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Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Rachel Maclean)
It is very appropriate that my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) has asked this question because today is World EV Day. We are investing £1.3 billion in accelerating the roll-out of charging infrastructure over the next four years. On average, over 500 new chargers are added each month.
Katherine Fletcher
When I speak to the people of South Ribble, they are keen to do their bit to cut carbon emissions and also to get the benefits of cheaper travel from electric vehicles, but the thing that is constraining us and the problem we face is a lack of accessible charging points, not only commercially in the centre of town but in order to charge at home, across pavements and so on. Given that today is World EV Day, will my hon. Friend assure me that the Department will do everything it can to put the infrastructure in place to encourage more electric vehicle use?
Rachel Maclean
I heartily commend my hon. Friend’s constituents for the transition to electric mobility. We are already supporting the roll-out of over 25,000 publicly available charging devices, including more than 4,700 rapid devices—one of the largest networks in Europe. I am delighted that South Ribble Borough Council is one of the 137 local authorities that has applied for the on-street charge point scheme, which has awarded funding for 16 chargers. I am happy to work with her to get further infrastructure rolled out.
Stephen Metcalfe
I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that it was brilliant to see earlier this week figures showing that ever more electric vehicles than petrol or diesel ones are being sold. She has talked about the on-street charging points. It is vitally important that we get those in place and that these vehicles are accessible not just to those who have driveways and private parking. Will also she talk to her friends in the Treasury about the distortion that vehicle excise duty can create, because electric vehicles tend to be more expensive than their petrol and diesel versions, sometimes pushing them into a higher excise duty bracket?
Rachel Maclean
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the popularity of electric cars. In fact, one in seven cars sold so far this year has a plug. He will know that vehicle excise duties are obviously a matter for my friends in the Treasury, but he will be also be aware that we are continually supporting the up-front purchase of electric vehicles via a very generous programme of grants, and that is set to continue.
Felicity Buchan
I warmly welcome the transport decarbonisation plan, particularly the requirement that all new homes and offices have electric vehicle charging points, which is a theme that I expounded in a ten-minute rule Bill. Will my hon. Friend give me an update on the timing of legislation?
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend for all the hard work she has done on her ten-minute rule Bill, which addresses a vital issue. We in Government are going to act. We have heard her calls and those of her residents. We will publish our consultation response on requiring all new residential and non-residential buildings to have a charge point, and we intend to lay legislation later this year. We have also confirmed our intention to mandate that home and workplace electric vehicle chargers must be capable of smart charging.
Neale Hanvey
The continued roll-out of electric vehicles and the 25,000 charging point milestone is to be welcomed, but how confident is the Minister that the investment in charging points, particularly in remote and rural areas, will meet the scale of the challenge when committed investment is still a twenty-fifth of the £1 billion earmarked from the far from carbon-neutral HS2?
Rachel Maclean
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that his constituents in Scotland, like those across the whole country, are benefiting from the UK Government’s funding support: £1.3 billion is being spent on grants, charge point infrastructure, installation, and tax breaks on electric vehicle motoring. That is a significant sum and it is benefiting his constituents in Scotland.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
When the Minister talks about electric vehicles, she just talks about cars. In York, we talk about e-scooters, e-bikes and e-Motability vehicles. What is she doing to ensure infrastructure for such vehicles so that people can go further on the cleanest form of transport and have the dual function of charging for active travel too?
Rachel Maclean
I thank the hon. Lady for her support for active travel. It is one of the Government’s key priorities, which is why we have committed £2 billion to roll out cycling and walking infrastructure across the country. Some of those schemes are already being rolled out very safely, and many local authorities up and down the country, including York, are benefiting from them.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Residents of Regatta Point, a block of flats in Brentford, want to install electric charging points in their 60-space basement car park. They are coming up against huge logistical difficulties over transmission and getting the electricity down there for overnight charging, and a huge cost of roughly £1,500 a space. What is the Minister doing on the roll-out of EV charging for overnight charging in apartment blocks to address the financial and logistical hurdles they face?
Rachel Maclean
The hon. Lady has raised an important point. The Government’s intention is to ensure that wherever people live—whether that is their own home, a terraced home without parking, or, as she says, an apartment building—they have access to overnight charging, because that is the most convenient way for people to charge. We will be setting out more details in our infrastructure strategy, which we are publishing soon, but we are looking closely at the challenges of installing charge points in car parks and blocks of flats.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I declare an interest, as I have an electric car. Local charging is obviously important, but on Saturday I will be using my car to go from Sheffield to Plymouth to watch Sheffield Wednesday play and hopefully win. It is quite a challenge to find rapid charging points on the journey to get there and back in reasonable time. One of the concerns is that people get to a rapid charging point and it does not charge rapidly. Apparently there is a problem with the grid in many places not consistently providing the level of charge needed for these rapid chargers. Could the Minister have a look at that problem, because I think it is quite a serious one?
Rachel Maclean
I wish the hon. Gentleman a good journey. I hope his football team is successful. He has raised some vital issues, and I assure him that they are all ones we are addressing in our infrastructure strategy. We are also addressing reliability in our consumer experience consultation. We intend to lay legislation later this year to deal with many of the issues he has raised.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)
We have set out our plans in the transport decarbonisation plan, and have committed £20 million through the clean maritime demonstration competition.
Cherilyn Mackrory
The port of Falmouth has a wonderful maritime heritage and huge potential in the industry. It has already done some fantastic environmental work, including the preservation of more than 100 acres of sea grass. Will my hon. Friend commit to working closely with ports such as Falmouth to ensure that we can sustainably decarbonise the maritime industry, while continuing to enable the industry to grow and prosper?
Robert Courts
I can absolutely commit to that. It is vital that we work with all elements of the maritime industry to accelerate the transition to net zero and to take advantage of the very real opportunities for green growth. Both the British Ports Association and the UK Major Ports Group are represented on our clean maritime council, and I and my officials regularly engage with the trade associations and individual ports on environmental issues.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I agree with the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) that fantastic projects are under way across the UK, including in her constituency, to get the maritime sector down to net zero. There is, however, a significant funding gap when it comes to making these developments a reality, and the Government, despite their record, have not done anywhere near enough to address the significant investment shortfall compared with other maritime nations that we compete with. Does the Minister agree that it is imperative that our vital maritime sector gets the support it needs? Will he commit to addressing that and providing the necessary funding to support the research and innovation that is required?
Robert Courts
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of decarbonising the maritime sector, but I cannot agree with him about the Government investment. We have invested £20 million in the clean maritime demonstration competition. That seedcorn funding will help to develop the technology that we will be using. It is the largest technology competition ever run by the Department for Transport. I am very glad that next week we have London International Shipping Week, which is the flagship event of the maritime year. We will be able to see the glories of the UK’s maritime industry next week, and I look forward to seeing the hon. Gentleman there.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
I have regular discussions with the road haulage industry. Over the summer, we conducted a public consultation that resulted in over 9,000 responses.
Alison Thewliss
Despite all the Government’s protestations to the contrary, Brexit and the end of freedom of moment are the lead causes of the current driver shortage in the UK. Will the Secretary of State listen to the Road Haulage Association when it says that it does not have a cat’s chance of solving the problem unless it has access to temporary labour in the short term?
Grant Shapps
I hear what the hon. Lady says, but actually it is a fact that there is a global shortage. In the US, for example, drivers are being hired from South Africa. In Poland, the shortage is 123,000 and, in Germany, 45,000 to 60,000. To say that this is just a Brexit issue is completely untrue; it is about coronavirus. That is why, as I said, we consulted on a series of measures, for which the consultation closed on Monday, to ensure that we can go back to pre-1997 driving licences—a Brexit bonus—to allow for more tests to be taken for HGVs so that tests for both articulated and rigid HGVs can be taken together. There are also one or two other measures that I will return to the House quickly to say more about.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Rugby is an excellent location for logistics, being at the centre of England and at the crossroads of the motorway network. However, despite the challenges that the sector faces, including that of drivers, our haulage and courier businesses make sure that we get the goods that we have ordered—usually online—incredibly quickly. Will the Secretary of State pay tribute to the extraordinary efficiency of our logistics sector?
Grant Shapps
I absolutely join my hon. Friend in that. This sector literally works day and night to provide goods, medicines and vital services around the country, for which we are hugely grateful. It has done that throughout the pandemic in very difficult circumstances. We on the Government side are pleased to see salaries for haulage drivers going up. If they are paid 20% more, or something like that, that would be good for British workers, and I thoroughly support it.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
This has been a summer where Ministers have shown an abject failure of duty, whether on the exam fiasco, Afghanistan or the HGV driver shortage. We have seen high-profile examples of businesses impacted by supply-chain disruption and suppliers with stock that they could not get out the door, yet Ministers seem to do nothing. Will the Government finally accept that when it comes to a crisis such as this, it is their job to solve it, not just to sit on the sidelines and hope that it all works out? If they do accept that, what action is the Secretary of State taking to bring forward a road freight recovery plan to tackle head on the long-standing warnings of truck driver shortages that have been compounded by Brexit and covid?
Grant Shapps
First, we have introduced a temporary relaxation on drivers’ hours. Secondly, we have introduced £7,000 funding for the large goods vehicle driver apprenticeship programme. Thirdly, there is an additional incentive payment of £3,000 and, as I mentioned, we have been working hard to free up space at the Driver and Vehicle Standards Authority—the testing authority—so we are now testing 50% more drivers than we did before the pandemic. Yes, we have been acting, but we are going to go further. I mentioned removing the need for car drivers to take additional tests for a trailer—a move we can make only because we are outside the EU—removing the requirement for staged licence acquisition to obtain a lorry licence and authorising third parties to assess off-road manoeuvring for the lorry practical test.
Jim McMahon
If that is the best the Government have got, I am afraid that the crisis will not be sorted. They talk about solutions and interventions, but the long-term problems in the haulage industry will not be resolved by those measures outlined, such as making drivers work longer hours. It is only by training more that we can help to fill the long-reported 90,000 vacancies.
This problem has been a long time coming. The Secretary of State will know that well before covid, and a year before Brexit, 24,000 would-be truck drivers passed their theory test, but only 9,000 went on to complete their practical test, and yet even with that knowledge and the industry pleading for intervention, nothing has been done. This is a live crisis that is only getting worse. Without real action, he will be left standing alone as the Transport Secretary who stole Christmas, leaving shelves empty, gifts absent from under the tree and restaurants and bars without the stock they need to trade. Will he immediately take action and set up a taskforce to resolve this crisis once and for all?
Mr Speaker
Order. I say to Front Benchers that these are meant to be questions—statements come at a different time—and, please, we have to shorten them. Those on each side complain to me afterwards that they have not got in, so let us help the rest of the Members of this Parliament.
Grant Shapps
Mr Speaker, I will be brief. This is the problem of having a pre-written statement. The hon. Member heard the previous answer—a 50% increase in the number of tests. He is right that it is not enough, but that is why we have closed the consultation, which I have just said we will act on fast, on what will introduce even more testing capacity. The fact of the matter is that we are acting on this. This is a global crisis—in Europe alone there is a shortage of 400,000 drivers—and this is the Government who are doing something about it.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for those answers. It is clear that there are huge backlogs at the DVLA and the DVSA, and he is working to get through those, but will he also consider other measures to address this crisis, such as skills provision and signposting for jobseekers?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As well as things such as the provision of skills—I have talked about the £7,000 apprenticeship programme—we are looking at what else we can do working with both the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education. He mentions the shortages with the problems at the DVSA and, on the licensing side of this, at the DVLA. He may want to join me in trying to persuade Opposition Members to end the pointless DVLA strike, which is hurting the most vulnerable people in our society who cannot get their licences back, including those who drive HGVs.
Mr Speaker
Order. Just because one side takes advantage, I do not want the other to do so.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The penny has finally dropped. For the first time the Government finally seem to understand the scale of the problem, and they seem rattled. This was the reaction of the industry to expediting the testing process, which we welcome. However, it is nowhere near enough, and it will take at least two years to fill the gap, if they attract enough drivers. Why then, as I asked the Secretary of State when I wrote to him back in June, can he not convince the Home Office to put HGV drivers on the shortage occupation list for a temporary period? This is not just about cancelling Christmas; shelves lie empty right now.
Grant Shapps
I do agree that this is an urgent measure. That is why, before anybody else was talking about it, we were already acting—carrying out these consultations, putting in place these measures—and we have 50% more people being tested. I hear his call for more immigration to resolve the problem, but we do have to stand on our own two feet as the United Kingdom. There are a lot of people coming off furlough, and I look forward to those people getting jobs.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)
We recognise the importance of this route. We will always keep route assessments under review, including if there is any evidence of market failure that requires intervention.
Bob Seely
The Secretary of State knows that I hold him and his ministerial team in high regard. However, is it right that we have in the Isle of Wight ferry services a public service without any sense of public service obligation, and can the Minister tell me of a single example elsewhere in the United Kingdom where we have a true lifeline public service with no lifeline obligation attached to those services?
Robert Courts
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is a long-standing advocate of improving the service for his constituents, and he and I have spoken about it on many occasions. He will of course know that service provision to the Island is a matter for the local council, working with service operators. None the less, the Government will continue to monitor the service on this route, and if there is anything he would like to discuss with me at any time he need only ask.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)
Where eligible, travel companies have been able to draw on the unprecedented package of measures brought forward by the Chancellor last year, such as the coronavirus job retention scheme, as well as our work to safely restart international travel under the global travel taskforce.
Wendy Chamberlain
In addition to being hampered by the international travel restrictions, many transport companies, such as long-distance coach companies, are struggling because of the lack of test provision for drivers. The Secretary of State spoke at length about what is happening for HGV drivers, but will the Minister confirm whether those changes will include PCV—passenger-carrying vehicle—drivers with more capacity for testing, and will the Government consider allowing tests to be taken in the delegated in-house facilities of larger companies such as Stagecoach?
Robert Courts
I thank the hon. Member for that question, which I know is something that matters a great deal to her constituents. We are looking to address the problem she raises, and I will be able to give her some further detail on that shortly.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Eighty-one thousand people working in air transport are currently on furlough, including approximately 2,200 in my constituency, which covers Manchester airport. Even in non-airport seats such as that of the Secretary of State, just short of 300 souls face the axe in less than a month’s time. Furlough is due to end three weeks today, and if the Government continue to restrict the market in some sort of latter-day corn law way, they have to make a choice: either open up the market, or put in a sectoral deal. Which is it going to be?
Robert Courts
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the importance of the air transport industry and the travel industry more generally, not just to his constituents but to all our constituents. That is certainly the case for my constituents, and I am acutely aware of it. The best way to support them all is to do what we in the Department for Transport are hard at work doing, which is to safely reopen international travel. Since we last spoke, on 2 August we expanded quarantine-free travel to passengers from the European Union and the United States. We are working to expand that further, and will continue to do so.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Earlier I mentioned the penny dropping with regard to HGV drivers, but the aviation and travel industries can only dream of the Government understanding the magnitude of the crisis they face. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of jobs have gone in the sector, including 3,000 in my constituency, and that is with a job retention scheme in place. If the scheme ends this month there will be further damage to the sector. Did the Minister make representation to the Treasury to extend the scheme for aviation and travel, and if not, why not?
Robert Courts
As I said to the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), the importance of this industry is well understood by me and the entirety of Government. We are working hard to ensure that we get international travel up and running again safely and securely, because that is the best way to protect all our constituents. We will continue to do that.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)
Options for routes into Hull are being considered as part of the integrated rail plan, which will be published soon.
Dame Diana Johnson
November will mark five years since Conservative Ministers blocked a £94 million privately financed scheme to electrify 70 miles of rail track between Selby and Hull. There are still no guarantees of a date for Hull rail electrification, and there are reports that the section of High-Speed 2 that would most directly affect and benefit east Yorkshire is being scaled back or even totally shelved. Last week Ministers announced £78 million for electrifying 13 miles of line between Wigan and Bolton, with the reason given being the economic case for that upgrade. The economic case for an upgrade in Hull is even stronger, with our energy estuary and freeport status. What exactly do Conservative Ministers have against Hull and the east Yorkshire area?
Andrew Stephenson
We have delivered almost 700 single-track miles of electrification over the past three years, and we continue to expand the electrified rail network. That compares with just 63 miles in 13 years of the last Labour Government. Therefore we will take no lessons from the Labour party on electrification.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
If Hull, Immingham and the Humber ports are to benefit from their freeport status, it is vital that we have a rail freight corridor between the Humber ports and the west coast. What progress is being made in that respect?
Andrew Stephenson
We recognise the importance of rail freight, and of supporting all the newly announced freeports. I know that the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), will be happy to meet my hon. Friend.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)
Assessments of the impact of HS2 construction traffic on roads were included within the environmental assessments submitted during the passage of the High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Act 2017 and the High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Act 2021. For East West Rail the impact of construction on roads is monitored in compliance with the Transport and Works Act orders.
Greg Smith
I thank my hon. Friend, and the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), for visiting my constituency during the summer recess to see for themselves the many issues that the construction of HS2 and East West Rail are causing for my constituents, one of which is the perilous state of the roads following a number of HGV movements. Will my hon. Friend reassure me that there will be urgent and rapid action to make safe those roads affected by the construction of those two projects?
Andrew Stephenson
Both the HS2 and East West Rail projects undertook full surveys of road conditions for the designated lorry routes prior to the construction works commencing. HS2 Ltd and East West Rail Company must ensure that all road damage as a result of construction works is repaired to the standard reported in those surveys. My hon. Friend continues to be a vocal champion for his constituents, and I look forward to continuing to work with him on this and other issues.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Earlier this year, the Prime Minister told this House that the Government were
“going to develop the eastern leg as well as the whole of the HS2.”—[Official Report, 10 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 325.]
Last year, he told the House that plans for HS2’s eastern leg remained “absolutely unchanged”. So when reports surfaced over the summer that Ministers planned to mothball the eastern leg, I was absolutely shocked. A U-turn, Mr Speaker? Another broken promise from this Government? Surely not.
Being the helpful person that I am, I want to help the Government put this scandalous rumour to bed once and for all. Can the Minister, rather than giving the evasive answer that he gave me last year about waiting for some sort of integrated rail plan, confirm that the eastern leg of HS2 will be built in full, on time and on budget?
Andrew Stephenson
I think the shadow Minister knows my answer. As the Prime Minister announced, we are working on the integrated rail plan, which is progressing well. It is only right that Ministers take time to fully consider all the evidence from all the stakeholders, regional leaders, the National Infrastructure Commission and the Government’s own analysis before making a decision. This is a cross-Government decision, but we intend to publish the integrated rail plan soon.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems with the HS2 phase 2b eastern leg is that local authorities seem constantly to be adding to the cost? Leeds City Council told HS2 that it could not shut any bridges or roads in the construction, meaning that the line has to be on a viaduct, which has increased the cost massively.
Andrew Stephenson
We are very keen to ensure that the benefits of HS2 are delivered as affordably as possible, recognising the importance of valuing every single penny of taxpayers’ money. Leeds and the regional stakeholders have brought forward ambitious plans for regeneration around a new Leeds station. That is one of the many aspects that is being considered across Government by Ministers not just in this Department but in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Treasury ahead of making decisions on the integrated rail plan.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Local residents neighbouring the brand-new Old Oak Common station, which has so far cost £6.98 billion and rising, showed me last week how their east-west journeys by bus, buggy—you name it—have become impossible because they are living in a barbed wire-festooned dust bowl of a building site. Can we have an urgent visit from the HS2 Minister? It should not just be Conservative Members who get visits. I have been waiting for a long time; the last time I was promised one was when the Secretary of State’s name rhymed with “failing”.
Andrew Stephenson
I would be delighted to visit Old Oak Common again. It is the largest ever railway station built in a single stage. It is a 32-acre site, and it will offer the hon. Lady’s constituents unrivalled connectivity when it is open. I have visited in the past, and I will be keen to visit again and meet the hon. Lady.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)
Over the last three years, £24 million of capital investment has been provided from Network Rail at Kettering station, with £1.13 million provided by East Midlands Railway.
Mr Hollobone
I thank the rail Minister for visiting Kettering station in May to see all the improvements that have been made. How many permanent jobs have been created by that investment, and when does he expect the historic canopy renovation works to be completed?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for that question and for allowing me to visit this wonderful station in his constituency. Network Rail’s canopy works—the canopy is truly beautiful, Mr Speaker—are planned for completion by the end of November this year. Network Rail’s works at Kettering, including the mainline route enhancements, have created 16 jobs, while East Midlands Railway has created 70 jobs there.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)
There is a consultation, which the hon. Lady well knows about, at this point in time. I am told that South Western Railway intends to provide 93% of its pre-covid capacity should that consultation be agreed to. I continue to monitor the situation.
Munira Wilson
It is clear that SWR’s proposals to slash services by about half from busy stations in my constituency, such as St Margarets and Whitton, is being driven by the demands in its contract with the Department for Transport. So will the Minister intervene and review his contract with SWR to avoid these drastic cuts to services on which local residents rely and for which they pay a very high price? It is far too soon to be making decisions about post-pandemic services.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I am watching the situation and looking forward to hearing back from SWR about the consultation. I have been talking about this very much with my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who has a similar campaign to that of the hon. Lady on behalf of his constituents. SWR has sent the consultation out to more than 3,500 stakeholders—MPs and other elected representatives, passengers and so on. Everybody knows that the number of passengers is still very much below the pre-pandemic level. We are relying on the results of that consultation to try to determine what future services need to look like.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)
It will not surprise Members to learn that the Department will soon publish an integrated rail plan, which will confirm how we intend to take forward the HS2 eastern leg.
Ben Bradley
I thank the Minister for that enlightening answer. He knows that as well as for HS2 itself, the IRP has huge implications for our regional economic growth, job creation and connectivity within the region. Ahead of any decision in the IRP, will he and the Secretary of State meet me, as the chair of the regional delivery board, to make sure that that decision ticks the boxes that we need in the east midlands?
Andrew Stephenson
I have been impressed by the scale of regeneration plans for the proposed station at Toton and the way in which local leaders have come together to maximise the benefits of HS2 for their communities. It is important that we consider regeneration and economic impacts upon local areas, as well as how to create the right kind of transport network—the IRP will seek to balance this. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend again to discuss this issue.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
The Department’s published guidance makes it clear that driver safety and that of other road users must not be compromised, and that the relaxation must only be used where necessary.
Rachel Hopkins
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, and I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Longer hours behind the wheel is not a solution to the shortage of HGV drivers; it is unsustainable, exploitative and dangerous. So does he agree with Unite the union, which represents many lorry drivers and supply chain workers, that such a crucial piece of our national infrastructure needs its own national council to set decent standards across the industry and, most importantly, to restore collective bargaining to improve and protect pay and conditions?
Grant Shapps
It is worth understanding, as there is often misunderstanding about this, that drivers are still bound by the working time directive and still have to work an average of a 48-hour working week over a 17 to 26-week period, and that the relaxations do not increase the working time; they are in place to allow extra flexibility. However, I do agree with the hon. Lady about the need on drivers’ conditions—they have been poor over the years, which is one reason why 99% of HGV drivers are men. We need to improve those facilities, to bring many more people into the sector, and I am very keen, as I mentioned before, to see better pay and conditions as well.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
We recently published the transport decarbonisation plan and set out our pathway to achieving net zero, and we are delivering an ambitious, international COP26 campaign.
Patrick Grady
The Scottish Government have just announced that they will meet the target long campaigned for by active travel groups of 10% of the transport budget to be spent on active travel. That is exactly the kind of ambition that needs to be highlighted at the COP. So, first, I hope the Secretary of State will invite the Scottish Transport Minister along to explain that ambition. Secondly, will the Secretary of State outline what steps the Government are taking to meet that ambition south of the border?
Grant Shapps
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman missed it earlier in the summer, but we announced an active travel programme—this was all part of our £2 billion of funding, with, I believe, an additional £330 million of that being spent this year alone. Of course COP26 will provide a fantastic opportunity for the United Kingdom to showcase all the work we are doing collectively in order to improve our climate.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
With an eye on COP26, I thank my right hon. Friend for his support for the reopening of dormant railway stations as part of the Government’s drive to net zero. In doing so, what assessment has he made of local authorities that have both declared a climate emergency and contributed to the preparation of business cases for these exciting possibilities for communities such as Eddisbury, which are still ill served by rail?
Grant Shapps
I thank my hon. Friend. I do think that local authorities that declare a climate emergency should be prepared to pay more than lip service to the issue. I was having a look and I understand, unfortunately, that the Labour-led Cheshire West and Chester Council is still refusing to contribute a mere £5,000 to his valiant efforts to reopen Beeston Castle and Tarporley station, the only potential station between Crewe and Chester.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
In the past month, my constituents in Bath have been subjected to the pollution of helicopter joyrides flying low over Bath. Clearly, this type of leisure pursuit is hugely damaging to the environment and does nothing to get us to net zero. Currently, neither the Civil Aviation Authority nor Bath and North East Somerset Council has the power to intervene. Will the Minister meet me to find a way forward for my constituents?
Grant Shapps
I congratulate the hon. Lady for shoehorning that into this particular question. I am more than happy to arrange for her to meet my aviation Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts)—to discuss it.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)
The Government recognise that the cost of testing can be high and continue to work with industry to reduce costs further. The costs of NHS Test and Trace tests for international arrivals were reduced recently, and the Competition and Markets Authority is conducting an urgent review into the testing market.
Jeremy Wright
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he said and for what he is doing, but he knows that this problem affects not just those who want to go on holiday, but those who want to see family and may not have seen them now for years. To help those families—particularly larger families—with these costs and to resuscitate the aviation industry, as I know he is keen to do, will he please do more to make sure that the costs of those tests come down to be as low as they reasonably can be?
Robert Courts
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that question and particularly for his emphasis on the wide breadth of reasons why people have to travel. Bringing families back together, as well as business and leisure travel, is a major part of that and I thank him for drawing the House’s attention to it. He can be absolutely assured that the DFT will continue to work with travel and testing providers to reduce costs further, for travel that is cheap and easy, as well as safe, is our aim.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Rachel Maclean)
In addition to investing £1.7 billion in local roads this financial year, I am pleased to say that the Department has now published its position paper on road condition monitoring on gov.uk and is working with the highways sector towards a common data standard to help local authorities to target defects in their networks more effectively.
Scott Benton
I thank the Minister for the additional £3.2 million that her Department has provided to Blackpool Council for routine maintenance work in the current financial year. Despite this additional funding, many of my constituents are concerned that Blackpool Council has the wrong local transport priorities and is far too slow in completing routine maintenance work. What priorities does her Department have in place to ensure that money given to local authorities is spent in a timely and efficient manner?
Rachel Maclean
I agree with my hon. Friend and his residents that it is incredibly disappointing that Labour-run Blackpool Council is failing in its responsibilities to ensure that there are decent and reliable roads for residents, which is clearly a priority. We know from freedom of information requests that Conservative councils fix potholes faster than their Labour equivalents. I hope that Blackpool will work harder on this issue.
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Rachel Maclean)
The Government are investing in major enhancements across the strategic and local road networks to increase capacity and reduce delays.
Andrew Lewer
The car remains a great agent of enterprise and personal freedom and we should never apologise for advancing its cause, so in that spirit, what support will the Department provide to advance construction of the much needed north-west and northern parts of the Northampton ring road?
Rachel Maclean
I commend my hon. Friend for his sterling efforts over a long period to support investment in a key part of the local road network in his area, which, as he says, is vital for jobs and the local economy. I understand that West Northamptonshire Council is exploring options to secure funding, and discussions will take place in the spending review.
Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
The Department is working closely with operators to support measures to increase passenger confidence and encourage a return to the network. On the two trains that I took this morning, I could see that it is working.
Lee Rowley
Buses are a clear manifestation of community across the country. Even for small-state Conservatives like me, there is a role for subsidy. Will the Secretary of State commit to a cautious approach to subsidy that balances the opportunity for communities to make services viable with encouraging them over the long term to become self-sufficient?
Grant Shapps
I agree that buses are essential to communities: they connect people, enable people to get to jobs and education, and drive growth. That is why we are investing £3 billion of new money during this Parliament outside London for English buses, with consequentials, and why over the pandemic we provided £1.4 billion to support the sector.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)
The formation of Great British Railways is still in its early stages. The location of its headquarters will be considered in due course.
Mrs Latham
The Minister will be aware of the central role that Derby has played in the history of British rail transport. Derby has also invested in the future of the industry, with local businesses helping to develop the UK’s first hydrogen trains. Does he agree that that combination of pedigree and potential would make Derby an excellent location for the new headquarters of Great British Railways?
Chris Heaton-Harris
My hon. Friend knows my affection for Derby, which I represented for 10 years in the European Parliament. She is right that Derby has played an important role in the history of rail in this country. I have heard her sales pitch this time and previous times loud and clear, but I have to say that the location of GBR’s headquarters will be considered in due course.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
Today is World EV Day, celebrating electric vehicle ownership worldwide and right here in the UK—one of the best places to drive an electric vehicle. Our extensive network of 25,000 publicly available charge points means that we have more rapid chargers for every 100 miles of key strategic road than any other country in Europe. We have made real progress, with more than half a million electric vehicles on our road. I am pleased to say that just last month, through grants and tax incentives, one in six cars sold in this country had a plug on the end of it.
Mrs Murray
I have been working closely with local councillor Sheila Lennox-Boyd to get improvements to the A38, including the roundabout at Carkeel, which is a National Highways responsibility, and the bridge, which is run by local councils. Will the Secretary of State meet us to discuss this key route into Cornwall?
Grant Shapps
I commend my hon. Friend for her very determined efforts in campaigning for road improvements, not just there but elsewhere in her constituency. I know that the roads Minister will be very happy to meet her to discuss the matter further.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
Back in July, speaking about the Prime Minister’s pledge to buy 4,000 UK zero-emissions buses by 2025, the Secretary of State said that
“there are 900 buses in production right now”—[Official Report, 14 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 408.]
Allegedly, this is the Government’s flagship policy, yet the roll-out of these buses seems to be little more than rhetoric, given that every British manufacturer of buses I have spoken to says that they have no knowledge whatever of any orders. Will the Secretary of State now tell the House exactly where those buses are being made right now, as opposed to being potential on a DFT internal spreadsheet or more greenwashed PR spin from this Government?
Grant Shapps
I will tell you what I will do, Mr Speaker: not only will I write to the hon. Gentleman, but I will publish a copy of the letter in the House, for the House’s greater benefit. He will be interested to see that those buses are not just ordered or in production; some are actually on the road.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)
The current timetable structure and track capacity on the Great Eastern line south of Ipswich have not allowed any new direct services to be implemented to Liverpool Street at this time. I am aware of the problem; my officials have asked Greater Anglia to continue to see whether there might be opportunities to introduce direct services between Liverpool Street and Lowestoft, as I very much recognise the importance of the direct service.
Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)
Chris Heaton-Harris
As the hon. Lady knows, I am very fond of her city, which is very near my own. I do not know much about this particular project, so I am very willing to meet her to go through it and see how we can take things forward.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
My hon. Friend will know that there is a bid in at the moment for the shovel-ready scheme to convert the freight-only railway line from Lichfield to Burton into a regular passenger service. It is backed, in a personal capacity, by his fellow Minister, the roads Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Kate Griffiths), and—most important of all!—by the West Midlands Mayor, because of the connectivity. It will be driven, incidentally, by a hydrogen-powered locomotive if it is given the go-ahead. Will my hon. Friend come up to Lichfield to see for himself how vital this rail service will be?
Chris Heaton-Harris
In his normal shy and retiring way, my hon. Friend has given me an invitation that I simply cannot refuse. As he knows, we have received a bid for the restoration of passenger services between Lichfield and other places in round 3 of the restoring your railway ideas fund, and I look forward very much to my forthcoming visit.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
Chris Heaton-Harris
I thank the hon. Lady for her very good question. As I mentioned earlier, Great British Railways is in its formative stages, but I will happily work with her and the accessibility groups that she mentioned so that we can help to guide people through any new systems that come forward.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
Chris Heaton-Harris
Antidotes and doctors! Following his question to one of my colleagues yesterday, I was not sure that my hon. Friend was all that keen on vaccines—or vaccine passports, at least.
I am obviously well aware of my hon. Friend’s bid for the Ashton-to-Stockport line, including the Rose Hill connection, which is in round 3 of the restoring your railway ideas fund. He has kindly given me a great deal of information about the bid, and I have met him and the other proponents of it. I promise him that we are assessing the bids, and expect to announce outcomes very shortly.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Grant Shapps
The Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), says he has received an offer he cannot refuse. Also, I would be very happy to come and visit when the diary allows.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
Grant Shapps
I am all in favour of having a science-led emphasis on everything to do with policy, and the fact that they are 123,842 lorry drivers short in Poland suggests to me that this is not a Brexit-only issue. I have explained the measures that are not only going to happen next year or the year after but are happening now with 50% more tests, and this will happen very quickly with the consultation result that I have already discussed.
Mark Eastwood (Dewsbury) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Rachel Maclean)
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. I share his concern, and I know that he is a passionate advocate for safer roads in Dewsbury. I can tell him that the Department is currently working to redraft that circular, with a new version to be published by the end of the year.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Two of my constituents, a Danish national and a British citizen with Danish residence, were denied boarding a BA flight by the airline’s staff because they did not accept my constituent’s proof of Danish residence even though it was consistent with Danish travel advice. Despite a letter that I received from a Foreign Office Minister confirming that my constituents were right, BA has refused to issue a refund and is standing by its misinterpretation of the advice. Does the Minister agree that airlines need clearer guidance on international travel documentation post-Brexit, and will he raise the issue with the airlines, the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary to ensure that this does not happen again?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising this matter. It is difficult for me to comment on an individual case, but perhaps we could meet and if he could give me further details I would be very happy to take this up.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
This week the Transport Committee has launched yet another inquiry on international travel, and we will shortly be hearing from the chief executives of leading airlines and airports as to why they are doing less than 20% of the business they were doing in usual times while mainland Europe is now up to about 70%. They will be concerned that furlough is coming to an end, and they will want to know whether the barriers to travel will be reduced to make up the shortfall. I know the Secretary of State has done a lot already, but can he offer some optimism and encouragement on how the rules will change to allow the business to do more transactions?
Grant Shapps
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who does a terrific job chairing the Transport Committee. We do want to see the recovery, and I can inform him that I will shortly chair the second meeting of the G7 Transport Secretaries to discuss exactly his point. We will discuss how we can roll this out internationally using the principle of fully vaccinated travel and how we can try to reduce the costs and the imposition of the tests along the way. However, those decisions have yet to be made, both domestically and internationally, so I do not want to overly raise my hon. Friend’s hopes but I can reassure him that we are focusing on this.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The SMMT estimates that, in order to have the correct charge point coverage by 2030, 700 new charge points will need to be installed every single day. Can the Minister advise me on how many are currently being installed, and whether we are ever going to reach the target of 700 a day?
Rachel Maclean
In our infrastructure strategy that is to be published shortly, we will set out clearly how we are going to meet the charge point targets that are required. I would like to draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that we are installing 500 charge points every month across the country, and that by 2023 we will have six rapid chargers in every motorway service station across the country.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Our very popular rail Minister is aware of the excellent work being done by the North Cotswold Line Task Force. Could he update colleagues and councils along the North Cotswold line on his conversations with the Treasury about doing more business casework on redoubling a stretch of the North Cotswold line?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I had a recent meeting with the taskforce, and I am due to have meetings with Treasury colleagues at which I have said I will raise this issue. I believe I am waiting for a tiny piece of work from the taskforce, so I look forward to receiving that and trying to move the project forward with my hon. Friend.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Does the Secretary of State agree that as London returns to work and commuters begin to get back on the trains and into their cars, it is important that we encourage people, as much as possible, back on to public transport? In my constituency we expect the construction of some 1,500 flats over the next few years. Does he agree this is no time to be cutting South Western Railway services to North Sheen, Mortlake and Barnes?
Chris Heaton-Harris
As I said to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), South Western Railway is undertaking a consultation that will shape the future of services. It is important that that consultation is viewed as one that we will listen to, and we will listen to it. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) will have seen that recently, following consultation, we decided not to proceed with the east coast main line proposals because of stakeholder reaction, among other things, so it is vital that the consultation is replied to in great detail, and I hope she will do that.
Afghanistan: FCDO Responses to Members
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on when he will ensure detailed responses are provided to hon. and right hon. Members regarding UK nationals and vulnerable Afghans stuck in Afghanistan.
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
Through the shared effort across Government and our armed forces, we have delivered one of the largest and most complex evacuation operations in living memory. Between 15 and 29 August, we evacuated over 15,000 people from Afghanistan. This includes more than 8,000 British nationals, close to 5,000 Afghans who loyally served the United Kingdom, along with their dependants, and about 500 special cases of particularly vulnerable Afghans, including Chevening scholars, journalists, human rights defenders, campaigners for women’s rights, judges and so on.
Now that the primary evacuation period has ended, we have moved to a new phase. We stand by our commitments to support those who have worked for us and to take all remaining eligible cases. Securing the safe passage out of the country of those who remain is an immediate priority, and we are working through diplomatic channels to that end, which is why Ministers have made calls and the Foreign Secretary has visited the region. It is our determination to continue to work rapidly with both the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence to assess all cases that have been sent through to us.
Responding to MPs’ cases and correspondence remains a priority for the Government. My noble Friend the Minister for South Asia and the Commonwealth wrote on 5 September to all those MPs who sent cases to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, outlining the actions we are taking to progress the cases that have been sent to us, as well as the relevant contact routes that are now available as the initial evacuation phase is over.
The Minister for South Asia and the Commonwealth also sent a letter to all parliamentarians on 6 September outlining the work we are doing to provide safe passage for all those still in Afghanistan.
We received over 200,000 emails during Operation Pitting alone, which is significantly more than we received during the entire repatriation operation for British nationals at the onset of the covid pandemic last year. During the evacuation, our priority was rightly on getting UK nationals and those Afghans who worked for us on to the flights leaving Afghanistan. In addition, we brought out hundreds of individuals who were identified as special cases owing to the particular risk they faced because of their ties with the United Kingdom.
Since the completion of the evacuation phase, we have been urgently working through the correspondence, including the hundreds of letters that we received during the operation from MPs and peers, many of which contained multiple cases. More than 100 additional staff have been assigned to work through the caseload. Where the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has received cases that are dealt with by the Ministry of Defence under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy or by the Home Office under the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme, we will pass them to the relevant Department. This will be completed within a week—that is, by 16 September—and those MPs concerned will be informed as to the Government Department that will be assessing the cases. Only after this assessment will the relevant Department be able to provide a more substantive update to those Members who have sent in cases.
The FCDO will continue to handle British national cases and we will be in contact with MPs about the specific cases they have raised within seven days, providing as much detail as we are able. We are deeply grateful for and pay tribute to the work of parliamentarians during this mammoth operation. I also pay tribute to the staff of many MPs who have worked around the clock responding to the concerns of constituents and those stuck in Afghanistan. Thanks to parliamentary colleagues and Members, our consular team has already been able to reach many who are in need. We are committed to addressing the concerns of parliamentarians as we move forward and will intensify our work as we end this operation.
Chris Bryant
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker.
In my 20 years as an MP, I do not think I have heard as many upsetting stories as I have heard in the past few weeks, and I think that that feeling is reflected among many Members of the House. We owe a debt of gratitude to our staff because many of them are fielding these calls, not just once but every single day, with requests for information. Let me cite just one:
“I have eligibility offer. I have submitted all documents, including passports, birth certificates, marriage certificates. I was FCDO interpreter in Helmand. I am still in Afghanistan. The British Government did not evacuate me. I might be killed by the Taliban.”
Torture, rape, threats and constant reprisals are the reality for many people who stood by us in our hour of need. If anyone believed or hoped that the Taliban had changed, just listen to this:
“The Taliban are arresting people in my street. They go door to door. They knocked my house door again and were looking for me.”
I will not read out any more from that email because it would reveal who it is, but this is from a UK contractor whose father had all his fingernails removed one by one the last time the Taliban were in charge before being murdered. I note also that the Taliban has now announced that women will not even be allowed to take part in sport, so what chance is there for any participation in society or a full education?
Repeating a promise made by the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister told the House on Monday that every single email from colleagues was being responded to by “close of play today”—that was Monday, not next Thursday or in a month’s time. It was this Monday that has already gone. So far, all we have had is a circular—a Dear Colleague letter, not even handwritten—from one of the Ministers, as referred to by the Minister just now. There has been no answer to the 143 individual cases—sorry, it is 142 cases because one was murdered the other day.
I have to say that the way that the Government have dealt with Members has been a complete and utter shambles. I know that they may want to do good, but they have let us all down in this. This is no way to treat Members or our constituents. Why on earth have three separate channels through three separate Departments? It means that we have added to the confusion by sending everything in in triplicate, because we do not know which is the right set of criteria. We want a single point of contact and not, incidentally, the Minister for resettlement in the UK. We want a Minister for rescuing people in danger in Afghanistan—a single point of contact. The Minister has just repeated that we must go through all three Departments all over again.
Let me ask some specific questions. If someone has been rejected for the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, will they be considered automatically under the other schemes? That is not at all clear for the two who have been rejected that I know of. When will the full resettlement scheme criteria be in place and publicly available? As I understand it, it has still not been agreed by Government. I am reluctant to raise this, but why did the Government provide virtual briefing meetings for Tory MPs only fully a week, if not two weeks, before Labour MPs were engaged? I know that this is the case, because at least five Conservative MPs have raised it with me. How many MPs have written to Ministers with details of UK nationals?
Finally, will the Minister respond to the charge that was made in relation to British embassy officials telling people on the day of the explosion at the Abbey Gate that they should still be going there? That was clearly a miscommunication. The Foreign Secretary said that he was going to update us and give us the full details, but we still have not heard them.
James Cleverly
I completely understand the passion with which the hon. Gentleman speaks. I suspect that every single Member of Parliament has received similarly harrowing accounts. Indeed, I have had a number of communications from previous military colleagues who are themselves in touch with Afghans they had worked with. We all recognise the fear and horror that many Afghans are going through.
I also thank the many MPs from across the House who have privately thanked me and asked me to pass on their thanks to the ministerial team and, probably more importantly, to the officials in the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence for the numbers of people who have been evacuated from Afghanistan. As I said, this was an unprecedented operation, and being in receipt of over 200,000 emails has put a strain on all of the Government that is unlike anything any of us have had to deal with before.
The hon. Gentleman says that we should only have one set of assessment criteria. That cannot be the case.
James Cleverly
Well, the hon. Gentleman said that there should one scheme. There cannot be one system for British nationals, Afghan nationals who have worked with us and Afghan nationals who have not worked with us. He says that Members are being told to send things in three different directions. That has not been the case. If he listens back to the speech that I just made, he will hear me saying that the FCDO has triaged and will triage correspondence from Members and make sure that it is sent to the appropriate Government Department so that British nationals are dealt with by the Foreign Office, where they should be dealt with; ARAP cases are dealt with by the Ministry of Defence, where they should be dealt with; and special cases are dealt with by the Home Office, where they should be dealt with.
We will ensure that correspondence that we have received before the end of this month is assessed and that Members will be told where their correspondence has been triaged to. If that correspondence has been sent to the FCDO, they will receive a status within seven days.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
As everybody knows, the last few months have been an especially harrowing time for many of our staff, and the teams in constituency offices all over our islands have been frankly outstanding and impressive. It is also true that many of those working in the Foreign Office crisis centre have been quite exceptional. I pay huge tribute as well to our right hon. Friends the Defence Secretary and the Home Secretary, whose efforts have been second to none.
The point about unity of command is one that I know my right hon. Friend the Minister understands exceptionally well; it avoids confusion, risk and danger. That is particularly important in this situation because, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was saying, the risk to these people is growing by the day. The biometric data that was left behind by the United States is increasingly being used against these people, to track them and find them. People are taking risks in going to the border, from which they then have to turn back when they find out that borders are closed or their papers are no good. Giving information early is therefore not just a kindness or a courtesy; it is lifesaving. Will the Minister commit to trying to bring these things more closely together, to achieving a comprehensive approach between the three Departments, and to giving answers quickly to those who stood by us in our hour of need?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point about the speed with which these decisions are made, but we should remember that in all cases, and particularly in immigration cases dealt with by the Home Office, there is a degree of complexity that does not make speed easy. We should also remember that in many cases, because Afghans have had to flee their homes, cities and villages, they have incomplete, or in some cases are completely devoid of, documentation, which adds a degree of complexity.
We made an expansive and generous offer to support those Afghans who were at particularly high risk of reprisals from the Taliban. That created a significant increase in the number of cases brought to our attention. We absolutely will work through them at pace, but we have to be realistic about the complexity of some of these cases. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that speed is of the essence; we recognise that. We also recognise that Members who have contacted us in genuine fear for the people they have either worked with or speak on behalf of also want some reassurance, which is why we are absolutely dedicated to making sure that we pass on in a timely manner the information we are able to pass on.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
A week ago last Sunday, The Observer newspaper quoted a whistleblower who had access to Foreign Office email accounts. He said that MPs were not getting replies to the emails they had sent, and:
“It’s not just that MPs weren’t getting replies—their emails weren’t being read”.
The source also said that there was a backlog of 5,000 emails.
On Monday this week, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary stood before the House and made commitments to Members on all Benches. Referring to a question from the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), the Prime Minister said:
“I can tell him that by close of play today every single one of the emails from colleagues around this House will be answered”.—[Official Report, 6 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 26.]
Later that day, the Foreign Secretary said,
“we will have replied to all MPs’ emails received by 30 August asking for an update by today.”—[Official Report, 6 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 47.]
Both those commitments have been broken. That clearly runs against the basic principle of this House and treats Members from all parties with utter contempt. Given that MPs continue to wait for detailed emails on hundreds of cases, it raises the prosect that the Government knew at the time that they were making a promise to Members that they could not or would not keep.
The seriousness of these cases demands a serious response. Many of the people involved are vulnerable—women, children, families, LGBT+ people, people who have worked alongside the UK in Afghanistan and people living in fear of the new Taliban regime. Members’ staff have worked incredibly hard, as have Members from all parties themselves, so will the Minister now tell us, clearly and definitively: when will these emails be fully and comprehensively answered?
James Cleverly
Two hundred thousand emails were received. Although it is absolutely the case that the people in Afghanistan—whether they be British nationals, Afghans who worked for us or at-risk Afghans—are a priority, it is just not possible to open, analyse and respond to 200,000 emails in the same timescale that we would normally be able to.
The commitment made by my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister was discharged: every single MP received a response so that they knew that their email had been received and opened and would be worked on. The detail on where those emails have been triaged to and, in respect of cases that are being dealt with by the FCDO, the initial status of cases will be, as I said, provided to right hon. and hon. Member from all parties by 16 September. The commitment that was made was discharged. We will continue to work on behalf of British nationals and at-risk Afghans and we will ensure that any correspondence received directly by the FCDO is triaged and sent to the most appropriate Government Department for processing.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I would like to thank all the officials who have been dealing with this matter, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has raised a really important subject. I will come straight to the point. How confident is the Minister that the UK will be able to reach and get out of Afghanistan those Afghan folks who worked with us, not so much in Kabul but in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, where they served alongside the UK military and took the greatest risks to their own safety and that of their families? What is the chance of getting hold of those people who are now trapped hundreds of miles from Kabul?
James Cleverly
The ministerial team at the FCDO, including the Foreign Secretary, have been liaising extensively with both neighbouring countries and countries in the region to facilitate the evacuation of Afghans who have worked with us. It is not possible—it is not possible—to make cast iron guarantees. There is no functioning Government in Afghanistan, but we are liaising intensively with neighbouring countries to give the Afghans the very best chance of escaping the Taliban regime.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
I warmly commend the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for bringing this matter forward, because it allows us the opportunity to express the real frustration and anger that exists. In that spirit, I commend the Minister for his statement today, because there was rather more humility and realism in it than we heard from the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary earlier this week. I think it is that mismatch between what has been said and what has been delivered that has led to the upset.
I have an auto-response for anybody who emails me. They get an automatic response generated by my inbox saying, “What is your postcode? Are you a real person? Do you live in Stirling?” So I could say, hand on heart, that anybody who gets in touch with me gets a response within seconds, but for me to suggest that that is a substantive response that actually answers the question would surely be misleading Parliament, which is why I have never made that point. I have to say to the Minister that I have canvassed opinion across the SNP group. As at 5 o’clock last night, we have 153 outstanding cases of individuals within Afghanistan needing help. We have not had a proper response. I will send all of those to him this afternoon and I would be grateful for an urgent response from his services to that.
We are trying to be constructive here. We need to learn the lessons. Can the Minister commit to a review for the future? When will the new details of the new scheme be published, so we can all learn the lessons for the future?
James Cleverly
Members need to be realistic about the level of detail and granularity that any organisation is able to provide in this timescale. We are talking about one of the most complicated and challenging environments anywhere in the world at the moment. There is no functioning Government in Afghanistan. These cases are incredibly complex. We made a commitment to ensure that Members knew their emails had been received, triaged and allocated to the appropriate Department. The commitment I have made today is that they will receive that information within seven days. They should know the emails have been received by the Department because they will have already, as per the commitment made by my right hon. Friends, received the confirmation that we are working on those cases. I cannot promise to be able to resolve complex cases within a matter of days. No organisation is able to do that, but we will work tirelessly to ensure these cases are operationalised.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Female Afghan MPs are particularly at risk. Many have decided, very sadly, to leave their own country. As a public service announcement, I want to say that the Inter-Parliamentary Union is working with other Parliaments to put together the complete list of those individuals. I thank the Minister’s noble Friend for offering me a meeting. I know that many colleagues will have heard from female Afghan MPs. If they could ensure that they reach out to me, as chair of the British group, to make sure we have sight of all the names, we will work with other Parliaments to ensure that when they are able to get out of the country there will be a range of different countries that will give them refuge.
James Cleverly
We have worked extensively with countries in the region. I pay particular thanks to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which have worked very hard on some specific cases that I have raised with them. I am very grateful for the point that my hon. Friend has made. We do very much prioritise women, who, as we have always known but are now reminded, are in particular danger under the new regime in Afghanistan.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Can we speed up the questions and answers to try to get as many in as possible?
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
This Government are making a habit of breaking promises. However, breaking their commitment to help desperate people trying to flee Afghanistan is a new low. I have hundreds of people asking for my help to save their loved ones. Fazel Rabi Rustamkhel contacted me about his brother, a BBC journalist in Afghanistan, whose life he understandably believes to be in grave danger, yet I have not even received so much as an acknowledgment of the case from the Foreign Office. Can the Minister now tell me when I will have a reply that I can share with Fazel, and when we will receive substantive responses to all outstanding casework?
James Cleverly
I have already made the commitment that any cases received before 30 August will have had a confirmation response, that the emails will be, or have been, triaged to the relevant Government Departments, and that Members will get confirmation of that triage destination within seven days. For cases presented to us after 30 August, the normal turnaround time for response has been three weeks, which we have committed to reduce to two weeks. However, we are conscious that there is still a very intensive pipeline of cases being presented to us, and we will work on those as well.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
Can I gently point out to hon. Gentlemen opposite that the only meetings I attended were all-party or were invited as such? I thank all at the FCDO, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office for all the work that they have done to extricate many of the Afghans who are at risk because they have been helping the UK Government. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that we are now repaying that help with opportunities here to contribute to our society with appropriate jobs and other support?
James Cleverly
Operation Warm Welcome is an incredibly important part of this, because while it is of course the absolute priority to remove Afghans, where possible, from danger in Afghanistan, we want to ensure that those who come to the UK are able to integrate and to fulfil their lives. Having a plan not just for housing but ultimately for future employment and so on is a really important part of that, and that is what underpins Operation Warm Welcome.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I note the Minister’s comments about co-ordinating with the Home Office, but could I urge him to similarly co-ordinate with the devolved Administrations across the UK, who will play a huge role in looking after our refugees? If the commitment to refugees is not backed up by suitable funding to councils in the UK, the scheme will fail—it is as simple as that. So can I urge the Government to put appropriate funding into UK councils to see that this actually works?
James Cleverly
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point about the ongoing support. He will have noted that the Government have already made a financial commitment to support local government as part of Operation Warm Welcome. He makes an incredibly important point and it is noted.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
There is no doubt about the incredible effort that the Foreign Office and other Government Departments have put into responding to this incredibly difficult and tragic situation, and I thank the Minister for his honest and constructive responses to this UQ. This country is leading the way in offering safe haven to up to 20,000 Afghans over the next four years, but for many Afghans fleeing the country, their first port of call will be neighbouring countries such as Pakistan or Uzbekistan. Can he confirm that some of the £286 million in aid that we are allocating will be used to support refugees in these neighbouring countries?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend is right that the majority of refugees from Afghanistan would be expected to find refuge, at least in the first instance, in neighbouring countries. We work extensively with those countries. We enjoy strong bilateral relations with most, particularly Pakistan, which has a long border with Afghanistan. I can assure him that we will continue to work closely with them to ensure that refugees that enter their countries are looked after.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I join the Minister in thanking members of the armed forces and consular staff, who have worked incredibly hard. This mess is not of their making; it is that of Ministers. He claims there have been 200,000 emails, but they are not all from Members of Parliament. If that were the case, we would have each sent more than 300 emails. Is he saying to the House that our emails have no more weight than any others? Can I just raise with him the marked contrast with how other countries have dealt with this issue? I had a constituent in Afghanistan who is a British citizen. There was no answer from the Foreign Office. My office laterally thought, as her husband is a US citizen, to contact the State Department. It not only replied straight away, but got her out within 48 hours and phoned to say it had been done. There is a different way of doing it, and it is about how parliamentarians are treated.
The Defence Secretary suggested that people should now move to the borders if they want to leave. I have a family in my constituency who have the ability to get to Pakistan, but want to know what happens next. The Germans last week put in place a transit route through Uzbekistan. Where are we at with this?
James Cleverly
As I have said, the Foreign Secretary visited the region and spoke extensively with regional partners, including Pakistan. We will continue to explore with those neighbouring countries what means can be put in place for Afghans to come to the UK, where that is their most appropriate destination. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman pays tribute to the officials in the Government Departments, most notably the FCDO, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office. Many other Departments provided volunteers to reinforce our work, and I also pay tribute to them.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I thank the Government for responding positively to the representations I have made on behalf of Afghans at risk. May I ask my right hon. Friend about what will happen? Given that the Taliban will increase their grip and become less and less helpful, the only way for people to get out of the country will be to run to the border. That brings them into the scope of neighbouring jurisdictions and the United Nations. What discussion has he had with the UN about trying to assist people to leave to appropriate countries, such as the UK, and specifically triage them, as has happened with the Syria resettlement programme?
James Cleverly
I thank my right hon. Friend for congratulating the officials who have been working so hard on this. I note that it is surprisingly common to be thanked by Opposition Members in private, and less so in public, but I will take the thanks wherever it comes. With regards to engagement, I can assure him that we are engaging multilaterally and with countries in the region. We will explore all routes for helping Afghans evacuate, whether that be land crossings or the re-establishment of air corridors.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
Like many Members, I have an awful lot of cases. I have 150 cases that I am dealing with. I will not rehearse all the details, but they include prominent women’s rights activists who have death warrants already issued on their heads by the Taliban. I have veterans of the Afghan national army, and I even have the wife of a British national who has a two-month-old baby and is stuck in Kabul. I have another chap whose family have already been butchered by the theocratic fascists of the Taliban, and he is now in hiding, awaiting instructions from me or the Government on how we will get him out. I genuinely want to know what conversations the Minister is having, and whether they are being accelerated, with people such as our friends in the Pakistani Government to ensure that they have the money and support to be able to get as many people as possible safely over the border. It is clear we will not be extracting anyone directly out of Afghanistan any time soon, but we have friends there. If we can support them, we can get people out of Afghanistan and process them there to get to safe haven in our country.
James Cleverly
I think Members from all parts of the House will completely understand the fear that the people who have contacted the hon. Gentleman will have. We will all have had similar cases. We are liaising closely with the countries on the border. It is understandable that no country would want to accept many hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of undocumented people, so it is not as easy as saying, “Countries should open their borders to Afghan refugees.” We are working closely with them to ensure that there is a process by which we can help to evacuate as many eligible Afghans as possible.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I worked in the Foreign Office crisis centre and I cannot imagine what our diplomats have been through. I am so grateful that many hundreds of those whose cases I took up personally were evacuated over the last few weeks, including those who went to the Baron hotel on the day of the terror attack—yes, it was terrifying, but it got them out. This will upset colleagues, but no, I did not hear back on those who were evacuated—but the Afghans did, and that is all that matters. Sometimes, I did not know that they were out until they were in a hotel in the UK, but they got out. I still have some to get out, and I am heartbroken about that; I speak to them every single day. My ask is: reply to them. I do not need a reply; they need a reply. Let us get them out. Let us also recognise our Foreign Office staff. I am very grateful for what they did alongside our military.
James Cleverly
I thank my hon. Friend for her point about the Afghans whom we were able to help. During the process, we have always prioritised our ability to get people at risk out of Afghanistan—including Sir Laurie at the Baron hotel, shortly before the explosion, to help facilitate the processing of Afghans leaving. We endeavoured both to get them out and to keep Members informed, but we will prioritise getting people out.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
The French Republic began its evacuation by 10 May and it was completed four weeks before the fall of the city of Kabul; meanwhile, a fortnight before, the British Government—the Minister’s Government—were still sending asylum seekers back from the UK. Would it not be right that if the Minister had talked to his colleagues in the French Republic, Members on both sides would not be in this ridiculous position? The reality is, it is an utter failure of political leadership at the heart of the Government that has allowed this to happen.
James Cleverly
The ARAP scheme to help repatriate Afghans who had worked directly with us was put in place in April this year. The FCDO travel advice was updated in April and, prior to mid-August, many thousands had already left Afghanistan. I absolutely reject the hon. Member’s point. We should remember that this is the largest and most complex evacuation scheme that the Government have ever had to deal with—certainly in anyone’s living memory.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
In the call that took place on 24 August, Members were told by the Foreign Secretary that cases of Afghan nationals who did not meet the ARAP criteria but on whom we had information that they had supported UK objectives and were at risk could be submitted to the FCDO via the special cases route. I submitted a handful, as I am sure many of my hon. Friends did. All I would like to know is: are those special cases still being considered on a discretionary basis outside the ARAP and Afghan citizens resettlement scheme? If so, when will decisions be made and Members told?
James Cleverly
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, which helps to explain why different applicants have to go through different routes. The Ministry of Defence has, understandably, taken the lead with regard to the ARAP scheme, because those were Afghans who worked directly for the Ministry of Defence, but when we made the expansive, generous offer to protect more Afghans whom we knew were going to be at risk, that increased the complexity enormously. I am completely happy for the FCDO to remain the point at which we triage applications, but ultimately the time it takes to assess applications will depend entirely on their complexity. In some instances where people have had to flee and leave all their documents behind, a very complex set of assessments needs to be made.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I am sorry that I am having to draw stumps, but I will leave this message with the Minister. Both I and the Leader of the House are very concerned that MPs’ correspondence is not being answered. I know that you have been inundated, but the fact is that people should be brought in to ensure that MPs get at least the acknowledgment that they deserve. I also have a real concern. The Minister is very generous and courteous to all in this Chamber, but I am not happy that briefings are there only for certain MPs and not for others. They should be for all. I represent everybody in this Chamber, not the select few. So, please, let us get the message across to answer emails, making sure that MPs are responded to as quickly as possible, but also that briefings should be given to the Opposition, as well as to some on the Government side.
Business of the House
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
The business for the week commencing 13 September will include:
Monday 13 September—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill.
Tuesday 14 September—Consideration of a business of the House motion, followed by all stages of the Health and Social Care Levy Bill.
Wednesday 15 September—Opposition day (5th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. The subject is to be announced.
Thursday 16 September—General debate on the role and the response of the devolved Administrations to COP26, followed by a general debate on proposed reforms to the criminal justice system to respond better to families bereaved by public disasters. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 17 September—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 20 September will include:
Monday 20 September—Consideration of a business of the House motion, followed by all stages of the Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business.
After a two-year, one-month and 14-day build-up, the Prime Minister bounced his Cabinet into accepting his so-called social care plan and yesterday bounced Parliament into accepting it by calling a vote, and now on Tuesday they want to ram the Bill through in just one day. I know the Leader of the House will say that this is not unusual, but why the urgency for a plan that does not even come into effect until next year? Is it because the Prime Minister’s so-called plan is nothing more than a Tory tax rise? It is the third Tory tax rise on working families in recent months—a hat-trick of broken Tory manifesto promises.
And it is not a plan. There is nothing on workforce, nothing on how to help people stay in their own homes, which is what people prefer, and no vision for what social care should be. The Prime Minister knows that this would never get through Parliament unless the Government rush it through. This a meagre attempt to fix the NHS funding gap, which it will not, and nothing more than a statement of intent that in a few years’ time the money will be moved to social care. The NHS funding gap predates the covid crisis, so I will not take that as an excuse. That gap happened under successive Tory Governments over the last decade, and no Minister can guarantee that the money raised from the tax hike will actually go to social care. It will not fix the NHS funding gap and there is still no route to fix social care: it is a tax rise, not a plan.
This is on top of the forthcoming cut to universal credit, hitting working families yet again. I thank the Leader of the House for rescheduling Labour’s debate and vote on this that was planned for yesterday. Will the Government use the extra week to reconsider this callous cut, which is set to plunge even more people into hardship? Let us not forget that the pandemic is not over. We cannot forget that more than 150,000 people have died of covid. Bereaved families are still waiting for a public inquiry, and the work on this by my deputy, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), is really sterling. They want us to learn lessons now to plan for the future so that others will not suffer as they are, and I ask the Leader of the House again: when will the Government’s inquiry be brought forward?
The Government have not only failed on the home front; they have also trashed Britain’s proud global reputation. It is 20 years since British troops went into Afghanistan, yet in just weeks we have seen the complete roll-back of the gains for which 150,000 of our brave soldiers fought and 457 died. The Government’s failure to plan an exit strategy means that not only thousands of Afghans are still at risk, but now our national security is at risk. We do not have eyes on the ground. They are failing at the first, fundamental duty of Government—keeping citizens safe.
We have a Foreign Secretary who could not even pick up the phone when Kabul fell, even though the sea was closed, whatever that means. His Department was completely unprepared, as we can clearly see, and he thinks that just one statement to the House will make up for all this. If this is not a resignation matter, can the Leader of the House tell us what is? I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for his urgent question. I can categorically state from the Dispatch Box that emails sent to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office before 30 August have not even had an auto-response in my own inbox, so I wonder how many other people have been put on the line to the crisis team to respond to them.
Can the Leader of the House confirm when the Home Secretary will come to this House to set out her plan for the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme? Despite the Government’s complete failure to plan over the last few weeks, the heroic effort of our troops involved in Operation Pitting is not in any doubt, so will the Government officially recognise their bravery with a medal?
Finally, this afternoon the House will debate the legacy of our dear and much missed colleague, our friend Jo Cox. This afternoon I will be thinking of Jo, as I do every day in this place, and I will think about the impact she made on us all as Kim, her sister and her successor, takes her place and makes her maiden speech. I know that all hon. Members will be cheering Kim on as she, like Jo, makes her own unique and inspirational contribution.
Mr Rees-Mogg
May I agree with the hon. Lady about how important this afternoon’s debate is, and wish the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) extremely well in making her maiden speech? That is a difficult occasion for all Members, but doing so in memorial to one’s sister must be a particular pressure. I am sure it will be a brilliant speech, and I wish her extremely well in doing that in an important debate.
On the other issues raised by the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), the argument about bounce is simply ridiculous. When we have a Budget, that Budget is announced when the Chancellor stands up to speak. The Budget resolutions to provide for the immediate implementation of tax increases under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 take place at the end of the day, and mostly happen to go through on the nod. We have a seven-clause Bill, including the clauses on commencement and so on, and including the debate yesterday, it will have had more than an hour per clause. If we had an hour per clause on every Bill, we would never have time to discuss all the Bills we have going through. This is being done in a completely proper and sensible way that is respectful of procedures within this House.
I am intrigued that the Opposition do not want the NHS to get more money. They seem to oppose that, and think that giving more money to the NHS is a bad idea. That does prove the point nowadays that the Conservative party is the party of a good health service, and the Labour party has run away from its historic background. There will be £12 billion more each year for the NHS and the catch-up programme, to provide funding for up to 9 million extra checks, scans, and operations over the next three years, with the NHS running at 110% of pre-pandemic levels by 2023-24. Some £5.4 billion was announced earlier this week in addition to that, and it is the most extraordinary injection of money to ensure that the NHS can catch up after the remarkable service it provided during the pandemic. I am sure that people up and down the country, and constituents in all constituencies, will note that the Labour party does not want the NHS to have this funding, that it wants people to wait longer for their hip and knee operations, and that it wishes there to be no catch up. No doubt we will find out more of that next week when we debate the Health and Social Care Levy Bill.
The hon. Lady referred to the uplift in universal credit. That was intended to be temporary to help people through the worst of the pandemic. It provided £9 billion in additional support, but it was intended as a temporary measure. We cannot always keep temporary measures forever; we have to balance the books. That is why a Bill is coming forward next week—it is about ensuring we are able to pay our way. This is typical socialism. The magic money tree comes back to mind, which Labour Members still seem to think exists somewhere, although it is odd that at the moment they do not want any of their magic money to go to the NHS.
The hon. Lady raised the important issue of Afghanistan and what is going on there. The evacuation of 15,000 people, including 8,000 British nationals and 5,000 people through the Afghan relocations and assistance policy is a remarkable mission. It was carried out well and competently, and that is something we should note and approve of. Of course the withdrawal from Afghanistan was not a decision taken exclusively by Her Majesty’s Government. I sometimes get teased for valuing our imperial history and being proud of it, and thinking what a great country we were when the Pax Britannica was across the world. But it is not the Pax Britannica any more; it is, if anything, the Pax Americana, and if the United States does not want to stay in Afghanistan, it is unlikely that we could stay there by ourselves. In that context, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is someone in whom we can all have confidence. He was working hard when he was on holiday, and he has attended to his duties.
Mr Speaker, may I bring people up to date with modern technology? The hon. Lady seems to think that to speak to the Foreign Secretary, someone has to go through an operator, who will pull out plugs and put them through. Nowadays, there are things called mobile telephones; they work internationally, and people can get through. Even more amazing, correspondence can arrive through electronic means; the “e” in email is for “electronic”. Lo and behold, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was working extremely hard and effectively and is a great man. That is why he is also the First Secretary of State.
Over the whole issue of Afghanistan, the Government have been doing remarkable work with local councils. I am very proud that the council that covers the area I live in, Bath and North East Somerset Council, has already volunteered to take people from Afghanistan. I know that Stoke Council has done the same, and other councils across the country are showing the natural good will of the British people in helping a nation that is in great difficulties.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
May I urge my right hon. Friend to arrange for a debate in Government time on public health? This is an issue of great concern in my constituency, particularly in matters of funding allocation, education, child obesity, type 2 diabetes and healthy diet. We do not have enough time to debate those general issues of public health, and I urge him to find some time.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue. Of course, Public Health England is being reorganised and will be changed in due course. We have in front of the House the Health and Care Bill, which will be an opportunity to raise some of these matters. In terms of an additional debate, I point him in the direction of the Backbench Business Committee.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Can we have a debate about what exactly is going on in this Chamber? Our constituents are beginning to notice what is happening here, and they are dumbfounded at what they see: on one side of the Chamber, nearly everybody with a face mask; on the other side, practically no one. It is as if keeping our workplace and colleagues safe has become an ideological and political position, and that somehow being a Tory MP makes someone exempt from contracting and spreading covid.
The Leader of the House knows the score. He was at a meeting with me on Monday, where we heard from Public Health England that there are high levels of carbon dioxide in this Chamber. That means the air that we exhale is being confined in here, leading to an increased risk. And those Division Lobbies are an absolute and utter disgrace—Members of Parliament trapped in confined spaces for several minutes, with card readers that are next to useless, as this bizarre and time-wasting headcount continues to go on. Come on, Leader of the House; help us keep the staff and the people in this House safe.
At that meeting, the Leader of the House said that he would wear a face mask to encourage the rest of his colleagues. Put that face mask on, Leader of the House. We have heard from doctors again today that the face mask is the most effective means to stop the spread of this virus. Tory MPs can be as cavalier as they want with their own health, but when it comes to their colleagues and the people who work in this House, that should be a matter for all of us.
We have to stop playing politics with covid. It is going on again today. Yesterday, this House quite rightly said that there would be covid vaccine passports for nightclubs in England. Today, in the socially distant, virtually inclusive Parliament in Scotland, there will be a vote on covid passports in Scotland. The Conservatives will support them down here and oppose them in Scotland. Has the Leader of the House got a word for that type of behaviour?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I had a feeling that the hon. Gentleman would be a bit grumpy this morning, because it is the anniversary of the battle of Flodden, which was not, it has to be said, Scotland’s finest hour.
As regards the wearing of face masks, the Government guidance is completely clear on when people should wear them and when people should not. It is said specifically in the guidance that a person might want to wear one when they are in a crowded space with people they do not—[Interruption.] Patience; listen to the end of the sentence—in a crowded space with people they do not normally meet. We are not in a crowded space with people we do not normally meet, and people are right to make a judgment for themselves as to whether they will wear a face mask or not. As I said before, there are circumstances in which I will wear one; I went to the excellent Thomas Becket exhibition at the British Museum, which was very crowded and in a small space, and I had a face mask in my pocket and put it on. But look around—the ceilings are high, the doors are open and the Benches are not particularly full; it is perfectly reasonable not to wear a mask in this Chamber and on this estate, in accordance with Government guidelines. The House authorities have done a great deal of work, consistently, throughout the pandemic, to keep everybody safe. This is how it should be. So I think we should allow people to make choices for themselves; I do not think we should always be told what to do by politicians. Allowing freedom and liberty, and encouraging freedom and getting back to normal, in a society that is primarily double-vaccinated, seems to me to be extremely sensible.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
Yesterday, we rightly voted for more money for the NHS and for social care, but in lots of the trusts around the country the unaccountability of the senior management, many of whom are earning more than the Prime Minister, is completely unfair to those working with them within the NHS. May we have a debate on why, for instance, the Prime Minister was able to go to my trust and say that we can have a brand new hospital, only for my community and my constituents to be told that we are not going to get one and we will get a refurbished hospital because that is what the trust management want to do? It is not what the people of my constituency want.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend raises a point that should concern us all; democratic accountability to this House is fundamental. I am glad to say that the Health and Care Bill, which is working its way through Parliament, will restore some elements of direction that may be given, because it seems to me that he who pays the piper should call the tune.
Mr Speaker
I call the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, Ian Mearns.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
I am very grateful, as always, Mr Speaker. May I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business and for announcing the Back-Bench business for next week, on 16 September? This year, Baby Loss Awareness Week, on which we have regularly had a debate, will fall towards the end of the conference recess, so we are proposing, if we get the time, to try to allocate that debate on Thursday 23 September, before the conference recess. We would really appreciate it if that were to be facilitated.
Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Sir Brendan Foster and his team on, and encouraging all the participants in, this year’s—the 40th—Great North Run in Newcastle and Gateshead this coming Sunday? It is almost a unique event, which showcases Tyneside at its very best. We wish everyone taking part every success.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Yes, I would happily join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating Sir Brendan Foster on the 40th Great North Run, as long as nobody expects me to do any running. I offer my warmest and most enthusiastic congratulations. I absolutely note the hon. Gentleman’s point about the importance of the Baby Loss Awareness Week debate. I cannot promise anything at the moment, but I have heard what he has asked for.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
On a day when we remember colleagues, Mr Speaker will be fully aware that in the summer recess we heard the sad news of the loss of Austin Mitchell, my predecessor and the longest serving MP for Great Grimsby, with 38 years. Will the Leader of the House suggest something we could do in this place to remember the amount of work that Austin did, in the House of Commons and for Great Grimsby?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend because, like many Conservative Members, I knew Austin Mitchell with great affection. I first met him when we both spoke in a debate in the Oxford Union, which must have been in the late ‘80s.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Thank you so much—Austin was not quite that old. He was a man of absolute, firm principle, enormous charm and great humour. His ability to entertain in this House and elsewhere was second to none. Like all of us aim to do, he fundamentally stood up for his constituency. He was a model of a constituency MP. Regardless of party politics, he put his constituents’ interests first, even to the point of changing his name—was it to Mr Haddock?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Austin Haddock, yes. So he is remembered with great affection. Perhaps, Mr Speaker, we should have an Adjournment debate—that is in your bailiwick, not mine—to celebrate a great man.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I just say to the Leader of the House that in all my years in the House of Commons, I have always found it very sensible to listen to what the Speaker says, and he has advised that masks should be worn around Parliament. I put that gently to the Leader of the House.
This week, the Transport Secretary very proudly tweeted out that old Pacer trains were being used for healthcare and school facilities for communities in the north. I very much doubt that Conservative Ministers would be proudly tweeting out that those clapped-out, knackered Pacer trains were being used for classroom facilities at Eton or Winchester or for healthcare facilities in the south of England, so can we please have a debate on what the levelling-up agenda that this Government talk about actually means for communities in the north?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I think the right hon. Lady has wrenched from its context what my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary was saying—that reusing old trains can be an enjoyable thing to do. People like seeing old train carriages. There is a former station in my constituency where a railway carriage is used as a cafeteria. It is part of the history of the railways to reuse old carriages. The levelling-up agenda is absolutely fundamental to what this Government are doing. There is the high street programme that is going to help high streets, the improvement in infrastructure, and the reversal of some of the Beeching cuts, as a railways matter. All these things are part of levelling up. The Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, in the House of Lords at the moment, is a further part of that to provide real opportunity across the country.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Can we have an urgent statement on the planning system and specifically on consultation with residents? An enormous 15-metre-high warehouse has been erected just metres from residents’ back gardens in Bynghams in Harlow, blighting their gardens and homes and having a devastating impact on their lives. The planning application was passed in 2017 and 2021 with little objection because the consultation process is weak and not fit for purpose. It should never have been allowed to pass and it can never be allowed to happen again.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Obviously, detailed planning approvals are a matter for local councils, not for the Government, unless they are called in. A planning Bill in this Session will provide plenty of opportunity to discuss and debate these issues, but it is of fundamental importance that we restore and reform our planning system so we have one that provides the houses and homes that people want to live in, that can restore our levels of home ownership in this country and that fairly represents the views of local people.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
I have constituents whose son is at present in a critical condition in the intensive care unit at St George Hospital in Sydney. They have visas and an exemption on compassionate grounds to enter Australia but cannot find flights. They have tried a number of airlines with no success. Although there has been confusion as to who is responsible, the Australian Department of Home Affairs said that it would be possible for an MP to put some pressure on the airlines to help. Will the Leader of the House urgently speak to his Cabinet colleague at the Foreign Office to see if they can assist this family?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am always willing to help right hon. and hon. Members with constituency issues of this kind, if they feel that they are not getting the support they need from other Government Departments, and I would be more than happy to do that. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can send me written details so that I can look into it carefully.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal was one of the worst scandals in our history, encompassing crimes across the spectrum of exploitation. That is why I have joined brave survivor and whistleblower Sammy Woodhouse to campaign for a criminal and sexual exploitation commissioner for children who will oversee all elements of supporting child victims to rebuild their lives. Can we have a debate on the creation of a child criminal and sexual exploitation commissioner? Will my right hon. Friend lend his support to our campaign for that and make representations to the Government so that we have a stand-alone statute definition of criminal exploitation and a joined-up approach to dealing with the legacy issues, so that women, boys and girls are protected from all types of illegality and abuse and that the Rotherham sex scandal can never happen anywhere else again?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I agree that the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal was one of the worst scandals in our history. My hon. Friend is right to raise the matter; what has happened in his constituency has been appalling. Child criminal exploitation is one of the most heinous crimes, and the Government are determined to do what we can to tackle it. As there is already a Children’s Commissioner for England whose remit is that she
“promotes and protects the rights of children, especially the most vulnerable, and stands up for their views and interests”,
I encourage my hon. Friend in the first instance to put pressure on the Children’s Commissioner to focus time on this very important issue, because it is sometimes easier to use the tools to hand than to create new tools.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Tomorrow is World Suicide Prevention Day. Will the Leader of the House continue to draw attention to this really important issue, as he has done in the past, and encourage colleagues to raise it and share it on social media?
Mr Rees-Mogg
As so often at business questions, I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who raises the most important and sensitive issues that have widespread support across the House. Yes, of course I will help in any way I can to promote World Suicide Prevention Day. It is the greatest blow to families and those left behind when a suicide takes place, and so many can be prevented with the right support, care and knowledge. Charitable bodies including the Samaritans do wonderful work to help, but if there is anything that I can do, I will work with the hon. Lady to do so.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Much of what we consume is delivered to us by heavy goods vehicles, yet the Leader of the House will know that hauliers are suffering a driver shortfall of 100,000. Robert Louis Stevenson said:
“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive”,
but goods cannot travel at all, let alone arrive, without skilled drivers. Will the Leader of the House therefore arrange a statement to the House explaining the absurdity of the Government’s cancellation of the delegated training scheme to allow firms in my constituency and elsewhere to train drivers themselves, and letting the House know what the Department for Transport intends to do about the crisis, so that the fine Lincolnshire produce demanded across the country can be delivered quickly and efficiently?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I have had the privilege of visiting my right hon. Friend’s constituency, whose fine produce is absolutely remarkable. I think that he introduced me to the largest pumpkin grower in England—by which I mean that he grows the most pumpkins, not the biggest pumpkins.
Mr Rees-Mogg
He is not the fattest pumpkin grower either, no.
On 20 July, the Government announced a further package of measures to help industry to tackle the issues caused by the HGV driver shortage. Those measures include support for the recruitment and retention of drivers, such as proposals to streamline the process to obtain a licence, offering financial assistance for training, and backing industry-led initiatives to improve the working conditions for driving. I have also noticed reports that wages for HGV drivers are going up. This is, as so often, a market solution.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I wonder whether I could crave your indulgence, Mr Speaker, and take the Leader of the House to Scotland once again, on a slightly different topic. An awful lot of people in Scotland are having huge difficulty in accessing confirmation of their two inoculations, either in hard copy or by email. Rather worse, where they have had one inoculation and then another via the armed forces or in another part of the UK, there is chaos. Does the Leader of the House agree that it would be appropriate for the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to make a statement regarding the availability of this information? No citizen should be disadvantaged by reason of where in the UK they live.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that where someone lives in the UK should not make it more difficult to get confirmation of a vaccination. I point out that the SNP, in coalition with rather fanatical Greens, is in charge of the Government in Scotland and is not very good at running things. That is a problem, but obviously it is difficult to interfere in matters that are properly devolved. However, I will take the matter up with UK Ministers so that we can have a UK solution.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
Recently published figures show that just over 3,500 people are currently claiming unemployment benefit in my constituency—about 2,000 more than before the pandemic. Every job lost as a result of the pandemic is a matter of great concern, but virtually every business that I have spoken to in recent weeks is struggling to fill its current vacancies. That is true particularly in tourism and hospitality, but also across the sectors of transport, food processing and construction. Could we ask for a statement on the action that the Government are taking to help businesses to recruit the staff they need so that we can boost our economic recovery?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend has raised an important point. It has also been raised by the Governor of the Bank of England, who has pointed out that quite a number of people seem to have left the workforce during the course of the pandemic, and it is important that they should be brought back in—should be encouraged to get back in.
The Government have a plan for jobs to give people the skills and qualifications that they need in order to take up roles in key sectors quickly. We have begun to see wage growth: for instance, Costa Coffee is hiring an extra 2,000 people, but is also increasing their pay by 5%. The Government are inviting employers from a range of sectors, including farming and hospitality, into local jobcentres, because one of the most effective ways of promoting vacancies is for employers to market their opportunities directly to work coaches and jobseekers. This is about encouraging people to look for work and showing them that the work is available, but also about helping people to gain the right skills for the jobs that are available.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
My constituent Maryam Amiri contacted me on 20 August about her sister, who has five young children, her cousin, who is eight months pregnant, and her elderly father. They are all stuck in Afghanistan. The women have no husbands because, I understand, they were murdered by the Taliban for their role in the Afghan armed forces. Can we have an urgent debate in Government time on the Government’s resettlement scheme, so that I can find out whether families like Maryam’s can find sanctuary and be reunited and safe in the UK?
Mr Rees-Mogg
We had two statements on Afghanistan earlier this week, one from the Prime Minister and the other from the Foreign Secretary, and we have just had an urgent question on the subject. The hon. Lady has raised a very difficult specific constituency case, but, as I have said before, if answers have not been coming through to her, I should be more than happy to help her to obtain a specific answer.
Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
My strong view is that the proposal set out yesterday could be substantially improved with some imaginative additions and developments. Will my right hon. Friend say a bit more about when the Bill proposed for debate on Tuesday will be published, so that we can look at it and work constructively on what I hope he agrees—I dare say he does, in his heart of hearts—would be useful amendments?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I think that the Bill is already available. I see some very helpful nodding among the wise men in the Box, so it has clearly already been published. However, the Health and Care Bill is currently going through Parliament, and in respect of any changes to any of the social care proposals that my hon. Friend thinks would be a good idea, it would be right to table amendments to that Bill rather than the Bill relating to the national insurance increase, which is a very simple and straightforward piece of legislation.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Even by this Government’s standards, it has not been a great first week back, has it? We have had chaos and misinformation regarding Afghanistan, attempts to impose vaccine passports, and the breaking of manifesto commitments, with the Government scrapping the triple lock and rushing through the biggest tax rise of 50 years, as well as pulling an Opposition day debate on the scrapping of the universal credit lifeline. May we please have an urgent debate on probity in public office?
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I wish to put on record my admiration and support for the Samaritans and the work that they do, and to congratulate my local Derby branch, which is celebrating 60 years of operation. Derby Samaritans help more than 6,000 people each year and respond to about 15,000 calls for help. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Derby Samaritans and their incredible, selfless volunteers on the crucial work that they do?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very pleased to join my hon. Friend in congratulating the Derby branch of the Samaritans on its 60th—its diamond—anniversary. She is right to thank the Samaritans for the remarkable work that they do, which saves so many lives, and to recognise the commitment of Samaritan volunteers up and down the country who, inevitably, are on call during difficult, unsocial hours and have to deal with the most emotionally wrenching problems. At the beginning of the year, as part of my “Commons Mentions” series, I spoke to Keith Leslie, the Samaritans’ chairman of trustees, about the fantastic work that they do. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to thank him personally, via Zoom.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
I am sorry to have to take the House back to the statement that we have just heard on Afghanistan, but the Minister was very forceful in telling us that all emails received within a certain period had been responded to. A quick straw poll in my office tells me that four emails to the Home Office have had no response, along with two to the Ministry of Defence and two to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. That is after just a quick look, so can the Leader of the House arrange for a debate in Government time or a statement on the accuracy of responses given by Ministers, so that Members of the House can get to the facts of these matters and not the fiction?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Ministers do give accurate answers, and that is always important. What Mr Speaker said at the end of the urgent question was absolutely right: Members have a right to seek redress of grievance for their constituents, and Ministers have an obligation to respond as helpfully and efficiently as they can. Every day since 24 August, the call handlers have answered more than 94% of the calls that were made, and the average wait time since 20 August has been under a minute. The FCDO replied to all emails from MPs received by 30 August asking for an update by Monday evening—[Interruption.] Well, that is the information that is collated: emails received by 30 August have been replied to. [Interruption.] I would say to people who have not received a reply: resend your email—[Laughter.] I am appealing to people’s sense of realism. We all know from our own constituency email inboxes that emails do not always get through, so if anyone is in any doubt about an email, I would say that they should resend it. Hon. and right hon. Members have a right to a response, and the Foreign Office is working very hard to get those responses, but if Members are not getting a response, they should resend their emails, and if they do not get a response to that, they can come to my office and I will help them to get a reply. I have said many times that, as Leader of the House, I will always do my best to facilitate Members’ correspondence.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
May we have a debate in Government time on the Government’s response to the ongoing issue of the increasing numbers of illegal migrants crossing the channel? I welcome the actions that the Government have taken and are proposing to take, but an update in the House and a wider debate to explore additional solutions to this serious issue could well be helpful to the Government.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The dangerous and unnecessary small boat crossings that we saw again last weekend are wrong, and the Government are determined to crack down on the criminal gangs that drive that activity and profit from it. I can tell my hon. Friend that there have been nearly 300 arrests and 65 convictions, and that we have prevented more than 10,000 migrant attempts. I was pleased to see that efforts are going to be made to send the boats back. That policy has been used very effectively by our friends in Australia. It took the profit away from the people smugglers, who are the real cause of the problem and who trade on the distress of unfortunate people.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank you, Mr Speaker, for doing what you can to keep this House safe. May I just say kindly to the Leader of the House that wearing a face mask is not about personal choice; it is about protecting the health and safety of other people?
I want to ask a question about correspondence that has not been replied to by the Minister for Care, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately). I wrote to her four months ago—and have continually chased that correspondence—about fault lines in the social care regulation of domiciliary care companies that are consistently breaking the law by setting themselves up and then failing staff by not paying wages or pensions and failing to turn up to appointments. This is a very serious issue. It is a fault line in social care, and it is exactly what the Government will be funding through their new levy. Can the Leader of the House get a response for me, and can we also have a debate on the quality of social care?
Mr Rees-Mogg
In answer to the second part of the hon. Lady’s question, there will be a number of opportunities to debate social care because the Health and Social Care Bill is going through this House, but a more specific debate may be asked for from the Backbench Business Committee. As regards the slow response to her correspondence, I will of course take that up after business questions and try to get her a reply. The issue she raises concerning abuse and fault lines in domiciliary care and the non-payment of employees is clearly a very serious one.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
May I add my own tribute to Austin Mitchell? I agree with what the Leader of the House said earlier. Austin was my MP for 38 years. It was always a pleasure to work with him, both as a councillor and, subsequently, here in Westminster, although I have to say that I never voted for him.
My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) and I visited Franklin College in Grimsby last week. It is a further education college that does a great deal for young people who want to enter the new and emerging industries in the renewables sector, which is important for the area. Can we have a debate on the work of FE colleges, which are particularly valuable in areas such as the one I represent?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is the Austin Mitchell of our time in his assiduous and tireless work for his constituents. There is a model on the Opposition Benches and a model on the Government Benches for looking after constituents and arguing the case for one’s constituency.
The Skills and Post-16 Education Bill is going through the House of Lords at the moment, and when it comes to this House there will be an opportunity to debate further education, including further education colleges. If my hon. Friend wants a specific debate on Franklin College, it will come under Mr Speaker’s purview in an Adjournment debate.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
My constituent is suffering mental health problems as a result of a crippling £15,000 debt. Worse, it is a universal credit debt that the Department for Work and Pensions has admitted was caused due to its maladministration, misdirection and misinformation, yet DWP Ministers want to collect that debt from my constituent. Why have this Government removed the discretionary option not to collect debts in exceptional circumstances? Will the Leader of the House make arrangements to reintroduce the guidance so that the DWP can do the right thing by my constituent?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Following what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) is also somebody who always stands up for his constituents. On any number of occasions at business questions he has raised such issues on behalf of constituents who are seeking redress of grievance.
I cannot promise to change the policy of the DWP—it is not within my authority to do so—but I can promise to help the hon. Gentleman get an answer in relation to this specific constituent.
Mark Eastwood (Dewsbury) (Con)
At the Harron Homes Amberwood Chase development in Shaw Cross, Dewsbury, and at a site in Lindley located within the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), home owners are experiencing major issues with the developer not completing the two sites, leaving roads and pavements unfinished and major snagging problems outstanding. Will my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House consider a debate on tackling rogue house builders who entice people to buy their dream home, only for it to become a nightmare as they are left abandoned once they have moved in?
Mr Rees-Mogg
This is an important matter, and it is quite wrong for developers to sell substandard homes. Developers must meet their responsibilities to resolve issues quickly and treat home buyers fairly when things go wrong. They must also meet planning conditions agreed with the local authority. The Building Safety Bill includes provision for the new homes ombudsman scheme to provide strong and effective redress for new build home buyers and to hold poor developers to account.
Furthermore, our future planning reforms will inject real competition and quality into our construction market, with new builders entering the market to challenge incumbents, and we hope that a wave of self-built houses and a focus on beauty and quality will follow. Members will have the opportunity to raise these issues as the legislation makes its way through the House.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Is it not great to be back properly, with all of us here?
One of the saddest stories I heard this week was about Sarah Harding, the Girls Aloud singer who died of cancer—partly, her family said, because she chose not to go to the doctor early enough due to covid. The cancer was not detected soon enough.
My concern about getting over the massive backlog is that lots of people are already choosing to go private. Even people of very meagre means are spending £3,000 or £5,000 on new hips and knees, which seems massively unfair. Should we not be buying up all the capacity in the private sector, at cost, so that people are dealt with on the basis of need rather than their financial position?
Secondly, there is a real problem with staffing. We have a shortage of pathologists and histopathologists—the people who check whether something is a bad cancer—and a shortage of radiologists and radiographers. Can we have a debate on how we get staff numbers, not just more managers on £270,000, into the NHS as fast as possible?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I find myself in a great deal of agreement with the hon. Gentleman that it is so important that people go to their doctor if they have any suspicions. He has been an example of that and I know has recovered. It was to the great relief of the House that he had the sense to be checked out early. If there is any message one could ever give to anybody who listens to these sessions it would be to go to see their doctor if they have a concern, and I remind GPs that they are meant to be offering face-to-face appointments again. The money is being provided to deal with the backlog. I think I said earlier that it would deal with 9 million cases, but, yes, shortages of staff are an issue and it is of fundamental importance that the money goes to where it is needed in the NHS: supporting paying for the staff who will be carrying things out rather than paying very large bureaucratic salaries, which does not seem to be the best application of funds.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has mentioned that we have had urgent questions and a statement on Afghanistan as well as a very important debate, but would it be possible to have another debate on the future of our role in Afghanistan and our relationship, if any, with the new Government?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Obviously, the Government are held to account, and quite rightly so, for their policy in Afghanistan, and that has been a matter of interest to the House and it has been covered quite fully. A general debate, however, is more a matter for the Backbench Business Committee. It has the time available for these debates and I encourage my hon. Friend to go to that Committee and seek one.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
May I briefly associate myself with the comments regarding the late Austin Mitchell? It was my privilege to work with Austin for many years on matters pertaining to the fishing industry. I know that his passing will be felt not just by his friends and family, but in fishing ports around the coast of the United Kingdom.
May I recommend to the Leader of the House that, if he has not already done so, he reads my urgent question on vaccine passports in yesterday’s Hansard? The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) opened the bidding for the Conservative Back Benchers by saying:
“What a load of rubbish.”—[Official Report, 8 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 307.]
What followed was three quarters of an hour that was not quite as polite and nuanced as that. Of most concern, however, was the fact that the Minister was asked three times whether this House would be given the vote that it was actually promised by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and three times he refused to give that commitment. Can the Leader of the House tell me now whether, in the time that remains unallocated, we will be allowed to debate and vote on the Government’s proposals?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that important question. The Government were quite clear—and this was agreed with the Department of Health and Social Care last year—that any matters of national significance would come to this House for a vote before the measure was implemented. That was a commitment made by Her Majesty’s Government and I assume that any Department that wishes to bring in a statutory instrument that meets that test would ask for time for a debate first. That is something that the House ought to expect.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I hope that the Leader of the House shares my concern and that of so many colleagues across this House that in the other place an eighth of the seats are effectively reserved for men, because of male primogeniture and the hereditary peerages. I wonder whether he would timetable a statement in Government time about what the Government are planning to do to end this anachronism?
Mr Rees-Mogg
There are some titles that go down the female line by special remainder, but my hon. Friend is quite right that it is not very many. The law in relation to the Crown was changed by this House a few years ago. The 90 remaining hereditary peers who are elected and the two who are there ex-officio, as she rightly says, do mainly pass through the male line. If anybody wishes to change that, it is open for them to bring forward proposals. There is a campaign to change it, but I cannot say that the Government have any immediate plans to adopt that campaign.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Despite a so-called partnership of equals, Scotland is subjected to a Tory Elections Bill that is an assault on the democratic process, constant attempts to shift the goalposts on an independence referendum, a UK Government seeking to legislate on devolved areas and the imposition of a regressive tax hitting low-paid workers. Will the Leader of the House make a statement explaining whether he thinks those measures are strengthening or weakening the Union?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am glad to say that the Union seems to get stronger and stronger. We have seen how important it has been during the course of the pandemic, with the enormous sums of money that have come from the UK taxpayer to help every corner of the United Kingdom, with £407 billion so far, of which I think £15 billion has gone to Scotland.
On the national insurance increase, people in Scotland will get more money than they pay and they will get more money for healthcare. Is it now the policy of the SNP, along with the policy of the Labour party, that it does not want extra funding for healthcare—that it wants longer waits for hips, knees and other operations, and fewer treatments to take place? The Union is getting stronger because people are beginning to see the failures of the nationalist Government in Scotland, as Lady Mona Lott herself just goes on and on about a second referendum, rather than dealing with the problems that Scotland faces and the backlog of issues that have risen from the pandemic.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Rugby Community Ambulance Station is a valuable base for ambulances covering Rugby, yet West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust proposes closing it without any consultation with either the local community or staff. In doing so, it will be removing the last ambulance from a fast-growing town of 80,000 people. My constituents have real concerns about future response times to urgent calls. May we have a debate about decision making in the NHS?
Mr Rees-Mogg
There will, to some extent, be an opportunity for that as the Health and Care Bill passes through Parliament, but the optimal placement of ambulance stations is an operational matter for NHS trusts to decide; that decision has been delegated to them. West Midlands ambulance service says that it has carefully considered the matter and has set out that the closure would not affect the number of ambulances in the area available immediately to respond to 999 calls as they arise, but one always understands the concerns of people living locally when they feel that a service is being removed from them.
Alyn Smith
I will reveal my face to you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have been called worse, so not to worry.
The chaos of Brexit becomes clearer on a daily basis, as reality dawns. Foreseen in the legislation is the establishment between the European Parliament and this place of a parliamentary partnership assembly. The efficient, dynamic, orderly European Parliament has done its bit in establishing this important forum. Will the Leader of the House give us some insight on when the UK will match its ambition and speed?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Brexit has been a triumph, I am glad to say. We saw that not least with the vaccine roll-out; if we had done what the Opposition had wanted, we would not have been vaccinating people so quickly and opening up so soon. We have regained our freedom so we are able to make decisions for ourselves, but there is the eccentricity of the SNP, which wants to have independence only to hand it over to the European Union and to be told what to do by Brussels. If that is what SNP Members wish to campaign for, I do not think that they will be successful. The matter to which the hon. Gentleman refers is working its way between the Lords and the Commons, and I am sure that it will be set up at a suitable time.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is evil, wrong and unacceptable that people are being trafficked across the English channel for the purpose of making huge sums of money for evil gangs, with what is certainly perceived to be the help of the French Government. The Home Secretary is totally right to introduce legislation to turn those boats back, because that is the only way that we are going to end this evil trade. I have a serious suggestion to the Leader of the House. My private Member’s Bill, the Asylum Seekers (Return to Safe Countries) Bill, does exactly that. It has had its First Reading and has its Second Reading tomorrow. I would undertake in Committee to change the wording of the Bill to that which would be acceptable to the Government. I think it would be a speedy way of moving the matter forward. Does the Leader of the House support that idea?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is right to say that the people traffickers are evil. They are the cause of the problem and they trade on people’s distress, which is fundamentally wrong. The Nationality and Borders Bill is also going through the House—it is going off to Committee next month—so other legislative measures are being introduced, but my hon. Friend is extremely helpful in bringing forward good ideas as to how we can make things work. I note, again, that turning boats back was a policy followed extremely successfully by the Australians and has had the benefit of stopping the evil trade there.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The historic tall ship Glenlee is of great cultural importance to Glasgow and, indeed, Scotland. Although it sits in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), all of us Glasgow MPs know how important it is to the citizens of Glasgow. As the Glenlee sits within the COP26 exclusion zone, it has been forced to close for not just the duration of the conference but a number of weeks before and after. As such, it is missing out on lucrative business opportunities that would quite literally help to keep it afloat. Will the Leader of the House please issue a Government statement on how businesses such as the Glenlee are going to be compensated for COP26?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Obviously, when the Government do things that prevent business from taking place, a responsibility falls on the Government to ensure that businesses do not lose out. COP26 ought, though, to be a huge success for Glasgow, attracting many visitors to go there and a considerable amount of expenditure, and I hope that the overall economic benefit will be good. This is a further example of the benefits of the United Kingdom, because COP26 is taking place in Glasgow because Scotland is part of a strong and powerful United Kingdom.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Leader of the House said he believed that the hybrid procedures we adopted during an earlier phase of the pandemic somehow diminished scrutiny of the Government, but today’s urgent business was announced just minutes before the House sat and then changed after the House had begun to sit. I do not know how that enhances Back-Bench Members’ opportunity to scrutinise the work of the Government. At the very least, may we have a debate on the lessons that might be learned from the procedures that previously we had in place during the pandemic, and perhaps on what better practice out of all that might be adopted, or re-adopted, for the longer term?
Mr Rees-Mogg
It seems to me to be completely obvious that scrutiny is much better, much tighter and much more spontaneous in this House when we are all present. If Members are in the Chamber, they will know what the business is.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Last but not least. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Rather than investing in green hydrogen, the Government are loudly promoting blue hydrogen made from natural gas, which will never get us to net zero. The Government say that green hydrogen is too expensive. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the long-term cost differences of investing in blue hydrogen versus green hydrogen, and on whether the Government are considering setting an end date for blue hydrogen?
Mr Rees-Mogg
A Somerset MP, even one from the Liberal Democrats, could certainly never be least. In my view, those from Somerset always take a primary place in the nation’s affairs, and so they should.
The hon. Lady raises an important and interesting issue. The technology is developing and evolving. It seems to me that one of the fundamental things we should say in the argument about getting to net zero is that we want to improve people’s living standards—we want people to have a better standard of living, with economic growth—and we can do that by technological innovation. Hydrogen is such an exciting part of that, because if we have cars running on hydrogen, we no longer need to be so mean to the motorist, to make it so difficult for them and to put in all those roadblocks and tiresome things that some local councils are doing—the hon. Lady will know of a local council that is currently doing just that. We will be able to get back to allowing people to do more of what they want and in a green and friendly way. Technology will be the solution to that.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I thank the Leader of the House for his statement and for answering questions for one hour.
Ajax Armoured Vehicle Procurement
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)
With permission, I would like to make a statement on Ajax. I was pleased to update the House through a written ministerial statement on Monday, but given the ongoing and entirely understandable interest of the House in this long-running and important programme, I am pleased to be given the opportunity to make a statement and to respond to hon. Members’ questions in this House.
On Monday, I informed the House that following the careful deliberations of the safety panel, comprising of duty holders from the Ministry of Defence, General Dynamics, Millbrook and independent advisers, a route had been established for independent testing to be safely resumed at Millbrook proving ground. Trials were expected to resume imminently. I am pleased to confirm that trials have now resumed. The independent trials at Millbrook are essential to provide the evidence to support fundamental root cause analysis, and to enable the safe resumption of wider trials and training activity. While we naturally want to see the outcome of the independent analysis as swiftly as possible, it is necessary for the teams to be given the space and time to conduct those important trials. Clearly, the pause in trials will mean that the results we are looking forward to analysing will not be available this month as we had initially hoped. However, once the results are secured and analysed, I will be pleased to update the House.
The focus for the MOD and General Dynamics remains on identifying the root causes of the noise and vibration issues to develop long-term solutions to ensure Ajax meets the Army’s need. I have made it clear that no declaration of initial operating capability will be made until solutions have been determined for the long-term resolution of the noise and vibration concerns. Work continues on both, with General Dynamics heavily committed to delivering a safe resolution. We have a robust, firm price contract with General Dynamics under which it is required to provide the vehicles as set out in the contract for the agreed price of £5.5 billion.
Since the last urgent question, I met Phebe Novakovic, the global chair and chief executive officer of General Dynamics in London on 1 July, who emphasised in person the determination of GD to resolve these issues, a sense of purpose we are very much seeing at working level. Even prior to the Millbrook data being received, design modifications are being examined to reduce the impact of vibration. As I referenced in my last appearance on this issue, noise within the vehicle has two components, electrical and mechanical. Design modification to reduce the risk of noise through the communication system is in development and is currently being tested. These design approaches may represent part of the overall solution, but considerable work needs to be undertaken before any such assurances can be given.
Hon. Members raised concerns around specific limitations on use which have been issued on Ajax. As is often the case with defence procurement processes, there have been a number of LOUs placed on Ajax vehicles during the early phase of use, and they will come and go during the course of trials and testing. However, as I confirmed on Monday, the specific LOUs restricting speed and the maximum height for reversing over steps have now been removed, preparatory to wider trails and testing being able to be undertaken in due course.
This House has been quite rightly concerned about the welfare of our service personnel. Extensive work has been undertaken through the summer on the health and safety aspects of the noise and vibration concerns. A report into those concerns is being undertaken independently of the Ajax delivery team by the MOD’s director of health and safety. It is important that Defence is transparent on these issues and that not only the recommendations but the background to those recommendations is shared with the House. I have therefore decided to publish the report when it is finalised, as I said on Monday.
The report has not yet been concluded, but it is apparent that vibration concerns were raised before Ajax trials commenced at the armoured trials and development unit in November 2019. While noise and vibration are always issues of focus in the development of armoured vehicles, in December 2018 a specific army safety notice introduced restrictions on use in relation to vibration on this vehicle and identified that, in the longer term, a design upgrade was needed to reduce vibration.
Key themes likely to emerge from the health and safety report will include the importance of having a culture that gives safety equal status alongside cost and schedule. The overlapping of demonstration and manufacturing phases added complexity in this instance, as well as technical risk and safety risk, to the programme. Another theme is the value of having strong risk governance for complex projects that promotes access to expert technical advice on safety issues. Independent certification and assurance of land environmental capability should be adopted and modelled on best practice elsewhere in Defence. Following the report’s conclusion, we will consider what further investigations are required to see if poor decision making, failures in leadership or systemic organisational issues contributed to the current situation, not simply in relation to health and safety but more broadly as necessary.
Following the appearance of the Surgeon-General alongside me at the Defence Committee hearing on Ajax, I would like to update the House regarding our service personnel. Initially, 121 personnel were identified as requiring urgent hearing assessments as a result of recent noise exposure on Ajax. Subsequently, the MOD broadened the scope of those who should be tested. A further 189 individuals have been identified. Of the combined 310 personnel, 304 have been contacted successfully; the remaining six are UK service personnel who have recently left service and are in the process of being traced. Two hundred and forty-eight personnel, including 113 from the original cohort of 121, have now been assessed.
The Army continues to identify and monitor the hearing of all personnel exposed to noise on Ajax, with additional testing being put in place where required. The Army is also in the process of identifying any health effects in those potentially exposed to vibration. Veterans who have been exposed to noise or vibration on this project will be supported throughout and will have access to the same assessments as those still serving. I will update the House on the number of personnel affected by noise and vibration in due course, including if any trends become apparent once the data has been analysed. I know this House will, as I am, be absolutely determined that we provide the appropriate testing and care to our service personnel and veterans.
I have previously described Ajax as a troubled programme. It is. But that does not mean that the problems are irresolvable. Ajax, a fully digitalised system, represents a step-change in the capabilities of the British Army and, while we will never accept a vehicle that does not meet our testing requirements, we remain committed to working with General Dynamics to understand and, we trust, resolve the outstanding issues. I commend this statement to the House.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for making the statement and for advanced sight of it. May I, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, thank Mr Speaker for ensuring that the Defence Secretary understood his determination to see that Ministers account properly to this House, after Monday’s written ministerial statement was slipped out late in the afternoon in the middle of the Prime Minister’s statement on Afghanistan in the Commons?
This was the Minister’s shocking admission in that statement on Monday, underlined again today, though in more guarded terms:
“it is not possible to determine a realistic timescale for the introduction of Ajax vehicles into operational service with the Army.”
It is three months to the day since this House last questioned the Minister on Ajax and since then things have gone from bad to worse: the Public Accounts Committee pursuing a critical inquiry; the National Audit Office agreeing to my request and that of the Defence Committee for an urgent investigation; the Government’s own Major Projects Authority again flagging Ajax red and saying that successful delivery “appears to be unachievable”. This is a programme that has cost £3.5 billion to date, delivered just 14 vehicles and is set to be completed a decade late. The Minister’s statement now puts Ajax on an end-of-life watch. He confirms that the vibration problems were well know before the Ajax trial started in 2019. Indeed, he said today there was an Army safety notice in place on that vehicle in 2018. How much did the Defence Secretary know about the flaws in Ajax when he published the Defence Command Paper in March backing Ajax, scrapping Warrior and scaling back Challenger?
The Minister now says that he has realised that what is required for Ajax is what he calls a full-time dedicated senior responsible owner. So for over a decade this Ajax programme, the most costly defence procurement, second only to the deterrent, has had nobody senior responsible who has taken full-time charge. No wonder Ajax is the biggest procurement failure since the Nimrod, and this has happened entirely on this Government’s watch. Ministers are failing British forces and failing British taxpayers.
Specifically, can the Minister tell the House how many of the 248 Army personnel tested so far need medical treatment, and for what? What is the expected MOD cost for the additional trials and modifications? What impact will the indefinite delay have on the Army’s ability to deploy the essential planned strike brigade? Has the Minister approached the Welsh Government with a plan to support jobs at General Dynamics and the Welsh economy if Ajax is cancelled? What contingency plans are in place for the Army to have full reconnaissance and force protection capabilities while Ajax is delayed or indeed deleted?
There are alternatives to Ajax. So alongside the report that the Minister says he will commission from the new senior responsible officer on whether to complete or to cancel Ajax, will Ministers also commission full viability reports on modifying Boxer with its fourth generation ISTAR—intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance—capability, on the Combat Vehicle 90s used by our European NATO allies, and on the Warrior upgrade cancelled in the defence Command Paper? How much longer will it be before Ministers make a firm decision on the future of Ajax and provide certainty for all involved?
Finally, the defence Command Paper made it clear that the Government’s rapid further cut in Army numbers is linked directly to more advanced technology based on the Ajax, so will Ministers also now halt their further cut in Army numbers at least until they have sorted out and fixed this fundamentally failing procurement?
Jeremy Quin
I am pleased to respond to the comments by the right hon. Gentleman. I think he was being just a little ungenerous in talking about statements being slipped out. I have always thought that it is best to inform this House as swiftly and transparently as possible. I was very pleased to make, on the first day this House returned, a statement that gave a full update as to where we were on Ajax. I was proud to make that statement in written ministerial form on Monday.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to my being guarded in this oral statement on full operating capacity. I am not being guarded. I state what is obviously and transparently the case. I cannot give a date on reaching FOC when I have said what I have said on initial operating capacity, which I mean and I will stick by—that is, that we will not accept an IOC until we have a clear resolution to the issues on noise and vibration. We are working through how that will impact and how the timetable will move on in getting from IOC to FOC, but quite transparently we need a vehicle that works and is fit for purpose, and that is what we are determined to deliver.
When this programme was initially set up in March 2010, under a different Administration, I do not believe there were, at that stage, SROs. I may be wrong, but I believe that SROs have been introduced subsequently. [Interruption.] You had them?
Jeremy Quin
I am better informed. So there were SROs in the MOD at that time, and I suspect that they would do what SROs have continued to do since, which is to have a proportion of their time allocated to particular projects. In saying that we want to have an SRO 100% committed to this project—and, I hope, the same SRO who will be able to carry it right the way through to completion—we are recognising the fact that this is a troubled programme that needs the extra resource and the commitment of a full-time SRO, and that is what we will deliver.
The right hon. Gentleman raised a number of issues. On health and safety and on medical concerns, I am determined, as I made clear in my written and my oral statement, that the full health and safety report will be published so that hon. Members can see it for themselves, and I will update the House on information regarding the medical testing at that stage.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about additional costs. There are no additional costs to be incurred by the MOD with regard to additional testing being done by General Dynamics. That is part of the overall contract. There will be additional costs incurred by the Ministry of Defence in conducting independent trials at Millbrook. I think that is right and appropriate. This is an independent process. I want to see the analysis coming to us, so we will be paying money for the Millbrook trials, but I think that is appropriate.
On the strike brigade and contingency plans, we cannot have Ajax introduced to the strike brigade until we have Ajax—that is axiomatic—but we do have clear views as to contingencies. The Army is always evolving its full process on contingencies. I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the very helpful session chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), the Chair of the Defence Committee, which was attended and spoken at by the Commander Field Army. There is a range of capabilities, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as existing platforms, to fill any gap that is required to be filled.
I would counsel the right hon. Gentleman against what may be wholly unnecessary, inappropriate and inaccurate scaremongering about jobs. This is an incredibly important programme not only for the British Army but for thousands of people who are employed on it across the country—from memory, over 200 firms, including, as he says, General Dynamics in south Wales. We are committed to working with General Dynamics to achieve a resolution of these issues. As I have said before, I cannot 100% promise to this House that we will find a resolution to these issues, but we are determined to work it through with GD. As I have been very open and transparent in saying, an important step in that is the independent testing at Millbrook to enable us to know where the vibrations in the vehicle are originating from and whether the design modifications that are already being examined and thought through will work and achieve effect. I beg the right hon. Gentleman, and other Members, to be mindful of those people who will be concerned about their jobs and livelihoods, particularly if we can, as I sincerely hope and trust, find a long-term resolution to these issues, as we are determined, working with General Dynamics, to do.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on inheriting a dog’s dinner of a procurement problem when it comes to our British Army’s combat vehicle capability. He is trying to grasp this and grapple with it, but he has made very clear, and been honest with the House about, the challenges that are in front of us. As we have heard, we are reducing the numbers of tanks that we have. We are getting rid of all our Warrior armoured fighting vehicles and replacing them with Boxer, a wheeled vehicle that is excellent but does not have a turret. That makes it all the more important for Ajax to succeed, because it does have a turret. If we want to protect our dismounted troops, they need a gun on the battlefield. Will my hon. Friend declare whether he has a deadline in mind for when this procurement process will end if the problems that he spoke about cannot be resolved? Can I recommend, anyway, that he introduces a variant of Boxer with a turret so that there is force protection for our dismounted troops on the battlefield?
Jeremy Quin
I thank my right hon. Friend for congratulating me on taking on this programme. As he knows from his own time in Defence, these procurements take a long time. However, I can absolutely assure him that I am very focused on this, as I am on other procurement issues, and determined to be transparent and open to this House.
My right hon. Friend raises a number of interesting points. Boxer is modular, as he knows. We have said that we are looking to expand the number of Boxers we have. It is a very useful vehicle. I was very pleased to be present in Stockport to see the assembly line beginning to go into action there. It certainly has capabilities, and we will look to see how we can add lethality to that over time, which could take a number of forms.
In terms of a deadline on Ajax, it would be all too easy to set an artificial deadline for when I can tell this House that we know all the answers, but I just cannot do that—it would not be being transparent with this place. I do not know how long it will take for the Millbrook trials to be concluded and how long it will take to analyse the results. I do not know, at this stage, whether the design modifications currently being worked on and examined will then work with the assessments that we have from Millbrook to be able to say there is a tick in the box and it will come through. I am putting on a lot of pressure to get the right results, but consistent with doing trials on a safe and appropriate basis, as my right hon. Friend would expect. As soon as I have more information to share with the House, I will be only too delighted to do so.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
In July, we had General Dynamics in front of the Defence Committee. GD’s general manager for the programme was kind enough to inform us that prior to their job there, they had been director of land equipment for the MOD, meaning that they were negotiating the superb deal that they got for GD with one of the successors in the job at Main Building. By happy coincidence—this will be no surprise to those who are now going to have to take medical advice because of the Ajax failures—during these negotiations GD would also have been able to call on the advice of the former Chief of the General Staff, Sir Peter Wall: a member of its board since 2016, with just over a year having elapsed from when they had left post to take up this new role.
I hasten to add that it is not just about Ajax and General Dynamics any more. The UK’s largest defence contractors are able call on the expertise of numerous gamekeepers turned poachers trousering handsome rewards for their inside knowledge of the procurement process. Can the Minister tell the House and those members of the armed forces now having to seek medical attention how they will ensure that they do not squander this most recent injection of cash in the way that their predecessors have and how they will stop allowing taxpayers’ money to get taken a loan of by these defence contractors?
Jeremy Quin
As the hon. Gentleman is well aware, there is an Advisory Committee on Business Appointments process that former senior members of the military, as indeed do Government officials, have to go through before taking on outside roles. They are required to seek advice and stick to the advice provided by that committee. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that the £24 billion that the Government have invested in defence was needed, is vital and will be well invested and scrutinised. I am determined to learn any lessons that we need to learn from this process to ensure that they are well applied and well met in our future procurements.
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his frank and transparent response. The assembly of the Ajax in Merthyr Tydfil contributes greatly to prosperity and jobs in north Wales, but he will know that the Defence Committee has taken a keen interest in the Ajax project, and we have concerns, mainly around the effective use of taxpayers’ money. Is he in a position to tell us how much the ammunition for the Ajax 40 mm cannon costs?
Jeremy Quin
I am not. I am writing to the Defence Committee, of which my hon. Friend is a very important member, on exactly that issue, as well as other issues that the Committee raised after my appearance before it. I have seen lots of rumours about the costs of rounds, many of which are way out, but I am constrained. As the House will appreciate, there is nothing more commercially sensitive for a supplier than the exact price of a particular product that it sells to one of its major customers.
If I may, I will explain the difference between 30 mm and 40 mm. An analysis was conducted by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. As the Committee and the House are well aware, there is extra weight on armoured fighting vehicles to enhance the survivability of the crew within them. Given those trends, DSTL’s view was that we needed a heavier weight of ammunition to have effect and to have lethality. That was why we went for the 40 mm rather than the 30 mm option for Ajax, in combination with the entire system, including the stabilisation. The extra punch from the 40 mm, with the system that supports it, means that we would expect to get lethality from one shot. That is incredibly important to our service personnel. It means that they are not dwelling to get an accurate shot and they are not, unlike with the 30 mm, required to send a burst with a shotgun effect. They have a single precision strike. When we look for value for money, the ability to protect our crews and to provide lethality and to ensure that we get that one strike are what is important.
As a result, when we compare the costs of a round of 40 mm with a round of 30 mm, we are comparing a 30 mm burst of three rounds with, in normal circumstances, one shot from the 40 mm. That is the context of value for money, which I hope will persuade my hon. Friend that it is not just a straightforward round-for-round shell comparison. It does not give the full answer.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Can I just remind the Minister to face forward so that he is facing the microphone? I understand the temptation to look at the person who has asked the question, but it is so that things can be properly recorded. Can we have short questions and shorter answers, please?
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that I have had a passing interest in this project for a number of years. In June, the MOD gave the impression that everything was on track. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) said, in the same month the Infrastructure and Projects Authority said that it was unachievable. I thank the Minister for his honesty and for telling us something new today—that these vibration problems were known about a lot earlier than was admitted by GD or anyone else at the Select Committee. I welcome the fact that the Millbrook trials have started, but can he indicate when they will be completed, because that is important?
Finally, the Minister said he met the head of GD recently to discuss this project and other things. If and when he cancels this project, where will the liability lie? Will it be with the UK subsidiary or the main parent company? I can envisage years of litigation on this project if it is cancelled. Where does the liability lie? If it is with the UK subsidiary, that is a very different kettle of fish from the main GD board.
Jeremy Quin
I will be fixed entirely in front of me in answering the right hon. Gentleman, Mr Deputy Speaker. First, I just make one point that sounds like semantics, but it is not. On the MPA report, as I understand it, “unachievable” does not mean unachievable; it means unachievable without the risks and problems associated with the programme being addressed. We are in the business of addressing those problems and issues to make certain that the projects go forward. The right hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention—it was important to clarify this for the House—to the fact that there was a recognition of vibration points earlier. I made that point to him in the Select Committee hearing, as he may recall, as well as in the written ministerial statement earlier this week.
On the contract, I hope it never gets to cancellation. I hope and trust that we will resolve this issue and bring the vehicle into service, but I understand the interest of the right hon. Gentleman and his Select Committee colleagues in that contract. I will be writing to the Chairman of the Select Committee, and I am trying to find a way that we can share more details of the contract to help reassure the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues on the Committee in an appropriate way, which I know the Committee will respect, to enhance their understanding without breaching our commercial undertakings.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
If a remedy is identified, where will the bill for that land?
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Time and time again, when it comes to defence procurement, programmes are beset by delays, costs spiralling out of control and poor oversight—in short, the abysmal contract management of public money. Ajax has been no different. The Minister will recall dodging any responsibility in July’s Defence Committee sitting for the failings of this programme. A lessons learned review was then promised over the summer. Where is it?
Jeremy Quin
The most important report from my perspective is the health and safety report, which will deliver an entire timeline as to events that are troubling and concerning, and that will be published in full. In parallel, we have been doing a lot of work, as I said to the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), on how we move from IOC to FOC. We are looking at all aspects of this programme. As I said in the written ministerial statement and repeated today, on the conclusion, finalisation and publication of the health and safety report, I will be saying what our next steps are, not only in relation to health and safety but across the project as a whole.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
This £4 billion debacle is an example of exactly why the MOD’s procurement process is completely broken. The IPA analysis has already been referred to. Each year, it goes through the top 36 MOD procurement programmes and grades them with a traffic light. Ajax is red, unlikely ever to be achieved. How many of the 36 were green and successfully on track? None. Zero, zilch, nothing. Not one major MOD procurement programme is successfully on track. This is over £100 billion of British taxpayers’ money. The procurement system at Abbey Wood is a shambles, and presiding over this steaming heap of institutional incompetence is the Minister. You are losing 36-0 on behalf of the British taxpayer. [Interruption.] It might be nice if you were not laughing about it. This is massive amounts of taxpayers’ money. You are 36-0 down, you have got a broken system and you are in total denial. What are you doing about it?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Before I call the Minister, please remember to not use the term “you”. I ask for shorter questions, please.
Jeremy Quin
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was smiling merely at the sporting analogy, which I do not think is appropriate. I have already mentioned the MPA’s valuable role, and I am grateful for the work that the IPA is doing in assisting us by looking at the project and how its management can be improved. It has a series of traffic light systems, and my right hon. Friend is right that two of our projects are rated red. There is a whole series of colours; from memory, three projects are green-amber. None is green, which would signal that there are no problems. However, in fairness, if we look at every major country acquiring major defence assets, we see that these are complex and difficult programmes. The importance of the MPA is that it draws attention to problems and to the issues that need to be undertaken and achieved to hit programme targets. A red rating does not mean that it is wholly unachievable; it does mean that there are very serious issues to be addressed, as is patently the case with Ajax, and as I would be the very first to admit that.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
We have learnt some things today. Unachievable does not actually mean unachievable. The Minister also said that if eventually the programme ends, the liability lies with General Dynamics. What does that mean for the £3.5 billion that has already been paid for the delivery of only 14 vehicles? Will we get that back? Following the Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), the most important question is: what are the timescales for the tests and for the re-engineering? What is the end date? At what stage—roughly what month, or even which quarter—will the Minister decide whether the project is still viable or when it is time to draw stumps and start again?
Jeremy Quin
What we have with General Dynamics is a firm price contract. That means that it has undertaken to deliver 589 vehicles for a set specification, and we have undertaken to pay it £5.5 billion for that number of vehicles, at that specification. There is clarity on the contract. It is a strong, firm contract on which GD is determined to deliver, and we are working closely with it. I am afraid, however, that I cannot give a firm date. I know that the right hon. Gentleman, like other hon. Members, would like me to do so—and I would, too. The reality is that we need to get those trials done and the tests analysed, and then we need to find out whether the proposed engineering solutions will work. The right hon. Gentleman is generous and would not wish me to provide alarm and concern to the employees and firms that are doing the work. I know that he appreciates that we need to do the work and ensure that we do our utmost to make the programme work.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I have great sympathy for the Minister’s finding himself in this situation, but I also have sympathy for the taxpayer, who seems to be hammered on a regular basis under this Government. On the 3.5 billion, can he assure me that the taxpayer will get the money back? Also, on this and future contracts, will he make it his business to ensure that the taxpayer is completely and utterly protected?
Jeremy Quin
I reassure my hon. Friend that this is a firm price contract. It is a good contract. We have gone over it, as he can imagine, and there is a requirement for GD to produce the vehicles to the specification in return for the funds expended. He would not expect me to go through the details of that contract, which are commercially sensitive. He is a member of the Defence Committee, and I hope that there may be a way in which, in a different forum, we may be able to shed some more light, but he will understand that commercial sensitivities are such that to go through the details of the contract in this House at this time would not be appropriate.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
This fiasco surrounds a complex military fighting vehicle, but we need to be clear that the technologically advanced fighting assets are not what is at issue here. What is clearly at issue, with the intractable vibration problems, is the basic vehicle. Moreover, it is almost certainly not due to the German MTU V8 diesels or the German Renk transmissions. We are therefore narrowing it down—I am even narrowing it down for the Department—so why are we, the taxpayers, on the hook for the testing at Millbrook and why has the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory not been called in finally to analyse what has gone wrong with the vehicle? If it has, what did it find?
Jeremy Quin
I reassure the hon. Member that DSTL has been engaged, but Millbrook has an international reputation. As I said in the statement, one of the recommendations likely to come through from the health and safety report is that we should be more open and forward-leaning in getting independent analysis and safety verification. If a regulated entity is taking advice from independents about the nature of a product it is buying, it is better to get that advice direct and to pay for it. He who pays the piper calls the tune. I would rather be paying for that independent analysis myself and get it on behalf of the taxpayer, knowing that we have full sight and full visibility on those reports, than going through any third party. That is the rationale.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
My father spent many happy years in the Royal Tank Regiment in scout cars in the desert, but he later developed tinnitus, which is an irritating condition. The Minister said that more than 300 people were involved in the trials. What concerns has he got to follow up with them in the long term to ensure that their health is monitored?
Jeremy Quin
To date, 310 have been identified as being at possible risk. We therefore want to ensure that all of those 310 are given the opportunity to have tests, though we cannot require it. I think I said that so far 248 have been tested, including 113 of the original 121 identified. That is part of an ongoing process to make certain that we monitor hearing over time. I am committed to reporting to the House any trends that emerge in that analysis. I am concerned about it, which is why we went down the route of the health and safety report. The surgeon general is very much focused on that as well. I will update the House as and when more news emerges.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I do not envy the Minister one little bit; he has always been most courteous in dealing with me and all my requests and approaches. Just some of that £3.5 billion would have gone a long way to sorting out one of our long-standing problems: recruitment for the British Army. I note that he did not respond to the shadow Secretary of State’s point about halting the cut in the British Army. Will he now reconsider that point and perhaps address it directly?
Jeremy Quin
It is fair for the hon. Gentleman to refer me back to what the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) said. Ajax is a highly sophisticated technological platform. That is the intention. It will be a step change in the capability offered, but it is one of a very large number of new technologically advanced platforms. There is risk in bringing forward such platforms, but with the way the threat is and the way in which the world is evolving, we need them. Whether that be long-range precision strikes, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance or Boxer, the requirement to have more technologically advanced vehicles, effectors and ISR capabilities is absolutely real. With those capabilities, we can have greater effect with fewer personnel, be more lethal and achieve our defence ambitions and objectives against the threats we currently see.
I understand that recruitment is holding up well, as well it might. There is a great career in the armed forces, and I sincerely hope that people continue to see the opportunities.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Recent events in Afghanistan have reminded us once again—if we needed reminding—of the huge debt of gratitude that we owe our armed forces, and correspondingly underlined that we owe it to them to do everything we can to preserve their safety. Will my hon. Friend assure me that, in defence procurement, safety will always be a priority and never sacrificed to cost or time?
Jeremy Quin
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. That should always be the case. I do not think we should need a health and safety report to remind us of that, but I look forward to the report and its recommendations. Given what was said on that in the written ministerial statement, it is important that lessons are learned.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
This is a five-star shambles. The Government are guilty of negligence. This is not good enough when service personnel have been put at risk. There could be a massive waste of money and now people’s livelihoods may be hanging in the balance. We should not scaremonger, but we should prepare. Can I press the Minister again: what discussion has he had with the Welsh Government to prepare contingencies should the worst come to the worst?
Jeremy Quin
I know the hon. Gentleman is a keen supporter of General Dynamics and employment in his constituency in south Wales, and he will appreciate what I was saying earlier—I meant it genuinely, as I always do when I say things in this House—about how we are working with General Dynamics to find a solution to this. Of course I cannot give a 100% guarantee, but I do believe that we can work together. I sincerely hope we find a solution, and I know that nothing would please him, this House and me more than to have that resolved, have it sorted and then go on to export Ajax globally. I want to raise our eyes and get the right results, rather than focus on worst-case scenarios that I sincerely hope will not be the case.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
May I commend the Minister for the forensic way in which he has tried to get to the bottom of a mess that is not of his making?
The Royal Dragoon Guards based at Battlesbury barracks in my constituency operate, or are meant to operate, the Ajax fighting vehicle, and many of them will be very concerned at the hand-arm vibration syndrome and noise-induced hearing loss that some of them may be victims of. It is a betrayal of the military covenant. He knows very well that there are senior members of the Ministry of Defence, serving and retired, who knew full well the risk of this vehicle at an early stage. Will he ensure that the institutional cloak of invisibility that the MOD traditionally operates does not apply in their case, since if they are allowed to get away with it, as it were, we will not get to grips with the cultural issues that have dogged defence procurement for years?
Jeremy Quin
I thank my right hon. Friend for his courtesy and generosity to me personally. Can I reassure him and this House that I will stop at nothing in making certain that we do get to the bottom of this and get to the lessons that need to be learned? He has my absolute assurance and commitment on that. I refer him to my oral statement, in which I said:
“Following the report’s conclusion, we will consider what further investigations are required to see if poor decision making, failures in leadership or systemic organisational issues contributed to the current situation”.
I have said that in writing and orally, and I mean it. That does not mean that we have come to any conclusions, but it does mean that everything needs to be on the table. We need to ensure, if mistakes have happened, that we learn from them, execute on them and make sure they are never repeated.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
It is relatively unprecedented for such a new and expensive platform not to make its projected IOC date because of a special report on health and safety. Does the Minister agree that there are many failures in the whole process, and could he please assure me of when IOC might be—any indication at all—because this is ultimately about the delivery of equipment to the frontline?
Jeremy Quin
Earlier this year I made a point of saying that, on Ajax, I did not want any IOC to be declared without its going through my office to ensure that I personally, as well as everyone else, was fully satisfied we had kit that would work. That was made clear early on, and I have made it clear when issues have re-emerged that under no circumstances would we be taking into IOC a vehicle that was not fit for purpose and that we need to find a pathway to long-term resolutions on noise and vibration. That is what my hon. Friend would want me to say. It is what the British Army would want me to say; it wants to have vehicles that work and are reliable. The flipside is that I cannot therefore, sadly, give my hon. Friend a date. What I can do is give him my assurance that we will have something that works and meets our specifications when we put it into IOC.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
The Minister has been very clear with the House today that the contract in place is a firm price contract to deliver the 589 vehicles and the various variants to their specification. Can he assure the House that the rest of the system, for which he is responsible to this House, shares his determination to deliver these vehicles once the health and safety issues have been addressed—that the British Army, the chiefs of staff in their entirety and the Ministry of Defence share his determination?
Jeremy Quin
As my right hon. Friend knows very well from his experience, this is an important platform for the future of the British Army, and it really will help us deliver against the threats we are contemplating daily. We need to have it sorted, and we need to have it into service. The commitment that I am showing to work with General Dynamics to resolve these issues, if they can possibly be resolved—and I sincerely hope they can be—is shared throughout the Ministry of Defence and throughout the armed forces. We want this into service, but we want it into service on the basis that it will work, fill our requirements and be the effective tool that our military deserve and need.
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
I have many servicemen and women in Derbyshire Dales. Can the Minister please reassure me that sufficient money but, more importantly, sufficient effort is put into treating all those affected? I know that the culture in the institution does sometimes mean that servicemen and women will not complain and will not mention what is happening. I want an assurance about the effort that is going into tracing everybody.
Jeremy Quin
Specifically to reassure my hon. Friend on that point, we are not waiting for people to come to us. We are going out to the 310 service personnel we have identified in various cohorts who have had experience of Ajax. For example, we are specifically asking them to fill in questionnaires about vibration and to let us know if they have any concerns. I would encourage any service personnel who feel they have concerns to make that known so they can undergo tests and ensure that we can monitor that situation. I hope—I sincerely hope—that my concerns are not justified, but this House would want us to do the testing and to take every precaution to ensure we know what the situation is, and that is what we are doing.
Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
I would like to thank the Minister for his typical courtesy and thoroughness this afternoon, which has been very impressive.
I hope that General Dynamics has heard the deep concern of this House about the status of this procurement episode, because it is clearly extremely concerning. The world is getting more dangerous, and we need these vehicles in operation. Notwithstanding the very considerable sunk costs and time of this project, we will need a point of resolution in the near future. Will the Minister confirm to the House that, in the interim, alternative options are being pursued in case this project needs to be drawn to a conclusion? We cannot afford a procurement gap that might last for years, given the state of the world at the moment.
Jeremy Quin
To reassure my hon. Friend, I am sure General Dynamics will be very aware of this discussion. I did say in the statement that I had met the chairman and chief executive of GD in July, and she emphasised how strong its determination is to get this resolved. It wants this platform to work, and so do we. We are all focused on the same thing, and that is the point. I would rather not dwell on the second half of his question, because I do believe we can get there. I cannot give a 100% guarantee—of course I cannot—but we have a lot of investment, time, effort and focus on this vehicle, and I sincerely hope we can make it work.
Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con)
I thank the Minister for the full and open update to the House today. I am really disturbed by the health risks our armed forces personnel are being exposed to from vibration and noise. We know that hearing loss can lead to complex long-term problems, and it is irreversible in most cases. Could he guarantee that no more risk will be taken and that no service person will be put into the Ajax until these health and safety issues have been fully resolved?
Jeremy Quin
That is a good question from my hon. Friend. I can absolutely reassure her that the safety panel has been convened and has been working through the summer to find a way to allow limited use—and it is only limited use—to undertake the trials at Millbrook. Having done a lot of work on it, with independent advisers as well as the duty holders from the MOD and others, it believes it has found a way forward that is safe and allows the trials to take place. In due course, when we learn the lessons from those trials, they will enable us to have a safe manner of working in the future.
However, the nub of this, and it is a good point on which to end, is that we need a fundamental resolution of these issues. We want Ajax to come into service, and we want it to work. We want to work with General Dynamics to achieve resolution. We need this kit—it is useful, valuable equipment that the British Army is looking forward to having—but we will only have IOC when we have a path to long-term resolution on noise and vibration, and we are committed to working towards that.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the Minister for his statement and for responding to questions for the last 50 minutes.
Committee on Standards
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
The Treasurer of Her Majesty’s Household (Stuart Andrew)
I beg to move,
That this House endorses the recommendations in paragraphs 52, 55 and 64 of the Second Report of the Committee on Standards, HC 582; and accordingly suspends—
(a) Mrs Natalie Elphicke from the service of the House for a period of one sitting day, on Friday 10 September;
(b) Sir Roger Gale from the service of the House for a period of one sitting day, on Friday 10 September; and
(c) Theresa Villiers from the service of the House for a period of one sitting day, on Friday 10 September.
Today’s motion follows the publication of the Committee on Standards Second Report of this Session. The report was agreed by the Committee and published on 21 July 2021. The Government have sought to schedule a debate as soon as possible, as is usual practice. It is always regrettable when such a motion is before the House. The matter has been investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and reported on by the Committee on Standards. I thank the commissioner and the Committee for producing the report. The motion endorses the recommendations of the Committee, and proposes that the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), and the right hon. Members for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) and for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) be suspended from the service of the House for one sitting day. I commend the motion to the House.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I thank the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), and the Committee on Standards for their diligent work and fair recommendations, clearly expressed. It is never enjoyable for any of us when a motion to suspend Members comes before the House. It is disappointing for us all, and it does no good to the reputation of this place in which we are all proud to serve, or to the rules by which we should be bound, as I believe most Members are on a daily basis.
To a certain extent I am not at all surprised, because where there is an example from the top, such as when the Prime Minister was happy to prorogue Parliament entirely illegally, it is not surprising that five Members on the Government Benches felt it appropriate to interfere and improperly influence judicial matters in the trial of a former Member. As the Committee on Standards pointed out, it is particularly egregious that two of the Members involved had substantial legal experience, and I am disappointed to read in the report that at least one Member is continuing to maintain that he did not breach the rules, and that he would do the same again. I find that troubling, and I give notice hereby that I will be carefully scrutinising the letters of apology that the Committee on Standards recommended, because unfortunately this brings a bad note to us all.
Thankfully, and rightly, the letters were completely disregarded by the Lord Chief Justice, and I note that the Members involved—with the exception of the one I mentioned—have fully apologised and taken account of their actions and the consequences of those actions. However, this behaviour is corrosive. It does nothing but undermine trust in Parliament and damage our reputation. It could have ended up undermining the independence of the judiciary, which is one of the standards we hold dear for this country, and one of the things that we send our armed forces out to defend throughout the world. We talked much this summer about the separation of powers as a part of British values, and about the importance of democracy and the rule of law. This issue is part of that.
The detail in the report of mitigating and aggravating factors troubles me, but I will leave it to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda to speak about that in more detail. Instead of using appropriate and proper channels to raise their concerns, the fact that these individual Members chose to write privately to senior judges to request intervention on a decision with which they disagreed is reprehensible. I am glad that the Committee has shown that alternative courses of action were open to those Members, which they chose not to take. The Labour party thanks the commissioner and the Committee for their investigation into that conduct. That Members attempted to influence the judiciary is a matter of utmost seriousness.
I know the Leader of the House will come back and say that Friday is a sitting day—I note that it is not the Leader of the House in front of me, and it is obviously always a pleasure to see the right hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew). However, I wish to make a serious point. Friday is a sitting day, yes, but it is not the same as missing an entire day—we all know that. Yes, it is a sitting day, but it is not a Monday. It is not a day on which any of those Members will lose their right to question Ministers or table questions. It is a day on which we have private Member’s Bills, and it is a pity that the Government chose to impose this sentence on that day. A different type of sitting day is available—it is called Monday.
There is no previous precedent for Members to be suspended on a Friday, and given that many Members, including those concerned, are unlikely to be here anyway, it is not as if it is an inconvenience. If the Government believe that to try to unduly influence the judiciary and bring the reputation of Parliament into disrepute is a serious offence, it would have been more fitting for them to have decided that the suspension should fall on a normal sitting day. I will be watching closely for the letters of apology, and I thank the Committee and the commissioner once again for their diligent work.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I have worries about this. I have worries about the Committee’s report, and certainly about the behaviour of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, as I think some of her investigation methods require looking at. Regarding this case, I am concerned that the Committee is effectively setting down guidelines for the use of parliamentary correspondence with respect to the judiciary. On many occasions, I have reason to take interest in miscarriages of justice that may not relate directly to debates in the Commons or to individual constituents, but where I would want to intervene. I worry that today’s judgment curtails that, and I give notice, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I will seek a debate on that issue at some point. We must ensure that this judgment does not constrain those of us who care about the rule of law and about justice, and that we do not interpret this as a sterilisation of the position between Members of the House with real concerns, and the judiciary.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman has read the whole of the report because he is a very diligent Member. I know that, and I fully understand the point he makes. I do not want any MP to be prevented from trying to deal with miscarriages of justice. There are proper ways of doing that, and there are improper ways. I hope Members will find it helpful that we had strong legal advice from Speaker’s Counsel on the difference between those two ways, which we laid out in paragraphs 75 and 76 of the report. I hope that is helpful to Members. Our intention and hope is to send that to all Members, and of course I would welcome a full debate at some point.
Mr Davis
From memory, this was referring back to a previous judgment of the hon. Gentleman’s Committee back in 1998-2000 on what was or was not appropriate. I think this is not a decision for Speaker’s Counsel; it is a decision for this House as to how the separation of powers works. It is not simply a legal issue; it is a moral and constitutional issue, and it should be decided by the Chamber in total, not by individual officers of the House.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
I will be brief, because many of my comments have already been made. I join the thanks to the Chair of the Committee on Standards and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for coming forward with this outcome. It is important that Members of the House are held to the highest possible standards and that, when sometimes behaviours fall short, actions are taken. I echo the comments of the shadow Leader of the House, because the suspension on a sitting Friday does not send the right message about outcomes if behaviour is found to fall short. I ask the Government to take account of that. We must do everything we can to ensure the independence of the judiciary, and I look forward to the debate mentioned by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). In the meantime, it is clear that the Committee has performed its role with acclaim in taking this action, and I hope the Government will take account of the comments made.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I hope the House will bear with me if I speak for a little longer than others have, because it is important to put on the record precisely what the case is. It is always a delight to see the Deputy Chief Whip, and I understand why the Leader of the House is unable to be here. He has explained that to me, and I fully understand. However, if I might just mark the card for the future, it is inappropriate for a Whip to be moving a motion of this kind. It should be moved by the Leader of the House—that has been the tradition in the past—or by another Minister. There is a slight danger that if this gets into party politics, the whole system will fall apart, which would be inappropriate. I am not making any allegation at all about the Deputy Chief Whip; I just think it would have been better—I think he probably does too—if it had been somebody else. [Interruption.] Well, I gather that he has told lots of other people that he wished it was somebody else doing it.
I do not want to rehearse every element of this issue, but I want for a start to draw an important distinction that has not been properly understood in the wider public. This is not about whether the MPs should have written character references for Mr Elphicke. They were at perfect liberty so to do. That is a service that Members provide quite often, for either their constituents or their friends and associates. It is perfectly legitimate to do so, and in normal court proceedings there is a way of doing that. In fact, the courts deliberately have a proper means of gathering and assessing those references. My Committee makes absolutely no criticism whatsoever of the Members concerned for those original character references.
The issue here was that Mrs Justice Whipple, who had presided over the original trial, had to rule in a further proceeding, under rule 5.7 of the Criminal Procedure Rules, whether and to what degree those references should be made public. I think everybody accepts that the final decision she came to was a good one. She sought representations from those who had submitted references, including the five MPs, and expected those to come through Mr Elphicke’s lawyers, who by that stage were acting for the court itself.
The MPs, however, chose to ignore that proper channel, and instead sought to bypass Mrs Justice Whipple. They wrote as MPs to Dame Kathryn Thirlwall, senior presiding judge for England and Wales, and Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the Queen’s bench division, only copying Mrs Justice Whipple, in the hope that they would, in turn, lean on Mrs Justice Whipple. That is the bit that we considered to be inappropriate.
The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) is absolutely right that that is not a matter for Speaker’s Counsel to decide; it is a matter for the House to decide, but that is what we have come to a conclusion on. It was an improper attempt to influence a judicial proceeding, and, frankly, it is not the way we do justice in this country. It may be the way that justice is done in other countries, where politicians lean on judges; it is not the way we do business in this country. As we say, the fact that the letter was copied to Mrs Justice Whipple rather than addressed to her directly implies that the Members were attempting to exercise an undue influence over her through her superiors rather than informing the hearing.
Mr David Davis
I read the Committee’s report at speed, so I want to be clear in my own mind what crime, or misdemeanour, we are talking about. My understanding from my reading was that the MPs were making representations to protect the privacy of other individuals who had given references. Is that right or wrong?
Chris Bryant
They were making representations trying to say that various of the character references should or should not be revealed in public, and that was the matter that was being decided in the judicial proceeding by Mrs Justice Whipple. Mrs Justice Whipple had engaged Mr Elphicke’s original lawyers as officers of the court to seek representations on that matter, but the MPs did not go through that process; they went through a different process by contacting the senior judges, who were senior to Mrs Justice Whipple, and that is the inappropriate action. There was a perfectly legitimate matter of concern to the court and there was a proper process, and the MPs did not use that process; they used an improper process for seeking to influence the outcome.
That is why, as I referred to earlier, in paragraphs 75 and 76 of our report, we drew a distinction between what is a perfectly appropriate means of engaging in a judicial process and what we consider to be an inappropriate one. I am not a big fan of the term “separation of powers”, because, in our history, it has been a bit more complicated than people sometimes suggest. However, I do believe in comity—that is to say that Parliament has its role and the courts have their role, and the two need to be absolutely distinct if we are to make sure that there is proper justice available to everybody.
I am sorry to offend the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, but I am going to quote Speaker’s Counsel again. She told us:
“The proper relationship between Parliament and the courts requires that the courts should be left to get on with their work. No matter how great the pressure at times from interest groups or constituents, Parliament should not permit itself to appear as an alternative forum for canvassing the rights and wrongs of issues being considered by the judicial arm of the state on evidence yet to be presented and tested.”
The place for those things to be contested and tested is the court, not here, which is why we have the sub judice rule, apart from anything else. Some Members have suggested to me that this is a remarkably minor point. We disagree. Indeed, the evidence that we were given—not least the comments from the Lord Chief Justice—was very clear that it is not considered to be a minor point.
We scrupulously treated each individual as a separate case. Both the commissioner and the Committee gave each Member a full opportunity to explain themselves in person and/or in writing. That is why we recommended different sanctions in each case.
I should say that the Committee has come under some criticism for being too lenient. The public commentary on this issue mostly suggests that we have been too lenient, not too strict. There are those who think that a longer suspension would have been more suitable. Some have pointed out that a Member could be suspended from the House for five days for calling another hon. Member a liar, but only a single day for what is considered to be a fundamental breach of the rules of the House. I just note that the only press that I have seen relating to today’s debate says that the timing that the Government have inserted in the motion means that the Members will miss only consideration of legislation proposed by Back-Bench MPs, with Friday sittings traditionally not well attended, rather than a busy day when any crucial Government business will be considered.
To all that, I say that the Committee does not recommend suspension from the House lightly. I think it is fair to say that we pretty much agonise about doing this, because we know that it can feel like quite a blot or stain on someone’s career. I have spoken, I think, to nearly all the Members concerned. It is a very serious sanction. Some have pointed out that the independence of the courts is such a basic part of the British constitution that it is genuinely shocking that Members of Parliament should have acted like this. That particularly applies to the long-standing Member who refused to accept that he had made a mistake—although he does now, and he has written a fulsome apology—and the two Members who are qualified or have practised in the law. As we say in our report, all three of them, frankly, should have known better.
However, we also recognise that there has never been an explicit rule forbidding MPs from interfering with judicial proceedings, nor a general rule against Members attempting to use their position as a Member of Parliament to exert improper influence or gain improper advantage. In a sense, that is because we always thought those things to be self-evident.
Let me make one final point. The Committee has already expressed concern—as has the independent expert panel, which deals with cases of sexual harassment and bullying—about the Government’s refusal to bring motions to the House at the earliest possibility. We normally expect these things to come to the House within 48 hours. I say this very gently, but I would worry if the Government were picking and choosing when to bring a motion to the House.
