guidance will not be available in advance of Report on the Bill. However, the point about the guidance being informed by the trailblazers brings us to the second amendment, on what is defined as local. We want to use those trailblazers—to learn from how they are working, to inform our approach to LSIPs and to address a number of the detailed questions that noble Lords asked.
Amendment 24 relates to publication of guidance setting out the criteria used to determine a specified area. The geography for local skills improvement plans will be based on functional economic areas and informed by evidence from the trailblazers. The specified area for a local skills improvement plan will be defined in the notice published by the Secretary of State on designation. In the trailblazers, we have allowed a certain amount of self-definition of “local area”. One of the things that we want to test and learn from in the process of the trailblazers is the best geography for plans, so we will be giving some flexibility in this area.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, asked about the role of local enterprise partnerships. The Government are working with LEPs to refine the role of business engagement in the local economic strategy, including skills, and to ensure that these structures are fit for purpose for the future, including looking at the right geographies. We will consider this work alongside evidence from the trailblazers, where flexibility has been given on geography, before making final decisions about the specified areas that local skills improvement plans will cover. I reassure noble Lords that, as they have already heard from the Minister, every area will be covered by an LSIP and no area will be left out.
I hope the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has received sufficient reassurance to allow him to withdraw his amendment and not to move his second amendment when it is reached.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. I was very taken by the comment by my noble friend Lady Morris about the ways in which local areas will be defined. She made an important point, which I confess I had not considered, about what will happen to areas she described as “tough and challenging”, which are perhaps not particularly in demand by the employer representative bodies. I hope that the Government will insist that employer representative bodies are properly representative not just of employers’ organisations but of their communities as well, to ensure that the potential problems that my noble friend Lady Morris mentioned will be headed off before they properly develop.
The noble Baroness, Lady Penn, said guidance will not expand the scope but will provide more detail, and I understand that. It is important that it can be updated, so I take the point. I have to say that she might have given a hostage to fortune by saying that the Government are not going to support the idea of a statutory footing because the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee did not recommend it. I am pleased to see that the Government will in future be abiding by the recommendations of that committee, and no doubt we will be coming back to them on other issues in the days and months ahead.
I would like to raise another point. Both noble Baronesses mentioned trailblazers. If I caught the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, correctly, she said that they had been announced today. Since she said that, I have tried to find out about that, and the best we can do is that they have been announced this afternoon. We are in debate this afternoon. Why were they not announced at the very least this morning—or yesterday or the day before? This is becoming a pattern. Yesterday we got some of the lifelong loan entitlement amendments from the Government, just a few days before they are due to be discussed in Committee next week. I have to say that the impression being created is that the Government are not on top of all this. Certainly, if the trail-blazers are going to have the influence that the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, said—I think the trailblazers are interesting and I want them to be successful—we should have had sight of them, so that all noble Lords could perhaps have referred to them in the debate to inform the points that we all wanted to make.
So I cannot say I am pleased with the Minister’s response—I am not surprised, either—but the Government need to bear in mind the points that I and other noble Lords have made. Some of them will certainly arise in future days in Committee and perhaps even on Report. But, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Rogan) (UUP)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 15. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in the debate. I must announce that we will move in this group from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle.
Amendment 15
Lord Lucas
Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the employer representative body is required to have an understanding of skills that are required nationally, and that may be required by local potential students but may not yet be required by local businesses.
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 33 and 85. All three amendments in this group address the same question of providing access for the local skills improvement organisation to clear and consistent information on skills that are required nationally. I am very grateful to my noble friend for announcing the trailblazers today and am delighted to see that I find myself living in one of them—which is three hours wide, and that is on a good day. It is really quite hard to see how an organisation will hold together a coherent view across the many businesses composed in a spread that wide. It is also hard to see, given the current make-up of the chamber, how it will have access to a deep skills base in areas where Sussex is not currently strong.
There are a lot of skills required in the City of London which are not well represented in Sussex, which is not one of the great centres of the IT industry. There are a lot of areas where it does extremely well, but it is hard to see how you can take an organisation such as the Sussex chamber of commerce, which does very well in trying to knit together the varied economic landscape across this very hard-to-travel region and turn it into something that knows everything about skills in the local area, let alone something that has a real grip on skills nationally, unless we are providing it with a strong source of information on the national picture that it can build into the foundations of what it is trying to achieve locally.
When we last met, my noble friend the Minister referred to the skills and productivity board, which was announced last September and launched in November, with a letter from the Secretary of State saying that within the next 12 months he hoped to have information from the board on what the national skills needs were, how that would change over the next 10 years and how we should be focusing on productivity growth. As of today, as far as I can find, the organisation has no website; it has not reached out to people to discuss these affairs, and the only activity that I can discover is a contract it put out for a scoping study to help it develop a functional skills taxonomy by the end of June. This does not feel like a body that is moving with pace. It certainly does not feel like it is going to get anywhere effective by the end of November.
Perhaps my noble friend can fill us in a bit more than the skills and productivity board has felt willing to do on where it has got to and why a body that is largely composed of professors will be able to fulfil the remit it has been given. It is crucial that the Government get this right, and I am not at all clear that they have.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
My Lords, I support these amendments. This Bill is full of good intentions and starts with a lot of good will—people want it to succeed and the nation needs it to succeed—but it is becoming increasingly clear that the backbone, the foundations on which we can build other things, is just not there. It is missing.
I understand it is difficult to know what to put in legislation and what to develop as you go along. I understand that that balance is always difficult, but I think the Government are erring on the wrong side. Like almost all the amendments we have been considering today, this is another one asking for clarification of the Government’s role in setting a national skills strategy, and in particular—the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has rightly brought up on previous occasions—their role in almost future-proofing the skills needs of the nation.
Local people might know what needs to be done to provide a skilled workforce for the present economy, but I am not sure they have got time to speculate on the what the economic and skills needs might be in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time. That needs a broader discussion and I am left wondering again what the role of the Government will be in their relationship with the local skills plan. Surely the Government are not going to say, “Get on with it, regardless of what we have decided at national level”. The national skills strategy should be what our experts say the skills needs in the next couple of decades might be.
The Bill lacks a clear vision of what the structure is, and as long as that is the case, we will not make progress. I would sooner the Government gave us something that we can amend and debate and move forward with, but they are not giving us anything. The guidance is delayed; it is not there in the Bill. There is hardly anything to debate—it is like whistling in the wind and guessing what the Government might intend. On this amendment, I am not sure how all these different locally determined, local skills plans are meant to fit in to the national skills strategy.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
I wholly support what my noble friend Lady Morris has said. There is an emphasis on local skills plans, but even if they are working well with good representation from across the board of employers, we are not certain in the Government’s plans how that will happen. So the first problem is whether these bodies will be representative. The second problem is whether they will have the capacity. My fear—which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas—is that even if they are good at it, they will focus on present needs rather than future ones. In a rapidly evolving economy, with artificial intelligence changing everything in the next 10 or 20 years, our education and skills system has to have some leadership from the centre to indicate how education and skills needs are going to change.
There is nothing terribly socialist about this kind of idea. When it comes to government investment in research and innovation, we have elaborate national structures that look at what the key technologies are going to be and invest in what they decide are likely to be the key innovations of the future. If you are doing that with technology and science, do you not also have to think in those terms for education and skills? I find no evidence in this Bill that the Department for Education—I am not going to criticise Ministers—has that long-term vision.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 85 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Blackstone, to which I have added my name. Before doing so, I should say that I support Amendments 15 and 33 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and my noble friend Lady Garden of Frognal. I agree with all the remarks that have been made to date in this group.
I do not often quote a former Conservative Education Secretary so I will take this opportunity to do so, not least because I am in complete agreement with what he says. In the debate last Tuesday, the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, asked:
“How can you fashion an education system if you have no idea what your national economy wants in the way of skilled workers?”—[Official Report, 6/7/21; col. 1236.]
I suppose it is a rhetorical question but it one against which there can be very little argument, particularly given the turmoil of the previous 16 months when the workplace has been turned on its head and changes to working practices that had appeared decades away happened, quite literally, overnight.
There is in addition the urgency of the transformative overhaul that we now know to be necessary to align all sectors of the economy to net-zero targets for carbon and our biodiversity goals. The green jobs task force, which was set up under the 10-point plan, published a report just yesterday—one of a raft of relevant government reports—which says:
“The conclusion reached by this assessment of the evidence is that, if the UK is to grasp the opportunities afforded by a green industrial revolution, we must develop a comprehensive and holistic view of the green jobs and skills challenge.”
A few paragraphs later the report recommends:
“A UK-wide body, including representation from national government and industry, should therefore be established to maintain momentum and coherence in the workforce transition, supported by action from local bodies.”
To me, that reads like a call for a national strategic skills audit, with a focus on aligning with our climate change and biodiversity targets. I think that Amendment 85 would meet that recommendation rather neatly. The purpose of the amendment is to create a structure for an expert panel to provide strategic, evidence-based advice on the skills that employers need now and in future, through a skills audit. It would allow the expert panel to assess economic, social and technical levers, and to disseminate high-quality information to key stakeholders. That in turn would allow all stakeholders, including learners and workers, to make well-informed decisions to support a robust green economic recovery, and would ensure that future skills and qualifications are aligned with the net-zero and nature-positive economy. Lastly, a three-yearly review would keep it up to date and relevant.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. Like her, I will speak briefly in support of Amendments 15 and 33 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal. I agree with the comment on those by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, that the Bill still very much lacks a clear vision of the structure that we are trying to create.
I will speak mainly in favour of Amendment 85 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman, Lady Blackstone and Lady Sheehan, noting that it has full cross-party and non-party support. Indeed, I would have added my name had there been space available to do so.
It is interesting that the last national skills audit was more than a decade ago but, even then, conservation and environmental protection officers were at the top of the list of a growing area of demand. Town planners were also high on the list. Since then, of course, austerity has hit local government extremely hard and, as we were discussing yesterday on the Environment Bill, they are not currently funded adequately to meet their existing responsibilities, let alone their upcoming responsibilities under the Bill, which has undoubtedly had an impact on the demand for jobs.
I note that this debate is particularly timely, given that it comes the day after the release of the Green Jobs Taskforce report, which does at least some of the job that the amendment proposes. Although it focuses purely on the climate emergency, not the biodiversity crisis or the way in which a systems approach shows how these problems link to many of the other issues in our society, it is also very much a report that reflects a business-as-usual-with-added-technology approach, failing to acknowledge the need for economic and social innovation and the skills that go with those. It talks about engineers and construction workers for offshore wind farms and nuclear plants, retrofitters for homes to make them energy-efficient and comfortable and car mechanics servicing electric vehicles and vans. There are many other jobs that we clearly need that are not covered by that.
With this Bill, I find myself thinking yet again that the narrow focus on jobs is a dangerous mistake. The amendment talks about a strategic audit, but what does the country actually need? Thinking of some examples off the top of my head, we need far more gardening skills for growing food and managing the home gardens that will be so crucial to our biodiversity and the survival and thriving of so many of our species. We need community-building skills for resilience and climate adaptation. I think of the city of Lancaster where, a few years ago, I chaired for the Green House think tank a session examining the experience of the disastrous floods there in 2015 and the community response. A training session based on what Lancaster learned the hard way for every community in this land would be a very good idea. For the kind of resilience that the future is going to demand of us—I point noble Lords to the tragic events happening in Germany as we speak—we clearly need community-building skills. The divisions in our society and the social issues that have come to the fore in recent weeks are real barriers to tackling the climate emergency and the nature crisis. Something else very practical that comes to mind is first aid. These are skills that we need for every community and just about every person in this land.
I am not sure that even this amendment is as broad as it needs to be, but it is a good start as an acknowledgment that we need our skills for jobs, at least, in many different areas and we need to think much more broadly in a systematic, comprehensive kind of way.
Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]
My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in support of Amendment 85 in particular, to which I have added my name.
We had a long debate on the first day of Committee about issues relating to the economy of the future, the new industrial landscape and the overwhelming need to ensure that workers have the skills necessary for the jobs of the future, and that workers who will have to transition from their current employment are given the opportunity to reskill in order to do so. In her response, the Minister was very helpful in assuring us of the Government’s recognition of those priorities, the important role that they will play in future and how they will need to form part of the background—if I can put it that way—to local skills improvement plans.
However, as many others have said already, we do not yet join up the dots in this Bill. We do not respond to the recommendations of the Green Jobs Taskforce, which were just highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, nor those of the Climate Change Committee, which in its recent progress report to Parliament recommended that the Government
“develop a strategy for a Net Zero workforce that ensures a just transition for workers transitioning from high-carbon to … climate-resilient jobs”
and
“integrates relevant skills into the UK’s education framework”.
We do not see the way in which that will be done; nor, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, do we see how we can ensure that local skills improvement plans look to the future, not just the present. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, we do not see how they fit in or how to ensure that national priorities are understood and integrated into those plans in locally relevant ways.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, spoke about the ecosystem for skills and post-16 education and training. I do not think that we can get the ecosystem right unless we ensure that the national priorities—they are accepted by the Government in the 10-point plan, in all their documentation and in the words of Ministers all the time—have a proper way of filtering down, not by framing it as “a man in Whitehall knows best” and dictating what happens at local level but by providing a coherent national framework in which the essentially local work that takes account of place, as we spoke about last week, can be undertaken.
I very much hope that the Minister will understand our need for mechanisms in the Bill to ensure that this national framework is clearly in place, and that it will support and underpin the work that is done at the local level.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, I support these three amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others. It is particularly important that the views and aspirations of individual learners should be taken account of by LSIPs, not least those who find that their ambitions cannot be met by existing employers or employment opportunities within their current environment or circumstances, and those who wish to start their own businesses. LSIPs need to be aware of opportunities relevant to wider national skills needs, as Amendment 33 requires.
I was very struck by the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, last week on the views he had heard from unemployed young people. They may need specific personalised help and support to prepare themselves for work and get into the skills system at all after long periods of unemployment or, perhaps, no previous employment. This is most likely to be provided by independent training providers, often within the frame- work of schemes such as Kickstart, but it is not clear to me whether the Bill makes provision for funding such extra support; perhaps the Minister could say how she expects that need to be met.
I also share the view expressed by many noble Lords of the need for a national skills strategy to provide a clear and coherent framework for the education and skills system. The national strategic skills audit proposed by Amendment 85 would be an important part of developing such a strategy, and I hope the Minister will be able to confirm that the Government are planning something along those lines to underpin the new system which they intend to create and for which the Bill provides a framework.
I imagine that this may well be another part of the remit of the skills and productivity board, which the Minister has mentioned from time to time, so I found the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on his attempts to find out more about the board somewhat disturbing. I hope the Minister may be able to tell us more about that.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, as last week, I have added my name to Amendments 15 and 33 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and I support his Amendment 85. He set out very clearly why those amendments are needed and, on the principle that I do not repeat things just because I have not yet said them, I will not go into detail on that. We have already explained why potential students should be taken into account.
Amendment 33 would add a clause to ensure that the employer representative body is required to be aware of skills in demand nationally which may not be in demand in the local area. If young people or adults are enthusiastic to learn skills which may not be available locally but are in demand elsewhere, it is really important that national demand should be recognised and skills training made available, even if the skills are not, or not yet, required locally. If a young person or adult is desperate to become a farrier or an aeronautical engineer but there is nothing in their locality, they should be enabled to follow their talents and interests. We must have a national picture of skills training and, if need be, there should be help with travel for those who want to pursue their skills out of area.
The amendments make it clear that skills needs and shortages must be seen in a national context, even if that means that those training need to move to find work. Again, let us never forget distance learning, which can be valuable in such times and has no barriers.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, made the valid point that we must do some blue skies thinking about what will be needed in future, and Amendment 85 mentions medium and long-term national skills. Who would have thought two years ago that we would all have needed to become proficient in Teams and Zoom? It is quite a wonderful advance really, but I do not think anyone predicted it, and we must always respond to unpredictable events in future.
My noble friend Lady Sheehan has given our support to Amendment 85 in this group, because a national strategic skills audit would be an invaluable tool to assess how our skills shortages are being addressed, alongside the invaluable task of working towards net-zero future jobs. This need not be an excessively cumbersome or costly exercise, but having a body with an overview of skills is surely effective for jobs and training. I know that the Government are always reluctant to set up new bodies, but this one would have a co-ordinating role which could prove invaluable in generating skills in the right places. I hope that the Minister will see that this group of amendments is well worthy of government support.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, we welcome the amendments and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, on reminding us of the bigger picture in skills development. Effectively, these amendments relate to the national skills strategy and seek to ensure that employers, colleges and universities adopt a far-sighted approach by planning to develop the skills and apprenticeships for the jobs of the future and, in doing so, help to shape a more secure and sustainable economy for the country. An employer representative body that did not follow that path should not last for long.
It is crucial that we maximise the power of the economy by delivering on genuine lifelong learning so that people can grasp the opportunity to reskill or upskill when they need it and as often as they need it. Equipping the workforce with new skills for the jobs of the future will help build job security, which in turn will bring sustainability and resilience back to the economy and public services, at the same time helping our high streets to reinvent themselves and, hopefully, begin to thrive again.
From green jobs in manufacturing electric vehicles and offshore wind turbines to fintech, digital media and film, there is a pressing need to grow modern industries to build a long-term economy that provides good-quality and well-paid jobs and is thus fit for the future I am sure that the Minister will be keen to tell noble Lords how the industrial decarbonisation strategy, launched earlier this year, would fit in to this future-proofing approach, which will be enhanced if the Government are willing to accept these modest but, I would say, important amendments. They are complemented by Amendment 85, which would require the Secretary of State to establish a panel to undertake a national strategic skills audit to be updated every three years. The Government's industrial decarbonisation strategy cannot exist in a vacuum. It must interact with the industrial strategy which, noble Lords may remember, was published in 2017, but seems to have been hidden in plain sight ever since, the green jobs task force, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, referred and the broader skills agenda into which the Bill will play.
In fairness to the Government—not something I am characterised by—the industrial strategy was indeed dusted down and updated as recently as January, setting out what are termed “grand challenges”, designed to put the UK at the forefront of the industries of the future and improving the country’s productivity.