I think Sir Stephen Irwin, the chair of the independent expert panel, wrote to the Government to make the point that it would obviously be an inappropriate and partisan point if the Government were choosing to table a motion on a particular day so as either to remove a Member from a vote or to enable a Member to vote. There is an argument for the motion to be tabled by the Committee itself rather than by the Government, and for the Speaker to grant it precedence. That could only happen, of course, if we were to change Standing Orders, and that is not in the gift of the Committee.
Chris Bryant
I was about to be on my last sentence, but of course I give way to the right hon. Gentleman—he is so tempting.
Mr David Davis
As the hon. Gentleman did to me. I am actually going to commend him for this. The punishment here is not denial of access to the House of Commons; the punishment is reputational. In truth, those who think that someone should be stopped from coming in on Budget day, or whatever, misunderstand the nature of the punishment. The aim of the punishment is not to deny the constituents of those MPs the right to be represented on an important day in the House. The punishment is entirely reputational, so I think the Committee did that right.
Chris Bryant
I completely accept that. In fact, I do not like the word “punishment”. Of course this may feel like a punishment, but we prefer the word “sanction”. We have deliberately tried over the past 18 months, since I have been Chair, to create a sort of tariff of sanctions, which we apply according to the seriousness of the misdemeanour and to a set of aggravating and mitigating factors, which we try to bear in mind in relation to each individual. We have laid that out in the report.
It is unusual to have a report that refers to several Members; I am not aware of any case where we have drawn a distinction between each of the Members who have been engaged in a similar action. I hope the House would be reassured that the fact we have drawn a distinction between the five Members, because of their seniority, their previous careers and so on, is an indication that we are only seeking to bring in a sanction that is commensurate with the situation before us. We are not a court of law; we do not have competing parties and everybody represented by lawyers and all the rest of it. However, we seek to give proper consideration to both the reputational risk for an individual, even when an investigation is started, and the reputational risk for the House if we were not to take these matters seriously. We also try to make sure that there is natural justice for each of the individuals, from the beginning to the end.
We would like to bring in some changes to our practices in the future, and we are close to completing the report on the code of conduct, which will make some statements about this. We need to be a bit clearer from the very beginning in explaining to an individual Member what will happen in an investigation when the Commissioner is engaged and when the Committee is engaged we probably need to give a clearer indication of the exact process again, because no Member should have to have all this stored in their head against the day when they might suddenly find themselves in a difficult situation.
I have spoken for too long, as is my wont, but I hope that this has been helpful to the House. If hon. Members are ever in doubt about a course of action they are intending to take, the Commissioner, myself or the Registrar—we have a new Registrar, James Davies, who has just started—are always there to provide confidential advice if people would like it.
Stuart Andrew
It was remiss of me at the beginning not to give apologies on behalf of the Leader of the House, who is unable to be here today. I have deputised for him before at business questions and in Adjournment debates, so it is in that capacity that I have been doing this today.
I agree that the report raises some important points and I welcome the fact that the Committee is considering them as part of its review. It would be helpful for everybody to have clear guidance. All Members of this House want to ensure that we are not in danger of doing something incorrectly, sometimes with the best of intentions. This is about making sure that we get that balance right. I also welcome the contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who is right to say that Members could sometimes be scared of doing the right thing. So I am sure a debate on this would be welcomed by many Members from across the House.
There has been discussion about the sitting Friday. I gently point out that it is a sitting day. The report was published the day before recess and it is logical that the suspension takes place the following day after the motion is laid. We have tried to get this motion in as quickly as possible, and this has been a busy week. We are following exactly the recommendations of the Committee.
I accept that some important points have been raised here, and I will ensure that they are relayed to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I commend the motion to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (Programme) (No.2)
Thursday 9th September 2021
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Act 2021 View all Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 9 September 2021 - (9 Sep 2021)
Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill
Thursday 9th September 2021
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Act 2021 View all Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 9 September 2021 - (9 Sep 2021)
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 2—Guidance on non-domestic rating and coronavirus—
‘(1) The Secretary of State must, no later than three months from the day on which this Act is passed, publish guidance for local government bodies on the application of—
(a) the provisions of section 1 of this Act, and
(b) the wider local business support policy framework associated with that section.
(2) In preparing the guidance the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) independent experts, and
(b) representatives of companies whose non-domestic ratings determinations are affected by section 1.’
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish guidance to local government bodies on the application of the provisions of section 1 of this act. This guidance must be prepared following consultation of independent experts and businesses whose business rates appeals are affected by section 1.
Government amendments 1 to 6.
Jeff Smith
I am conscious that we have an important debate to follow and that time is pressing, so I shall be relatively brief. Labour’s broad support for this Bill has not changed. We recognise the urgent need to support businesses, as well as the Valuation Office Agency, and the need to close a legislative gap exploited by unscrupulous directors. The Bill remains lacking in some safeguards. Labour attempted to correct that in Committee, but we were unsuccessful. The new clause is concerned with the resourcing and capacity of the Insolvency Service to deal with the new measures relating to directors of dissolved companies.
As we heard from witnesses in July at the evidence sessions, unscrupulous directors can cause significant suffering to those who have invested in or loaned to their companies. Too often, these directors are able to absolve themselves of their financial responsibilities by dissolving their companies and creating a financial and time barrier to holding them to account. So clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill allow for a director to be investigated and disqualified before their company is restored. That plugs the important gap and is a welcome measure; it removes a costly barrier, both in monetary and time terms, to accountability and financial responsibility.
However, as Duncan Swift, the former president of R3 highlighted in the Bill’s evidence sessions, these provisions could see the Insolvency Service take on 10 to 15 times the number of investigations it currently undertakes. Despite that potential increase in workload, there is no indication in the Bill that the Government plan to increase funding and resources at all for the Insolvency Service, let alone to do so by the significant amount it might need to allow it to cope with the extra investigations. So Labour is calling for new clause 1 to be added to the Bill to ensure that there is appropriate, regular oversight and scrutiny of the Insolvency Service’s ability to carry out this increased workload. If it is not given the resources to carry out its increased responsibilities, clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill become, in effect, redundant. New clause 1 would ensure that parliamentarians and others are kept updated on the Insolvency Service’s ability to carry out its tasks and on any need it has for extra resources. We do not intend to press the new clause to a vote, but we think it is important to make this point, particularly given that the Insolvency Service cannot apply to court for the disqualification of a director whose company has been dissolved for more than three years. That means that the Insolvency Service does not just need extra resources to carry out the additional investigations; it needs them to carry out those investigations promptly, within that three-year timeframe.
As Dr Tribe summarised:
“The Insolvency Service needs to be properly funded to ensure that this additional disqualification work can happen.”––[Official Report, Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Public Bill Committee, 6 July 2021; c. 18, Q29.]
Although this Bill goes some way to helping tackle financial corruption, the Government could and should go further. The Bill is too narrowly defined for any financial amendments, but the Government could provide a stronger deterrent, beyond disqualification, for unscrupulous directors.
Let me briefly turn to the other new clause and amendments. New clause 2 stands in the name of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and we do not disagree with it. However, we think we do not have to wait for this until the day the Act is passed. It is clear that there is cross-party support for the Bill, that it will pass and that businesses are desperate for support in the current circumstances. So we see no reason why indicative guidance cannot be published and sent to local authorities, as well as possibly indicative amounts for the grants that local authorities will receive, so that they can get on quickly with designing their schemes, ready for when the Act passes. I make the point that we made in Committee that this should not be on a per-head basis; it should take into account the effect of the pandemic on different regions and on different sectors of the economy. I also note the Government’s technical solution, which allowed the backdating of these grants so they effectively apply this financial year.
Peter Grant
I beg your pardon, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am standing to speak to the wrong provision.
The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)
I welcome the contribution from the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). I shall start by responding to new clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) and the hon. Gentleman. I am grateful to him for his constructive words and the way in which he has approached the debate.
The new clause would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the number of directors investigated and disqualified under the new provisions in the Bill every three months from the date that the Act is passed. I am grateful to hon. Members for the opportunity to confirm to the House that statistical reporting is routinely undertaken by the Insolvency Service. Regular three-monthly releases cover company insolvencies across the whole UK as well as individual insolvencies in England and Wales. The releases also contain underlying data and are published and available online to everybody.
As well as that, since the start of the pandemic, the Insolvency Service has been publishing experimental monthly releases of data concerning insolvency numbers. This was so that the statistics could act as an indicator of the impact of the pandemic on insolvencies. It may be of particular interest to hon. Members that the Insolvency Service also releases monthly updates about its enforcement activities. This information includes not only the number of companies wound up in the public interest, but the number of disqualification orders and undertakings broken down by the relevant section of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, under which they were sought. Going forward, these numbers will include any orders or undertakings obtained as a result of this new provision. The reports also include information on lengths of periods of disqualification. Furthermore, there is an annual report on the nature of the misconduct being alleged.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reassured that a large amount of information is already provided that can be accessed easily through a quick online search and that future reports of enforcement outcomes will include any disqualifications made against former directors of dissolved companies. I would be grateful to him for withdrawing his new clause.
Let me just add one last point. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the new burdens on councils. I somewhat couched my answer the last time we spoke about it, so I just want to put on record that we will absolutely be meeting the new burdens cost, including the associated administrative and IT costs.
Jeff Smith
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1
Determinations in respect of certain non-domestic rating lists
Amendments made: 1, page 1, line 2, for “an English” substitute “a rating”.
This amendment and Amendments 2 to 6 extend the application of Clause 1 to non-domestic rating lists compiled for the purposes of business rates in Wales (as well as lists for England).
Amendment 2, page 1, line 5, for “an English” substitute “a rating”.
See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.
Amendment 3, page 1, line 8, for “an English” substitute “a rating”.—
See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.
Amendment 4, page 2, leave out lines 22 and 23.
See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.
Amendment 5, page 2, leave out lines 28 to 35.
See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.
Amendment 6, page 2, line 40, at end insert—
‘“rating list” means a local non-domestic rating list or central nondomestic rating list under Part 3 of the LGFA 1988.’.—(Luke Hall.)
See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.
Third Reading
Luke Hall
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
It is a pleasure to lead this two-part Bill on Third Reading after a series of constructive debates and scrutiny sessions. The contributions of Members from across the House have underlined the importance of these business rates and insolvency measures being on the statute book and will stand the Bill in good stead as it passes to the other place.
The business rates element of the Bill is a sensible measure that will mean that the application of the material change of circumstances process meets the law’s original intention. The MCC process is designed to be used in cases such as localised roadworks, not in response to market-wide economic changes. The passage of the Bill would ensure that this continues to be the case. Instead of business rates bills potentially being reduced following lengthy appeals processes, ratepayers will instead be able to benefit from a £1.5 billion relief package to be targeted at those businesses that have not benefited from the support linked to business rates during the pandemic.
The relief will be available as soon as possible once the Bill has passed and local authorities have set up their local schemes. This approach has been welcomed by the Public Accounts Committee and will be mirrored by the Scottish and Welsh Governments. That means that this measure has wide support, both in respect of the English business rates system and across the other nations of the UK, where ratings are a devolved matter.
Similarly, we have also seen widespread support for the second measure, which brings the conduct of former directors of dissolved companies into scope for investigation and potential disqualification proceedings. This measure is a valuable addition that will be an important tool to help to combat bounce back loan fraud and to deter others from acting in breach of their duties as company directors. I am pleased that the measure will apply across the United Kingdom, protecting our businesses and increasing confidence in doing business in all four nations.
I am grateful for the contribution of all Members throughout the Bill’s earlier passage and today. I thank them for the attention that they have paid to the Bill. I am particularly grateful to the shadow Ministers, the hon. Members for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) and for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), for their constructive scrutiny of the Bill.
Finally, I thank the Clerks of the House and my excellent Bill team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, who have supported us in steering this piece of important legislation through the House. This important Bill speaks to the Government’s commitment to maintaining sensible and fair rating and director disqualification regimes, and I am pleased to have supported it in its passage so far. I commend it to the House.
Jeff Smith
I will again be brief, because we set out our concerns on Second Reading and in Committee, I am aware that this might not be seen as the highlight of the parliamentary week by Members, and there is an important debate to follow.
As we said, we have always supported the Bill’s broad aims. We want to see support administered quickly for businesses that have been affected by covid and have missed out on business rates relief. We accept that ruling out material change of circumstances claims, but instead administering the bespoke £1.5 billion fund, will probably be the best way of doing so in the current circumstances. We also support the aims of clauses 2 and 3, which would close the legal loophole and give the Government the power to investigate and disqualify unscrupulous or unfit company directors.
I welcome the Government’s decision to extend the provisions of clause 1 to apply in Wales, which has been welcomed by colleagues in the Senedd. I also welcome the Government’s decision to ask local authorities, when it comes to administering the fund, to award relief against the liabilities of ratepayers for the current financial year—2021-22—as a way of getting around the restrictions on the business rates legislation so that they can effectively award it against the previous year. It is a technical solution to a technical problem caused by the timing of the funding, when it is eventually released. Local government colleagues assure me that they are happy with this.
Again, I emphasise the fact that we need to get this relief out to businesses as quickly as possible. The rates relief was announced in March and not a penny has yet been paid out. I do not think we need to wait for the end of the Bill proceedings to get indicative guidance to local authorities to design their schemes.
There are still concerns about the resourcing of the Valuation Office Agency and the Insolvency Service and how funds will be recouped and actions taken against unfit company directors. I hope that the Minister will take those concerns into further consideration.
Finally, I thank the Minister for his engagement with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on the Bill’s finer points. I thank his officials and the many, many representatives of the business community and local authority officers who have also engaged with us during the passage of the Bill.
Peter Grant
I am pleased to make a brief contribution to the debate. As I did at earlier stages, I will restrict my comments to the disqualification of directors, which is the only aspect of the Bill that extends directly to Scotland.
The SNP supports the Bill. Our concerns are the same as those of the official Opposition: that much, much more is needed than is included. We need a much more comprehensive set of regulations, not so much to protect shareholders and directors as to protect customers, members of the public and investors from the scams that have all too often been committed by companies whose shareholders are the directors. A lot of company legislation was designed to protect investors against misaction or misconduct by company directors who are different people, but we are now looking at companies whose directors are the shareholders. They are not going to defraud themselves, but sometimes they may be willing to defraud others.
At earlier stages, I have repeatedly mentioned the conduct of a group of companies called Blackmore Bond and its directors Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh. I will not go over even a fraction of their history, but why they were not at least investigated for disqualification long, long ago is beyond me. The Bill will not make it easier for such directors to be called to order, so we need legislation that fills in the gaps that are left.
As an indication of just how current such behaviour is, the BBC reported as recently as Monday that DialADeal Scotland Ltd has been fined £150,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office for making more than half a million illegal marketing calls, many to numbers that had explicitly opted out of such calls. DialADeal Scotland Ltd used false business names in its marketing, which is illegal. It disguised the number that it was calling from so that people could not phone back to complain, which is also illegal. The calls were about non-existent green deal energy savings schemes. That is not a telecoms offence; it is fraud or attempted fraud, and very probably conspiracy to defraud.
The fine was decided in September 2021, but clearly the action by the Information Commissioner’s Office started before then. In May 2021, the directors of the company, Calum Mckay Kirkpatrick and Yvonne Mccuaig, applied to Companies House to place the company in voluntary liquidation—almost certainly with the sole purpose of avoiding the financial penalty that they knew was coming their way, because if the company were dissolved before the order was made, its directors would get off scot-free. Fortunately, the Information Commissioner’s Office was able to lodge an objection with Companies House and the voluntary strike-off action has been suspended.
The same two individuals, Kirkpatrick and Mccuaig, were also directors of DialADealUK Ltd, which was voluntarily dissolved in September 2018, immediately before DialADeal Scotland Ltd was created. Coincidentally, shortly after they had started the process of winding up DialADeal Scotland Ltd, they set up another company called Simple Lead Ltd. Not one of those companies has ever filed a set of accounts with Companies House; DialADeal Scotland’s accounts are now over a year out of date.
Why is it that company directors can repeatedly avoid any kind of scrutiny? As I have mentioned in relation to Nunn and McCreesh’s companies, they can go for years and years without filing the very limited information that they have to file at Companies House, which just does not seem able to keep up.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
My hon. Friend makes a very good point about Companies House and its limitations. Does he share my concern that the UK Government just do not care enough about Companies House and the massive loopholes that they are leaving for people to be defrauded and company directors to get away scot-free with the wrong things that they are up to?
Peter Grant
That would certainly be many people’s interpretation of how long it has taken the Government to take any firm action. We keep being promised a comprehensive review of company legislation; it cannot come quickly enough. I hope that we will finally see an end to the scandal of the creatures called Scottish limited partnerships, which are too often set up purely as a means to fund organised crime.
Companies House needs to be reformed and probably better resourced. As the Opposition spokesperson—the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith)—mentioned, the Bill may place additional demands on the resources of the Insolvency Service. We know that the Financial Conduct Authority needs another complete sorting out. Either it is not doing its job or it has not been asked to do the right job; it probably does not have the resources to deal with fraud on the scale that is now going on right under our nose.
Although I welcome the Bill and we will certainly not oppose it—we have supported it all the way through—we look for assurances from the Government that it is not the end of the road. It can only be allowed to be one tiny step towards finally stopping these people. I remember one of the witnesses who gave evidence to the Bill Committee describing the United Kingdom as becoming one of the go-to places of choice for international fraudsters. That is not a badge that any of us should bear with honour. If that badge is applied to the financial services industry, and to the business community in the United Kingdom generally, it will take years—decades—to get rid of and honest businesses will suffer desperately.
The Government have to start to act now. I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to tell us today when the comprehensive review of company regulation will come forward, but I certainly hope that we will see it very soon. As DialADeal’s example makes clear, even since we started our consideration of the Bill, further scams have been inflicted on innocent people throughout these islands.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Dame Rosie Winterton will now take the Chair for our important debate on the legacy of Jo Cox.
Backbench Business
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Legacy of Jo Cox
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the legacy of Jo Cox—
the positive legacy of Jo Cox.
It is wonderful to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us time for this debate and the House authorities for allowing us use of the Chamber, where we have a shield to mark Jo Cox. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for co-sponsoring the debate, to all colleagues here today, and to all those who have supported the debate, including the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who cannot be with us this afternoon but was very supportive.
I think that most hon. Members recognise the importance of honouring Jo’s memory and celebrating the love that she gave and her contribution here—a positive contribution that continues today. It has been a long six years since I sat here to listen to a new-ish friend making her maiden speech, including her immortal line that
“we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]
So much has happened since then: three Prime Ministers, two more general elections, the European referendum and a global pandemic.
We sought this debate some time ago, before the Batley and Spen by-election was even called. Today it is genuinely an honour to sit next to Jo’s sister. I look forward to hearing her maiden speech from the same place—albeit with a little less hair and perhaps more girth. [Interruption.] Me, I mean.
My hon. Friend the new Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) won the seat in her own right. I am sure that some chose her because of the family history, but many more supported her because of her dreadful opponent and the despicable campaign and divisive, aggressive tactics of the vile Galloway, who clearly has more in common with Donald Trump, given that both have made baseless legal claims about losing elections. As anyone who knocked doors in the constituency will know, my hon. Friend is infamous. I campaigned there—I actually got sunburnt in Yorkshire, which was unexpected, but I knocked doors and found people who went to her yoga class and who know her from school and work. She has her own claim and her own story to tell, and I am sure that she will make her own massive impact here on behalf of her constituents.
It is six years since Jo arrived here with what her husband Brendan called her relentless optimism. Her passions were obvious, her commitment marked and her energy uncontainable. We were both elected in 2015 and took on the organisation of socials for our intake of new MPs, including on the family houseboat just two days before she was taken from us. One of the planning sessions was on the Terrace here. Someone—it may have been my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern)—mentioned the tug of war for Macmillan outside Parliament. Jo being Jo, she disappeared straightaway to throw her energy and all her tiny body mass into that effort—a memory that typifies her spirit.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
The Government Chief Whip told me only this morning that the tug of war was one of his happiest memories of Jo. It seems to me—you may agree, Madam Deputy Speaker—that it would have been a most unequal contest.
Neil Coyle
Thank you.
In that horrific moment when Jo was taken, our country was at a crossroads and many of us feared that the attack risked opening up a seam of division and unleashing more extremism. I am thankful that the great British public saw her murder as the totally monstrous, unjustifiable act that it was and that there has been unity in condemning the motives behind it, as well as an extraordinary effort to better support one another—a trait that has been demonstrated even more over the past year during covid, through volunteering, community spirit and pop-up mutual aid organisations.
Even life in London, despite our population of 7 million, can be an atomised existence, incredibly lonely for some; but we have seen more people get to know neighbours and support one another through this crisis, further strengthening communities such as mine with a greater sense of commonality and solidarity, something that Jo championed and would have been pleased to see. I think we should be capitalising on that spirit, learning from the post-war Attlee legacy of truly building back better after the war, but sadly I fear that we are missing the moment, and failing to deliver a post-covid legacy that benefits the whole country in the way that we all still benefit from the Attlee Government’s creation of the NHS, for example.
Today, however, I wanted to flag up not just the fact that Jo achieved a lot in the short time she was here with us, but the fact that she continues to deliver now on the issues and values on which she triumphed in her life of love. As I said earlier, I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford for co-sponsoring the debate in the spirit of cross-party unity which I think Jo also exemplified. I look forward to her contribution today, and note in advance that she was not just the country’s first but the world’s first ever Minister for Loneliness. It is good to see the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) here as well, as the Government in which he served helped to ensure that £10 million has been distributed across 14 countries through the Jo Cox memorial grant fund. That support and resource has empowered tens of thousands of women, and has supported more than 1,000 women into elected office.
Jo was passionate about tackling isolation and loneliness, and the foundation has delivered a legacy through, in particular, the Great Get Together events. I have the privilege of representing an area with one of the biggest Great Get Togethers anywhere in the country, and I love representing such a positive local community, whose vibrant, welcoming nature makes such events so special and successful. I say “events” because in 2019 I went to six on the same day, including the largest, which sprawled up Redcross way and Union street and beyond. I look forward to the More in Common Borough and Bankside activities that are already being planned for next year.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Jo was a friend and a fantastic west Yorkshire MP colleague, and it is such an honour to have Kim now as our west Yorkshire neighbour. Jo’s “More in Common” values are also the values that Kim and her family have championed so much, and we pay tribute to them too, in west Yorkshire and throughout the country.
Neil Coyle
Thank you; well said.
Across the country, some 20 million people have now been involved in Great Get Togethers, which is a testament to the positivity that Jo helped to inculcate. Even in this covid crisis, in June more than 1 million people participated in a socially distanced Get Together.
There are of course issues that Jo would have still been championing today, and that we need to step up on in her name and in all our interests. The rise in online hate and extremism continues in the UK as elsewhere. As the former chair of the all-party parliamentary group on counter-extremism, I am very aware of the alarming statistics on the growth of Prevent referrals about far-right groups. In the most recent year for which statistics are available, 105,000 hate crimes were recorded by the police, an 8% increase on the previous year. Our focus must be on tackling division and hatred, wherever it comes from—including anti-Muslim prejudice and the startling rise in antisemitism, a feature of both far-left and far-right groups.
I cannot fail to mention Afghanistan today, as I think Jo would have been campaigning against the abandonment of UK promises to the women and girls now left subject to Taliban rule. Jo would have been highlighting the refugee crisis created by the collapse of the democratically elected Government, and the need for our Government to deliver more to help neighbouring states, but also to assist more Afghans who worked for our country to reach the UK and escape harm.
I am mindful that our country’s Afghan failure follows the aid budget cut and the abolition of the Department for International Development. Jo, along with the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South, wrote an excellent piece called “The Cost of Doing Nothing”, which remains valid, and on which I am sure both those Members will speak today. It makes me nervous that the UK looked decidedly isolated internationally, with the US ignoring us and the suggestion from the Foreign Office in March that an alternative alliance could be built to replace American forces ultimately leading to nothing but our scrambled exit and capitulation to the Taliban.
However, the purpose of this debate was to be positive. Before I sit down, I want to pay some personal respects to people who have shone an amazing beacon through some very dark times. Through the Great Get Together events, I have met the Batley Way bike riders who cycle down all the way from Yorkshire to Flat Iron Square in my constituency, where they finish their bike ride with a pint, and they are met by Jo and Kim’s parents, Gordon and Jean. We have all seen Gordon and Jean interviewed, and observed their amazing spirit. They are two of Britain’s finest, and I am very pleased to see them here today. You are the best of us, and it is a pleasure to have got to know you both. Your contribution to this place is two wonderful, special people, and through them and their service you have improved our country and provided opportunities the world over. Thank you for sharing them with us.
A great many Members want to speak, and I am really looking forward to hearing their contributions. I thank everyone for being here and marking this anniversary, and the positive legacy of Jo Cox.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
It was a privilege to co-sponsor the application for this debate with the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), who spoke very much from the heart, and I enjoyed his opening speech.
It is always an absolute honour to speak in debates such as this, especially a debate that is celebrating the legacy of Jo Cox. I did not have the good fortune of getting to know Jo, but through my subsequent role as loneliness Minister, I have had the pleasure —I think!—of meeting her sister, the new hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). I look forward greatly to hearing her maiden speech, even though I have put on mascara for the first time in months and she is bound to make me cry! The fear for my ankles means that since she joined the House I have not yet returned to women’s football. She has a fearsome reputation, and I am getting far too old to be hobbling around wearing bandages. Her wonderful parents, Gordon and Jean, are in the Public Gallery today; I will definitely go and give them a big squidge after my speech, so they had better brace themselves for some Crouchy loving.
As we heard from the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, Jo’s legacy is much wider than the issue of loneliness, but that is the issue with which I am most familiar. The commission that was established in her name to look at the issue in further detail recommended, among other things, the appointment of a Minister and the development of a strategy. Thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), not only was I that Minister, but we produced a cross-Government strategy within eight months which has provided a template for discussion around the world.
It was an enormously humbling experience for me to be that Minister. I was the world’s first loneliness Minister, and curiosity about the brief reached all four corners of the globe. But this is what Jo did: she took an issue at which others had cast a glance, and then catapulted it into the stratosphere. Like many in this House, I had spoken about loneliness and isolation in older people before Jo was elected, but when she came into this place she did not just focus on the stereotype; she broadened it beyond imagination, and rightly so. While loneliness continues to plague older generations, younger people suffer equally crippling rates of loneliness, as do young professionals moving to cities for work, those isolated through disability, and—as Jo herself noted—those on maternity or paternity leave.
Why does loneliness matter, given that it is a feeling that most people will experience at some point in their lives? Well, the reason is that prolonged and extreme exposure to loneliness can seriously affect an individual’s wellbeing and ability to function in society. As loneliness has been shown to be linked to poor physical and mental health, and poor personal wellbeing with potentially adverse effects on communities, it was a no-brainer that we needed to work through solutions to combat it.
The statistics on loneliness will no doubt be quoted a great deal today, and they should be: we need them to remain in the political consciousness. Levels of loneliness in Great Britain have increased since spring 2020. Between 3 April and 3 May 2020, 5% of people—about 2.6 million adults—said that they felt lonely “often” or “always”. Results from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey show that from October 2020 to February 2021, the proportion increased to 7.2% of the adult population—about 3.7 million adults. Mapping trends across the country also shows the types of places where a higher proportion of people felt lonely often or always, and differences in personal wellbeing. Areas with a higher concentration of younger people and areas with higher rates of unemployment tended to have higher rates of loneliness during that particular study period. Local authority areas in the countryside also had a lower loneliness rate than, for instance, urban or industrial areas.
These latest statistics reiterate what we learned from the preliminary work for the strategy, which was that all our views about who suffers from loneliness were not always entirely accurate. As an emotion it shows no prejudice. The chief executive fighting battles in boardrooms was as lonely as the retiree missing the banter of the workshop. The difference was sometimes who would, or would not, seek or receive the support or reconnection that they needed.
As the statistics show, covid has increased the numbers but many of the solutions we proposed in the strategy have not been available, thus exacerbating the problem. The Royal College of General Practitioners was amazingly helpful when it came to developing recommendations, in part because GPs themselves were seeing an increasing number of patients whose interaction with their doctor was because they were lonely. It was with that in mind that one of the core recommendations was to use social prescribing to reconnect people, and I genuinely believe that in the run-up to February last year it was gaining massive traction.
The pandemic has been a major setback, for obvious reasons, and if I had one ask of the Minister—unfortunately for him, it is actually two—it would be that there should be a major relaunch of the social prescribing programme for tackling loneliness. We have all seen really good examples of social prescribing initiatives, including in Batley and Spen, and all of us across the House and our constituents would benefit from ensuring that that programme is relaunched. My other ask of the Minister is to join me in campaigning for a wellbeing budget, similar to those in other countries, in which reducing levels of loneliness would be one target. I do not have enough time in this debate to rant about why a budget based just on GDP is simply not enough, but I will be applying for a separate debate on why wellbeing should be front and centre of our post-covid recovery. That includes many of the issues that Jo campaigned on.
As a Minister, and afterwards too, I have had the pleasure of meeting many people involved in supporting those who suffer from differing and often complex levels of loneliness. I have seen brilliant but extremely simple creative ideas such as friendly benches. I have watched men solder and build things in a shed. I have done interviews and podcasts with people around the world, all of which have started with a confession from those on the other side of the mic that they too have felt severely lonely. I have seen pubs put up signs welcoming people in for a chat. I have heard about businesses that support existing staff with befriending networks, and others that help those retiring to reintegrate into society. Every time I see a project, hear a story or talk in general terms about loneliness, I personally find it a humbling experience, but I recognise that the progress we have made on identifying and tackling the issue is truly leading the world, and quite frankly, we have Jo Cox to thank for that.
Mr Speaker
Can I just remind everybody that we are now coming to a very important maiden speech? We all know about the legacy of Jo, and it is an absolute privilege to be able to be in the Chair to listen to Kim Leadbeater.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you to my friends—my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch)—for securing this debate. It is with a huge amount of pride and a significant amount of nervousness that I make my maiden speech today. It has been an honour and a privilege to have been the MP for my home constituency of Batley and Spen for 10 weeks now, although if I am honest, like much of the last five years of my life, it has all been a bit of a blur. Following the result of the by-election on 1 July, after several weeks of running round the streets of the area where I live asking people to put their faith in me, with not enough sleep and far too much chocolate and caffeine, I quickly found myself on a train to Hogwarts—sorry, I mean Westminster! Nobody gave me a book of spells or taught me how to play quidditch, but here I am. I am sure every new MP experiences the same mixture of pride and responsibility that I am feeling right now, but as the House does my family the great honour of paying tribute to my sister, I hope that Members will understand that I mean no disrespect to this place when I say that I would give literally anything not to be standing here today in her place.
We have already heard what an extraordinary contribution Jo made to politics in the tragically short time that she sat on these Benches. The love and respect that she earned across this Chamber is a testament to the very special qualities that she brought to the job and to the kind of person she was. Others are better qualified than I am to reflect on her talents as a parliamentarian, and for me she will always be many other things before an MP: a compassionate and caring humanitarian; a proud Yorkshire lass; a friend to many, including a significant number of those who are sat here today; a loving daughter—I am delighted that our parents, Jean and Gordon, are here today; a fantastic sister-in-law and wife; an outstanding mum to Cuillin and Lejla, who remain full of Jo’s energy, optimism and spirit; and the best big sister anybody could ask for.
Jo’s murder ripped the heart out of our family. I have spoken on many occasions about my ongoing disbelief and devastation following her death, and it still does not feel real, today more than ever. It was devastating for the people of Batley and Spen, too, because so many of them had also taken her to their hearts. The constituency has much to be proud of, and I will come on to some of those things, but I am sure that I speak for all of us when I say that we take no pleasure in being known as a place that has had four MPs in the space of just seven years. My predecessors—Jo, of course, but also Tracy Brabin, Mike Wood and indeed Elizabeth Peacock before them—all made their mark in very different ways. I come to the job, as I am sure they all did, with a determination to do things in my own unique way. I could not do anything else. People may make comparisons, and they are of course entitled to, but I am very much my own person and I will always be true to myself, proud of where I come from and ready to crack on and get stuff done, no matter how big the challenges may be.
Batley and Spen has been through a lot in recent years, but time and again, when others have sought to set us against each other, we have come together. When we have been riven by violence or the politics of hatred and division, we have shown the best of ourselves. Generosity, warmth, respect, tolerance and love: those are the true qualities of the people I am proud to represent. Jo said in her maiden speech that
“what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]
I believe those words are as true today as when she said them—perhaps even more so. But my sister would never have pretended that we do not have our differences and disagreements, and nor do I. Of course we do, and the world would be a very dull place if we did not, but we should also have the ability to respect each other’s opinions when we disagree and the good sense to know that our communities can thrive only when they embrace each and every one of us. I am very clear that we cannot pick our equalities.
I am Batley and Spen born and bred. I have lived and worked in almost every part of the constituency: Heckmondwike, Cleckheaton, Gomersal, Batley, Liversedge, Staincliffe and Littletown. While the towns and villages that make up the constituency all have their own unique character, of which they are justifiably proud, the problems people face are often very similar. No matter where you live or what your background might be, the potholes in the road are just as deep, the dangers posed by speeding drivers are just as terrifying and the impact of crime and antisocial behaviour is just as devastating. There are no easy answers to many of these problems, but having had discussions and meetings with literally hundreds of my new constituents over the summer—on Kim’s summer tour—it is clear to me that we all have a responsibility to play our part in tackling these issues, whether as individuals, organisations, communities or families. It is no good thinking that dealing with these issues is always somebody else’s problem.
We should never ignore the importance of family and community and of working together. Across Batley and Spen, and indeed across the country, whatever your household looks like, the pandemic has reminded us just how much we need our family and friends and the wider community. For Jo and for me, the values we learned from our parents and the empathy and compassion that they instilled in us enabled us to make a difference in our own ways. We have seen so much of this in recent times. Our schools and colleges, our churches and mosques, our community organisations and sports clubs and our families and friends have helped to bind us together to face the common challenges we shared. I am incredibly proud of the work of the Jo Cox Foundation in this regard—it is such a valuable part of Jo’s legacy. By building a network of More in Common volunteer groups and hosting the annual Great Get Together weekend in June, on Jo’s birthday, the team have worked tirelessly to tackle loneliness and build togetherness in communities up and down the land.
There is something else we have in common in my part of the world: we do not like being taken for fools. With respect, I say to the party opposite that fine words about levelling up are all well and good, but what we have seen instead in Batley and Spen over the last decade are drastically reduced police numbers, huge cuts to the roads repair budget, growing poverty and inequality, and queues outside our food banks. There are areas of my constituency that are desperate for investment, and I will be holding the Government to account to ensure that Batley and Spen gets its fair share of whatever levelling-up money is going, so that it goes to the people and communities who need it most.
We need new opportunities for our young people, the chance to breathe new life into our villages and town centres and support for the many excellent businesses we are lucky to have. We need more jobs, but good quality jobs doing what we do best in manufacturing and services, not huge, soulless warehouses full of robots. That is the only way to ensure a bright and prosperous future.
That is my vision for Batley and Spen and, indeed, the country: happy, healthy, united communities working together across the sectors to tackle our problems, to support each other and to celebrate our successes, and where everyone feels included and that they have a role to play.
I look forward to making the case for the people of Batley and Spen as their new MP. We have all had to get used to using technology to keep in touch in recent times. I am very much a people person, so I am pleased that the business of the House is getting back to normal, although I hope it is with an appropriate amount of caution and without complacency.
I am told that one of the first skills I need to master is bobbing up and down to get your attention, Mr Speaker. As I have a background in sport and fitness, I hope that is one thing I will be good at. I might even add a few squats and lunges so I get a bit of a workout, and everybody is welcome to join in, of course.
When I do get the opportunity to speak, it will be an honour to bring a bit of Yorkshire straight-talking grit and common sense to the debates in this place. Like Jo, I will be happy to work with MPs of all parties, in the interests of both my constituency and the country as a whole. Indeed, I am grateful to the many Members on both sides of the House who have been so generous in welcoming me here.
I am quite new to politics, so I am the first to admit that I have a lot to learn. I have already nearly sat down on the wrong side of the Chamber a couple of times, although while it might be the wrong side for now, I am sure that day will come. I have got lost in the maze of corridors in this remarkable building more times than I care to mention, but fortunately someone has always helped by pointing me in the right direction. Thank you if you were one of those people.
I am sure I will make more mistakes because I am only human, as we all are, and I think sometimes people forget that. We all have family and friends and, if we are lucky, maybe even some interests and hobbies outside politics. Putting yourself forward for public office is a brave thing to do, wherever you sit in this place, and I appreciate that now more than ever.
Since my election, the one thing that people keep saying to me is, “Kim, please don’t change,” and I do not intend to. I will always stay true to my roots and identity. If I can be half the MP my sister was, it will be a huge privilege to get on with the job of representing the wonderful people of Batley and Spen.
Mr Speaker
We are all moved, and we will always think of your sister. I know that you are going to be a great Member of Parliament. Do not forget to get involved in the rugby league group.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
It is a tremendous delight, indeed a privilege, to follow the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). On the strength of what she told the House today, no one on either side can be in any doubt that we will all look forward to the issues she takes up and to hearing what she has to say—in my case, from across the Chamber. I know she is going to make a tremendous contribution on behalf of her constituents.
It is 34 and a half years since I made my maiden speech, listened to by my father who was sitting on these Benches. We are all so pleased that the hon. Lady’s parents are here today to hear what she had to say and to see her maiden speech in the House of Commons. She spoke with enormous eloquence about her constituency, but she also spoke so kindly about her predecessors. I, of course, served first with Elizabeth Peacock, who was a formidable colleague, and the hon. Lady follows in the finest tradition of people who are outspoken and forceful on behalf of their constituents. The whole House will have enjoyed what she had to say today.
I knew Jo well, and I first met her when I was in El Fasher in Darfur, Sudan, with David Cameron in about 2006. She was there at a meeting to fight for the rights of women who were being brutalised, murdered and raped in Darfur. She was a huge presence then, so long ago. I also remember her for the trademark scarves she used to wear.
Jo approached me when she was elected to this House to ask whether I would join her in co-chairing the all-party group for friends of Syria, which I continue to co-chair with the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). Jo came along and asked whether I would join her, and I said I would be delighted. We worked together very closely in trying to deal with that huge humanitarian crisis, which saw more than 5 million Syrians on the move.
I well remember going with Jo to have tea with the Russian ambassador, who complained that I had said in this place that the behaviour of the Russians in bombing Aleppo was no different from the behaviour of the Nazis in bombing Guernica during the Spanish civil war. The Russians, wrongly in my view, took exception to that comparison. I will never forget that occasion because Jo, with her principled approach and self-evident decency, shredded that experienced diplomat and left him unable to speak. I have written about that episode, along with others, in my book, which is being published on 12 October—I am advised that it will be available in at least some good book shops.
When this House met following the murder of the sister of the hon. Member for Batley and Spen, it fell to me to pay the main tribute from the Conservative Back Benches. It was one of the most miserable occasions in my nearly 35 years in this House. Today, in my very short speech on Jo’s legacy, I want to share two areas where she set us all a very good example, on whichever side of the House we stand.
First, on almost any issue before the House, we would know in advance where Jo stood. That is an important point, because she was someone of such clarity and decency that, whatever the issue, those who knew her would know where she stood. She had a brand. Most of us do not have a brand or, if we do, we rather wish we did not, but she did. That is something to which all Members of Parliament should aspire—that the position we take on issues is clear and understandable.
Secondly, Jo was an example of something the public do not always appreciate about this place but which sees this place at its very best, and that is working across parties to find agreement with those who may, in many other areas, have a different political opinion. She epitomised that principled clarity of views and beliefs on so many occasions, and not just in the Select Committees, all-party groups and other ad hoc groupings that this place has in abundance. It is one of the best aspects of the House of Commons, and one that is most appreciated by our constituents when it comes to light, that where it really matters we can work together in the public interest and in the interests of those we represent and who have done us the great honour of sending us to this place.
The speech by the hon. Member for Batley and Spen epitomises that fact, and today’s debate is very much about it.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (MrI congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on securing this debate, which is such an important occasion for us here in this House to reflect on Jo’s legacy, but, perhaps, above all else, I congratulate my hon. Friend the freshly minted hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). I, too, joined her on the campaign trail in Batley and Spen. It really was quite an experience. I genuinely believe that Kim personally knew about 50% of the people and of every family on every street that we met in that constituency. We also had a chance to play some football in the streets, which I think was a vote winner. It certainly should be counted into the majority.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I had the privilege of knowing Jo—[Interruption.] I did not realise that this would happen so quickly.
Jess Phillips
Does my hon. Friend agree that, without question, everybody in here can understand how difficult this is for many of us, but also how much we delight in celebrating our friend whom we miss so dearly? Everybody will understand that some of us may need a little time in this debate.
Stephen Kinnock
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, but I am not sure whether that has helped me to pull myself together, but I will give it my best shot.
I had the privilege of knowing Jo for around 20 years. I shared an office with her for a year before she was so cruelly taken from us. We were elected in 2016, and I am still in that same office now, and not a day goes by when I do not think of her hurtling into our office in her cycling gear, having a chat with my staff and talking about one of the most amazing campaigns that she would be working on. These campaigns ranged widely from reducing loneliness in society to standing up for refugees and fighting for the Labour party’s values, Britain’s democratic values and compassionate values internationally.
Jo was truly driven by giving a voice to the voiceless and by speaking truth to power. If I was really lucky she would bring her beautiful children into the office. I am not sure whether they are here with us today—I do not think they are—but it was always wonderful to see them. If I was really, really lucky I would receive a dinosaur drawing or even get the chance to read them a story. It is these personal memories of Jo that I continue to cherish most every day.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
I knew Jo for a far shorter period than my hon. Friend, but we were both candidates in West Yorkshire in the run-up to the 2015 general election. We had meetings as candidates and calls. Sometimes there were things that the rest of us were not prepared or able to articulate, but Jo would always almost read what we were thinking, think the same thing and articulate it more bravely and strongly than the rest of the group of candidates. We could see that bravery and strength after she became an MP. In the legacy and the foundation and what happens now, we can all learn from that and hold on to that as a really strong part of the legacy here in this place.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
If at any point, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) wants me to call a speaker from the Government Benches and then come back to him, he should just tell me.
Stephen Kinnock
It is going to be alright, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is going to be okay.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Jo had an amazing, almost telepathic, ability to connect with people, to read the mood and to read where people were going in a conversation. That was one of the reasons that she was such a persuasive person and such a great campaigner.
I remember what Jo stood for and her dedication to the values that she held so passionately—values that I hold dear, that the Labour party holds dear, and, I know, that many Members across this House hold dear. These values represented the very best of our country: compassion, community, solidarity, internationalism and a belief that our great country can be greater still. She cared about our place in the world because she cared about the lives of the people she had committed herself to serving and understood the way that global politics affected the everyday communities in Batley and Spen and across the length and breadth of our country.
Jo was an internationalist to her fingertips, believing that we can do more good by working together with our friends and neighbours than we could ever do on our own. She wanted Britain to continue to be an open, tolerant and generous country—a country that engages with the world with its head held high, instead of turning its back on it. She wanted Britain to face the big challenges of the 21st century—from climate change and terrorism to the stresses and strains of globalisation and the impact that they have on our communities—with our eyes and our hearts open, and with the strength in numbers that comes from standing shoulder to shoulder with our democratic allies in Europe and beyond.
The years that have passed since Jo’s death have been difficult for Britain politically, but I have always taken inspiration from the core messages that she sought to espouse through her politics. She was relentlessly committed to unity over division as encapsulated perfectly by her famous comment that we have
“far more in common than that which divides us.”——[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 674.]
She also believed passionately in standing up for what was right and she always spoke truth to power. She encapsulated, I believe, what an MP should be, viewing our opposite numbers as opponents, not as enemies, never afraid to take on an argument, but always willing to work cross-party if there was an issue where progress could be better achieved by working together in the national interest.
Jo worked tirelessly across party lines because she understood that, in our complex and inter-dependent world, compromise is a sign of strength, not of weakness. Jo was a pragmatic idealist in every sense of the term and I hope that we can honour Jo’s legacy by seizing every chance that we get to discard narrow party politics in favour of doing the right thing for the communities that we represent. I feel that a great way to honour that pragmatism would be for all parts of this House to make more effort to work together to meet some of the major challenges facing our country today—from climate change to social care.
Out of the deep darkness of Jo’s death must now come the shining light of her legacy, so let us build a politics of hope, not fear; of respect, not hate; of unity, not division. While we will all cherish Jo’s public legacy, I will also always cherish the private Jo. I will miss her counsel, her companionship and, above all, her friendship. She was a relentlessly positive person who could lift my spirits after the toughest of days. She was a true friend whom I miss every day that I walk through that office door. If ever I am feeling low, I just need to look at the example provided by Jo’s family, one of whom is sitting on the Green Benches next to us today. They have shown such remarkable courage and dignity in the past few years. To paraphrase Jo’s sister, my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen, we will not be beaten, and we must channel all our energy into ensuring that Jo’s legacy is honoured.
Today I want to end by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen—I shall never stop taking pleasure in saying that. She stood for office with such courage given the circumstances and she spoke today in her maiden speech with such heartfelt passion about why she has stepped up, why she has taken responsibility, and why she will help us to carry forward the legacy of her sister. I know that she will serve those same Batley and Spen constituents with the same grace, commitment, goodwill and determination that Jo did before her, and she need not worry, because whatever happens from this day on, my word, she has done her sister and my friend and this House proud.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for calling me despite me charging into the Chamber, barely a second late. You may think that it is because my timekeeping is poor, but it was actually a tribute to my friend Jo Cox, who, in my recollection of working with her for a very brief period, almost always came in with a crashing door, a burst of colour and an “I’m sorry I’m late.” As many Members have already said, in those moments when she would burst in, she brought with her an extraordinary ball of energy, an extraordinary passion and an extraordinary strength that I am delighted to see have returned to this House in the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). She has demonstrated that the family who gave birth to one extraordinary individual and raised her has achieved it a second time. For that, I pay the most extraordinary tribute to a fantastic mother and father.
I am going to share with the House my experience of working with Jo, because together we had put together almost all of a paper on the cost of non-intervention. Both of us had seen, in different ways, the impact that intervention—military intervention in my case, humanitarian in hers—had had on lives around the world. We had seen the problems in Iraq and the failures in Afghanistan, and we were aware that in many parts of the world, including in the United Kingdom, there was a desire—almost a hope—that we would never do it again: that we could turn away, look past and pretend it was not happening. But we cannot—and Jo knew that, because what she also brought to this place was the reality of the lived experience of somebody who actually knew the cost. She was somebody who really saw the price, whether in Darfur or Syria, and who knew what that intervention meant to the lives of the most vulnerable and most at risk in countries around the world.
Together Jo and I pulled together most of the paper “The Cost of Doing Nothing”, which was published by Policy Exchange. But, sadly, before it was able to come out—indeed, before it was fully finished—we know what happened. That was a terrible moment, I am sure, for everybody. My memory of it was phoning her number many times, and sadly, like everyone else, getting no answer.
I pay huge tribute to my friend, the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), for the extraordinary courage that she showed after that, in taking up the work that had been done—not imposing herself on it, but ensuring that what was published was in keeping with the words that Jo herself would have written. I also pay another tribute: to my friend, Brendan, who is up in the Gallery and who helped us.
Jess Phillips
While the hon. Gentleman is heaping out praise, let me refer back to what the right hon. Member for the royal town of Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said earlier. I would not ever wish to speak for Jo, or ever claim that I could, but I know what she would be thinking at the moment and over the last few weeks: she would be heaping praise on the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) for the interventions that he has made. If she and her legacy give him any courage in what he is doing, he should know that she is—in my eye and in my mind—standing shoulder to shoulder with him.
Tom Tugendhat
I am enormously moved, and as somebody who is my girth and size knows, that is quite hard to achieve.
It has been in thinking of the work that Jo and I did together that I have been motivated and given strength to speak out in recent weeks, because I know that these are not political issues in the narrow sense, but issues that unite the core of our country.
Let me come to my last point. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen has already demonstrated that she knows perfectly well how to find her way around Hogwarts and that she knows exceptionally well how to make her voice heard in this place. She knows, I can tell the House, how to make friends across parties. In that, she needs absolutely no advice. The one thing that I think we all need to remember—I do not single her out especially, as this applies to us all—is what this place is for. It is too easy to think of it as a place for soundbites and video clips, as a place where we pass a quick Bill or make a cheap point.
What this place is for is to have the fights that a democracy needs to have, to have the arguments that free people need to express, to test ideas, to challenge each other—respectfully, yes, but to challenge each other—and to try to make the best for this amazing country, which we are privileged to be in. That is sometimes hard to remember; I admit my own failings. It is hard to remember when too often the accusations are of immorality or deceit, or the supposition is that parties define individuals, rather than that they are defined by the individuals who make them up.
What Jo demonstrated—and, for me, what made her not just a great friend but an amazing parliamentarian and, more importantly, a great Briton—is that she knew the purpose of this place; she knew that absolutely fundamentally. She knew that it was not to back down or make cheap compromise, but, as my friend the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) put it, to make compromise from a position of strength and principle, to choose the battles to fight and to make sure that they were won, in a way not that ground down her opponents, but which brought them with her. And that she achieved—remarkably, in under two years. I still cannot believe how brief the period was. I have been here for six years and have consistently failed since, but Jo demonstrated that and that is what I try to remember here.
As I pay tribute to a fantastic maiden speech, demonstrating all the passion that we knew the hon. Member for Batley and Spen had, let me say to her that she is taking up an extraordinary mantle. She carries with her the thanks, certainly of this House and, I am sure, of the whole country for demonstrating that courage is the willingness to come forward even when it is difficult, and particularly when it hurts.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). It is also very appropriate, as will become clear when I continue with my speech, but before I get to those points, let me thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who has just popped out from her place, for securing this debate. It is important that we put on the record the positive legacy of Jo. It gives me great heart to listen to speeches from both sides of the House about just what has been achieved in Jo’s name.
I thank the right hon. Member for the royal town—I think I have got that right—of Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), not just for the excellent speech that he gave just now, but for five years of friendship, for which I am very grateful. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who has also been dedicated in the work that he has done.
Today’s debate marks five years since the murder of Jo Cox MP, then the Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen. She was a Member of Parliament for a short time, but her life had already shown, even before she came to this place, just how much good could be done by a person with a simple determination to serve those in the world who needed her. In the five years that have passed, many people in our country have begun their own journey into public service, inspired and comforted by Jo’s words and spurred on by her example. That is the legacy that we record today.
Above all else, I must congratulate the new Member for Batley and Spen, my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater), on her brilliant by-election victory and her maiden speech. Sometimes a win really helps—and what a win that was. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon, I really cannot explain how happy I am to describe her as the new Member for Batley and Spen. I came to know her in the worst possible circumstances, but having made friends with her has been nothing but a gift, even when she made me do 1980s aerobics—and also the women’s parliamentary football team. As my hon. Friend said, she is her own person and will represent her hometown in her own way, but she has shown a courage over the past five years that is worthy of a sister’s love.
To Brendan, Cuillin, Lejla, Jean, Gordon and all Jo’s friends and family, I say thank you for all you have done: you have been a light in the dark. To Jo’s friends Kirsty McNeill, Eloise Todd, Iona Lawrence, Nicola Reindorp, Ruth Price and so many others, I say thank you. I thank Jo’s friends here in this place—those who have already spoken and those who will speak, but especially those on the other side of the House—for showing that the words on Jo’s plaque count just as much on the Government side of the House as they do on the Opposition side. Finally, I thank everyone in Batley and Spen for putting up with us during the by-election. The towns of Batley and Spen are rightly known across the country for the kindness and care they have demonstrated.
Today’s debate is a chance for us all to reflect. We reflect on Jo’s life; the contribution that she made to her own community and our whole country; and the efforts of Jo’s family and friends on tackling loneliness, on the role of women in society and in politics, and on the humanitarian imperative.
Others will rightly talk about Jo’s legacy in our country. I have seen at first hand in Batley and beyond what an impact she has had. Her words have gone on to have very real meaning in every connection made and every friendship built. But Jo’s activism echoed not just in this country but around the world, and her loss was felt not just in the UK but in every place in the world where Jo had worked. Her belief in the humanitarian principle that everyone in the world is entitled to the basic protection of their life and liberty led her to meet people from the four corners of the earth, and when she died, they grieved just as we did here.
That was why, in 2018, the then Department for International Development established a development grant programme in Jo’s honour. It funds women’s empowerment organisations and the prevention of identity-based violence. The Jo Cox memorial grants get UK aid money exactly where it needs to be: backing women’s leadership and using protection approaches to stop violence before it escalates. That humanitarian principle that Jo fought for is made real by this work, and I thank all the civil servants in DFID, as was, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office now for working so hard to make it happen. She is not present, but I also thank the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who played a leading role.
In other aspects, however, we all must go further. I have met many Syrians in the UK who spoke with Jo in the year that she served in this place, when she gave voice to the horrors taking place in their country. They miss her now just as I do. In truth, life for Syrian civilians has worsened year after year. From Aleppo to Idlib and all over the country, civilians are displaced and forced to live in deep fear for their families. It goes on and on.
Jo advocated for a strategy to protect civilian life in Syria, and five years later that is exactly what we are still crying out for from the international community. Jo spent a decade campaigning for global acceptance of the responsibility to protect doctrine and, looking at events in Syria since she was killed, it is clear that she was right to do so. On Syria, Jo said that we must
“put the protection of civilians at the centre of our foreign policy, not…sit on the sidelines while hundreds of thousands more are killed and millions flee for their lives.”—[Official Report, 12 October 2015; Vol. 600, c. 136.]
She was right to say that.
That which Jo feared has happened since, and it is happening right now. The International Crisis Group reported that in Daraa province in the south-west, the regime had renewed attacks throughout August on Daraa city’s besieged al-Balad neighbourhood, where fighting killed at least 32, including 12 civilians, and displaced 38,000 people by 24 August. That is not five years ago, or 10 years ago: it is two weeks ago. On 12 August, the UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, warned that civilians face shortages of basic goods and said that the
“near siege-like situation must end”.
Ignoring starvation and terror in our world will not make it go away.
As the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling and I said in the pamphlet that he should have published with Jo, knee-jerk isolationism is not in Britain’s interest any more than it is in the interests of those in the world who need our leadership. All it does is make us look powerless in the world and careless about the international norms that we helped to create. The argument that Jo made in this place—that we have a responsibility to use the tools at our disposal, be they diplomatic, development or defence capabilities—to protect, where and when we can, was the right argument, and it has rung ever more true over the past five years than it was on the day Jo made it.
However, I believe that in the current public response to the Afghanistan crisis we are seeing Jo’s legacy. As Jo said, she had met battle-weary elders of Afghanistan and understood the impact of conflict. When she was killed, the then Chancellor, George Osborne, credited her with changing both attitudes and policy when it came to refugees. He said that she would never know how many people’s lives she had changed, and he was right.
Finally, let me say this. In Jo’s honour now, we all have a duty to see the common humanity we share with those who are the victims of conflict not of their making. Whether in Afghanistan or Syria or elsewhere in the world, there will be circumstances that cause humans to flee. Our country should be proud of every person who finds safe refuge here, as Jo’s friends and family should be proud that her defence of refugees made people think again and, crucially, changed the minds of those in power. That is Jo Cox’s legacy. Our responsibility is to live up to her principles.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
I will be brief. I did not know Jo Cox, but I intrude on this debate because it is about her legacy. I did not know her, but we did have some friends in common outside politics, and I had the pleasure of having some contact with the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) before the election, and with Brendan. It strikes me that we are really debating this concept of having friends in common, and we are talking about friends in the Commons.
I am struck by everything that has been said about Jo, much of which was new to me. My impression of her, having done some work with the foundation after her death, is of someone who worked very deliberately to cross divides, build bridges and live up to her statement that we have “more in common”. I want to reflect briefly on that phrase and wonder what it actually means. What is it that we have in common? What is it that binds us together? Without presuming to speak for her, but from listening to the debate so far and from knowing what I do about her, I think it is—and it is what I think as well—that we have in common the things that we care about. What we care about fundamentally, and what we are all here to work on in this place, is our families, our communities, our country and our common humanity. We have all sorts of different expressions of those affections and attachments, but those are really what life is about.
I just wanted to make the point—I hope it is not too politically partisan—that while we might agree that those are the things that matter, we do not necessarily agree on how to fulfil those obligations and how to serve those affections. In a sense, that is what this argument is about, but the fundamentals are the same. These are the things that matter. We serve a common set of ideals and obligations. I look forward, in a friendly way, to debating with the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) about how on earth we can strengthen our families, communities and country across this House.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger). As a current chair of the Labour Women’s Network, it is an honour for me to rise today to pay tribute to Jo Cox, its first ever elected chair. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) for securing this special debate. I speak today despite the fact that I did not know Jo personally. From hearing friends speak, I regret that considerably.
Jo led the Labour Women’s Network from 2011 until her election to Parliament in 2015. Jo is remembered by our organisation as an activist, a feminist, a humanitarian, a friend, a parent, a politician, a leader and a doer. Crucially, Jo is remembered as a sister, most importantly a sister to my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) who made an enormously moving and passionate speech. I know she will be a fantastic representative in this place.
Jo embodied sisterhood to all women: to the women she knew, who still feel echoes of her straight-talking support and gutsy humour encouraging them; but also to women like me, whom she would never meet, on whose behalf she eagerly sought to turn gender equality on its head. The Jo I hear about from LWN colleagues was proudly political and a proud intersectional feminist. Her sisterhood embraced women in all their diversity.
I stand before you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as part of Jo’s legacy: as the first black chair of the Labour Women’s Network and as part of the parliamentary Labour party, which is 51% female. Having spoken to many of Jo’s friends, they suspect that Jo would only pause to applaud that historic achievement for a moment before rolling up her sleeves and urging the rest of the House to crack on and catch up. Jo herself said:
“One of the reasons I am entering politics is because only 23% of the House of Commons is female. If women don’t make that 50/50 then the people taking decisions about our communities are never going to be reflective of the needs.”
The House is now 34% women. That should be noted as part of Jo’s legacy, but I am sure we can still feel her impatience for speedier change.
In that spirit, the Labour party and the LWN created the Jo Cox Women in Leadership Scheme, on which I was a trainer. It has offered intensive personal and political development to almost 175 women from every region of the UK. Among them are train drivers, firefighters and carers. The youngest participant was 18; the oldest mid-60s. Some 30% were women of colour, 20% were disabled and 25% were LGBT. They include Seyi Akiwowo, the founder of the unstoppable digital self-care campaign Glitch; Bex Bailey, named Time magazine’s person of the year for her role in the Me Too movement; and the award-winning sound engineer Olga Fitzroy.
The scheme uses Jo’s own approach of tough love and hard work to inspire an army of feminist changemakers. We remind participants that Jo, too, hit set-backs and made mistakes, faced abuse and wavered. Nevertheless, she persisted and in Jo’s name ultimately 300 women, graduates of the scheme, will likewise persist. Few women graduate from the scheme without internalising the voice of its architect, Nan Sloane, reminding them to
“Get into the room, take up the space, take politics seriously and never apologise for yourself.”
I also want to take the opportunity to thank our hard-working officers Clare Reynolds and Jane Heggie and the rest of the executive committee.
Alumni of the programme include my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), now the shadow Secretary of State for International Development, and my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), now the chair of the women’s parliamentary Labour party. These are all roles that, had things been different, we could well have seen Jo taking on herself. We hope she would be proud to see the graduates of the leadership scheme ably carrying the batons.
As the years pass, Jo’s colourful legacy continues to grow brighter. We see it in the Jo Cox Foundation, which leads incredible work in her name. We see it in her amazing children. We see it in every glass ceiling smashed, every gesture of sisterhood and every act of brave persistence from generations of women she has inspired.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
I was not sure if I was going to be speaking today, Madam Deputy Speaker, which is why I am not dressed appropriately, so forgive me for my attire—I would have worn far more appropriate trousers—but I felt that I just had to contribute.
The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) gave a splendid speech. I am incredibly anxious that she wants us all to get fit. She will realise that in this place fitness, whether physical or mental, is not promoted in any way whatsoever. I must put on record that she is already doing wonderful work. She has already reached out to me and asked what support she can provide all Members in this House in helping Afghan men, women and children to be extracted out of Afghanistan. She is already considering what she can do within the capacity and the power that she has to support the most marginalised.
I am not sure what more I can add in reference to Jo that has not already been said so far, because I agree with everything, but I think that two things should be put on the record. Perhaps they have not been mentioned because these two skillsets are normally promoted by the men in the House, not the women. Jo was a natural born leader. She had the ability to deal with the smallest problem in her constituency and also, on the same day, to deal with the biggest problem on the international stage. That is incredibly rare for a person to be able to do, but she could do it. Jo did not mind who she worked with if she could achieve her endgame, which was always giving a voice to the voiceless and ensuring that those who are overlooked are represented in this place and internationally as well.
The other thing we do not talk about often when it comes to women is how clever they are, but Jo was just intelligent—she really was. She could speak on so many issues that mattered so much. Her voice would have been so relevant over the past two months in this place. She was just clever, on the local stuff, the transport stuff, the potholes stuff, the foodbank stuff, the international stuff, the terrorism stuff, the humanitarian stuff—issues around China, Russia and the middle east. She just knew so much. Quite often it is very difficult as a woman to come across as clever and also to ensure that people will still work with you, and Jo had the skill to do that.
Jo and I had a few difficult run-ins. We often did media together. I was obviously on the other side of the TV screen or next to the presenter, but we always came off in a positive way, had a hug and talked about what we were going to work on next. Just as my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) has done so much tremendous work on Afghanistan—I believe that Jo would have been proud—we worked together on the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill, and no doubt she would have been one of the strongest voices on that too.
Jo had a huge impact on both sides of the House. Although she is gone, she will never, never be forgotten. On the rare occasions when Jo has pulled us all together it is important to note that it just takes one strong individual to achieve so much in a short period of time. I hope that we can remember that as we deal with far more difficult issues going forward. I want to put on record my thanks. Her family must be and should always remain incredibly proud.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
Despite being elected on the same day as Jo Cox, I cannot say that I knew her. I knew who she was, and in the months after she died, I almost felt I did know her. I certainly felt I should have known her. But I did not. However, I wanted to be here today, along with my hon. Friend and colleague the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), to pass on the love, best wishes and solidarity from my party to her friends and family and the communities who no doubt still grieve her loss.
We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us. That is worth repeating. It was of course what Jo said in her maiden speech, and she was right. I share Jo Cox’s positivity about human beings and their capacity for humanity, but it is not always easy to stay positive about that. She is one of the people I always think of if ever I start to feel cynical. I think also of the late Bashir Ahmad, who was the first Muslim Member of the Scottish Parliament and only ever saw good in people. I think of my late maternal grandmother, Sarah Purdie, who shared everything she had with whoever needed it, for whatever reason, and judged nobody. And I think of Jo Cox. They all believed in the goodness of people, and so should we, because we will achieve more by reaching out to demonstrate what we have in common than by turning away.
While we are reaching out, we do of course have to keep ourselves safe, and that is one of her legacies. We all take our personal safety and that of our support teams a lot more seriously. This place takes it more seriously. We are all safer now because of Jo Cox. Let us not forget: it is not just MPs and their teams; all elected members, including councillors, face unacceptable abuse and threats. They deserve to be safe, too.
Jo sadly was not safe, and she paid a terrible price for her beliefs, but we should try not to remember her as a victim, although of course she was. Certainly when I hear her name, I picture her not as a victim, but as a kind of warrior woman: confident, strong, principled and fearless. Yes, I know she had many more battles she would have wanted to fight on behalf of other people, but she probably fought more in her almost 42 short years than most people will ever do. I imagine that she would rather be remembered for that, than have her memory defined by someone representing the wickedness in the world that she spent her time fighting.
Finally, I turn to the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). I will not look at her, because she is going to get me going. She is the real reason I did not race up the road to Glasgow last night, as I usually do at the first opportunity. I want to offer her support, solidarity and sisterhood for the road that she has embarked upon. Most of us had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for. She has come into this with her eyes wide open, having experienced the very worst of electoral politics so close up. Still she put herself forward. That takes courage and a certain element of steely determination, which is something she clearly shares with her sister.
There was so much I could say about her speech today, but I will pick up on one thing. It was a wonderful speech and what a maiden speech should be. It was wide-ranging, but I will just pick up on one thing that I really loved, which is how she says the name of her constituency. She says “BAT-ley!” I do not know whether anyone else has noticed that she never says it “Batley”—she puts the “battle” into Batley, and it is wonderful to hear. Her speech, the way in which she conducted herself in the days and months after Jo’s death, and the way she handled what looked like a pretty nasty by-election—incidentally, as a Scottish National party Member I want her to know that I cheered out loud when her result came through—all demonstrate that she is more than Jo’s sister and that she will be a formidable Member of this House in her own right.
I would not dream of telling the hon. Lady what to do, but I do want to say that however she wants to approach this role is exactly how she should approach it. If she wants to spend her entire time in here doing what Jo would have done, that is not a bad shout, but she has already let us know that she wants to plough her own furrow, and that is also a good thing. I feel sure I will not be the only one saying that to her. I do hesitate, because we do not know each other, so who am I to give advice, but I want her to know that she is her own person and she won that by-election because she is Kim Leadbeater. She should be every bit as proud of herself for that, as she is proud of her sister and her sister’s wonderful legacy.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
There are very few Back-Bench MPs who will have a lasting legacy after they have left Parliament, but Jo Cox is one of those people. I never knew Jo, but from the fondness with which she is remembered by colleagues, I know that she epitomised all that is goodness, and inspired us to be kinder to each other and to care about everyone in our communities.
On the issue of communities, I campaigned for my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater), and it was clear that she was everywhere in the community. I even met someone who had been to her gym classes and was still willing to vote for her. That shows what an amazing person she is and what a fantastic presence she has in her communities.
One area of work that I know Jo Cox was passionate about was tackling loneliness, and the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness was one of the first things I got involved with when I was a newly elected MP in June 2017. It was led by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and the former Member for South Ribble, Seema Kennedy. The commission sought to start a conversation about loneliness that would lead to a less lonely and more connected world. That work is crucial and more relevant than ever.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting some covid-bereaved families and listening to their stories about lost family members and loved ones. A woman told me about the physical and mental impact of losing family members, which was then compounded by the loneliness she experienced as a result of various lockdowns. Another told me of the inadequacies of bereavement support services, and I am sure we all know people who have struggled with loneliness during the pandemic and in bereavement. The way that our communities have rallied round to support each other and those struggling in the pandemic is exactly the spirit that Jo Cox was talking about when she said that we all have more in common than that which divides us.
Loneliness affects many older people. Age UK states that about 10% of people aged over 65 say they are chronically lonely, with 1.7%—or 200,000—saying they have not had a conversation with a family member for more than a month. Carers also experience loneliness. Carers UK estimates that eight out of 10 carers feel lonely or isolated as a result of looking after a loved one. The impact of loneliness is felt even more profoundly by refugees. Many will have been separated from their families and loved ones having fled war or persecution. As well as making the arduous journey to get to the UK, they will have that loss to experience as well. That is why family reunion is so essential in these cases and something that we should all champion as much as we can.
The health impact of loneliness is well documented, and it has been estimated that in chronic cases it has the equivalent harmful effect of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Lonely people are also more likely to have mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. Loneliness is also associated with high cardiovascular disease and strokes. All those issues were raised by the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, and I am pleased that the Government not only produced a strategy but even appointed a Minister for loneliness. That is remarkable, bearing in mind that we debate so many things but few things actually happen. That is one positive that has come from Jo’s legacy.
Meaningful relationships are key to solving loneliness. We can all look to start a conversation as a first step. Much work still needs to be done to heal the divisions in our society, but with initiatives such as “the Great Get Together” spearheaded by the Jo Cox Foundation—I need to get invited to Bermondsey and Old Southwark to go to the many that my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) attends—it is clear that Jo’s legacy in bringing people together will be long lasting. As this debate has shown, Jo Cox was the best of us and will continue to be an inspiration to us all.
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) and her incredibly moving maiden speech. That she won her seat on my birthday was a great birthday present.
I was not lucky enough to know Jo or to be able to call her a friend. However, she had a direct effect on my life that I would love to be able to thank her for in person. We all remember where we were when we heard the terrible news that day, the shock and disbelief, and watching the news over and over, hoping that the headline would somehow change, and desperately willing for it not to be true. A few months later, there was an announcement at the Labour party conference that one of Jo’s legacies would be to help women like me—members of the party who wanted to progress as councillors or activists, or maybe even one day follow in her footsteps and stand to be an MP. The Jo Cox women in leadership scheme was launched. I applied—at midnight on deadline day, as always—and did not expect to hear anything back, but at least I had tried.
Fast-forward a couple more months and there was a little bit of a buzz on social media: women I knew of had started to talk about checking their inboxes. It emerged that a couple of thousand women had applied for about 50 places. There was no way on earth that I was going to get one of them. So my poor mum was on the verge of calling an ambulance when she got a snotty, sobbing and totally incoherent phone call from her daughter, who had found an email from Labour Women’s Network in her spam folder with an offer of a place in the scheme. Women like me—a nobody struggling to raise my boys while working part-time as a teaching assistant and filling every other minute with running my local branch of the Labour party—do not often get breaks like that. It was my Charlie Bucket moment; I had found my golden ticket.
Jo’s gift to me was a group of women from across the UK: 55 sisters, all with different strengths, backgrounds and experiences, and all with different reasons for applying to the scheme. I have made lifelong friendships with some incredibly special women, all of whom have made an impact. We had had just two of our training sessions when the snap election was announced in 2017. I had sat with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) in a hotel bar and told her I was thinking I might practise standing as an MP in 2020 in an area that she knew well. We joked that it was never, ever in a million years possible for Canterbury to be anything other than the safest Conservative seat in England. So, with absolutely nothing to lose, I practised standing in 2017, with that brilliant group of women on my phone 24/7. Ten of those women stood for Parliament in 2017, and two of us got here: the first woman ever to represent Canterbury and the first Sikh woman ever to be elected, my hon. Friend—my great friend—the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill).
Those other women have all kept making a difference, too, in continuing to stand for Parliament and in becoming councillors, community leaders, leaders of non-governmental organisations, activists, union pioneers and women on the frontline of the public sector and the fight against the covid pandemic. They are women such as Michelle Langan, who leads the Paper Cup Project in Liverpool to help to change the lives of rough sleepers in her region; Dr Kindy Sandhu, Coventry City councillor, academic extraordinaire and activist; Caroline Penn, formidable former Brighton councillor; Dr Allison Gardner, AI ceiling breaker as a leading woman in a traditionally male strand of academia; Denise Christie, firefighter and a regional secretary of the Fire Brigades Union; Anna Smith, deputy leader of Cambridge City Council; Salma Arif, the first female British Asian health lead on Leeds City Council; and our much-missed sister Assia Shah, who we sadly lost at the end of last year while she was working as a hospital chaplain and caring for those with covid.
I wish I could read the names of all those women—not just some in the first cohort of the scheme with me, but the outstanding women I have met who continue to inspire and change lives for the better in their communities and the wider world. All of us owe our thanks to Jo not just for the incredible opportunity her legacy has given us, but for the lead she took and the work she did for humanitarian causes around the world and for the women who undoubtedly would be worse off if she had not shone a light on their needs.
I was inspired by Jo’s passionate commitment to stop Brexit and by her humanity and compassion for displaced people seeking asylum. I am certain that she would stand here today and make her views heard on the idea of sending people in boats back to direct harm. Jo talked about what we have in common, and that is something that inspires me every single day of my life. One thing I have in common with Jo is our friendship with my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), who has always been a great support—an encourager, a joker and a fantastic ally. Thanks to him for securing this debate today so that we can remember Jo and thank her for the real difference she brought to so many lives.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
It is an honour to speak in this debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield). Like her, I was not lucky enough to know Jo, but Jo’s work has touched the lives of many in my constituency and of myself as well. I would also like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) for securing this important debate.
I would like to start by welcoming my hon. Friend the recently elected Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) to Parliament and by thanking her for her powerful maiden speech. Can I just say that it was an absolute pleasure to come up to Batley and to support such a relentlessly positive, optimistic and outward-looking campaign?
Remembering Jo and honouring her legacy is not something that we must do with words just once a year at a debate; it must be with our actions in our work every day as well. Jo championed many important causes, such as refugee aid, fighting loneliness, internationalism, and empowering women and girls—to name just a few. On that note, I would like to focus on Jo’s work on combating loneliness and how we can continue her work today.
Loneliness is an issue that does not discriminate based on age, gender, background or ethnicity. It is often debilitating, damaging to our mental health and can affect us all equally. Almost from the beginning of Jo’s parliamentary career, she worked to bring to light the causes and effects of loneliness so that we may better understand and tackle it. She co-established a cross-party loneliness commission with Seema Kennedy to do just that. That commission brought together 13 organisations to highlight the scale of loneliness across all areas of society and at different stages in everyone’s life. Partly because of the awareness that that commission brought to loneliness and mental health more broadly, those issues receive greater consideration and resources today.
There is still much work to be done, and the Jo Cox Foundation, which campaigns relentlessly to combat loneliness, cannot do it alone. In my patch of Coventry North West, grassroot community groups have worked to ensure that no one in my community feels alone. During the pandemic when we were all socially distancing, loneliness and poor mental health became a more pressing issue. Those groups stepped up to stop the spread of loneliness. Holbrooks community centre in my constituency has organised many community events and provides a safe space for residents to come together and socialise, and Grapevine in Coventry has done much to stamp out isolation and to support vulnerable people, planning events such as socially distanced gatherings at our local parks. With our high streets and town centres struggling, the Government must consider more innovative ways to empower such groups. They must also consider how we can better support community pubs, repurpose community and disused buildings, and make our green spaces more accessible to combat isolation and loneliness. My constituency would certainly welcome such support. I am incredibly grateful to be able to honour Jo and her work, and to speak on such an important issue.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for securing this important debate. I congratulate my wonderful hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater)—as others have said, it is fantastic to be able to say that—on her excellent, indeed sublime, maiden speech. I have no doubt that she will go on to do great things and I am excited to be able to watch and, I hope, help her in any way I can. No one knew Jo better, and that love and admiration shone through today. I know Jo would have been very proud, as indeed her whole family rightly are.
Sadly, we all remember hearing the news on that horrific day in June 2016, as well as the conversations that followed with friends, family and, particularly for MPs, our children. Jo’s children, Cuillin and Lejla, were much younger than mine, but I have no doubt that children of MPs, like my Joseph and Emily, who kiss goodbye to their mam or their dad when they head off for a regular constituency day, were united that day, both in fear for their parent’s safety, but also in heartbreak, love and understanding for Jo’s children.
I have always reassured my family, as I am sure we all do, that I am safe in my work. Although the weeks and months after Jo’s murder were difficult for everyone who knew her in so many ways, we have all been comforted by Jo’s words that we all know so well:
“we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]
Jo put those words into action and, like me, as we have heard she was a pragmatic idealist. Also like me, she believed in cross-party working—for any advice on setting up all-party groups, I’m your girl! I truly believe that in order for something to succeed, it must be done with the support of colleagues across the political spectrum and across the House. Anyone who knows me in this place will know that I stand by that.
Soon after becoming an MP Jo set up the cross-party loneliness commission, together with the former Member for South Ribble. I am proud of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) who was able to continue Jo’s work on that important issue. Loneliness is not just a problem for the elderly, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) said in her excellent contribution. As I discovered when my daughter went to university, although surrounded by many young people, she was desperately lonely and felt very isolated for the first few months, so I would add students to the list that the hon. Lady gave earlier.
As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness found evidence that loneliness can adversely affect a person’s health, so it is indeed a public health issue that we all need to take seriously. I am sure that Jo would have been working throughout the pandemic, among other things, to keep people connected and help tackle loneliness, as I know the Jo Cox Foundation has been doing.
Last December, as the then shadow Minister for Veterans, I asked the then Veterans Minister, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), to support and promote the Jo Cox Foundation’s Great Winter Get Together for veterans. I am pleased to say that we were both able to attend a very large virtual roundtable discussion with hundreds of veterans, hosted by the fabulous Jo Cox Foundation and the Royal British Legion. That was just at the beginning of this year—in February, I recall—and it was excellent.
As we have heard, Jo achieved so much in such a short space of time as an MP. We will never know what might have been, but I am confident that it would have been magnificent. Jo’s legacy lives on in the organisations, charities and work that continue in her name. Through the Jo Cox women in leadership programme, we are seeing more women who love and act like Jo enter politics, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) and my wonderful hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield). We are all the better for it.
It is an honour, as well as heartbreaking, to sit under the Jo Cox memorial plaque, a reminder of the impact that she had across the Chamber and, indeed, the world. It is our duty to ensure that Jo is remembered and that her legacy lives on. On days like today, I am confident that it will.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Like everybody else, I thank the hon. Members for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for bringing this debate forward today. It has been incredibly moving for everybody. We all remember where we were and what we were doing when the news came through. I was coming back from a surgery myself. I could not believe that that could happen to anybody, and certainly not that it could have happened to Jo.
I was reflecting this week on the day we all came back here—the memorial and the tributes that were paid, and how we all felt that day. I was sitting up at the back, and I could not take my eyes off Brendan, and Cuillin and Lejla, up in the Gallery. They were those tiny wee bits of children, and I felt so awful for them about what had happened. I think we can all agree that we all think of them and keep them in our hearts. They can be incredibly proud of their mum’s legacy and the things that she has done, which we still hear about today in this place, and that so many of us have come to remember her and to thank her for what she has done.
It is interesting that this House remembers Jo often and speaks of her often. I noticed that the Library briefing—I tried to research this myself and could not quite do it, so I am glad that the Library did—says that her name had been mentioned on 129 occasions since the last election, prior to today, when, obviously, there have been many more mentions. That really reflects that while she may not be in here, she is always with us and always in our thoughts. I think that is important. That legacy, of course, has brought us here. It has brought us here in emotion, in love and in solidary with one another. Keeping those values is very important, too.
We welcome Jo’s sister, the new hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater), who has already achieved so much in coming here and being here. We look forward very much to seeing what she will do in this place for her constituents—the causes she will champion and the things she will do. She will do her constituents very proud, I am sure. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) was absolutely right that we all cheered at seeing the hon. Lady elected. It is unusual, I suppose, that we would do that, but the context was very different. We are delighted, particularly given the awfulness of that campaign, that she got through that and that she is here with us in this place. It is an absolute joy for democracy and for the values that we all share.
The Jo Cox Foundation has not been talked about enough, although lots of people have mentioned it. I want to mention some of the things that the foundation does. I have been to and enjoyed the Great Get Togethers. There is the More in Common Network, the Connection Coalition, which is really important, and the local Yorkshire projects, which stand as a local legacy to her work. There is the work around civility in politics. It is so important that we find ways to agree and disagree respectfully, and to work with one another whatever our common causes and across political divides, wherever possible.
Many have mentioned the international work, and the Jo Cox memorial grants through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office are more valuable today than they ever have been, with the situation in Afghanistan. The work on loneliness was mentioned and is incredibly important, and I thought the reflection about the widening of that scheme and the widening of the concept that Jo took to it was very interesting. I know from speaking to many of the refugee groups in my constituency how much that loneliness work has meant to them—to have their pain and isolation recognised and to take positive steps to try to change that and make that right.
I want to reflect on some of the things that were said about the Labour party from a Scottish Labour perspective. I did my best to reach out across political divides and I contacted Labour MSPs and former MSPs who I thought would have something that they wished to say. I wanted to make sure that her legacy in Scotland was also recognised. My predecessor, Anas Sarwar, now MSP for Glasgow, organised a Great Get Together event and, very charitably, given the circumstances in which he and I know each other, invited me along. He had no obligation to do so but he reached out across the party political divide and organised a wonderful event at his constituency office, which brought the community together and allowed people to have those conversations and be together. I hope that we will be able to make that happen more in the years and months to come.
I also reached out to Kezia Dugdale, the former leader of Scottish Labour and a very good egg, I would say. She is working for the John Smith Centre at Glasgow University. Kez was Scottish Labour leader at the time Jo was taken from us. She reflected on—the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) also mentioned this—the power of Jo’s sisterhood. Kez described Jo as
“the ultimate feminist, lifting women up, giving her time to mentor people and open doors.”
She felt that the Jo Cox women in leadership programme that the Labour party has is that fitting tribute, as others have said, including the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), because it is about not only political education, but helping women to organise and prepare for life in politics. Far be it from me to commend the women going into the Labour party but it does sound like a very good scheme and a very meaningful legacy. Kez said that
“for me and many women like me, Jo’s legacy was about supporting women to realise their own power and agency to effect change”.
I think we can all agree, whatever party people want to stand for, that that is definitely something worth valuing.
I also heard from Monica Lennon, MSP, who I understand has had the privilege of meeting the new hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) at events. She is also very delighted for her to be here. Monica reflected the power and essence of Jo’s legacy in bringing our diverse communities together—people from different parties and people from different backgrounds in a space where we can chat and be together. Her feeling was also of solidarity. She said that women of all political parties have looked out for one another more since Jo’s death and that we can all take inspiration from the way that she lived her life. I think that is incredibly powerful, regardless of whoever has said these things, and I thank those colleagues in the Scottish Labour party for getting in touch with me to do that, because they also miss her and thank her for all that she has done.
In reflecting that there are those who have come to this place as Jo’s legacy, it is really important to remind ourselves, in all our qualities, what we should be and how we should approach things.
I have written down some words that have been mentioned today: passion, enthusiasm, commitment, clarity, decency, principle. Being a campaigning MP, in whatever aspect, and a humanitarian; having commonality of cause; bringing a voice to the voiceless; being intelligent and proud of it; having humanity and seeing the goodness in people—those are all qualities that we should seek in Members of Parliament. They are always qualities that we and the public recognise, but we should talk about them more as a way to bring people who have them into this place and make our politics better.
I want to take a small second to thank all the people who have spoken so far and say to them all how much I appreciate them, how much I like them and how much I thank them for being in this place and sharing this strange world that we all inhabit. We do not say that enough when we have the chance, so I will close by thanking everyone who has spoken; saying my appreciation to Jo’s family, who are here, and her friends; and wishing everybody the very best on what has been a very difficult day for so many of us.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) for securing this debate and opening it with such an important reminder not just of what we have lost but, as all hon. Members have said, of what we have gained from the life of Jo. I thank all who have attended; whether they have spoken or sat and reflected, their presence means so much to us.
Today we have searched for words to show our affection and admiration for our dear friend Jo. Her legacy has left its imprint around the world. In contrast to the dark moment that stole her life, the light through which she lived her life and that she shared with others has ignited hope, lit movements and sparked a generation of people to step into a space where they too can make change and make a difference to the people around them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) has more than stepped into that space today, in her own unique way. In one of the most personal and passionate speeches ever heard in this House, she has moved us all—or certainly will with one of her work-outs. As a younger sister myself, I recognise the unique bond between sisters, and today the Leadbeater family spirit filled this Chamber.
Just as the memorable words of Jo’s maiden speech called us to draw together through recognising the unity we share, overwhelming that which divides us, my hon. Friend’s speech today will echo not just in this place, but across nations in years to come; indeed, today it has sparked unity in our place and perhaps a fresh start for politics to bring us closer together to do the job that we were called to do. But it was the powerful words first spoken by Jo that have called on our communities, time and again, to draw close and seek our common bonds, and that have beckoned us to share our lives in unique ways.
Jo did. As so many of us recently witnessed in Batley and Spen, Jo’s legacy is sewn into the hearts that she touched in her own community. As we knocked on doors, people were eager to share how Jo had been there for them, spoken for them and, above all, turned her words into actions. She knew the honour of being sent to Parliament to speak for them—a task that she diligently devoted herself to, as we have heard today. She reached out across the House to draw people into her space and turn their attention to the cause, whether she was highlighting the acute humanitarian crisis in Syria or listening with compassion to those who have known the searing pain of loneliness. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) for all that she has done in continuing Jo’s work on Syria, putting the victims of conflict at the heart of all we do. Her tenacity has furthered Jo’s legacy.
Jo sought answers, laboured for solutions and focused on the transformation that she believed politics could bring. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) reminds us, she strove for unity over division and to stand up for what was right, speaking truth to power. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who cannot be with us today, wanted to pay this tribute:
“Jo was such a good friend and a wonderful human being. Compassionate. Kind. Honest. Funny. Courageous. She was a doer with an infectious enthusiasm.
Jo’s legacy as a humanitarian shines strong and her memory will continue to inspire for generations to come. We miss her dearly.”
Jo, of course, spent time working in the EU, and there, too, her legacy continues. The chair of the Labour party, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), has said:
“Jo’s legacy is keenly felt by so many people within the Socialist and Democrat group and reflected in the naming of her own square in Brussels, ‘Place Jo Cox’. Jo’s message, continues to be a rallying cry for a grown-up politics which promotes the incredible things people can achieve when they come together.”
It is those words “more in common”, which we read daily, of which we remind ourselves at the start of each session and from which we draw perspective as we look to the coat of arms placed above these Benches. We embrace those words: we must have more in common. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), who cannot be here this afternoon, said:
“When in the Chamber, I look at Jo’s plaque and think how I can make a positive contribution the way Jo did; inclusive, warm, intelligent and challenging. Jo lives on in our contributions both to address our, at times divided communities, always with a sense of urgency and hope.”
It was communities here and around the world that Jo served. Having seen the difference that the Royal Voluntary Service was making to the lives of older and vulnerable people in her constituency, she became determined to tackle the issue of loneliness. Jo’s support to ensure that no one, of any age or from any background, experienced loneliness led to a commission on loneliness, to the subsequent strategy and to a named Minister for loneliness—and it is such a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) back in the Chamber today. It was her legacy that moved the agenda forward as the commission became a strategy, and in October this year it will mark its third anniversary. Its importance has been noted by us all over the last 18 months as we have navigated our way through the covid 19 pandemic. It is not without significance that my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) and for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) have all drawn on that in their speeches today, recognising its role among the bereaved and those who have been so challenged in our times, those experiencing chronic loneliness—and at this time, of course, refugees too.
My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) reminded us all of the inspiration that Jo gave us, as women, not least through the Labour Women’s Network. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) talked of the power of women in leadership. Jo’s feminism came through in all that she did, whether on the international stage or in her constituency. The Jo Cox Foundation, founded in her memory and formed by friends and family, is growing Jo’s legacy, with a vision
“for a kinder, more compassionate society where every individual has a sense of belonging”.
It now marks the Great Get Together, bringing communities together—and I look forward to my invitation to Bermondsey next year to join colleagues in that place of unity. With organisations such as the More in Common Network, the Connection Coalition, Civility in Politics, Building a Fairer World and local projects in Yorkshire, the Jo Cox Foundation is certainly advancing Jo’s legacy.
Others also wanted their words to be quoted today. The Freedom Fund, for which Jo worked before coming to Parliament, said:
“Jo was a powerful champion for the world’s most vulnerable and marginalised. She was one of those rare people who really did fight tirelessly to make the world a better place. And with it all, Jo was warm, funny, fearless and effective.
Jo also worked for Oxfam leaving a significant and far reaching legacy. She worked on the Make Poverty History Campaign, to increase aid, cancel debt, improve trade for the world’s poorest countries, and advocated for the protection of civilians globally.
An inspiring, positive and energetic leader who was passionate about justice and equality. Oxfam’s vision of a kinder, fairer world—a world less divided by borders, money, race or gender—is rooted in Jo’s values. Her work and her impact is still felt across Oxfam and the development sector today.”
It was no mistake that Jo, a passionate advocate here and around the world, was a Labour MP. Her politics mattered. She was an active member of the GMB too, and Neil Derrick, the regional secretary, has paid this tribute:
“Jo radiated happiness and it was infectious—you couldn’t help but smile when in her company, as many of us did. She wanted to do so much and had so many plans to try and improve things, not just for her constituents, but for GMB members across the region. A little bit of Jo lives on in every one of us, every time we do a good deed or show compassion to one another. We are incredibly proud at GMB to call Jo one of our own.”
And as hon. Friends have said today, she is one of our own. Jo’s search for a fairer and more just world drove her in all she did. At this time of such failed global politics, Jo would have been not just identifying the challenges but gathering people to advance solutions, build bridges and determine a better path forward.
The hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) reminded us that Jo showed us what this place was for, the purpose for which we are called to serve and, as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) also said, knowing where we stand.
Above all, Jo was an extraordinary woman: a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a colleague and our friend. In leaving us, she has challenged us all to take up her call and create a far fairer and more just world where we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Warman)
It is an honour to respond for the Government in this important debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on securing it, but I hope the whole House will agree that it is right to turn first to the extraordinary speech from the new Member, the hon. and brave Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). She spoke movingly about her journey to this place, what it means to be here and her passion to diligently represent the area that she loves and that Jo Cox loved too. If I may, I will pick out two areas of her speech specifically. The first is what she said about public service.
Every day in this Chamber we see that, for doing this job, some Members of Parliament have made the ultimate sacrifice. We all, in one way or another, make sacrifices doing it, but there are too many shields on these walls. We all know, though, that Parliament, this place, is where we can make the lives of our constituents and this whole country greater still. As the hon. Lady said, both she and her sister sought to reach across party lines to do that. We are strongest when we can make that work and when we can “crack on and get stuff done”, as she said. In so doing, perhaps we will make the divisive, damaging, fractured politics that we have seen in recent years a little bit less painful. Over the last few years, we have lived through some of the most polarised times in British politics. From the tone of today’s debate, we all think that we should do better. I know from speaking to Members across this House that Jo Cox worked across party from the moment she was elected, and I know from speaking to the hon. Member for Batley and Spen herself before this debate that she will continue that legacy. We have, as so many have said, more in common than that which divides us, wherever we sit in this House. We forget it too often.
The second thing to say is that while this debate is not focused solely on the Jo Cox Foundation but on her legacy as a whole, it is the foundation that will ensure that so much of that work lives on. Legacies are always about the future, not the past. Those values of stronger communities, a better public life and a fairer world are all things that the past 18 months have shown to be more vital than ever. Whether that is, as Jo put it herself, to
“turbo-charge the public’s awareness of loneliness”
or to tackle the scandal of online hate, this Government are committed to tackling the issues that the foundation is involved in. That is because those issues mattered profoundly when she identified them and they still matter profoundly today. I could talk at great length about how the Government are supporting the superb initiatives that have been mentioned a lot today, including the Jo Cox memorial grants and the Jo Cox Foundation’s Great Get Together campaign. Collectively, Jo’s legacy is already benefiting tens of thousands of people across the world, but I will highlight three areas.
The first is intimidation in public life and the behaviour that can stop talented people, particularly women and those from minority backgrounds, standing for public office. We recognise that in the past several MPs have referenced abuse as a reason for standing down. To humanise that, it means there is hardly a woman in Parliament who has not received a death threat, even though many men have not. It means the police judge that we need security in our homes, and it means an emotional toll on our families who worry that this job poses far more risk than it is worth, as the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) said.
For all those reasons, and more, the Government are taking action to tackle this culture. I do not think that today is a day to introduce partisan politics, but let me say simply that the need to tackle intimidation of every sort drives the Government’s agenda, from online safety to defending democracy.
Secondly, as Jo said:
“Young or old, loneliness doesn’t discriminate.”
The covid-19 pandemic has, as so many Members have today, highlighted the importance of social connection to everyone across society. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), and our former colleague Seema Kennedy, for all the work they have done on loneliness.
The Government are proud to have continued to play our part in building on the pioneering work that Jo Cox started. The Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness carried out invaluable work that informed the Government’s 2018 tackling loneliness strategy—the world’s first Government strategy of its kind. It evolved into nearly £50 million of investment, the world’s first loneliness Minister and huge progress in destigmatising an issue on which there remains so much to do.
Thirdly, Jo Cox’s work had strong roots in her local area. Like Jo, we believe that local people understand what is needed in their community, be it local and grassroots action on tackling loneliness or on a host of other issues. We can all take action, no matter how small, to reach out with kindness to those around us, and we should never underestimate the huge impact that can have in our communities.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark was the first, but by no means the only, Member to mention the importance of family to Jo and the hon. Member for Batley and Spen. It is great that the family join us today in the Gallery. There are clearly some formidable genetics up in the Gallery, and I worry that there are now some formidable genetics on the Opposition Benches. It was kind of the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark to invite us all to Bermondsey for another Great Get Together.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford and the hon. Members for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) mentioned loneliness. One of the things I suspect the hon. Member for Batley and Spen will learn is that Thursday afternoons are a particularly great opportunity for Back Benchers to press the Government to take action on a host of issues, and she saw an adept way of doing that from my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford.
The hon. Member for Batley and Spen may also learn that she will not always get the straightest and most immediate answer from the Dispatch Box, but my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford knows that both the issues she raised are under serious consideration by the Government and that her views are shared elsewhere. Those two issues, particularly social prescribing, are hugely valuable.
Among other things, the hon. Member for Batley and Spen might learn from my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) that it is genuinely true that friendships go across parties, and I hope we can continue that. She may also learn that there is no place in which she cannot promote a book, but that is a separate issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), who is no longer in his place because he is carrying out his duties as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, made a genuinely important speech about why we are all here. I think we all value his contribution. We can all learn how to turn being late into a politically useful point, too.
The hon. Members for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) and for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) talked powerfully about the persistent emotional impact of Jo’s presence and about her internationalism. We all learned even more than we had from previous tributers about the ongoing impact Jo has had on so many people.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) spoke about the value of debate, which is why we are all here. The hon. Members for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) and for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) talked about the value of the Labour women’s network, highlighting the progress that has been made in this House and, indeed, in the Labour party on improving diversity. We all share those ambitions, and I can think of a couple of Tory Prime Ministers who would definitely agree.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) talked about the value of leadership, which she has shown on a number of issues, and I know she will continue to do so.
Turning finally to the contributions of the hon. Members for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) and for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), both talked about cheering the result in Batley and Spen. I must confess that it is easier for a member of the SNP to cheer that result than it is for a member of the Conservative party, but that does not mean that we cannot celebrate the arrival of the hon. Lady and all her qualities.
The Government are proud to continue the legacy that we have discussed today. Whether it is through supporting women and girls internationally through the Jo Cox memorial grants, working at a national level to address intimidation in public life and tackle loneliness or supporting people to connect in their local communities, we continue to be inspired by the life and the work of Jo Cox and her belief in a kinder and fairer world for everyone.
I want to end by saying simply one thing: we have heard powerful speeches today watched by honoured guests in the Gallery, and I know that there are others, including the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who had hoped to be here, too. Today has been an exceptional parliamentary moment and that is because we have been here to commemorate an exceptional life. We see that shield in this Chamber every day, a pointed reminder that Jo Cox’s legacy is permanent in our minds and in this place. I know that the hon. Member for Batley and Spen will do justice to it and we should all work to honour it as well.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call Neil Coyle to wind up.
Neil Coyle
Thank you again, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also thank the House authorities and the Backbench Business Committee for giving us a chance to pay our respects here in the Chamber and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) put it, to reflect.
It has been tough for many of us, and, as we saw, completely understandably so for my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). We also heard what an inspiration Jo remains, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) put it. All contributions made it clear that Jo’s work, passions, loves and values live on through Members across this House. The message that has rung out clearly throughout this debate was the importance of cross-party work. We heard that from the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and also from my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). We would not have had the debate if it were not for the cross-party work. I thank again the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) who talked about Jo’s spirit of getting things done—not just raising an issue, but getting it sorted, which, I think, is a demonstration of the Yorkshire grit that we heard about in the maiden speech.
What a brilliant maiden speech—an amazing maiden speech. It was brilliant that such a warm welcome was given to the new Member for Batley and Spen from across the House. It was also brilliant to hear how rightly proud the whole family is of the positive legacy of Jo Cox. Going forward, we all have a duty to continue Jo’s efforts five years on. We could all benefit from being a bit more Jo. It would certainly improve some of my social media contributions.
It was also clear from the maiden speech that it is not just Jo’s positive legacy that lives on, but that relentlessly positive family spirit that lives on through the new Member for Batley and Spen. We could all benefit from being a bit more Jo, but we could also all benefit from being a bit more Kim. We will all have the chance to do it when we welcome the Batley riders to Flat Iron Square at a Great Get Together in June next year.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
This has been an incredibly moving and thoughtful debate and it has been a real honour to hear all your extremely powerful contributions about Jo’s legacy. Many congratulations to the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). It is a great to welcome another Yorkshire woman to the Chamber. She will be an incredibly effective contributor, and I get the feeling that she will also bring a certain liveliness to our debates. Many congratulations to her. She is very insightful and I was very proud to hear her contribution. It is wonderful to have her family here as well and I am sure that they share in that pride.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the legacy of Jo Cox.
Business without Debate
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Committees
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With the leave of the House, we will take motions 5 and 6 together.
Committee On Standards
Ordered,
That Chris Elmore be discharged from the Committee on Standards and Yvonne Fovargue be added.
Committee of Privileges
Ordered,
That Chris Elmore be discharged from the Committee of Privileges and Yvonne Fovargue be added.—(Alan Mak.)
Emergency Services Cenotaph: Westminster
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
It is a true honour and privilege to follow such an important debate. We have been united across the House this afternoon. I hope that this Adjournment debate, which might continue for considerably longer than some may expect for an Adjournment debate, will give me the opportunity to show that this House, both Houses and those outside the House can come together on a subject that I know is close to your heart, Madam Deputy Speaker, and which is certainly very close to mine.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you were Minister of State at the Department of Health. Before I came to this House, I had the honour and privilege of being a firefighter. I have also been the Policing Minister and the Minister responsible for the coastguard, and, as you will remember, lots of other things; for the purpose of this debate, those sorts of things are very important.
This debate is about establishing a cenotaph for the emergency workers we have lost. Some 7,500 emergency workers have lost their lives over the years, and the sad fact is that we will lose more. Another sad fact is that there is no national memorial for those who have given so much to us over the years. It was so moving to hear hon. Members talking about the sad loss of Jo and what happened to her. The emergency workers I am talking about were the emergency workers who went to Jo: the police and the paramedics. Sadly, they did not manage to save her life, but I am sure we all agree that they would have done everything that they possibly could have to save Jo, as they would for anybody else. We are talking about those who go towards a situation when very often, quite rightly, the rest of us are going in the opposite direction. Some of them do not come back. That is a commitment to humanity that I am calling on the Government to acknowledge.
As I have said before, the emergency services today are as dedicated to us now as they have ever been. I will touch on the different aspects of that. It is not just those who work for us. Believe it or not, there are 2,500 first responders out there today—mostly volunteers. There were those who volunteered, for instance, during the pandemic, to help in ways that we have probably never tried since the second world war.
We need a cenotaph here in central London. We formed a committee, which I had the honour of being asked to co-chair with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). As a former Minister and a former firefighter, I could not think of anything that I would like to do more. I was quite determined that we should try to do this together, as a Parliament and as a country. I know that there are various memorials around the country. Certain colleagues have told me that, quite rightly, their local communities have come together and that they have memorials for emergency workers in their constituencies, but I cannot believe that in 2021 we do not have something here in London.
That is not to take away in any way, shape or form from the military memorials in London, including the Cenotaph itself, which we celebrate every year on Remembrance Day, when we remember those who have given so much and those who continue to serve today on our behalf around the world. We are not trying to take away from that. We are just trying to put in place a memorial that is going to be here forever, for those who have served and we have lost, for those who have volunteered and we have lost, and for those going forward, sadly, long after we are gone.
I have looked very carefully at how this could be done and the committee has looked at where the memorial should be. The committee believes—and there seems to be hugely popular agreement on this, even from the Mayor of London and many others—that it should be in Whitehall.
That was a unanimous decision. As I shall say in a moment, most of the great and good of this country have said the same, including the Duke of Cambridge—the future king of this country has supported what we are trying to do.
The cenotaph will cost a lot of money, but cenotaphs do. I do not think we are fixated on where exactly in Whitehall it should be. We have made a facsimile of where we would like it to be and created photographs, and we would like it to be quite close to Parliament Square, but, actually, I do not think we really mind. I think the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford and I would agree that we do not mind where it is; we just want it in Whitehall—the place where the country comes together to say thank you.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
It is an honour to co-chair with the right hon. Gentleman the committee that is campaigning for this memorial. Does he recognise that the 18 months we have had have really taught us that we should never take for granted those on whom we depend in so many different ways, and our emergency services are at the heart of that because we all depend on them every single day? That is why it would be right to have a tribute to them and the work that they do at the very heart of where decisions are made. Parliament, the Government and the country should come together to support that.
Sir Mike Penning
The right hon. Lady has hit the nail completely on the head. What better opportunity do we have? By the way, this campaign started long before covid—I shall come on to say a bit about how a lovely man called Tom got it going and how we got to this stage—but covid has brought the country together in a way that we have not seen since the second world war. Even though there is an expense and red tape—can we cut through some of the red tape?—and people will baulk at the fact that it will probably cost just over £3 million to do, who cares? In the scheme of things, £3 million is such a small amount of money when it could give so much to the country.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for bring this debate forward, and he and the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for their perseverance in this task. I believe in and support this campaign because the right hon. Gentleman is right in what he is saying. This cenotaph will be for all the nations of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales together—to thank all the people for all they have done. I want the right hon. Gentleman to know that I fully support what he is about and endorse his comments and campaign.
Sir Mike Penning
The hon. Gentleman is a great Unionist. I believe in the Union of this country, and the centre of the Union is where we are today: Westminster and Whitehall. To me, that is so important.
We have already raised £180,000, which has come from public donations. This is unusual for me, Madam Deputy Speaker, because as you know I never read in the House: I am dyslexic, something I am very proud of, and there is nothing I can do about it, so I do not usually read. But there are certain things that I want to read today so that I do not get certain people’s titles wrong, which I invariably do, and do not miss anybody out. We have already raised £180,000 and we need just over £3 million, but we also need two things, which I will come back to at the end: a decision on where the cenotaph is going to be and a commitment from the Government to help us to fund it.
The 999 cenotaph will be the first national monument to the NHS and other emergency workers who have served and will serve in future—it will be not just to those who have fallen. This is crucial: it is not just for those who have lost their lives, been seriously injured or been attacked in the line of duty. It will be a thank you—somewhere loved ones can go and just think about what their loved one has committed to the country. Some will have lost loved ones and some will have been injured in the line of duty. For our country not to have a central memorial to them shames us a little bit.
The 999 cenotaph is supported by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge; the Prime Minister; the First Ministers of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales; and all the emergency services, including the fire service, the police, the coastguard and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Also, although I do not have them on my list, we have to be conscious that there are other volunteer emergency workers who are not part of the RNLI—when I became the Shipping Minister, I learned very quickly not to forget them, because safety inshore is very much done by them. The sculptor is the renowned Philip Jackson who created the Bomber Command memorial in Green Park and, closer to us, the Gandhi statue in Parliament Square. We could not have a greater person working on it. As I said, our preferred site is in Whitehall.
I have no idea what the Minister is going to say; we have not conferred. With my co-chair, I wrote a joint letter to the Prime Minister, so there is no doubt about what we are asking for. Hopefully, we might have a bit of good news. If we can get some movement on this, the monument should be finished by December 2022, in the year of Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee. If we can do that, what a fantastic message that would send.
There will be six figures on the plinth, plus one other, which I will come back to in a second. It will be in Portland stone and it will be 21 feet high from the ground to the top of the memorial. It will send an enormous message about how much this country cares. The six figures will be: a police officer, a firefighter, a maritime volunteer, a nurse, a paramedic, and a member of the search and rescue volunteer team—plus a service dog. We must not forget that it is not just human beings who go out there. Very often, they go out there with service dogs, whether police dogs or mountain rescue dogs. The figure of a dog will be a spaniel. There was a bit of discussion about what type of dog it would be. We are great dog lovers in this country. I think the spaniel works best. Those of us who are in this Chamber on a regular basis before the House opens for business know that the spaniels are here protecting us. I cannot think of a better breed of dog to be there.
How did we get to this stage? Tom Scholes-Fogg, the gentleman I referred to earlier, has been a trustee since 2016. In 2001, his grandfather John was a police sergeant in Greater Manchester. He was months away from retirement when one of his officers, PC Alison Armitage, was tragically killed on duty. I think that sparked something in him. In my constituency, PC Frank Mason was shot by bank robbers outside a Barclays bank years ago. Every single year, we come back and pay tribute to him. That is a small memorial in a constituency, in the middle of a town centre. I want one out here for the likes of Frank as well. Tom discovered, which surprised him, that there was no national memorial. When I first looked at this issue, I thought, “Of course we have one.” But actually, we do not. From one tragedy that happened to Alison, through Tom’s grandfather John and through Tom’s commitment, with his trustees—we have done all the directors and all the red tape; the Charity Commission is very happy—we have got to this stage.
We have some interesting quotes:
“As a society, we owe our wellbeing, and indeed our lives, to the men and women in our emergency services who work tirelessly to protect us in some of the most difficult circumstances. It is only fitting that we should recognise the vital role that they play and pay tribute to the bravery and dedication of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their communities.”
That was said by His Royal Highness Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. I have another quote:
“It takes a very special kind of person to put your life on the line for a complete stranger.”
That is from a long quote from the Prime Minister. He is fully committed to this:
“I know the dedicated men and women of the Emergency services did not get into this line of work for the accolades or applause.”
They do so because they want to do it. He said:
“You are the heroes of British life”.
He fully supports what we are calling for. I could go on. There was support from the First Minister of Northern Ireland at the time. The leader of the Democratic Unionist party in Northern Ireland, one of our parliamentarians, supports this. Nicola Sturgeon supports it. I could go on.
Basically, I am saying to the Minister that we have a commitment from all the powers in this country. It cannot be much greater than the future King of this country, the Prime Minister of this country and the leaders of all parts of this country. We also have, I can assure her, fantastic support from both sides of the House.
In the great scheme of things, this is a small amount of money. The least worst thing we would like is to be exempt from VAT for this project. The next best thing might be that the Treasury would match-fund us. Actually, what I would like, to show the commitment to our emergency workers and our service animals, is for the Government to say, “We’re going to help you find a spot, with Westminster City Council, in Whitehall, and by the way we’re going to pay for it.” I cannot think of a better way to spend the British pound than to do that.
The Minister for Digital and Culture (Caroline Dinenage)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) on securing this really important Adjournment debate and on highlighting an incredibly important cause. Today, almost 2 million people—3% of the population—work and volunteer in the emergency services and the NHS, including 250,000 first responders. As the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said, we have really seen, through the pandemic, just how acutely we rely on them as our NHS and 999 heroes have continued working and volunteering to save lives.
I have to start by paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead. When I was a very new Member of Parliament he came down to visit me in my constituency, when he was a very important person—probably a Transport Minister.
Caroline Dinenage
Yes, Shipping Minister. He has always been a huge supporter of those of us who have constituencies on the coast and who rely on the emergency services, many of which are manned and staffed by some incredibly heroic volunteers. In my constituency, the gaffers man the rescue services that go up into the Solent, on a really frequent basis, to save lives. They are absolute heroes, every single one of them. My right hon. Friend worked really hard with me in my constituency, and with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which is based there, to promote its important work. He has a great track record of promoting our emergency services.
Those working in our NHS and our 999 services day in and day out are absolutely our unsung heroes. They are always there to help us in the moments of greatest need when we are at our weakest. We honour them and we must never, ever forget the sacrifices that they make for us. I therefore echo everything that has been said by my right hon. Friend and others in praising the heroic actions of all emergency service personnel. The campaign for an appropriate monument to honour those who served and continue to serve in the emergency services began back in 2017, but if ever there was a time to reflect on what they have achieved and the dedication and the service of our 999 heroes, it is now, in the wake of the covid crisis.
Sir Mike Penning
I thank the Minister for giving way; we have plenty of time to debate this evening, which is really nice. I am sure she is aware that this is 999 Day. Armed Forces Day is fantastic, but we need to get the message out around the country that this is 999 Day, which is when we should be out there in our constituencies and around the country praising our emergency workers.
Caroline Dinenage
Yes, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that. It is a day when we should all be celebrating and thanking those who do this sterling, important and life-saving work.
I very much support my right hon. Friend’s calls for an appropriate 999 memorial. His letter to the Prime Minister was written only very recently, on 30 August. I have only just had the chance to look at it and start considering the proposals and suggestions that it makes, but I would be very happy to meet him and his committee to discuss some of the asks in it in more detail to see what we can do to work with them on this. It is important to celebrate positive parts of our cultural and civic life. New memorials such as this help us to understand events. They help us to acknowledge achievements and mark sacrifices. They commemorate what is important about our present and our past. Future generations can learn from them.
The Government are committed to supporting the emergency services and are steadfast in honouring the sacrifices that have been made. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary recently attended the dedication of the UK police memorial at the National Arboretum. This memorial and others serve as a valuable symbol, acting as a reminder to the public of the sacrifices that have been made and providing a space for people to mourn and remember lost loved ones.
I know that this particular monument that my right hon. Friend is calling for is not only about those who have lost their lives in their service, but those who continue to serve, and that is why this is unique and important. It is important to say that it is not just at national level that we erect statues to remember the contributions of others—they take pride of place in local communities up and down the country and we commemorate our own local heroes. Many of these figures are a real source of local pride. Being commemorated in a public space, often funded by public subscription, is a positive way to acknowledge the contributions made by individuals to their communities and the nation.
At this point, it is only fair that I explain that it is not normal practice for central Government to fund new memorials.
Sir Mike Penning
I thank the Minister for the offer of a meeting. It is always a pleasure; we shared a Department when we were Ministers together. I hope we get a reply from the Prime Minister, who got the letter simultaneously to when the Minister had it. I will not hold the Minister to this, but conversations perhaps need to take place with the Treasury before our meeting, because I cannot think of a better use of LIBOR money or unclaimed assets in bank accounts than this. There are millions of pounds sitting in the LIBOR funds now—we know that—and they have been used extensively in other ways. It would be a great way of not putting the burden so much on the taxpayer, not that I think the taxpayer would be too worried about that at the end of the day, because it is a tiny amount of money. The LIBOR funds are probably the way forward, and perhaps the Treasury could have a conversation with her first.
Caroline Dinenage
I think that is certainly a conversation that needs to be had with the Treasury. It is true that many organisations, both public and private, are rightly able to propose, fund, develop and deliver memorials marking a variety of incidents and historical moments. They are unfortunately not normally funded by the Government, but my right hon. Friend makes some interesting suggestions as to how that might be addressed and we can certainly talk about it further.
Those organisations and individuals are usually best placed to determine who to commemorate and how best to build commemorations that are appropriate and sensitive, and there are a great many people and organisations that are interested in establishing memorials. As a general rule, it is for those groups to work with the relevant local planning authorities and other organisations to identify suitable sites, obtain the necessary planning permission and raise the funding. In fact, since the passing of the Deregulation Act 2015, consent from the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is no longer required to erect memorials and statues in London. It is not now determined through the planning system only. Therefore, in relation to the proposed site on Whitehall, that would be a matter for Westminster City Council. But, again, we can discuss that when we chat.
There is a long tradition of funding new memorials through public subscription, which the Government support. Experience has shown that other funders, including in the private sector, are often happy and willing to contribute and donate to fund new memorials. In fact, I think much of the British public take huge pride in feeling that they have played a part in delivering something so important and significant for our national life.
There are examples of Government supporting memorials to mark specific events. Memorials have been created to the victims of 9/11 and of the 7/7 bombings in London as well as those of the Bali bombings in 2002. The Government also supported the suffragist memorial on Parliament Square and the one created by an independent Iraq and Afghanistan memorial project charity to honour those who served in the Iraq and Afghan wars. In some circumstances, the Government do support new memorials, although it is not for the Government to determine which memorials go ahead, and with limited public funds it is not possible for central Government to fund them. That said, the Government offer some indirect financial support through the memorial grant scheme, which allows charities and faith groups to claim as a grant the equivalent of the VAT paid on the eligible cost of erecting, maintaining or repairing public memorials. The scheme is administered by my Department, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, for the whole of the UK.
In a nutshell, we entirely recognise the extraordinary efforts of our emergency services in serving the public not just during the pandemic but at all times. Faced with unbelievable challenges, these incredible people look after people up and down our country and often save lives in the most difficult circumstances. We definitely support all the ongoing efforts and conversations to find an appropriate way to mark their incredible dedication and sacrifice.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Correction
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Health and Social Care
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nadhim Zahawi
On 19 July, the Prime Minister announced that
“by the end of September—when all over 18s will have had the chance to be double jabbed—we are planning to make full vaccination the condition of entry to nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather. Proof of a negative test will no longer be sufficient.”
We will be confirming more details in due course.
[Official Report, 8 September 2021, Vol. 700, c. 305.]
Letter of correction from the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi).
An error has been identified in my speech.
The correct statement should have been:
Nadhim Zahawi
On 19 July, the Prime Minister announced that the Government were planning that
“by the end of September—when all over 18s will have had the chance to be double jabbed—we are planning to make full vaccination the condition of entry to nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather. Proof of a negative test will no longer be sufficient.”
We will be setting out more details in due course.
Building Safety Bill (First sitting)
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a couple of preliminary announcements. I encourage Members, if they are able, to wear a mask when they are not speaking, to try to accommodate the fact that we are quite a large number of people in this room. Please can you also give members of staff space when you are seated, and think about social distancing when you enter and leave the room? Hansard colleagues would always be grateful if Members could email their speaking notes, if they speak. Can you also all ensure that electronic devices are silent? Teas, coffees and food are not allowed during the sittings. Date Time Witness Thursday 9 September Until no later than 12.20pm Sir Ken Knight CBE QFSM, Independent Expert Advisory Panel; National Fire Chiefs’ Council Thursday 9 September Until no later than 1.00pm Construction Industry Council; Royal Institute of British Architects Thursday 9 September Until no later than 2.45pm Construction Products Association; The British Standards Institution Thursday 9 September Until no later than 3.30pm The National Housing Federation; Local Authority Building Control; Local Government Association Thursday 9 September Until no later than 4.15pm UK Cladding Action Group; End Our Cladding Scandal Thursday 9 September Until no later than 5.00pm Landmark Chambers; Anthony Gold Solicitors LLP Tuesday 14 September Until no later than 10.15am The Health and Safety Executive; Office for Product Safety and Standards Tuesday 14 September Until no later than 10.45am Long Harbour; Home Builders’ Federation Tuesday 14 September Until no later than 11.25am Councillor Jayne McCoy, Sutton Council; The Institute of Residential Property Management Tuesday 14 September Until no later than 2.45pm Leasehold Knowledge Partnership; Association of Residential Managing Agents Tuesday 14 September Until no later than 3.30pm BRE Global Limited; Association of British Insurers; National House Building Council Tuesday 14 September Until no later than 4pm Fire Brigades Union Tuesday 14 September Until no later than 4.30pm UK Finance Tuesday 14 September Until no later than 5.00pm Alison Hills; Stephen Day
Today, we will first consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. If you do not have a copy of that before you, please see one of our officials sitting at the side. Then we will consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication, and a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions before the oral evidence starts. In view of the time available, I hope that we can take those matters formally without debate. I call the Minister to move the programme motion standing in his name, which was discussed this morning by the Programming Sub-Committee for the Bill.
Ordered,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 11.30 am on Thursday 9 September) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Thursday 9 September;
(b) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 14 September;
(c) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 16 September;
(d) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 21 September;
(e) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 23 September;
(f) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 19 October;
(g) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 21 October;
(h) at 9.25am and 2.00pm on Tuesday 26 October;
(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table;
(3) proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 2; Schedule 1; Clauses 3 to 21; Schedule 2; Clauses 22 to 26; Schedule 3; Clauses 27 to 42; Schedule 4; Clauses 43 to 54; Schedule 5; Clause 55; Schedule 6; Clauses 56 to 120; Schedule 7; Clauses 121 to 128; Schedule 8; Clauses 129 to 133; Schedule 9; Clauses 134 to 147; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(4) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Tuesday 26 October.—(Christopher Pincher.)
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Christopher Pincher.)
The Chair
Copies of written evidence that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room and will be circulated to Members by email. I am sure that you have already received that initial email. Thanks to all the Clerks and all the staff, who are doing an amazing job on what is a lengthy and complex Bill.
Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Christopher Pincher.)
The Chair
We are now sitting in public again and the proceedings are being broadcast. Before we start to hear from witnesses, I encourage Members who wish to make a declaration of interest in connection with the Bill to do so. First, I will put my own interests on the record. My husband is a partner in Kingsley Napley LLP, whose clients include those involved in the building industry.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
I am still a sitting councillor in Liverpool.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Eddie Hughes)
I am a member of the Chartered Institute of Building.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
The Chair
Thank you. I remind colleagues that if you feel there are things that you should register, you can talk to the Clerks during our proceedings.
We will now hear oral evidence from our first panel of witnesses: Sir Ken Knight, the independent panel expert, and Dan Daly, head of the protection policy and reform unit at the National Fire Chiefs Council. Before calling the first Member to ask a question, I remind all Members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill and that we must stick to the timings on the programme motion that the Committee has agreed. For this session, we have until 12.20. Will the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?
Sir Ken Knight: I am Sir Ken Knight. I currently chair the independent expert advisory panel at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which was formed immediately after Grenfell. My background—my DNA—is in fire. I was in the fire service for 40 years, after having been the chief fire officer in Dorset, then the west midlands, and then I was the London fire commissioner before becoming the Government’s chief fire and rescue adviser.
Dan Daly: My résumé is somewhat shorter than Sir Ken’s. I am currently a serving assistant commissioner in the London Fire Service. For the last 12 months I have been seconded to the NFCC to head up the protection policy and reform unit, working alongside government colleagues on new legislation.
Mike Amesbury
Q
Sir Ken Knight: First of all, I think it is a very robust Bill. It will not be a quick-fix Bill, but nor should it be. It is a generational change. It would be wrong to suggest that there is an instant solution. The whole notion of putting a Building Safety Regulator in place and in charge of these matters will take time to work through. I am not sure there is a quick fix. I think the challenge will be in enhancing capability and competence throughout the sector, because that is still lacking in all areas, whether it is in enforcement or the built environment. I would like to return to that, if I may, at the end because there is something—probably outside the remit of this Bill Committee—that needs to be thought through. We need to educate fire engineers in competency and not leave it to chance, because there are very few at the moment to take on the new roles.
Dan Daly: I welcome the Bill. It is an important step change in building safety legislation. If I were to look at one element, the scope is fairly narrow at the moment. I understand the need to build the role of the regulator and the extent of the Bill in a proportionate way, but as Dame Judith pointed out, it was a broken system that led us to where we are today. This is our opportunity to fix it once and for all. The history of fire safety legislation is littered with disasters that people have sought to fix, and the fix has applied to one particular area of the built environment. This is our opportunity to look at that scope and certainly build gateways into broadening the scope at an appropriate point to make sure it takes full account of the built environment and the issues that are definitely there in buildings other than high rise residential.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Dan Daly: There is a lot to be admired in what other countries have done, and certainly in that particular example, but you have to remember that they were some way ahead of where we are and where we started from. There was already a single regulator in place in Victoria that was able to be instructed to take on some of this work. The number of buildings and the scale of the issue were much smaller than where we are. I think in total there were around 2,300 buildings, looking at a much broader spectrum of buildings—healthcare buildings and schools above two floors, and all other buildings above three floors. We know that, when we are looking in this country at buildings above 18 metres, we are already talking about 12,000 buildings—that is just high-rise residential. When we talk about buildings above 11 metres, we are probably closer to 100,000. If you take on the full range of where they were in Australia, the numbers just keep increasing exponentially.
There is something to admire in where they were—certainly the fact that sprinklers and alarm systems were in much wider use in those buildings, so that, in the fires that they saw, nobody died. There were measures in the buildings to tackle those instances early, and equally to alert people to the fires. It is certainly something that we have been talking about and pushing for: the wider use of sprinklers and alarm systems. It is good to see that there has been some change and movement in that, as part of the work that we have gone through so far. You cannot discount what has gone on. We should always look to learn, but there is something about scale and scope here that is different.
Sir Ken Knight: Can I just add to that, Chair? I had the privilege to host both a political head and an official head from Victoria very early on after the tragedy at Grenfell. Remarkably or not, they were very complimentary about the work taking place in the building safety programme—as you will recall, the Victoria high-rise fires occurred several years before Grenfell itself. They were impressed, even though none of us is satisfied that the pace is enough on all of these things. Of course, they had the luxury that they had no fire deaths at all. It was a wake-up call for Victoria as well—to realise that they could not wait for the tragedy of the 72 fire deaths that we saw here to do things.
For all of us who have been in touch with other countries, there is lots to learn from them. However, it is also about the capacity: the numbers of buildings, and the significant number of high-rise buildings, that will be covered even in the first-stage proposal in scope in the Bill, compared with the total number in somewhere like Victoria.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
Q
Sir Ken Knight: It is quite a significant part of Dame Judith’s report, of course, and that mixed economy has come through into the Bill. It is actually something that I support, providing that there is a level playing field in the competency, ethics and assurance of those doing the work. That is covered in the Bill, in a great deal of how the Building Safety Regulator will need to bring that to bear. The Bill makes the point, though, that in those buildings of higher risk the Building Safety Regulator is the enforcing authority for building control purposes—not either of those two bodies. I think that that is right. However, it is about levelling up the playing field for the competencies and assurances that are in place with some bodies and not others at the moment. There is a bit to go, but I personally do not object to that outcome, providing that the private sector actors involved in that are not directly employed by those for whom they are doing the work in seeking the outcome for the approvals.
Dan Daly: I do not have much different to say. The inability to choose your own building control body is important, particularly for developers that have wrapped up a number of those services within their overarching companies. Having some independence of that is important. There needs to be some robust checking if there is private sector involvement; that is the important element, and hopefully that is part of the role that the Building Safety Regulator will be able to take on. I suppose that is something to come in the guidance that will follow this Bill. We have issues of competency and capacity across the sector, so we need to keep our mind open to all those avenues, but with the appropriate checks and balances in there and the appropriate safeguards to ensure there is no compromise on safety in favour of profit.
Ian Byrne
It is my Scouse accent. Is height the best measure of risk? If so, is the threshold in the Bill appropriate?
Sir Ken Knight: I promise you that it is my hearing. Height is pretty arbitrary in risk. I think any professional would say that; I am sure Mr Daly will comment from a national fire chief’s point of view. It is right that there is at least a point to start, and the threshold in the Bill of 18 metres or more than six floors is a place to start. I would not want to presume that that means that high-rise is necessarily high risk, because risk is a difficult equation with two axes—one is probability, and the other is the catastrophic outcome risk.
Dame Judith’s report, and indeed the Bill, are based on the idea that the more people who could be involved in a single fire, the greater the catastrophic risk. In reality, more deaths occur in the home in bungalows, but that is not about height; it is about the demographics of people living in bungalows and the effects of that. It was right to set the bar somewhere.
Helpfully, though, the Bill allows the Building Safety Regulator to look at that first flush of buildings in scope—that will result in something like 12,000 buildings, a significant capacity issue to deal with—and then to move on from that in a dynamic way to look at other risk features that are not necessarily height-related. One might want to include in the next stage care homes and hospitals that are not necessarily over 18 metres. However, as a first tranche, the place to start is right.
The Chair
Mr Daly, would you like to reply to that?
Dan Daly: The short answer from our perspective is no. We talked about broadening the scope, and that is a nod toward the fact that we recognise other premises as being high risk. Part of that risk is about not just the physical attributes of the building, but the people who live in, use and work in those places, particularly our most vulnerable people, and the reliance they may have, in terms of the evacuation strategies from those buildings, on the building’s performing in a way that allows time for horizontal evacuation or phased evacuation, supported by people who are there to enable them to escape from the building when they need to.
There are a number of factors that I do not think are yet covered here, and I would like to see the opportunity to broaden the scope at some appropriate point, but I understand the proportionate start in the way that Sir Ken has described.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
Q
Sir Ken Knight: It is a very fair question. That is in the area of probability or likelihood of risk. Most of us do not run our lives in terms of anything other than likelihood, whether it is flying in an aeroplane or crossing a road. We do not tend to judge the catastrophic risk of those. There is a good deal of risk aversion at the moment, which is natural after the tragedy at Grenfell, but unfortunate, because, as you say, last year fire deaths in the home were at a 40-year low. If we think of the past year, where for the first time most people were in their homes and not in offices, that is quite a significant statistic.
Even in high-rise residential flats, most fires occur in the room and flat of origin and do not spread beyond the flat of origin, and most deaths do not occur outside the flat of origin either. That is not to make light of all the deaths that occur, of course. I think the question that you have asked is key for me in ensuring that we do not suggest there is no risk below 18 metres—going back to the previous height issue—nor is it all risk above 18 metres. It is a risk-based, proportionate approach, according to a competent risk assessor. What we have seen at the moment are both lenders and insurers moving that risk aversion to the point that people in their homes feel unsafe when they are not, are anxious about living where they are, and are finding the effect on the value of their flats very difficult. I think we have to bring the pendulum back to a proportionate approach, allowing competency and risk assessment, not a binary “is it safe or not safe?”
Dan Daly: What I would add to that is the fact that there have been some well-intentioned actions over time in order to keep people safe and try to build some reassurance back into the built environment. People have seen Grenfell, and they have since listened to the evidence at the inquiry. Quite understandably, public confidence is undermined, but what we are now seeing is undoubtedly that some of the measures, whereby those costs are being passed back to leaseholders, are causing actual harm. The effort to protect people from potential harm is now generating real harm to people’s mental health and wellbeing, so there needs to be a reaction in order to try to bring that back to the centre. Fires are mercifully rare, but as a professional fire officer, I can say that one fire is too many and one fire death is too many, wherever it occurs. I understand the need to bring the pendulum back, as Ken has described.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Dan Daly: Let me go back slightly to your first question, which was about what happened in Australia. I said that they were ahead of where we are because they knew where their buildings were, and they knew a lot more information about them. Right from the start, that has been an issue that has plagued efforts to understand the risk, where buildings are, what they are made of, and what are the other construction elements of their external envelope. That has been a difficult starting point. There is some work under way that the NFCC and fire and rescue services up and down the country are supporting through the building risk review, which is looking at high-rise residential buildings and trying to understand in more detail the exact condition and circumstances of the buildings. Given the focus of what brought us here today, I think that is the right place to start to try to rebuild that confidence.
For the future, we need the golden thread of information that we are talking about in the safety case regime. We need to start to understand more about the built environment completely, not just high-rise residential buildings, so that should we find ourselves here again—hopefully, we never will—we are in a better place to look at where the risk is, prioritise those buildings and maybe take some direct action in the first place. Unfortunately, we were just not in that place to start with.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Dan Daly: It depends on what the check is for the building and what the circumstances are. If you have the information, you can find what the appropriate intervention is. Realistically, when we talk about the numbers involved, where do you find the competency and capacity to do all buildings in an audit process? You have to find some risk-based approach.
Sir Ken Knight: Perhaps I could just add to Mr Daly’s point. The capacity and competency are important, because some of these are not just building checks. They are invasive and involve taking parts of buildings down and looking inside walls. It would be a very long process to do a whole system check on all buildings, which is why I think it was inevitable to take an 18-metre approach and talk about those buildings as higher risk in terms that I have described, rather than pause and do a whole system check on all the buildings. We would still be doing that some time ahead. The NFCC, for which Dan Daly is responsible, has done a great job in using fire and rescue services to check whether buildings are at risk or at multiple risks. It has had some very helpful results, because they have all been found to be risky buildings.
The Chair
Unless there are supplementary questions on that, I will bring in Siobhan Baillie.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
Q
Dan Daly: Combining where we are now with the Bill and the secondary legislation to come along, I think the fire service has a role to play in helping to design that, to make sure that it is fit for purpose and that it complements what is coming through in the Fire Safety Act 2021, which will come out later this year. From what we have seen, there has been a clarification. The Bill does not mean any new powers for the fire and rescue service, but there is something in the information strands; this Bill will bring about a better knowledge of buildings. That is really important to the work of fire and rescue services in terms of targeting their regulatory role, adapting and making sure that their operational tactics are fit for purpose, and making sure that where we can target through our prevention activities, we are looking at the people who live and work in those buildings to make sure that the right prevention advice is provided to prevent fires in the first place.
Sir Ken Knight: I normally hesitate to comment on what fire and rescue services should do, having done it for 40 years and leaving it to professionals like Dan Daly and the NFCC, but I would just draw attention to the Fire Safety Act, which he referred to. The Fire Safety Act, of course, has recently passed through Parliament as an amendment. It does put, absolutely, enforcement authority with the fire and rescue authority, and that is the fire and rescue service. And it is much broader—this goes back to the height issue—because it is not just about height. It is about all those buildings where there are more than two occupancies, so it is a much broader piece of legislation, of which the enforcing authority is, effectively, the fire and rescue service. I think it will have a very close relationship both with local authorities and the Housing Act 2004 and with the Building Safety Regulator, because there is a wealth of knowledge in that background and experience and it is a key part of a modern fire and rescue service.
The Chair
I am going to bring in Ruth now, and I know that Mike and Marie have further questions that they want to ask.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Q
Dan Daly: I think you are referring to Worcester Park.
Ruth Cadbury
Yes, Richmond House in Worcester Park.
Dan Daly: There are a couple of things that I think are useful here. One is the competency issue. I think we have maintained right from the start that everyone involved in the build process, right the way through and from maintenance through to occupation, needs to be competent in the role. That is the first part: how these buildings are constructed in the first place and the appropriate measures—barriers, fire-stopping arrangements and so on—being put in place.
There is also the work around product regulation, which I think is really important. We have all seen the evidence at the Grenfell inquiry that products not fit for purpose have been openly sold, knowingly sold. That needs to stop, so that people can build in confidence with the materials they have. I think those two things come together quite well to look at the issues. But there is something, again, about the scope of the Bill. It is starting where it needs to start. I can understand that the new regulator would want to start proportionately and get that right. But I think it is hugely important that we open up the pathways to extending that remit, to look at other types of building.
We have the issue of modern methods of construction. That can be any kind of new aspect of building. I think Worcester Park has an element of timber-frame construction. We are seeing lots of modular construction. We have the highest modular constructed building in Europe here in London. Those kinds of elements need to be looked at to ensure that competency goes right the way through, from the off-site manufacture and the materials used, to the on-site installation. Those are things for the future; that is a good place for us to be. My concern at the moment is this: what are we doing about the existing stock? I think that is part of your question. There is the issue about how we can reach back on building defects. I think there is a slight flaw in that.
There is a welcome extension to the timeframes on this, but the slight flaw is that it is to the date when the building was complete. We have already seen buildings for which even the 15 years proposed now would have elapsed. If it has not elapsed there certainly is not time between it coming in and the point in which it elapses for the legal action to kick in and take place. There needs to be something about whether it is from when the defect has occurred. The defect, if not picked up during the building stage, would then be beyond the vision and scope of the fire service as a regulator. The fire service does not dismantle buildings to understand what was not done properly through the building control process and construction processes. We need to get stronger on that issue as well. Those are the elements we can do more on in terms of reaching back.
There is an issue as well with buildings and planning. Some buildings will already have attained planning permission under the broken system, and they will be allowed to be built going forward, adding to the pile of issues we are trying to address now. Where is the hard stop on those buildings? They need to be reapplied for to make sure the standards are fit for purpose today. That is another important element we would like to see change to make sure we do not add to where we are.
Sir Ken Knight: Can I just add to that? I think that is why one of the important inherent, underpinning foundations of the Bill is that it enables legislation. It is such a large Bill and requires secondary legislation. I am sure there will be some who will sit here and suggest that it is not detailed enough. I do not hold that view; I think, by being enabling, it allows flexibility in the future for additions and to change some of those issues. It allows for the Building Safety Regulator to look at new methods of construction of buildings and make recommendations to the Secretary of State. That is probably where we came from. The Act it replaces is the Building Act 1984—some 37 years ago. That fixing in time of something that needs to be so dynamic according to risk and change enables this Bill to be that opportunity for the next generation.
The Chair
We have got just under 15 minutes, and there are three more questions to go through. Keep that in mind, if you could.
Ms Rimmer
Q
“must take all reasonable steps for… preventing a building safety risk materialising as regards the part of the building for they are responsible”.
The definition of the part for which they will be held responsible is to be defined in regulation. Should it not be defined within the Bill itself?
Sir Ken Knight: That is one of those examples where getting this huge piece of legislation through the Parliamentary process, which will itself be 12 months away, will it not, will allow that regulation to come swiftly afterwards. I am pretty relaxed, personally, that regulation and secondary legislation will follow and build up the basis of this very quickly indeed with the experience that needs to be held. I am not the expert in that area, but I am very convinced that going down this enabling route is the way forward.
Ms Rimmer
Q
Sir Ken Knight: No, there is not, but I think the Building Safety Regulator is already on the case. He has issued a document only this week about what safety cases will look like. He and his team will be having the same capacity issues as everyone else, but nevertheless I suspect he is not waiting for the Bill to happen. Nor are the major people out there responsible for buildings in the future, which is pleasing. They are already looking at what they need to do now to make people feel safe in their homes, rather than waiting for the Bill to pass through Parliament.
Dan Daly: I do not have much to add. The detail will come. I would like and welcome the opportunity for NFCC to be part of those discussions, as some other stakeholders are, to keep the promises that are made here. I do agree that there is an awful lot left to trust, and there needs to be some oversight to ensure that that trust is not betrayed and that, if the Bill is put through as an enabling piece, the guidance that follows is suitable to bridge the gaps in the information that is not there at the moment.
Mike Amesbury
Q
Sir Ken Knight: I can deal with some of that shopping list, which you are right to highlight. EWS1 has been one of those areas. The external wall system 1 form is the surveyor form for evaluations. I would argue that it has been misused on premises where it has added cost to the leaseholder. I have seen real examples where people trying to sell a bungalow have been required to have EWS1 for an external wall, which frankly is nonsense. Again, that is about the proportionality of lenders and insurers recognising that some of those building heights and risks do not need that.
The other reason for me saying that about EWS1 in principle is that I believe it will quickly be overtaken by the external wall assessment of the Fire Safety Act 2021, because everyone will require that. One of the advantages is that you will have one risk assessment for the whole building and not every leaseholder having to have an EWS1 form to satisfy their lender when they want to sell, adding to the cost for each leaseholder in turn. Will the Bill address that? I think the combination of those other things I have just mentioned will certainly assist that, but it does mean needing to get back to an approach that is both risk-based and risk-assessed, and people being competent, and the culture has to change. It is going to have to change very quickly because Dame Judith recognised that both culture and competence were key issues. I think they still are.
The Chair
Have you anything to add, Mr Daly?
Dan Daly: Just briefly, I think we have maintained the position for some time that leaseholders should not bear the costs of historic building defects. We welcome the extension of the period to look back at where issues have been found in buildings, but I think there is definitely more that could be done to give them that protection. Overarchingly, what is needed to give reassurance across a much wider sector—this is about lenders, insurers and constructors right the way through—is getting a regime in place as quickly as we can that supports and holds them to account in the right way.
I welcome the idea of industry leading the way to improve its own culture, but I actually want to see a regulator with some real teeth that can hold them to account as well, because that is what is going to be required. The Health and Safety Executive brought some real change in the construction industry, but that was because its attempts to change the industry were also supported by strong and robust enforcement that it was able to bring to that. Holding people to account and getting the regime in place that underpins the whole sector is something that will help with where we are.
Siobhan Baillie
Q
Dan Daly: It is very difficult in the context of Grenfell because that is obviously where people’s minds are focused, but in my professional experience you are generally at no greater risk in a high-rise building than you are elsewhere, and the figures bear that out. We see a number of deaths. My experience is in London and if you think about London, we see the commonality of people dying in fires is not where they live, but the circumstances of them, the vulnerabilities and the care they may be subject to, or the lack of care in some instances. That is what drives those deaths.
None the less, it is recognised that people will feel nervous in those homes. There is more that we can do and this regime helps with that. The work of fire and rescue services goes beyond response; we do much more than that. It is also about prevention and protection. The protection element is about looking at the buildings, and the prevention is about the advice we can bring to people in their own homes, and it all contributes to reducing that fire risk.
There is something here that people will recognise, which is that there is limited capability for fighting fires at height. We know that and have experienced that. That in itself will not help with public confidence, but the stats of the matter—this is an emotional argument, so stats are not always the best place to find ourselves—do not support the view that you are at any higher risk. However, we must address the fact that people have and should have the right to feel safe in their own homes. We are spending time on that, and I said I think it is the right place to focus the regime for now to build that confidence, but we must have the ability to extend the scope and make people safe wherever they live.
Sir Ken Knight: In the context of high-rise buildings, the differences are that it can be more dependent on the other measures in place to ensure that compartmentation is intact, such as fire doors, having self-closers fitted, ensuring that smoke ventilations are working—all of which, as we have heard in another place of inquiry, was woefully lacking. I think it is more dependent on that.
What is key is something Judith Hackitt picked up in this Bill: the residents’ voice as well as the residents’ responsibility. That is absolutely key to this as well. They need to be assured that they have the key information, but they also have to understand that they have a key responsibility to ensure that they and the others in the same building are safe as well. I think that combination makes high-rise different from a two-bedroom cottage somewhere, because it is more dependent on others and the compartmentation is more key. That is why I support starting at 18 metres in the Bill—starting at 18 metres for buildings in scope. That is the place to start, from our experience over the last few years.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
In terms of new build, building professionals have told me that in this country we have moved from designing and building for fire safety, as Brentford Towers were built, towards concerns about thermal insulation and energy saving, so have started to lose the focus on fire, whereas in other countries the two have gone together. Do the witnesses agree with that? If so, do they feel that the Bill addresses that challenge?
Sir Ken Knight: I have also heard it said—I have no evidence that it is correct—that the two sometimes seem to be movable objects in ensuring sufficient insulation, and indeed in making the homes and lives of residents much better and much less expensive because of heat loss and energy, and in meeting the very important net zero agendas as well. I think the Bill does address that. It makes it very clear that there are hard stops at each of those gateways that are put in place in the Bill, which the developer cannot pass until they have satisfied the Building Safety Regulator that they have met the fire safety requirements and the fire safety case. That has not ever been the case before. You could have a design and build that would move on and move on in process, and move beyond that gateway before being checked by the appropriate enforcing authority. I think the Bill has gone a long way towards addressing that very point—that fire and structural safety are not left as a second cousin.
Dan Daly: Absolutely. There is the ongoing role of the approved documents that sit behind the building regulations. That is an important part of what will support the endeavour of the Bill. We need to keep working on those. They have fallen woefully out of date with modern methods of construction. That is something that needs to be reviewed with the Building Safety Regulator going forward, and challenged to make sure that the appropriate documents are kept up to the date.
There is something about the competency of individuals as well, in reading those approved documents in tandem. There are documents that talk about how a building is structurally sound and how it is fire-safety sound, before it starts to talk about the thermal performance of the building, but the two should be read in conjunction. What we have seen is people not necessarily with the right competence adopting convenient interpretations of those documents rather than following what the documents are trying to say. That again points back to the competency issue and the oversight by the regulator, and hopefully the oversight of the gateway processes, to prevent those things happening again.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
The Chair
Just before you answer, I will point out that we have two minutes and then I will have to bring this to a close.
Dan Daly: That points back to the competency issue. We have the products stuff that will hopefully be regulated and perform better—people will know that what they are getting will do the job it says on the tin—and then the individuals who are employed to make the determination about what products are used on a building in certain circumstances having the right competency to interpret the building regulations and the approved documents to make sure they are using the right things in the right places.
Sir Ken Knight: The Bill, of course, includes the provision for a new construction products regulator, dealing with the products, which is really important in modern methods of construction. You are absolutely correct that modern methods of construction are important. Of course, modern methods of construction bring with them a precision in construction by pre-forming and pre-making, so modern methods have some advantage. We need to ensure that they have in-built fire safety elements when they are constructed and finished as buildings.
The Chair
I think that brings us to the end of questions for the first panel. I thank our witnesses for taking the time to be with us today, and for an incredibly useful set of answers. If I could ask you to exit through the doors, we will bring in our second panel of witnesses. Thank you very much.
Examination of Witnesses
Graham Watts OBE and Adrian Dobson gave evidence.
The Chair
Thank you for being with us today. Just before we start our questioning—Ruth Cadbury will kick it off—may I ask you both to introduce yourselves?
Adrian Dobson: Thank you very much. My name is Adrian Dobson. I am executive director of professional services at the Royal Institute of British Architects. That includes supporting our educational and practice standards, and our work in association with the Architects Registration Board.
Graham Watts: Hello. I am Graham Watts. I am chief executive of the Construction Industry Council. I am also chair of something called the competence steering group, which was set up after the Grenfell tragedy to improve competences across the industry. For full disclosure, I also co-chair the building safety workstream of the Construction Leadership Council and I am a director of Building a Safer Future Ltd, which is responsible for the building safety charter.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Graham Watts: The Bill is very welcome. It is a step forward from the draft Bill that we saw last year. The clarification on scope has been very welcome, for example, but it is important to say that the Bill, or the Act in due course, will not be a panacea to ensure building safety. That is a really important point. The Bill is needed to support the paradigm shift that is needed in the culture change of the construction industry, and only that shift in the construction industry will ensure that we have safer buildings.
Adrian Dobson: I basically agree. It is important to say that it is just a piece in the jigsaw puzzle. It is very welcome that there will be a new regime for building regulations, and that the HSE will be placed with oversight of it. Basing it on the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, which have worked quite well in terms of looking after the safety of the people who construct buildings, is quite sensible. Without wishing to repeat what you have heard from previous witnesses, there are other pieces in the jigsaw. Inevitably, the industry relies on guidance. I think you have heard previously that the approved documents still need major review. Obviously there has been discussion about the buildings that are within the scope. You can imagine that other types of buildings may, in due course, need to come within scope, but it is sensible to start with what we know is at particularly high risk of catastrophic failure.
Eddie Hughes
Q
Graham Watts: As you know, Eddie, it is a massive industry—3 million people and several hundred thousand companies. Co-ordination, communication, leadership and challenge are the key factors that we in the CIC, and the bodies that support us, such as the RIBA and the Chartered Institute of Building, need to concentrate on. We really need to get away from a culture that is based on a race to the bottom, as a result of which companies that win work at very low profit margins do everything possible to prioritise the commercial side of things, avoid penalties and cut corners on quality in order to increase profit. That is the basic culture that we have to change. We have seen the evidence of that in the Grenfell inquiry. We do not need to see where the evidence is; it is there before our eyes.
Adrian Dobson: One thing to add is that, obviously, we are keen for things to move on at pace. What a number of the professional bodies, including the RIBA, are doing at the moment is working on our accreditation regimes for the new duty holders, because obviously we need to be in a position to accredit professionals to undertake the principal designer and principal contractor roles once the new regime comes into play. That is an important task for the professional bodies to be getting on with now.