That is all good, stirring stuff, and absolutely necessary because, as my noble friend Lord Knight highlighted last week, on our first day in Committee, we currently have a reactive skills system that is too often tortuously slow in responding to new demands, never mind anticipating them. A strategy formulated with an understanding of the need to embrace net-zero future jobs and skills would address that issue and, over time, could open up many more employment markets. I genuinely hope that that is a role that the industrial strategy will adopt, with a national skills strategy a key part of it.
My noble friend Lord Liddle rightly pointed to the lack of evidence that the Department for Education has a long-term vision. If there were one and it were cross-cutting in nature, a national skills strategy could benefit from a comprehensive assessment of our medium and long-term skills needs, with the goal of creating not simply secure employment but, in doing so, achieving the country’s climate change and biodiversity targets. I say to the Minister on these amendments: what is not to like?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for tabling these amendments. We completely agree with him and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that designated employer representative bodies should take into account evidence of future skills needs and national priorities as they develop their local skills improvement plan. Of course, much will be included in guidance, but each employer representative body will be expected to co-ordinate and collaborate with its neighbouring employer representative bodies in writing the local skills plan, and with others across England.
In relation to Amendment 15 and potential student needs, I draw noble Lords’ attention to Clause 1(6)(b), which many noble Lords mentioned. It states that a local skills improvement plan
“draws on the views of employers”.
I hope that that answers some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on what is expected of the Cumbria Chamber of Commerce in reaching out to the big employers that he mentioned. The clause also talks about
“skills, capabilities or expertise that are, or may in the future be, required”.
Although the approval process for the Secretary of State is about whether the relevant people have been consulted, as I outlined to noble Lords, the Bill states that the plan must look at the future. I obviously cannot comment on whether individual plans will pass or fail the Secretary of State’s test, but it is here in the Bill that a plan must look to the future. The future outlined is obviously the “potential students” that are mentioned in Amendment 15. They were the subject of much discussion on the first day of Committee. I remain of the view that, by being focused on the needs of employers, the LSIPs will also, by virtue of this, include the needs of potential students in relation to jobs in their areas. The vision that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to is found within the White Paper that we launched earlier this year.
The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, I think, referred to other employment—it might relate to a skill that is needed for a neighbouring area. There is obviously the wider local needs duty under Clause 5. We are expecting that the trailblazer programmes will not only help to inform the guidance but help us to see how they engage with one another and the national skills priorities. The advice on national skills needs will clearly be part of the guidance. We have also previously discussed, both in this House and outside it, the role of the national Skills and Productivity Board, which will report later this year. This will enable each employer representative body to have access to its high-quality advice. The statutory guidance will highlight the types of evidence that they should have regard to.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, made reference to the flexibility that people need nowadays in terms of skilling and reskilling. Of course, that will be part of what we discuss later in Committee in relation to the lifelong loan entitlement. A lot of the additional support for young people that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, mentioned is provided through Jobcentre Plus. People can sometimes be a bit sniffy about that, but what the work coaches are doing to make young people aware of the opportunities such as Kickstart is amazing. We have also given additional funding for apprenticeship starts in that group in particular and there has been an expansion of the traineeships. However, the National Careers Service and the Careers & Enterprise Company obviously depend on the age of the person. We will also make those young people aware of that. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy, which, again, will be one of the national strategies that a good local skills improvement plan will look to.
Amendment 85 looks to set up a national strategic skills panel, particularly in relation to our targets on net zero and biodiversity. As mentioned, we have been busy in the department—we have launched the Green Jobs Taskforce, which I hope gives some reassurance to the noble Baronesses, Lady Sheehan and Lady Bennett, that we are looking at those recommendations now. The recommendations in relation to the response to the need for net zero and biodiversity were not just for government but also for business and the skills sector, as we extensively debated on day 1 of Committee.
On the points made by many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, there is a balance between a framework within a piece of legislation and having so much detail within it that the accusation can then be made, potentially rightly, that Whitehall is trying to fix all. There is a framework to try to set up the appropriate situation so that providers work with the employer representative bodies and that each local area works with the others and the national picture. I do not think that we should be more prescriptive than that. There is strategic development funding to deal with the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on the capacity for these areas.
I hope that I have reassured noble Lords and that my noble friend Lord Lucas will feel comfortable to withdraw his amendment and not press the others when they are reached.
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her extensive reply and to other noble Lords for their supportive words on these amendments. I am afraid that I remain entirely unconvinced that the Government have a firm platform on which to go forward in this area. I hope that it may be possible to talk to the Minister and officials between now and Report. In the absence of some further clarification, I think that this is an area where we ought seriously to try to improve the Bill.
Listening to my noble friend, I think that there still seems to be an idea that the interests of local employers and local potential students are automatically aligned. This is a fundamental misconception: within a particular area, there are many skills where employment is not available in the quantities that might be required. Students require a much broader view of what their capacity and prospects are. People follow my noble friend Lord Tebbit’s advice and get on their bike and get around the country, particularly when they are young, and their view should not be restricted to what is available locally.
I am also not convinced by the picture that my noble friend paints of a whole collection of local skills improvement partnerships talking to each other. We are getting into the now-familiar territory of exponential growth, this time in emails and confusion, as these organisations try, in a collection of people that is far too large and diverse, to evolve some view on what the national skills need is, armed with a collection of reports of variable quality from different bits of government and other people. This needs drawing together to make it something that informs not only the local skills improvement partnership but government as a whole. We need a view on where our skills requirements are. That way, we can make an effort to do something about it.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, pointed out, these things change quickly. This is not intended to be a plan that we expect to be worked through but one that we expect to live with, but, unless you are looking a few years ahead, it is impossible to put in the provision that you will need. Unless we are looking nationally, we will find national shortages emerging, because large parts of the country, where these industries are not present, turn out not to contribute to the provision of employees in areas where we need them. I will of course withdraw the amendment, but I very much hope that, between now and Report, we can get to a rather better place.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 27. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in the group to a Division must make that clear in the debate. Before I call the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, I inform the House that the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Adonis, have withdrawn from speaking on this group. I ask those after them to be prepared for when they are called, please.
Amendment 27
Lord Aberdare
“(8) The Secretary of State must publish a response to the local skills improvement plans published by the local designated bodies across England.(9) The response must include—(a) a national skills map based on the skills needs identified in the local skills improvement plans, and(b) an action plan outlining how the Secretary of State will support local areas to address the skills needs in their area.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment aims to ensure that there is not only a feeding in of national policy into local skills improvement plans, but also that local information and information about skills gaps is fed back into national policy making. This is to ensure that government can identify national skills shortages more easily and more quickly, and act accordingly.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, I am pleased to move Amendment 27, originally in the name of my noble friend Lord Patel, who is unable to be here this afternoon. He has kindly shared with me the points that he wished to make and I will make full use of them. I will also speak briefly to Amendment 30.
Amendment 27 aims to ensure that, in addition to national policy feeding into local skills improvement plans, local information about skills gaps and local skills challenges is also fed back into national policy-making. Real-time labour market data, as well as insights into what is happening locally around education and skills options for young people and those wanting to retrain, is vitally important to ensure that the Secretary of State and his department have the insights and evidence needed to make strategic national decisions about education and skills policy.
I hope the Minister can give us some more clarity about how the LSIPs proposed in the Bill will feed into the work of the DfE and BEIS to develop a strategic approach to addressing the skills gaps on a national level. How will information within LSIPs help shape and inform national industrial policy? How will the Government use the reforms in the Bill to identify and respond to regional skills needs important to the overall strategic goals of the UK, such as specialised engineering skills?
Several proposed amendments to this Bill aim to ensure that LSIPs will take account of national strategies and policy—as they should—but what is missing is a feedback loop from the local to the national, which is what this amendment seeks to achieve. Local skills improvement plans have the potential to provide rich insights into what is going on locally around the skills businesses need and the difficulties they may or may not have in accessing them locally. They should, one hopes, provide insights into how local areas will address any skills shortages and how effective these measures prove to be in the long run.
Local skills improvement plans will provide detail and data that should enable the Government to get a much better picture of the skills situation in this country and allow them to map out where there are potential issues. This will foster an understanding of whether particular skills gaps are localised, and therefore need to be addressed locally, or whether there is a pattern across the country that may require national policy interventions in addition to local action.
This amendment is asking the Government to provide a response to the LSIPs as a whole, including a skills map and an action plan. This is surely a reasonable proposal that can only help to further the Government’s ambitions around productivity and joined-up thinking. Ensuring that there is a functioning feedback loop from national to local and from local to national will enable government, both local and national, to identify and address skills shortages more easily and quicker.
Turning to Amendment 30, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, which I also support, I am rather surprised that it should be needed at all and that the publication of LSIPs is not already in the Bill. Every LSIP needs to be available, not only to all interested parties in the education and skills system within the area it covers, as specified in the amendment—particularly providers of careers guidance—but also more widely, both so that others can learn from different approaches being taken and as input to national skills policy-making.
Apart from the essential publication of the LSIPs, as in the amendment, there needs to be a process for regular progress and performance reporting, not least to promote the sharing of experience and good practice, as well as for monitoring and accountability purposes. This is yet another element of the framework that is not clear. It is not clear if that feedback loop is going to be there, what sort of performance monitoring is going to be in place, and what happens if LSIPs do not reach the standard one might hope from them. I beg to move.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I find myself in a difficult situation with these amendments. I listened carefully to the Minister responding to the last group of amendments, and I feel that she was right: a lot of what noble Lords are rightly concerned about ought to appear in the guidance. I do not want the Bill to be overly complicated, with every prescriptive concern, but I do want an assurance from the Minister that the guidance will address some of the valid points made by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and others.
While I have the Floor, I am concerned about the view that, somehow, employers will not be looking ahead. That is not my experience of dealing with employers. They are concerned; they have had to look ahead. Like hanging, the pandemic has concentrated their minds wonderfully, but it was also happening beforehand. Look at all the work in establishing new standards, where employers are involved; they are taking into account their future skills needs and that new green skills will be required.
The Minister was right to remind us about the vitally important work that jobcentre coaches are doing. I would not say that I am absolutely satisfied they have got all of that right, but they are on the right track to ensuring that young people are aware of the skills that they will need in a job market that is changing significantly. We know what some of these are already; we know they need a reasonable standard of maths, English and digital skills—they are absolutely essential. Some of them are fully equipped, certainly on the digital skills front, while others will need some extra assistance and training. The Minister referred to lifelong learning, and we also have traineeships and Kickstart, so there are a number of things the Government are providing. Is everything working absolutely right? No, there are things that I believe—as I have said in a previous debate —need reform, and the apprenticeship levy is one.
I urge the House to be wary of trying to load up the Bill with every single detail. The Minister was right when she said that there is a role for guidance. If there needs to be a reference within the Bill to the fact that some of these points will be covered in the guidance, that is all well and good. I attach a lot of importance to the guidance.
I do not share the pessimism of some that this is a badly framed Bill that will not involve local people as it should. Of course we are going to go through a learning curve, as the participants in creating the local skills improvement plans develop the technique of doing this. What the Government should do on a national level is encourage best practice, looking at examples of where it has been done really well and passing that kind of information on. I suspect I may be in the minority here, but it is no bad thing to have a range of views. I hope that, when the Minister responds, she will take into account the points I have made—she has also made them before—about the balance of what is in guidance and what needs to be in the Bill.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, we should all take notice of what my noble friend Lord Young of Norwood Green says on these matters. He has vast experience in this area, as a trade union official and as a Minister in the field in the last Labour Government, so I would not dismiss a word of what he says. However, I think he is being a little overgenerous about this Bill, which seems very vague in some of its key points.
We support—certainly I do, and I think my Front Bench does—the principle of a lifelong learning entitlement and reform to our qualifications structure to allow modules. That is a very important reform. We support a stronger role for employers in determining skills. All of that is fine at the level of high principle. The question is how this is going to work in practice. I still have very severe doubts about that. Here we are talking about the role of the Secretary of State in relation to the plans that are produced locally. Can the Minister tell us precisely what that role is going to be, because it relates to these amendments?
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I support Amendment 27 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Aberdare, and Amendment 30 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. These amendments stress the need for local and national co-ordination and place a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that local and national skills needs are both involved in national policy planning, which is surely only common sense if the country is to address skills shortages, of which we know there are many, and provide a functioning feedback loop, as the noble Lord said. It is also important that this information should be readily available to all the educational bodies involved in skills training. Like the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, I find it surprising that this is not already in place.
I wholly support the information being available to schools from the age of 11. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, touched on this in an earlier amendment. But, as we know, 11 is really too late to start careers advice, which needs to begin at primary level, where young people, particularly those whose skills are more practical than academic, can begin to see pathways for progression and to have some confidence in their future. I can understand why the provision in this amendment may not extend to primary schools, but we must never overlook the very young in these discussions.
The local skills improvement plans should be given to all those who work with the education and training of the future workforce. They should certainly be on websites, but steps should also be taken to ensure that these providers actually access them and that everyone within their organisation is aware of them. There is little point in assembling all the information if learners are blissfully aware that it exists. So, for the moment, the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, is definitely a step forward.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
Amendment 30 requires that the Secretary of State must publish LSIPs and distribute them to schools and all post-16 education providers. However, there is little point in having a plan if no one is aware of its contents. Yet, despite the requirements for providers to have regard to LSIPs, the Bill is silent on how LSIPs will be published or disseminated. I know that the Minister responded that a model LSIP can be provided, but this amendment seeks a much wider and co-ordinated task. Does the Minister intend, as the amendment suggests, for the DfE to take responsibility for this? Does she agree that publishing all local skills improvement plans will allow for areas to draw on each other’s strategies? That would be particularly helpful for a complementary regional approach and would promote best practice. Or does she envisage that such responsibility will fall to ERBs? If so, can she advise whether they will have the resources and a dedicated budget for such a responsibility?
Perhaps the Government believe that the onus should be on providers themselves to track down where LSIPs have been published. If so, where should they look—to the chamber of commerce, or local authority websites? How does that fit with the lack of role of local authorities and mayoral combined authorities in the process? I hope that she can assure the House that there is indeed a plan for publication and distribution, and I further reiterate my noble friend Lord Liddle’s probing question around the role of the Secretary of State in relation to local plans.
I also speak in support of Amendment 27 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, which requires the Secretary of State to publish a response to each LSIP, including an action plan for how they will support areas to address their skills need. I agree with the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, about where the strategies approach will be developed, using LSIPs to feed into national strategies and creating the feedback loop that is so essential. It is very important, given that LSIPs will need to be responsive to national level strategies, and given the Secretary of State’s powers to intervene if they believe that providers are failing to adhere to LSIPs or not meeting local needs, as seen through the lens of local employers.
I further understand that the notion and definition of “local” has been much discussed during the passage of this Bill already—but I respectfully point out that it continues to be raised by noble Lords because of the still undefined nature of the link between local and national priorities. When I entered local government almost 20 years ago, I was reminded that all politics is local, and I came to recognise that most assuredly throughout my tenure. I would further add that local knowledge and experience is invaluable in feeding into the national strategic overview.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to be able to speak to this group of amendments relating to publication and response to local skills improvement plans. We expect them to be an important resource to inform decision-making by local providers, stakeholders and national policymakers.
On publication, in Clause 1(7) it is clear that a local skills improvement plan means one that has been
“approved and published by the Secretary of State”.
I presume that that will be on GOV.UK. I cannot prescribe that, but I do not think that we need to go into any further detail in relation to that, or to put such matters in the Bill. I am grateful for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Young, about what we do and do not put in a Bill and what goes into statutory instruments—and then, of course, what is published in guidance.
Amendment 27 talks about how local skills improvement plans can inform national policy on skills. As outlined previously, we expect the plans to be informed by, and in turn inform, national skills priorities highlighted by the Skills and Productivity Board. This is envisaged to be a two-way relationship. In relation to the collaboration between employer representative bodies and the co-ordination point, which has been quite a theme throughout a number of amendments, the Secretary of State can set terms and conditions for the employer representative body and, should it be necessary, they can be used to mandate in the approval that they collaborate—but, obviously, one would hope that that will not be necessary.
On the point from the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I hope that the trailblazers will reveal whether his doubts will materialise about whether the appropriate national skills priorities are taken into account.
On the approval process by the Secretary of State, it is not about the Secretary of State second-guessing the priorities and actions agreed by local areas but about ensuring that a robust process has been followed. In Clause 3, there are provisions that enable the Secretary of State to remove the designation if he sees fit: if terms and conditions have been broken, if the body is no longer impartial or reasonably representative or if it does not have regard to the guidance. Of course, when one talks about process, one normally thinks about judicial review—but, if a plan says that we are going to invest in coal mining in an area, for example, there might be a case for such a priority that is way outside. But it is a process that he will be looking at; he will not be second-guessing the choices and priorities decided by the employer representative body.
As I have said, we expect the LSIPs to complement the funding system reforms outlined in the Skills for Jobs White Paper. The consultation that I mentioned was launched today, aiming to give providers more autonomy to use government funding to meet the skills needs of local employers, including those articulated in LSIPs. We expect these plans to be a relevant factor for the Secretary of State to consider when making decisions about funding and support for local areas. Again, implicit in that is a co-ordination point as well.
Turning to Amendment 30, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, concerning the publication and distribution of LSIPs, I have mentioned Clause 1(7). The ERBs will lead the development of the plans, and the Secretary of State will approve and publish them. Obviously, if they are defective, there is the remedy I outlined for the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. They will be published on a website to ensure that relevant bodies across England can easily find and access them, and this will be publicised through appropriate communication channels. The department has good relationships with stakeholders, as I say.
I hope that my remarks in relation to these amendments have provided some reassurance to noble Lords. One noble Lord who requested a meeting—it may have been the noble Lord, Lord Lucas—in relation to these matters. Of course, I am happy to engage with any noble Lord to give further detail outside of Committee. I hope to be able to report to the House on the progress of the trailblazers, but they are not due to conclude until March 2022. I therefore hope that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, will feel comfortable in withdrawing his amendment and that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, will not feel the need to move his when it is reached.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and the Minister for her response. This is a Bill whose aims I strongly support. It is absolutely focused in the right direction, and it has lots of great ideas in it. My occasional frustration is that I do not quite see how it is going to work in various aspects that have been raised by a number of noble Lords. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young, that it may well make sense to answer a lot of these points in the guidance rather than in the Bill itself, but we do not have the guidance and we do not know what is going to be in it so all we can do is say “We want this to be dealt with somewhere” and keep asking how it is all going to work in practice. Having said all that, I live in considerable hope and expectation, and I am happy to withdraw my noble friend’s amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 39. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear in debate. As I did in the last group, I point out that the noble Lords, Lord Adonis, Lord Baker of Dorking and Lord Liddle, have all withdrawn from this group. I call the noble Lord, Lord Addington.
Amendment 39
Lord Addington
“Review of apprenticeship levy
The Secretary of State may request a review of the apprenticeship levy in respect of eligible costs definitions, in order to ensure that the funding required for the delivery of local skills improvement plans is optimised and reflects employers’ needs.”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to create flexibility in the eligible use of employers’ apprenticeship levy funds.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, in speaking on this bit of the Bill and this amendment, I feel like the reserve coming in to fill in for somebody else as my noble friend Lord Storey initially had his name down. When I see that the other co-signatories are here, I am reasonably sure that the team will do the job.
The apprenticeship levy sounds right. It is the idea that if you have a turnover of, I believe, more than £3 million, you will pay into a training levy—apprenticeships through a training levy might have been better in the first place—then you will get something out of it. However, it has never really taken off. We do not really know what it is for or what it is getting in. Of late, we have had a decline in the number of apprenticeships, yet you are still having to pay in. There have been lots of other issues here, such as— although the loophole has been filled—the fact that MBAs have been studied on the money from the apprenticeship levy. Can we have a look at what this is really for? Does it need redefining? Does it need a new level of focus? That is what is behind this amendment. How can we make sure that it is functional and does what we think it was supposed to do? If we actually know that, we will get more encouragement for it and will keep it going forward.
Before I go any further, I want to point out that the Treasury gets money that is not spent at the time. If it is training money, we should make sure that it goes somewhere that trains. Hopefully we will examine questions here, such as would level 1 and 2 activity be taken on here? Should it be for the under-25s if it is supposed to be about youth training? Can we get these things out? Can the Minister, in her reply, let us know exactly what the Government think the future of this institution is? At the moment, it is danger of becoming something faintly ridiculous that is not quite achieving what we think it should. The people are having to look for a way to get the best out of it and get a focus. We could actually use this money to support colleges and institutions in delivering the right type of structure, especially locally, under the course of this Bill.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
I call the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green. No? I call the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, it is an unexpected pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Addington, with his straight talking. I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Storey, in introducing a greater degree of flexibility in the use of employers apprenticeship levy funds.
I am particularly glad to see the involvement of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, who brings practical experience of what works from running a training business and of the red tape—my words, not his—of complying with regulatory conditions, which I fear this Bill increases too much. The backdrop to all this is a dramatic fall in apprenticeship numbers in recent years—exactly the opposite of what we wanted and promised to achieve. A great deal of effort has been put into improving the quality and level of apprenticeships but I fear that, perversely, this has excluded many who would have benefited from the discipline and recognition of a successful apprenticeship, for example in my old industry of retail. However, my noble friend the Minister may have a better explanation for the decline and be able to reassure us that the fall has come to an end.
I was at the birth of the apprenticeship levy as the Minister who took the legislation, the child of Nick Boles, through our House. As noble Lords may have sensed earlier, I am passionate about apprenticeships, which were beginning to be a lost art, but I did have some carefully disguised doubts about the design of the arrangements for administering the levy. The system is a bureaucratic one and was led by education, rather than employers, so bigger employers paid a substantial levy. This often came off their existing training budgets; they were then unable to fix their training into the mould laid down by the Civil Service, so the levy ended up as a tax.
Perhaps my noble friend the Minister can explain why things are better now. In particular, where a company has surplus levy credits, can these be allocated to their supply chain or pledged to other companies without the levy payer having to become responsible in any way for the training in that other firm? That requirement was a real barrier to good practice and spreading the levy into the supply chain. What is the current cap on the new arrangements in percentage or other terms? Has the inevitable move to digital made the system more efficient, with fewer requirements to keep unnecessary records for inspection and more trust in employers to lead and train their apprentices? Or have more requirements been laid down in the digital world because, in theory, it is so very easy?
Amendment 39 seems to suggest that the levy funds could be diverted in other ways, which I might be more concerned about if it led to pressure for a rise in the levy. Companies can ill afford a levy increase at present, especially those whose training budgets have been hit hard by Covid. Before we reach Report, I would like to understand better what is planned for apprenticeships. Apprenticeships provide a passport to mobility from one job to a better one. They provide a route to advancement to people who do not need or want to go to university and incur debt doing so. If we could massively increase their numbers and their status on the German model, that would contribute to happiness and to growth.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. I suspect that her knowledge of apprenticeships is far greater than mine and I appreciate her remarks. I also strongly agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said at the beginning of this debate.
I have added my name to this important amendment because apprenticeships need to be an integral part of the new skills and education system which the Government are rightly seeking to create. They are employer-led and job-focused, and they cover all levels, from GCSEs up to degree level. Through the levy, they provide a mechanism whereby employers contribute to the cost of skills training—where, at times, they have been less than forthcoming.
However, as we have heard, there is a widespread recognition that the levy is not working as well as it should. Relatively few employers are able to use more than a small proportion of their levy funds. Even for major employers in the energy and utilities sector, it is only just over 50%. So, to maximise the funding they can recoup, they tend to use a high proportion of the funds for apprenticeships that are about upskilling or reskilling existing employees, rather than taking on or training new, young apprentices. This is perfectly understandable and, of course, reskilling and upskilling are good things to do—but the result is that the number of 16 to 25 year-old apprentices has not grown nearly as much as the number of over-25s. Although there are mechanisms for employers to transfer up to 25% of their levy funds to other employers who can use them, the process seems overcomplicated and take-up has been pretty low.
At the same time as levy payers are unable to use all their levy funds—with much of the unused funding going back to the Treasury—there appears to be a shortage of apprenticeship funding for non-levy payers. So the impact of the levy on the total funding available for skills training has been rather less than might have been hoped. It is not even clear whether the total amount of funding going into apprenticeships is significantly greater than before the levy was introduced.
The word that crops up most often in discussions with employers about the levy is “inflexible”. As I have said, apprenticeships will surely be a significant element of LSIPs and they need to be properly integrated. I have felt for some time that it would make sense to recast the apprenticeship levy as a wider skills levy—perhaps with a lower payment threshold to bring more employers into the net of contributing towards training. But, at least, if employers in an LSIP area are not able to use all their levy funds, why should it not be possible for those funds to be used for other, defined LSIP training priorities? In any case, what is needed is a review of the apprenticeship levy system in the light of experience to date. It must be clear how it relates to the wider post-16 education and skills system, as set out in the White Paper and now in this Bill.
Amendment 39 does no more than encourage the Secretary of State to conduct such a review. In my view, that is the answer to the argument that it does not belong in this Bill. Well, it does belong in this Bill—it is fundamental to it—and the review is to ensure that levy funds are used in a way that is integrated with the priorities of local skills plans and properly reflects employers’ needs. Of course, such a review must not reduce the amount of funding available for the apprenticeships that are so badly needed. It should seek to maximise the funding available from the levy and to optimise its use in pursuing local and national skills priorities. I look forward to the Minister telling us how this will be achieved—but the review proposed by the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, would be a very good place to start.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
We will go back to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, to see whether he wishes to participate.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab) [V]
Thank you, my Lords. I apologise that, on the previous occasion, I committed the offence of forgetting to unmute.
I am aware—as are many other noble Lords—of the deficiencies of the apprenticeship levy. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, almost said, we should be careful before we throw the baby out with the bathwater. It has done a lot of good. It has focused employers’ minds on the importance of apprenticeships. We have an Institute for Apprenticeships which is involving employers in creating new standards. I agree with the noble Baroness who said that there was a need for reform. But a consultative process is going on. I ought to have declared my interest as a national apprenticeship ambassador.
Employers already have the ability to use apprenticeship levy money to support not just supply chain companies but other companies outside their supply chain, and there has been a better take-up of that. Indeed, the Government have made more of the apprenticeship levy available. My concern at the moment is that, if we are really looking for growth in apprenticeships, this needs to be in the area of small and medium enterprises, especially in small and micro companies. Those companies frequently complain that the administration is too complicated, and that they find it a burden. We should bear in mind that many are saying, “Look, I’m struggling just to keep my business afloat and now you want me to take on an apprentice”. My response is to be understanding We need to work on helping them to remove some of that administrative and basic training burden. I also say to them, “Look, having a young person whose digital skills might be a lot more advanced than yours can often be of benefit to your company”.
I agree that some of the apprenticeship levy money has been spent in the wrong place. My concern is the 16 to 18 group, where the levels of youth unemployment are exceedingly high. I have already acknowledged the work of the job coaches, but more needs to be done on that front. So I am in favour of reform of the apprenticeship levy. I do not think that we should call it something else. We are just beginning to see a much better understanding by both parents and potential apprentices of the value of apprenticeships. I was interested in a recent development. UCAS, which used to be the clearing house just for those interested in going to university, has now opened another portal where people will be made aware of apprenticeship routes and vacancies. So reform is needed, but I still think that the basic concept is right. There are always areas where things could be improved, perhaps including the role of the Institute for Apprentices.
The apprenticeship levy is a bit like the curate’s egg—good in parts. I think the Government are aware of that, which is why there is a consultative process. I welcome the opportunity for the Committee to have this debate.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, this seems to be our only opportunity, in considering the Bill, to mention the words “apprenticeship” and “levy” in the same sentence. We should utter these words sotto voce because, at Second Reading, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, made it very clear that the levy was beyond the scope of the Bill. That is not the fault of the noble Baroness, of course, but speeches by several noble Lords at Second Reading, which have been reinforced today, demonstrated that I am not alone in finding it rather perplexing that the levy does not merit a mention in the Bill. This is despite the fact that the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education—which develops and approves apprenticeships and technical qualifications with employers—is quite prominent in clauses that we shall consider in later debates on the Bill.
Apprenticeships are key to ensuring that Britain is equipped with a well-skilled workforce in the years ahead. The levy scheme—which we have supported in principle—has yet to produce anything like the effects hoped for and required. So, while I am happy to support the intent of this amendment—and understand the reasoning behind it on the basis of what the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said in introducing it—I urge caution at this stage with regard to the levy and using its funds for any purpose other than apprenticeships. In that, I think I am reflecting the comments which my noble friend Lord Young has just made.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, now that I have de-masked myself, I will first make two remarks to the noble Lord, Lord Watson. In my enthusiasm to start my speaking role on this Bill, I did not thank him for his kind words in welcoming me to the Dispatch Box. I also acknowledge completely his point about the timing of various announcements and the need to ensure that noble Lords have as much information as possible to help them to scrutinise proposals for this Bill. We will endeavour to do our best in that regard.
I am grateful, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for giving us, on behalf of his noble friend, the opportunity to discuss apprenticeships, which are at the heart of the Government’s skills ambitions. As we recover from the impact of Covid-19, apprenticeships are more important than ever in helping businesses to recruit the right people and to develop the skills that they need.
I hope that noble Lords will allow me a little time to outline a few principles of the apprenticeship levy and its funding, as that will respond to some of the points made in this debate. The funds available to levy-paying employers through their apprenticeship service accounts can be used for apprenticeship training or assessment in their own businesses, or transferred to other employers. They are not the same, however, as the Department for Education’s annual apprenticeships budget.
While those unspent funds, therefore, expire from the employer’s accounts after two years, the broader funding contributes to the budget set by the Department for Education, according to its rules, and funds other costs associated with apprenticeships. This includes training and assessment for apprenticeships for employers that do and do not pay the levy, the cost of English and maths tuition and additional payments to support young apprenticeships—as I heard from noble Lords, those are a priority—and those with additional learning support needs.
On Amendment 39, I reassure noble Lords that we keep apprenticeship funding policy under review. I say to the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Aberdare, among others, that a key principle of the apprenticeship levy is that we should only pay for apprenticeship training and assessment costs from the apprenticeship budget, as apprenticeships deliver a significant return on investment from the public purse, rather than using the levy to fund wider skills training needs.
We have an ambitious agenda for apprenticeships and we have made huge strides forward with the apprenticeship reforms, but we cannot and will not stop here. We want to grow the programme, drive up quality and improve apprenticeships, to the benefit of all employers and ultimately the economy, through increased skills and jobs. While widening the scope of the apprenticeships budget to pay for other costs or skills training, even for a time-limited period, would not be in line with the Government’s aims for the programme, I hope that noble Lords who have raised questions about how it currently operates will be reassured by some of the improvements that we are making to make it easier for employers to use and to encourage take-up by potential apprentices.
We continue to listen to employers and to adapt apprenticeships to better meet their needs. Work is under way on a package of improvements that respond directly to employer feedback, so that employers can make better use of their apprenticeship funds.
First, we are introducing a new service that will make it easier for employers that pay the apprenticeship levy to transfer funds in their accounts to other employers, including smaller employers. Large employers will be able to pledge funds for transfer and other employers will be able to receive these funds, so that both will benefit from those transfers. In response to a question from, I think, my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, the lead employer that is transferring those funds will not retain any responsibility for the provision of training after the transfer. It is not an additional burden on them.
Secondly, we are helping employers to choose more innovative training models, such as front-loaded training and accelerated apprenticeships, which will help apprentices with relevant skills and experience to complete their training more quickly. Finally, we are supporting sectors of the economy that have more flexible working patterns, such as the creative industries. We will shortly launch a £7 million fund to help organisations in England to set up and expand new flexi-job apprenticeship schemes.
The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, asked about the funding available for apprenticeships. In 2021-22, the funding available for investment in apprenticeships in England is almost £2.5 billion. That is double what was spent in 2010-11. We have increased the investment available for apprenticeships.
My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked about the aims of the apprenticeships programme and its direction of travel. Our reforms to the programme have all been focused on making them longer and better, with more off-the-job training and proper assessment at the end. Many pre-reform apprenticeships were of low quality and involved little or no training. That is what we have aimed to change.
We know, however, that there is more work to be done and, in addition to the reforms that I have mentioned that will make it easier for employers to take up their levy funds, we have introduced new incentives for those employers, particularly during the pandemic, to take on new apprentices. Until the end of March those incentive payments were £1,500 for those aged 25 and over and £2,000 for those under 25—71,140 incentive payments were paid up to that date. We have increased the incentive to £3,000 and that remains in place until 30 September.
I hope that noble Lords take some reassurance from what I have outlined that we remain committed to the apprenticeship programme. While we do not agree with diverting apprenticeship funding to other forms of skills training, we acknowledge the need to continue to review and adapt the apprenticeship programme so that there is better take-up and it works better for employers and those who will potentially benefit from it. I therefore hope that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, feels able to withdraw his amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
I have received no requests to speak after the Minister so I call the noble Lord, Lord Addington, to conclude the debate on this amendment.
Lord Addington (LD)
I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, wanted to come in.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I have a quick question for clarification. I think what the Minister is saying is that she wants quality of apprenticeships, not quantity—for example, that level 2 apprenticeships are a thing of the past. I was saying that I am rather sorry about that, but I would like to be clear, either now or before Report, exactly what the direction of travel is on the lower grades. I completely support those doing level 6 including even the stonemasons , but I think that there is a place, especially among youngsters—those between 16 and 23 years old—whom we are trying to get to do apprenticeships, to do something perhaps a bit less sophisticated that brings discipline and the sense of attainment that apprenticeships can bring.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I believe the Government are aiming for quality and quantity when it comes to apprenticeships. On the noble Baroness’s specific question about lower-level apprenticeships, I will ensure that I write to her with that specific information before Report.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this has been one of those slightly odd debates. One thing that we have established is that it is complicated—“We are not quite sure what it should do; we think it is quite a good thing, so please do not get rid of it now.” That certainly seemed to be the attitude of the Labour Party. They may be right about that, but at the moment there is a great deal of scepticism about whether this actually delivers. The intentions are good, but that is the thing that paves the way to hell. Can we please just make sure that we get a little more clarity on this? Whether it is worth returning to on Report, I will have to have a word with my noble friend Lord Storey after he has read this debate.
I felt, listening to the first part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, that with a bit of tweaking you would get to a classic sketch about bureaucracy in some lofty TV show of my youth when people were being clever. Because it is complicated, but there is an intention behind it. The noble Baroness replied, “Yes, but we are trying to do things.” There was a lack of clarity here and focus at the heart of this. We should keep an eye on this, because if it continues to bring itself into disrepute, it may well be doing more harm than good. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, we now move to the group beginning with Amendment 41. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in the debate.
Clause 5: Institutions in England within the further education sector: local needs
Amendment 41
Lord Addington
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is to make sure that the needs of students and potential students are regularly considered and reviewed in decision-making.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I almost feel that the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield—indeed, as we discovered in a debate in this House, my noble kinsman Lord Lingfield—should be the one opening this debate, because he has the more substantive amendment. Having said that, I think that I know better than to try to put words in his mouth.
My Amendment 41 concerns a part of the Bill that says, and I think it is best if I quote it, although I am beginning to wish I had put my glasses on:
“The governing body of an institution in England within the further education sector must … from time to time review how well the education or training provided by the institution meets local needs”.
I tabled the amendment because I do not know what “from time to time” means. I have absolutely no idea what “from time to time” means. Does it mean once a decade? Every six months? I have absolutely no idea.
Lord Lingfield (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 43, 44, 45 and 46 and, in doing so, remind noble Lords of my registered interest as chairman of the Chartered Institution for Further Education, which is a growing Russell-type group of the most distinguished FE colleges in the country.
Briefly, this amendment adds a requirement for institutions to review, from time to time, how well they are meeting the special educational needs of students in their areas. I read the guidance published after I put down my amendment, and it makes a short reference to special educational needs and disabilities, as did the Minister, my noble friend Lady Berridge, in her reply at the end of Second Reading.
The role of further education colleges in developing SEND provision is central to ensuring that those who have the most significant barriers to learning improve their life chances and are given the opportunity to develop new skills, establish independence and contribute to the local economy.