Rachel Hopkins
Q
Adrian Dobson: There is a chicken-and-egg situation. I have been involved in a number of meetings on the competence standard, and obviously you can go off only what has been published so far. The publication of the draft regulations on the competencies and due diligence is quite helpful, although I hope that there may be a chance to talk about some concerns about those definitions. The more information that can come out, the better.
The Bill does explain the basic principles quite well, and I think everybody is supportive of that. There is complexity. One of the points that I would like to make, if I get the chance today, is that our view is that, if the principal designer is a key duty holder, they should be involved in gateway 1, which is when some quite key design decisions are made. It has been complicated to achieve that, because it has been achieved through a change to the town and country planning legislation. I can see that some of this is going to have to be sorted out once the system is in place; that is just inevitable, really.
Graham Watts: I tend to agree with the point that Ken Knight made in the previous session: the detail needs to be in secondary legislation, in the statutory instruments. Of course, that does mean that there needs to be adequate consultation and scrutiny of those statutory instruments. I have some experience of this from the industry perspective, as a designated body implementing aspects of the Building Act 1984. Too much of the detail was in the Act. It meant that there were unintended consequences down the line: things that needed to be changed could not easily be changed. That made my mind up on that issue.
Where there is a need for more detail on the face of the Bill is in those areas relating to the paradigm change in the industry that I spoke about earlier. That needs to be supported by the Bill, particularly in the area of competence, which actually underpins virtually everything that we are talking about. In the report that we produced at the end of last year, “Setting the Bar”, which sets out a new competence regime for occupations involved in high-rise buildings, we were hoping and expecting that there would be greater definition in the Bill.
For example, we thought that the requirement for independent third-party certification might be on the face of the Bill. It is absolutely essential, but it is not there. We think that there should be mandatory registration for those who have duty holder roles, and I am not just including principal designer, principal contractor and building safety manager. Also, for example, there is a need for independent construction assessment, and I am sure Adrian and I will talk about that a bit more later. It also seems to me an anachronism that we are defining the roles for principal designer and principal contractor but not for the building control profession.
Without having mandatory registration with the regulator—to say that Joe Bloggs or Freda Smith are qualified to be a principal designer—there is going to be a lot of confusion out there about who is qualified to hold those roles. I worry that the less scrupulous people within the industry will find ways around the requirements in order to prove, by some sort of desktop study, that they are actually qualified. There are also things like making sure that there is regular reassessment and mandatory continuing professional development. Although I appreciate that there are reasons why those details might not be in the Bill, we need them to be defined.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Adrian Dobson: Gosh. I am not so familiar with the workings of Parliament, but certainly I would make the point that those regulations will be very important. We have been poring over the competence regulations and the duty holder regulations; I know they are only in draft, to enable you to understand the Bill, but that level of secondary legislation and regulation will need proper parliamentary scrutiny.
There is also an important role for the industry, working with the HSE and the new authority, to ensure that the review of the guidance is done properly. With the best will in the world, I do not think this place or other similar bodies can do that detailed, rigorous interrogation of the guidance, and it is very important. It is the lack of guidance that has been causing some of the problems, particularly below the 18-metre threshold. We now have quite an ambiguous situation with those buildings, which is complicating the situation for leaseholders and so on.
Graham Watts: May I first of all say that I have been working in the industry for 42 years, liaising with Government on policy matters, and I do not think there has previously been a more exemplary case of consulting with industry, particularly on the draft Bill and more generally in the course of the Bill’s passage through Parliament? I would like to see the same process with the statutory instruments. We think there will be nine statutory instruments—we have seen two of them in draft already—but we need to continue that kind of early-warning consultation, avoiding unintended consequences, overlap and duplication and so on, with the draft secondary legislation, just as we have with the Bill itself.
Mike Amesbury
Q
Graham Watts: I think the answer to that is no, but the Bill does a bit more than the draft Bill did, particularly in the extension of the Defective Premises Act 1972. I am from the industry, and I have no doubt whatsoever that no leaseholder should have to pay for having been mis-sold a home that is not fit for purpose or safe. That should be axiomatic, and we should be exploring every opportunity. I know the housebuilders and developers have put up something like £500 million already, but in many cases they are not there any more—they have gone bankrupt, or it was a special purpose vehicle developer that does not exist any longer. I have no doubt that the Government must do more, but the industry must also do more, and I welcome the polluter pays principle of the developer tax.
Adrian Dobson: This Bill is a piece of the jigsaw; one problem is that this is predominantly a forward-looking piece of legislation, so it will address new projects and alterations to existing buildings, but it will not deal with the historical defects. That is a situation that will ultimately require the Government to engage with the insurance sector. We now have a situation where—to use the example of the EWS1 form, which I know you talked about earlier—because the insurance sector has pretty much excluded fire safety cover from many professionals, it is difficult to get professionals who can sign these forms, and they will now inevitably take a very precautionary approach, because they know that this insurance is difficult to get. There are some risks in thinking that the Bill itself will solve that; that historical liability is more complicated.
The Bill also raises the question of the insurability of the duty holder roles in the new regime; this illustrates why the interrogation of the regulations will be so important. The regulations as they are drafted at the moment mix words such as “take reasonable steps” with “ensure”, and they are very different. One is an absolute obligation and one is more like the CDM regulations. Will the insurers provide the insurance to underpin these roles? The insurance issue is where the problem lies, in my view.
Ian Byrne
Q
Graham Watts: I think the answer to that is yes, because competence is in the Bill and it underpins and supports all of the work that the industry has done over the last four years—some of the things that Adrian talked about earlier in the different sectors. As I said before, I would personally like the Bill to go further in defining the levels of competence and in making sure that the people who are registered actually have the competencies. I think that is absolutely necessary.
Adrian Dobson: I would tack slightly along the same line. I think the Bill is very good at trying to address the competence issue, although, for example, there are weaknesses in other areas of the industry. Procurement is complex in construction. I know that has been discussed in the Select Committee and various places. There is a duty on the principal designer to monitor design work for compliance, and a similar duty on the contractor. “Monitor” is quite a weak term. In design and build procurement there is no requirement for independent inspection, or no duty on the designers to return to the building and say, “Has this building been designed and constructed in accordance with that design intent?” So I think it is stronger on competence than it is on addressing some of the realities of the construction industry. Will the hard stop at gateway 2 really be a hard stop, because the commercial realities of the construction industry will tend to want to keep the project moving forward, and that is a risk? So it is good on competence and perhaps a bit weaker in other areas.
Ms Rimmer
Q
Graham Watts: We are obviously at an early stage in the development of the new powers for the product regulator. As we have discovered from the Grenfell evidence, it is an absolutely imperative aspect of the Bill, so I certainly welcome that side of it. The work that has been done in the industry to ensure integrity in the marketing information for construction products has been scandalously shocking in the past. As somebody from the industry, I am ashamed of the fact that we did not wake up to that, but I welcome a rigorous attention to the regulation of construction products and also the Government’s recent decision to postpone the implementation of the conformity assessed mark for a year, because that was causing huge problems in the construction sector. Personally, I think a year is not enough, but at least it is a step forward.
Adrian Dobson: My answer is probably similar to before. There is an inevitability that there will have to be secondary regulation. Maybe an area that it does not address is that once we get to the stage of developing revised guidance, we have some questions about how much different sectors of the industry have been able to influence the testing process. If you are going to rely on testing to give you confidence about the performance of products, that genuinely needs to be independent testing. I will be interested to see what the regulations say about that and how they keep that independence of the testing.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
Q
Graham Watts: Both of those things are equally vital. I think the industry welcomed the decision to place the Building Safety Regulator within the HSE, because it is a well-respected agency and people take notice of its interventions. We understand that the regulator is likely to have somewhere in the region of 750 staff. It is not going to be an insubstantial body, and I am sure it will take effective enforcement action, but it needs buy-in from the industry. That comes back to my earlier point about a culture change within the industry, and not just in terms of the scope of the legislation—it must go beyond that. As people have said, the twin-track approach to regulations could be confusing and complex. We understand why there needs to be a limitation on the scope to begin with; otherwise, the system will not cope and will collapse. But there will be confusing areas at the margins, and it is essential that the industry adopts the same approach to its work on buildings that are not in scope and on buildings that are in scope. We cannot have a twin-track approach as far as safety is concerned.
Adrian Dobson: In fairness to the Government, it is difficult for the Government to regulate the competence and behaviours of the industry. Without the industry acting as a willing partner, it is virtually impossible, and the Bill tries very hard in that area. A more contentious issue is to what degree you have an element of prescription in what is done. We have had an element of prescription, and it was probably agreed that that was necessary because we had a stock of buildings that there were serious doubts about. I know that the Mayor of London has introduced an element that has been quite controversial, but I suspect that working out where the balance is will be quite difficult. When it comes to fundamental elements of fire and structural safety, I wonder whether you will inevitably end up with some firmer guidance. It might become prescriptive regulation or just clearer guidance on the basics of means of escape, compartmentation, alarms and sprinklers. Those are the fairly basic safety systems that buildings rely on.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Graham Watts: I guess it is an unfair question for now, because the regulator does not exist yet. But I have been impressed by the way in which the HSE has set up interim arrangements. For example, the interim industry competence committee—there is a committee on industry competence on the face of the Bill—has already been set up, and I am already liaising with the chair of that committee to make sure that there is an appropriate transition from the work that we have been doing within the industry for the last four years, to the work that will be eventually housed within the regulator.
Clearly, the staff at the HSE are experts on health and safety, so Peter Baker has to build up his team. He is a long way from being able to do that at the moment, but I am hopeful that the same principles and protocols that have driven the HSE—certainly its ability to consult the industry through bodies such as the Construction Industry Advisory Committee, which has been significant—will be carried over into the new regulator when the legislation is enacted.
Adrian Dobson: At a very basic level, the fact that it will be within the HSE sends a useful signal, because it says that at the heart of the building regulatory process is the safety and welfare of people. It is a simplistic thing, but it is quite an important signal. It has probably been given to the HSE because of the relative success of the CDM regulations. I do not think anybody in the industry thinks the CDM regulations have been perfect, and it has taken quite a lot of iterations to get them to where they are today. There are some weaknesses, particularly in the handover of information at the end of the project. That will also be so important for the safety of buildings under the new Fire Safety Act. But I think HSE has a good track record, which is possibly what is giving people confidence about it.
The Chair
Q
Graham Watts: There are a couple of concerns that I wanted to get across, and I think Adrian certainly shares one of them. The first one is a worry about the unintended consequences of the Act, if they are not carefully thought through. I do have a real worry about the insurability of some of these roles. Adrian has already referred to the narrowing and hardening of the insurance market for anything to do with fire safety and cladding. That is significant. A lot of companies are pulling out of that work altogether, because either they cannot get the insurance or the insurance is too cost-prohibitive. There is an onerous set of requirements on the building safety manager, for example, that I think will make it potentially uninsurable.
There are things that can be done to help that. Clause 91 on residents’ engagement strategy qualifies the requirements by saying so far as “reasonably practicable”. I think we need that kind of codicil to the requirements on some of the roles within the Act; otherwise, they are going to be uninsurable. I was responsible for setting up the designated body for registering approved inspectors after the Building Act 1984, and that legislation was not implemented until 1997. It took 13 years for us to get over the problems—the unintended consequences of the Act—that meant it could not be implemented. One of those problems was the inability to get insurance for approved inspectors. I think that is a warning signal that needs to be taken care of.
Secondly, there is a need for independent scrutiny of construction work. Adrian and I both believe very strongly in that. It came over as a recommendation from the Chartered Institute of Building and others in the working groups within the Competence Steering Group. We have lost that. If we go back in time, it was traditional to have clerks of works independently scrutinising the work on site. It was traditional for architects and engineers to go on site and supervise to ensure that their design work was being correctly implemented. We have lost most of that—they are rarities now—and I think that the requirement to have that independent assessment of construction work is essential. Whether it could be on the face of the Bill is, I understand, a moot point, but it is something that we need to develop, and we do need Government support—particularly as a client, actually—to help ensure that that happens, because it is one way to make sure that the design intentions are properly constructed, and that we get the quality that was always intended.
The Chair
Mr Dobson, would you like to add any other thoughts?
Adrian Dobson: I would prefer to reinforce those three points. Whether it is a client’s duty to have some independent inspection or whether it encourages clients to have independent inspection through, perhaps, standards that can be developed for use by the duty holders, will be a key point. As Graham said, if we cannot get insurance for these duty holder roles, we risk to some degree repeating the EWS1 problem, where we create a system that then cannot do what it is meant to do.
Even with something like extending the Defective Premises Act, you can understand why it has been done, but it is yet another thing that will cool the appetite of the insurance market. That is why I think market engagement is so important. Graham has not said this, but I did mention earlier that we feel that once the HSE looks at this, it may wish to consider whether you should really have the principal designer involved in that planning application; because you are making decisions about how many means of escape there will be from a building, where you are going to site it on the site, and how you will get access for the fire brigade. You are making quite fundamental strategic decisions that go beyond just a fire statement, which is what the current regulations demand.
Mike Amesbury
Q
Graham Watts: We—by “we” I mean the Competence Steering Group rather than the Construction Industry Council—recommended that there should be an independent construction assessor on all projects in scope of the legislation. That obviously has not been taken forward, and I think I understand some of the reasons why, but I stress that whatever way that happens, it is essential to securing the culture change that I spoke about earlier.
Adrian Dobson: The Committee may wish to think about whether there should be duties on some of the designers as well. You can appreciate that when you are scrutinising construction work the architect may be able to look at some aspects. Some aspects very much need the structural engineer and the services engineer to be involved. So you might want some general inspectorate, as would be prepared by a clerk of works, that is on a more regular basis, but you will need some scrutiny from individual designers as well. There may need to be some duties around that, possibly.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Adrian Dobson: The most obvious person, given the way that the Bill is framed, is the client; but as you say, the client is rarely, in the construction process, the end user of the project. One of the areas—probably the most difficult to tackle—that has not been talked about a lot is how you raise the competence of clients. The Government themselves are a major procurer, as are local authorities. It is important that they set the example. At one time, local authorities would have employed clerks of works to go and look at projects, so it is quite interesting that they can act as a leading edge—but yes, it is a difficult one.
Graham Watts: For new build, obviously the sign-off at gateway 2 is from the principal contractor to the client. I think we are also talking here about a lot of refurbishment and renovation projects where the residents are in situ. There the responsibility needs to be to the building safety manager, and the building safety manager’s responsibility needs to be to the residents.
The Chair
If there are no further questions, I thank both our witnesses for a really excellent evidence session, and for taking the time to come before us today.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Scott Mann.)
Health and Care Bill (Third sitting)
Thursday 9th September 2021
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Health and Care Act 2022 View all Health and Care Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 9 September 2021 - (9 Sep 2021)
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a few reminders. Please switch electronic devices to silent. Tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings of the Committee. I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking, in line with the current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room.
Members should send their speaking notes by email to hansardnotes@parliament.uk. Similarly, officials in the Gallery should communicate only electronically with Ministers. If everyone is agreed, we will go into private sitting to discuss lines of questioning.
The Chair
All our witnesses are appearing in person. It is helpful if Members direct their questions to specific witnesses.
Before calling the first panel of witnesses, I first remind all Members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill and that we must stick to the timings in the programme order the Committee has agreed. For the first panel, we have until 12.15 pm.
Secondly, do any members of the Committee wish to declare any relevant interests in connection with the Bill?
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
Chair, I am still a member of the British Medical Association.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
I remain a member of the BMA.
The Chair
Welcome Sara and Chaand. Will you kindly introduce yourselves, please?
Sara Gorton: Good morning. I am Sara—it is pronounced as if it is spelled with an h at the end. I am head of health at the trade union Unison.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: My name is Dr Chaand Nagpaul. I am a GP in north London. I have been a GP for more than 30 years. I am chair of the BMA UK council. We represent doctors across the UK—more than 160,000. I represent all doctors of all types, working in hospitals, public health, general practice—you name it.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
Q
Sara Gorton: I hope you have had our Bill submission, which makes clear the areas where we feel the new Bill needs some amending. You are right that Unison was a signatory, along with the BMA and other colleagues, to the letter in 2019, so it is a matter of concern that, after all this time and with such broad consensus, we are still awaiting the legislation.
The Select Committee process that followed that letter clearly identified that the changes that have been added would be contentious, so that is adding further delay. There are a variety of elements that stray outside the clear consensus that was set out in the 2019 proposals. However, we are committed to seeing an end to a system that holds lots of unnecessary cost implications for the NHS. There is an urgent need to stabilise and give clarity of employment, particularly for the 27,000-plus people who are currently in a state of flux, moving between the clinical commissioning groups and the proposed new ICSs.
There are some clear areas where we would like to talk to you about amending, improving and strengthening what is in the legislation at the moment. There is very, very clear support for following through on the commitments in that 2019 letter, to strip away the unnecessary procurement and competition regime.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: The BMA was very opposed, and I believe rightly so, to the changes in 2012. We felt they introduced unnecessary competition in the NHS that did not work, has not worked, was not good for the taxpayer, fragmented the service and increased private sector involvement, which we can talk about later. We were very supportive of any changes that would reverse that legislation and have a duty of collaboration. In fact, I led a piece of work at the BMA called “Caring, supportive, collaborative: a future vision for the NHS”, where we spelled out the sort of arrangements we believe would be right, in keeping with the principles of the national health service, and be right for patients, right for the workforce and right for the taxpayer.
In principle, the idea that the Government were relooking at or reversing the 2012 Act was something we supported. In one way, you could say that the repealing of section 75 is an element that we are supportive of. However, in doing so there are not sufficient safeguards and we believe there are many consequences that would actually do the reverse, in particular with regards to a lack of assuredness around national health service providers being supported, in terms of the continuation—we can talk about this later—of unequal arrangements for the private sector provision of care compared to the NHS, and in terms of the lack of clinical engagement that would ensue. Of course, we are getting rid of a whole tier of local commissioning organisations, CCGs, and moving them at a more distant level, called ICSs. We are very concerned about that.
We are also concerned about some of the Secretary of State’s powers and the balance between political accountability and political influence. There is a range of issues here that we think need to be addressed.
The other thing I should say is that we are in the midst of a pandemic. It is by no means over. It is hard to grasp the scale of the backlog of care. These changes have occurred when the profession has not been able to engage. I have not had the time to properly be involved in the input. With the BMA I have, but my colleagues have not. We believe that this is the wrong Bill at the wrong time. We should really address what the NHS needs and get the right Bill at the right time, in due course.
Edward Timpson
Q
Sara Gorton: When we set out our support along with other parties in 2019, we saw huge benefits from not wasting unnecessary time, process, money and oversight on unnecessary competition, particularly where no provider other than the NHS was capable of providing the service. We support the removal of the role, as set out in that consensus letter, and that has travelled through to the legislation.
Where we think this could be more robust is the so-called provider selection regime that backs up exactly how the process will be carried out. We think that needs to be extended to make it absolutely explicit that the NHS is the preferred provider where there is an NHS service, that there need to be limits placed on roll-over without scrutiny from external providers and that that provision should be extended to cover non-clinical services. I think that earlier in the week you heard from employers how important the whole-team—the one-team—approach had been during the pandemic and how crucial that had been to tackling the spread of the virus and the work that the NHS had done. We think that principle should be extended and placed in the provider selection regime as well.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: We absolutely agree that repealing section 75 is something the BMA has called for since 2012. It has been a nonsense that every single contract up to this point has to be put out to tender: huge amounts of waste of taxpayers’ money and of time. As a GP, we were not even able to provide our own phlebotomy services without it going through a process, so in that sense, that is a good thing. However, just repealing section 75 without complementing it with the right tools to ensure collaboration will not work. In fact, the current arrangements repeal section 75 but do not provide any safeguards, or rather structural processes, that will, in our view, allow the NHS to work as a collaborative system.
The example I will give is that we believe the NHS should be the preferred provider of care wherever it is capable and wherever it is available to do so. There is so much evidence. People say: “Does it matter who provides?” Well, it does matter, and all the evidence in the last few years has shown repeated examples. Some of you will remember Circle taking over Hinchingbrooke Hospital. It is very easy for the private sector to say: “You know what? We will really run the NHS efficiently. We will use all the market skills we have.” The NHS does not work like that. We forget at our peril the added value, the accountability, the loyalty and the good will that the NHS provides. We really do.
We only have to look back at the last year. Compare the vaccination programme run by the NHS and delivered by NHS staff to Test and Trace. Even with Test and Trace, compare the £400 million that Public Health England had to the billions that went to the private sector, and local public health teams reached 97% of contacts compared to 60% for the others. I am saying that it does matter. Your local acute trust is not there on a 10-year contract, willing to walk away after two years. It is there for your population; it cannot walk away. I think that given those things, we need to make sure the NHS is the preferred provider.
The Chair
Could I just ask you to keep your answers to within the scope of the Bill, please? Also, I ask if we could perhaps have more succinct answers. I still have several people who want to ask questions and we do not have a lot of time to get them in. I intend to call the Front Bench spokespeople at about 10 minutes to 12. I now move to the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), but if we could keep to the confines of the Bill, that would be good.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
Q
Sara Gorton: This is a matter of no small significance to organisations such as my own that have membership across the UK. That ability to understand and translate the statistics that we get from one environment in the UK to another, and understand how that feeds through and get a whole picture of it, is really difficult at the moment. That is not just for the basic nuts and bolts of who is in the workforce at the moment, doing what job—the training plans, the workforce planning, and other aspects of workforce are really difficult to compare.
The short answer is that we would like to be involved in the interpretation, assuming that we do get that amendment through and the workforce reporting is on a more frequent basis than five years. We would like to be involved in the conversation about what that looks like, and how it can answer some of the issues that you have raised about feeding into a UK-wide perspective as well.
Hywel Williams
Q
Sara Gorton: That is not something we have considered in the passage of the legislation so far, but we are certainly willing to talk about it in future.
Hywel Williams
Q
Sara Gorton: There are all sorts of workforce aspects that are very relevant to the England and Wales environment. The joint systems we have for pay and pensions, and workforce planning as well, all need to be factored in, but lots of work on the detail of the workforce reporting is needed.
Dr James Davies
Q
Sara Gorton: That is not an area of the Bill that we focused on. Our main focus is on extending the provisions of the provider selection regime—the procurement. I can do some more work and send in something.
Dr Davies
Q
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: I can tell you, just from the personal experience of being a GP over 30 years and speaking to doctors and representing doctors, that clinical engagement is vital. None of us can have any workplace that functions well until those who work within it feel engaged—feel that their voice is heard and their experience is understood. One of my biggest concerns about the current arrangements is that at the moment, for example, we have clinical commissioning groups. We have had seven GPs in my local area representing me and my colleagues. That is going to whittle down to no one, except one primary care doctor—we think—on an ICS board, which will be more remote, so we are diluting that local accountability. We vote for those doctors who sit on the CCG boards; we will not have any voting, so you are reducing the numbers who are influencing.
The second point is that we believe that those who sit on ICS boards should be facing the reality of the clinicians they represent. In the medical profession, we have two statutory bodies—the local medical committees and the local negotiating committees—that represent hospital doctors and GPs, and we believe that they should be there because of their motive: they will be clinicians representing clinicians, as opposed to what sometimes happens, which is doctors becoming managers. We know that that just disconnects, and if you have a disconnect, you will not be able to deliver your aims as a health service.
The other notable omission in the Bill, we believe, is the lack of public health presence. There is no place for a public health doctor. Again, I know that it is not in the scope of the Bill, but I think we have to learn from the past year. Public health is vital.
The Chair
We should stick to within the scope of the Bill.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: The scope of the Bill should include a public health doctor who is independent, who should be an advocate. Those of you who were present in the 1990s will know that is exactly what we had. An independent public health voice on ICS boards can provide proper independent advice on population health. These are meant to be population commissioning bodies, in the interests of the public. Those are the things that we think should be changed.
The Chair
Would anybody else like to ask a question from the Back Benches before I move to the Front-Bench spokespeople? Okay, that means that the SNP and Labour spokespeople have around 10 minutes. If they could keep it between nine and 10 minutes, that would be appreciated. I call Dr Philippa Whitford.
Dr Whitford
Q
I will ask each of you the same question. Obviously, the aim of the Committee is to improve the Bill and bring in voices. Sara, if you could amend only one part of the Bill, what would it be, and what change do you think would improve it to the greatest degree? I know that you may have three or four—your submissions are here—but what do you want us to do that would have the biggest impact in improving what actually happens to health and social care?
Sara Gorton: I am going to choose something that I think none of the other people you hear from, except staff representative bodies, will pick up on. We would like to see the principle set out in the NHS constitution: to involve staff in decision making about how the service that they work in is set up and run, and in decisions that could affect the way they work. That principle is very clear in the NHS constitution; at the moment, with the system set up the way it is, that is transacted through the relationships that staff have with their employers at a provider level. If the system proposed in the Bill comes in, one of the risks is that that may be undercut by decisions made at ICS level. I think trade unions and staff would feel as though they had a stake and would be reassured that they had involvement in future decisions with workforce implications made by those new bits of the system if that pledge were placed in the legislation and were the underpinning principle.
Dr Whitford
Thank you very much. Certainly, for some of the projects in Scotland around quality improvement or patient safety, the involvement of staff has actually made that work. Dr Nagpaul, I am pinning you down to one area and one change that you think will make a big difference.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: The area would be around collaboration. We would want the section 75 regulations to be amended to make the NHS the preferred provider where it is able to do that. As part of that, there would be legislative changes on the duties of foundation trusts and other NHS providers to collaborate. We believe that at the moment, the changes for section 75 do not tally with any such duty, and we find that providers are focused on their own budgets and balance sheets, so you are talking about collaboration but not enabling it. We would want both those changes.
Dr Whitford
Q
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: Can I come back on that? At the moment, we are seeing foundation trusts thinking about their budgets, community providers thinking about theirs, and general practice as well. There is not even collaboration between the community and the hospital. No foundation trust currently has the ability to say, for example, “We will go beyond our budget and invest in the community—it may actually reduce our hospital admissions.” At the moment there is no structure of processes to enable collaboration even within the NHS.
Dr Whitford
Q
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: It is only looking at it—like sitting around the table. We have had a lot of these arrangements in the past. Until you actually change the duty of a foundation trust to collaborate, so that its board meetings are no longer focused purely on its own balance sheet but actually look at the good of the local community as a statutory change, we do not think this will work. It will just be aspirational.
Dr Whitford
Q
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: We are supportive of the concept of the HSIB. We know that the NHS is riddled with a fear culture and a targeting of individuals for systemic failures. Based upon the aviation industry, it is absolutely right to have arrangements whereby you can learn from serious incidents, and healthcare staff, doctors and patients have a safe place where they are free, without fear, to contribute and learn from such incidents.
What is important—this is something we learned from a previous episode involving a doctor called Doctor Bawa-Garba, where there were a lot of issues around her information being disclosed—is that safe places should be safe places. They should be legally privileged. That will allow us to make the NHS safer, because I think that openness will allow us to address the systemic issues that actually make up the majority of medical errors in our health service.
Dr Whitford
Q
Sara Gorton: The HSSIB is not an area that we have covered and focused on in our response, but like the BMA we are strongly supportive of attempts to drive a just and learning culture across the NHS. We have participated, through the social partnership forum in the NHS, in trying to spread that culture, and we are strongly supportive of the Freedom To Speak Up Guardian programme that is in operation in the NHS in England and its interaction with staff and their representative bodies.
Dr Whitford
Q
Sara Gorton: Yes, indeed—certainly no opposition to that.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Q
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: Yes. If you repeal section 75 but do not allow the NHS to be a preferred provider, we believe that opens the door for contracts to be handed out to the private sector and undermines the NHS.
Although it may fall out of scope, the point is that there is every reason for the NHS to be a preferred provider. The point I am making is that the NHS really is effective and cost-effective, and allows for a population approach from providers that have accountability to local populations.
The other problem we have at the moment, unless you put in legislation to make the NHS the preferred provider, is that at the moment a lot of contracts are going out to the private sector and are affecting workforce training. In some areas, cataract operations have been moved en bloc into the private sector, meaning that ophthalmology trainees are not even seeing them, and the providers that are providing cataract operations are being paid the same sum of money but not providing the full service.
Another problem we have at the moment is cherry-picking. It has been there since 2012 and nothing in this Bill is legislatively addressing that. It means that you pay the same amount to a hospital—I am a GP and there is a list of exclusion criteria for any patient who has co-morbidities or complex conditions, so I cannot refer them there—but when something goes wrong in the middle of the night or on a weekend, they end up in the A&E of our local hospital.
That is why we believe it is really important that the Bill is amended to make the NHS the preferred provider; that is what we are referring to. We believe it will allow for a much more co-ordinated, accountable, locally focused and population-approach health service.
Justin Madders
Q
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: If we have a Bill that is designed to support the NHS, we just feel that it does not make sense to then allow a private provider to sit on a commissioning board. We believe that there is an inherent conflict of interest. It is really important to understand that there is a difference between the private provider and the NHS. The private provider is ultimately driven by its financial motives, and to be sitting on a board influencing the spend of money where it may have an interest is a conflict of interest. That does not apply to the NHS. A doctor from a hospital does not have any financial gain to be made. I come back to the fact that we need to support the NHS, not as an ideological principle, but because it actually works.
Justin Madders
Q
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: No, I do not. If the NHS cannot provide a service—if it does not have the capacity—and there is a private sector contract, the private provider needs to be held to account to deliver. As I say, I think the same rules should be applied, so that if there is a complication, they need to be accountable for that complication, rather than the patient going back to the NHS, which picks up the pieces. There is a need to hold private providers to account where they are contracted to provide care, but we do not approve of them sitting on the commissioning board, which is about the use of public resources in the interests of local populations. That should be a commissioning decision, and commissioners who are accountable to the NHS and providers of the NHS should be sitting as part of that arrangement.
Justin Madders
Q
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: Sure. One is the NHS mandate, which spells out how the NHS functions. At the moment, the powers allow the Secretary of State to amend the mandate. We would like that to be affirmative. We would like it to be approved by Parliament, and therefore Parliament would vote to agree changes to the mandate. That is one area.
The other concern is about the local reconfigurations. We know how politically sensitive these things can be. We would not want the Secretary of State to have disproportionate powers in those arrangements, which will often be more susceptible to political influence. We think that those need to be safeguarded by mandated clinician involvement, so that we make the right decisions about local services. It is a counterbalance: we want a health service that has local clinician leadership, but on the other hand the Secretary of State can intervene. We think that is an amendment that needs to be made.
Justin Madders
Q
Sara Gorton: There are a couple of points to raise here. First, we would like to see in the legislation confirmation of what we have been given assurances of in guidance and conversation—that there is no intention for any new parts of the system to undermine the existing collective arrangements and that, for the workforce I represent, the collective agenda for change agreement would apply for their staff. There is a very clear amendment that could be supported to ensure the new bodies are listed as what are called annex 1 employers in the relevant terms and conditions documents. That is one aspect.
The other aspect is the role that the provider selection regime can play—sorry, not the provider selection regime; what are called the people responsibilities, which are set out in some of the guidance materials that have only been recently published to support the legislation. They set out 10 areas relating to workforce over which the new bodies may have scope. We would like to see those areas of scope clearly defined within the legislation. That is why what I said earlier about the commitment to involve staff through the constitution promise is so important. We want to ensure that, if decisions are made at system level that undercut the role that staff have in making decisions within providers—if there are overarching decisions made about workforce—staff have an opportunity, through their representatives, to understand what the impact might be and to influence that conversation.
Justin Madders
Q
Sara Gorton: We are supposed to stick to polite language in here, aren’t we? You can all probably imagine what most of our members feel. Sticking within the scope of the Bill, as we have been asked to, the relevant segue is to go back to the extension of the provider selection regime to the non-clinical services. We are strongly supportive of the measures that have been put in place to ensure that service sustainability and social value are taken into account. Clearly, however, extending those provisions to non-clinical services would create a culture of in-sourcing, of valuing all members of the healthcare team equally, and place those on an equal footing.
Justin Madders
Q
Sara Gorton: As you have hopefully seen in our briefing, we are calling for that to be either explained in much more detail in the guidance, or dropped from the legislation. We are already seeing concerns from regulated occupations that this could lead to a sort of “regulation-lite” scenario, and there are concerns that, without it being clear exactly what the proposals would entail, this could be a hostage to fortune. We would very much like to see some clarity on that, or have it taken out at this stage.
Justin Madders
Q
Sara Gorton: What we are more concerned about is the potential risk that, if involved in the ICBs and in the partnerships, they could exert influence over the exploratory stage of discussions, which could tilt the balance their way. That seems out of kilter when we do not have clarity that staff of the NHS will have the opportunity to be involved at the same sort of level. We are very keen to ensure that we support amendments making any of the processes, and the way that the boards meet, more transparent, and, clearly, subject to the freedom of information process.
Justin Madders
Q
Sara Gorton: At the moment, there is no explicit route through. What is set out in the published guidance documents is that the route for trade unions to be involved will be through the regional structures of NHS England and NHS Improvement. That is at a distance, and potentially after decisions have been made. Putting in a clear link, through that staff pledge in the NHS constitution and having that underpinning in the legislation, would really make clear the principle of staff involvement and engagement at the earliest stage of decisions.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
Q
To both of you, do you think that now is the right time? I know that Chand has answered that, but this second part might apply to him: if it is not, when is the right time?
Sara Gorton: We were strong opponents of the 2012 legislation, so, in our view, the right time to do this would have been to not put that legislation through. However, we have been waiting for this batch of changes for some time. It has been evident, from 2013-14, and certainly since the “Five Year Forward View” was published, that what we were doing was having a structural workaround with people tacitly agreeing to almost ignore legislation. That is just not acceptable in the system.
Certainly, for my members who have been moved into new arm’s length bodies, moved around those bodies, and are now subject to another change, they want the security of knowing who is going to be employing them this time next year. In our view, the changes, both to the competition and procurement regime, and to clarifying how the new bodies will operate and what powers they will have, cannot wait. There are lots of other aspects that, as you can see from our briefing, we suggest could wait for future debate.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: I want to be clear: we do not support the status quo. There is a pressing need to repeal much of the 2012 Act. However, I cannot overestimate how much the pandemic has affected us. We have not been able to be engaged, so it has to be asked: why do we need the Bill at this moment in time, when we are all absolutely overwhelmed? We know that any reorganisation of the health service means that people get distracted from their core work. The process of reorganisation takes human resource time. We have not been able to engage with this as we should, so we do not think that this is the right time.
The right time would be decided by two factors: first, when we are through the worst of what we are going through at the moment, and secondly, when the legitimate concerns we have are addressed, and there are the amendments that we would like to see. This Bill can shape the future of our health service. Get the right Bill, at the right time.
Edward Argar
Q
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: I am afraid I will have to let you know later, as I do not, off the top of my head, know exactly what those Bills contained.
Edward Argar
Q
Dr Chaand Nagpaul: First, the rules at the moment do not factor in that the NHS provides, in addition to the service, a complete, full body of care for patients. The same money would go on a hip replacement in the private sector. Secondly, there is the training element that I mentioned earlier. Thirdly, no acute NHS trust can walk away after two years—it is there to provide care to its population—but Serco was able to walk away after two years. We have many examples of private companies that have ended their GP contracts. Serco left an out-of-hours contract in Cornwall; that does not happen in the NHS. My local hospital has been there for as long as I can remember—it cannot walk away. The NHS provides accountability and duty, but more importantly, it is actually cost-effective. The staff have national terms and conditions; they provide huge amounts of good will and work above their contracts. It just makes sense to be resourcing our NHS.
Every time you take a contract away from the NHS, it is defunding the local system. We want taxpayers’ money to bolster an NHS that is co-ordinated, because we also want changes in the legislative requirements for foundation trusts and other NHS bodies to collaborate.
Edward Argar
Q
Sara Gorton: What the legislation sets out is a proposal for system working. Therefore, having something that disrupts that system is potentially counterproductive. I strongly support putting the NHS first—the NHS default—into the provider selection regime that is listed in clause 68.
Justin Madders
On a point of order, Mrs Murray. On the Minister’s question to the BMA witness about previous Acts that the BMA may have endorsed, that would clearly be out of scope as evidence. I would not want Dr Nagpaul to waste time researching an answer that the Committee could not take into account.
Edward Argar
Further to that point of order, Mrs Murray. Would it help if I set out the context in which I believe that question relates directly to the content of the Bill? Much of what is discussed in the Bill relates to previous legislation that has grown up over time; understanding which pieces of legislation the BMA supports will help us to better understand the evidence it has put forward on this legislation, and its context.
The Chair
Mr Madders, I think that the Minister has taken on board your point of order and paid attention to it. Thank you, Minister.
As there are no further questions, because we are out of time, I thank our witnesses very much for their evidence. We will move on to the next panel.
Examination of Witnesses
Professor Martin Marshall, Pat Cullen and Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear from Professor Martin Marshall, the chair of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners; Pat Cullen, the general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing; and Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, the chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges—all of whom are appearing in person. Starting with Pat Cullen, could I ask you to introduce yourselves for the record?
Pat Cullen: I am Pat Cullen. Thank you for inviting me along. I am the recently appointed chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing. We are a trade union and a professional organisation, and we represent more than 480,000 nurses.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: Hi! I am Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, and I am chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. The Academy is the umbrella body for all the medical royal colleges in the UK and Ireland; we also cover the independent medical faculties.
Professor Martin Marshall: Good afternoon, everybody. I am Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners and a practising GP in Newham in east London.
The Chair
Thank you. We have until 1 pm for this session, so I propose the same timings as for the last one. I call on Back-Bench Members to indicate if they have any questions.
Dr James Davies
Q
Pat Cullen: We have yet to submit our evidence in relation to the Bill—we are currently doing that. It is very clear to us and our members that the Bill does not go far enough on accountability for the workforce. We are very clear that the workforce shortages in nursing are not addressed properly through the Bill.
The Chair
Could you speak up a little bit, please? We are finding it quite difficult to hear you.
Pat Cullen: That is not normal, mind you, for a woman from Northern Ireland! I will try again. Principally, our response to the Bill is that the accountability issues do not go far enough in the Bill. We are asking for the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to not only clearly have full accountability and responsibility for the assessment of workforce planning, but ensure accountability for the delivery of the workforce. It is not just about the assessment. We are all clear about and know about—it has been played out well—the shortages of nursing staff. We had 40,000 vacancies heading into the pandemic. We make up 26% of the workforce. Everywhere you see a patient, you see a nurse, and we need nurses. That is the only way to provide the best care for our patients. We say that the legislator at the highest level must have that accountability and responsibility for the assessment and the delivery of the workforce shortages in nursing.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has worked very closely with the Government on the development of the Bill, and we have been very grateful for the opportunity to collaborate so far. We have been largely supportive of the direction of travel, but the workforce, in clause 33 particularly, is the one area where we probably still have the greatest concern. We feel that it needs to go further. That builds on exactly what Pat has said. Along with other organisations such as the RCN, we have co-signed an amendment that goes further on that.
We feel that workforce planning needs to be very transparent and collaborative across multiple organisations and agencies, but ultimately owned by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. It needs to take on board both the projected supply of workforce already in the pipeline and projected demand. We anticipate that the line representing workforce supply going upwards, and the line representing the demand for need and care climbing even more steeply. There is a gap between them that, at the moment, we cannot quantify. It needs to be quantified and made transparent. Even if the state does not feel it can fund for that gap, we should not be afraid of knowledge. Without knowledge, we run into the risk of repeating historical cycles of boom and bust when it comes to workforce planning. That would be our big plea to you: try to strengthen that, and please do not fear knowledge—it will help us in the end.
Professor Martin Marshall: The Royal College of General Practitioners, as members of the Academy, are completely in line with Helen’s position. There is a marked workforce crisis relating to general practitioners and other health professionals who work in general practice. Without an adequate workforce, it will be very difficult to deliver any of the ambitions of the Bill, so we are absolutely in favour of a much stronger emphasis on workforce. I think workforce planning is an oxymoron and has been for many years in the NHS. This is an opportunity to do something about it.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
Q
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: We have thought about this seriously—what would be a sensible interval? Having discussed this extensively with colleagues right across the health and care landscape, we have come to the conclusion that two-yearly feels about right. Annually just feels too intense, and it would be too labour-intensive to get meaningful data out in that period; you would run the risk of fatigue in the system. If we go much longer than two years, we run the risk of fundamental change coming into the system—another pandemic or some other national thing happening that needs to be factored in, and of which we need to be made aware. We have come down on two years, and that is the proposal that we put forward.
Every time, the work needs to look five, 10 and 20 years ahead. We need that longer-term projection. It takes so long to train doctors—that is the agency that I represent—from their entry to medical school to consultant independent practice that you need to have that time lag built into the system. That way, you can look at the totality of the workforce and ensure that you have the right interim solutions for the needs of the population.
Chris Skidmore
Q
Pat Cullen: Yes, we would certainly agree. We believe that annual plans are too short-term for the reasons that Helen has laid out—training nurses takes three years, and when you think about the added training for clinical specialist nurses and other advanced nurses in practice, it absolutely needs to be at least two years.
Professor Martin Marshall: We agree that two years is the right interval. I think the request of HEE to produce a high-level framework is a good start—that is correct—but it is just a start, and a high-level framework does not help workforce planning on the ground. It is right that most workforce planning should happen at a local level, but some elements need to be managed nationally. Basically, this is such an important issue for the NHS that it needs to be absolutely top priority in the Bill.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: I am conscious that I did not answer the second part of your question about who should be involved. We propose that this be led by Health Education England, but it has to be done in collaboration with NHS England. We cannot look at the needs of the population without involving them. There are other bodies, too. For doctors in particular, we would argue that the Medical Schools Council and the GMC have to be involved. I am sure Pat will have similar views.
In terms of population needs, we need to look at the Office for Budget Responsibility and use the resources of the Office for National Statistics. We need to go widely on this; it is not about saying, “That is one person’s problem to sort, and then the Secretary of State signs it off.” This is a truly collaborative effort, and we need to legislate for and enable collaboration in the greatest possible sense.
Chris Skidmore
Q
Professor Martin Marshall: Universities have an enormous amount to offer. If we look at the way that universities have operated in academic health science networks in the current structures, in many parts they have played a really significant role. I absolutely think that ICSs give us an opportunity to bring universities into the debate.
Education is particularly important here. If the Bill is to achieve its potential of better population health, there are some massive training leads for all the workforce, and universities clearly need to be involved in that process.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: To supplement what Martin has said, we have not criticised what the Bill says at the moment. For us, this is where the Bill is an enabler, and we hope it is a greater enabler that what we have currently. In that sense, the logical thing to do next is greater collaboration. The challenge with legislation is that although it can remove barriers and enable, it does not actually change culture. We need to engage with the individuals who are establishing this and ensure that the frontline educators and clinicians are on board with it to make it a reality.
Clearly, I support what Martin said about the vital need for education right across the piece. I think you will find that the universities are very much up for that and keen. It has been difficult to expand training places across nursing and medicine in short order, but it is something the universities are really stepping up to do. I think we would all argue that we want to go further and faster to deliver the best possible care for the public.
The Chair
Thank you very much. We have about 10 minutes, and three people have indicated that they want to ask questions, so if we could direct our questions to one person and keep questions and answers brief, that would be very helpful, because I would like to include everybody.
Hywel Williams
Q
Pat Cullen: We have had some thoughts about this across the countries—and we can learn from all of the countries, really. Of course, you will know from my accent that I come from Northern Ireland, and our regulator is a four-country regulator. In relation to the standards that are referred to within the Bill, I think our royal college will play an important role in terms of working with our regulator to look at some of the devolved responsibilities and the role that we can play in setting standards for our profession, and assisting and supporting our regulator in the setting of those standards right across the country, and obviously the other countries as well.
More recently, we have just brought out our nursing workforce standards, which apply across the four countries, and we had significant engagement in those right across the four countries. If you look at those standards being aligned in the new Bill and reading across to the new Bill, working across with our regulator and having more powers devolved to a royal college will enhance the regulator’s response to standards and the applicability of those standards, and their implementation across the countries.
Edward Timpson
Q
Professor Martin Marshall: We have pushed very hard for clinical representation on the board, and I think that the acknowledgement that a primary care representative is required is absolutely right. Of course, one representative is not going to change the world, but there is something symbolic about it, and there is something about having a primary care voice that is really important. The nature of that primary care voice is interesting, because of course, general practice is a multi-disciplinary specialty, and we work very closely with our nursing colleagues, our pharmacy colleagues and a whole range of different clinical disciplines. I think that in most localities, it is likely that a GP will be the representative of primary care, most obviously because general practice has a long track record of being involved in the management of the NHS, and the onus will then be on that general practitioner to represent all of the primary care voices. As a college, just last week we had a very productive workshop involving all the different specialties in primary care, and a strong sense of consensus that we must and will work together to drive this forward.
I have a particular focus on the primary care voice—I guess that is my job; Helen might refer to other clinical voices—but it is particularly important for primary care, for the simple reason that in primary care, we deal with about 90% of the presentations that come to the NHS every day. We live in, and are closest to, the communities that we serve. We are trained to address the broader determinants of health. We are trained as doctors, as GPs, for example, but we are trained to understand the social determinants of health and health inequalities. Everything that is important about this Bill is stuff that general practice is expert in, so we feel the general practice voice is really important.
One of our biggest concerns—not so much with the legislation, but the way that this is likely to play out on the ground—is that the general practice voice threatens to be diminished as a consequence of the change in legislation around CCGs. If you look at what the boards will look like, we know that the acute trusts will still have their governance arrangements and their budgets. CCGs are going to disappear. We are not necessarily saying that that is the wrong thing, but it means that a lot of the experienced clinical leaders in CCGs risk getting lost, and we know that that is not happening in some of the ICSs around the country, but it is happening in others. The CCG staff are just being transferred into the ICSs, but there is a real risk that the leaders who have been around for a decade or two decades, who understand the nature of organisational change and understand what the Bill is trying to achieve, will get lost. We know from the evidence that the most successful integrated care organisations around the world are the ones that are primary care led, so if primary care does not have a dominant voice, the ICSs are much less likely to achieve their potential.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
Q
I would like to ask this to everybody. Personally, I think this issue of clinical representation is a backwards step in this Bill. You may or may not want to say whether you think that is true, but given that you have said that successful organisations are primary care-led, and none of these organisations will be clinically-led, let alone primary care-led, that is not rectifiable in the Bill through an amendment, I suspect. How will we ensure that these organisations are successful from a clinical leadership perspective, given the current state of the legislation, or would you be putting forward suggestions for amendments? I am sorry, but I do not think I have time to ask all three of you. Currently, CCGs are GP-led, so—
The Chair
We have about three minutes, so could you keep your answers to one minute each?
Professor Martin Marshall: I speak very rapidly.
“How?” is an interesting question. Can it be done in legislation? I think there have to be some legislative levers to ensure that this happens properly on the ground. There are some examples—one in Surrey and one in Gloucestershire—where there is already a very strong commitment to a robust primary care voice, so there is something about shining a light on those examples, which others can learn from. That is not a legislative responsibility, but it is a really important one. There is certainly something about holding localities to account and understanding what is happening on the ground at regular intervals, in terms of whether those voices are present and whether they are being heard.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: I would strongly advocate that everyone takes a look at the very excellent document that NHS England put out just a few days ago, which is about implementation guidance for ICSs on clinical leadership. I have to say that whoever put it together absolutely nailed it, in terms of what to do and how. There is a how-to guide there. I had no input into it, so I feel I can shamelessly give you that, because there are a lot of answers in there.
The legislation as it stands on clinical leadership does not prevent any of those things, as I understand it. That goes back to my other point about ensuring that the legislation removes barriers and is a facilitative enabler of these things. Clearly, my colleagues have more specific things about it. I just want to draw to your attention to the fact that it says that clinicians who get involved in leadership need to be supported, protected and resourced to do so, because unfortunately clinician time is expensive. That comes back to the original conversation about workforce, but we have to factor it in. The evidence is quite clear that better clinical input in all disciplines helps systems run better and be safer. It is more cost-effective, but that needs support factored in from the outside.
Pat Cullen: You will not be surprised to hear me say that the Bill does not go far enough, and we will be looking for an amendment. There absolutely needs to be a director of nursing at the top table if you are to prevent what has happened and what has gone before, where the financial balancing of books significantly impacts the decisions of that table. The only way to ensure patient safety and quality of care, and that the workforce that we deserve and need for our patients are paramount and the centre of those discussions, is to have our clinical leaders at the top table. That must be a director of nursing, not only to bring evidence on the clinical care that needs to be delivered to the table to shape each strategic decision, but to hold that person to account for our workforce and ensure that the workforce is available to provide care for our patients.
The Chair
Thank you very much. We now turn to the SNP spokesperson, Dr Philippa Whitford. You have about seven minutes.
Dr Whitford
Q
Pat Cullen: No surprise, it is the accountability for workforce planning sitting and resting with the Secretary of State. I do not think any legislator or politician should have any issue with that. It is not about accountability being forced and pushed to the frontline. Of course, frontline clinical staff will have accountability and responsibility for the delivery of care, but that needs to be enshrined in legislation, and the Secretary of State needs to hold full accountability for workforce assessment and planning, and for ensuring that we have the workforce to deliver the best care for our patients. We owe that to every single nurse in the services today.
Dr Whitford
Q
Pat Cullen: Absolutely, and of course we look with envy at Wales and Scotland, although Scotland is lagging behind our Welsh colleagues in terms of safe staffing legislation. We will certainly push for safe staffing legislation to be brought forward in England as well. Of course, it is no surprise to anyone that our wonderful nurses moved to industrial action in Northern Ireland to push not for pay, but for safe nurse staffing legislation. That is what is important to every single nurse who is trying to care for their patients today.
Dr Whitford
Q
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: My one place is the same: the workforce issue and clause 33. It is about looking at both the supply of the workforce and the needs of the population—I think it has to be both those things. The responsibility rests with the Secretary of State.
Professor Martin Marshall: I have stated mine already: the strong general practice voice is what will make a difference. That is what will turn a currently fragmented service into an integrated one, and a service that is focused on treating diseases into one focused on preventing them.
Dr Whitford
Q
Professor Martin Marshall: Considerably tighter than it is at the moment. I am absolutely in support of safe spaces. A culture change needs to happen here, and legislation seems to be one of the ways of trying to promote that to get us into a much happier space than at the moment.
Dr Whitford
Q
Professor Martin Marshall: I am not sure I know enough about it to be able to answer that question, I am afraid.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: The academy’s position is that we support the proposals as they are worded—we have not suggested any amendments to them. We certainly believe that putting HSIB on a more formal footing is the right thing to do. On what Martin said about safe spaces being the right thing going forward, there may be detail and finessing in the implementation of that, but no concerns have been raised with us as an organisation representing royal colleges.
The Chair
Pat, before you speak, could I ask you to swivel the microphone to your left towards you a bit? We are still having difficulty hearing you.
Pat Cullen: Can you hear me now? I do not know whether it is my accent or my voice.
It is no surprise to us that the Royal College of Nursing opposes—
Dr Whitford
Could you speak a wee bit louder? I am from Northern Ireland as well and we can definitely speak loudly when we want to.
Pat Cullen: We fundamentally oppose the power of the Secretary of State to authorise disclosure, and we will be looking for amendments. We believe that we must protect whistleblowers. They must come forward. That is the only way that we can learn lessons and make sure that our services are fit for purpose, and that we learn from that, so we will be looking for amendments.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Pat Cullen: Where do I start? They feel exhausted, demoralised; they are tired to say the least, and they are very concerned about the future. Why is that? Because they do not have the workforce to deliver.
The Chair
Could I just remind the shadow Minister to stick within the scope of the Bill, please?
Alex Norris
On a point of order, Mrs Murray. How our staff are at the moment is within the scope of a Bill about the NHS, I would have thought.
The Chair
Okay, but can we just make sure that we stay within the scope of the Bill?
Pat Cullen: I will try and answer in relation to the Bill. All the issues that I have just spoken about in relation to that exhaustion, the tiredness and the fact that they are not able to provide the care for their patients—there are opportunities in the Bill to correct some of those things. Again, going back—I hate to harp back to it in my Northern Ireland words—but the fact is that if we ensure that accountability sits with the legislator and with the Secretary of State, to ensure that we do not find ourselves back in this place again, with 40,000 vacancies going into a pandemic or at any other emergency situation we find our nurses in, that will absolutely assist and support. However, there are opportunities for the workforce in the Bill that we do not believe are being grasped at the minute, and that is further adding to the demoralisation that they are feeling.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: I will keep it succinct. I completely agree that the clinical workforce—doctors—are demoralised, and I think anxiety would be the greatest feedback that we get: anxiety and fear of the amount of risk that is being held in the system at the moment. We are in the grip of a third wave of this pandemic, which many in the media seem to have completely forgotten about. People are dying by their hundreds on a daily basis still. This is a huge challenge. It goes back to exactly the point in the Bill about workforce planning for the future, so that we never find ourselves in a similar situation again. While we cannot predict when the next pandemic will hit, we can certainly be assured that another pandemic will come. The challenges around the climate and the global problems are going to impact on our health and wellbeing hugely, and we can plan for them now if we choose to. So, fearful and anxious, but we can do something about it. We have a unique moment in time to grasp this, and this legislation is one part of that unique moment in time.
Professor Martin Marshall: You will not be surprised to hear that morale in general practice is at rock bottom. We read about it in the newspapers every day. Surveys that we have conducted of our members suggest that 60% of GPs say that their mental health has deteriorated significantly over the last year. Anxiety, depression, suicide, ideation—33% of GPs say that at least once a week they find it almost impossible—
The Chair
Order. Could we keep to referring to what is in the Bill, please?
Professor Martin Marshall: Yes, and I am going to do so. The issue here is that if you speak to GPs, because of the stats that I have just described to you, nobody is talking about the Bill.
The Chair
But we are here to talk about the Bill.
Professor Martin Marshall: And almost nobody is talking about the implications of the Bill, because I guess our job is to engage clinicians with the potential of the Bill.
The Chair
I am just saying from the Chair that we are here to talk about what is in the Bill and to take evidence on the Bill, so we should stay within the confines of what is in the Bill.
Alex Norris
Q
Professor Martin Marshall: There could not be a worse time for general practice to introduce the Bill, but I do not think that means it should not happen. It has to happen now. The NHS is ready for it, so it has to happen. The fact that general practice does not have the capacity or capability to engage fully with the implications of the Bill will mean that the Bill will not realise its full potential.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: From my point of view, there is never an ideal time to introduce legislation and, certainly, in the midst of a global pandemic is on nobody’s agenda as a good time to do anything legislatively. However, the consequences of not doing it are that the integrated care systems, which are in a really vital part of their evolution and formation, will stall and therefore are far more likely to fail. So my view and the view of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges is that we absolutely must go ahead with this legislation in the timeframe. There is never a good time to have a baby or move house, but you still need to crack on and do these things at bad times.
Pat Cullen: Same here: never a right time. If you were to ask nurses on the ground today, carrying out patient care in frontline services, they would say that anything that might improve where things are at the minute will be a bonus. But the issue is how it plays out and whether we are listened to. The professional royal colleges do represent nurses. I am here representing 480,000 nurses today. It is really important that we get this right. There is never a right time, but it is actually a great time if we do get it right.
Alex Norris
Q
Professor Martin Marshall: I cited earlier the example in Gloucestershire. It has very purposefully built a primary care subgroup of the board in order to provide that clinical expertise and that clinical sounding board to everything that goes on at board level. That seems to me to be a really good way of moving on from a single GP on the board—which will be helpful but will have limited impact—to actually making a real difference on the ground. The real change, of course, will not happen at ICS level anyway. It will happen at local level; it will happen at the place level. That is where real change in integrated care, from the patient perspective, will be enacted and will be felt.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: To build on what Martin has said, there are great examples of clinical panels, which is essentially what we will be talking about. That is a model that works extremely well and which can be broadly based and covering a huge range: primary and secondary care—the whole range of specialities. But in the same way, citizen panels have become something that can be hugely helpful as well. I am very anxious that we also hear the patient voice in the decision making at community level.
There has been a covid culture of creativity. When there was less top-down insistence on following direct process at the start of the pandemic, a lot of creativity was allowed to flourish. I feel we need to capitalise on that culture of creativity. These kinds of panels are exactly the sort of output that has come and they have been hugely beneficial. And, of course, the move to greater digital working has meant that we have been able to reach people that we have not otherwise been able to get. Clinicians leaving the clinical environment to participate has become easier when they can do so remotely. There is a dividend that we should build on.
Pat Cullen: To add to that, I fundamentally believe that the patient voice must be heard in those structures beneath the board. That is how we will really influence and move forward in terms of what is required, and those voices will feed into the population needs assessment at local level. But there needs to be a nurse involved in each one of those structures that feeds right in through to the director of nursing that sits on the board, and that is how you will hold the accountability line up and down.
Edward Argar
Q
Welcome and thank you very much for your evidence this morning and your frank answers to the questions posed. I want to ask a question in the context of what a number of you have raised about the different voices and the extent to which they need to be represented at the different decision-making levels of the new structure. We heard from previous witnesses, for example in the context of public health voices also, about the value that they add. The principle behind this legislation is that it is permissive rather than prescriptive. Therefore it is possible to have a lot more voices; there is only a de minimis level specified as prescribed. What is your view as to whether the appropriate balance between permissive and prescriptive has been struck in the Bill? If you think it has not been, where do you think the balance between permissive and prescriptive has been missed? Shall we start with Pat and then work our way along?
Pat Cullen: I have said very clearly that I believe the nurse needs to be represented at the board, and that needs to be an executive director of nursing. That needs to be prescriptive; it is not good enough to have it placed within mandatory guidance, it needs to be within the Bill. That is a red line for our nurses, and it will remain a red line, and we will be putting it forward as a red line.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: I am going to be slightly subtler with what I say about this. I think the legislation, as drafted at the moment, is very enabling, and the implementation of it is where the great improvement in how we deliver care will come. I do think it is permissive, and I do think that it is enabling, and I completely understand my colleague’s desire to include specific words relating to nurses, GPs and whoever. What is vital for me is that the clinical voice is loud, clear, and can be influential. That is about implementation, culture and behaviour at a local level. Once we have the words for the final legislation, it is a question of how on earth we deliver it and support people to do it well, and how we learn from the best practice that is out there. That would be my—and our—view.
Professor Martin Marshall: In my 30 years as a GP, I cannot think of a single piece of legislation that has directly changed my practice on the ground. What I can see is the extent that legislation sets a tone and a culture within which clinical care is provided. I think this Bill is appropriately permissive, but, given the variation in all the challenges that we have identified, it needs to be permissive with really good oversight to ensure that the consequences of implementation do not lead to dramatic variation across the country.
Edward Argar
Q
Going back to Pat’s evidence, but also to all of you: we have heard in our evidence today, and we heard it on Tuesday, a lot of different, vital parts of the system arguing the case for why they should be represented in a prescriptive way. Equally, we will have others arguing that a committee beyond a certain size becomes less effective. In terms of numbers, we have set a minimum. You are entirely entitled to say that you do not have a view on this, but how would you see the balance being struck between different groups making the case for representation, but, equally, having an effectively sized decision-making body? We will start with Martin, and then work backwards.
Professor Martin Marshall: I am glad to say that I do not have a view, but I do think that the boards should be small in order to be effective. They need to listen to advisory groups and sub-boards below them; it is the structures below the board level that will really make the difference.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard: Formally, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges does not have a view. Personally, I have chaired boards from as few as five people, through to boards of 70 people, all of which can be hugely effective if managed well. However, the larger the board gets, the tighter the management has to be, because it is harder to get voices heard and for everyone to feel represented. Essentially, I am saying the same as Martin: smaller boards are generally more effective at getting through the agenda, but there has to be a high degree of trust in those that are actually on the board, and strong lines to sub-groups, for them to function with maximum effectiveness.
Pat Cullen: The board needs to comprise the right people. It is not about numbers; it needs to have the right people with clinical focus and patient care driving the outcomes for patients, and it needs to make sure that it does not develop a financially focused agenda. As director of nursing I have been there too many times: the table loses focus on the patient’s voice and needs. There needs to be a clinical focus and the right people at the table.
The Chair
Thank you very much. As there are no further questions, I thank our witnesses for their evidence. That brings us to the end of our morning session. The Committee will meet again at 2 o’clock this afternoon to take further evidence.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Maggie Throup.)
Health and Care Bill (Fourth sitting)
Thursday 9th September 2021
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Health and Care Act 2022 View all Health and Care Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 9 September 2021 - (9 Sep 2021)
The Chair
We are going to hear from Richard Murray, chief executive of the King’s Fund, Nick Timmins, senior fellow, policy, at the King’s Fund, and Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust. Thank you very much for coming. Could I ask each of you in turn to introduce yourself for the record?
Nigel Edwards: I am Nigel Edwards. As previously stated, I am the chief executive of the Nuffield Trust.
Nick Timmins: I am Nick Timmins, a senior fellow at the King’s Fund.
Richard Murray: I am Richard Murray, chief executive of the King’s Fund.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
Q
Richard Murray: There is obviously a risk with any large-scale transformations, and particularly ones in the NHS, that they will cause too much disruption, and they distract people from the day job. I think that is the clear case against. If I may, I will just say a few words, though, on the case for. The existing system already causes disruption, so there are complicated workarounds; there are procurements being done that do not really need to be done. I would not underestimate the fact that there is a headwind in the system from trying to apply the 2012 legislation. There was a real head of steam, coming through covid, of people working together, trying to make this system work, still having to deal with some of those workarounds and still having to deal, sometimes, with doing things in an emergency that you probably would not be able to do in peacetime, so to speak.
The key thing is to try to keep the disruption to a minimum—wherever possible, and particularly for staff, to keep that degree of unnecessary churn down. I have to say, unfortunately, the NHS is quite good at doing large-scale churn without too much benefit. But I think on balance that as these changes are already under way and there are problems with the previous system, stopping now would be more disruptive than simply carrying on.
Nick Timmins: I do not want to take up a lot of time. I particularly agree with that last remark: stopping now would be worse than carrying on. A lot of this is already happening. We have been merging clinical commissioning groups ever since the new system came in in 2012. It is sort of completing a journey. You may not be entirely happy about all the arrangements around the different sorts of board and what have you, but to stop now, I think, would be not sensible.
Edward Timpson
Q
Nick Timmins: In large measure.
Nigel Edwards: I do not have anything to add, given the time. I agree with everything that has been said.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
Q
Richard Murray: I am afraid that is not an area we have focused on—sorry.
Nigel Edwards: Likewise.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
Q
Secondly, there is the treatment of capital in the system and how local communities, healthcare systems and trusts will be able to develop estates and capital planning. The third obsession has completely eluded me for the moment. It is generally about the tariff—that may be your subject, Mr Edwards—and how the vague nod to a new tariff framework in the Bill is working out. You may be more privy than the Committee to the details on how that might work out; it is about the flow of money within the system. Would you like to start, Mr Edwards, on governance, tariff and capital?
Nigel Edwards: Richard may be able to give a more up-to-date account on capital. You will be aware that the mechanisms for the allocation of capital in the NHS are a little arcane and somewhat out of date. There have been various attempts to update the mechanisms. Richard has been looking at this and can perhaps tell us more, but my impression is that it will flow following the allocation formula for revenue. There will still need to be a tariff. Despite the fact that there is integration, a tariff allows you do to a number of useful things. Certainly, patients will flow between different ICSs, so there will need to be a mechanism to account for that. It is also quite a useful budgetary tool, so in terms of financial control, it is probably quite important that the tariff is maintained.
We have been promised guidance on the flow of funds more locally, but we have not yet seen it. My presumption is that there will be a negotiated process rather than just a straight use of the tariff in the way that we have seen up until now, with variations on block contracts, maybe using the tariff—or, more likely, the historical budgets—as the starting point. The business-as-usual capital, as opposed to major capital projects, remains as it always has been. Although it is subject to some review, at the moment I do not think a major change is proposed for it, but Richard probably knows better.
Nick Timmins: I have nothing particular to say about capital. I do think you need to retain a tariff—not for everything, because in some areas of healthcare it just does not work, but for electives and those sorts of procedures. That has two advantages: it means you need to understand your costs to construct the tariff in the first place so it is a driver of efficiency, and, equally importantly, it gives you a benchmark price with which to negotiate with the private sector whenever you do outsource some operations and procedures. You are able to say, “This is what is costs us, so this is what we’ll pay you.” If you do not have that, you are subject to a seller’s market and can be charged what you like because you do not know what your own costs are.
Richard Murray: On the flow of money, we are expecting revenue allocation to ICSs based on the current formula, trying to reflect need, inequalities, deprivation and age. The uncertainty is then how much those ICBs will allocate down to place level on a local government footprint. The expectation is that quite a large proportion of that funding—general practice, community services, quite a lot of mental health, and some acute services, too—will go down to that level, but none of that is in the Bill. The allocation to ICSs stops at that point, and as has been said, you need a payment mechanism to get the money off what are, effectively, commissioners and over into providers.
The changes to tariff are mostly about flexibility, so it should still be transparent; you should still be able to work out what people are being paid, which I think is important, and you should be able to benchmark between different providers, but instead of paying for each operation and each widget bit by bit, you can have formulas that try to reflect fixed costs. You can do it in a different way that adds some flexibility into the system, which I think is important when you are trying to bring providers and commissioners into common alignment over where the money is going. Tariffs had the problem of setting them at each other’s throats sometimes, because every time someone was admitted to a hospital you would get another payment, so commissioners wanted to keep it down and providers wanted to keep it up. There is the chance to try to align some of those incentives, but there is still a lot of gap around what actually will go down to place and what will determine it; of course, again, the budgets need to be equitable.
Nigel Edwards: Richard, if I may, I think a very important point that ought to be made here is that because the allocations will now shift from 100-plus clinical commissioning groups to 42 ICSs, the variations between them will be evened out. There will need to be some way of recognising the fact that within an ICS, you have very different patterns of need, which at the moment are recognised by the allocation formula, but in the future will not be. The money will be received by the ICS, so I think there is a question there. I know that local authorities—and, indeed, GPs and primary care networks—will want to say, “If we are in a particularly deprived area and we have historically had higher funding to recognise that, we would expect that to continue.” There ought to be a line of sight from the national allocation formula based on need to the money that is received by our locality.
Sorry, Richard. I thought you made a really good point.
Richard Murray: That is absolutely all right. On capital, the Bill does not really change the way that capital works in this system. The only difference is the ability of the Department, through NHS England, to cap the spending of foundation trusts, which they have not been able to do in the past. There are some limits around them being able to do that, but it gives an additional lever at national level. Having said that, the way that capital is working in the system has changed fundamentally already: some capital goes through an allocation system, a bit like the revenue funding, and I am leading a review for NHS England now on how that money flows.
The bit that I think is really uncertain is how the big hospital schemes get picked. That is the bit that looks very different. Obviously, there is a manifesto commitment. There used to be a process by which it was determined whether providers could afford to repay—if they could do it through loans, or if there was a need system. That is now going off in a completely different place, and I think that is the bit that is not quite clear. How does that work within this system? Who gets to choose how those projects get picked, so to speak? That is the big change but, again, it is not actually in the Bill; it is being done under the existing rules.
The Chair
I am really sorry, Karin, but I think we have to move on, because we have about seven minutes left for Back Benchers, and three indicating. Jo Gideon.
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
Q
Richard Murray: It will certainly make it easier. You remove some of the unnecessary impediments that have got in people’s way and pushed them into complex workarounds. It creates a structure through ICBs and integrated care providers to bring people together, so in that sense, it enables these things and makes them easier. However, if I am honest, you could still have NHS England and the Department deciding to run everything through ICBs and making them behave an awful lot like NHS bodies of the past. It enables those things, but the legislation by itself cannot prevent some of the older behaviours from living on. That is why implementation and what happens afterwards is critical, to try to ensure that it delivers on the things that I genuinely think it is trying to do. There is a heavy weight from the past of very centralised control that focuses very much on the independent republic of the NHS. That is the cultural issue that the people who will have to implement this will have to work against.
Jo Gideon
Q
Richard Murray: I would really ensure that local government is part of this. It is an independent voice, and has already been a useful counterweight to some of those centralising forces, as local government comes closer to the NHS. Ensure that people from the voluntary sector are there. They do not follow the orders that come out of NHS England, so you are putting people directly into the system who carry some of that independence and are looking out fundamentally to their local communities. That really is the strength of some of the ICP structures—that you have those people round the table and, indeed, some of them on the ICB itself. Really invest in that place-level work. That is where a lot of the excitement will come from working with local government, and again with the voluntary sector and primary care. Do not get too focused on the ICS as this interim middle step, because it is quite distant from where a lot of the action goes on.
Nigel Edwards: It is not just upper tier local authorities that have an important voice in this. I think that Richard is right: a lot of the most interesting and bigger changes are likely to happen at the place level. It is probably the case that quite a lot of legislation has not really affected how patients are cared for or how professionals work. In some senses, that is not a bad thing. I think this does remove some of the behavioural oddities of the hybrid market and other systems that we had.
It will introduce some other hazards, in particular—Richard sort of referred to this—the slight danger of ICSs becoming inward looking, and some organisations, and the independent and voluntary sector, being excluded and not feeling that they have a voice. The challenge that local authorities can bring to that will be important, as will behavioural change from NHS England and some of the regulatory machinery, but you cannot legislate for that. That is a cultural change that is probably beyond the scope even of legislators.
Nick Timmins: Yes, and you can see that in evidence that you have already heard about the construction of the board and the partnership. It seems clear to me—you have heard from the Local Government Association—that some local authorities were happy to join a single board and others felt that that was too much of a loss of sovereignty, which is why we have ended up with this slightly complicated system of an NHS board and a partnership board. Probably, in an ideal world, it would have been better if it was one, but you have to live with what people are prepared to do.
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
Q
Nigel Edwards: The current system dates back to Andrew Lansley, who set up four tests. Do not ask me what they are. I can look them up, but I cannot remember them. However, they were good. They involved local people and clinical support. You had to make an evidence-based case. Then there was a process that involves local stakeholders, and then there was the opportunity for review by the Secretary of State and referral by local authorities and the independent reconfiguration panel, which has been a remarkably longstanding innovation, given the way that NHS organisations are formed and then abolished. It has done, I think, a very good job.
The current system seems to me to work quite well. The Secretary of State still has a say, particularly around controversial decisions, but they do not get sucked into every small reconfiguration and change. You also do not have a point where there is an opportunity for local participants to say, “I’m not going to contribute to this conversation any more. I’m going straight to the top,” and undermine people working together locally. I am of the view that the current system works quite well. I think we said to the previous Secretary of State, “You need to be really careful what you wish for. You may think that your intervention is going to help to move things along and improve innovation. It’s quite likely, from both previous experience and experience in other similar types of systems, to have the opposite effect.”
Richard Murray: I would not disagree with anything that Nigel said. Also, the clauses in the Bill as they stand at the moment are really, really unhelpful. There may be things you could do to make reconfiguration easier, but I think they would be working around the margins of what Nigel said. It would not be wholescale intervention without limit by Ministers in local decisions—that would mean any change, of any service, could go up to the Secretary of State. Also, if you need to make an emergency move for an operational reason, you would need to write to the Secretary of State in advance—you kind of think the clue is in the fact that it is an operational crisis. I think that the legislation as drafted would not give Ministers what they want, so I really think it is not helpful at all.