The parents of special needs students find that the best further education colleges provide their sons and daughters with safe, productive and supportive environments in which they can have confidence. I have been struck by the readiness of FE student bodies to welcome special needs colleagues and to extend friendship and help to them.
The best colleges are very good also at progressing special needs and disabled learners into employment. These institutions encourage close co-operation with local employers to provide work experience opportunities for SEND learners, often by supported internships.
All these young people gradually become less reliant on local support services and acquire an ongoing sense of achievement and self-esteem. Many develop a special level of expertise in certain vocational areas and are welcome additions to the local workforces in their areas.
In the past few years, far more companies have become more sensitive to the needs of disabled employees. There is no regulation in this country that requires the employment of a quota of staff with special needs, as there is in certain European countries, but I know a number of firms that have made the gratifying effort to ask colleges to steer disabled students in their direction.
We tend to think of FE students with some kind of special needs as being in a very small minority. Last week, I received the statistics from four excellent colleges in various parts of the country. They support the figures quoted briefly on Second Reading of around 20% of students requiring special support, rising to 25% of those under 19 years old.
For far too long, further education has been, as my noble friend Lady Berridge underlined earlier this afternoon, the Cinderella of this country’s education service, underfunded and often neglected as it has been. Too much of its provision has become mediocre today. If that were not so, this Bill would not have been necessary. The Government have woken up, at last, to the fact that high-quality vocational education is absolutely essential to our country’s competitive performance in a post-Brexit world, and all this is very welcome indeed.
However, too many colleges have still to improve, and as special needs and disabled students’ numbers are visibly on the increase, the regular legal requirement for review of the needs of SEND students becomes even more needed. With such a considerable proportion of the FE student population in this category, it is clear that we owe them a special duty of care. It is my view that the face of the Bill should reflect this in the way my amendments make apparent.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the next three speakers—the noble Lords, Lord Adonis, Lord Young of Norwood Green and Lord Liddle—have all withdrawn from the debate, so I call the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham.
The Lord Bishop of Durham [V]
My Lords, I first need to declare my interest as chair of the National Society. I should also apologise that I was unable to take part in Second Reading because of other engagements; my noble friend the Bishop of Leeds spoke in my stead. I also need to apologise for a complete error on my part in not being available to speak to Amendment 11, to which my name was added, during day one of Committee; that was entirely an administrative error at my end.
However, I now enter into the debate on a very small matter, on Amendment 41, on which I simply want to endorse the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about the phrase “from time to time”. The language seems too loose. The word “regularly” implies something more frequent without expressing exactly what that regularity is. Put simply, regular review that connects with potential changing local needs makes good sense. The amendment simply tightens this up.
But I want to connect Amendment 41 to Amendment 43. My local college, Bishop Auckland College, which is an excellent example of FE provision, in reviewing the support for SEN in its own context, also found itself reviewing the wider provision for the students with SEN who were coming into the college. That led it to recognise that there was a serious gap in provision locally, which has led it further to now open a campus for a school specialising in special educational needs support for those who need the provision of a specific school with all the facilities provided. That means that the local FE has now added to the provision in the area. It also means that it has developed, or is developing now, a much longer-term vision for support for these students. It will see them through their secondary education and then into the FE itself. There are potentially all sorts of long-term advantages, I believe, for some of the students in this provision.
I think that Amendment 43 makes complete sense, as the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, has so helpfully outlined. I wish to add my support to both Amendments 41 and 43.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, my role in this group is really to add support to my noble friend Lord Addington, who knows more than I ever will about special educational needs. He and the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, are a formidable team for these amendments. Obviously, these two noble kinsmen disagree on the use of “from time to time”, but that is not as important as the fact that they call for reviews to take place on these matters.
What matters is that colleges should be fully aware of the skills, talents and opportunities, but also the limitations, of those with special educational needs. As I said previously in this debate, FE does lend itself to those with SEN because of the breadth of practical subjects that can be studied. I hope the Minister will appreciate how important it is to have those with SEN on the face of the Bill.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I am sure I am not alone in finding that there are times when I come across something that makes me look at it and look at it again and think, “Well, that’s stating the blindingly obvious.” That was my thought when I read Clause 5(1), which says:
“The governing body of an institution in England within the further education sector must—
(a) from time to time review how well the education or training provided by the institution meets local needs, and
(b) in light of that review, consider what action the institution might take (alone or in conjunction with action taken by one or more other educational institutions) in order to meet those needs better.”
Certainly, any principal or governor of an FE college reading that would have reacted with genuine astonishment, along the lines of: “Wow, that’s a great idea—why didn’t I think of that?” Actually, any principal or governor of an FE college would have reacted with astonishment, probably with language that might politely be described as “unparliamentary”.
I am not going to claim that every one of more than 200 FE colleges in England are faultless in how they go about their business or in the quality of their teaching. They employ around 120,000 full-time equivalent people and have a key role in developing career opportunities, enhancing skills, creating future leaders, transforming lives and serving businesses.
Not satisfied with having dug themselves into a hole in the form of Clause 5, the Government and the DfE then managed to dig even deeper with their attempt at an explanation for this clause in the Bill’s policy summary notes. On page 11, they ask themselves the question: “Why is legislation needed?” They answer their own question:
“Creating a statutory duty will ensure that aligning provision with local needs is a priority for the governing body of the relevant providers, alongside their other statutory duties, and strengthens accountability for this aspect of their performance.”
I have read that two or three times, and it always reads, to me, like gobbledegook.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, Clause 5 places a duty on governing bodies of institutions within the further education sector to periodically review their provision against local needs and to consider changes that might improve the way that those needs are met. Regular reviews of provision should be a key part of strategic curriculum planning within every college, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, pointed out. As well as reflecting the priorities set out in any local skills improvement plan, the reviews should cover the whole of the education and training offer and the needs of both current and future learners.
I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that this clause is not introduced with the intention of second-guessing practices that already take place within local providers or their value. But by placing a legal duty requiring reviews to be published, Clause 5 strengthens transparency and accountability around decisions on provision that are vital for local communities.
I turn first to Amendment 41, from the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I welcome the opportunity to respond to the points he made on clarifying the timing of reviews, including their frequency and regularity. In the draft statutory guidance—which we have been able to produce for this clause and which supports the new duty proposed in Clause 5—we set out the principle that reviews should be timely and undertaken at least once every three years. The term “from time to time” is often used in legislation, and can have the advantage that it can accommodate reviews that may, for very good reason, take place at different intervals and therefore could not, strictly speaking, be described as “regular”. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, himself asked whether you could have more frequent reviews or a review at a different point, perhaps in response to changing local needs or circumstances, and so “from time to time” is aimed at allowing for such circumstances.
I hope that there is a broad level of agreement across the Committee around the importance of reviews taking place on a timely basis, and that my explanation of the Government’s approach and the contents of the draft statutory guidance provide some reassurance that the proposals in Clause 5 will achieve that goal.
On Amendments 43 to 46 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lingfield, I completely agree with his remarks on the importance of provision for students with special educational needs, including those with an education, health and care plan. Provision for these students is an integral part of the education and training provided by an institution. Again, the draft statutory guidance published by the department makes clear that the review should include consideration of the needs of learners with SEND, including those with education, health and care plans, when governing bodies are considering the needs of different groups of learners locally. The existing statutory obligations on colleges relating to SEND, including the public sector equality duty, are a key reference point for the governing body when carrying out the review.
Colleges and other FE sector institutions already do fantastic work for students with SEND, and that provision is an integral part of the education and training that colleges offer. For that reason, we consider it essential that it is considered as part of any review of their wider provision, rather than through a separate or parallel exercise. To re-emphasise, in reviewing the college’s education and training provision under Clause 5, the governing body must do this in a way that is consistent with its existing statutory obligations in relation to SEND, and that is underlined in the draft statutory guidance supporting the review.
I hope that I have provided some clarity to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on the use of the term “from time to time”, and he will feel able to withdraw his amendment, and sufficient reassurance to my noble friend Lord Lingfield that he will not move his amendments when they are reached.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
I have received one request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield.
Lord Lingfield (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her reply. I understand the Government’s views. I particularly thank my noble friend and kinsman Lord Addington for his support. He is one of the House’s experts in the area of special needs and always worth listening to. However, it is a sad fact that not all further education colleges and suppliers of further education are up to the level of the very best ones, and a regular review, clearly required by the Act instead of being hidden in guidance and regulation, would be an important incentive to those that are mediocre to improve their offering to these vulnerable young people. I hope that my noble friend might think again, and I hope to return to this at the next stage of the Bill, but I shall not press my amendments.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I think we are in agreement on the importance of special educational needs being included in the reviews undertaken by providers. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked what the point of the provision of this clause is. The regular production and publication of these reviews might enable noble Lords and others to hold colleges more easily to account on how they have taken on that guidance, which is clear that the special educational needs of students have to be taken into account, and how they have taken that on in the conduct of their own reviews. I am sure that many colleges do an excellent job in that respect, but the additional transparency of having these reviews produced and published on a regular basis will aid in that job.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, I have now received a second request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green. No? I call the noble Lord, Lord Addington, to conclude this debate.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. My probing amendment got the reply, “Yes, we actually know what it means: it’s in the guidance”. If it had been put on the face of the Bill, I would not have asked. So, there we are.
As I have said, the more substantive amendment was from the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield. We should have a look at this. As we started speaking, we both went to different groups in that very big group that has special educational needs. As the Minister will accept, that means you have two different sets of needs, or different groups that have a variety of needs that interlock and overlap. It is a very difficult thing you are expecting an institution to do to meet all of those needs. It is not easy. If it was, we would not be banging on about it. It is difficult. The Minister said that they have to have a plan. I shudder every time I hear that, because most disabled youngsters do not have a plan. Most do not have parents who can fight to get one for them, or they have very severe needs, which are dealt with.
People who have a moderate difficulty and who may well, with a little bit of help, find a place in training, are the group we are worrying about here. Certainly, I am, and I think my noble kinsman is talking about the same thing as well. We need to have more clarity on this. It is a way in to giving a better description of what is supposed to be done, so that everybody knows. The Minister should listen to her noble friend; some colleges are not as good as the best. Aspiring to get there is what they should be doing. I agree that we should look at this again on Report, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
We now move to the group beginning with Amendment 47. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in the group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Clause 6: Functions of the Institute: oversight etc
Amendment 47
Member’s explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment to test what level or type of education or training will fall within the Institute’s remit.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I think it fair to say that more than a little concern has been expressed about the role of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education in relation to qualifications. We seek to address that through the amendments in this group.
Turning first to Amendment 47, at present, education and training is currently within the institute’s remit if the training is or may be provided
“in the course of an approved English apprenticeship … for the purposes of an approved technical education qualification, or … for the purposes of approved steps towards occupational competence.”
The Bill proposes to add a fourth category to this list to enable a person to
“enter work within a published occupation (whether in the course of training of otherwise).”
However, it is not clear what level or type of education or training it is intended to capture. Can the Minister confirm that, essentially, this decision will be left in the hands of IfATE in publishing a list?
Amendments 48 and 49 require IfATE
“to report to the Secretary of State”
and for that report to be laid before Parliament. This is important for both ministerial and parliamentary oversight and scrutiny. The arguments are rehearsed regularly on Bills in Committee and I do not propose to rehearse them here, but accountability is really what is at issue here.
Amendment 55 is a probing amendment regarding IfATE’s new powers to implement fees and charges for the cost of technical qualification approval. The Bill’s impact assessment says that by giving
“the Institute powers that could allow it to charge for approval and to manage proliferation, we will ensure that the future qualification landscape is clear and straightforward for users to understand … This will avoid a return to the proliferation identified in previous assessments of the technical qualifications market.”
The Government’s impact assessment also admits that this will add significant extra cost to the awarding and FE sector. It states: “we would expect” awarding organisations
“to face more of these costs upfront, as initially”
awarding organisations
“will have to resubmit the majority of non-defunded qualifications.”
Can the Minister provide more detail about exactly how the charging regime is expected to work? What consideration has been given to the adverse impact it may have, particularly on niche providers of qualifications that may, in future, withdraw from occupational markets because the business case for investment is simply too prohibitive.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 47A requires that:
“In performing its functions in relation to technical education qualifications, the Institute must have regard to apprenticeships policy, including any future reform of the apprenticeships levy, in order to promote growth in apprenticeships opportunities.”
I believe that for many years, as a country and an economy, we have overextended educational qualifications and we have certainly underaddressed colleges. I hope that this Bill will be the catalyst that puts those things right. I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, had to say today. I view it as disappointing and shameful that the number of young people taking apprenticeships is now down to 160,000 in a year, and the Government have a tax revenue from the apprenticeship levy of £2.1 billion per annum.
Alignment on apprenticeship policy is needed urgently. This will be the third Bill extending the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s remit—the first created it in 2016 and the second extended it to T-levels in 2017—but there is still a complex four-way relationship between DfE, covering oversight, funding, intervention and the provider side; Ofqual and qualification regulation; Ofsted, the inspector of the provider side; and the IfATE and the development of programmes and their regulation. The Government should set out their approach to the apprenticeship levy alongside this wider skills agenda.
If the apprenticeship programme is to function successfully, it needs to remodel itself, with the offer of secure ongoing employment to apprentices upon successful completion of their programme, training and studies. This would be along the lines of the support and training offered when selecting officer recruits into the services. They are appointed in advance of taking up university courses and are supported through their degrees on the basis that, post qualifying, they devote a minimum number of years’ work to those who have sponsored them. Effectively, for an apprentice, this system could mean guaranteed support through study, with guaranteed work at the end. Similarly, the employers get exactly what they want in terms of skills and, equally importantly, a real return on their investment.
I hear employers are becoming increasingly dissatisfied at paying the apprenticeship levy without any guarantee of securing suitable training staff. This is particularly so in the context of niche, high-end skills, since apprenticeship programmes are designed to suit the masses. What works in terms of the necessary skills base for an employee at Wimpey Homes will not work for a high-end and very exclusive building company that requires not just a standard brickie but a true craftsman. Approaching apprenticeships in the way outlined above, in a bullet point, would go some way to addressing this concern. SMEs in particular have an understandably jaundiced view of apprenticeships, where they have often been left to pick up apprenticeship unpaid training plans.
Community adult education is a key part of the post-16 education landscape, supporting many adult learners to progress towards qualifications or into work and bringing many social and economic benefits. This is not prominent in the Bill as drafted or the White Paper which preceded it. There is a risk that some of the key objectives of the Bill, such as supporting adults to obtain level 3 qualifications, may not be fully recognised unless community adult learning is supported as well. It provides the stepping-stone for many adult learners returning to education and training.
There is a profound need to put right the balance between universities and colleges and to revive successfully the principle of apprenticeship. I hope that this Bill will be a major force towards achieving these things.
Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]
My Lords, in speaking to Amendments 51 and 53 in my name, my job has been made a great deal easier by the very comprehensive and thorough introduction by my noble friend Lord Watson. I echo all that he had to say, including my support for Amendment 54 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, who will follow my contribution.
Before speaking to Amendments 51 and 53, I just say that I welcome today the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s step back regarding clawing back resources from colleges. I hope it will do so again with those residential colleges which are so crucial to what the noble Lord, Lord Flight, has just spoken about in terms of adult education and the ladder of opportunity. Reducing or clawing back their funding would be a very major mistake. I hope the Minister might be prepared to write to me about that.
I want to deal with the issue of defunding on the one hand and overlap, or duplication, on the other. It arises, of course, from what has become a rather sterile debate about whether A-levels and T-levels are the qualification of choice at level 3—by the way, “qualification of choice” is the term constantly used by the department both in written material and in responses. I just pose this question to the Minister: choice for whom? If there is not a choice, you do not have one. If, as was originally mooted following the report by Lord Sainsbury, we were going to have two tramlines running alongside each other and no opportunity for anyone else, whether walking or riding, to carry forward along the same road to qualification and success, we would have been in really deep trouble. As an ambassador for further education, I am pleased that there has been some movement, including on the back of the consultation and the Government’s report yesterday. There is great ambiguity, however, and it would be very useful—if we are going to avoid having to move and carry amendments on Report—if the Minister would be prepared to go back to the Department for Education to get a much clearer understanding, and therefore clarification, on what we are talking about.
At Second Reading—I will not tediously repeat what I said—I illustrated my own experience of being able to take a vocational qualification which also had elements that allowed me to take A-levels in the evening. I saw no problem—in fact, I saw a massive advantage— in having a vocational qualification and academic qualifications at the same time, and it stood me in very good stead. It is true that industry or occupational standards are absolutely crucial, but too narrow an occupational standard, which defines what is to be funded and therefore seen as a success in a way that applies solely to a very current application in industry or commerce, would be a very grave mistake. Therefore, my appeal is that, if we do not want to have to move amendments on Report, we must get these matters clarified, both the issue of overlap or duplication and the issues around defunding, which have been addressed so ably by my noble friend already.
We must also listen not only to those who already have the Government’s ear but to those who often do not, out there in the sticks. For instance, it has been put to me—and I would be very interested in having this refuted—that in the development of T-level engineering, we do not so far have a perspective on electrical engineering. This is a remarkable situation, given that the whole move in engineering is towards that area, not least because of climate change and all its knock-on effects. I would be very happy to be contradicted, but I have had it from very good sources that we are nowhere near down that line that I referred to earlier—the very narrow line—in providing that option.
Lord Willetts (Con) [V]
I will speak to Amendment 54 in my name. I reflect some of the concerns that have already been expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Blunkett. It goes back to the very significant powers being provided to IfATE in the Bill, especially the simple and stark statement:
“The Institute may withdraw approval of a technical education qualification.”
I understand the need for that power. I would not justify every technical qualification currently in existence, but it is a significant power and I think we all want to know how it will be exercised and under what constraints. My anxiety is that power may be exercised in a way that does not serve the long-term interests of the economy or individual learners. For example, the Government have invested a lot in T-levels. I very much hope that T-levels will succeed. However, it would be tempting, if T-levels were not quite achieving lift off at the speed that was hoped. to close down the alternatives in order to drive people, not through personal choice, into T-levels. That would be very regrettable.
We also know that the Government believe in trying to divide young people into the sheep and the goats—the two routes. They are either going for a qualification that leads directly to skilled employment or one that leads to further study. Sadly, life is not that tidy, nor is the modern economy. There are enormous overlaps between the paths and there are qualifications that straddle that divide of which the BTEC—already referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—is a conspicuous example. It would be a great pity if BTECs lost out simply because they have an employment value as well as being accepted by universities.
I say to Ministers that expecting young people to give up on the option of university if they go for T-levels seems to me the wrong way of trying to promote them. In reality, young people do not want to close off their options. Of course they have a subsequent decision to take, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Flight, that they must have vocational options in apprenticeships, but expecting them to take a course that explicitly makes that impossible for them will not improve and encourage the take-up of T-levels.
Finally, we have to think of employers. Those of us who are veterans of these education and skills debates know how frustrated employers are by frequent changes in qualifications and frequent changes in the systems. Some qualifications, such as BTECs, have gradually achieved acceptance over decades. Employers are familiar with them and it would be very dangerous for IfATE simply to defund them when employers have become familiar with them and trust them.
All my amendment really does is ask the Minister to set out a process of consultation to be followed. The Minister has on several occasions during this Committee stage—and I commend her on what she has been saying—made it very clear how keen she is on a role for employer representative bodies. Would it not be a natural, logical result of the Government’s own approach that employer representative bodies should be consulted before IfATE exercises the powers that are being given to it?
I hope that as well as the designated employer representative bodies, the public consultation might also involve others, such as LEPs. I am not totally clear why LEPs appear to have fallen out of favour; they have a good understanding of the local economy and would be an obvious group to consult. There are also colleges—it is noticeable how the Association of Colleges has expressed some of its concerns about these powers—and students, whose choices we must trust. I very much hope that the Minister will accept that these powers need to be used in a way that reflects the needs of employers and the choices and preferences of individuals and that therefore the framework for consultation is entirely consistent with the underlying philosophy which she has been expounding.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con) [V]
My Lords, I shall speak to the amendment that my noble friend Lord Willetts has just spoken to and the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, concerning T-levels. This gives us an opportunity to discuss T-levels, probably for the first time.
The Bill gives the Institute for Apprenticeships far too great a power in that it can decide, without any constraints, to abolish a qualification. In the past, this has lain with Ministers. Some Ministers have used it in a very absolute way and done it without consultation, while some have consulted. The power to cancel qualifications was probably seen best in Michael Gove when he abolished all technical qualifications in 2012, which determined the curriculum of all schools thereafter. It determined the basis of EBacc and Progress 8. The cancellation of qualifications is a very important political, as well as an educational, issue.
The Government are now promoting T-levels as the technical qualification at 18. I do not think they will ever abolish A-levels because no T-level that has been announced so far has been required to guarantee A-level maths as the level of maths at that level. There will be many engineering and manufacturing companies that will still require someone who is 18 to have passed A-level maths.
The practice under which T-levels has been established is that each subject has to be 20% practical and 80% academic. That is quite a small element for a technical qualification. At university technical colleges, students from 14 to 16 do 40% practical and 60% academic. When they become 16, they do 60% practical and 40% academic because by that time they will have mastered a series of tools and machinery—drilling machinery, turning machinery, lasers and all the very complicated equipment of engineering companies. They will have also learned to make things with their hands doing projects. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, asked whether the engineering T-level will give students that degree of experience at 18. It seems highly unlikely that it will not.
There is a digital T-level. We are trying to make it work in UTCs, and we are still experimenting with it. Once again, the general feeling is that it is very academically based with far too much concentration on coding and not digital skills, which are much wider than coding and relate to things such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and robotics. T-levels will succeed only if they are accepted by two groups: universities at one end and industry at the other.
For decades, industry has been accustomed to BTECs. Engineering and manufacturing companies up and down the country know exactly what they will get for a BTEC qualification or a BTEC extended diploma. In fact, the extended diploma is so important that it is one of the two subjects that industry requires to be provided to appoint an advanced or higher apprenticeship. Two qualifications are needed: A-level in maths, physics or chemistry and a BTEC extended diploma. This means that employers know that the students whom they employ will have had wide experience of using tools and machinery, making and designing things and problem solving. I have no idea whether that can be provided by the T-level engineering, but, if it is only 20% technical, I would have thought that the chances are slender.
My other point is that, technical qualifications have to be very wide, not narrow; they are not as narrow as academic qualifications. Over the years, industry has recognised their quality. The bedding in of T-levels will take some time. Not only universities but also businesses will have to see whether they are in fact providing the degree of technical expertise that they require. That will take some years to establish. Therefore, I hope that we have less talk of abolishing BTECs early on in order to give preference to T-levels before people really know what constitutes a successful T-level and what does not.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Young, have both withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking, who has done so much to keep the candle burning for technical and vocational education through many difficult times. This group on the role of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is one of the most important and it has widened out in discussion.
In considering these amendments, I would like to understand more about the leadership of the institute and its level of independence from the department. I would like to know the extent of business representation, which has barely had a mention in that context, and understand any plans to change its governance or composition as the Government’s very welcome new emphasis on skills and post-16 education takes shape. How does it compare to the set-up in Germany, Switzerland or Austria? My concern is that it is much less employer-based and flexible than the arrangements that I have encountered there, but I would of course be happy to be proved wrong.
Is small business, the backbone of British innovation, properly involved? I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on the importance of encouraging small business apprenticeships. Will there be a culture of simplicity and speed, or is this a very bureaucratic organisation, as, I am afraid, the impact assessment suggests? It would be helpful to have an answer on some or all of these points today or, if it is easier, in writing.
With his Amendment 55, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, is I believe right to explore the issue of charging for approval of qualifications, pointing out that the deterrent effect on providers might be a problem. That might lose us useful innovation and competition in the provision of qualifications. Should this not in fact be a public service, rather than a charged-for service, as I suspect it is in universities?
I also support the simple Amendments 51 and 53 of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, which probe plans to cancel some qualifications to avoid duplication. It is always a great pleasure to hear from him and to be reminded that he is a brilliant product of vocational education. Against a background of declining achievements in technical education, is the proposed moratorium wise? Could we hear which employers are likely to be affected? We have heard quite a bit about individual qualifications, but what kind of employers are likely to be affected? For example, I recall that at Tesco we were able to frame qualifications in a way that suited our work patterns and needs, and we helped many thousands of apprentices to get on and indeed rise up within the retail sector. Is that kind of arrangement now at risk? One of the reasons why I loved working there with my public sector background was that it was a great provider of opportunity for some of the most disadvantaged in the land.
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, I very much share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friends Lord Willetts and Lord Baker in particular.
The last legislation that we had in this area was the Technical and Further Education Act. There was a belief then in the perfection of the new—almost a post-modern belief that destruction was the necessary precursor to success. The Government had just destroyed the sector skills councils and they have not yet managed to recreate the complex relations and understandings that led to their successes. In the run-up to the technical education Bill, the Bill team said they thought that this would probably result in the destruction of City and Guilds, as if that institution and all its reputation and quality had no value for the future in the face of their newly-created ideas. Now we seem to be destroying the local enterprise partnerships, which in many areas have established a pattern of understanding and reputation that has enabled projects to be undertaken that would have been very hard otherwise.
I do not share this disdain for the old; I think that it is best to work with it where we can. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, pointed out, the reputation that qualifications have built up with employers is a thing of great value. It means that employers know what they are getting but it also means that, when a young person gets that qualification, it is something with strong currency. People know exactly what to expect. It has a high reputation and is a highly tradeable asset.
This is not yet true of T-levels. As noble Lords may know, I have run the Good Schools Guide for many years. I cannot yet imagine advising a parent to let their child do a T-level. It still seems a misconception that you should have to spend the whole of your sixth form years doing this one qualification to the exclusion of everything else. If one is aiming for parity of esteem then it ought to be through the route of being able to mix academic and other qualifications. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said, that would allow the technical qualifications to be heavily technical to carry the sorts of skills an employer is looking for, rather than being overly general and not directed towards making someone instantly employable when they come out of school.
Doubtless we are all going to put a lot of effort into making things succeed. We are where we are; we have to make the best of where we have got to. But to give powers to IfATE and others to continue on a path of destruction without consultation and care, and in particular to give them the direction of this Bill without the permission of employers seems wrongheaded. I very much hope that, between those who have proposed amendments to this Bill, we will get something on Report that will help change the Bill’s direction.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Addington.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this is one of those occasions where I thought I knew what I was going to say before the debate started, but I have changed my mind—or, at least, my words—considerably having listened. When the Minister replies to this, I feel that the audience behind her might be the most worrying. I suggest that when the noble Lords, Lord Willetts and Lord Baker, are saying “beware of this”, any sensible Minister would listen. I know the noble Baroness falls into that category.
The Minister has to pay attention to what has been said. Everybody here said, “We are not sure what you are doing yet”. T-levels may sound neat, but we do not quite know what they are. Are they doing something else? Are they a replacement? I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, who asked if they are replacing BTECs, which are an established way forward and allow flexibility, university entrance and other qualifications. That is the sort of thing we want, especially as we are giving more power to level 4 and 5 qualifications, which is overly due. Can we have some assurance that there is no government thinking that T-levels will be used to replace all this? They will simply not lead to these places; they cannot.
Other institutions with qualifications which are understood and known, such as City & Guilds—if I do not mention City & Guilds, I fear that my noble friend might well have a few words with me afterwards—will be saying, “Everybody knows what these are.” If you are going to bring in T-levels, do it slowly and make sure that you are adapting them to take over these functions. A one-off exam at this age cannot do what these do because they do wonderful and flexible things. A few employers cannot find their way around them, but others can. You could simplify them a little and not sweep them away to do something else.
I will not follow the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, into his very intellectual comments about the destruction of post-modernism because we have quite enough on our plates without thinking about the centre of Glasgow and its planning issues. But I hope that when the Minister answers she will say that we are not getting rid of all of these good and established things straightaway, just because we have a lovely new toy that sounded good when we first put it forward. T-levels, I am afraid, will have to earn their stripes. They may become something that replaces or works into the rest of it, but further education deals with a diverse range of subjects and paths. It will never be that straightforward. I look forward to the Minister’s response and do not envy her task.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, these amendments relate to the measures that support the implementation of the Government’s reforms to align the majority of technical qualifications to employer-led standards by 2030. To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, we are aiming here for all qualifications for learners to be of high quality and connected to those employer-led standards.
I was disappointed that the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, was not down to speak in this debate, because we had a very interesting discussion today where, as the noble Lord, Lord Flight, outlined, the key to what we are trying to do is to clarify the roles of a number of the institutions involved—IfATE, the OfS, which is relevant to the next amendment, Ofqual, the department and Ofsted.
We believe that the technical qualifications should cover the knowledge, skills and behaviours that are essential to an occupation. But the heart of the matter here, and one cause of the problems, is that although Ofqual accredits general qualifications such as A-levels and GCSEs, which are developed by awarding organisations, usually of the exam boards, in line with content set by government, the content of the majority of publicly funded technical qualifications is not specified or scrutinised centrally before the qualifications can be taught. That really is the nub of the problem here: Ofqual is not performing that function.
For parity of esteem, these reforms will bring the treatment of technical qualifications more in line with general qualifications. We have already done that process with T-levels, which were developed along with 250 employers to ensure that they met that standard. The content and employer-led standard then delivered, which could be by an FE college, is inspected and overseen by Ofsted. This process will raise the quality bar and deal with the issue of why we have, at level 3 and below, more than 12,000 qualifications, of which only about 800 are GCSE and A-level. As the Sainsbury review identified, we have had a proliferation of qualifications at that level, and many of them are currently created by the awarding organisations.
On the question of no one overseeing the content and it not being connected to an employer standard, we would not tolerate that in relation to GCSEs and A-levels, and someone needs to do that function. I have outlined the process for academic qualifications; the question then is who does that function. The institute currently manages the system of employer-led standards, and we believe it has the expertise to ensure that qualifications genuinely meet the skills of the economy, and the needs of learners and employers, and that it is right for the institute to lead this reform.
I explained some of these issues to noble Lords in the letter on 1 July. It is quite helpful that at the moment the position of chief regulator is being sorted out. Dr Jo Saxton, the Government’s preferred candidate, appeared last week in front of the Education Select Committee for the approval hearing, and was approved for the role. She was specifically asked about Ofqual and IfATE. She outlined that Ofqual will continue to play a key role with regulatory oversight of the standards of technical qualifications in live delivery, as it does currently. Ofqual and the institute are both needed as they contribute different and complementary sets of function and expertise. The two bodies will work together to assure, on Ofqual’s side, the consistency and reliability of assessment and awarding, as it does over the exam boards, and on the institute’s side the relevance to employers of the content of technical qualifications. When asked by the chair, she said:
“At its simplest, the curriculum side of it sits with IfATE. Once the curriculum has been agreed and approved to go forward, Ofqual’s job will be to make sure that any endpoint assessments and examinations continue to assess the curriculum that has been determined by IfATE and the employers and that receivers of the endpoint assessments and qualifications know that the awards they end up with accurately reflect what they know and can do. The relationship should work well. At its heart, it is essentially a separation between curriculum and regulation”.
I find that really helpful. That was the core purpose—she outlines why Ofqual was set up to be the regulator while the content of the curriculum was set out by the department.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for doing what she always does and giving comprehensive replies to almost all the points raised by noble Lords—not to anyone’s great satisfaction, I suspect, but, none the less, I think she has understood the points we have made without, perhaps, giving them as much credence as we would have liked.
This has been a really good debate, informed by contributions from many noble Lords who have considerable experience in the areas covered by these amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, the Minister should be wary of not taking cognisance of the wise counsel of those on her own Benches who caution against the path that the Government seem intent on following on the powers to be given to IfATE and those being taken by the Secretary of State himself. The concerns of widely respected former Education Ministers, as well as established organisations in this sector, such as the Federation of Awarding Bodies and the Joint Council for Qualifications, should not be cast aside either.
I fear that the Minister’s description of the relationship between IfATE and Ofqual—between, as I think she said, curriculum and regulation—does not convince within the sector, notwithstanding the comments from Ofqual that she read out, because the Government insist that the Bill merely formalises the existing relationship between IfATE and Ofqual, but I and other noble Lords contest that. Ofqual currently has sole regulatory and approval responsibility for all vocational and technical qualifications apart from T-levels and apprenticeships, but the Bill proposes to broaden IfATE’s remit to encompass the approval of other—as yet unspecified—vocational technical qualifications that may or may not continue to be regulated by Ofqual. As I and other noble Lords have said, Ofqual is an independent regulator, and IfATE much less so, as a non-departmental public body.
To return to where I started, this has been the most lively debate we have had today on any group of amendments. I look forward—and not just because I genuinely enjoy the contributions of all noble Lords who have spoken today—to returning to many of these issues on Report. But, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
My Lords, we now come to the group consisting of Amendment 59. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear in the debate. The Committee should know that the noble Lords, Lord Adonis, Lord Young and Lord Liddle, have all withdrawn.
Amendment 59
“External Quality Assurance
(1) Within six months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for Ofqual to provide external quality assurance of all apprenticeship end-point assessments.(2) Regulations under this section must prohibit the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education from providing such external quality assurances.(3) Regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument containing them has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment places the external quality assurance (EQA) role that Ofqual exercises on a statutory footing.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I am moving this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson and, with the scratchers from this group, it looks as if it is just Front-Bench contributions.
If it is worth saying something twice, that is what I am going to do. The Bill currently gives the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, a non-departmental public body directly accountable to Ministers, the ultimate sign-off power for the approval and regulation of technical qualifications in future. So, despite the Minister’s extremely detailed and comprehensive reply to the previous group of amendments, I am going to press her further, because this amendment would ensure that, within six months of the passing of the Act, the Secretary of State must, by regulation, make provision for Ofqual to provide external quality assurance of all apprenticeship end-point assessments. Regulations under this section must prohibit the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education from providing such external quality assurances. Regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument containing them has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, each House of Parliament. This amendment places on a statutory footing the external quality assurance role that Ofqual exercises.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, this amendment, so ably moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, raises an issue that engaged us at Second Reading—namely, the relationship between Ofqual and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education—and was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on a previous group. The matter of regulation is causing concern in the awarding sector, because it is not clear who has authority for end-point assessment for apprenticeships, and it is surely not desirable for there to be any confusion over which of these two bodies has most power, nor where the expertise lies.
The Minister tempted me to come in on the previous group and I nearly came in after her—but I knew I had the opportunity to speak on this group, so I thought I might as well save my thunder.
My noble friend Lord Addington referred to my connections with City & Guilds. I remember that it was the employers who set the curriculum, because they have always been involved with vocational workplace qualifications. Of course, there was heavy regulation of everything we did but, over many years, both BTEC and City & Guilds have developed a reputation for standards and quality. They are understood and trusted by employers, and BTEC has the added cachet that it is accepted by universities, in many cases, because of the academic rigour of its awards. Part of the work I did for many years at City & Guilds was talking to universities to see where they could accept City & Guilds vocational qualifications for their degree programmes. There were certainly some, in engineering and areas such as that, who were prepared to accept that people who had the right level of City & Guilds qualification had met the criteria for entry to a university programme. They are doing different things, by and large, so not many people went down that route, but it was possible. So this constant mention that employers are in control, as though it was something new, always concerns me, as it has been going on for over 100 years.
The noble Baroness also made a brief mention of copyright. I remember going through the Technical and Further Education Bill, which was cut short by the election, and having stunningly good amendments that were all of course dropped in the wash-up. The suggestion then was that the copyright of any of the awarding bodies would immediately be taken over by the Government. I objected strongly and said “You can’t do this. You can’t just assume the copyright of an organisation”. I got a phone call from the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, who asked me why I was objecting to his wonderful Bill. I said that it seemed to me outrageous that the Government could just take over the copyright of other organisations. He said, “Oh, I didn’t mean for that to happen at all”. I said, “Would you mind very much ringing up the department and telling them that?” I do not think he ever did, because nothing happened on it. But the issue of copyright is vital, because many awarding organisations earn income from the copyright of their qualifications.