Nick Timmins: Can I just add to that? I think it is really dangerous for both Ministers and the NHS. Not many people know about the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. It has worked very well. It has dealt with about 80 controversial cases. It quite often suggests some amendment, and the Secretary of State does not have to take its advice, but the Secretary of State almost invariably does take its advice. I think that if we end up with lots and lots of reconfigurations hitting Ministers’ desks, Ministers will come to regret that. If you listen to the views of previous Secretaries of State, they almost always say, “It’s ludicrous we ended up having to make a decision about what was going to happen”—in Nether Wallop or wherever—which was the case before the Independent Reconfiguration Panel was around.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
Q
Richard Murray: There are a couple of things around competition. Probably the most obvious one is that it never really worked. A lot of care, particularly urgent or emergency care, is not an area for choice in the first place, so you are already dealing with a fairly specific part of the health service and drawing an awful lot of attention into that one element of the service when a lot of the interest is in care for people with long-term conditions and how you stop overuse of A&E and emergency services. There are lots of examples of things, particularly uncertainty around competitive procurement. Commissioners were anxious about where they stood in law so they used, and probably overused, competitive procurement.
I know from speaking to some commissioners that they sometimes felt slightly powerless to influence the provider side so they would put it out to procurement instead. There was very little sign that all the effort and bureaucracy that went into that really did any good at all. Let us step away from that and enable more co-operative working, to try to get the kind of change that we need for long-term conditions, for the real health conditions that this country faces. I should say that a lot of the academic evidence has found no benefits of competition, so not only was it not a helpful thing, it just did not seem to work—probably reflecting the fact that we have such shortages in this country. Competition works only when there is a meaningful choice.
On the triple aim, you would not want the system to get tied up in a new round of bureaucracy, form filling and ticking boxes, to show that it has duly considered the triple aim. I think it is also important to make sure you do not lose the issue of inequalities from the triple aim. I would not want to exaggerate: does legislating a grand vision make people do things differently on the ground? I think it is helpful to remind NHS providers and others that absolutely they should be thinking about the quality of care; absolutely they should be thinking about value for money and making sure they are efficient. But they also have a duty to the health of the wider population. You can then, through that triple aim, bring the different parties in this system closer together, and I think that for some non-executive directors and for governors, it is quite helpful to know that they are all working in the same direction. So I would not exaggerate the kind of change it would bring, but I think it is a move in the right direction.
Nigel Edwards: Can we just nuance the competition point? Actually, there were two elements to the competition regime. One was the very formal going out to tender and big, bureaucratic procurements—often resulting in the reappointment of the previous provider at significant expense. But the other component was patient choice—for diagnostics, for maternity and for elective surgery. I think that dynamic has benefits. One of the slightly worrying things in some of the plans produced by the ICSs’ predecessors—the STPs or strategic transformation partnerships—was a wish to “repatriate” work, as they called it, which meant to bring work back from providers outside their patch into their own. That was not necessarily a good thing; patients should have the opportunity to have a choice of provider and, particularly in the case of specialised services, one would be concerned about people saying, “Let’s grow our own services locally,” rather than, “Let’s use centres of excellence.”
The maintenance of patient choice, and ensuring that ICSs do not act to limit patient choice, particularly for those patients living on their margins, is quite an important dynamic; almost all ICSs have borders with someone else, and patients naturally flow across them. People want to be able to make choices, because they have an existing relationship with a provider or because they have a relative who lives nearby and could care for them while they are there. There is international evidence that that dynamic has a beneficial effect on providers’ behaviour.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Q
Richard Murray: That is a very fair point; it did create that tension within the system, because more activity was what made you successful and gave you your bank balance. The flexibilities that the Bill gives to step away from those more mechanistic tariffs that pay for activity should enable that, with two caveats. First, much of this will come in guidance from NHS England about exactly how this will work; there is clearly not enough detail in the Bill to do that, and why would there be? That still needs to be worked through.
Secondly, it is quite complicated to get right; this is a very difficult thing to do, and one of the pointers we see in some other countries, such as New Zealand, is a focus on everybody working together and not getting too caught up in trying to divide up the pie between competing parties. Again, that is where things such as the triple aim may help to keep people’s minds focused on the purpose, which is good quality care, value for money and a healthy population. There are more flexibilities in this system to do that, so that we do not get the kind of perverse incentives we have seen in the past.
Dr Whitford
Q
Richard Murray: I think there will need to be a change in culture here; it is almost inevitable that if you look within different ICSs, you will find extremely financially successful institutions next door to some that are deeply troubled and that are facing problems in community services, general practices and other services. There will be a need for a culture change, but one that does not lose sight of the fact that you want organisations to be well run. You do not want to end up with some of the weaker organisations thinking, “I shall now pass this problem on to my big brother down the road who has very deep pockets.”
You need to try to maintain the right incentives and support for institutions to run themselves well, to keep the value-for-money element of the triple aim, while also being able to move money around the system without getting caught in silos such that the acute trust has all the money and mental health does not. We need to be able to begin to move money across those different boundaries, which the old financial system did not help us to do.
Dr Whitford
Q
Richard Murray: You would hope that the ICBs would have that power and the ICPs would try to set the direction. For many of the really tricky pieces between community services, general practice and social care, it is probably more at place; the ICBs are often so big that they are unlikely to get directly involved in those decisions. They can set the framework and try to ensure that in some sense it is working as a whole, but many of those decisions will come down at place level.
Dr Whitford
Q
Nick Timmins: I have little to add. This is really an issue of behaviour, culture and financial flows. It is not something that the Bill can lay down or dictate.
Dr Whitford
Q
Nick Timmins: The tariffs definitely caused some problems. Changing the way the tariff is used is very important, but that does not mean that you should get rid of it entirely.
Dr Whitford
Nigel?
Nigel Edwards: I agree with all of that. This gives a vehicle that will allow many of those perverse incentives to be removed. People found ways of working round them previously, but this simplifies things. Richard made the point that it is definitely the case that some trusts, particularly acute trusts, have done very well out of the tariff. They will find it quite painful to make the adjustment, but that is not a reason for not making the change.
Dr Whitford
Q
Nigel Edwards: I have sat with a number of different geographies and tried to work that out, and it is probably going to be different in different places. Some of the ICSs are quite geographically coherent and have a lot to do with each other. For others, such as Cheshire and Merseyside or BOB—Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West—there is less in common at the strategic level. It will be quite different in different places, particularly where there are powerful upper-tier local authorities within ICSs. They will want to have a strong voice at the place level.
One of the virtues of the legislation as currently formulated is that it allows some flexibility, and it allows people to tailor some of those relationships to fit their local geographies. But I would see the partnership part of this having a very important role in shaping the overall strategy. For quite a lot of people, the risk is having too many meetings and too many partnerships. It is very important that the partnership board sets the agenda and then the places and the ICB get on with it.
Dr Whitford
Q
Nigel Edwards: Yes. The NHS has always had a bit of an obsession with neatness and uniformity. If there is one thing that I have learned from working with these different ICSs, it is that they are very different in terms of their physical, political and psychological geography. Trying to fit a standard model of governance to them would be a mistake. We need to hold them to account for how well they are implementing their plans and how far they are improving outcomes for their population. We need to know whether they are making the best of the money that we are giving them, rather than whether they are conforming to a centrally designed governance model that will work on average, and that will therefore work nowhere.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Q
Nigel Edwards: This took us all somewhat by surprise, I think it is fair to say. Richard may have had a different briefing from the Department of Health and Social Care on yesterday’s announcement. I picked it up on reading the document; it was not pointed out to me. I think I read it slightly differently. It seemed to me that the plan was likely to be a formalisation of all the activities that are currently going on, rather than a new direction of policy, but I am probably the wrong person to be asking about that. If it is not that, it would not be very helpful.
Richard Murray: One of the things the documentation speaks about is the planning of the health and social care workforce. You asked where I think the Bill is deficient. One example is its inability to help with the very poor track record, over quite a long time, in planning the health and social care workforce—hence all the problems that we have with the workforce right now. There is a nod in the White Paper to that. It may only be that the crossover between those two workforces is not the fundamentals of the numbers that go through them.
Otherwise, I really hope that the White Paper is not about further legislative change. It might be about setting out, for example, the outcome measures that would really work for an ICS, meaning that it will cover both critical issues for the NHS and critical issues for health, public health and social care, to make sure that you have that rounded and meaningful measure so you know who is doing well. If it is another round of legislation, I must admit that I would pause before saying whether that is a good idea, with the exception of the workforce issue, which remains the critical factor here.
Justin Madders
Anything to add, Nick?
Nick Timmins: The workforce does need to be tackled—it is just a glaring hole in all this. The NHS has plenty of policy at the moment; it has had an eight-year drive towards better integrated care—that is what the Bill is focused on—and a lot of that will not come through legislation, beyond what is in the Bill.
Justin Madders
Q
Nigel Edwards: Each ICS is supposed to have a chief finance officer—a director of finance—and an accountable officer. That is the starting point. I think the question to ask them would be to what extent they are spending money in a way that reduces health inequalities and improves outcomes in an equitable fashion—I think they would want to do that. One of the things that has very much struck me in my conversations with ICSs—this is very much influenced by local government, which will be a powerful advocate for this, as will primary care networks—is that quite a lot of people will be scrutinising this. The person to ask who is clearly accountable for answering that question is the accountable officer of the ICS.
Of course, ICSs do not have a legal obligation to distribute money below place level. You might not want to do that, because there is a need to be flexible, and sometimes you might want to spend more in a particular area if there is a sudden strategic priority, but over the long term, the expectation is that those accountable officers should be able to demonstrate that they are spending money in ways that relate to the objectively assessed needs of their populations.
Justin Madders
Q
Nick Timmins: I think that is exactly the right question to ask. What have Ministers not been able to get the NHS to do without the powers of direction that he is seeking? When they were presented, it was as though the NHS was somehow unaccountable when, as I am sure you all know, Ministers can tell the NHS what to do through the mandate. The difference in the current system is that NHS England has to agree that what it is being asked to do is reasonable. If NHS England does not think it is reasonable, resourceful or doable, it can object, and the Minister then has to come to Parliament and explain why he is, in effect, instructing the NHS to do something. A measure comes before you and is subject to a negative resolution. If someone rejects it, it can be debated, so there is a perfectly good mechanism there right now. I think the really, really important question is: what are Ministers not able to get the NHS to do that means that they now feel the need for new powers of direction?
Justin Madders
Does anyone wish to add to that?
Nigel Edwards: I have no answer to that question.
Richard Murray: If the reason is not made clear, you end up starting to get worried and suspicious: “Are they trying to direct money towards one part of the country rather than another and overturning the allocation mechanism? Do they want powers to intervene in procurements?” Those are all the things that you would not want them to do which, to be honest, health Ministers generally have not done anyway. Even when they had the powers, they tried desperately not to get involved, because it is extremely poor governance and extremely poor value for money. However, without that explanation of why they want it, the temptation is to start worrying about what they want the power for.
Some of the behaviours could be governed through the framework agreement, or they should be able to be. You have the mandate that sets direction over the short to medium term, but the framework agreement also sets out the way NHS England should work with other parts of the system, so there are other things that you can use within this system. As it stands, and if it stays as it is now, to provide comfort to people, the temptation is to start listing the things that Secretaries of State should not direct—they should not direct allocations to individual parts of the country; they should not interfere in procurement decisions. You end up with quite a long negative list, but I would probably rather have a negative list than no list.
Nigel Edwards: The problem with negative lists, of course, is that you will forget something.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
Q
Nigel Edwards: I think we have shared our anxieties about the reconfiguration and direction powers. In terms of what this does to the organisational architecture, it seems to me to strike the right balance between permissive and directive.
Nick Timmins: I would echo that. I have major reservations about the new powers of direction and, I think, major reservations if you build in reconfiguration service changes. The good thing about this—it has been the good thing about the development of the integrated care system so far—is that it is quite flexible. That is unusual in the NHS’s history: we tend to come up with very prescriptive solutions for what the system should look like everywhere, when in practice the circumstances are different, so I think the balance is pretty good.
Richard Murray: You could easily criticise the degree of permissiveness; you could criticise the degree of direction in there. The question should be, “Can anyone come up with a better one?” We have not been able to do so, so I think it is a balance well drawn. Of course, a lot will then rest on the behaviours that are shown after the Bill is through—whether people live up to that kind of core belief around that permissiveness and the freedoms that have been given.
The Chair
We have time to squeeze in one very quick one, if anyone has something else to ask.
Justin Madders
Q
Richard Murray: I think a longer-term mandate is a better thing. The idea that each year, sometime between December and March, you can set a different expectation on the NHS is operationally unreal for the system. They cannot do it, so I think we want to get back to something where you set out a clearer medium-term objective for the things you want the NHS to achieve, whether that is reduced waiting times or better health, and allow them to try and work towards it.
Budgets on that basis would also be incredibly helpful—if you are working in the service not knowing what capital you might have two years down the line and what revenue you might have. I think there is a real chance to do that in the spending review. That is a move in the right direction; we just have to make sure that if the budgets are still set on an annual basis, you do not get a diversion between what it is you have been asked and the budget then being suddenly moved on that annual basis. I would strongly encourage the Government to also try and set multi-year settlements for the NHS, as used to be done, so that people can plan at local level.
Nick Timmins: If memory serves me right, the original idea of the mandate was a rolling three-year mandate. You set the objectives of the NHS and what you want it to achieve, and you can have a little review of it each year, but it is clear. I probably should have said that if the money was also planned on the same basis, that would help no end.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of our time. I thank our witnesses very much.
Examination of Witnesses
Dame Gill Morgan and Louise Patten gave evidence.
The Chair
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: I am Dame Gill Morgan. I am chair-designate of Gloucestershire ICS, but I have been involved there for over two years, so I have seen the development of this movement. I am now the elected chair of the terribly titled NHS Confederation advisorate. What is important about that is that it includes all the ICS chairs that have been and all the ICS people who have been acting in as accountable officers for the work that has developed thus far, so I think I bring a perspective on the reality of what people worry about.
I have been involved with health service Bills for well over 20 years. This one is an exemplar of how people can work with a service to develop a Bill that largely has the support of the system. People have engaged, listened, changed things and taken the frontline views seriously into account. We do not agree with everything, but you asked our think-tank group of people about some of the issues and changes and the permissive approach, and all those things are truly endorsed. For me, it has been the best experience in 25 years of involvement in healthcare. I want to have that noted because people worked really hard to do that.
In contextual terms, you have to realise that this is the first time the NHS has tried to do something fundamentally different. We always legislate for things that look the same—they quack the same, they walk the same, they waddle the same—yet systems and communities are fundamentally different. My ICS, which I am proud to be part of, has a population of about 600,000, and 15 other ICSs have populations of under 1 million. They have our characteristics of closeness of community and long-standing trust. On the other hand, there are some very big ICSs. What the Bill has done well thus far is to create a permissive environment that allows us to see how we can flourish as well as the big places. If you try to define it—
The Chair
I am sorry to interrupt you. This session is intended for Members to ask you questions rather than for you to make a statement. I would prefer to move to Louise Patten and ask her to introduce herself so that we can get on with the questions.
Louise Patten: Good afternoon everyone. My name is Louise Patten. I head up the ICS network and NHS clinical commissioners at the NHS Confederation. I am also a clinician.
Karin Smyth
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: What is different about this Bill is that it is the first time that local government will be very actively involved in those decisions. It has always been involved in scrutiny and big changes, but it will be heavily represented on our partnership board. We have four local government people, including two elected members on our ICB—integrated care board—so we are bringing in the local government elected people.
We intend our partnership board to meet in public and we are looking at exactly how many of our meetings of the ICB should be in public. Clearly, when talking about quality and clinical stuff, the actual deliberations need a private bit—[Interruption.] When talking about named individuals, yes, they do; but when talking about the quality of the service in general, that is something that needs to be clear and in the public domain. We need to get the balance right between what we need to do publicly and what we need to do privately—as we will, because we will have so much local government involvement, with elected members, as well as Healthwatch and other people like that. They are all intrinsic parts, in a way that they have never been before. It has never felt as engaging to me as it does now, certainly in my patch.
Louise Patten: From my point of view, having experienced health overview and scrutiny committees as an accountable officer, the patients and public certainly feel that there is the voice of that local place. It is important to NHS leaders that that continues—that ability to have local scrutiny at local level, which is very much where patients and service users feel is the right place to do it.
At the strategic level, we must not forget that ICSs comprise both the integrated care board and the partnership. This is a real opportunity to tether the NHS to always thinking about the wider determinants of health, social value, public health and, again, patient experience.
Edward Timpson
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: Our big learning about all of this is that, at the end of the day, many of the structures do not matter; what matters is people being in the same room, having the conversation about common purpose, and getting to know and trust each other. The reflection on that has been why we now have such an emphasis on place. If you have a really large ICS and you are trying to do it all, you are so distant from patients, citizens and clinicians that you will never have the contact. Place, in those bigger systems, has to be where you begin to pull those things together, by getting the right people to engage and developing the right level of trust.
As far as clinical engagement is concerned, the ICS is about three things—the triple aim, which is, basically, how do we get better health services today, which are responsive, high-quality and all those things we want; how in the long term do we create populations that are healthier than they are today, which means thinking about employment and all those bigger things; and, in the middle, how do we take services that we deliver today and transform them to be more community-orientated, better for citizens and delivered where people want them? In each of those three boxes, clinicians are absolutely fundamental.
A lot of our effort—in particular around covid and some of the successes—has been in getting that synergy, with clinicians in the transformation box feeling that they can not only write on what the hospital does, but define what the community does and what the GPs do, because they are all working collectively. That has been transformational. Certainly, we would not have managed covid as effectively as we have without those sorts of relationships running all the way through the system as a thread.
Louise Patten: The clinical leadership has to be multi-layered, right the way through from the strategic level to place. We have to have clinical advice and we must heed it when we are talking about planning clinical services. That is fundamental. I think it will involve different groups of people. If it is a care pathway about cardio-vascular disease or a professional pathway about social care, we must heed clinical and professional advice when we are planning these services, so it is multi-layered.
Edward Timpson
Q
Louise Patten: From strategy right the way down to grassroots implementation.
Dr Whitford
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: It is about multi-layering of advice. We will have a primary care sub-committee partly because managing primary care, and all the things that come through GMS and the opportunities, is expert; we do not want it to be subsumed by a generalist groups. We want it to have proper focus, because if our vision of the future is right, we need better and more engaged primary care at local level that can link its services more effectively with support in the hospital and the community. That is the objective, so we will have that.
We will also have an ICB. GPs will have different views. That is one view, which is about me as a jobbing GP. I go in in the morning, and I do my work and all of those things. I need to be supported to do that, but I also need GPs in the system who are engaged in management. We are very proud of our primary care networks, which are beginning to pull together around our localities, because we are smaller and it is not a big place.
There are models where they are working with second tier local government, where they are beginning to think about housing, and they are working with the voluntary sector, so when they are talking about frailty, it is not a GP or a hospital conversation; it is a system conversation in this place. All of a sudden there are things that can be unlocked. If we leave it in any one box, as we have always done in the past—there is a box for acute, for this and for that—we do not get this. Our task is to make those boundaries semi-permeable, with the expectation that we look at the patient flowing through all those boundaries, rather than pretending that patients sit in an individual box, because they do not.
Louise Patten: Frankly, stakeholders who are anxious about whether they have a place on the partnership board or the integrated care board need support in being helped to co-ordinate their response, so they have a collective voice. The variations for ICSs are huge, from a population of 600,000 right the way through to just upwards of 3 million. Supporting those stakeholders to have a united voice and providing assistance will be really helpful.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: The first thing is that you would try to make sure that you have developed a mechanism for engagement and trust, so that you do not get into those sorts of disagreements. If you get into those disagreements while you are sat around the board, you have failed to do the task of integration and partnership. That is what happens in the conversations about how we solve it. If we ever got into that sort of difficulty, it would have to be resolved at the integrated care board, and we will have local government, public health and social care on our board as full and equal partners.
Alex Norris
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: The more you try to write in legislation, the more it becomes the lowest common denominator and the less you unleash the innovation that you want. I would do something quite different. I would probably write something that requires the different models of ICSs to be formally evaluated over a period of time, so for the first time we could look to structural change and say, “This is what it has demonstrated, not just against the outcome measures measured by the Department of Health and suchlike, but this has been a structural change that has added benefit, or not.” If you are going to do that, it must be done from day one. I think that is more important than trying to put something about solving problems in the Bill. You will never hit the particular strange circumstances of a locality that has problems, because they are always serendipitous.
Alex Norris
Q
Louise Patten: The selection process for chairs and the executive team has got to be about what this integrated care system requires, what sort of leadership, and what are the partners that we have got. No two ICSs are the same. In order to achieve that, it needs to be a local discussion about what it is that this system needs to make sure it has the best leadership to take it forward. That will involve discussion with local people, local stakeholders and potentially the public to sort that, because the leadership will be different in different ICSs.
Alex Norris
Q
Louise Patten: The two will have a very good idea collectively about what leadership is required: one from experience of leaders and the other very much from the grassroots level of, “If this is our system, this is what we need.” It is a combination of the two.
Alex Norris
Q
Louise Patten: It is both/and.
Edward Argar
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: Yes, I think you have got the balance, and that is the joy of working with a Bill team. I think the balance is right. You have tried not to be prescriptive and tie our hands, but you have been clear in the sense of setting a direction and focus that we will all take into account, so you do not have to tell us things to make the NHS do it. We do it because we pick up the runes.
On the issues that we would be more concerned about, I personally am concerned about the ability of the Secretary of State to call in changes. In part that is because the one thing I think the NHS has learnt in the time that I was out and came back is how to do relatively good consultations. We have just finished a massive consultation. Patients have gone with us. The local communities have gone with us, mostly. We have had citizens juries and all sorts of things to reach a consensus about the direction of travel. The worst thing in the world would be that people say, “There is no point in engaging in those mechanisms locally because, at the end of the day, we will just complain to the Secretary of State and it will not happen.” If that becomes the way people manage that part of the Bill, it will take us backwards, not forwards, in terms of proper citizen engagement.
Louise Patten: On balance, it is about the Secretary of State’s powers of reconfiguration, and NHS leaders in general are concerned about that. It is not so much about the Secretary of State having an early understanding of the reconfigurations or the intent, but about the fact that that decision could be taken at a point where all the evidence is not ready to be properly considered.
Building on Gill’s point, patients and the public would be very frustrated if they felt that they had not had an opportunity to be answered, so we are asking, if not for the clause to be removed, for at least the clinical case for change to be considered from the ICB. Coming back to clinical decisions about clinical services, we want that accountability to local communities, not just up to Whitehall, and some transparency about why the decision was made, and on what basis and information it was taken.
Edward Argar
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: I think you are absolutely right: de minimis. What I have argued throughout is that if the centre, if you and then NHS England, which issues guidance, are clear about the principle that we have a proper engagement mechanism with our local authorities and citizens, they need to ask us how we are doing that, and to ensure that our constitution meets that. There are plenty of checks to ensure that it happens without you telling us that we have to have this, this and this.
In our case, we will have mental health and social care around the table, not because we are told to but because we could not imagine how we could do our work at a local level without having those people feeling that they are full partners and sitting around the table. There is a set of concerns about having local government involved in making decisions about the expenditure of large amounts of NHS money. I do not care; they are the local people who need to be involved in the decision making. Actually, if they see the deliberations and challenge first hand we will get better-aligned budgets. At the end of the day, that is to everybody’s benefit.
Louise Patten: There are already five mandated board positions in the legislation. A further five will be in the mandated guidance from NHS England. We are up to 10 already. I think the most important thing here is: where do you stop? There is a risk that there is a perception of two tiers—that those who have a mandated position on the board are of more importance than others. That flies in the face of partnership working.
Edward Argar
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: My view is that we are where we are and we need to progress. Going backwards would be a problem, but actually I am a bit more positive than that. Covid has demonstrated to people that if they think innovatively, out of the box and in partnership ways they can get solutions that are quicker than they would have been before, so in the system as a whole there is a recognition that partnership has offered more. We will all retrench as the world moves on from where we are, but there is real learning from covid on which we can capitalise. Many systems have done reviews of what worked and why, looking for the silver linings in that learning. I think the Bill goes with the analyses that have come out.
Louise Patten: At the NHS Confederation, we have that sort of umbrella view. We must not forget that, on collaboration and integration, people have been working to this for some time. There are some great examples of it, and this legislation moves that opportunity to really accelerate it. People recognise that it is a tight timescale, but they are absolutely committed to doing it.
Dr Whitford
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: There are a couple of statutory sub-groups that we are going to require, like accounts, audit and remuneration. More importantly, over the last few years, systems like ours have developed ways of handling finance and quality that have been about a partnership approach, so you do not have a head of quality covering all the organisations, but you have the heads of quality from all the organisations coming together to problem-solve. The heads of finance come together to work out how to allocate the money. That is a very, very effective way of doing it. It teases out the tensions and gets people who are expert in delivery in those conversations. We will have a number of committees like that. The question is: which ones of those become statutory? Which ones do you do through officers? Where do you build people in? All of them will have primary care build-in, because you cannot do service otherwise.
On the partnership forum, which is a different sort of animal, we had already got into the vehicle whereby the full ICB board took cognisance twice a year, because these outcome measures do not change very rapidly. All we do is talk about those longer-term agendas, so it is not just us saying, “Here’s our plan, over to you.” It is about saying, “What really worries you? How can we help? What is important? How do we do it?” We had a wonderful session on apprenticeships. NHS apprenticeship levy money is being used to support some of the stuff that county councils want to do. That would have never happened in the old days because we were not sat in a room with mutual trust and a single purpose.
At the heart of this, every ICB and every partnership board will have to define, “What’s my purpose? What’s your purpose? What’s our shared purpose?” That managerial trust-developing, partnership-developing work is what will make this a success. I started, and I was rapped across my knuckles by Mr McCabe for saying too much—quite appropriately. At the end of the day, you are not going to get that through legislation. You are going to get it by creating an environment and properly holding us to account for what we are doing in these boxes.
Dr Whitford
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: Indeed. This is guidance, not legislation, so we have to develop a constitution of what we are doing, and we are committed to reviewing it. If today we think that we know what we will need in three years’ time, we are not asking ourselves the right questions, so we need to be reviewing constantly. That is one of the things that we have historically been very bad at in the NHS. We do something, we enshrine it, and then a few years later we throw it all away and start with a new thing. How do we evaluate it? How do we say, “This has been brill, this has been flaky. Let’s get rid of the flaky, and let’s put more of the brill in”? It is that sort of managerial question with us, rather than the very flat, “How do you hit this today?”
Dr Whitford
Q
Dame Gill Morgan: I personally think that we have to be very careful. I do not know if this is a role for legislation. A joke in the NHS is that pilots are phase 1 implementation. That is an old joke. It is not this Government; it is every Government. We have always said that. We have to be really careful that we build in evaluation across the piece and do not pick two or three metrics that look as if they have gone the bad way to prove what we wanted to argue before. That is done both in favour of things and against things, and we end up with this sort of noise in the system. Let us plan now and get a proper, effective academic unit to build in some evaluation at the end of this time, and then let us all take stock in two and a half years and say, “Hasn’t this been brilliant”—in my opinion, it will be brilliant—or, “It won’t do any harm, but it’ll be nothing”. We have got to do better than nothing.
You will gather that I am in favour of ICSs. [Laughter.]
The Chair
I think we drew that conclusion from your evidence—absolutely.
May I just thank you both very much for giving evidence today? I am sorry that I had to interrupt you, but I am an obsessive timekeeper. Such is life. Thank you very much.
Examination of Witnesses
Ed Hammond and Andy Bell gave evidence.
The Chair
Q
Good afternoon, both. Can you both introduce yourself for the record, starting with Ed?
Ed Hammond: My name is Ed Hammond and I am the deputy chief executive at the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny.
Andy Bell: I am Andy Bell and I am also a deputy chief executive, but at the Centre for Mental Health.
Dr James Davies
Q
Andy Bell: It is a really good question and I think that, on its own, the legislation certainly has some potential to assist with that. Of course, there also need to be a number of other things and I can talk about those if that would be helpful.
The first positive thing to say about this legislation is that the idea of integrated care—the practice of providing care that actually links across between mental and physical health, NHS and social care, and prevention and treatment—undoubtedly is the way to go. I think we have a number of areas within the system where we know that people at the moment get very poor support for their mental and physical health, as a result of the lack of integration in the system.
Examples would be people who have both alcohol and mental health difficulties at the same time; people living with long-term physical illnesses, such as diabetes or kidney disease, who get really inadequate and often very poor emotional support, if indeed they have any emotional support at all; and, indeed, people living with long-term mental health conditions, whose physical health is very often very badly neglected, and they have very little support. Integrating care—actually doing that on the ground—and achieving a real change in the way that services are organised around people’s needs would undoubtedly make quite a significant difference and reduce some of those inequalities.
I think the way that the Bill and the various bits of guidance are written gives us some hope that that may happen; it certainly does not answer all of our questions about it. In and of itself, I think it is potentially a step in the right direction, but we need to give some thought to a number of caveats around that.
Dr Davies
Q
Andy Bell: Yes, sure. Again, “integrated care”—we like the words; they are good—but the difficulty in a way is, first of all, the fact that this is very much an NHS-dominated set of proposals. It was written by NHS England for NHS England. I think that if we have a genuinely integrated system, where people will get support across the whole range of services, we need this to be an equal partnership between the NHS, local government, and voluntary and community organisations.
If you look at the proposals, in a sense what they are doing is taking decision making and power within the health and social care system further away from local communities into what are effectively sub-regional groupings. There is not anything very local about integrated care systems in many places, and that gives us some pause for thought. It is very much NHS dominated. If we look at the current health and care system, public health and social care are often the less well-funded and less well-resourced parts of the system. From what we see from the spending plans, it looks like that will become even more the case if you have legislation that, in a sense, reinforces the power of the NHS over other partners. I worry we are not going to get that real shift.
Dr Davies
Q
Ed Hammond: In terms of scrutiny generally, it is a challenging picture, as Andy said. There is a challenge around the need for effective local accountability. That scrutiny is best exerted at a local level. Local scrutiny is much more able to assess and make accurate conclusions about what outcomes have been reached. We do a lot of work as an organisation supporting local councils in their formal health scrutiny functions. The past 20 years of that has demonstrated a significant degree of success in local government being able to lead with local healthwatch in, alongside and on behalf of local people, seeking to understand how local health services design and deliver effective outcomes, challenging, where necessary, through the referral power for substantial variations.
My worries echo Andy’s in that the Bill as it stands moves a lot of decision making, commissioning and direction activity up to system level. Depending on the character, relationships and personalities of the key individuals involved, there is a risk that decision making therefore becomes remote from local accountability, making effective scrutiny of outcomes more challenging to achieve.
Karin Smyth
Q
Ed Hammond: In answer to your first point, I think it is clear. As we become more familiar with what is a complex system—and health governance is complex—some of this confusion will dissipate. As we start to operate practically within these systems, familiarity will breed a degree of confidence in understanding whose roles relate to what. As with all complex systems, it is vital that everybody understands their individual and collective responsibility for governance within those systems and accountability.
It is great when you have a partnership-led framework, in which everybody in the system is working together, and everybody has some stake in the system and in decision making. It is not a hierarchical, dictatorial system; it is one based, hopefully, on dialogue and, to an extent, consensus. The risk of that is that it necessarily dilutes accountability. Where everybody has a stake in decision making, you need some kind of external source of local accountability. That leads on to a second question. I think there is a need for a distinct and separate form of local accountability within these new arrangements at system, place and neighbourhood level. That role is currently performed at a local level in two main places: through local Healthwatch, from whom you will be hearing later, and through local health overview and scrutiny committees.
For me, the risk of these new arrangements is that, first, the removal of the power of referral to the Secretary of State by health overview and scrutiny committees on matters of concern relating to substantial variation of local health services is a worry for us, as it is for NHS colleagues. Also, the focus on system-level decision making will, by definition, make it more challenging for local health overview and scrutiny committees to co-ordinate to form, where necessary, joint committees to effectively oversee, scrutinise and hold to account ICS, ICB and ICP activity at system level.
The Chair
Do you want to add anything to that, Andy?
Andy Bell: Yes. It is a really important question. From the perspective of mental health, we have seen an enormous amount of progress in recent years from local Government really embracing the mental health agenda in many areas and becoming both a partner but also a scrutineer of the NHS through scrutiny committees and through the role of health and wellbeing boards too. The importance of that natural connection through, between the health and wellbeing board with the ICP in particular, the partnership bid, feels like there needs to be a very clear and close relationship and, again, where possible, decisions being made at place level—in the new language—feels really important to allow for that kind of relationship to build and actually become a really positive relationship, because so much of this does come down to relationships. However, clearly, the need for some kind of external scrutiny is incredibly important.
When we think about it from the mental health perspective, where systems or governing bodies—be it the integrated care board or anything else—are allowing mental health to slip through or particular groups of people are being poorly catered for by the system, some kind of external scrutiny and clear accountability is incredibly important. One thing we have said we would like to see in the Bill is an extended and expanded role for the Care Quality Commission to really scrutinise the degree to which integrated care boards and the decisions they are making—and, indeed, partnerships in their strategies—are looking across the board at health inequalities.
At the moment, the Care Quality Commission is very good at inspecting services for whether they are working appropriately with individuals they are seeing, but it has no powers to scrutinise whether the health system as a whole is working fairly and appropriately across all different groups of people. Unfortunately, that means, certainly from what we see in the mental health world, that there are a number of groups of people who get very poor support for their mental health—actually, very little help at all—and there is no current means in the system to address that.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
Q
Andy Bell: It is difficult to tell; the Bill is largely silent on mental health. If we had a system where there was genuinely equal regard for both mental and physical health, we would not have to worry about that, because we would know that the system would treat mental health fairly and equally, and there would be no disparity in the way it was thought about. Unfortunately, all our experience tells us that that is not what happens within many health systems at different levels, from very local to national, so we would like to see some assurances in the Bill.
From our point of view, that could happen in one of two ways. Legislation only gets you so far, but it could place specific duties on both NHS England and integrated care boards—I am being very careful in specifying integrated care boards here—that they must take action to ensure that mental and physical health are given equal regard in their decision making, particularly on resource allocation. We feel strongly that there needs to be a voice for mental health within integrated care boards. That is highly likely to happen within integrated care partnerships, but within integrated care boards we do not have confidence that mental health will be properly represented at the top table where important decisions about resource allocation are made.
We think that would help. There are no 100% safeguards in legislation, but one positive thing we have seen with the 2012 Act is that a clause at the very top of the Act talked about mental and physical health as one of the key purposes of the NHS, and that has been used positively and helpfully to make the case for parity in health systems up and down the country. A few simple words can sometimes make quite a big difference.
Edward Timpson
Q
Ed Hammond: For me it starts with an understanding of what decisions are best made at system level and what decisions are best made at place level. Certainly, I would imagine one of the first things that ICBs and ICPs would need to do, once established, would be to determine how to set up a system-wide framework for ensuring equality and equity in terms of how its health and care service is delivered, and then determine how and where it is most appropriate that more detailed decisions come to be made at place level. Otherwise, the system simply becomes too unwieldy.
There are risks that those partners sitting at that system level will draw decision making into those spaces, rather than pushing it back out to localities, because it is the simplest, in many ways the most efficient and apparently the most co-ordinated way of doing it, but in practice it will not serve the interests of local accountability or better outcomes. That raises the prospect of certain services being delivered in different ways in different localities, depending on the political priorities of different councils, but that is local democracy—that is local government bringing its understanding of the demographics of the populations it serves into the conversation.
I think this can all be made to work if there is sufficient transparency in the system, so that those within and those outside it understand how decisions are being made, on what subjects, and by whom. When you have that clarity, it becomes easier to unpick what is happening at place level. Are decisions being made at system level that would be more appropriately made at a lower level? Is there consistency across the entire system? What does the geography mean for decision making and commissioning, and these kinds of things? It provides assurance, and it provides everybody with more confidence that decisions are being made properly in the interests of local people.
Going back to the point I made before, that is also why some external local accountability is so important, because effective local external accountability can challenge the system on whether the right decisions are being made at the right level, and whether they reflect and are responsive to what the local needs are. Local scrutiny committees are, at the moment, anchored at place level within local authorities. They are well able to publicly draw in the voice and concerns of the public about those kinds of issues, and transmit them to health and care partners so that there is a clear way for those concerns and issues to be responded to.
Dr Whitford
Q
Ed Hammond: That is a challenge, because it brings into focus the role that different accountability partners play in the system. We have already heard a little about the CQC and the work it does in assessing and monitoring clinical outcomes. Of course, within ICBs and ICPs there will come to be—one would hope—robust and effective performance management arrangements. Certainly, looking at the Secretary of State’s expectations around the exercise of new powers, one would expect that, for the Secretary of State to understand where he chooses to intervene and direct services, that would be on the basis of evidence that would need to be collected in a consistent and systematic way across England, but also within individual ICBs. Presumably, we can expect some kind of performance framework to be established nationally to provide evidence to support the Secretary of State in the exercise of their powers.
Then at local level, you have, as I mentioned before, local Healthwatch and local health scrutiny communities. Now, local scrutiny committees obviously cannot bring the clinical expertise to bear on issues of concern; the CQC naturally leads on many of those issues. I think what those local partners in local Healthwatch and scrutiny committees can do is understand where there are gaps in the system; where there are concerns about aspects of performance that others have perhaps not picked up on; where there are concerns emerging from conversations within local communities that councillors are hearing about day to day, because they have direct contact with local people; and those concerns that might not otherwise find their way on to a performance scorecard, but might relate to things that are not being monitored, measured or managed particularly well. That local connection is a vital part of what makes health scrutiny work.
Dr Whitford
Q
Ed Hammond: Yes. Where ICBs and ICPs are putting those monitoring arrangements in place, I would certainly expect local clinicians to have a role in assessing, evaluating and analysing that data and evidence. As I have said, committees of local councillors would also be able to do that. I think we have a resource challenge in how that local government scrutiny operates, but as a matter of principle local councillors are increasingly adept at that data analysis, despite the fact that they may not be clinical experts. They are able to carry out some form of analysis. Collectively, we can see that, together, those partners can bring to bear a form of local accountability, primarily at system and place level.
Dr Whitford
Q
Andy Bell: We have hugely underinvested in it, and indeed very poorly appreciated it. What we have seen in recent years, which we hugely welcome, is huge progress on mental health awareness and understanding. That was not there 10 or 15 years ago. It has not been that long since in a debate in the House of Commons the first Member stood up and spoke about their own experience of mental illness; that was hugely powerful, and began quite a significant social movement. However, we do not yet have literacy around that issue, or indeed a real understanding about what we can do to promote the public’s mental health. With the creation of the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities—I must remember to get the name right—there is an opportunity to make public mental health as important as public physical health. How we translate that to local areas will be really interesting.
When I talk to people working in local public health departments, I see a huge enthusiasm for and interest in how they can better support mental support in the communities they serve. We have seen incredibly creative work from around the country, such as in Leeds and Bristol, from public health teams that are leading the way who understand that the things that determine our mental health are very much about the society and environments we live in—the families we come from, the schools we go to, the amount of income we have, and the homes and neighbourhoods that we live in. There is a growing understanding of that. However, we have not yet put that into practice on a large scale, and indeed the resources available to public health departments to do that are very threadbare. Many have to be very creative in how they do that.
We very much welcomed the promotion and prevention fund set up recently by the Government, which gave funding to local authorities in the 40 most deprived local areas in England for mental health promotion activities. We are really looking forward to seeing what that money is used for, and we very much hope that it will be the beginning of something much bigger. Our worry, in relation to the Bill in particular, is the understanding of prevention, and indeed the understanding of prevention that I read in yesterday’s Command Paper on the health and social care plan. It is still based on physical health, and the idea that public health is about telling people how to live their lives and how they should behave, rather than what really determines our mental health: how much money we have coming into our home, how safe we feel, and our position in society. It is really clear that very often the way that economic and social inequalities affect our mental health also affects our physical health. Very often it is poor psychological wellbeing that leads to later physical health problems, so we really have to start taking public mental health as seriously as any other part of public health.
Justin Madders
Q
Ed Hammond: The obvious mechanism is the Secretary of State’s power of intervention. It is all about that referral upwards really to the Secretary of State to act. Ideally, these kinds of things can and should be resolved through dialogue, because the Secretary of State can intervene only so much. One of my worries about the focus in certain elements of the Bill on the new and enhanced powers of the Secretary of State is that it sort of assumes that the Secretary of State will need to have fingers in lots of pies to be aware of where these issues are occurring across England, and be prepared to step in where they are happening, which requires the exercise of a significant watching brief across a wide range of areas in a way that does not currently happen.
Ideally, these kinds of things can and should be thrashed out by the people involved at local level. The Secretary of State can intervene but does that intervention persist if relationships have effectively broken down? What do you do then? You cannot run everything from Whitehall; there has to be some kind of mechanism to rebuild relationships and trust. One would hope that it would not get that bad, but I know of past tensions. There are divergent priorities between local authorities, NHS partners and other partners in respect of health and care issues. The logic of ICPs is that you are aligning those priorities better, but that is not guaranteed.
That is one of the reasons we consider that there should be a role sitting with local health scrutiny committees to escalate matters of particular concern to the Secretary of State, so there is not this assumption that the Secretary of State is exercising a continual watching brief over everything that is going on. There is that formal power of escalation from an external body holding the system to account that can, before that escalation, exert some kind of influence at local level to try to knock heads together and bring some form of agreement in place, so that you are not in a situation where you have a persistent assumption that Whitehall will need to step in in every case where these kinds of issues occur.
Justin Madders
Q
Andy Bell: At the moment, it is really impossible to say. I would like to see the Bill achieving parity of esteem for mental health. As I say, the principles of integrated care could certainly enable that to happen, if combined with a lot of other very significant and important activity to shift the culture in the health service, apart from anything else. The lack of specific provisions in the Bill to ensure that parity is taken seriously is a real worry. I think there are still gaps in the Bill that could be very simply addressed and would help to ensure that system leaders, wherever they are—whether they are on integrated care boards or any other three-letter acronym that gets created—realise that their personal responsibility is to bring about parity for mental health.
I think we are at a point now where there is some recognition in most parts of the system that mental health is important, but very often, outside specific mental health services, there is still an assumption that mental health is something other people and other organisations do, and there is not that shared responsibility for it in quite the way that we think would help to move us forward.
Justin Madders
Q
Andy Bell: This is incredibly difficult. We have some very ambitious plans now—the NHS long-term plan ambitions for mental health. There is, quite rightly, an awful lot of money going into that, because we have a very big gap in our ability to meet people’s needs. The only way that is going to succeed is if we have a very significant expansion in the mental health workforce.
We need to remember that that workforce is not just what people think it is. It is obviously nursing and obviously psychiatry, but it is also social work—a lot of really important mental health provision is in local government under social care. We need to think about the importance of advocacy and the importance of peer support, the importance of employment and housing rights workers, who we know make a big difference to people’s lives. There is also the key role of the voluntary sector in providing forms of support that may not come under traditional clinical headings, but none the less make a huge impact in people’s lives. We need to build the workforce.
The Bill gives some steps forward and summary assurances. In some ways, it is not quite the right place to be dealing with this. This is about whether the various parts of the system—the health education system, the NHS itself and its partners in local government—have the resources and the right ways to encourage people to come and work in mental health. It would be great to see the kind of recruitment campaigns we have had for the NHS as a whole to really help bridge that very big gap in the mental health workforce. At the moment, I think the Bill is probably neutral on it. It would be good to see some stronger assurances, at the very least holding the Secretary of State to account for how they are achieving the workforce ambitions set out in the long-term plan and future policies that will have to come.
Edward Argar
Q
Building on what you have already said about the legislation, what would you identify as the opportunities of the legislation, if properly implemented or interpreted in the right way, for furthering that linkage and that joined-up mental health provision? Obviously, that goes beyond local council services and the NHS. There are a whole wraparound series of services that impact on someone’s mental health. What do you see as the opportunities in the legislation that we either need to draw out further or at least not lose sight of?
Andy Bell: This is about building real, sustainable, long-term partnerships. One of the things I know colleagues in the NHS and local government find very frustrating is that they just find a way of working with each other and then the legislation changes again and they have to start all over, so it is about having a system that actually works and stays working, that builds on the best of what is there already. I think there is some frustration in places where they spent a long time building relationships between clinical commissioning groups and local authority colleagues, sometimes with jointly employed staff, and now they have to start all over again because we are moving to a different thing. That will be immensely frustrating for many folk.
If we take the principle that this is about integrating care and equal partnerships between different players, including the voluntary and community sector, and if we give that time to work, we will enable partnerships to form with a clear voice for people—for example, in the case of mental health, for people living with mental health difficulties—so that decisions are being made with and in partnership with the people who use them rather than remotely by professional experts on their own.
Collaboration is incredibly important too. One thing we really welcome about the Bill is that it is moving us away from a system of competing providers to providers working collaboratively—literally, in providing collaboratives. There is a slight risk that all the power will be vested in one organisation and there will not be that check and balance between commissioner and provider. But some of the early provider collaboratives working in children’s mental health services that we have looked at have made really huge strides really quickly to reduce, for example, the number of children forced to go to hospital outside their local area in a mental health crisis. They have come together, looked at what support is needed for children in a crisis and put community services, in particular, in place to achieve that.
One further thing that will be important is that there is some positive provision in the Bill to ensure that ICBs—I think it is ICBs, yes, it is—have to take into account inequalities in access and outcomes. That is great, but there is not that requirement to pay attention to inequalities in health and to go out and identify which groups of people are experiencing health inequalities and what the system can do to deal with that upstream rather than waiting for people to need formal healthcare. That would be the other part that would really help in the Bill—to build on some of the positive noises and moves in the right direction in collaborating at the level of prevention and on the things that determine our health as well as in the provision of services when things have reached a point where people need care.
Edward Argar
Q
Ed Hammond: Broadly speaking, yes, that is fair. My central point would be that those structures and the opportunity that local government has through this Bill for more direct and active involvement in health and care decision making are good, but there still needs to be that separate independent source of accountability that we feel sits properly at a local level with democratically elected local councillors who have powers through health scrutiny committees to talk to local people about their needs. That needs to be there and needs to be strengthened. In respect of the Secretary of State powers I was talking about, my worry would be that we would see ICBs and ICPs looking over their shoulder at what the Secretary of State might want to do rather than looking down to local communities to understand where local need lies, with decision making being led somewhat by what people think national priorities should be.
Part of the solution to that problem is the things we have proposed around, for example, requiring the Secretary of State to consult with local scrutiny committees before exercising those powers, having the powers for local scrutiny committees formally to escalate things to the Secretary of State to act on, and what we have suggested for more effective joint scrutiny by multiple councils of the ICB at system level as well. Those are all part of that strength and accountability framework. It is about saying, “Okay, we have involved local government in decision making through the ICPs and through continuing the health and wellbeing process, but in doing so we also have to enhance and build on our existing health scrutiny arrangements.” As things stand, the Bill removes elements of those by removing the power of referral. It is about having a balance of accountability arrangements and ensuring that that strong external accountability continues.
The Chair
We had better leave it there. We are out of time. I thank you, Andy and Ed, for your evidence today.
Examination of Witness
Sir Robert Francis QC gave evidence.
The Chair
Welcome, Sir Robert. Could I ask you to introduce yourself for the record, please?
Sir Robert Francis: I am Sir Robert Francis. I am chair of Healthwatch England.
The Chair
Thank you very much. We have until 4.30 pm for this session. I call Mary Robinson.
Mary Robinson
Q
Sir Robert Francis: That rather depends on what arrangements are made in the new system. I have seen no guidance issued yet as to how this should work, and I am not surprised at that, because until you know precisely what the structures are and what the accountability and information flows are, it is quite difficult to do that. But I would agree that it is vital in the ICB and the ICP world that sufficient provisions are made for people who have concerns—whether they be staff, patients or the public—to make those concerns known safely to those responsible for doing something about them. In terms of this new world, that means that the ICB and, I suspect, the ICP need to have people who are directly responsible for that. Unless that happens, whistleblowers are going to find themselves in an even more parlous and uncertain place than they are at the moment.
Mary Robinson
Q
Sir Robert Francis: Unless there is certainty on guidance, policies and guardians, of which I am a great supporter, people do not know where to go. Clearly, where things are going right in terms of an open culture, there are many people whom others will go to as a matter of ordinary business. But if we are talking about places where, unfortunately, that is not the case—I think they do exist—people do not know who to go to for help. They need to know that they have protection to go to places to provide information of concern, and they need to know that they are going to get support. If there is no guidance and no clear framework, none of that will happen, and secrets will remain at provider level, when they should be sent elsewhere. Existing mechanisms, such as going to the CQC and your local Freedom to Speak Up guardian in your trust, will still exist—I see no reason why those should not—but I suspect there will be areas and subjects where that will not necessarily be the answer to the question the individual wishes to pose.
Jo Gideon
Q
Sir Robert Francis: Healthwatch England welcomes the requirement for Healthwatch and representatives of the public to be “involved”—that is the word—in the strategy, but we would like to see that enhanced, as I am sure many people would, and we just heard that expressed very articulately. In order for these new reforms to work, it is absolutely essential that the public whom the system serves are able to engage with it and participate in the design of the services that they are going to receive. In order to do that, in our view, they need a visible presence on the ICB board and the ICB partnership. Although that can of course be done by local discretion and local arrangement, we think it would be a powerful boost to the importance given to the people’s voice if there was a representative on the ICB—not as a voting member but, in NHS England’s parlance, as a “participant”. It would be a requirement that one of the participants be such a representative, and you will not be surprised to know that we would advocate that person being a representative of Healthwatch.
That can be done through a coalition of local healthwatches—in many places there will be more than one—so that they have a presence on the board and are able to raise things. It is not just a question of the ICS deciding what to ask people about; they need to have a flow of intelligence coming in about what people are actually concerned about, and those two things are often different. It should be someone who is able to question what is happening in a constructive way.
Of course, part of that is done by local government representatives, and this is not a substitute for local democracy, but we consider that Healthwatch has a local and national ability to reach out to groups who do not often get considered, for instance, and that is particularly relevant if you are seeking to tackle health inequalities. Through the relationships that a good local healthwatch has with groups who feel—rightly or wrongly—that they have often been ignored, the questions that they pose can be put and the answers given back to them. That is a two-way process; you need someone who is independent from the system but in the room, and they also need to be able to transmit into the room information from patient services and the public, and transmit information back. They are part of the mechanism for explaining to the world at large this extremely complicated new concept—namely, a system of which the public has no understanding at all at the moment. A lot of professionals do not either.
Edward Timpson
Q
Sir Robert Francis: Clearly, patient choice and view include information about people’s experience of the service they have had, where they think the gaps are, and their needs. The less you have a competitive exercise with different organisations coming in and saying, “We can provide this better than X or Y,” the more you need to know what people think about what you are proposing, or indeed the more you need to know to inspire creative thought about how you meet the needs that people are telling you they have.
Our view is that while we actually welcome the removal of the requirement for tendering and all the bureaucracy that, quite often in our healthwatches’ experience, interferes with and delays getting solutions to things, that should not mean that we do not have a concentrated effort to involve patient services and the public in the design of what they are being provided with. In effect, that would include how you commission the service that they are going to be provided with. You then need a constant flow of information and dialogue about whether that is working. Frankly, I do not see a great deal of clarity in the Bill about how performance will be monitored after having commissioned services and worked out your strategy and so on.
Edward Timpson
Q
Sir Robert Francis: Definitely, and it would be quite wrong to think that children and young people cannot be fully involved and consulted in the design of the services that are required for their benefit. Many local healthwatches have been very good at doing just that.
Dr James Davies
Q
Sir Robert Francis: I do not think it prevents it, but the extent to which it allows for it will depend, as I understand it, on the strategic decisions being made locally within the system. The answer is that I am not quite sure.
Karin Smyth
Q
Sir Robert Francis: First, there is no ideal person to do the job. I think that past iterations of what is now Healthwatch may have been slightly too full of people who were more interested in constitutional matters than the actual provision of health services. That was the impression I formed during the Stafford inquiry, but I think that is not true of Healthwatch. The presence of a Healthwatch person—by the way, this requires a new level of Healthwatch collaboration and function, but that is not difficult to provide in the Bill—will not produce, in itself, the culture that you talk of. The health service is still an organisation that, in the jargon, is top-down and is delivering things to people, rather than getting their ideas and responding to them. But the presence of the Healthwatch person, or some independent person, is at least a symbol of the need to have such a culture and to develop it. It will be someone whose principal task may be to question whether that culture is being led and developed.
If you have that person, you can back it up if you need to—in regulatory terms—with whatever form of systemic review the Care Quality Commission is tasked with doing. Its reports could certainly be a very valuable tool in relation to this, but you need a channel of communication between the ICB, if that is to be the centre of all this, and the wider world within its constituency. Unless there is someone whose independent role is to oversee whether that is happening, I am not sure it will. All organisations currently in the NHS have directors of engagement and communication. I suspect that, with the best will in the world, most of them see it as their job to defend the organisation. This is not about defending an organisation; it is about welcoming constructive comment from the public and responding to the needs that people communicate to them.
Dr Whitford
Q
Sir Robert Francis: What I am about to say in answer to your question is my personal view. Healthwatch England, for reasons you will understand, does not have a view on that—apart from welcoming the existence of this body and the fact it has a statutory function. I confess to some concern about the safe place provisions, and I said this in part to a parliamentary Committee before. On the one hand, I fully endorse the need to protect people who come forward to give information—sometimes potentially damaging to themselves—so we can learn the relevant lessons of safety. Therefore, I absolutely support the idea that anything said in these circumstances cannot of itself be used to prosecute or discipline them, or indeed be used in civil proceedings.
On that point, as a lawyer, I would be very hesitant on the advice I would give to someone on the basis of the Bill as it stands, because there is no certainty that what goes into the safe space stays there. It is all a matter of discretion, albeit a High Court judge’s discretion or sometimes a coroner’s discretion. That would have to be worked out. It is probably difficult to reinforce more, but if it could be it should be.
However, I think that is different from denying bereaved families and victims of an incident, if they are still alive, knowledge of what has been said to the investigation board. At the very minimum, I would like to see there be discretion to share that information with families. I can see there may be circumstances in which that is not possible, and I can see that it might be necessary for there to be quite stringent conditions around what they personally can do with the information they are given. What worries me about the position at the moment is that it starts from a presumption of dividing the staff from the patient from the families, and you get straight into, I presume, an adversarial situation. That is not necessary the case, and if we work the system and the learning culture properly, everyone will be trying to contribute to learning rather than blaming each other. You are not going to get that if you are denying one half of the incident the information that the other half has.
Dr Whitford
Q
Sir Robert Francis: Yes, or something closer to it. After all, it is rather artificial. The family will often know the people involved in the treatment of their loved one. Where there is already likely to have been a breakdown of trust and confidence, this would be perpetuated and possibly increased if they are not given access to information that it is possible to share responsibly with them. I can see circumstances in which that would not be the case—that is why it would have to be discretionary—but I think many concerns of people I know who would have possibly been settled if only they had seen something more than they get in the report.
Dr Whitford
Q
Sir Robert Francis: Often, if I may say so, things that patients and their relatives have seen for themselves. If I were a relative of someone who died in hospital and I was being told, “This is due to a systematic fault. It was not down to the nurse or the doctor,” I would want to know a bit more about that. I would want, if I could, to talk to those individuals so that they could perhaps learn a little more from the impact of all this on people. I am not saying that it should happen in all circumstances, but in order for the family to have a true understanding of it. It does not necessarily mean they need to know the names in that sort of case that you mentioned, but I do not think it should be automatically assumed that they will be excluded from that information.
Alex Norris
Q
We have spoken quite a bit in these proceedings about the relationship between the integrated care board and the integrated care partnership, the fact that the board has to pay “due regard” to the integrated partnership’s plan, and what that due regard means. You talked about that in your written evidence, and you suggested mechanisms for resolving the situation—or at least making account for a situation where the board sets aside the ICP’s plan. Could you talk a little more about that?
Sir Robert Francis: The first requirement is that there needs to be clarity about what happens in those circumstances, which I am not sure we see in the current legislation or in the guidance that NHS England has produced, which I briefly read. Our suggestion is that there should be a provision inserted into the Bill that, if there is a disagreement, and the board decides to do something that is contrary to the views put forward by the partnership, it should then be obliged to set out their reasons for that. In other words, there should be transparency, which enables accountability, if it is necessary, to be more easily handled.
That would be the major thing we would require, but there also needs to be a better understanding, as far as the public is concerned, about the relationship between the two. I have heard what has been said today, and I must say that I am not clear that the partnership is a sub-committee of the board. That is because the Bill explicitly says that the creation of the partnership is a joint matter between the board—I think, or the NHS—and the local authority. It strikes me that that is not clear.
That is important because, if there is a disagreement, local people are entitled to know why. It would be good if they could also be persuaded that whatever is happening is actually the right thing for them, but they are certainly entitled to be part of the discussion. For that to happen, there need to be reasons given. Another thing that might send a shiver through some spines is that if there is an obligation to give reasons, it might be easier for those who object to the course being taken to challenge it.
Alex Norris
Q
Sir Robert Francis: Yes.
Alex Norris
Q
We will move on to something else that you said in your written evidence. On Tuesday, we had a very good conversation about data, but the whole thing was about quantitative data. In your written evidence, you talk about qualitative data, and it is very easy for us, as Members of Parliament, to conceive of the importance of that, as it is something that we routinely draw on. With your insight from leading Healthwatch, how can we develop systems that properly trap that, use that and prioritise that just as much as the quantitative data?
Sir Robert Francis: Technically, these days, that is no problem at all. You will not expect me to explain that to you, but the qualitative data—comments from the friends and family test, or similar things—is easily mined these days. You can develop a view of the sentiment that comes through it, and you can then dig down more closely into specifics if you need to. That information is extremely valuable to Healthwatch in determining what people think about a particular subject or services, and we feel that there should be a recognition that that data, in that form, should be capable of being shared with a statutory body like Healthwatch, and possibly others.
We also think that—I am sure others might agree—while quantitative data is extremely important, it is informed by qualitative data. The personal impact—good or bad—of things that happen in the service are best described by the people who have received that service. If you just look at figures—I am afraid that this was a problem at Mid Staffs—you lose a great deal, and the trigger for change and improvement is lost.
Edward Argar
Q
We sought with this Bill to be permissive rather than prescriptive; behaviours, and how things work on the ground, are often as, if not more, important than the framework. Notwithstanding your on-the-record comments about Healthwatch participation in ICB levels as a formal member, what else would you draw out as opportunities within the framework to build on patient participation and accountability to those who pay for, and use, the service? Are there other opportunities, that, with a small tweak either in guidance or in the Bill, we could seize more effectively?
Sir Robert Francis: I suspect that there is something around reporting, particularly with the oversight of quality, inequalities and matters of that nature, which would be of assistance. I agree that flexibility of engagement is really important, and Healthwatch claims no monopoly over this. I see it taking place in guidance. If the emphasis is to change culture to one where the service is being responsive to people’s needs, as opposed to providing them with what the service thinks they need, there could be greater emphasis in the Bill on ensuring there is a strategic plan for engagement. There could be more emphasis on how the ICS is going to engage with local people and communities, and an actual requirement that it provides comprehensible information to the community about how people should be able to communicate with it. I know they sound like matters of detail, but if there is an obligation to make such things clear, it does not prevent flexibility, but it does oblige organisations to actually do it—and mean it. There will be lots of other ideas, I am sure.
Edward Argar
Q
Sir Robert Francis: In relation to a decision of whether information should be capable of being used in legal proceedings, there is no better qualified person than a High Court judge—so, absolutely. My advocating that there should be some qualification in relation to the family does not mean, in any way, that I suggest they should then be able to use that for litigation or other purposes. Indeed, some of the conditions you might impose on them in order for them to get the information are that they do not do those sort of things. There will be areas where it can be said that it is too sensitive for that. Of course, there may need to be a balancing of people’s rights of privacy. It is really about ensuring that families feel that they are not being excluded or that something is being hidden from them. We need to build trust. I do not think that that decision needs to be taken by a High Court judge, because it is not about legal proceedings; it is about something really quite private.
The Chair
Thank you, Sir Robert.
Examination of Witnesses
Stephen Chandler and Gerry Nosowska gave evidence.
The Chair
Q
Stephen Chandler: Good afternoon, everyone. I am Stephen Chandler. As you said, I am currently the president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services. ADASS is a small charity that represents directors such as myself. My day job is director of adult services in Oxfordshire—up and down the country. It is probably important to say by way of context that I have only worked in the public sector. I left school and started my training as a nurse. The first 20 years of my career were in the NHS. I reached trust board level via a route of joint commissioning. The second half of my career is in local government, so in a way I am living proof of integration, if there was one.
Gerry Nosowska: I am Gerry Nosowska, and I am the chair of the British Association of Social Workers, which is the professional body for social work in the United Kingdom. We have around 22,000 members. I am here to represent the voice of social work, and our experts by experience who have worked with us.
Edward Timpson
Q
Stephen Chandler: It is a really good question. We see the importance of bringing that collective data together in one place at every level in the stratified system. If you take the integrated care system, at the macro level it is really important for population-based planning. My local integrated care system covers Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire—colloquially, BOB—and for some conditions dealing with it at that footprint is really important. Having data, for example, around cancer care and some of the specialist mental health services is really important.
The first thing that I did this morning was to chair a call looking at urgent care activity in our local system, and it was really important for the staff from the community trust and social care, as well as the acute staff, to be looking at a single view of the citizen—the patient—in that instance. We have done a lot of work to get there already. Again, this is about building on some good foundations, but it is critical for practitioners to do their job to have that data there, flowing readily, as well as for us in the planning and commissioning sense.
Edward Timpson
Q
Gerry Nosowska: Yes, please. The link between health and social care data is obviously essential, because health care impacts on people’s lives and social lives, and social determinants impact on health. Joining those things up will help us to have a much more holistic picture, which is what social workers are interested in. For social workers, what we really want to understand are the trends, the gaps, and the barriers to wellbeing. In practice, having that data and that understanding—ideally a really local understanding—is important.
We would want to see social workers and experts by experience input into the kind of data that is collected, with an understanding in particular of under-met or unmet need, so that we can become more preventative, which is another aim of integration, and we have information about people who might fall outside of statutory responsibilities—self-funders, for example. We know that there is a real need to understand much more about the pressures on carers. This is an opportunity to think about how we can build more fairness locally through understanding the inconsistencies in people’s experiences and outcomes. We also have a need to understand the impact of digital developments on people—how to ensure equity as we move into a wider range of working. Another hope would be that, ultimately, our health and social care leaders will be able to be more proactive using the data, because very often it feels like we are on the back foot.
Karin Smyth
Q
Every project that I have seen or witnessed on integration—joint commissioning; joint collaboration—has fallen apart in the end because of accountability for the money. A finance director in a local authority has to account for its budgets, and the finance director and accountable officer of a health authority ultimately has to account for their budgets. If agreement cannot be held at that point, those projects fall apart.
We heard earlier that we still do not know any detail on the tariff or money flows as a result of changes in the Bill—changes that will come into place in April. We also have the better care fund outwith the Bill, and this week’s announcement of a major change in funding is also outwith it. I wonder, with your ADASS hat on, how can you now help the Government to get around the problem for organisations regarding accountability for the money so that they do not fail?
Stephen Chandler: Again, that is a really good question. To be honest, a real challenge for those of us working in both health and social care is that uncertainty and delay in knowing the financial envelope we are working with. The announcements this week help to provide some clarity of what the future funding arrangement is likely to look like but, of course—from a local government point of view—until the spending review confirms the final settlement later this year, we will not know.
Some practical examples of how to mitigate or manage some of that uncertainty clearly come down to how much you are able to put together—and feel confident to put together. I suspect it was probably there in your day in Oxfordshire, but Oxfordshire has a large pooled budget arrangement—some of it completely risk-shared, but some of it not. That reflects the confidence and experience we have in using that money together. If I were not here providing testimony to you, I would be chairing a joint commissioning executive. In Oxfordshire, across health and social care, we have responsibility for more than £500 million in health and social care expenditure.
We are talking about continuing to build on some really good relationships and experiences that have existed but, rather than allowing them to evolve because individuals—either at a system level or a personal level—believe it is the right thing, it becomes policy and direction. I think that the success for us has to be looking at where systems have been able to resolve some of those challenges. I am still working with my CCG colleagues in Oxfordshire around what we believe the better care fund will look like, having signed the agreement at the beginning of the year. That is about us becoming much more involved and therefore much more confident in each other.
You will appreciate that ADASS members are constantly providing reassurance and at times caution to our elected members on how far we could and should go in relation to sharing and using our resources. Some of the developments in the Bill around the establishment of integrated care partnerships fully provide a vehicle for some of that greater transparency and greater opportunity to look at the problem, the challenge and the opportunity from a place, and then from a system, point of view.
Karin Smyth
Q
Stephen Chandler: Yes, indeed. Without giving away too much personal information, my wife and I have a joint account. We each have our own accounts. She is not here, so I will say that I think I have the authority on the joint account, but if she was here she would probably say that she has.
The point I am trying to make is that a lot of this works on the formal agreement, but as much of it also works on the trust and confidence you build in those relationships. However, you cannot take away the facts, as you said. Equally, my elected members are very clear with me that I am responsible for ensuring that Oxfordshire County Council’s resources are being managed and used in the way that they have approved.
Dr James Davies
Q
Stephen Chandler: The principles that underpin successful discharge are, quite simply, a person-centred, strength-based approach to enabling that individual to get back, preferably and ideally, to their own home, in a timely manner, with the level of support that they need to continue the recovery that will have started in the hospital but will not have finished in the hospital.
Where we have got that process right—I think the discharge to assess arrangements have really helped us in this—is by clarifying that the destination for discharge, for the majority of patients, has to be home. It is pathway 1—“Home First”, as it is often described—with the appropriate reablement support to maximise the recovery. That is good for the patient; it is good for us in local government, because it reduces the level of ongoing care needs in many cases; and it is good for the NHS, in that it frees up acute hospital beds. Those are the principles.
The way you successfully do that is by ensuring that the focus is on the patient and getting the patient—the citizen—to their home, not on the organisational form and who is responsible for it; in fairness, we all are. Discharge to assess has helped us to clarify “Home First” or pathway 1, and it has provided for some of those systems where one of the stumbling blocks was the resources to make that happen.
The challenge we have, though, is that we have introduced “Home First” at a system level nationally at a time when demand, linked to covid and the unintended consequences of covid, has really impacted. I reference my first meeting this morning, looking at acute pressures in Oxfordshire. We pride ourselves on getting people home, and “Home First”, but when I was chairing that call I heard myself saying, “We need to move people into some interim beds”, because I needed to create capacity in the acute system. I am hearing that coming through from director colleagues up and down the country; we are making less than ideal decisions for people because of just how much demand there is in the system. Let us be very clear: good discharge is discharge home, to your bed, with the support to enable you to maximise your recovery.
Dr Davies
Q
Gerry Nosowska: Yes, please. I completely agree with Stephen on the principles behind discharge to assess, and we have good experience within social work of it working when there is clear shared responsibility and the person is kept at the centre of it. We also have evidence from our members of the potential for rapid discharge to assess, without real advocacy and potentially without the involvement of social work, to lead to some undermining of people’s rights around potentially being placed in a more restrictive environment and potentially struggling to have access to their family. It is partly about resourcing, but it is also about the ethos of human rights and people’s right to be heard and to have choice, and then having the practical backing to follow things up well.
I think that people with experience of social care and health want to have a really clear and transparent process. For that to happen well, we still need some safeguards around that transition. It is a complex moment in people’s lives, and I would want to see social work involvement in the guidance around that. But we also need to be thinking, if we want people to have more of their care closer to home, about how we rebalance resources—this relates to the previous question—by making sure that there are incentives for the resource to be put into community and local support and not just into the most urgent matters.
Stephen Chandler: Could I come back in? One thing that I omitted—it was remiss of me—was that we also need to never forget the importance of the support for carers, particularly around hospital discharge. All too often we are focusing on the individual in the hospital bed and the need to get them out, but we also need to ensure that we are not overlooking or not giving due regard to the role of the carer in that. If I could ask you to do anything, it would be this. Can you just ensure that the emphasis on the role of carers and how all of this is going to help the role of carers is brought through? Without carers, the health and care system would disintegrate rapidly.
Chris Skidmore
Q
Stephen Chandler: You are right: discharge to assess and, indeed, the “Home First” model of three pathways is not new. It has been around and used up and down the country for a decade or so now, so there are some well established services that you can draw some really good data from. Before I was in Oxfordshire, I was in Somerset, and we did a lot of work in the Somerset system to develop “Home First”, because our delays were really poor. We saw significant improvement in the outcomes for patients in the first instance. We then saw significant improvements in the flow from the acute hospitals, and I would say we also saw some significant benefits to the local authority in relation to the commitment it had to individuals on an ongoing basis.
I have been out of that system for over two years, but the work that it has done since then to take that even further is phenomenal, and I would encourage you to talk to some of the health and social care professionals in that system. One of the hallmarks of the system is that it does not rely solely on health and social care professionals. It has brought what it refers to as community agents and village agents into the hospital to help with discharge. It has got the voluntary sector as an equal partner. It is helping the individuals beyond the health and care needs that they have in leaving hospital.
I personally believe that discharge to assess is a robust and positive model, and I am hearing nothing to the contrary from director colleagues. What I am hearing from director colleagues, though, is real anxiety about conclusions that might be being drawn from the very point you made, which is that we have tried to evaluate discharge to assess in a very short period of time, and at a time when demand and pressure on the service has been at its most acute. Remember that it is not just the physical demand on those services that we have been experiencing; we have been working on an assumption that there is likely, at any point, to be an immediate surge in the demand for acute services, so we have been working to try to ensure that there is always capacity behind us should a further wave—either a local or a national wave—occur. We have been, up and down the country, operating systems at a pace that I have never seen before, as a result of covid. I would be cautious about drawing out any strong opinions around discharge to assess from an evaluation that was done during that covid period. For me, it is the only model that really helps people leave hospital in a timely manner.
I do not know about any of you, but as I get older and hospital admission becomes more likely, I want that hospital admission to deal with the acute need that requires it, but I want to go back home as quickly as I possibly can and to be able to continue to regain the independence I had. I do not want to become reliant on the local authority for all my support, which is why that reablement support at discharge is so critical.
Gerry probably wants to add to this, but the multidisciplinary approach that has a social worker and the local authority at its heart, building upon not just the professional expertise we bring but the relationships with our communities, our voluntary sector and our social care providers, is critical to that success.
The Chair
Do you want to add anything, Ms Nosowska?
Gerry Nosowska: Yes, please. The issue with getting out of hospital is not about getting out of hospital; it is about getting your life back and getting back to your normal life. We know that reablement can be a really important part of that. The persistence, co-ordination and attention to the impact of a transition from hospital to home is something that social workers can really help with, and I do not think we should underestimate how potentially complex that can be. It is not just a question of somebody going back home and picking up where they left off.
Having really good support rapidly following up is absolutely essential. We have concerns about evidence of either inappropriate support or lack of support, support that has not been there or follow-up that has not happened. I would want us to be careful about checks and balances here.
Dr Whitford
Q
Gerry Nosowska: I think that this can achieve some strengthening of integration if it is not just a reorganisation that sucks in energy and resource, but a change that is absolutely about relationship, trust and understanding of local services, and it leads to a flow of resources and attention to that idea of home and community. There is potential, absolutely, but we have seen efforts to build integration before. What makes them work, certainly from a frontline point of view, is parity of esteem, trust, understanding and recognition of expertise, and relational time together.