Anyway, the noble Baroness very kindly sent us a chart of Ofqual and the institute, showing where they all were, and the complexity of it is absolutely mind-boggling—I am sure that a brighter soul than me would reckon that it is all very straightforward. The institute has responsibility for the curriculum, but Ofqual has end-point assessment. Ofqual provides advice to the institute with regard to the validity of technical education qualifications submitted for approval and the reliability of assessment, but the institute will be responsible for reviewing technical education qualifications to determine whether they continue to meet the criteria. This seems to be an incredibly complicated way of running these qualifications. However, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, that it is obviously more appropriate that responsibility lies with Ofqual, which is an independent regulator, whereas IfATE is of course less independent, as a non-departmental public body.
We have no information about how IfATE’s approval fees would be regulated, how often the fees would be charged and how accurate the estimation costs are. Would the fees be per qualification, per sector, annually or for the lifetime of the qualification? That is not clear. There is a lot of obscurity around the setting up of these qualifications.
I find it very strange that, as has been mentioned, Ofqual has regulatory and approval responsibility for all vocational and technical qualifications apart from T-levels. I thought that T-levels were supposed to be the be-all and end-all of vocational qualifications, so why have they been split off into another body? I am afraid that I am a simple soul and I find this very complicated, so perhaps the Minister could enlighten us and clarify it all for us.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, the external quality assurance of apprenticeships’ end-point assessment is a vital tool in ensuring that all apprentices receive a robust, high-quality assessment. In this amendment, we are now dealing with what is an Ofqual function. Ofqual does not set any curriculum for A-levels or GCSEs and neither would it, in our view, be the appropriate body to set any content for any level 3 or level 2 technical qualifications. It oversees the assessment process, seeing whether grading is fair and examinations are being run properly.
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education introduced an external quality assurance framework in 2019 in order to bring consistency to the sector. Following this, the institute put the matter of external quality assurance out to public consultation between February and May last year. This resulted in the institute taking the decision that the EQA for most apprenticeship end-point assessments would transfer to Ofqual to bring further consistency and quality to the assessment of apprenticeships. This is Ofqual’s bread and butter: overseeing examinations.
There are a small number of exceptional standards—chartered surveyors, for instance—where an existing statutory regulator oversees entry to a profession. The best way to quality assure these standards is currently being worked through with those regulators. I would like to make it clear that the Office for Students must continue to provide EQA for integrated degree apprenticeships—because Ofqual does not have statutory jurisdiction over degrees and therefore cannot provide EQA for apprenticeships at that level.
I will specifically address the noble Lord’s suggestion that regulations under this proposed amendment must prohibit the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education from providing EQA. While the institute is stepping back from direct delivery of EQA, it is an employer-led organisation, working to develop apprenticeships that meet the needs of employers. It is right that it should continue to have responsibility for securing the quality assurance of apprenticeship assessment in order to retain an independent, impartial voice in the sector and to maintain clear focus on supporting employers to develop the right apprenticeship skills for the labour market.
Regarding the suggested six-month timing for the transfer proposed in the amendment, the pace of the EQA transition currently taking place from the institute and other EQA providers to Ofqual has been carefully planned to ensure the development of a balanced end-point assessment offer to continue to develop a high-quality apprenticeships system. The first phase of the transition is well under way and is focused on transferring the majority of standards that currently have the institute as the named EQA provider. This phase will conclude at the end of the year. The second phase is to transition to Ofqual the remaining standards that are externally quality assured by other EQA providers, excluding the standards that will be regulated by OfS and statutory regulators, as aforementioned. This will conclude at the end of September 2022.
The sector is made up of a great number of end-point assessment organisations of different sizes and natures, some covering single standards, some covering around 50 standards. To attempt to transition all these organisations and standards over to Ofqual in a six-month period would cause severe disruption in the sector and would negatively affect the apprentices’ experience. The proposed amendment would also place a great burden on universities, as under this amendment they would be required to be regulated by the OfS and Ofqual, rather than just by the OfS, as is currently the case. I hope I have set out that, as the successful transition of EQA is already under way, it would have a detrimental effect if we were to remove the institute from the process entirely.
In relation to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, on fees, any future approach that is developed will be proportionate and take account of the operational costs of institute approval in the reformed landscape. This may differ across qualification categories and levels.
On this basis, and with the explanations and reassurances I have given, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel comfortable to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
I thank the Minister for the further explanation. I will analyse it in greater detail when I read it in Hansard tomorrow. The point from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, about regulation being a matter of concern is absolutely correct. Indeed, employers have always been involved in qualifications. I am afraid that I am unsure of the background of many of my fellow Peers, but I can assure noble Lords of the quality standards of BTEC qualifications because I taught them for many years, alongside A-level qualifications, which are another quality qualification—I actually wrote A-level examination papers, as I was a principal examiner for the AQA examination board.
Nevertheless, the principle remains that we need responsibility and accountability. That is what Ofqual would give. I am sure we will return to this issue on Report, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 62. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear in debate. Before I call the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I inform the House that, again, the noble Lords, Lord Adonis, Lord Young and Lord Liddle, have all withdrawn.
Amendment 62
Lord Addington
“(2A) Regulations under subsection (1) must include provision to require ITT(FE) courses to include special educational needs awareness training relevant to the students of ITT(FE) courses within an institution.”
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, the intention of this amendment is straightforward. It is to probe and clarify. When you are training teachers in this field, can they be sure of the 20% to 25% of their students who have been identified as having special educational needs? When you get to further education, the proportion of those with special educational needs often rises. Those who have passed all their exams are not doing level 1 and level 2 qualifications, so in that situation you have a higher density.
Anybody who ever doubts this just needs to look at the number of people who we know have a neurological condition that is passed on. The figures make it clear. You are going to have a higher number of people. If we look at the number of people who have been identified as having these needs in the school system, many more will be unidentified. The maths just tells you that from the genetic stock and the numbers we have got.
What I am trying to get out of this is whether people will be trained to identify and train those people in front of them correctly. People will have different learning pathways. If someone cannot take notes from a blackboard very easily, can we do something else? Does the teacher know how to spot these people? Remember these are not the people who have been identified and have the plan; it is those who are on the edges.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, once again, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Addington on special educational needs. I am sorry that we seem to have seen off all the Back-Benchers. It gets a bit lonely when you have only the Front-Benchers in these debates, but I hope that some of them will come back for the next group, because we value the contributions from those who are not on the Front Bench.
We on these Benches have long campaigned to ensure that initial teacher training encompasses awareness of special educational needs, and it is important that those training for further education should be fully aware. As my noble friend said, in some respects, it is more important for FE, because those with special educational needs may well be drawn to the provision within FE, which tends to be more practical and less academic. So the amendment is a no-brainer.
We should ensure that all FE students, whatever their educational needs, have every opportunity to learn skills appropriate to their abilities. Some special educational needs are quite difficult to identify, so teachers need to be trained to spot them.
My noble friend is particularly expert in dyslexia, and I remember, years and years ago, when I was at school, a girl at school was always labelled as thick. She went on to be a very successful businesswoman, having been diagnosed late in life with dyslexia, but her school days were pretty miserable, because she could not do the things that everybody else could and the teachers thought she was just not trying. We had a pretty untrained set of teachers, obviously.
This is a very important amendment, and I hope that the Minister will see that it deserves serious consideration.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to signify our support for Amendment 62 and commend the passion with which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, spoke, as he unfailingly does on matters relating to those with special educational needs.
The Government must surely accept this amendment because page 30 in the Bill’s policy summary notes, under the heading, “What is the Government doing to support the teaching of SEND in FE?”, states:
“The government is also funding an in-service training grants programme to support those training in-service to teach maths, English and SEND. In Academic Year 20/21, 24% of bursaries and 73% of grants were awarded were for teaching SEND.”
Therefore, to add the requirement that SEND awareness training is included is an entirely logical follow-on to that. However, I await with interest the ingenious, perhaps even tortuous, argument that the Minister’s officials have crafted for her to tell us that it is not really necessary. That really would be unfortunate. I say, in a relatively gentle way, that the Government need to understand that accepting that something they have drafted could possibly be improved or even complemented is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength.
My main concern regarding Clause 16 is its intention. It seems to fit the pattern of the excessively hands-on and controlling position that the Government are adopting in many aspects of education. It is already happening with regard to initial training for schoolteachers. The policy summary notes address this question, again on page 30, under the heading, “How do these proposed changes align with the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) market review for school teachers?” It answers its own question:
“The government is not seeking to replicate the reforms taking place in the schools ITT system ... However, officials within the Department for Education are working together to ensure a coherent relationship between our reforms in the two sectors”—
hence my fears and those of many others in the teaching profession at school and college level.
The Government may protest that there is no connection between the two but, as politicians, we naturally do not believe in coincidence. Perhaps the Minister can explain just what is meant by
“a coherent relationship between our reforms in the two sectors”
because there is uproar in the teaching profession and among those who provide teacher education at the Government’s highly controversial and potentially damaging proposals for the review of initial schoolteacher training which are currently out for consultation.
On the FE ITT system, the policy summary notes say:
“The government believes that the FE ITT system could be much better than it is”.
Can the Minister enlighten noble Lords about the evidence for that? There is no clamour in the sector for such a change. I have to say that, again, that Clause 16 smacks of an increasingly voracious government appetite for centralisation and control, with Great Smith Street the control centre. If the Minister believes she can gainsay that impression, I am sure I would not be alone among noble Lords in being very interested to hear it.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for this amendment. It highlights the importance of equipping teachers to identify and support learners with special educational needs. Further education teachers must be trained to identify and support the needs of all learners, enabling them to overcome barriers to their learning and allowing them to meet their full potential.
I concur with the noble Lord’s intention and I understand that he intends it as a probing amendment. He may be unsurprised to hear that I do not believe it is necessary to specify such a requirement in the Bill. Other mechanisms for achieving the same aim are more appropriate, and steps are already being taken.
Our reforms to teacher training are founded on a new occupational standard for FE teaching, which will specify the knowledge, skills and behaviours expected of FE teachers. This standard is being developed by a group of employers—colleges and other providers, so organisations which employ teachers—from across the sector, who bring a wealth of experience and expertise and are well placed to determine the right content for teacher training that will meet the needs of all their learners. We fully expect that the new standard will be explicit in its requirement for further education teachers to meet the needs of all learners, including those with a wide variety of special needs as well as learners from diverse backgrounds. We anticipate that the standard will be in place in time for the next academic year. It will form the basis of a new FE teaching apprenticeship, and we will support the reform of FE teaching qualifications so that they are also based on the standard. If, in future, the content of FE teacher training was considered of insufficient quality to meet the needs of all learners, this clause would give the Secretary of State the power to take appropriate steps.
To address the point I think I have understood from the noble Lord, Lord Watson: the reason we do not believe this amendment to be necessary is that we do not intend to use the powers in this Bill to take greater control or gain more centralisation of FE teacher training. We believe that the sector is doing the work needed to set out that standard and that steps will be taken within it to make the right provision for the training with regards to special educational needs. To allay his fears in relation to initial teacher training reforms for schools, I undertake to write to the noble Lord to further clarify that point.
I hope that with those brief remarks the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is assured that we are already taking steps to ensure that teaching in the FE sector meets the needs of all learners, including those with a wide range of special educational needs. On that basis, I hope he will be content to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this is an odd one. Actually, I do not think that response really hit it, because there is supposed to be a report. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, pointed out that it is supposed to be out now. I cannot quite match the withering sarcasm he put into it: “Oh, autumn then, maybe.”
The entire education system is squaring up to the fact that special educational needs is not working in our schools at the moment. There is a series of cock-ups made by other bits of legislation, for which I have some of the blame for not spotting them coming down the line. Unless you are going to be specific about having somebody in there who can spot, transfer and change the way they are dealing with at least some of the most commonly occurring conditions, you are guaranteeing a degree of failure and underachievement. We might have a conversation about how this works, and there might be something behind this that I need to hear, but what I have heard today convinces me that this needs some more time.
I would have intervened on the noble Baroness if the process was going through, but I suspect we are going to have a more robust Report stage than normal because of this. It is not the noble Baroness’s fault, unless she wrote the brief herself. I think we have opened up something here. Teacher training is the best way of dealing with this so that you can deal with those who have moderate difficulties and certain patterns of behaviour. Small changes and a bit of reassurance—telling them they are not thick—are the best way to get a reaction out of many of the groups that I deal with. Saying “Hey, I think you’re dyslexic or dyspraxic or have ADHD; here are a few quiet, basic strategies; by the way, you’re not an idiot” dramatically improves the outcomes of that group, which is about 20% of the whole group we are dealing with. Dealing with that type of action enables them to start that process to take them on to somebody else, and that is so important.
The transition I am looking at is away from: “I have somebody in my classroom who is a pain, can’t concentrate and won’t spell. Oh, God, can we get rid of him?” And it is towards: “Oh, I think he needs a bit of help and support.” It is not about the dramatic ones who are easy to spot, who are going to get the plan. It is that level of expertise that we need.
Can we please engage so that we actually know what is coming? At the moment, there is a review going on. There should be more there. I hope that the next time we raise this, the noble Baroness, if she is still with us—I should not have opened that one up —or whoever answers this, provides better answers. Good intentions have always been there. The problem remains.
Baroness Penn (Con)
I will briefly respond to the noble Lord, because I do not think I will get the opportunity to take this conversation forward with him ahead of Report, although I am sure that others will be happy to continue that conversation.
The point of differentiation here is specifically about the approach to regulating teacher training in FE colleges versus the regulation of teacher training in schools. The latter is subject to a regulatory regime that allows the Secretary of State to set conditions for its content and delivery, but we do not have that equivalent provision for FE teacher training as the content is determined by the sector itself, working with organisations. Although this clause as drafted would enable the Secretary of State to prescribe course content if desired, with a view to improving the quality of FE initial teacher training courses, the initial intention is for the sector to do that work itself. The points that the noble Lord makes about how important it is that SEND is properly accounted for in this and the widest understanding—and not just those with education, health and care plans but the broadest spectrum, and those who may not have been identified before—are an integral part of that. With regard to specifying that as part of the reforms to the initial teacher training, we would hope not to use the powers of the Secretary of State to intervene in this area at the moment and would rather do it through collaboration with the sector.
I thought it might be useful to say just one or two words. That is not the end of the conversation, but someone else will take it forward with the noble Lord.
Lord Addington (LD)
I thank the Minister for bending the rules quite positively there. There will be a continuation of this discussion but I thank her for that and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Rogan) (UUP)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 63. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate. I inform the Committee that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has withdrawn.
Clause 17: Office for Students: power to assess the quality of higher education by reference to student outcomes
Amendment 63
Lord Lucas
“and,
(b) by reference to— (i) the degree to which the mental health and wellbeing of persons who undertake a higher education course with the institution are sustained and improved while they are attending the institution;(ii) the quality improvement and response to mental health crises among persons who undertake a higher education course with the institution;(iii) the pastoral and academic care of students attending the institution.(5A) In this section “quality improvement” has the same meaning as in the report by The King’s Fund, Quality improvement in mental health, published in 2017.”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that higher education institutions should be evaluated on the basis of their care for students as well as purely academic measures.
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, I welcome Clause 17. There has long been a lack of satisfactory information available to prospective students on the outcomes of a degree. What happens afterwards, other than a degree, first, second or even third class, as in my case, awarded on obscure criteria—although no doubt correct in my case—but with no indication to a prospective student of what comes afterwards? How do students who have been through the degree course look back on their time at university? Are they appreciative of what was done for them? Have they suggestions about what could have been done better? What sort of careers have they secured?
This can be very different in further education, where a good FE college, running a course in, say, golf course management, will have an immense network of alumni with whom it will work to improve the course and with whom it will be in correspondence about the prospects for their current students. It will be able to portray to someone who intends to take on the cost of a course exactly what the outcome will be. For such a substantial personal investment by students, universities owe prospective students a much better set of information about what their prospects are.
My interest in this clause, though, is in the opportunity to broaden it to include mental health and well-being because, in my experience, this is an area that universities have been much less good at than they ought to be. I agree that this has, to a certain extent, come up on them. It is the result of increased parental interest in university education—that is, in parents wanting to make sure that they are launching their children on a good course. I have been a champion of that for a long time. I do not think that it sits easily with universities, which have historically taken refuge in the mantra that their students are adults and therefore do not need support from home, and communication with home is inappropriate.
I sense that that is changing but, for it to change to good effect, it needs some kind of support from the Government. Universities need to know that they are being watched—that information will reach prospective students as to how good their mental health and well-being services are and how well they look after their students. This will form part of a student’s decision on which course to take. If we do not have that kind of visibility, we will see a continuation of the inaction that has been my experience of universities’ response to this over the past 10 years or so.
I am sure that we all have stories about a mental health crisis hitting a friend’s child at university, perhaps even to the point of suicide. Mine, fortunately, has a happy ending. The son of a friend of mine went to a Russell group university, found that the course they were on did not really have its own social life, went back to university accommodation, which likewise had no social life, and fell into a cycle of despair. Bar a casual acquaintance knowing someone who knew his mother and getting a message back, that might have been the end of it. Fortunately, he had a very active mother who whisked him out of university and helped him to find a course that was much better socially adapted to his needs. He flourishes still.
There are many, however, for whom the outcome has been much less good. Universities have not traditionally seen themselves as having a duty of care in looking after their students. I remember—it must be about 10 years ago—trying to tell universities that they should pay more attention to teacher recommendations, that they could use some kind of online reputation system to score the teacher recommendations in the light of their experience of the student when they arrived at university, and that this would enable them to reach through the surface of qualifications to look at the underlying person and maybe start to use that to address the inequalities of access that were very apparent then.
The answer I got from universities was, “Can’t do that. We never get to know our students well enough to know whether that teacher recommendation is accurate or not”. I contrast that with my experience of the better degree apprenticeships and the way in which a company looks after children of the same age whom it has recruited into much the same circumstances. It can be extraordinarily good. I single out JCB in that respect: the way they look after young people who arrive in the wilds where the JCB factory is set and look after them through their degree is absolutely exemplary. JCB is, however, by no means alone. It has set a standard, in the minds of parents and people like me who advise parents, for what we now expect of universities, and I would really like the Government to take a hand in moving the needle.
I am not in any way committed to the particular formula in this amendment. It is a formula that is necessarily stated by its circumstances; it has to fit in with the structure of this Bill. I am not at all convinced that having a scored measure—an outcome measure—at the end of the day for mental health and well-being is the right way to go, but we have to get to a point where universities know that they are being observed and where accurate information finds its way to prospective students.