One question I have is about how the integrated care partnership and the board have the appropriate input, the right people in there and the right people engaged, so that those relationships can really build, bearing in mind that we might be talking about quite a large area. We also have to make sure that from the point of view of the person who needs help or care, it is about their local community and neighbourhood. If I were going to change something, I would want to make sure that there was lived experience and social work expertise at the heart of those integrated structures.
Dr Whitford
Q
May I ask you the same questions, Stephen? Do you think it will improve integration? What is the one thing you would change?
Stephen Chandler: I do believe that it will improve integration. As I said earlier, anything that helps those people who have yet to be convinced that integration is a good thing or provides them with some of the roadmaps for putting integration into place is great. From a local government point of view, strengthening the role that local government has in relation to the health and wellbeing of its citizens in the way that this does is good. I look forward to the refined guidance around the roles that health and wellbeing boards will have, because when I talk to my leader, I emphasise to her the importance that that gives her, as an elected member who chairs that board.
On whether I would change anything, we risk focusing a lot on either people who are acutely unwell or the elderly. From a local government and social care point of view, we work with people across their life course, including working-age adults, many of whom often have very complex underlying health and care needs. Recognising the need to ensure that health and care systems work well for a 25-year-old with learning disabilities who is trying to achieve his potential, or to help somebody with a severe and enduring mental illness to maintain their employment and therefore their accommodation, is really important.
Unfortunately, those voices are not always as obvious in what we are doing, but they are so important. I have been quoting this a lot of late, but each and every one of us is just one accident or life-changing illness away from needing that. We all recognise that we may need healthcare to deal with it, but very few of us think that we may then need and want the support of social care. In my case, if I had an accident or a significant stroke on the way home, I would need help maintaining my family. All the things we take for granted are only possible for a lot of people through the help that local government and social care provide, but doing that together with our health colleagues offers even greater opportunities.
Dr Whitford
Q
Stephen Chandler: It absolutely is. If you think of a young person with a complex health need associated with a learning disability, we need to work together to ensure that we are allowing them to maximise their potential while managing the risk associated with their health needs. For somebody who is coming out of the criminal justice system, maximising their potential to reintegrate into society, get a job and get a house is only possible if we work together. That is why integration must be much more than just a focus on the frail elderly.
Dr Whitford
Q
Stephen Chandler: I will come back to you on that. I cannot immediately think of a part.
Justin Madders
Q
Gerry Nosowska: It is a genuine concern, yes—partly because, as Stephen was saying, it was rolled out very rapidly, at scale, during an unusual and very pressured time. Social workers have often been involved in those transitions, and very well, to advocate and to ensure that the person’s voice is heard and that people do not get lost somewhere in the system or forgotten, but the concerns are around the potential weakening of that social work role.
Not everybody will need that, but I advocate for a social worker being available to anybody who might need that kind of co-ordination, therapeutic support and advocacy at the point of such a major life transition. We want a review of the model, but we also have concerns about just taking out wholesale all the elements around notification of social care and everything that was in the care Act. A lot will hinge on what the statutory guidance says about this. We must make sure we do not lose people in the system, because there is always an incentive to free up a valuable resource in hospital, but our statutory job is to promote wellbeing.
Justin Madders
Q
Gerry Nosowska: My understanding was that the discharge to assess was due to be reviewed, but I do not know why there has been a delay on that.
Justin Madders
Q
Gerry Nosowska: I am not aware of a large-scale, formal review of it, no.
Justin Madders
Thank you. That is all I have, Chair.
Stephen Chandler: If I could help, I am aware that the Department of Health and Social Care has undertaken a review of some discharge to assess arrangements. It is not a national review, but I think about eight separate systems have been subject to a review. I have not seen the outcome of it, but a review of a limited capacity has taken place.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)
No, my question was covered earlier. I had assumed that I would be called as a Back Bencher, if you see what I mean, as I am not the lead Minister on this Committee.
The Chair
I apologise for that, but I understood that we had decided to share the time between Back Benchers and Front Benchers, and I counted you among the Front Benchers. There we go. Never mind.
Jo Churchill
Q
Stephen Chandler: The Bill reaffirms and formalises the requirement to plan very carefully for the population at a place level first, and then at a system level. In doing so, it sets up an integrated care partnership with a clear set of objectives, based on the population. Of course, it emphasises the importance of prevention as a way of helping people remain healthy and well for longer.
In Oxfordshire, we have set up our shadow partnership, and one of the areas we are looking at is our out-of-hospital support—particularly how we can avoid the need for hospital admissions. Again—this goes back to a point I made earlier—in doing so, we are looking at how we as a system can contribute individually, and therefore collectively, to reducing crisis and therefore the need for hospital admission. It has changed the tone of the discussion from, “Isn’t that an NHS responsibility, whether primary care or secondary care?” to, “How can we do better for our population?”.
You might say, “Well, hold on. That sounds like a very subtle change.” Let me be clear: some of these subtle changes really do make an impact. Coming back to an earlier question about resources, this also enables us to have the conversation around the prioritisation and impact of those resources. Instead of saying, “Here is the county council’s budget plan and here is the NHS’s”, we can ask how we make best use of that collective resource. The Bill helps by formalising that and providing some additional structures and focus on that.
The Bill is helpful, but it will be interesting to see how it works where, perhaps, systems have not had positive relationships or have had a more adversarial approach. I was really lucky in Somerset, because the emerging ICS there was coterminous with the local authority. It was a single provider. It was perfect in a way. I am in an ICS now where there are three different population groups. We know some ICSs have significantly more.
The opportunity is there to be grasped. This provides a fantastic focus if it can be ensured. In fairness to colleagues, the focus seems to be “start at place and work upwards”, rather than “start at system and work downwards”, in order to make really good differences to people, particularly around hospital admission avoidance. It also gives me, from a local authority point of view, greater leverage to challenge my NHS colleagues around their investment in secondary care and community care resources, because that area has, unfortunately, seen significant reductions over the years.
Jo Churchill
Q
Stephen Chandler: Absolutely.
Jo Churchill
Q
Gerry Nosowska: Prevention is always undermined by the resources moving into urgent and acute needs. In practice, social workers are not able to do therapeutic, restorative support work that they would be able to if they had the time to spend with people who need that. There is a fundamental resource issue that the Bill does not address directly, but it may help with the potential for pooling resources. Again, people in the community do not care whether it is a health or social care resource. If there is a need emerging that can be responded to, and preventive work can be done, it should happen without health and social care arguing about exactly whose purse it comes out of.
There are some really successful examples of reablement and preventing avoidable hospital admissions. We know it is possible. Scarcity does breed competition rather than collaboration, so that is something to think about. As for what the Bill might also do, the partnership strategy ought to have a very strong preventive element to it, and that needs to be dug down into locally—into particular communities, neighbourhoods and streets. That is where you really need lived experiences. I have a question about the regard that the integrated care board would have to that, and the potential for a wonderful, collaborative partnership strategy around prevention to be disregarded because of an acute need. I was listening to Robert Francis, and I think his suggestion that there be a written explanation to a local community if that happens is very good.
Edward Argar
Q
I will turn to Stephen first and then to Gerry. We have sought to be permissive rather than prescriptive in this Bill. Have we struck broadly the right balance, or are there areas where it might need to be tweaked, either in legislation or in guidance?
Stephen Chandler: Your director colleague was absolutely right. I think that you have got the balance right in relation to permissiveness. I worry that the guidance does not prescribe directly how we should develop that culture, but having worked as long as I have, I realise that you cannot prescribe how relationships are formed and how cultures work. You have to create the conditions for success. Some of those conditions are in the Bill. I have talked about some of them in relation to the pooling, the boards and the assurance methodology. What has to be absolutely clear—and I am hearing it clearly, so it is not that I have not heard it—is the importance of seeing this as a vehicle for meaningful change to people’s lives, not a restructuring of health and social care. Rather, this is a vehicle for improving the lives of people in communities and systems, and for allowing health and social care professionals to maximise their individual abilities for that collective good. In a way, there is a duty on me as a leader in the system to create that culture and environment.
You have not gone into the area of assurance, but for me it is really important that when assurance looks at a system, it looks at the leadership and how that leadership translates the freedom, the permissiveness, but also the accountability, clearly. The feedback I am hearing from our members is, “We favour the permissive approach that is taken in this.” We would not say that the tolerance should be changed one way or the other.
Edward Argar
Gerry?
Gerry Nosowska: Apologies, I think I lost my connection for a moment, so I might repeat some of the things that Stephen said. On the balance between permissive and rigid, we have an interest in the consistency of opportunity and outcomes for members of the population. Areas face different challenges, so it is important that locally there is flexibility around how those challenges are met. What will hold those models together are the principles of ensuring transparency around decision making; the involvement of lived experience and clinical expertise in both social care and health; and real local accountability. Certainly, more local community decision making, planning and work, and less centralisation, is much more in tune with responding to the lived needs of people and their day-to-day priorities.
Edward Argar
Thank you, Gerry and Stephen. I have no further questions, Mr McCabe.
The Chair
May I thank our witnesses for their evidence? That brings today’s oral evidence sessions to a close. The Committee will meet again on Tuesday in Committee Room 14, with Mr Peter Bone in the Chair.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Maggie Throup.)
Building Safety Bill (Second sitting)
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Chair
Before we start the next four evidence sessions that we will have before 5 o’clock, Theo Clarke wants to update the Committee.
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
Thank you, Chair. I would like to draw attention to a possible interest: my husband is an estate agent at Hayman-Joyce.
The Chair
Thank you very much. To remind colleagues, if you have any interests, you can talk to the Clerks and they will ensure that they are properly declared.
Examination of Witnesses
Peter Caplehorn and Dr Scott Steedman gave evidence.
The Chair
Q
Peter Caplehorn: Good afternoon, everybody. I am delighted to be part of this session. I am Peter Caplehorn, the chief exec of the Construction Products Association. I have held that role for the past two years. I have been with the CPA for seven years, and prior to that I spent 38 years in practice as a commercial architect, involved in technical matters and regulations, and involved with British standards and a lot of building regulation development. I hope that that is of help.
Dr Steedman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am Scott Steedman, director general of standards at the BSI, which incorporates the director of standards role. In my early career, I was an academic in civil engineering. I then spent around 20 years in industry on major building projects. Since 2012, I have been in the role of director of standards at the BSI, so I am responsible for the national standards body and all British standards.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
Excuse me, Mrs Miller, but a number of us are having difficulty hearing on this side.
The Chair
Yes—when I chaired a Select Committee, I always used to remind everybody that these microphones are purely ornamental. They do not really amplify very much, so projection is always good at these events. I thank our witnesses for being with us today. Obviously we are hybrid. We have Peter online and Scott here in the room, so bear with me. Perhaps we will take this slightly slower to ensure that we include Peter in our conversation. Please just shout at me, Peter, if I have not quite seen that you want to intervene.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
Q
I noted that in your evidence you urged us to
“resist the consequent serious danger of disproportionate reaction.”
I was very struck by that because it was a very different piece of evidence than we received from almost every other actor in the sector. I would be grateful if you could set out whether you believe that those voluntary forms of regulation are sufficient, and what a disproportionate reaction would look like in relation to your part of the industry.
Peter Caplehorn: What I was trying to do was to set the scene. We fully appreciate and support all the statutory moves that are being made. Equally, I wanted to emphasise that industry and a lot of organisations across construction have also been working in the same direction. Perhaps I did not express the point clearly. It was not a case of saying that the other non-statutory initiatives are more important; it is simply the fact that this body of work is going on. I think that that is really important because the objective is to reform, enhance and have culture change across the whole industry. That is brought about by having good statutory powers, and by having the attention of industry and making it move of its own accord.
On the point about overreaction, I wanted to keep my evidence fairly succinct, to be honest, but I was referring to the issues in the industry with insurance. All of us will be concerned about the various reports in the media about insurance issues, and the impact of those. This has to do with the analysis of buildings. Some are clearly in need of remediation, but a lot have been given that label because the industry has overreacted to things that have been going on with regard to safety.
We need regulation; it is crucial. Way back when we started, there was a strong deregulatory movement, and that was unfortunate; it led us to this position. We need good, proportionate regulation, but there should be an equal measure of activity and seriousness from the industry to ensure that its morals, obligations and ethics are in tune with what we all want. I hope that sets the scene for you.
Dr Steedman: I support Peter warmly. It is all about standards, including the regulations. We are looking to achieve a generational change in the culture of an industry, and that will be quite a long process. I applaud the work of the Department and the Ministers here, and their engagement that has brought the Bill to this stage, but we are designing a new structure of powers, which will include standards set out in regulation, standards set out in statutory guidance, supporting regulations, standards that will come from industry, and codes of practice used at an operational level. All of those need to be integrated so that they work together as a full ecosystem.
However, in the end, as Peter says—I totally support his point—you need the industry to want to do this. It needs to want to improve. You cannot police it on every nut and bolt; we know of countries where that happens, and it just does not work. If you want to achieve industry transformation, you need the industry to aspire to become better. We have seen that in important areas, including health and safety, where a change in approach has led to significant improvement in the health and safety of operatives on construction sites. This is an even greater task, in a sense. It is all about creating a system of standards, including higher-level regulatory powers and voluntary standards, that lead to the outcome that we want as a country.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Dr Steedman: My immediate reaction is that I think the Bill is proportionate, but there is a lot more work to do, and we look forward to working with the Department and industry on the supporting regulations and statutory guidance. They really ought to come along together—that would be very useful—but in so far as we are seeing the approach today, it is proportionate, and I welcome that. I do not think that it goes too far.
Peter Caplehorn: I absolutely support Scott in his analysis, which is exactly right. I add that it is important that industry sees that the Government are moving the agenda forward. I can point to several programmes in the past—nothing to do with building safety, of course—where the Government have announced a programme, industry has invested heavily, and then the programme has faltered. I think that is a shame. Many people with a memory of those circumstances will now see the Bill laid out in the way that it is, with all the elements to it.
Again, I reiterate that I do not think it is disproportionate; I think it sets the scene extremely well, and we can all see how we can work from it going forward. In fact, many people have already taken that up, but it is important that this is now a key moment, so that all the energy and effort from industry really get pushed forward. That is crucial.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Q
Dr Steedman: There are some points that I think are missing. The regulator role is complex. I think we need a new regulator. In the work that we have done recently on competence standards, it is very clear that there needs to be a regulator. I think that the Health and Safety Executive is the right place to put the Building Safety Regulator. However, this goes beyond a regulator role; it turns into an enforcer role. Part of the complexity of this subject is the risk of creating a two-tier structure where you have structures that are in scope and structures that are out of scope, and a regulator that is regulator and enforcer for some buildings but just an ordinary regulator for other buildings.
I appreciate that building control is supporting this, but on the relationship between the Department and the regulator, in its role as regulator and enforcer for the buildings in scope and ordinary regulator for the buildings not in scope, and where determination will lie if someone is disputing the regulator’s role as an enforcer, that kind of complexity will not help the industry. It needs to happen and we need to work it out, which will take time, but the role as specified is extremely important and well defined, and I think it is being taken up very earnestly. The people involved are extremely excellent. Peter Baker is a well-respected individual, and I think we are in good hands with him.
Peter Caplehorn: Again, I support entirely what Scott has just said. To contextualise this a little, one of the issues that has been upon us for at least the last 20 years is the lack of oversight and sanction that Dame Judith Hackitt pointed out clearly in her review, to such an extent that I think the generality of customer practice across the industry was that regulation can be treated with a certain degree of lip service—that we do not really need to focus on the essence of a lot of regulation, simply because nobody will pick up on it and there will be no real sanction.
This is a key turning point in where we need to go, because the industry needs to recapture a respect for regulation and for compliance. The regulatory situation that is mapped out in the Bill starts to address that, but I share the concerns that Scott has expressed over the complexity. We have to start somewhere. To me, there is a bigger question here about how we reform the whole industry and the mechanisms that come into play. At the moment, that is set out in terms of a definition of higher-risk buildings, with different implications for other buildings. We have to look forward to the prospect of a regime that would be the same in addressing all buildings. That would start to simplify some of the current complexity, but we have to start somewhere.
The Chair
Dr Steedman, do you want to come back in before I bring in the next question?
Dr Steedman: Mike asked other questions about the Bill itself and improvements or missing pieces, so I do not know whether you want me to take that now, Chair.
The Chair
Please do, and then I will bring in others.
Dr Steedman: I have four suggestions of areas for improvement. One is a technical matter, but it is extremely important. It is probably an accident, but the definition of designated standards is inconsistent with other statutory instruments. The definition of designation, which is the process whereby a Secretary of State designates a standard to support industry in demonstrating or claiming compliance, has been created since EU exit to reflect the history of the way we do things in the UK. It used to be called citation. The definition of what a designated standard is and the Secretary of State’s ability to designate a standard from a defined body is incorrectly described in the document today, so I would encourage some work on that.
You will see it in schedule 9, which relates to clause 133, on page 198 of the Bill, and the definition there needs to be improved. It talks, for example, about “EU harmonised standards”, but there is no such thing—it does not exist. It is a harmonised European standard, not an EU standard, because the standards written by industry are not written by EU organisations. As it stands, there is no provision at all in the Bill that would allow the Secretary of State to request or designate a British standard from the BSI—the national standards body.
That is just an error or oversight, because if you look at other instruments, such as those relating to product safety and metrology, the definition is carefully written out. I encourage the officials in MHCLG to refer to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy because the text is available. That would be an important clarification and alignment.
We have discussed the point about things being in scope or out of scope. That is something that we will have to work on, because creating a narrative for industry that is consistent and clear will require clarity in that, and we have discussed some of the complexities. However, I am not convinced that you actually can solve it now. We will have to move all these pieces forward together, including industry, so that we can achieve that learning. There are some excellent examples from industry of organisations that are really trying extremely hard, but there is a very long tail as well.
I have also hinted that it is not clear who will do what between the Department and the new Building Safety Regulator. For example, who will oversee secondary legislation, approved documents and changes? Is that the regulator and enforcer, or is it the Department? We need some support perhaps on who the regulator is. The Bill helpfully states that the Building Advisory Committee will report to the regulator, but does the Department need its own independent advisory committee? I am not clear about that.
Those are the four points I want to stress, but the most important one, technically, is the designation definition. We could provide texts, if that would be helpful.
The Chair
Peter, was there anything you wanted to add? I could see you nodding.
Peter Caplehorn: Nodding in agreement, Chair. I would just like to mention two areas. When we start to talk about the new duty holders—principal designer, principal contractor and the building safety manager—there are obviously publicly available specification standards being produced to amplify those roles, and that is important. The origination of the principal designer and principal contractor come from the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, which have been in place for some time and effectively try to ensure risk is managed during the design and construction process, including maintenance, which is often forgotten.
That is an existing set of criteria and duties. They are now going to be amalgamated with the new duties of the same name. I am slightly concerned that that means that individuals and individual organisations will have two distinct requirements placed upon them. What I would not want to see is an undermining of the health and safety issues in place of individuals and organisations focusing on building safety in the round. I think that that is something that needs some work as we go forward and develop the new regime.
The other area that I would like to mention is the establishment of the new gateway system. Again, that is fairly well defined and fairly easily laid out, but we must be aware that every building project that starts from an initial idea and moves through to completion has an inherent natural chronology. It is so often overlooked that the process will follow a natural sequence of events. A couple of times in the current proposals it is as if one thing will always follow directly after another, but sometimes that does not happen. You will get a scheme with planning consent, and then there might be quite a pause before work continues. You might get other intervals in the process. It will none the less still follow the same sequence, but just not as a smooth operation. Again, we need to ensure that the new proposals reflect how those processes go forward.
Dr Steedman: Peter is absolutely right. That is the reality of the construction sector. Perhaps to the earlier point about disproportionality, trying to prescribe things at this level in rigorous a way is not going to reflect the reality on the ground, and then people start doing their own thing.
To the point about principal designer, principal contractor and building safety manager, we have thought long and hard about that—when I say “we”, I mean with the industry group—and the point was to try to avoid creating new roles and new titles and yet more division among who is actually accountable and responsible for safety through life and in the design and construction. My own recommendation was to stick with principal designer and principal contractor, even though the terms were originally used in the context of health and safety in construction, and in a sense to augment those roles to say that if individuals fulfilling the roles were working on higher-risk buildings, they should have these additional skills and competencies. In a sense, it was not about trying to bang two things together, but saying that someone may be an ordinary principal designer or a principal designer qualified to work on high-risk buildings. Therefore, you have one person and one title, but you may have a different gradation of qualification. That is where it came from, and I do not think Peter is disagreeing with the title.
Peter Caplehorn indicated assent.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
Q
Peter Caplehorn: The issue there is that we fully recognise that this legislation is needed and fully support it, but there is an ongoing conversation to be had with regard to the definitions. We have looked at how you would define a safe product and, indeed, a safety-critical product, and there is quite a bit of work to be done to balance out the needs of the regulations with the practicalities.
To give the Committee an example, if we were to take a sheet of plasterboard, it can be used in many different applications. If it is just used as a finishing element, I would suggest that it is not anywhere near a safety-critical item in most cases. Whereas when that same sheet of plasterboard is used in a compartment wall that is used to fire separate two areas of a building, then it very much is a safety-critical product, so there is that diversity within the product sector.
Equally, some products are clearly safety critical and should be strictly controlled and monitored. We need an ongoing conversation as the team develops the regulations, to ensure that the guidance and, eventually, the list of safety-critical products are clearly usable in a practical sense, and also so that there is complete clarity as we go forward.
Dr Steedman: It is an excellent question. We have to think of products as forming a system, and sometimes products that are completely safe in one system might be completely unsafe in another. Electrical cabling, for example, might be suitable in one jurisdiction, in one country, but if you mixed it up with electrical systems in the UK you would have a disaster on your hands. So this concept of safe products is very difficult to define, because products really have to be seen in context.
The onus should perhaps be on performance-based criteria, so we look to specify the performance of a product and them to demonstrate that that performance has been achieved, and not just by the class of product but by the actual individual product placed in the structure, ensuring that compliance is rigorous. This concept of shaping performance requirements and then allowing industry to innovate in order to achieve those requirements is very important. If you prescribe every detail—the diameter of everything, the thickness of this and that—rather than making things safe, you actually lead yourself down the path of blocking innovation and stifling progress.
We want to balance all of that out, and the best way of doing that is through performance regulations, with standards managed independently, that are required to be used in safety-critical situations to demonstrate that the products will actually do the job that the designer wants to achieve.
Siobhan Baillie
Q
Peter Caplehorn: I think there is a lot of work to be done in this area. We have been working closely with the MHCLG team as this has developed, but I still think that we probably need to map out a number of practical examples so that when the regulations eventually emerge we have the right practical answers. That might be in the form of guidance, but it certainly needs a little more development before we have a system that I could vouch for to deliver the outcomes needed.
Dr Steedman: There are interesting lessons from other sectors. The medical devices industry, for example, faces those challenges the entire time. Whether it is a sticking plaster or a heart device, there is a whole difference in the level of risk, so the way in which that type of product is regulated and the standard developed is another place to look. I agree with Peter that we need to take our time. The architecture of the Bill is there to do this, but there is a lot of work to do in developing the guidance and secondary legislation.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Q
Peter Caplehorn: Thank you for that question, because it is of concern and it has been historically, as you said. The Bill as set out does start off in the right place. We have the structure to pursue those issues. In parallel, a lot of work is being done on the quality of testing and on verification of product quality. We are starting a new road that will start to address some of that, but equally, I would raise the move towards greater competence across the industry. Clearly, some product combinations will cause trouble and they can be seen by somebody fairly early on in the process who is competent in analysing those criteria. I would put designers and engineers firmly in that spot.
Some more difficult inherent problems that occur over time are in the province of the testing and research and development areas of product manufacturers themselves. They do a lot on research and development on products because, clearly, it is in nobody’s interest for things to emerge later on that will cause problems. None the less, we do see them.
Back to our central subject of the Bill, it does set out the framework, and I believe that with the secondary legislation coming along behind it, it will give us more opportunity to ensure that products are fully tested in combinations, to ensure that we reduce the prospect of any failure like that happening in future. None the less, it is a challenging arena.
Dr Steedman: It is important to remember that we are focusing on safety here, and that means human safety affected by a physical object, and not necessarily quality. The Bill will not necessarily transform the quality of the industry—that is a different thing all together. You are absolutely right that if you look at historical failures of engineered structures, in many cases it is to do with communication between different parties involved in a very complex industry and the long chain that Peter described. The failure to understand the consequences of the assumptions of the person who did that piece of work leads to an issue in years to come that people cannot diagnose. There are some very famous examples of that.
Perhaps one of the additional points worth making is on the digital information. New standards are being developed today on digital management of fire safety information, for example, and new tools—there is a BSI identifier tool to allow a persistent and enduring identifier to be applied to individual products, so that downstream, you could walk around a building in years’ time and identify precisely what that was, and if an issue had arisen you would be able to trace it back.
Dame Judith Hackitt’s recommendation on the “golden thread”, the digital trail of construction products and how they are assembled, and the ownership of the building through life management are a vital part of the culture change that will enable a much easier identification of problems in future. As Peter says, the physics is relatively well understood; if people do the right tests, they will find the problem, but sometimes things surface many years on and we want to catch that at the earliest possible stage, to make sure we avoid safety issues.
Ms Rimmer
Q
Dr Steedman: I am very sorry, but I cannot really address any questions about the funds. I am not an expert.
The Chair
I would even go so far as to say that the funds are slightly outwith the Bill, so it is slightly out of scope. Was there something else?
Ms Rimmer
For tenure. If you own a property or if you are a social tenant, it is not available for your home.
Dr Steedman: I would anticipate that the building is designed, constructed and managed regardless of who the occupants are, or how the occupancy is structured. I would sincerely hope that the outcome of this Bill will be to achieve a building that meets our national expectations for public safety, regardless of who is in it or the ownership structure of the apartments inside. It would be entirely wrong if the Bill were to somehow separate out buildings on those grounds, and I would be very disappointed. I have not seen any evidence of that in this Bill, which is focusing very much on the technical aspects of safety, not on the occupants.
Ms Rimmer
It is about building safety systems, the priorities, and if the owners of properties just put in for any grants that they are eligible for—they are, for instance, eligible to claim from the building safety fund—they are not allocated according to risk. It is allocated based on eligibility, or is available according to eligibility, not risk.
Dr Steedman: It is an interesting point.
The Chair
Yes, it is an interesting point, but we are drawing Dr Steedman into things that are probably outwith the Bill.
Dr Steedman: It is outwith the Bill, I am afraid.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
Q
Dr Steedman: This Bill gives us the architecture, ultimately—it will take time—to change and improve the culture of the construction industry. The construction industry in the UK dates from around the Napoleonic times: the structures, the people, and the professions that work in the industry date from hundreds of years ago. I do not want to comment on the history or any assertions about the culture, but I am very confident that the structure of this Bill—the way it is laid out, with the supporting statutory guidance—will effect change. However, in the end, it has to be the industry that makes the change, and the industry needs to lead that process. It is no good simply writing it all in a Bill and expecting some magic wand to make it happen. In the end, the industry has to step up.
Ian Byrne
Q
Dr Steedman: The outcome of the regulation, including the vast scope of industry standards, will together deliver the culture change, but regulation alone cannot deliver culture change, because you cannot regulate everything. In the end, you have to have a combination of carrot and stick that encourages people to realise that in order for companies and industries to become more successful and have more satisfied clients, they need to behave better, and they need to recognise the importance of safety in their work and the impact of their work on others.
A lot of the work that we have done on the competence standards development—the framework of new competence standards, the PAS standards that Peter referred to earlier for principal designer, principal contractor and building safety manager, and possibly for building control—is about recognising the importance of your work impacting others. Lots of people can do their work, but you can still have an unsafe situation. People need to realise that the impact of your work on others is where a lot of the big risk comes from, so that requires people to think wider than their own profession. This Bill will help us get there.
The Chair
I can feel Peter listening patiently online. Would you like to add to those comments?
Peter Caplehorn: Chair, I am grateful. I was absolutely going along with what Scott was saying. I would just like to add something, though. If I can take everybody back to the John Prescott summit in 2001 on health and safety in construction, he made the very clear point that the industry needed to change. That was primarily driven by the industry understanding the message and getting on with it. Of course, regulation came along later in the shape of the early Construction (Design And Management) Regulations, but it was very much about the industry understanding the message and dealing with it. Again, I come back to what Scott has just said. This Bill sets out a very good framework and it marks a point of confidence that everybody should be marching in the same direction, but it will require the industry to do a lot of the heavy lifting as well.
I would like to highlight two points that I think have yet to be addressed and are fundamental in our steps to make sure that we get rid of the industry that we have had up until recent times. One is a reform of procurement processes, and the other is a change to the standard contracts that are used to procure buildings across the industry. Dame Judith Hackitt, in her report, identified both as seeding some of the bad behaviours that we have seen, and I think both are in need of work. In fact, that work has started, but it is outside the regulatory framework.
Dr Steedman: Just to close on that remark about procurement, I would warmly support it. We have not really grappled with procurement as a tool and yet we have standards that go back to 2011 on construction procurement policies, so the issue of procurement and how it is done is a very strong lever to drive behaviours in the right direction.
The Chair
This will probably have to be our last question to you and is from Ruth Cadbury.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Dr Steedman: I made a few comments earlier about the complexity of the scope and the risk of a two-tier system. Peter and I both commented that you have to start somewhere; and it is a very high-risk place where you have members of the public living in buildings in multiple forms of ownership. It is a very complex and highly sensitive issue. I think, in terms of somewhere to start, that higher-risk residential buildings are the right place to start, but I have no doubt that over the years ahead the principles laid out in the Bill will enable us to approach other higher-risk buildings and assets and eventually to encompass much more of the built environment.
Peter Caplehorn: Absolutely. There is danger in complexity, and we do have to start somewhere, but I see the Bill also laying out reform in the whole of the construction sector. The focus is on buildings in scope, but there are quite a few provisions in the Bill about changing a lot of other aspects of the regulatory framework, and that is really important. I would like to see us moving forward as quickly as possible, actually ditching the higher-risk category and using the momentum, using all the issues that we have discussed in this session, to push forward so that everybody can be clear that all buildings are addressed to the same technical standard, all buildings are safe and all buildings will be proven to deliver the performance.
Can I just add another point? While this is absolutely about safety and, in particular—as Scott said—structure and fire, we have a big problem in terms of climate change and reducing carbon. Buildings in future must also take into account those issues. With all the groundwork we are now putting in place, I would hope that people will be equally—
The Chair
Order. I am afraid I am going to have to draw your comments to a close there, Peter. I am so sorry to interrupt you; we are strictly governed by the rules here. Thank you so much for the point you were making.
We have come to the end of the time allotted for this panel. I thank the witnesses, who have spent such a good deal of time with us today, providing such incredibly useful information—a huge thank you to both of you. That closes the third of our panels. Thank you very much.
Examination of witnesses
Victoria Moffett, Kate Henderson, Martin Taylor and Councillor David Renard gave evidence.
The Chair
Good afternoon to the four witnesses on our next panel, who are going to introduce themselves. Kate, can I ask you to start?
Kate Henderson: Good afternoon. I am Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation. We represent housing associations in England, which are not-for-profit providers of more than 2.5 million homes to around 6 million people. Our members reinvest all their surpluses back into building more affordable homes and supporting residents.
By way of introduction, housing associations vary in size. They also vary in the profile of the buildings that they own and manage and in terms of the residents and communities they exist to serve. So, while many of our members provide general needs rented accommodation for people on lower incomes, they also provide specialist and supported housing, and with that come safety requirements. Across the board, the safety of residents is our No. 1 priority. We are really grateful to be able to give evidence to the Committee.
The Chair
That is brilliant—thank you. Victoria, and then I will ask Martin and David, who are joining us online, to introduce themselves as well.
Victoria Moffett: I am Victoria Moffett. I am the head of building and fire safety programmes at the National Housing Federation.
Martin Taylor: I am Martin Taylor, the executive director at Local Authority Building Control. We are a membership organisation for building control team members within local authorities across England and Wales and—
The Chair
Order. I am going to ask our technical people here if we can increase your volume. It is a little bit difficult to hear you. [Interruption.] The technical feedback is to ask you to stand nearer to the microphone, Martin. Is that possible?
Martin Taylor: Yes, Chair. Is that any better?
The Chair
It is, though please be aware that it is a little difficult for us to hear you. Great. Could you just say again which organisation you are from?
Martin Taylor: I am from Local Authority Building Control. I lead the technical operations within that organisation, which supports local authorities across England and Wales.
The Chair
Fantastic. David, could you introduce yourself, please? [Interruption.] We have no sound from David at the moment. [Interruption.] Are your headphones connected to your audio device? That is as much technical information as I can give. [Interruption.] We have lost David at this point. If you can hear me, David, can you make sure that your headphones are selected on the device you are trying to broadcast from? Hopefully, you will rejoin us shortly.
There are a number of questions we want to ask this panel. With four people on the panel, I am keen to ensure that we get cracking, as we only have until 3.30 pm for this session and then I will have to bring it to an end. If it is all right with colleagues, we will crack on, even though we are currently missing one of our witnesses. Mike Amesbury will kick off the questions and others can follow.
The Chair
David, you are back—hooray! It is lovely to see you. Can we check your audio?
Councillor Renard: Can you hear me?
The Chair
Yes. That is fantastic, David, thank you so much. Can you introduce yourself?
Councillor Renard: I am Councillor David Renard. I am the leader of Swindon Council, but I am speaking today on behalf of the Local Government Association, which represents most councils in England.
The Chair
That is fantastic. I will now hand over to Mike, who will ask the first question.
Mike Amesbury
Q
The Chair
Who would like to kick off with that? Kate, go for it, and then I will bring in David.
Kate Henderson: We absolutely welcome the introduction of a fit-for-purpose regulatory system on building safety. This Bill is a really important starting point in ensuring that we have a safety system that protects residents.
One thing that the Bill does not attempt to address is the funding for remediation. Within the Bill, there are some financial protections for leaseholders in terms of extended liabilities. That is welcome, in that it assumes that developers are liable for poor workmanship, but it does not necessarily solve the problem for leaseholders. That is because leaseholders may still be facing building safety costs. They would have to pay for legal advice to go through this process, with no guarantee of outcome. We would suggest, as we have suggested throughout, that the Government provide the upfront cost for all remediation work, and that that is then recouped down the line from those responsible. We think that is missing from the Bill.
In terms of the new Building Safety Regulator and its role, as the Bill comes through we would like to see detail on transition. There is going to be a huge amount of change. While we welcome the regulation coming in, it needs to be risk based, as does funding. At the moment, it is very welcome to have the building safety fund, but it is based on tenure and on access for leaseholders in buildings over a certain height. It is not based on risk. We would like to see this based on risk and, similarly, as the regulation comes in, for that to be based on risk, and for us to have transition arrangements in place, prioritising the highest risk buildings.
My third point, before I stop and let others come in, is about access. There are provisions in the Bill for access to properties. We know from our members that they engage with their residents in many different ways around building safety checks, communication and access. The majority of the time, where a check needs to take place, access is provided by the residents through this dialogue. But there are circumstances in which access is difficult to attain, perhaps because the resident has multiple vulnerabilities, is concerned and does not want to allow access, perhaps because they are refusing or perhaps because the building is leasehold and the resident is not there.
We absolutely believe that residents should have the right to privacy, a quiet life and quiet enjoyment of their property, but we want to see good provisions for right to access, and at the moment the way the Bill is structured, in terms of going through the courts, gives us some concern. At best, it could take two months, but at worst we know from members at the moment that securing access can take up to a year. We absolutely want to be fully compliant as this comes in, but right to access is an area that we would like the Bill to pay some further attention to.
The Chair
Councillor David Renard indicated that he wanted to come in next.
Councillor Renard: The LGA also welcomes the Bill. We feel that it will strengthen the building safety system in England, particularly in relation to new buildings, but we have some concerns about the lack of focus on some buildings, particularly those converted under permitted development rights. However, overall we think the Bill is a step in the right direction.
On the scope of the Bill, it seems to us that it focuses very much on buildings over 18 metres, and we would also like to see a risk-based approach to buildings. It is quite possible that a building under 18 metres can be much higher risk than one that is over 18 metres. Therefore, we would much rather see a risk-based approach, which also included care homes and hospitals that fit into that risk profile. We also believe that the Bill does not do enough to protect leaseholders and social landlords from the costs that have resulted from developer failings.
We believe that the requirements around accountable persons need to be much clearer and that the Bill should end competition in building control, because otherwise we will end up with a two-tier system when it comes to safety.
The Chair
Martin Taylor has been indicating that he wants to come in.
Martin Taylor: In respect of what is welcome, we very much welcome the appointment of the HSE; we very much look forward to the gateway points; and, importantly, we welcome the way in which ownership has been introduced into the Bill. People will actually own responsibility for compliance, which we think will significantly change culture within the industry.
We feel that the unintended consequences of the Bill are that it will intensify competition in building control for buildings that sit outside the scope of the new regime. So, although there will be no competition for in-scope buildings, that will then intensify the competition for out-of-scope buildings.
We feel that what is missing in the Bill is that there should no longer be a position or a place for a duty-holder to be able to choose who regulates them. We think that the extension of duty-holder choice should extend across to all buildings and that people should no longer have the option to choose who regulates them through the building control process.
The Chair
That is really helpful. Thank you. Victoria, can I bring you in as well?
Victoria Moffett: Of course. Naturally, I agree with all the points that Kate made. However, specifically to answer the question about what is missing from the Bill, there is a lot of detail missing; we know that that detail will come later in secondary legislation. And there has been a huge amount of work to prepare for the recommendations that Dame Judith Hackitt made, in the last three years, since she made them.
However, to continue progressing with the preparations, just those final bits of clarity would really give people the confidence they need to see that they are going in the right direction. We represent not-for-profit housing associations that are regulated on value-for-money standards; they need to be absolutely certain that what they are doing is the right thing. There is so far you can go, and we will keep going in that direction, but to get it over the line we need that detail as well.
The Chair
That is brilliant; thank you. This is working well so far, with hybrid technology; thank you to our witnesses.
I will bring in Ruth Cadbury now.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Martin Taylor: It is an excellent question. Yes, we have long maintained that there should not be competition in building control. In case members of the Committee are not aware, anyone who procures building work can choose who regulates them through the building control process. It could be a local authority building control team or a private sector approved inspector. As far as we are aware, that is the only regulatory function where you can actually choose who regulates you. It is a bit like marking your own homework at school. That means local authorities have to compete against the approved inspectors in respect of their big project. Those approved inspectors submit quotations of how much they think it will cost them to deliver that building control service. It goes without saying that anyone procuring building work will look to go with the lowest cost provider of that building control service.
Local authorities do not enjoy the facility of being able to offer a quotation. Their charge can only be based on what it costs them to deliver those services. Local authorities have to compete with the private sector, but they do not have a level playing field. We fundamentally disagree with that, but you could say we are bound to, because we represent local authorities rather than approved inspectors.
On the second part of your question about whether the Bill addresses this issue, it will very much address it, but only in respect of high-risk buildings. Local authorities will support the regulator in the delivery of building control services in respect of high-risk buildings. That will then intensify the competition for buildings that fall out of scope. The first intention of the Bill is that approved inspectors will not be able to support the regulator unless local authorities do not have the capacity, but that will intensify the competition for these lower-rise, smaller buildings and further intensify the problem. It will address it in respect of high-risk buildings, but not all risky buildings are over 18 meters—look at low-rise care homes and hospitals. I think I have answered your question. It will help, but only in respect of high-risk buildings.
The Chair
Witnesses should not feel compelled to speak to every question. That was a relatively specific one. Unless anyone has anything else to add, I will move on to Daisy’s questions.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Turning to my second question, we have heard a lot from industry players today who talk about long-term change. I have noticed that although we recognise that long-term change is needed, that is very different from the sense of crisis and urgency that we hear from our constituents who are affected. I want to hear from any of you where you feel this is on that spectrum of emergency, urgency and long-term change.
Kate Henderson: We welcome the considerable funding in the building safety fund. That is a huge commitment from the Government, and recognition of the scale of this challenge. The cost of remediation will far exceed the £5 billion that has been put forward, but it is a welcome contribution. However, that money is available based not on the highest risk but on tenure. It is absolutely right that there be support for leaseholders—we do not think leaseholders should have to pay—but we also do not think social tenants should have to pay. There will be consequences to the fact that this funding is not available to social tenants and social landlords.
Our response to your first question is that we believe that the Government should provide the up-front costs for remediation based on a risk-based approach, with the highest-risk buildings remediated first, and then recoup them. No matter who has done the work, it is about how we expedite this based on risk. That is about prioritising safety and minimising the impact on leaseholders and social residents. The consequence of not having funding for social residents and landlords—this is non-negotiable; the work has to take place—is that money is diverted away from building much-needed affordable homes and investment in existing homes and communities.
This is absolutely a crisis. It is not a crisis of our making; it is a crisis that has been made over the last 30 years. It is a failure of regulation and of construction, development and workmanship. We are going at the fastest pace we possibly can to put it right, but there are huge uncertainties and complexities. One thing I have found incredibly useful is going out on site and seeing buildings that are going through this process with residents living there, and the time it takes to get that through. We absolutely think that this is a crisis, and that work needs to take place as quickly as possible, but the complexities of access to funding and establishing liabilities means that work is not taking place as quickly as it could. The building safety fund is hugely welcome. A number of our members have bids in with the building safety fund, and some have been successful—
The Chair
Order. The Bill does not include the building safety fund, so could we perhaps not focus on that too much? I am trying to draw the parameters tightly. Is that all right?
Kate Henderson: That is absolutely fine. My broader point is that we are waiting for some Government timelines. Yes, there is a crisis, but the speed at which we can work is also dependent on access to some of that funding.
The Chair
I will bring in David, who indicated that he would like to make a contribution.
Councillor Renard: The Local Government Association has similar views. We are extremely concerned about the impact that this could have on leaseholders, so we very much take the view that the Government should pay the up-front remediation costs and seek to claim back as much as possible from those directly responsible. The failure to protect leaseholders will leave councils to pick up the pieces if householders subsequently become homeless, and then the responsibility falls on to local councils to fund rehoming them.
We also take the view that any remediation that applies to social housing providers should also apply to local authority tenants; otherwise, money may be diverted away from repairs and maintenance and towards other costs, and that would just store up a problem for the future.
Victoria Moffett: The funding is obviously a really important point. The Government funding means that all the barriers to remediation can be overcome from a financial perspective. In support of that, you also need Government to co-ordinate the limited resources to carry out remediation works and prioritise the buildings that present the greatest risk. That is the best way to address risk across the board overall. We are not seeing that happening, and that is very much part of the same argument.
Ian Byrne
Q
The Chair
Who would like to tackle that one?
Victoria Moffett: As far as I am aware, there is not anything in this Bill specifically about people with disabilities. The Fire Safety Act 2021, in making changes to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, is the place where that would be appropriate from a legislative perspective. You probably know that the Government have recently consulted on a requirement for a personal emergency evacuation plan for anybody who might need one. Without a doubt it is key that people who have disabilities or mobility issues feel safe in their property.
We made the point in the consultation that we want a discussion about the questions that would arise if that were made a requirement. There might be questions specifically about a person’s plan. For example, I think the Government talked about times when it could be appropriate for somebody to gain support from friends or family, and that might be right, but not in all cases. Those are the questions we need to find an answer to, but the premise of ensuring that people with disabilities or mobility issues are safe in their homes is absolutely non-negotiable.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
Q
Kate Henderson: We welcome the emphasis from Government on ensuring the costs associated with building safety through the building safety charge are proportionate and kept as low as possible for residents. We are very committed to that. At this stage, it is quite hard to know what those costs are going to be without knowing the specific competencies of the building safety manager, the skills base and what that will cost.
On your question about protections for leaseholders, I must first say that as housing associations, we want to see all our residents sustain their homes, so we will do everything we can to support them with remediation costs—in pursuing funding from Government, pursuing developers or pursuing warranties. We will absolutely do that. On the building safety charge, the Bill suggests that it is separate from a service charge, and that you pay it within 28 days. Having looked at that, we think it places more vulnerabilities on leaseholders. With a service charge, there is case law, so you can hold your landlord to account, and that is an important point to address. If the building safety charge was transparently and openly included within the service charge, the leaseholder would have a right to redress through case law under service charges.
The other point here is that, if the building safety charge is within the service charge, it can be paid not within 28 days, but on a monthly basis. It would be estimated for the year ahead and then divided up by 12 months, as with service charges. You would then get to the point in the year when you compared budget with actuals and readjusted, and if that cost were to go up and your leaseholders were unable to pay it, you would work out an affordable repayment plan. Our recommendation is that there should not be 28 days. The charge should be included as a provision within the service charge, but in an open, accountable and transparent way, so that the leaseholder has not only a right to redress, but a more manageable payment plan.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Victoria Moffett: To be honest with you, that is an arrangement that we have not considered at all. Rather than answering on the hoof, we might have to go back and give that some thought. We can certainly do that and write to the Committee.
Councillor Renard: We will also provide a written answer to that. It is a really good question, and we will give it some thought and respond to the Committee.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
Q
The Chair
Right, a little package of questions there from our colleague. David, do you want to start? Then I will bring in others.
Councillor Renard: I will address a couple of those. We believe the Bill has some shortcomings when it comes to the issue of accountable persons, and we feel that the Government need to be very clear about where that accountability sits. If there is an arm’s length management organisation, it needs to be clear in the guidance, so we need to have some regulatory guidance. We also think that the regulator needs to give accountable persons adequate time to implement the new system and provide the appropriate guidance. Of course, there is the need to ensure that there are enough accountable people with the right qualifications across the country, so thought needs to be given to whether there are enough skills and how long it will take to get them in place.
The Chair
Martin, do you want to add anything else on Shaun’s question about taking reasonable steps and the duty to co-operate?
Martin Taylor: I think the key here will be the detail in the guidance that needs to come out for accountable persons. It is critical that people take accountability of the risk, which is what the Bill attempts to set out. One final thing I would add is that the risk in not just limited to fire, so it will be key that the guidance comes out. I know the guidance is being planned from the work that we are doing on the Joint Regulators Group.
The Chair
And our two witnesses appearing physically—would you like to jump in at this stage?
Kate Henderson: Sure. The duty to co-operate is very welcome, but there is still the potential for some issues to arise. The example that we have just heard is not uncommon. We can have buildings that are owned by freeholders that are shell companies, and sometimes those companies then demise the internal parts of the building to a long-term leaseholder. They can also discharge their management duties to a managing agent. Sometimes the long-term leaseholder and the managing agent might be the same entity, but they might not be. In that scenario, we understand that the principal accountable person would still be the freeholder, even though they have appointed a managing agent and have a long leaseholder. Our members have told us that it can be really difficult to engage with the freeholder in this sort of set-up, especially when they need to do things such as assess external wall materials or identify what needs to be remediated. We would want some reassurance that the duty to co-operate has been really thought through for the most challenging of these buildings, in terms of absent freeholders.
A particular challenge is where the freeholder is overseas, potentially in the Isle of Man or Gibraltar. The entity might be outside UK jurisdiction, so I think we would like—we are seeking legal advice at the moment, which of course we will share with the Committee when we have it—an assurance from Government that we are working through the detail of this rather complicated situation. That is not just about us as social landlords; it is about the access that the new Building Safety Regulator can have to that freeholder, and it is about communication for residents. There is some really welcome content in the Bill on good communication with residents—we absolutely support that—but in that type of arrangement, how do we get the right information? If a housing association has a few properties in a wider block with an absent overseas freeholder, it is about making sure that we can reassure those residents and get them the information they require. It is those interrelationships that we still need to work through, and I am not sure that the duty to co-operate at this stage solves that, although we would like it to.
Victoria Moffett: On the question about reasonable steps, I agree with David and Martin about the need for guidance. I suggest that that guidance needs to be focused on what the risks are and what is appropriate to reduce those risks, as well as what outcomes in that building we want to achieve.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Victoria Moffett: That sounds like an interesting concept. We would want to have further discussion of it. It is an interesting comparison. Some of our members have raised the fact that the presumption of access for broadband could minimise the compartmentation that is there to contain a fire to a flat of origin, but the presumption for access in this scenario could be quite a helpful thing.
The Chair
I was going to say that we had ended our questions, but Mike, please, come in.
Mike Amesbury
Q
Kate Henderson: Thank you for highlighting the campaign, which is specifically around damp, mould and disrepair in homes. There have been some really unacceptable examples, which are being put right. It is absolutely incumbent on anyone, whether they are a social landlord or a private landlord, to ensure that residents have safe and secure homes.
On that and specifically on damp and mould—I know that is not what this Bill is about—context is important in terms of there being a consistent improvement in the quality of homes. Around 5% of housing association properties have some kind of damp or mould. It is higher in the private rented sector, but is still not good enough and we are working on it. Two per cent. is structural—that is a separate conversation about regeneration—and 3% is about things like condensation. Again, it is never the resident’s fault, but there is more we can do to support that.
In addition to the question of the physical buildings, that investigation perhaps raises the issue of how residents are treated and rights to redress, transparency and accountability. There is some welcome provision here about communication, with resident engagement as part of the Building Safety Bill, but the consumer regulation that will come through the Social Housing White Paper is the really important place for ensuring that we get the right regulatory framework. It is interlinked with this regulatory framework, but it will also come through the regulator of social housing with new consumer regulation. On that front, there is an absolute commitment from us about being open, accountable and transparent, and wanting to have a really strong and positive relationship with residents in the social housing sector.
The Chair
Q
Councillor Renard: I have a quick comment on the last point. When it comes to building safety and other issues, local councils with responsibility for housing, housing stock and tenants have been very quick to respond to the needs of those tenants, as a general rule. Obviously, there may be some examples of where that has not been the case, but by and large local authorities have been very positive and proactive in responding to the building safety issues. I wanted to put that on the record.
The Chair
Q
Martin Taylor: Just one thing. We stand ready, as an organisation, to build the competency in building control. I know that there has been much discussion around competency across the wider industry. As an organisation we have established a competency foundation to build the competency of building control surveyors. We stand ready with a suite of qualifications and accredited learning, all ready to roll out to the industry. We just need to establish the burdens funding that we have applied for. Then we can assure you that we can deliver that competence across local authority building control.
The Chair
Q
Victoria Moffett: Just a final point. Housing associations are absolutely committed to the safety of their residents. We think that it is really important that we move over to this new system as quickly as we can, but also diligently. Doing that on a risk basis is key, and we are really happy to work with the Government and the HSE to define what that looks like.
Kate Henderson: I echo what Victoria just said. We really welcome the legislation coming forward. It is really important that this legislation dovetails with the legislation in the Fire Safety Act. We have concerns about the capacity to implement, and we want to work on that transition with Government and the Building Safety Regulator, and to work with Government to ensure that this is about not just funding, but about co-ordination and ensuring that we prioritise highest-risk buildings first. I reassure the Committee that the safety of residents is our absolute top priority.
The Chair
If there are no more questions from colleagues, on behalf of the whole Committee I thank all our physically present and online witnesses for your time, and your answers to all the questions. Thank you very much.
Examination of Witnesses
Liam Spender and Giles Grover gave evidence.
The Chair
Q
Liam Spender: I am Liam Spender, representing the UK Cladding Action Group, and I am a leaseholder affected by cladding issues.
The Chair
Liam, we can hear you loud and clear. That is fabulous.
Giles Grover: Good afternoon. My name is Giles Grover. I am here on behalf of the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign team. I am an affected leaseholder as well; I have been affected for four years now, with no end in sight, unfortunately. I am here to represent the 20 or so resident groups across the United Kingdom.
The Chair
That is fantastic. We can hear you loud and clear as well. I remind colleagues that this session lasts until quarter past four.
Rachel Hopkins
Q
Liam Spender: Thank you for the question. As you have picked up on, we set out in our written evidence quite a lot of detail about the flaws we saw in the Bill. The fundamental issue is the one that you have identified: we were promised a solution that has not materialised in the Bill. In many ways, the Bill makes things worse. The key way it makes things worse is that it removes any legal doubt that leaseholders and residents of those buildings, who had no part in their design, regulation or construction, will be held responsible for past, present and future costs when things go wrong. That is an appalling failure of public policy.
The panel before ours touched on all the difficulties with the complicated machine that is being set in motion, with building safety charges, accountable persons and building safety managers. I fear that we are heading for a situation where the Building Safety Bill will become a jobsworths charter, and leaseholders will be seen as one giant blank cheque.
Giles Grover: I will not take too long, because a lot of this is about the history since the catastrophic events at Grenfell, after which we had many years of Government—Prime Ministers and Ministers—saying that we must be protected from all those costs, which we played no part in creating, as Liam said. Those promises carried on for a couple of years, but it is kind of clear that as the scale of the issue has widened and more buildings have become trapped in it because they have been built so unsafely, the Government have rowed back on that.
In 2020, that promise was changed to “unaffordable costs”. Before a Select Committee in November of last year, Lord Greenhalgh, the building safety Minister, could not really give an answer on what affordability meant; it was a case of, “Hopefully, people won’t go bankrupt.” Sadly, that has already happened to a number of people, who have lost their homes or had to sell at a massive discount. The really frustrating thing, and what has really shocked us—perhaps we should not be so surprised—is the number of promises that were made during the Fire Safety Act ping-pong process. A number of Ministers—including Lord Greenhalgh again, and Kit Malthouse in February—kept saying that leaseholders should be protected, but that the Fire Safety Bill was not the correct legislation and that the Building Safety Bill would address that.
Despite many months of promises and many months of Ministers telling potential rebel Conservative MPs that they would address the problem of historical costs in the Building Safety Bill, the Bill is here and does nothing to address that problem. There is a little bit of tinkering, and something positive for the future of the Defective Premises Act 1972, but we will still have to pay tens of thousands of pounds in costs—sometimes hundreds of thousands—for issues that go far beyond cladding, as the Government and the Secretary of State have known for a couple of years, if not longer. I could go on, but I will leave it there for now.
The Chair
Rachel has a supplementary. I commend Rachel for the way that she phrased her question so that it was entirely in order, because she was referring not to the building safety fund but to the affordability of repayments. That is entirely in order.
Rachel Hopkins
Q
Giles Grover: The one thing is for the Government to hold true to their word over the years and legislate to ensure that we are protected from historical remediation costs. The intention to protect us was in the draft Bill and in the impact assessment, but it has now been taken out, with the aim of transparency for the building safety charge, and there is still nothing to help people across the country who are being forced to pay bills for tens of thousands of pounds that are landing on our doorsteps daily. We need legislation that finally protects us. I am sure Liam can go into the McPartland-Smith amendments that will do just that.
Liam Spender: I think what is missing from the Bill is everything that is set out in the McPartland-Smith amendments. In particular, the Bill makes it very clear what the legal responsibilities of leaseholders are—the people living in these buildings—but does nothing to make clear what the responsibilities are of the people who put these buildings up and designed them. A critical part of what McPartland-Smith does, as well as providing money for current faults, is to provide a clear legal remedy if buildings are not built properly in the future. I think that is something that stands out like a sore thumb in the current draft of the Bill. That is what is missing, and that is what I would like to see added.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Liam Spender: You are quite right that the situation is worsening by the day. People are facing existential questions—do they carry on with their property or not? They are facing unpalatable choices. I think one of the ways that the Bill makes things worse is in relation to works that are required to remove building safety risks, an example of which could be cladding. The Bill makes clear that they are all recoverable through the ordinary service charge mechanism, so it removes any doubt that leaseholders have to pay for other people’s misdeeds and mistakes.
We are already seeing the consequences with cladding, so imagine what it will be like with the next thing that comes down the road. You have seen the stories in the newspaper and on “Newsnight” last week that people are already facing six-figure bills, some people have committed suicide and others are declaring bankruptcy. There is a pall hanging over these people and it is a blight on the housing market, which the Bill does nothing to address. I will let Giles add more colour to that answer.
Giles Grover: Again, everything is a long story. A lot of us have been trapped since very soon after the events at Grenfell when buildings were assessed for ACM, and everything has just snowballed and got a lot worse. Every so often, there are incremental positive steps in terms of funding, but you have to fight tooth and nail for those. As Liam said, and as you said in your question, Daisy, it is families, first-time buyers, pensioners—people from all walks of life who just wanted to fulfil that very British dream of being a homeowner or a flat leaseholder; a leaseholder is not necessarily a homeowner. Just the other day, someone told me that because she is so worried and because there is no detail about the loan scheme, she has accepted an offer that is £35,000—it will not pay off the mortgage—on an under-18m building just to be able to move out. She has a little child as well. That is just in Manchester, but it is happening across the country.
As Liam said, there have been suicides, for a mixture of reasons as well, but people just feel helpless. We are currently trapped. You start off being financially trapped, and everyone focuses on the finances. But then, especially during the pandemic, for a year and a half you are sat in your flat looking at the walls and not able to sleep at night from thinking, “What happens if there is a fire?”
This is people in buildings of all heights and all tenures, with defects of all types. As much as it started as a cladding scandal—we are called End Our Cladding Scandal—it has become a building safety crisis. It is not just cladding; it may be balconies, internal compartmentation or lack of fire protection for steelwork. With all these issues, once they are identified and once you have a proper fire risk assessment—a type 4 intrusive one—you start uncovering the lack of regulations, the lack of oversight and the poor development practice, but we are still being made to pay for it. We are still the ones on the hook for it, despite it being none of our fault. It is an absolute disgrace, and it is unfathomable that it is still happening. Government have done something, but not enough to solve this issue once and for all, to provide that certainty to leaseholders and the housing market, and to help us move on with our lives.
Mike Amesbury
Q
Liam Spender: No. The same builders that have put up buildings with the horrific array of defects that we are seeing are still perfectly entitled to draw on the Help to Buy scheme and the recently announced subsidies for affordable housing. There has been no accountability or payment from the polluter. All that has been offered, which is not in the Bill, is the residential property developer tax, which we do not know the details of. But it is wholly inadequate that it will recover only 13% of the estimated £15 billion cost. The bulk of the cost of the current crisis and/or future crises is being dumped on leaseholders, which is what this Bill does.
Giles Grover: I agree with Liam. It is not holding them to account at all. The latest figures are approaching £15 billion, and developments have made £2 billion since the catastrophic events at Grenfell. Government have supported them through the Help to Buy scheme and through instantly having a stamp duty land tax relief, and there is a mortgage guarantee scheme for first-time buyers that is open to everyone. The figure that always bothers me more than anything is the amount of money that the Exchequer loses every year—billions of pounds—to the zero rating of VAT on construction.
A lot of those things have laudable aims, but do they actually help the supply side? They do not; they are all about demand. Government are happy to praise the economic effects—the jobs, the flow of taxpayer money—and it certainly pans out to support the construction industry. The collective state of industry failure is affecting hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. It has taken two and a half years of kicking and screaming to get a bit of money out the Government every so often. Every year there is a little bit more. They keep telling us, “We’re not going to give you any more; we aren’t going to help you out”, but then we get further. There will be a point next year, hopefully, when the Government will say, “Here’s a little bit more”, but everything is a little bit here and little bit there. We are not being helped.
Why are we being forced into a planning tax loan scheme? Why are the Government not forcing the developers to pay that? The simple point goes back to: it was never our fault, it was never anything we did. The regulations are terrible, weak and inadequate. A lot of people knew that for years; the Government were advised of that for years. Builders were allowed to do whatever they wanted and to cut corners. Dame Judith Hackitt says there is a race to the bottom, focusing on profits over safety. But now, we are the ones on the hook to make that right. I do not get how that is at all fair. We need more funding from Government, we probably need more funding from the developers, and we need more funding from the product manufacturers as well. Leaseholders should finally be protected.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
Q
Liam Spender: I think the whole responsible person regime has not been properly thought out. You cannot see, as parliamentarians, the full detail—that is being developed behind closed doors with industry. You are being asked to put this through without seeing how that very important relationship will work. The fundamental issue with the accountable person and building safety manager is that you would expect to find that regime in a petrochemical refinery, not in a residential building. It is totally unsuited to what needs to be done, massively over engineered, and the cost of it will fall on residents. The Government need to go back to the drawing board and come up with a much more tightly defined set of duties for these people, in order to avoid a situation where we end up with the advice notes, on steroids—which is a real risk.
Giles Grover: I would echo those comments. The difficulty is, again, that the legislation and the guidance are still not really there to help us understand how it will work. There are potentially moral hazards between the roles of those accountable persons—the building safety managers—in terms of how they will coalesce. There might be different accountable persons, or responsible persons, depending on the building. It still feels like there is no effective control. I do not think anybody wants to be an accountable person right now; the competencies required are a pretty wide skill set, and I fear that they will not be able to get insurance. I think we need a lot more work on how the accountable person will interact with the responsible person.
Shaun Bailey
Q
Liam Spender: Thank you for that excellent question. There are three critical things to address. First, there need to be leaseholder resident representatives on the rule-making bodies. This avoids a situation where industry and Government make rules that suit them, and pass the bill on to leaseholders who are left with the inadequate tool of challenges to the building safety charge and service charge, to contest bills that have already been paid. Secondly, the Government are trying to perform some sort of Frankenstein operation, with the Building Safety Bill, on a system that has had its day—namely, leasehold. There is a fundamental imbalance of power in the leasehold system in favour of landlords. Until you address that, you will not solve the problem of rules being made to suit landlords and bills being passed on to residents with no oversight, and no control. Thirdly, Dame Judith Hackitt identified in her report the culture of box ticking in the industry, the race to the bottom and value engineering—all that sort of stuff. Until that changes, nothing changes; buildings will continue to be built that are not fit for occupation and we will end up repeating the cycle at some point in the future. Those are the three things that need to be changed. I think that the McPartland-Smith amendments go a long way towards changing them, by introducing clear, legal routes to recovery against builders if they do not do their jobs properly.
Giles Grover: I will just echo the comments on the fact that the whole leaseholder structure means that you are still at the bottom of the food chain. There is all this talk about the building safety charge, but, as Liam said, ultimately it is about leasehold law—despite the Government thinking there might be protections in landlord and tenant law, we have seen that there are not the supposed protections there should be, because all the cases are based on the terms of the lease, which are always written against us. There needs to be an overarching look at the fact that it is not just the building safety charge, it is about service charges and how they are levied. There needs to be a bit more control over that, so that there is the actual ability to challenge it, rather than saying, “You can potentially go to the tribunal.” Ultimately, the cases we have seen do that just end up being rebuffed.
I am still concerned about the insurance issues we are facing now. There does not seem to be enough control. We have seen buildings insurance soaring by hundreds of per cent. I am not sure what protections there are against that happening. We have tried to report it to the FCA and the CMA, but are simply told that the responses are not as constructive or helpful as they could be.
Everything needs to be looked at again—even the building safety charge itself. When it was first drafted, I remember a meeting with one of the deputy directors of MHCLG where they said they did not really know much it was going to be. It was an academic exercise. Even the numbers in the current impact assessment say it will be £16 a month. It might be £42 or £26 a month. For existing buildings it should be more. No one really knows. As some industry figures have started to look at it, it might well be hundreds of pounds a month. There needs to be an overarching, holistic look at service charges and building safety charges. That would be the first thing.
To go back to Liam’s point about the McPartland-Smith amendment, that is what we are hoping the Conservatives will look at and realise that, yes, residents must be protected now, because they are the innocent people.
Ian Byrne
Q
Giles Grover: Thank you for the question, Ian. Resident engagement is key. As we saw last night—those of you who watched “Grenfell: The Untold Story”—if there had been sufficient resident engagement in 2015 and 2016, would the events of June 2017 have happened? I do not think they would have. It is important to have resident engagement, but, as we have seen, as lot of these things are very much tick-box exercises. Recently—or not so recently—the National Fire Chiefs’ Council updated its guidance on simultaneous evacuation and interim measures such as waking watch to say that residents should be consulted and cost-benefit options should be explored. That never happens in practice.
What is there actually to make it happen? The Government do not want to legislate for a resident group in each building. I can understand the reasons for that, but what is to stop the responsible person, the council entities, from just saying, “We have tried to engage residents. We put a few flyers up and gave a form out.” There needs to be a more positive obligation on them to actually engage residents than there seems to be now.
Liam Spender: I wholeheartedly endorse all of that. The answer to Ian’s question is that the residents engagement strategy in the Bill is not up to scratch. The problem is that the rules are being made now by statutory instruments in close consultation with industry. There is no amount of resident engagement strategy or vision that can overcome that issue. Once the regulations are made, there will be limited room for manoeuvre. I think there needs to be resident representation on the rule-making bodies to ensure we actually have a genuine residents’ voice, rather than a couple of cul-de-sacs that freeholders, managing agents, responsible persons—whatever title they are being given in the Bill—can lead residents down without there being any meaningful input.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Liam Spender: Yes, is the simple answer. The building safety indemnity scheme would be one way of creating a pot of money into which all stakeholders would pay to ensure there was money available to fix buildings with issues, in whichever sector they are in—private, public—and whatever tenure they are in, whether they are rented or held on long leases. That would seem to be an equitable way of doing it. It is one implementation of the idea that the polluter should pay and that there should be a social insurance scheme in the same way that there is for uninsured drivers. I will let Giles add to that answer.
Giles Grover: I have nothing to add to the specific point on that amendment. I have tried to read the Building Safety Bill, the impact assessment and the explanatory notes many times, but I have not managed to make it right through to the end. Having read the amendments and interrogated those, the McPartland-Smith amendment is one that helps us. The simple point is about better protection for current and future leaseholders by ensuring that the limitation periods are extended, by using legislation such as the Housing Act 1985. That would help us.
The simple amendment, the one that I really want to see, and which I think should be a no-brainer, is the one about VAT. I cannot remember which one it was—I am sure Liam will—but it says that the VAT that we have been forced to pay on works and on fire safety interim measures, for the last five years, should be refunded. It should mean that we are treated the same as the developers and the building owners that can apply for zero-rating. They have been told that exceptional health and safety reasons apply, so they can be classed as “person constructing” status.
Would it not be a good start to put us on that same deal and to say, “Actually, here you go—the money you have spent already, that 20% that has been added on, you can have that back”? For future cases—in instances where future remediations are funded—at the very least, that should be taxed at 0%. The Treasury has profited from VAT and from insurance premium tax. Agreeing to that amendment would be one way of showing they want to help the leaseholders who have been forced to pay these costs with the additional costs added on.
The Chair
Thank you, Giles. I think you were referring to new clause 1. Ruth, did you have a second question?
Ruth Cadbury
Q
That clearly raises a challenge for your members, whether the building manager or owner is a resident management organisation or housing association or private sector freeholder or leaseholder. How do you respond to what the federation says, and presumably other building owners and managers say as well?
Liam Spender: Yes, I did hear that evidence. From a residents’ point of view, we would have concerns about making it too easy to gain access into people’s homes, potentially for spurious reasons. You may have seen in the written evidence that we have submitted that we suggest there needs to be a very tough statutory code of practice, to make it clear when powers of entry should be used, whether or not that is accompanied with tweaks to the drafting of those clauses; that is a possibility. However, the key point is that we have a very clear set of rules saying when people can enter private property for safety issues.
After we have finished with this panel, you will hear from two eminent housing lawyers, who will probably have much more to say on this topic and will probably say it far more eloquently than I can.
I will let Giles chip in with anything he wants to add.
Giles Grover: I am not sure that I can be more eloquent than you, Liam, but I will do my best.
Having been a property manager for a year and a half—for my sins—I understand the actual difficulty of entering a property. I think that the point is that, as Liam said in our submission, there is a lease generally of quiet enjoyment. However, leases also say that for good estate management generally you can enter a building within 48 hours.
It does not feel like there are enough protections essentially to stop accountable persons who want to mitigate their own liability from abusing these powers. I do not know how every single electrical point in every single flat will be checked, as well; I defer to Liam and the lawyers you will have before you later.
Shaun Bailey
Q
May I just ask you both: where should the driver be to ensure that tenant representation is effective? Should it be prescribed from national Government, in the context of this Bill? Should there be a mix? We have so many different types of ownership and of tenant model; I have three that are utilised in my own local authority alone. How do we ensure that every single person who needs that representation actually gets it, and where should the prescription for that come from—from national Government downwards, or from local government upwards? How do we do that? As you said in response to me before, the core of this is the importance of ensuring that those communities are accurately represented. So I am interested to hear from you both your thoughts on that.
Liam Spender: Thank you for the question and for engaging with the detail on this; as you say, it is vital. There is no one better placed than the people living in buildings to have a view on what is safe and what they think needs to be done to make those buildings safe.
I think there needs to be clearer language in the Bill about taking into account the resident’s voice, because at the moment a lot of the language in the Bill is passive; it is about residents being given information and not particularly good rights of consultation. There needs to be something in the Bill that creates a genuine partnership between the managers and the people living in the buildings.
To reiterate the point that I made in previous responses, residents need a voice on the groups and committees that make the rules, so that from the ground up and from the get-go the rules are shaped by that voice as they are being made, rather than just presented at the other end.
The last point I will make is that there needs to be better and more readily accessible advice for leaseholders and tenants. Perhaps specific programmes can be set up to provide that advice, so that people know where to go to get help when things are not working, and we do not end up with relationships breaking down, and so that we can have a genuine partnership. I think that would be a helpful addition.
I will let Giles add anything that he wants to add.
Giles Grover: I echo all those comments. Again, I have seen for myself the difficulty of engaging all residents; there is the turnover of residents as well, and you might have absent leaseholders. I appreciate that it might be difficult to do it on a statutory basis, but a lot more guidance and help could be provided to those responsible persons. In general, whether at this point there is that engagement with residents, or whether it is about tackling the issues that we are still facing, in terms of fire safety in our buildings, there probably needs to be a lot more partnership with local government and central Government. Local government—local authorities—and the fire service are able to be more reactive. They are on the ground and already have that relationship with the responsible persons and the managing agencies. That whole approach of saying, “Okay, this is what central Government are doing and this is what local government is doing, supported by the fire services,” could actually help drive a lot of it forward. Councillors have that local knowledge, as they are the ones residents turn to directly, as well as their MPs. Engagement with all stakeholders could be a lot better than it seems currently designed to be.
Kate Osborne
Q
Liam Spender: I think the simplest answer to the question is that we can expect the cost of living in higher-risk buildings, however defined, to be significantly higher in the future than it is today. We cannot really give any credence to the Government’s estimates that it will be between £9 and £26 a month. If you read the press articles, some of which quote industry figures you will be talking to next week, they are already talking about £500 a year extra just to pay the administrative costs of the new regime. That might not sound like a lot of money, but for some people—particularly shared owners who struggle to get on the ladder—it is make-or-break money. It is a lot of money if you have not got it—that is one way of describing it.
If that sort of burden were being imposed on a company, there would be uproar about it and there would be a great deal more scrutiny of it, but billions of pounds of costs are being loaded on to leaseholders as a result of the new regulatory regime, and the question that needs to be asked is whether we really need to spend that money. Do we really need to spend other people’s money—people who may struggle to pay—on this particular issue? I will hand over to Giles and let him add anything he wants to add.
Giles Grover: It is difficult to consider it, because last year it slightly changed. Last year, it included the historical remediation costs, and there were some vague, wide-ranging, heavily caveated figures about what it might be. Those figures are still heavily caveated. I suppose the difficulty I have is thinking about the future building safety charge when I have to pay a lot more already. A lot of people are already paying hundreds of pounds, so it is hard to have this conceptual thought about what may be put in place when they are already facing hundreds of pounds a month. Until there is more clarity about what it actually is, until there is more control over the building safety charge, and until the problems I am facing right now and the thousands of pounds I have to pay right now are resolved, I will not really consider it fully.