In the Good Schools Guide, if a school is a place that is a difficult environment for the less robust, we say that. It is fine. You can happily say that you have to be pretty rumbustious to get on in this school, and students and parents know what you mean. It will absolutely suit some people. Others will be put off by it and will find a place that is better suited to them. There is no reason why all universities should be the same, but it is absolutely obvious to me that prospective students and their parents should be given the information needed to make good judgments as to the environment at the university and whether their child will flourish there.
I also hope that, by doing that, we will raise the standard of universities generally. This is a move that Universities UK talks very strongly in support of, and some individual vice-chancellors are clearly ahead of the crowd in this. We ought to be out there supporting them, helping this change to happen and helping universities generally to up their standards. At the end of the day, these are children, and it is a big transition between home and local school to university in a strange city a long way away with completely different customs. We want them to be cared for; we want them to be looked after; we want to be a part of that, where we have a relationship with our children that will support that. We want the university to be strong and active in looking after them. If we cannot do that through this amendment, I hope that the Government will confirm that they have plans in this direction. I beg to move.
Lord Willetts (Con) [V]
My Lords, I wish to speak to my Amendment 69 very much in the spirit of the powerful speech that we just heard from my noble friend Lord Lucas. We definitely need more information about student outcomes. One way in which that information can be presented is the absolute information on the absolute outcomes. I am sure that the Minister will be eloquent on that. There is nothing in my amendment that tries to suppress any of that sort of information—far from it. However, the way in which the legislation is currently drafted means that it goes out of its way to exclude a different sort of equally valuable and relevant information: how our higher education institution is doing relative to the types of students that it has. That is a measure of distance travelled; it is a measure of how a university is performing, given the students that it recruits.
We have heard several important interventions in the course of our debate about students with special educational needs. A university that recruits an unusually high proportion of students with special educational needs, within the approach set out by Ministers, will not be able to signal that it does that; it may just appear to be a less well-performing institution. To offer a second example, which I know is a source of deep frustration and shame to us all, we should look at the performance of students from ethnic minority backgrounds. For any given level of academic qualification, a graduate from an ethnic minority background may do less well in the labour market than a graduate of similar academic achievement but not from a minority ethnic background. That is shocking; it is also a description of the British labour market as it is today. This would mean that, on the approach set out by Ministers, a university that had a disproportionately high number of graduates from ethnic minority backgrounds would do less well on labour market outcomes without the university being able to display its commitment and what it was doing.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this is an interesting group of amendments, because I think everybody would agree that universities as institutions have a duty of care to their students. They are adults, but most of them are only just adults. I must declare an interest here; I have an 18 year-old daughter who is expecting to go to university—and not only go to university, but a university in another country: Wales in this case, but there we are.
Lord Addington (LD)
At least I have got that confirmed; I thank the noble Baroness for that aside.
The point here is about “Students like us, how do they do and what do they go through?” I have heard it from many people, and indeed from members of my own family. Two of my nephews are of mixed race and are wondering “Where do we go where people like us are?” We have to get this information out, because it is a perfectly normal thing. You are leaving the support structure of home and your parents, but there is some way of intervening.
The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, referred to special educational needs. We have a universal package there called the disabled students’ allowance. We have a structure within universities that means you actually have to give things. Members of the Front Bench have sparred with me on this—I think “sparred” is quite accurate—in the past. There is a structure of support and a standard, and you can take action if that standard is not fulfilled. That is difficult, but it is there. You have a support structure going through.
So having more information about what happens here and what goes on will not hurt. It is not that big an ask. People are posting about entrance requirements and groups are coming across—it is happening at the moment. I suggest that having more information gives a better guide to what can come out of the experience and what other people are experiencing on their way through. I think this information is being gathered in many places anyway, usually for internal commercial reasons by the institutions. It would not hurt to have it in there.
I do not know whether the Government are in the mood for accepting amendments at the moment. I always remember when it happened to me many years ago; it stunned me into silence for the rest of the evening. It may be a bit late in this day for doing that, but I just throw that out. It would be something that would be quite good to have. I would hope that the Government at least give us some idea that they are encouraging, if not requiring, people to do it.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
My Lords, this is a particularly important group of amendments and the debate on it has been very good. I support all the amendments in this group. They have been very well spoken to by the people who put them down. I really want to add support and try not to go over the same points again.
They fall, basically, into two groups: the first on mental health and well-being and the second on how we measure outcomes. I will briefly comment on both. I very much support the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the way in which he put them forward. I was going to say that I was not sure the amendment was the right way to solve the problem, but he said it beforehand, so I see the amendment as very much drawing the issue to the attention of the Government and wanting a response.
My experience really came from when I was chair of council at one of the London colleges. I had the honour of giving out degree awards at the ceremonies twice a year. There is nothing as heartbreaking as giving out a degree posthumously to the parents of a student who has passed away through suicide. It is absolutely heartbreaking, and it happened more than once. That was just my experience at a relatively small college, and it will be replicated throughout universities.
We think of those children as adults, and they are: they are legally adults and they do adult things. But to begin with they are only a year out of school. By the time they graduate, they are only three years out of school, and children—young people, adults—develop at different rates. Somehow, we put a whole chasm between the pastoral support they get by the end of school, and the lack of pastoral support they get at the start of university. Somehow, we have to build a bridge between the two, particularly with academic high-flyers. There is often an emotional inability to cope with failure. One university lecturer said to me once that they had had an overseas student who committed suicide. They had to greet her parents from China and go through what had happened. They did not know, but their view was that it was the first time the child—the young woman—had ever found it difficult to come top of the class. She has come top of the class right the way through everything; she gets to a Russell group university and she does not come top of the class. She did not have the resilience to know how to deal with that.
We could spend a week discussing this, but the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, got this absolutely right. Universities hitherto have been slow to see this as an issue that they have a role to play in addressing. I should give credit to the Government, because I think I am right that they did something recently that means universities can tell parents if they feel their child is at risk. Certainly, in my day, when I was chair of council, legally a university could not phone up the parents without the young person’s permission, to say they were at risk.
The only way in which I would disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is that I am not sure they need to be “watched”—I think that was the phrase he used. Universities need to be worked with to make them realise that this is a core part of their job. Once they can see that, they will extend their considerable prowess and commitment and care for their students into pastoral health, mental health and well-being, as much as they offer academic support. But they are at the beginning of that journey and anything the Minister can offer in this Bill, to give them the powers or the freedom, or just the direction, to do this, I certainly think would be a step worth taking.
I also want to say a little bit about the other amendments to which the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, spoke. This is also exceptionally important, because I absolutely agree with the premise that universities ought to be measured by student outcomes. It would be silly not to take into account student outcomes. We take them into account in schools. Why we would stop doing it when we get to universities, I am not quite sure.
I do not think we have a great record so far in deciding what outcomes universities should be measured by. I will not go into it, but I am a bit critical of some of the teaching excellence framework, the TEF criteria for success. One measure is whether their students are in employment 12 months after they finish their degree. For some subjects, they are not likely to be in employment in a degree-level subject. People in the creative arts very often make do for a year while they are finding their feet. They very often work in a pub or a restaurant while they are doing the creative work. Measure them in five years’ time and they will be flying, and that is a credit to their university, but it will not get the credit if they are not in a degree-level job after 12 months.
One measurement that is not used by the teaching excellence framework but is regularly used by the newspapers that publish the tables is the A-level mark needed to get into a university. If universities want to take risks and bring on young people who got Ds and Es at A-level and say, “We believe in them and want to give them a chance; they come from an area of disadvantage”, they get marked down in the league table. Why on earth would they do that? I thought that was what we wanted to do.
I do not think there is a very good record of getting the outcome measurement right. Universities are partly at fault because they did not want this and did not engage in the discussion. I think they left others to decide what the measurement outcome should be and are paying the price.
I have a couple of specific points. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willetts—why would we not want this extra information? Why would we not want to know what universities have achieved, in terms of outcomes, with specific groups of students? It adds to what we know about universities and it means that when we are developing policy, we can do so with more knowledge about how existing policy affects different groups of students and different institutions than we would have without this information. I cannot see one good reason for not requiring that information at this level should be collected. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Clause 17(7) says:
“The OfS is not required”
to collect this information. I think it should be required, but will the Minister confirm that neither is it banned and that it could collect it if it wanted to? The noble Baroness is nodding, so I take it that it is allowed to collect it. That leads us to the question of whether it should be up to the Office for Students to decide whether this information is collected. It should not be up to the OfS, because it is useful to other people as well. I want to know it, as somebody who is involved in education and interested in policy-making. The Government should want to know it; the universities should want to know it; employers should want to know it. Why should the Office for Students not collect it so that others can have that information? Whether the OfS or the Government do anything with it is a different discussion, but not to collect it means that no one else can do anything with it.
My last point is that the world of schools is far more advanced in collecting data about pupil progress: it is 20 or 30 years more advanced. It has been through a lot of pain and made a lot of mistakes, but it is in a better state now than the universities. I just hope that the Office for Students learns lessons from those decades of trying to get the collection of data improved in schools.
One thing that ties into the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, is that, to begin with and for many years, Ofsted and the examiners did not discuss with schools what the outcome measurements would be. All it created was a very poor relationship that has not done well for children, teachers or schools. We are still trying to get over it, so I very much support the amendments proposing that the Office for Students, in developing these measures, should discuss them with universities and all higher education providers. We are setting the framework now for the next stage of using measurements of outcome for university; it is really important that we get it right and I very much hope that the Government’s response to these amendments will give us greater clarity and perhaps highlight areas where further attention is needed.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group and shall talk about Amendments 63 and 66 in particular. For far too long, pastoral care in these institutions has been inconsistent, sometimes even unprofessional and neglectful, to the great detriment of students’ achievements and well-being. Like other speakers, I personally know of suicides and cases of severe depression among students that I think could have been prevented, and there are plenty more in the statistics. It is only right that the institutions should be evaluated on these grounds.
On Amendment 66, because discrimination is often associated with mental health vulnerability, there are many such cases among those in the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities who have struggled through obstacles to gain entry into higher and further education. It is important to publish different student characteristics to get a proper handle on the data, as this amendment proposes.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I begin by making a general comment in expressing concern about the way in which this Government and others have sought to judge and rank higher education institutions and have directed the Office for Students to do so. I associate myself with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, about universities being penalised for welcoming students who have succeeded in their school and college studies despite the socioeconomic odds.
I want to add a more general concern about the ranking of institutions by the level of pay or classification of jobs that graduates attain. Education should be for life, not just for jobs. We know that there is often an inverse relationship between the levels of pay in a role and the contribution that it makes to society. An anthropology graduate who goes into community organising, say, might never earn much at all but is making a huge contribution to our society in a highly fulfilling role.
However, it is encouraging to see that the amendments all seek in some way to make judgments fairer, so they are to be welcomed. I shall go through them in turn. Speakers have already concentrated quite a lot on Amendment 63 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and backed by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal. In this context, it is worth pointing to an important report from the British Psychological Society in 2019 entitled Mental Health and Wellbeing in Higher and Further Education. I should perhaps preface what I am about to say by saying that this contains some disturbing material.
At least 95 university students took their own lives in 2016-17—and while the rate of suicide is lower than in the general population, it is a serious concern for the sector—and one-third of students experience a serious psychological issue that requires professional help. Some 94% of higher education providers reported an increase in demand for counselling services. And of course that was in 2019, while all the evidence and anecdotes that we have suggest that the situation is likely to be significantly worse now. The professional report says that all higher and further education institutions should make mental health and well-being a strategic priority. I think it particularly focuses on the need to train all staff and on how to assist them in signposting to the right support. There is also an important note in the report about UCAS needing to update the application process to reduce stigma, removing the need for applicants to disclose mental health conditions as a disability.
Let us think about the practicalities of this. The report cites Student Minds research that found that many academics feel ill equipped to assist students when they encounter difficulties or are approached by them. This is a pretty obvious problem when you think about it: a PhD or postgraduate studies in physics or medieval history do not necessarily equip you to deal with situations that you might face. This has a substantive negative impact on the well-being of academics as well.
I turn to the series of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, although I am slightly handicapped by the fact that they have not really been properly introduced. I am not going to cover them in great detail, except to note that Amendment 65, which calls for consultation with providers over the way in which these assessments are made, is essential. The assessment needs to be embedded in real-world experience and practical possibilities of what is deliverable.
I come to Amendment 66, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, to which I have attached my name and for which the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, expressed support. It seeks to ensure that the OfS reflects in its outputs
“differences in student characteristics, different institutions or types of institution, different subjects or courses, or any other such factor.”
I am drawing here on my experience as a school governor. Of course, in schools, we have increasingly sought to look at what value has been added, acknowledging that students start from many different starting points. That is true at all levels of our school system, but it is also very much true of our higher education sector. A university that caters particularly well to students who perhaps have not had a great experience at school or college deserves to have its successes acknowledged fairly in the assessment.
Amendment 68, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, makes the related point that it must
“ensure that the … measure of student outcomes does not jeopardize widening participation for students from disadvantaged and underrepresented groups.”
Finally, I will mention Amendment 70, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, which says that
“The OfS must work together with the devolved authorities”.
I somewhat feel that I should have a hymn-book, because I speak on this in practically every Bill that we discuss, but it is clearly in the interests of prospective students and employers that these assessments are conducted fairly.
The Lord Bishop of Durham [V]
My Lords, I particularly want to support Amendment 63, but also the others in the group. Just last month, in June 2021, the DfE itself published a report, Student Mental Health and Wellbeing, based on research done before the pandemic. It points out that 96% of institutions ask their students about their mental health but only 41% ask them about their general well-being. It also notes that only 52% of universities would say that they have a “dedicated strategy” for the mental health and well-being of their students. So the DfE’s own report, from last month, highlights that there is plenty of work to be done on universities having proper, dedicated strategies around mental health and well-being—particularly on the well-being side.
We know that Covid has highlighted the issues further, particularly around loneliness. Just today, the head of the OfS, Nicola Dandridge, spoke of her concern that more than half of the student population feels that their mental well-being has not been supported enough this year. I have not had time to explore her comments more fully, but it is notable that she made them today, when we are having this debate.
Well-being has to be covered by a whole range of services, and I note here the value—which you certainly cannot put into legislation—of universities having chaplaincy teams. During the pandemic, the chaplaincy team at Durham University was given an award for being the most important group of people in the university over the last few months. In the University of Sunderland, the vice-chancellor decided that the chaplaincy team should be awarded extra money so that it could do further work in the future, on the basis of how significant its input had been to student well-being during this time. So when we look at mental health and well-being, we need to look at counselling services and all sorts of other support, but it should include the work and role of chaplaincies.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, with the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, has raised a really important point in suggesting that this is put in the Bill. The overall well-being of students really matters as much as their academic outcomes. This needs to be known, seen and observed. I also support the amendments, and particularly their probing nature, of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and the intent of those of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, to look at other social outcomes. They are significant and should be in the Bill.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 63 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who is rapidly becoming my noble friend at this rate. I support all the others in this group, which are concerned with the mental health of students, well-being, student outcomes and widening participation.
Because of this Committee stage, I was sorry to miss a meeting this afternoon on lifelong learning, which was sponsored by Graeme Atherton, a brilliant champion of widening participation. He has done more than most to promote access to higher education, through such wonderful programmes as Aimhigher, which introduced so many non-typical students to university, with some inspirational results, before having its funding withdrawn—such is life.
The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, bear witness to their tireless support for disadvantaged students and those suffering from poverty of family, opportunity or aspiration. Of course, the pandemic has caused additional stress for our students, who have been very badly affected in many cases by being locked up and not being able to have classes or socialise in the way that they might have expected.
I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that universities should not be penalised if they accept young people with lower school exam results if they come from disadvantaged backgrounds, where they have actually achieved a great deal just to get the results they have. I think we should bear that in mind. Of course we have to ensure the quality of our great institutions, but, at the same time, we have to make sure that our students are properly cared for and have all the opportunities that they can.
I think this is a very worthwhile set of amendments, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, in responding to this excellent debate I will also introduce my Amendments 65, 66, 67, 68 and 70—albeit, I apologise, too late for the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, whom I thank for her support. Together, my amendments are designed to draw out from the Government the approach that is to be taken regarding regulating higher education providers, especially on quality and standards.
To start, despite lots of research, I still do not know whether this Bill will change the powers that the Office for Students has at the moment. We are told that this is a technical clause required
“To put beyond doubt the Office for Students’ ability to regulate in relation to minimum requirements for quality.”
But can the Minister tell us: is this Bill needed to ensure that the OfS can keep doing what it does now without risk of legal challenge? Or is it to enable it to do something different, for which it needs extra powers, and if so, what?
The OfS currently applies a series of conditions, in categories A to E, for an institution to be registered. The B conditions focus on quality and standards, and I am most interested in B3, which says that
“The provider must deliver successful outcomes for all of its students”,
measured against minimum standards for student continuation, completion and graduate careers. My Amendment 65 says that the OfS must consult the HE sector before determining those minimum standards. We had a general OfS consultation, which closed in January, but no response has yet been issued. Another is due any day now on most of the B criteria, but the key one—these B3 metrics—will not be consulted on until much later in the year. Given the concerns we have heard about the direction of travel, and since that consultation will take place after this Bill becomes law, it is really important that it is full and meaningful. It needs to be clear on what metrics are proposed, how they will be measured, where the data will come from and how they will be applied. It should provide the evidence for any metric being advanced as a proxy for quality, assess the impact of any proposed move away from benchmarking, and be transparent about how the baselines will be set. Are they objective standards which, in theory, all institutions could meet, or are they designed to cull the lowest performers, irrespective of absolute scores? Can the Minister give us some assurances on this? Can she tell the House how Parliament can express a view on these hugely important decisions which will be taken by the OfS?
Amendment 66 is designed to flush out the Government's intentions on contextualisation. I understand that Ministers do not want different outcome standards for different groups—this is a probing amendment; I am not proposing a new scheme—but there are clearly differences in student outcomes between groups which reflect prior experience, advantage or the lack of it, or their current circumstances, rather than academic ability. I shall not repeat the excellent points made by my noble friend Lady Morris and the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, on the whole issue of contextualising data, but I look forward to hearing the Minister explain why we are legislating to enable the OfS to refuse to collect that data.
Amendment 68 would ensure that the OfS’s student outcome measures do not jeopardise the goal of widening participation for students from disadvantaged and underrepresented groups—a matter of concern to many in higher education. MillionPlus points out that
“if you remove the ability to contextualise, you also remove the ability to assess”
value-added—or distanced travelled, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, said. MillionPlus also points out that setting minimum thresholds on student outcomes while removing any need for benchmarking
“sits incongruously in a Bill designed to diversify access to higher education and boost mature and part-time study.”
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, Section 23 of the Higher Education Research Act 2017—HERA—which relates to the assessment of the quality of higher education provided by registered providers, currently places no restrictions or stipulations on how the OfS might make an assessment of quality or standards. Clause 17 provides some much-needed clarity, or so we hope. It puts beyond doubt the ability of the OfS to determine minimum expected levels of student outcomes. These levels would be taken into account alongside many other factors, such as the context in which a provider operates, when the OfS makes its overall and well-rounded assessment of quality.
Amendments 63 and 64, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, seek to add provision for the mental health and well-being of students to the outcomes measures that higher education institutions are evaluated against, in addition to academic and post-study progression measures, and to allow for more than one measure that institutions are expected to meet. I reassure my noble friend and other noble Lords that student mental health is something that this Government and the OfS take extremely seriously. The testimony that we have heard from many noble Lords in this debate has shown exactly why this issue is so important.
We continue to work closely with the higher education sector to promote effective practice. Higher education providers are autonomous bodies, independent of government, and have a responsibility to support their students, including those with mental health conditions or mental health needs. They are experts in their student population and best placed to identify the needs of their student body. The Government therefore strongly support Universities UK’s step-change programme, which focuses on the need for a whole-institution approach and in doing so supports the spread of good practice and the agreement of guidelines for co-commissioning and the provision of mental health and well-being services. In addition, the Government actively back the sector-led university mental health charter which aims to drive up standards in promoting student and staff mental health and well-being and invites universities to meet high standards of practice, including in areas such as leadership, early intervention and data collection.
While it is for higher education providers to determine what welfare and counselling services they need to provide to their students to offer that support, the OfS provides funding, support and guidance to providers to support students’ mental health. Noble Lords are right to say that sufficient attention has not been paid to this issue in the past and that, while steps are being taken to put this right and move in the right direction, there is more to do. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, noted, that may not be best addressed through more legislation or regulation. However, I reassure noble Lords that, if the OfS wished to impose a condition of registration that related directly to mental health, the exiting legislation under HERA is flexible enough for it to do so.
The Government and the OfS do not see that as the right route at this stage. Rather, the aim of Clause 17 is to put beyond doubt the ability of the OfS to set minimum expectations of quality and performance by reference to objectively measurable outcomes. My noble friend Lord Lucas acknowledged that there may be some difficulty in defining those outcomes on something such as mental health provision. I confirm to my noble friend that the existing legislation can be read so as to allow institutions to be subject to more than one measure, so Amendment 64 is not required.
I turn to Amendments 65 to 68 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. I first reassure the noble Baroness in relation to Amendment 65 that not only does the OfS already have a statutory duty to consult before determining or revising its regulatory framework in relation to outcomes, it has already undergone one round of consultation, as she has already noted, and a further consultation on specific outcome levels is planned for late autumn.
With regard to Amendment 66, leaving out “not”, as the amendment does, completely reverses the purpose of this clause. Driving up quality and standards in higher education is a priority for this Government and a fundamental part of the levelling-up agenda. This amendment would mean that students would be expected to accept that they might achieve different outcomes—and in some cases, lower ones—depending on their background. That cannot be right. That is why we included the provision in this clause to make it clear that there is no mandate on the OfS to benchmark the minimum levels of standards it sets based on factors such as particular student characteristics. Benchmarking or setting minimum levels by reference to the outcomes the OfS would expect from students with certain characteristics or certain types of providers risks entrenching disadvantage in the system.
I hope I can clarify one point and reassure a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Morris. Subsection (7) means that the OfS is not obliged to set minimum expected levels of outcome based on these factors. It does not prevent the OfS collecting data or considering the type of students a provider has. Indeed, the OfS will look at this when reaching a rounded judgment of quality.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked whether this is about clarifying the existing approach or giving new powers or a new approach. The OfS is already regulating based on absolute student outcomes data. In practice, the amendment will not affect the OfS’s current approach but will put beyond doubt its ability to continue to operate in this way. I will return to this point later in relation to the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Willetts.
Amendment 67 seeks to probe the OfS’s powers of intervention at subject level. The current drafting in subsection (7) is intended to make it clear that the OfS is not required to determine and publish different minimum levels to reflect differences, including differences in the subjects being studied. While this does not preclude the OfS from doing so, the intention here is for minimum levels to be set by reference to the outcomes set out in subsection (5).
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked me to clarify her understanding, based on correspondence with Bill officials, of the powers of intervention at subject level. The OfS can intervene at subject level. As the noble Baroness noted, the OfS has an obligation to be proportionate in its interventions. However, any conduct that the OfS has decided constitutes a breach can be enforced, whether that conduct relates to all subjects or an individual subject. Courses could also be included in extremis.
The noble Baroness also asked how the OfS may assess quality when it comes to modular provision, given the changes that we are aiming to make in the LLE. The Government and the OfS are working closely together as part of the development of the lifelong learning entitlement. The OfS quality measures are designed to be flexible and used effectively by the OfS across a diverse provider base and different courses, for example part-time courses. As we will come on to, the OfS is currently consulting on its approach to regulating quality and standards. This includes consideration of its approach to modular and flexible provision. The OfS will consult on the indicators it proposes to use and how it proposes to take the context of the provider into account as it makes regulatory judgments. The purpose of Clause 17 is to provide clarity on the ability of the OfS to use absolute outcome measures, not to remove its ability to use other contextual or relative information.
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful for the support of those who have spoken. The question of supporting students and getting their mental health needs looked after is one for which I—and, I suspect, a very large number of other parents—absolutely have a minimum expected level. I therefore find my noble friend’s statements of government policy in this area uncomfortably flabby. The Government support UUK—good. They back the mental health charter—good. However, universities have been subject to this sort of pressure for a long time and have not moved.
In the spirit of the Bill and of a minimum expected level, I really hope that the Government will consider what else they might do. It absolutely does not need to be measurement under Clause 17; it would work very well if, to pick up on the spirit of the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, someone with character and reputation set out as an individual to work with the universities to get them to the place they should be. Such people are not impossible to find. However, we need something to make universities focus, and which says, “This isn’t just one of the other things that the Government find important but one of the things which we must do, and we know that, even if it can’t be expressed as a number, there is a standard which we have to reach”.
Not surprisingly, I listened with interest to my noble friend Lord Willetts’s explanation of his interest in this area. The question “How are people like me doing at this university?” absolutely ought to be something that interests the university just as much as the student. They should be looking at, for instance, students they have recruited with high and low qualifications relative to the average of a class and asking, “How do they do? Why are students dropping out? Is there stuff here we should be feeding back to their schools because perhaps they have not had the advice that they ought to have had there? Do we really understand the needs of particular types of children, whoever they might be? Are we seeing effects that might reflect something we could improve in this university?” There are lots of different ways of cutting that cake. The self-improving university comes from an attachment to data and a care for its students, rather than just a care for process; that is what we must strive to inculcate, improve and increase in our universities. That human side of the interaction is the foundation of making sure that the physical university survives in a virtual world.
As I said, I am grateful for all the support that I have received. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 72. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Clause 18: List of relevant providers
Amendment 72
Lord Aberdare
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that relevant providers will not be charged further costs when a provider’s contract for services with the Education and Funding Agency already requires a contractor to maintain at its own cost a policy or policies of insurance.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, this is a probing amendment intended to explore more fully the Government’s intentions in respect of independent training providers—ITPs—and their role in relation to the provisions of the Bill. I was delighted that my noble friend Lady Greengross raised this issue right at the beginning of our debate, so it has in a sense been bookended by ITPs.
According to the Bill’s impact assessment, there were 3,737 ITPs in 2019-20, about half of them small businesses. Some 700 of these are members of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, delivering vocational learning and employability support to 350,000 employers. They train around three-quarters of apprentices and young people on traineeships, as well as delivering adult education and programmes for the unemployed.
Some ITPs are large and well resourced, but the great majority are small, demand-led specialist businesses, often in towns and rural areas not served by colleges. There are 1,186 towns in England, I gather, but only about 170 FE colleges. Employers choose them because they are responsive and fleet of foot, as my noble friend Lord Bichard pointed out at Second Reading, and reach the parts other training bodies cannot reach, filling gaps in available training provision. The quality of their training is evidenced both in Ofsted reports and in employer and learner satisfaction surveys, with generally higher ratings than FE colleges. As such, they are an extremely important part of the education and skills landscape, and should be fully involved in the development and delivery of LSIPs. They should also receive a fair share of the funding available under government-supported schemes, whether directly or, more often, as subcontractors to larger providers. This is by no means always the case: frequently the funding available to ITPs is capped or reduced, with the result that they are unable to deliver the level of training for which they have capacity, for which there is demand, and on which their business plans have been based.
The main focus of the Bill, in respect of ITPs, is on protecting students from the effects of providers making unplanned exits from the market and failing to complete delivery of contracted training. There have of course been such failures, some of them high-profile and resulting in learners being left with debt on their loans but no course to complete. Again, according to the Bill’s impact assessment, 60 ITPs made unplanned exits in 2019-20, but there are many reasons for unplanned exits and it is not clear how many involved scandal or fraud, or what impact there may have been on learners. I have seen little evidence to justify the unduly negative reputation of the ITP sector, nor am I convinced that the measures proposed in the Bill would resolve the problems that exist. On the contrary, I fear that they might have the opposite effect, by forcing providers out of business, or discouraging new entrants to the market, thereby reducing innovation, competition and availability of needed training. The Government’s own impact assessment for the Bill admits that the measures
“are likely to have a significant impact on small or micro businesses from a resource and cost perspective.”
There was no mention of a list of providers in January’s White Paper, and there has been no consultation on the proposal, although this is promised for next spring, by which time the Bill will no doubt have been passed. The Bill would create a new list of relevant providers, and to be eligible to receive government funding an ITP would have to be included on this list, which would require it to meet a series of conditions and to pay a fee. I have no problem with the idea of such a list, nor with its being a prerequisite for receiving government funding. There is already a register of apprenticeship training providers, including many ITPs, and a broader register of training organisations that, somewhat ironically, is being decommissioned at the end of this month.
I do worry, however, about the specific conditions likely to be required for inclusion on the list, and the fact that they appear, albeit only as possibilities, in the Bill before there has been any consultation. These conditions include requirements for student support plans, for insurance cover, for providers to be fit and proper persons, and for the provision of information to, and taking action on directions from, the Secretary of State. The Bill also makes provision for fees to be charged for entry on to the list. Some of these conditions seem perfectly acceptable, and indeed are already required under existing ESFA contracts—which is where I believe they are more appropriately based—but I would argue that imposing this additional level of centralised regulation and cost is disproportionate and potentially damaging. It is based on the idea of a unified system of protection for all learners, without recognising the substantial differences between small independent providers and more established publicly funded bodies, such as FE colleges and schools.
There are particular concerns over the possible insurance condition. ESFA rules already require providers to maintain a range of insurance cover, including professional indemnity, employers’ liability and public liability insurance, but the Bill’s impact assessment seems to envisage a new form of insurance to offset costs to the Government in the event of a provider failure. Such insurance does not currently exist, and it is not clear how it might work in practice, let alone what it might cost. My amendment therefore proposes simply removing the mention of insurance cover from the list of example conditions in the Bill.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 74 probes the charging of fees in connection with entries on the list of relevant providers. The Bill would enable the Secretary of State to make regulations to provide for a list of post-16 education or training providers, including independent training providers.
We have no argument with the principle of introducing legislative measures to protect the interests of learners, and agree wholeheartedly that those who run providers on the proposed list of relevant providers should be “fit and proper persons”. But we are concerned that many of the provisions appear to be just piling costs upon ITP delivery without any consultation or rationale as to why they are necessary. Can the Minister explain why no such exercise has taken place and assure the Committee that meaningful consultations will take place before any new requirements for providers are introduced via regulations?
Under the proposals, any provider not on the approved list will not be granted funding agreements or be allowed to subcontract with another provider that is on the list, so this will not be an option going forward. Yet being on this list does not guarantee future financial sustainability, given that the Government admit that listing will have a “significant impact” on the costs of smaller providers because of the need to pay to join and the imposition of mandatory professional indemnity insurance, as highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in his Amendment 72.
If this is in response to concerns about provider failure, I too fail to see how enhanced liability insurance and more stringent entry registrations will have any impact or give protection to learners. Meanwhile, it risks destabilising the entire ITP sector at a time when the economy desperately needs more skilled staff as we emerge from the pandemic and as the effects of Brexit on the labour market are felt.
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers has also raised concerns about the practicality of this indemnity requirement, given that it is not aware that the insurance product that the Government may have in mind actually exists, despite such a requirement being written into primary legislation. I hope the Minister is able to address this in her response.
There is also understandable concern in the sector that increasing costs may be a backdoor way to reduce the number of ITPs in the market. Can the Minister confirm whether this is indeed the Government’s intention? If it is, I am concerned that such a policy could backfire spectacularly and have significant adverse consequences for learners and communities.
ITPs deliver three-quarters of all apprenticeship, traineeship and adult education budget programmes. While many are small, they provide crucial and valuable opportunities and bring much-needed responsiveness, innovation and competition to the skills training marketplace. Many ITPs are either specialist providers or serve areas out of easy reach of a local college—indeed, there are 1,186 towns but only 170 FE colleges in England. Does the Minister recognise that ITPs are very good at reaching out to small businesses in small towns and rural areas which do not have a local college, including the Chancellor’s Yorkshire constituency and some red wall areas? Does she agree that they have a major contribution to make to the Government’s levelling-up agenda?
I hope the Minister can provide some clarity on these issues and assure the House that independent training providers will be able to continue to provide value opportunities, which will be crucial to the country’s post-pandemic recovery.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for the agreement in principle that a list of independent training providers is a requirement, as I believe it was suggested in this House in previous legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, is correct: the core focus of the list is to protect learners and reduce the significant disruption to learners that provider failure can cause. We value highly the role of relevant providers, including independent training providers and in particular those small providers noble Lords have mentioned. We are not unduly negative at all about their role in providing a diverse and innovative learning offer. They provide a great deal of variety to many learners.
The provisions in Clause 18(7) include a requirement for a provider to have insurance for examples of conditions that may be specified in regulations that providers must meet in order to be on the list. In a similar way, subsection (10) gives examples of provisions that may be specified in regulations in connection with the keeping of the list, which would ultimately help deliver a well-functioning, transparent and fair scheme to all those involved.
We propose that the student support plans we envisage providers having will, subject to consultation—which I will mention further—follow the approach in the HE sector, where the Office for Students requires a statement of the level of risks to the continuation of study. We must remember this is study paid for by the taxpayer, and obviously it is in everybody’s interests that that course of study is completed.
I would like to allay the fears of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox: as the clauses require, we will consult on the conditions and provisions for being on the list, prior to making the first set of regulations, to help ensure that those conditions manage and mitigate the risk of disorderly exit. That consultation will allow us to fully take into account the views of those affected by the scheme, particularly the small providers noble Lords have outlined.
I turn to the specifics of the amendments. Amendment 72 is intended to ensure relevant providers will not be subject to further costs relating to obtaining insurance cover. The introduction of insurance, or an equivalent, may be useful in preventing or mitigating the risk of provider failure and assist with learner transfers at that point. If we were to introduce a condition in relation to insurance, the aim would be for learners to benefit from greater continuity of provision. Clause 18(9) allows different conditions to be applied for different descriptions of providers. It is not one size fits all. This would ensure that, where appropriate, we could make the scheme as flexible as possible.
Amendment 74 is intended to probe how the charging of fees in connection with entries on the list will be regulated. It is reasonable to expect that some fees may be necessary to recover the costs—I emphasise “costs”—of administering the list. It is important that we retain the ability to introduce fees if they are deemed necessary to run an effective and fiscally responsible scheme. I can, however, offer an assurance that this would be the sole purpose of any fees. They would be set to a reasonable level, with reasonable notice and with consideration of the impact on providers of all sizes. There would be no intention to make a profit at the expense of providers.
Regulations to create the list are subject to the affirmative procedure, so there will be further opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny of any conditions or provisions specified. This includes regulations relating to any requirements for providers to have insurance or an equivalent, if proposed in the regulations following consultation, as well as any requirement to charge fees. If regulations setting out the basis for charging fees were to change again in the future, those amending regulations would also be subject to the affirmative procedure.
I therefore hope the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, will feel comfortable in withdrawing his amendment and that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, will not feel the need to move her amendment when it is reached.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, who made some good points, very strongly. I entirely agreed with her.
Despite the Minister’s hope, I am rather less comfortable with her response. This is going to have a very big impact, particularly on the smaller ITPs. The Minister talked about it being designed to avoid significant disruption to learners. What is this “significant disruption” and where are the examples? I have heard of two major cases, and a lot of others where nobody can produce any evidence at all, so I am not clear whether the problem being addressed justifies the scale of the sledgehammer being used to address it. I appreciate that the conditions in the Bill are examples, but the fact that they are there seems to make it very likely that they will turn up as conditions when the actual contracts get written. I would much rather see that left to the ESFA or the contracts, or whatever.
I think the Minister also mentioned that the approach was based on the higher education sector, but there is no comparison at all between a university and some of these small ITPs. It is just ludicrous to have the same sort of requirements placed on them as would be placed on a university. I very much hope that this consultation will be serious and deep, and taken great account of when it happens. I also hope that the fee will indeed be reasonable.
Before I withdraw my amendment, as the only Back-Bencher left standing I congratulate those on the Front Benches who remain in place, and particularly the two Ministers, on their efforts today, unhappy as I am with this final response. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.