The Chair
Q
Liam Spender: The one thing we would like to have spoken about, but we have not had the questions to do it, is how the Bill affects the housing market. In addition to the cost that is being loaded on to leaseholders, does it affect the functioning of the market? We already know—we made references to this in our written evidence—that banks are starting to make extra provision in their books because they think mortgages are worth less as a result of their exposure to cladding. If you ask me, that is shades of 2008, when we had an enormous banking crash. I suppose the issue for Parliament to consider, when considering this legislation, is what the effect on the economy of not putting up enough money—not by a long shot—to fix the current cladding issues and then creating this enormously complex machine, which may not be suited to the task. I do not think it is and I do not think many people think it is. What is the effect of that on the housing market and, in turn, what is the effect of that on the wider economy? And does Parliament really want to make that choice without knowing and considering that impact? I will hand over to Giles to add anything he wants to add.
Giles Grover: Thank you, Liam. On that point, I think it was in November 2020, before the Chancellor’s spending review, when we wrote to make exactly that point. The shades of the 2007-08 financial crisis were starting to become clear: the impact on regulatory capital of the banks with mortgages being valued at zero, and the increasing number of forfeitures. We saw reporting earlier this year about the impact on flat sales transactions. I think they were halved in September 2020. So, as Liam says, there is the effect on property prices, especially in the north—I am from Manchester. The property prices would be lower, but that means that the actual remediation costs are much larger. I think that has not really been considered.
There is the loan scheme as well. It might not be part of the Building Safety Bill, but we still have no idea how it is going to work and how it will not materially impact property prices.
The other thing I will just pick up on, which is in the Building Safety Bill, is the measurement of height and height being the determinant of risk. I think it was Sir Ken Knight who said earlier that height was a crude threshold. Robert Jenrick also said on 20 January 2020 that it was an arbitrary threshold; it might be important, but there are other factors. There is talk of PAS 9980, which will help with that, but, as was mentioned earlier today, the fire at Richmond House, Worcester Park, was in a building that was under 11 metres and it was completely destroyed in 10 minutes. Okay, there is the issue of higher buildings; I understand you might have to phase the scheme in, but we need a solution for all buildings. We need proper risk matrices that actually look at building risk holistically—that look at occupancy and means of escape and do not just say, “Okay, you’ve got cladding here.” What about the internal issues? What about the cavity barriers? What about the lack of sprinklers? One example of what could be done, which we have suggested before, is this. Rather than forcing people in buildings under 18 metres or between 11 and 18 metres to pay a cladding tax, why not ensure that you have sprinklers in those buildings? That is now part of Approved Document B, because Government have realised the clear safety principles of it. That would actually go a long way towards helping many of the people in the under 18-metre or 11 to 18-metre buildings. One final point is that we need to ensure that all buildings, not just those over 18 metres and from 11 to 18 metres, are safe, because those under 11 metres are still potentially very unsafe.
The Chair
If there are no further questions from members, let me, on behalf of the whole Committee, thank you, Liam and Giles, both for taking the time to join us this afternoon and for your incredibly comprehensive and thorough answers to the questions posed. We are very grateful for your first-hand insight. I will let you get on with the rest of your afternoon. Thank you for joining us. That brings to a close the fifth panel of witnesses, and we will now turn to our final panel of witnesses, who have just been referred to by Liam and Giles.
Examination of Witnesses
Justin Bates and Giles Peaker gave evidence.
The Chair
This is the sixth panel of witnesses before us today. We will now hear from Justin Bates and Giles Peaker. Before we start the questioning, could I ask you to introduce yourselves and the organisations that you are representing?
Giles Peaker: I am Giles Peaker. I am a partner in the property disputes team at Anthony Gold Solicitors.
Justin Bates: I am Justin Bates. I am a barrister at Landmark Chambers and I am the editor of the “Encyclopedia of Housing Law and Practice”.
Ian Byrne
Q
The Chair
So just a small question to start with.
Giles Peaker: The immediate impact on building practices is not clear. One would hope that, under the new regime, buildings might become, and be kept, safer. The immediate impact on building premises that we know have not been great is hard to see. Frankly, without stronger liability for the building sector, that is unlikely to change.
The Chair
Giles, could I ask for a favour? Please move your iPad slightly. The microphones are a tiny bit directional, so that helps pick up the sound. Justin?
Justin Bates: Not immediately is the answer, for two reasons. One is that there is so much to be fleshed out in SIs that it is pretty hard to know where this will ultimately go. Until you see the SIs and, in some cases, the guidance, it is quite a nice framework, but it does not matter until you get the secondary legislation.
The other reason why things are unlikely to change immediately is that the focus of the new regime is primarily tall buildings—18 metres-plus—and, as you can all appreciate, there are lots of buildings, both new and existing, that are under 18 metres. While I anticipate that, over time, they will be brought within scope of the regime, that is not the starting point, so nothing much will change for them immediately.
To be frank, I am not sure that legislation can change culture. You can legislate for all the things you want, but if people build on the cheap because there is no real comeback on them, that is the position. For example, you cannot sue building control, regardless of whether it is local authority or private, if they sign off rubbish buildings. If you want to make building control a lot more effective, let people sue them when they get things wrong. We will talk about this later, but one of the flagships in the Bill is extending the limitation period in the Defective Premises Act 1972. You can have the longest limitation period you want, but if all the building is done by SPVs—special purpose vehicles—worth £1, which are wound up the minute they are built, the law does not help you at all. There is a limit to what you can do via legislation, and the Bill is a pretty modest start, even at that.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Justin Bates: There is probably no way of doing this without significant SIs, because to legislate at the level of detail that you probably need, you would have a 10,000-page Bill—you guys would still be in Committee at Christmas. There is also a value to doing it by SI for an element of future-proofing, because it will be easier to update it as things change. I do not see why you could not have at least a draft of the SIs to accompany the Bill, to be considered as part of the scrutiny. One assumes that the thinking as to what will be in the SIs must be reasonably advanced. The moment you have them, this Committee or some other Committee is as well placed as anyone else to do that kind of scrutiny and to bring in the leaseholder and external voices. At the risk of sounding like a typical lawyer, I suspect I am sitting somewhere in the middle.
Giles Peaker: I think I would agree. There are very significant operational elements of this Bill that will be done by statutory instrument, so we are largely in the dark about the way in which it will play out and operate, inasmuch as we have no idea what will be in the SIs. The difficulty with scrutiny of SIs is, I suppose, a parliamentary problem rather than a legal one, but I support Justin’s suggestion that at least drafts, indications or outlines of where the SIs will be going would be significant at this point.
Shaun Bailey
Q
Giles Peaker: I suspect that would be a matter for guidance; guidance would not necessarily avoid the risk of litigation on the issue, but it would mitigate it. The risk for all involved, particularly those who will end up paying for it, is that “reasonable steps” will be seen to be taken as doing every single thing possible to avoid any prospect of being sued or losing one’s insurance, and with that sort of risk avoidance there is a clear risk, particularly when you are looking at potential criminal liability in some aspects. We need some sort of clear guidance on the extent of “reasonable steps”. The difficulty is, of course, that you are looking at a wide range of potential safety issues, and I do not think you could draw a bright line under every single one. Inevitably, without something beyond clause 84, the accountable person will be running scared of what the potential consequences for them will be, if they do not do literally everything.
Justin Bates: The phrase “reasonable steps” is one that the draftsman of this Bill really likes, because it crops up in quite a few places. Contrast clause 84 with clause 124, inserting proposed new section 20D(9) into the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. That is the one about how you regulate service charges, and in that one the Secretary of State is giving himself a power expressly to issue guidance about what will be reasonable steps. I cannot see that he has done the same in clause 84. He is making the accountable person go back to the prescribed principles, but prescribed principles are not the same thing as guidance. I do not see why you could not add a new subsection (6) to clause 84, stating that the Secretary of State may issue guidance from time to time about what constitutes a reasonable step for these purposes. That would be quite useful—and if you wanted to make him lay it before the House before it takes effect, you could even scrutinise it.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
Q
Giles Peaker: It will partly depend on who you act for.
Justin Bates: It will depend on who you act for and what you do. For both of us, our primary focus is on residential property law—leasehold, freehold, tenants and so on—so I am really interested in from about clause 120 onwards, the service charge and the building safety charges. Those are all my Christmases come at once, in terms of the amount of litigation you are creating for me, which is probably not what you intended. I want to come back to who you act for. If you act for a developer, one of the things that will worry you is the extension of limitation periods under the Defective Premises Act 1972. At the moment, it is six years from building control sign-off and, in practice, very few people know enough about the problem within that timeframe. 15 years is obviously better than six. If you have developer clients, you will advise them to do as much building as possible through SPVs and then wind them up, once finished, because your exposure after the Bill will be much more significant. That is even more true for refurbs, because you are extending the Defective Premises Act to include refurbishments, not just new builds. That is an aspect that will very much interest the legal profession.
I think there is a lot here that will end up in litigation, and there is not a lot you can be done about that because this is a pretty significant change to the structure of how buildings are regulated, and to the structure of the landlord-tenant relationship. You cannot lawyer-proof this, but you might not need to be quite as generous to lawyers as you are being. In a moment, we will come on to where you could be more exacting with your wording, to be clearer about what you want.
The Chair
Giles, do you want to add anything to that?
Giles Peaker: I think that is right. In some ways, the Bill is actually inviting more litigation through the extension of limitation. To be honest, that is probably the one thing that will not happen, for reasons we will probably get on to—or it might happen, but to a very small degree. I have no doubt that there will be considerable tribunal activity over the new requirements in clause 124, from a leaseholder perspective. The advice to developers might be quite expensive, but it will be very short and sweet: “Limit your liability in any way you can”. SPVs will be the way they do that.
Mike Amesbury
Q
Giles Peaker: The extension of limitation is a start. The problem with suing developers and builders has always been twofold; limitation is one, because problems usually do not manifest themselves within the first six years. The other problem is finding somebody worth suing, and that is the big problem. I get a lot of inquiries about potential new build cases. Most of them are out of time, but most of them also do not have anybody they can actually sue, because developers have liquidated or wound up. One thing that could be considered—although it is difficult and goes against some fundamental tenets of English company law—is to allow tracing profits, to make parent companies liable for special purpose vehicles. That would be one way to cut out the simple “take the profits and run” approach. Justin suggested properly enabling the suing of building control; that is currently off the table, but it might improve the attention to detail, although the professional insurers are already going bust.
Justin Bates: Again, if you are feeling adventurous, you could make directors liable for the acts of their companies—make them personally liable for any building defects. That is not as radical as it sounds—you did that to directors of rogue landlord companies in the Housing Act 2004 and the Housing and Planning Act 2016. I appreciate that every company director hearing this is having a wince and every company lawyer is pulling their hair out, but you have done it twice in relation to rogue landlords, so it is not that big a stretch to go to rogue developers.
There is a danger in asking litigation lawyers for policy advice because every problem that I see involves suing people. That is what I do for a living, so take everything I am about to say with a large pinch of salt. Fundamentally, Parliament has to decide what is the nature of the current building safety crisis that it is dealing with. Is it one that requires a collective response or an individual response in individual buildings? The Bill is about individual buildings. If you are lucky enough to be a leaseholder or freeholder who benefits from the Defective Premises Act 1972 extension and you can find someone worth suing, there is some good stuff for you in here. I personally think that would be, at most, 15% of affected buildings at the moment, and you have got the June 2020 National Audit Office report if you want to see MHCLG’s response to that. It thinks that even that would be a higher figure.
Likewise in clause 120 and the restrictions on when you can pass service charges on. There will be some buildings that benefit from that, but it is all happenstance. You are not solving the collective problem. You are creating some remedies for some buildings. If you think this is a collective problem, the only way is for some collective body to take control of it, such as central Government, to fund works, at least up-front—that would be one solution—and then recoup.
You could have a scheme, which I understand is a variant of what is in Australia, whereby central Government fund works on affected properties but a condition of the funding is that it requires all affected parties to assign their rights to central Government, who then get round to suing when they feel like it, because central Government do not really care if their litigation takes five years to work through. Central Government will still be here in five years’ time, whereas individual leaseholders do not have five years to wait for cases to pan out. There is lots you could do if you want to adopt a more collective approach, but you need to be clear that this is a very individualistic response here. That will help some people, but probably not many.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Q
Justin Bates: If the Bill works in the way it is envisaged, you should at the end of the construction stage of the building be able to go to one place and have all the documents relevant to that building. You should have the plans, the design and so on. One problem that you have seen coming out of the Grenfell inquiry, for example, is that no one had all of the plans for the building. Firefighters went in and discovered there were two floors that did not exist on the plan that they had. If this works, this will be better for pulling together a centralised and collective set of records, which will help. That is the obvious one that I can think of, comparing it with a problem that we know exists. Can you think of any others?
Giles Peaker: There will be more accountability via the accountable person, certainly from the point at which the building is occupied. I am not clear how far that accountability will transfer back to the people actually responsible for the problems, if there are problems. The basic idea of having a person accountable for the building’s safety is in itself a good idea, but the complexities that follow on are immense. I am not sure that the issue of establishing who is the accountable person, particularly in properties where there might be multiple people who would be candidates or would fall under the list of who would be an accountable person, has been adequately solved.
How can I put it? I am fine on the principle; I am less certain about the practice, particularly as we are still waiting for statutory instruments—quite a lot of them—on how the accountability will be seen through. A lot of it will be down to the approach taken by the regulator. As we have seen with the regulator of social housing and so on, that can be quite a variable approach.
Selaine Saxby
Q
Justin Bates: Until we see all the secondary legislation, you cannot start to work out where all the problems will be. You have Dame Judith Hackitt’s report in the background. Dame Judith effectively concludes in her interim report that we have a building industry that cuts corners and throws up the cheapest buildings it can, to sell for the most profit as quickly as it can. That is the cultural problem. If you have still got that culture, people are going to find a way to get around the law. That is what they do. If you are really worried about building standards, you have to address that cultural bit first.
I am not saying that I have any answers to that, which was one of the earlier questions. Legislation by itself cannot make people be morally good, but you can impose enormous and painful penalties on people who do bad things. For example, building control is liable to pay damages if it turns out it was negligent in some respect. That will focus a lot of minds. It will end the practice that is rumoured to exist of some building control being very keen to say yes, because it does not want to get the reputation of being the person who says no, because then they do not get any other work.
Giles Peaker: There is indeed case law on building control signing off on non-existent flats without having seen them. Despite being clearly negligent, and potentially fraudulent, no liability was found. Yes, there is certainly a case for focusing building control’s minds on what it is they are doing.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Giles Peaker: The current position on leaseholders potentially having to pay for building defects is somewhat hotch-potch. By and large, for the huge majority of leases, they will have to, because it will be under the lease. There will be some leases where that is less than clear and some where they may not have to. So far, there have been no such successful cases at the first-tier tribunal or the upper tribunal, but it is theoretically possible—I am not ruling it out.
The Bill certainly takes as read that the cost of remedial works will pass under the service charge. There is no envisaging otherwise; it is simply the case, as far as the Bill goes. In terms of inserting, for instance, a direction by the regulator, it makes it 99.9% certain that the costs will indeed pass under the service charge. Not so much by specifying but by presenting the framework by which the remedial works will be assessed under the serviced charge, yes, it does enshrine that principle.
Justin Bates: Clause 124 is the critical one for this. Clause 124 assumes that the leaseholder is going to have a contractual liability under the lease, and it is right to make that assumption. In 99.9% of leases the starting point position will be that the leaseholder pays. By one route or another, there will be a clause in the lease that could be used. I agree it is theoretically possible that you have a lease that does not allow for that. I do not think it is very likely.
Clause 124 does not actually do anything to stop that. It takes the contractual position—that the leaseholder pays—and says, “We are going to ameliorate that in a relatively limited way.” First off, it only applies to a particular type of work, which is going to be specified by the Secretary of State in regulations. We do not actually know what kind of work it will apply to yet. I know it is not just cladding we are talking about here, but for simplicity’s sake let us say the Secretary of State passes an SI that says it applies to cladding replacement. In those circumstances, the Bill puts the freeholder under an obligation to look at alternative sources of funding. He has to go and look at granting funding—building safety fund money would be an obvious example. He has to look at insurance funding that might be available. He has to look at any other third parties that might have to pay because the developer could sue them, and he has to look at anything else the Secretary of State specifies, which is why it would be useful to know what the Secretary of State intends to specify. But it is only a duty to take reasonable steps to see whether any of those parties can pay up. What will reasonable steps mean in these circumstances? Once the building safety fund is exhausted, there is no publicly announced plan for any further grant funding. You know the building safety fund will get exhausted, because the Select Committee has done the work on that.
On insurance, it is good to have it enshrined in law that you should be looking to your insurers to pay up—frankly, case law has got there already, so it is not much of a development but it is always useful to have it confirmed in one place. The one that troubles me is the idea that the freeholder has to take reasonable steps possibly to sue third parties. What will reasonable steps mean here? Presumably, the freeholder will go and get legal advice from someone, and lawyers being what they are, they will say the prospects of success are somewhere between x and y. If he says there is a 51% chance of success, does the freeholder have to do it? Bear in mind that the legal costs of a failed claim will almost be certainly be a service chargeable cost. If he says it is 70%, does the freeholder have to do it?
If he does have to bring litigation, in the meantime, what will you do about the actual work on the building, because suing someone does not get a building made safe? In the meantime, all the leaseholders—your constituents who write to you about waking watches and higher insurance premiums—will keep paying that while the freeholder and the developers have a fight about who should pay the ultimate work.
I understand what it is trying to do: it is trying to give freeholders a meaningful kick to make sure they exhaust other sources of funding before they go to leaseholders. I just see this generating a lot of litigation to achieve very little.
Giles Peaker: To follow that through, clause 124 appears to make it an obligation for the accountable person to actually carry out works in the meantime while searching for the other sources of funding. Where is that money coming from? It is not going to happen. There will be no money, unless they charge the leaseholders in the meantime and then refund them, but they cannot do that.
If you are looking at potential litigation by the freeholder, I do that kind of work—you are looking at two or three years before there is an outcome, whether successful or not. Costs of failed litigation could be immense and will go through the service charge—that is entirely right under this Bill. But if the accountable person does not bring litigation, you are looking at the leaseholders prospectively bringing a challenge in the tribunal that they do not have to pay the remedial costs, whatever they are, as specified in the statutory instrument, because the accountable person has not complied with the relevant section of 20D. You are then asking the first-tier tribunal to reach a finding on what the landlord’s reasonable prospects of success would have been had they pursued a claim against the developer, as a condition of whether the charge has to be paid. That is a huge stretch for the FTT. How do you evidence that? The leaseholders bring along someone like me who says, “I put it at 70%.” The freeholder brings along their solicitor who advised them and said, “It’s a 40% chance.” What is the FTT to do? I cannot see that working. It is years and years of litigation one way or another.
Daisy Cooper
Q
Giles Peaker: Immense.
Daisy Cooper
Immense—there you go. I was almost there. They are facing immense costs on top of that. Am I right in saying that those are the choices you have just outlined facing leaseholders under this Bill?
Justin Bates: All of those scenarios are plausible on clause 124 as drafted, yes.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Justin Bates: Oh, yes.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
“moral hazard between the roles of the accountable person and the building safety manager”,
particularly the use and misuse of concerns about fire safety to do works that are not about fire safety, and may not even be necessary. I think I was reading that they feel this legislation could be used for work that is not the intention of this Bill. Do you recognise that, and is that an issue?
Giles Peaker: I am not entirely sure that is a different position to the current one. There is the eternal struggle between freeholders and leaseholders as to what works are necessary and what works are recoverable under the lease. Again, we are not sure what would count as remedial work, so that would be specified, but undoubtedly, yes, there will be attempts to smuggle in other kinds of works that could not otherwise be charged for. I am not saying that this is right: this is just what happens, and there will doubtless be tribunal disputes as to whether that is correct. That would require leaseholders to take it to the tribunal, so I am not sure there is a great difference with the current situation on that, but the current situation is hardly great.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Giles Peaker: No, I would not say so.
Justin Bates: It is important to remember that this Bill is not only about fire safety. We are all talking about that because that is the current crisis, but clause 59 says that a building safety risk is:
“(a) the spread of fire;
(b) structural failure;
(c) any other prescribed matter.”
That is what this Bill is concerned about. It is not limited to fire safety. Suppose you had this Bill 60 years ago: it might have been the vehicle you used to deal with asbestos, for example. You could have prescribed asbestos as one of the other matters there. As I understand it—this is where the SIs would be a legitimate tool—this is intended to be a structure that you do not have to come back to for 50 years. That is why having it beyond fire makes sense, because there will inevitably be another problem that we discover in years to come. Yes, focus on fire at the moment because that is your immediate concern, but this is not a Bill limited to fire safety.
Rachel Hopkins
Q
Giles Peaker: I suppose that it would be straightforward in a number of situations, because the building safety manager would, in effect, be appointing the person to carry out the fire risk assessments and would effectively work as the responsible person. However, there is obviously the potential for adding yet more people with yet more responsibilities in relation to the building.
Justin Bates: I am not sure that is a question for a lawyer, because a lot of it depends on the personalities involved. Joint working can work: think of the GLA’s taskforce, for example, which is doing good work on fire safety at the moment. They have local authorities and the fire brigade working together. There is no inherent, logical reason why joint working is bad. Much of it depends on the personalities involved and the political will behind each organisation to make it work. I am afraid that I am probably not the person to help you with that question.
Mike Amesbury
Q
Giles Peaker: We have been wracking our brains about this one. I know the clause that you are referring to. We are not entirely sure why it is there. I think it is probably just to avoid there actually then being a human rights challenge to BSA on whatever relatively spurious basis. I cannot see a valid human rights challenge, and certainly not in terms of the removal of the six-year limitation. A limitation defence is not a property for the purposes of article 1 of protocol 1; they could not pull an article 1 complaint.
I do not think that there are any article 6 issues, because limitation does not stop you being liable; it just stops you being sued. You are still responsible for the problems. If the period for which you can be sued is extended, where is the article 6 problem? You will still get your fair trial in court. After wrestling with it, I cannot see one.
Justin Bates: What has almost certainly happened is that because we are designing for legislation with retrospective effect, the draftsman of this has realised that retrospective law is something that does flag up human rights concerns. You can do it—your Parliament is sovereign; you can do whatever you want—but it does flag up human rights concerns. Rather than having a fight about whether there is a human rights defence or not, the draftsman has said, “If anyone ever manages to succeed in one, this will be the outcome”.
These words could be hostage to fortune, but I suspect that it is a clause that will not go very far because you would see more litigation about whether the defence was available at all. This assumes that the defence is available, and it has decided what the outcome will be. I can understand why it has been put in there, because if it is not in there and a developer brings a human rights defence and wins, what happens is that the developer is still liable in damages, but a declaration of incompatibility is made, and you then have to deal with your incompatible legislation. I can see why the possibility of that has been headed off at the beginning, but I do not think it will go anywhere. I know that Giles takes a slightly different view.
Giles Peaker: I do take a slightly different view. I have a horrible feeling that that clause will invite people to try, which would inevitably mean at least three to five years of litigation on that issue, but we will see.
Daisy Cooper
Q
My question, to follow up on Rachel’s point, is this. Based on what is currently published in this Bill, are you able to ascertain whether or not there is a situation in which the two roles that Rachel mentioned—the responsible and accountable people—might be diametrically opposed in what they are legally obliged to do, or are you simply of the view that not enough has been published to ascertain that?
Justin Bates: At the moment, I would lean towards the latter. I do not think the planning analogy is a good one, because this is not like two elected bodies, each with their own political concerns, fighting over where the houses should be; it is between two supposedly neutral public authorities. I see the co-operation duty as closer to the duties that exist under the Housing Act 2004, whereby local authorities and fire brigades have to work together when they are doing certain kinds of inspection.
I am not for a second pretending that you do not get areas of conflict. In pure housing law disputes between district councils and county councils about homeless children, you get enormous fights—a very common fight is about whether it concerns housing or social services—so I am not saying that there are no fights to be had. As far as I am aware, that problem does not come up under the Housing Act. That is probably the closest analogy. Can I think about it and send something in afterwards if I think of any particular problems?
The Chair
If there are no further questions, I will draw this evidence session to a close. I thank our witnesses for their time. We are really grateful to them for bringing their expertise to the Committee.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Scott Mann.)
Westminster Hall
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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BACKBENCH BUSINESS
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Covid-19: Immunology Research
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Before we begin, may I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission? Although the Xs on the seats have now gone, please give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.
Members should send their speaking notes to our colleagues at Hansard—the email address is hansardnotes@parliament.uk. Similarly, officials should communicate electronically with Ministers rather than pass them notes, as happened in the old days.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the role of immunology research in responding to the covid-19 outbreak.
Thank you for calling me to speak, Dr Huq. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me the opportunity to highlight one of the many successes for this nation. Unlike yesterday, the Minister will have an easy ride in responding to my comments, and hopefully to the comments of other Members as well.
Every one of us across this great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland recognises the good work that has brought about the vaccines, to deal with covid-19 in a way that could never have happened if we had still been in the European Union. I am not looking for any discussion about Brexit, but we had the independence to roll out the vaccines. The Government had the foresight to do that, and the Prime Minister put the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, who is present, in charge of making that happen.
Every one of us recognises that the Minister and his team across the whole of the United Kingdom, in co-operation with all the regions of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, have made this happen. We are eternally grateful to them for that. I wanted to put that on the record first, because it is so important to say that we are where we are today because of the strategy of our Government, the work of the vaccine Minister and—I say this as a Christian—the prayers of God’s people. We have seen the championship of community working together.
I participated in a Westminster Hall debate over in Portcullis House; it is so nice to come back to the real Westminster Hall and to claim my seat in this corner of the room. Hon. Members have asked me why I sit here. It is because I always sit here—I think my name is written on the seat. We had a fantastic debate in Portcullis House on the issue of communities working together, and many of us took the opportunity to speak of how our communities had come together. As elected representatives, we can all subscribe to the belief that whenever the chips are down, the goodness of people always shines through. From a community point of view, I am able to convey some of the good things from my community, and I know that others can do so as well. I have been double-vaccinated, as I suspect everyone present has been. The many victories that have happened behind the scenes should be celebrated.
The topic of the debate is immunology research into covid-19, and I thank the Library for its very helpful briefing. Page 3 gives a really good introduction to the subject:
“immunology has changed the face of modern medicine…From Edward Jenner’s pioneering work in the 18th Century that would ultimately lead to vaccination in its modern form (an innovation that has likely saved more lives than any other medical advance), to the many scientific breakthroughs in the 19th and 20th centuries that would lead to, amongst other things, safe organ transplantation, the identification of blood groups, and the now ubiquitous use of monoclonal antibodies throughout science and healthcare.”
Immunology has helped our great health service to move forward. I asked for this debate some time ago, and I want to put on the record our thanks to the immunology experts and scientists. I am going to mention a lot of people in this debate today, because there are a lot of people to thank; I apologise in advance if some people are not mentioned, but that is not because we have forgotten about them. I recognise that, singly and as a team, we all came together to make this happen.
I will then speak to some of the successes that immunology research has had during the pandemic in furthering our understanding of covid-19 and the effects that SARS-CoV-2 has on our immune systems, as well as developing the technologies and therapeutics that are currently allowing us to emerge from lockdown restrictions and return to normal life—this here is the normal life we had prior to covid-19 in Westminster Hall. As I progressed around Westminster Hall, the House of Commons and the House of Lords and Portcullis House, I noticed these wee circles on the carpet. I wondered what they were all about, but then I realised: that is where the wee “Keep two metres apart” signs were. They have all gone away.
Normality is returning for a number of reasons, and I know that the Government and the Minister are committed to returning to normality in every way we can. Yesterday in the House, I asked the Minister how we can better have an agreed covid vaccine strategy within the four regions where one size fits all, as I put it. It would be nice to see that, although I know that the restrictions differ; I know that Scotland is going to do something different, as the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Anum Qaisar-Javed) may mention shortly. Lots of things have been happening, but from a news and media point of view it would have been nice at least to have had the same strategy for everywhere across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Over the past 18 months, immunology has had a disproportionately large effect in driving forward our understanding of the science of, and helping us to recover from, the covid-19 pandemic. Immunology has built our understanding of how the body responds to covid-19—and, crucially, has delivered us highly safe and effective vaccines. We all know that. I have had the vaccine, as have others: it does not give us the ultimate assurance, but it gives us a 96% or 98% assurance of being safe and secure, which I believe is our way out of the pandemic.
Immunology is the linchpin linking together many of the sciences that have been used in tackling the covid-19 pandemic, such as virology, respiratory science and epidemiology; for the latter, immunologists have been working with epidemiologists to help make their mathematical models more accurate. I chair the all-party parliamentary group on respiratory health. We have recently had an inquiry on this issue and have done a number of things relating to respiratory health. Through the work of my constituency office, I have become aware of so many people who have issues in relation to asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or other respiratory problems. I am aware of those issues, and I am interested in them.
We know that a multitude of different reactions of the immune system manifest themselves through the many different symptoms and severities of covid-19 that have been observed—from the acute disease right the way through to long covid, which more and more people are reporting they are suffering from post-infection. I have had a number of people contact me about long covid; I am not sure whether there is a real understanding of how long covid affects people, and why it affects some people and not others.
A lady in my constituency contacted me just the other day, looking for some advice about her job and where she stands. Legally, there may not have been the protection that she had hoped for, but I think the Government have set in process a benefit system whereby if a person has a health condition that prevents them from working, they can claim employment and support allowance, personal independence payment or universal credit. I was pointing her in that direction, but this lady had been perfectly healthy. She worked in a wee bakery just down the street from my office. I got to know her quite well. I had not seen her about as often, but I thought that that was maybe because we were working different shifts.
Perhaps in his response the Minister could give us some idea about how we can help those with long covid. There are a number of them out there—not just that lady, but others who have contacted me recently; we got them on to benefits and tried to help them through the system. However, what that lady really wants, and what they all want, is to return to work and to normality. It may be some time before that happens. The benefits system is in place at least to help them financially, but we need to do more so that they can deal with the issues themselves, now and in the future.
Significant patient benefit and public health improvement directly demonstrate the huge value of investing further in immunology research. The Library paper referred to the
“Important research questions that will take time to answer”.
Research and development are working towards having in place vaccines and responses to diseases as they happen. I will comment on that later. The important research questions that take time to answer are:
“What is the rate of asymptomatic spread, and how does this contribute to transmission? What proportion of infected individuals mount a protective immune response? How long is natural and vaccine immune protection likely to last? What immunological factors correlate with protection to SARS-CoV-2 by vaccines and how effective are vaccines at protecting older people? What is the role of immunogenetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and what can this tell us about potential therapeutic targets?”
Those are all key questions for those involved in R&D, and they are clear. They help us to prepare for the future. In the research that I did—I want to refer to it later on—I found that R&D was actually working towards this vaccine even before the disease came about. When the Government announced the vaccine, there had already been a number of years of investigation and research and development into this particular subject matter.
Some of the questions that the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium were asking were as follows:
“How long does immunity from COVID-19 last? Why are some people’s immune systems better able to fight off the virus?”
That relates to those who can recover quickly and those who have long covid.
“Why do some people’s immune responses cause damage, especially to the lungs? How does the virus ‘hide’ from the immune system and how can this be tackled?”
Right across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, again, perhaps the Minister can give us his response to this question as well.
Ulster University in Northern Ireland was working in partnership with some of the larger pharmaceutical companies on vaccine research. How important we all believe those R&D partnerships between universities across the whole United Kingdom—including Ulster University in Northern Ireland, obviously—are in bringing about some of the vaccines that we have!
Vaccines, of course, are no doubt having the most effect on people’s day-to-day lives. Immunology has made other important contributions to the science of covid-19. That includes diagnosis, for example, through antigen testing; the screening of antibodies to determine whether people have had covid-19 previously; and prognosis and patient stratification, such as triaging patients and seeing who will benefit from early ventilation and therapeutics. Why is it, for instance, that, as I heard one of the experts on BBC news say this morning, someone can be free of the symptoms of the disease but unknowingly be a carrier of it, even though they are vaccinated? Again, there are questions to be asked.
Immunology research during covid-19 has been supported well by Government, funding agencies and institutions. Our Ministers and our Prime Minister made it a priority. That is why we are where we are today, to the envy of much of the world. Immunology, especially population-based studies of actual immune responses in real people with and without disease was already a real strength of UK research to start with, and we should be grateful for that. The population-based research is facilitated by standardised procedures for researchers to access patients and their samples across the UK through the NHS. Again, we are eternally thankful for all that. The National Institute for Health Research played a major role in bringing together academic researchers and clinical services during the pandemic, and has played a crucial role in ensuring that we learn as we go, in real time. I especially thank the NIHR for that contribution. Many others have contributed as well, but the NIHR did a fantastic job.
The rapid adaptation of our funding processes to ensure that the Government research funding flowed to collaborative groups of researchers who were well placed to deliver answers to crucial questions quickly was also a major strength. For example, UK-CIC, which I have mentioned, is another visionary group that strategised, planned and responded in a positive way. Its UK-wide study was launched to tackle some of the key questions about the immune system’s response to SARS-CoV-2 and help us control the covid-19 pandemic. It received some £6.5 million in funding over 12 months from UK Research and Innovation and NIHR; that is the largest immunology grant awarded for tackling the covid-19 pandemic. Critically and crucially, it also incorporated a large element of patient and public involvement, bringing laypeople and those who had covid-19 into the scientific process in a scheme of work run by the British Society for Immunology. UK-CIC was funded in a way almost unique to covid-19 research, to encourage collaborative team science, individually but also through teamwork, sharing ideas, coming together, working together, and partnering. Rather than research groups competing against each other, which could have happened, the consortium brought them together with a singular target, a singular goal, and a way of doing it better together.
In UK-CIC some 20 of the UK’s leading immunology research institutes, including Ulster University in Northern Ireland—again, team UK of GB and NI working together in a very positive way—are funded as a consortium and are focused on five themes: primary immunity, protective immunity, immunopathology, cross-reactive coronavirus immunity and immune evasion. Its successes and novel discoveries are numerous. We look at that collective and how 20 different groups came together and how they solved problems collectively. We are four regions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but we can share the ideas, so we can have the ideas in Scotland in Northern Ireland, Wales or England, and vice versa.
UK-CIC has contributed to the development of covid-19 therapeutics through exploration of the role for interferon therapy and determining the effectiveness of dexamethasone. It has made a major contribution to vaccine development studies including through showing that an extended dosing schedule is more effective than, for instance, a three-week interval. It has shown that there is a stronger antibody response to mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer and that there are stronger cellular immune responses to vaccines such as AstraZeneca. Furthermore, it has curated the largest collection of covid-19 post-mortem tissue in the world, so the evidential base is significant and ready for further investigation. It has defined the four main sub-types of inflammation in covid-19 and opened up avenues for further investigation of therapeutics. It is not just about today; it is about tomorrow and that is what I love about where we are. We are already preparing for the next one. I know the Minister will respond to that because he knows vastly more about it than I do and will be able to explain and explore that for us. UK-CIC has found that our T cell immune responses are likely to overcome mutations in the virus and remain effective. This is an incredibly complex subject matter, and so important as we look to the future and whatever comes our way.
The UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium model has proved highly effective, and should be strongly considered as a blueprint for future funding of research. Perhaps the Minister will give his thoughts on that. I believe that it is vastly important that we do that. A number of strengths of doing research that way were identified, including avoiding duplication of research, with complementarity built into the project design instead; the standardisation of protocols, to allow science to move forward more quickly; and the ability to carry out larger studies by using patient samples from multiple sites. Again, the teamwork and connectivity brought everyone together. That led to more robust findings being produced and more diverse patient cohorts, as well as regular engagement between groups in the consortium, helping to engender ambition and to foster a sense of scientific community, working better together.
Retaining that funding model will ensure that the infrastructure is already in place should another pandemic event occur. We hope that it does not, but we did not expect the last one; we have to be prepared for the next. That is what the debate is also about: to thank the Minister, our Government and others for our response and to ensure that we are equipped and ready for the future. That infrastructure would also tackle other societal and public health challenges, such as antimicrobial resistance, cancer immunotherapy, and ageing and dementia. In the debate on social care the other day in the House, many referred to dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s as diseases that are perhaps more prevalent in society now than in the past. I can vouch for that, as I seem to be dealing with more of those issues in my constituency. Again, these are complex matters, and it is about working better together to try to address them.
No debate on immunology research and covid-19 in the UK would be complete without talking about the world-leading work done by the University of Oxford team in developing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. We are eternally grateful for all that they have done. It was not until 11 March 2020 that the World Health Organisation declared covid-19 to be a global pandemic, but the work that preceded the release of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had begun years before. I referred to that earlier, and it is the truth: the Oxford team began its work in 2015. I do not know whether many people know that. I did not until I researched the issue.
That work was funded by the UK Vaccine Network, a partnership between the Department of Health and Social Care and UK Research and Innovation’s Medical Research Council and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, to find a vaccine for middle eastern respiratory syndrome, an illness caused by a different coronavirus. Not all the research was in place, but it was during this time that the team fine-tuned the adenovirus vaccine platform, and in 2018 the vaccine entered safety trials and was shown to cause no adverse responses while eliciting both cellular and antibody immune responses, and the trials suggested that two doses would be more effective than one. The lessons learned at that time could be initiated for our response to covid-19 when it started just last year.
The MERS virus has a spike protein on its surface similar to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which meant, along with the previous testing of the vaccine platform technology, that the Oxford team already had an adaptable vaccine that had been tested and proved to be safe in humans. People should be made more aware of that information when they say, “You’ve brought this in. You’ve vaccinated everybody. Where’s the trial?” Well, the research started in 2015 and the trials started in 2018, then were adapted to deal with this particular virus. We should be encouraged by what has taken place. The vaccine has been tested and proved to be safe in humans.
Once the Chinese investigators had shared the genomic sequence of SARS CoV 2, it could then be inserted into the adenovirus to produce the prototype covid-19 vaccine that entered into human trials in April 2020—about the time that covid-19 restrictions came into play. The ability to deliver such a vaccine at pace was a product of long-term funding through UKRI over more than a decade, which ensured there was an existing vaccine platform technology, alongside optimised manufacturing methods.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine development was also facilitated by a £2.6 million UKRI-NIHR rapid response grant in March 2020, just at the time we needed it. Again, our Government were in place to do that at the right time. That provided funding to conduct pre-clinical investigations and phase 1 and 2 trials, and to scale up production of the vaccine to 1 million doses by summer 2020. The researchers and all those involved were able not only to produce a cure but initiate production at the level that was needed. How grateful we are for all those superhuman efforts to bring out the vaccine to immunise the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and help third-world countries.
That is truly demonstrative of previous immunological research into infectious diseases speeding up our response to SARS-CoV-2. However, after the previous outbreaks, research into these viruses tapered off, which hampered our ability to respond to SARS-CoV-2 with as much information as we would have liked. That was unfortunate. The gaps in knowledge at the beginning of the pandemic led to some of the decisions that were made in public policy and, indeed, some mistakes that, perhaps with hindsight, could have been avoided. We have all made mistakes in life—I include myself in that, and I am sure everyone is the same—and we would change them, but we make decisions at the time that we make them.
We must not make the same mistakes again. Instead, we must continue to invest in SARS-CoV-2 and covid-19 research, immunological and otherwise, so that we are properly prepared should an event like this happen again. We should be ever thankful for where we are. Coronaviruses have particular pandemic potential, as they are able to replicate efficiently on entry to the human population and are thought by experts to be the biggest threat, so we need to get ready for the future. I know the Minister will give us some of his thoughts about how we are doing that so we are ahead of the game when it comes to responding to whatever the future may hold.
The covid-19 pandemic has also acutely illustrated that the importance of both global disease networks and global disease surveillance cannot be overstated. With the truncation or termination of many non-covid-19 immunological research projects that formed the basis of these networks and surveillance due to cuts to the official development assistance budget, it is through investing in covid-19 immunology research that we can build international collaboration, as has happened in the past, and use those relationships to ensure that we are more prepared for future infectious disease outbreaks. Perhaps the Minister can tell us a wee bit more about how we are working internationally. Again, we can do that to everyone’s advantage. We should not be claiming it for ourselves; we can do that with other countries, and do it better together.
Of course, there are still many questions surrounding covid-19 that remain unanswered, including major ones like what the longevity of vaccine-mediated immunity will be and why some people contract long covid and others do not. I refer again to the constituent I spoke about this week. Covid-19 is unlikely to disappear completely, so it is crucial that we invest in discovering the answers to those and other key questions.
If we revert to pre-pandemic-style grant funding for covid-19 research, we will lose the progress that we made on the R&D infrastructure and the good will of the research community, which is needed to tackle these challenges properly. I seek an assurance from the Minister that we will not revert to that, but we will move forward and give the commitment that the R&D sector clearly wants. We must ensure that the current levels of funding are continued. Small studies that look at small numbers of people are not robust enough to achieve statistically significant results that can inform patient care and policy. We need to ensure that the R&D success of the past is a policy and strategy for the future. We must continue to conduct studies at the same scale, with the involvement of hundreds of thousands of people. That is the success of the covid-19 vaccine, and that is the success we want for all other pandemics that come along, to ensure long-term immune monitoring that can be applied to real-world questions and situations.
There has been an immense investment in immunology and covid-19 research over the past 18 months, which has allowed the UK to achieve some truly impressive bench-to-bedside science, such as vaccines that have gone from the laboratory to people’s arms in record time. I know there has been lots of research into how that is done, and we can only be truly impressed by it.
There has also been great leadership from the Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, and chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, in driving forward conditions that have led to the progress and discoveries made. The pandemic has illustrated the importance of the NHS. We all love the NHS and we know how important it is. There is not a debate where we do not revere what it has done for those it has helped to heal, save and make better, and for the comfort it gives people when they need it most. It is vital to ensure that is not forgotten in future, as it allows science to operate at a huge scale.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the scientists and researchers of many different disciplines, including immunology, for their work during the pandemic. The fruits of their labour can be seen everywhere from the vaccine roll-out to today’s better survival rates for covid-19 patients in hospital, for which we are thankful. It reminds us that the work going on in labs across the country has a tangible effect on everyday life in this country. It is the working together and the investigations and tests done in universities and pharmaceutical companies with the financial backing of our Government and the push from the vaccine Minister and his team. We must ensure in the post-pandemic future that UK R&D is properly funded and given the resources needed to continue having a positive effect for everyone in society.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Since no other Back-Bench MP wishes to catch my eye, I will go to the first of our three Front Benchers. For the SNP, we have Anum Qaisar-Javed.
Anum Qaisar-Javed (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) who secured this important debate. As a relatively new Member, it is my pleasure to have made both my first hybrid Westminster Hall speech and now my first non-hybrid Westminster Hall speech in debates he has secured. While we differ on the constitution, I know the hon. Gentleman makes a valuable contribution to this House, although I have not yet worked out how he manages to be in three places at once. I gently remind him that Scotland is not a region; it is a nation.
I echo the hon. Gentleman in being grateful for the role of immunology and thanking all who are involved in the sector. Without them, this pandemic may have been very different. The pandemic has forced us in many ways to work collaboratively to overcome the challenges put in place by the virus. In our time of need, scientists from an array of disciplines have done exactly that, and have come together to share their expertise, forming our evidence-based approach to tackling the virus.
Specifically, immunology research has played a pivotal role in linking together many of the sciences that have been used to tackle the covid-19 pandemic, such as virology, respiratory science and epidemiology. Although immunology is most known for its role in the development of the vaccine, it also continues to play a crucial role in providing information that helps to form our ongoing public health response to covid-19. Working with partners across the UK and across the globe, Scotland is leading, enabling and delivering world-class covid-19 research, which is a key element of the Scottish Government’s overall response to the pandemic.
Immunologists have worked tremendously hard to ensure that public understanding of covid-19 is as up to date as possible, with University of Glasgow researchers the first in the world to genomically sequence the Kent variant of the virus. Such work by scientists, medical professionals, researchers and a host of others has developed our collective understanding of the virus, its causes and effects, the mitigation strategies, and the vaccine lifeline.
The Scottish Government emphasised research investment early on in the pandemic, which has contributed to global efforts to understand the effects of the virus, to sequence it and to work on vaccine manufacturing and development. As a result, the Scottish Government supported 55 rapid research projects in 15 Scottish universities and research institutions from April 2020, funding contributions to global efforts to combat the virus and its wider effects. Such research has allowed us to tackle the virus with, as I have said, an evidence-based approach.
Being able to deliver the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine at such a pace was the product of long-term funding provided by UK Research and Innovation over more than a decade. It was this long-term funding that ensured there was an existing vaccine platform technology, alongside optimised manufacturing methods, as the hon. Member for Strangford referred to. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine development was also facilitated by a £2.6-million UKRI rapid response grant in early 2020. It was this funding that allowed pre-clinical investigations and a phase 1/2 trial to be conducted, as well as the scaling up of the production of the vaccine to 1 million doses by the summer of 2020.
Although the field of immunology is currently most known for its development of vaccines, it is important to note that it plays just as significant a role in contributing to public health information. As we are currently witnessing across the UK, covid-19 is by no means going away any time soon.
In addition, we are yet to understand fully the extent to which it will impact our population in the long term. Approximately 1 million people in the UK have self-reported symptoms of long covid. Of those people, around two thirds have stated that the symptoms have adversely affected their day-to-day activities. The symptoms reported include fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle aches and difficulty concentrating.
The Scottish Government have invested over £400,000 to enable Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland to deliver a long covid support service, which complements the support being provided by NHS Scotland. Along with the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and the Queen’s Nursing Institute, CHSS recently published a long covid action plan, which calls on the Scottish Government to make a number of changes. Crucially, these changes include a fund to be set up for health boards to establish a local long covid service, although a figure has not yet been set; the removal of bureaucratic barriers in NHS Scotland; and improved data-sharing, so that patients can be spoken to more quickly. Additionally, the document calls for patient care plans to be developed and for medical staff to be trained on long covid, because, CHSS says, some medical staff do not actually recognise it as a real condition.
At First Minister’s questions last week, the First Minister stated publicly that she wanted to discuss the recommendations with the charity in detail, and will give the capacity fund serious consideration in budget discussions.
Jim Shannon
I am very impressed and pleased by Scotland’s long covid planning strategy, which the hon. Lady has outlined. However, it is not all about plans. For many families, it is about how they will survive financially—they all want to get better, but they are not sure if that will happen in the timescale they wish. Apart from the benefits system that we have in place, does the hon. Lady have any ideas as to how we could help them financially?
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
On the Clerk’s advice, let me gently remind the hon. Member that, as we are talking about the Westminster Parliament, she should not stray too much into what goes on in the devolved Parliaments.
Anum Qaisar-Javed
I do not know off the top of my head, so I will get back to the hon. Gentleman on that matter.
In light of the statistics and the current rates of covid-19, it is crucial that there is continued investment in immunology research, which will allow us to develop an ongoing public health strategy to minimise and manage the impact of the virus on our population. Thanks to the production of the vaccine, when compared to those who are unvaccinated, those who are double vaccinated are at less risk not only of catching the virus, but of an infection turning into long covid.
Furthermore, it has been found that two doses of the Pfizer or Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are 96% and 92% effective against hospitalisation with the delta variant, respectively. While the delta variant is prevalent throughout the country, it is reassuring to know that because of the work of immunologists, our population is trying to live life as normally as possible. The vaccine produced by immunologists has both literally and figuratively provided us with a lifeline—without their work, our economy would remain at a standstill.
Despite the steps we have taken in the battle against covid-19, there is still so much we do not fully understand. By continuing to fund immunology research, population-based studies—a key strength of UK research—can continue to provide us with this knowledge. For example, the National Institute for Health Research has played a major role in bringing academic research together with clinical services during the pandemic, ensuring that we learn as we go. It is this continual production of real-time information about covid-19 that will allow us to overcome and stay ahead of the virus and its long-term impacts.
I therefore ask that the UK Government follow the lead of the Scottish Government’s actions and continue to invest in immunology research and ensure the necessary investment in England’s NHS. It is through further investment in this research that we will get the pandemic under control. In turn, this will ensure that the country is far better prepared for any future outbreaks of emerging diseases. Immunology research has undoubtedly played a pivotal role in our overcoming the pandemic, and it will continue to form the foundation of our public health response and our knowledge of the ever-changing landscape of the pandemic.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to wind up for the Opposition with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this extremely important debate. I know he is hugely passionate about so many issues, and it has been wonderful to hear him set out exactly why this topic is so close to his heart.
So many heroes have emerged from this pandemic: our frontline NHS staff, shopworkers, carers, posties, delivery drivers—the list goes on and on. It is absolutely right that these people’s efforts are recognised, but today we have the opportunity to express our gratitude to a different group of people—a group that is more often found behind the scenes in labs and research facilities up and down the country. Their commitment and dedication to understanding and then eradicating deadly diseases has saved millions of lives over the last two centuries. Immunologists and all their colleagues in biomedical research deserve all the gratitude we can offer.
It is through immunological research that we can treat and prevent the spread of diseases. Although it can be difficult to remember a time when we were not consumed by information surrounding covid, it is important to remember how we got here so quickly. Without this research, we would not be able to develop vaccines or even understand basic principles in reducing infection rates. This work allows us to identify who is most at risk of certain diseases and informs both public health messages and interventions to limit outbreaks.
The work of immunology researchers and scientists led to an almost immediate understanding of this virus. We understood how to limit its spread and, ultimately, how to develop a vaccine to stop it. Considering that very little was known about the coronavirus before it began to spread ferociously around the world, this achievement is even more remarkable. Without this work and dedication, the loss of life worldwide would be far greater. For that, we already owe a huge debt.
It is only right to begin my contribution today by paying my respects to those who work in this field. In particular, I pay respect to the British Society for Immunology and the Royal College of Pathologists. I am sure colleagues will join me in doing so. Those institutions refused to be fazed by covid-19, and the work of their members has been pivotal in delivering a route out of the pandemic. We have a long and proud tradition in this country of pushing advancements in medicine, especially on immunisation. The work of UK scientists has led to vaccines being developed for numerous infectious diseases.
Edward Jenner, often referred to as the father of immunology, discovered the first ever smallpox vaccine in 1796. It had been theorised that exposure to cowpox would protect against infection with the more lethal smallpox. Jenner tested this theory and it was a resounding success. A tribute to Blossom, the cow whose cowpox was used as the first vaccine, can still be found on the wall of the St George’s medical school library, which is attached to the hospital where I work. From that achievement in 1796 to covid vaccines today, we should be proud of this legacy.
The scientific community has always fully endorsed collaboration and working across borders and cultures to foster innovation. Let us be clear: the unsung heroes are our scientists, who went to work day and night throughout the pandemic, even though they were putting their own lives at risk and were concerned for their own families. They are the reason we have a vaccine today—a vaccine that has saved so many lives. For them, we are truly grateful. By collaborating with researchers all over the world, UK scientists have played their part in preventing deaths from some of history’s deadliest diseases. These efforts have resulted in no less than 26 vaccine-preventable diseases, and are estimated to prevent over 2 million premature deaths globally every year.
I am proud to be part of the UK scientific community—as, I am sure, are you, Dr Huq. I am truly honoured to have met so many of the specialists who have been relentless in their struggles to get a handle on covid-19. It is imperative that the Government do all they can to support this work and to facilitate as much international collaboration as they can during the final stretch of covid-19 and long beyond. Despite all we have learned about the virus, there is still so much we do not fully understand: exactly how long immunity lasts following vaccination and whether immunity completely prevents individuals from passing the virus on, or simply prevents them from developing symptoms. Research into those questions is, of course, ongoing, and as greater numbers are vaccinated we should be in a better position to answer them.
With the ongoing threat of new variants emerging, it is vital that we understand their potential effect on immunity. Closely monitoring new variants and their impact on our immune system will help get us to a position whereby we can begin to control the virus and exit the pandemic. It is easy to assume that, now that we have a vaccine, the hard work is over and life will inevitably return to normal. While that is what we all strive for, we cannot allow complacency to creep in. By continuing to support the work of immunologists, pathologists and the wider scientific community, we will be able to face any new emerging challenges and react accordingly.
The UK is a global leader in immunology and infectious disease research, both in the academic environment and in our industrial capabilities. We need to build on those strengths and invest in our workforce, who are the lifeblood of the discipline, to ensure that excellence continues to be recognised at home and abroad. I would be grateful if the Minister could commit to this and outline what support the Government will provide for this highly skilled workforce.
Now is the time to encourage people to take up careers in this field. We need to attract high levels of talent from around the world, while training and developing our own staff and encouraging them to forge long and successful careers here. We must continue to break down the barriers in STEM to ensure that immunology has a representative workforce who can inspire future generations, regardless of their gender, ethnicity or class.
The response from the research community to covid-19 has been immense, but it has also highlighted the need to be better prepared for the next pandemic, whatever it may be and whenever it may come. Governments around the world recognise that and must never lose sight of it. Here in the UK, we cannot afford to take our eyes off the ball. Doing so would jeopardise the results of the sacrifices we have all had to make over the past 18 months, including those in our scientific community. I implore the Government to continue to support our world-leading biomedical science sectors long after covid becomes a distant memory. We were not as prepared as we could have been for the virus’s onslaught. We must learn from that and ensure that we are better prepared for the next threat, even if we do not yet know what it will be.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Finally, from the Government, Nadhim Zahawi. It is good to see him in person, and not on a conference call on a Friday.
The Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment (Nadhim Zahawi)
Thank you very much, Dr Huq. It is a pleasure to be here, in person, to serve under your chairship. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate, and of course the hon. Members for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) and for Airdrie and Shotts (Anum Qaisar-Javed).
The shadow Minister referred to Edward Jenner and Blossom, and of course we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Dame Sarah Gilbert, who now has a Barbie from Mattel in her image. I hope that will encourage many young kids to take up science, as a number of us in this Chamber have done. As I am sure colleagues here know, I am a proud chemical engineer from University College London. I think it appropriate, on a day like this, to congratulate the behind-the-scenes group—as the shadow Minister referred to them—of incredible scientists, whose incredible work has allowed us to deal with this pandemic. I am sure the whole House would want to join me in that.
I also congratulate Sir Shankar Balasubramanian and Sir David Klenerman. They have just received the $3 million Breakthrough Prize, which is referred to as the “Oscars of science” for their work at Cambridge on next-generation genome sequencing. To bring that to life for the House, it took $3 billion and about 10 years to sequence the first human genome. Their work on next-generation genome sequencing now allows that same work to take an hour and about $1,000, which makes a real contribution to future discovery.
For those who do not know her, I would also encourage people to look at the work of Professor Katalin Karikó, who has also been awarded the Breakthrough Prize today. She is not from the United Kingdom, but has had to travel a long journey, from Hungary to the USA and the University of Pennsylvania. Her personal struggle and her work on mRNA allowed BioNTech and Moderna, using her patents, to develop those incredible vaccines.
By calling this debate, the hon. Member for Strangford has really provided us with an opportunity to discuss the world-leading contributions that UK researchers have made by increasing our ability to tackle this disease. Investment by the Government has assisted the science underpinning the development of many of the tools we need to harness to ultimately defeat this virus.
UK-based research has provided insights that are crucial to improving surveillance, patient care and management, and developing new diagnostics, therapies and vaccines. Identifying how the immune system responds to covid-19 is critical to understanding so many of the unknowns around this novel virus. For example, why does it make some people sick and not others? What constitutes effective immunity and how long might that immunity last?
The immune system is extremely complex. To make rapid and effective progress in our knowledge, a nationally co-ordinated approach was needed, as the hon. Member for Strangford referred to. That is why £6.5 million of funding has been provided from UK Research and Innovation and the National Institute for Health Research to the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium. The UK is world leading in the quality of its immunology research, and this innovative project has enabled us in Government to commission at pace the research needed to understand the immunology of covid-19, and as a result successfully deliver real benefits to patients and public health. The key themes identified by UK-CIC included the understanding of primary immunity, and describing the body’s immune response to covid-19 and how this might explain the different risks presented by the virus to individuals. In other words, why do some get sicker than others?
What constitutes protective immunity? Identifying how an effective immune response can be generated and how it can be maintained to prevent re-infection was essential for the development of effective vaccines and understanding why some people remain vulnerable even after vaccination. Unpicking the mechanism of the disease caused by immunopathology—how the body’s own immune response to the virus can cause damage to tissues and organs, and how that can be stopped—is essential knowledge for the development of effective treatments, along with identifying immune vaccine evasion and how the virus might evade the body’s protective immune response through natural infection or vaccination, leaving people vulnerable to re-infection.
I want to highlight some further research that we have commissioned and funded in the field of diagnostics. The COVID-19 National DiagnOstic Research and Evaluation Platform—the CONDOR study—is accelerating how quickly promising diagnostics make it out of the lab and into real-world use. This will support the diagnosis of infection and the management of patients with suspected covid-19, which is important for the subsequent waves of infection in the post-pandemic setting.
On vaccine development and deployment, we all know the benefits that both doses of the vaccine can bring to many people. Indeed, colleagues have mentioned that today. Data from Public Health England suggests that two doses of the covid vaccine offer protection against hospitalisation of around 96%. The United Kingdom has been at the forefront of vaccine development, helped by the investment that we have made in this vital research. The ChAdOx1 vaccine platform—already shown to be safe and effective through a previously funded phase 1 trial against the middle east respiratory syndrome, or MERS, which the hon. Member for Strangford rightly referred to in his speech—was quickly adapted to develop a vaccine candidate against covid-19 and launched human trials in April 2020.
In parallel, project funding was also provided to investigate and develop more efficient vaccine manufacturing processes, enabling vaccines to be made more rapidly. However, the development of an effective vaccine is just the first step, and I commend the efforts of the NHS in the world-class roll-out of the vaccine programme among adults and young people across our four nations. Our efforts in understanding why some people do not develop a protective response even after receiving two doses of the vaccine are an important next step in our research portfolio, hence the Government have commissioned important studies to understand vaccine responses among the most vulnerable in our society.
However, despite the success of the current vaccination campaign, we are doing more by investing in research that will inform us about how to deliver vaccinations in the future and to help us to understand why some immunosuppressed people are not fully protected. I regularly meet charities that support clinically extremely vulnerable patients, and I share their concerns about the risks to this group from contracting covid-19.
There is a breadth of research activity being funded in order to look at vaccine response in immunocompromised individuals. The OCTAVE—observational cohort trial T cells antibodies and vaccine efficacy in SARS-CoV-2—study is examining covid-19 vaccine responses in clinically at-risk groups, including patients with certain immunosuppressed conditions. Building on the work that we did with the OCTAVE trial, we are funding OCTAVE DUO, which is a new clinical trial to determine whether a third dose of a vaccine will improve the immune response in people who have weakened immune systems. Additionally, the UKRI-funded research to be commissioned following the recent research on vaccine immune failure will investigate the strength and durability of the immune response, which I know colleagues are interested in understanding better in a wide range of people, including those with conditions that result in a weakened immune system, such as HIV.
The development of novel treatments for covid-19 has been made possible by the work and funding that we have provided for immunology research. As referred to by a number of hon. Members, that includes the UKRI and NIHR-funded projects looking at the immune response generated during infection with covid-19, which revealed that the body produces harmful immune responses that attack its own tissues and organs. That leads to severe disease and may underlie some forms of long covid, but further research is needed to better understand this. Research of this type has helped the development of new and effective treatment options, including the recently approved novel monoclonal antibody treatment Ronapreve. This novel treatment development was also supported by a UKRI and NIHR-funded trial.
I will briefly turn to some of the questions that hon. Members asked. The hon. Member for Strangford asked about long covid, which can have very serious and debilitating long-term effects for thousands of people across the UK. It can make daily life extremely challenging. We are providing significant funding for several studies in order to better understand the long covid problem, improve diagnosis and find new treatments. In July, the Department provided just shy of £20 million—I think it was £19.6 million—of funding towards an extensive programme of 15 new research studies, which will allow researchers across the UK to draw together their expertise from analysing long covid among people suffering long-term effects and the health and care professionals supporting them. The projects will better understand the condition and how to identify it, evaluate the effectiveness of different care services on people with long covid, identify effective treatments, such as drugs and rehabilitation, to treat people suffering from long covid, and improve home monitoring, which is a key issue.
Jim Shannon
I am very encouraged by that. Is it the intention of the Minister’s Department to share the results of those studies with all the different regions of the United Kingdom, so that we can all benefit? As health matters are devolved, the evidential base and final conclusion of the studies will be very important for us all.
Nadhim Zahawi
I completely share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about that issue, and it is important that we look at it very seriously. He also asked whether we have enough supply of monoclonal antibody treatments. I can tell him that the regulatory approval and clinical policy will provide information on which patients could benefit from the treatments and how much supply is needed. We are working with the companies to ensure that we have a supply of those products in the coming months. Which patients are likely to have access to those treatments? Again, the NHS England antibody expert group is currently designing clinical guidance on how the NHS should use the treatments, which includes defining and identifying the eligible patient cohorts that are likely to benefit following a positive covid test.
In terms of deploying the treatments, part of the work of the NHS England expert group is on the clinical guidance on identifying potential deployment in hospital and possible pathways, especially through clinics and at-home services following a positive test. The hon. Gentleman also asked what research is looking at long-term immune response in individuals who are vaccinated. The Department is funding a number of important studies into immune response: the SARS-CoV-2 immunity and reinfection evaluation, or SIREN, study in healthcare workers; the Vivaldi study in care home residents and workers; and the coronavirus infection survey led by the Office for National Statistics, with repeat household visits looking at who has antibodies to covid from either vaccination or previous infection.
The hon. Gentleman asked about vaccine manufacturing in the longer term. I can tell him that in 2018, UKRI announced £66 million for the UK’s first dedicated vaccine manufacturing and innovation centre, VMIC. The goal was to promote, develop and accelerate the growth of the UK vaccine industry. When the pandemic began, UKRI reacted at unparalleled scale and speed to ensure that all investments were ready and able to respond to the challenge, and that they were plugged in to the UK’s wider vaccine, life science and pharmaceutical ecosystem. An additional £131 million was made available as an investment in, I think, May 2020, bringing the total for VMIC to just shy of £200 million, at £196 million. VMIC will be able to deliver about 200 million doses of vaccine, of any technology, at scale per annum, so it is a big investment.
The hon. Gentleman also asked what the Government are doing to support the development, production and procurement of vaccines for the future. As well as VMIC, we are planning for all scenarios in the fight against covid and its variants. Some of the recent analysis supports our understanding that both the Pfizer BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines currently being deployed in the UK appear to work well against the current dominant variants of covid, and continuing to administer those vaccines at scale remains our key to bringing the virus under control.
We are also assessing our existing portfolio against current variants, working closely with vaccine manufacturers and Public Health England, to understand the efficacy of our portfolio. We think we are in a good place vis-à-vis the interim advice from JCVI on the booster campaign, which we hope to begin later this month.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked whether there was any existing research that had helped to accelerate the development of vaccines. He quite rightly cited the work of the Oxford team, but even before the covid-19 pandemic, they were already doing that research because of funding from UKRI—and thank goodness for that.
To conclude, I fully recognise the tremendous impact that the pandemic has had on so many people. Commissioning high-quality immunology research is an essential part of our armoury in fighting this virus. We will continue to implement research findings and, at the same time, commission and fund new projects that will deepen our understanding of the disease and identify further defences that will keep us safe. Throughout this pandemic, the Government have been there to support and invest in research. As we shift our focus from the initial impact of the pandemic, we intend to continue to provide funding and support for covid-19 research, underlining precisely why the UK has long been, and continues to be, a great place for world-leading research and researchers.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Finally, in this debate where all hon. Members have demonstrated quality, if not quantity, I call Jim Shannon to wind up.
Jim Shannon
I thank everyone for their contributions, starting with the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Anum Qaisar-Javed). She spoke about devolved matters, as you said Dr Huq, but it is good to share strategies across the whole of the United Kingdom, and I look forward to doing so.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Absolutely. I was confused by what was going on as Members were speaking at the same time. I completely agree that the hon. Lady made a powerful speech.
Jim Shannon
The hon. Lady referred to 83 venues across the whole of Scotland that are doing research to find and perfect a strategy. We can all take an interest in and learn lessons from that.
I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), for her hard work during the pandemic. She has been on the frontline, and I think we all want to thank her personally for that. I do not think I have had the opportunity to, so I thank her on behalf of a great many patients who are indebted to her and to others for that work.
The shadow Minister also referred to the advances in medication and the cross-border culture of countries working internationally to find a cure, control the virus and exit the pandemic, with the UK as a global leader. Those words are very true and represent the consensus of opinion, as the debate has made clear.
I thank the Minister. Although I said that at the beginning and have just said it again, it does not take away from the quality of our gratitude to the Minister for the work that he does. He referred to all those working in the back room. We all know that there is a team behind the Minister who make it work, and I thank them, because they are the strength behind how it works.
The Minister referred to a better understanding of the immune system and how it works for some and does not work for others. One crux of the matter is about how we can find out why. If we do excellent research on that, we can find a cure. There are 15 new research studies, with significant amounts of money set aside. Many would have tried to accumulate that money, but it has been massive.
We are in a better place today because of our Government and the Minister. This debate has brought everyone together to say the same thing. I thank everyone for their participation and contributions, particularly the Minister.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the role of immunology research in responding to the covid-19 outbreak.
Definition of Islamophobia
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
Before we begin, can I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking? This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room. Members should send their speaking notes by email to hansardnotes@parliament.uk. Similarly, officials in the Gallery should communicate electronically with Ministers.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the definition of Islamophobia.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for permitting the debate. I introduce the debate as one of the co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims. It is a privilege to chair that APPG, and something that I take very seriously indeed. The year before I became a Member of Parliament in 2019, the APPG proposed a definition of Islamophobia. The group undertook widespread consultation with parliamentarians, experts, lawyers, community activists and victim-led organisations so that they could propose a working definition. This was a sincere attempt to give meaning to the word and the nature of what we call Islamophobia, and that definition has since been adopted by hundreds of different organisations and bodies. It was, and remains, a valuable piece of work.
During the 2019 Peterborough by-election, in which I came third, I canvassed a gentleman called Amir Suleman. He is, and was, a presenter on a local radio station, Salaam Radio, and he asked me what I thought about the APPG definition of Islamophobia and whether it should be adopted by the Government. Embarrassingly, I had very little to say to him, but I promised that if I were elected, I would become active on the issue. A general election and several tough interviews on Salaam Radio later, I have kept my promise, and Amir is my friend and a tremendous source of advice. I have a large Muslim population in my city and in my constituency, and I see day in, day out, the fantastic contribution Muslims make to life in Peterborough and throughout the whole of the UK.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this this debate. I want to put on record that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. We speak out for those with Christian beliefs, those with other beliefs, and those with no beliefs. I support the campaign that the hon. Gentleman is describing; I think that the Government should respond to it in a very positive way and that the same freedom should be there for everyone of every faith in the United Kingdom, not just in word but in deed.
Paul Bristow
I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for that contribution. He will know as well as I do that discrimination against any faith can have a huge detrimental impact on the outcomes of people who are of that faith, so championing this cause and pushing back against discrimination and hatred against Muslims—my friends, my neighbours, my city—seems like the most natural thing for me to do. It is something positive I can do as the Member of Parliament for Peterborough, because Peterborough would not be Peterborough without the contribution of its Muslim residents.
Back in 2013, a report published to coincide with the ninth World Islamic Economic Forum in London stated that the nearly 2.8 million Muslims in the UK contribute over £31 billion to its economy, and wield a spending power of £20.5 billion. I see that economic input all the time in my constituency, with its hundreds of Muslim-owned businesses: these are entrepreneurial and charitable people, wealth and job creators, making my city more prosperous. Successful British Muslim entrepreneurs not only contribute to the prosperity of Peterborough and our country, but contribute to the fabric of British society and act as role models for us all.
Muslims contribute to the social fabric of my city. In Peterborough, as in other places, we have Muslim doctors, professors, lawyers, journalists, teachers, academics, pharmacists, care staff, charity workers, those who work in local Government and, of course, thousands working across the private sector. They contribute to our politics, with Muslim councillors in Peterborough representing all three major parties. In the Conservative-led administration, two Muslim councillors serve in the cabinet and the mayor last year was a Muslim Conservative councillor. From the Labour party, we have some of the longest-serving and respected councillors in our city. In the Conservative party, we have scores of activists, members and the only local branch, I believe, of the Conservative Muslim Forum. Considering the recent Singh report, I think we are one of the flagship Conservative associations in the country for engaging with the Muslim community and Muslim members of my party.
The APPG published another report in 2021, which demonstrated the role Muslims have played in fighting covid-19. Again, Peterborough is a fantastic example. Muslim institutions in my city, both charities and Islamic institutions, have shown us what being in this together really means. Those organisations and community activists, such as Zillur Hussain, who was awarded an MBE for his community efforts, have had me handing out face masks on busy streets, delivering food and hot meals to those who were shielding, to rough sleepers and the vulnerable, and promoting businesses like car washes offering free services. I have been photographed scores of times across my city with Muslim businesses and Muslims doing good things for everybody in our city. They have brought me, as their MP, into their hearts and homes. During covid-19, they showed the best of all of us.
It would take too much time for me to name all the Muslim businesses in Peterborough and what they have done during covid-19, but I listed 30 or so in a previous Westminster Hall debate. They know who they are, and I thank them from the very bottom of my heart. I know that this was replicated across the country, but despite that amazing contribution and those efforts, Islamophobia remains a social evil that has a devastating impact on British Muslims and on wider society. It is not just British Muslims who are impacted by Islamophobia, but British society at large, to the detriment of social harmony and inclusion.
In September 2017 the Runnymede Trust published a report titled “Racial prejudice in Britain today”. The report found that one in four Britons—26%—admitted to being racially prejudiced. Given that this admission is one that individuals would not readily make, the figure may be an underestimation of the actual number. A poll carried out by Savanta ComRes in 2018 found that 58% agreed with the statement:
“Islamophobia is a real problem in today’s society.”
That is a good thing. Almost one in two agreed with the statement:
“Prejudice against Islam makes it difficult to be a Muslim in this country.”
That is shocking. A further YouGov poll from 2018 shows that around one in four Britons believes that Islam is compatible with the values of British society. Alarmingly, around one in two believe that there is a fundamental clash between the two.
Despite the levels of prejudice evidenced in the national surveys, British Muslims continue to rise to high levels of British society, experiencing loyalty, belonging and social interaction with their fellow citizens. Some 93% of Muslims say they feel they belong to Britain, with more than half saying they felt this very strongly. The APPG report on Islamophobia clearly evidences discriminatory outcomes faced by Muslims in employment, housing, education, the criminal justice system, social and public life and political or media discourse. It contains a number of incidents widely reported in the press in order to demonstrate the breadth of Islamophobia in society. I am not going to name them all, because some of them, quite honestly, are too shocking to describe in a calm and respectful manner.
One incident really did catch my eye. An investigation conducted by The Sun in January 2018 revealed that the country’s top companies that provide car insurance would give far lower quotes to drivers with typical English-sounding names, such as John Smith, and far higher quotes to drivers with typical Muslim-sounding names, such as Mohammed Ali. This form of Islamophobia manifests itself in a subtler way than, say, an act of violence. This is institutionalised Islamophobia, and it impacts the lives of Muslims and leads to unequal outcomes. To make much greater progress in reversing these discriminatory outcomes, we must begin from the point of an agreed definition.
In response to the APPG’s report, in May 2019, the then Communities Secretary said that Ministers would appoint two expert advisers to work on a different definition of Islamophobia.
“To get a firmer grip on the nature of this bigotry and division we agree there needs to be a formal definition of Islamophobia to help strengthen our efforts.”
They pledged that the Government would develop an effective definition of Islamophobia that commands wide-spread support. Following this announcement, in July 2019, the first appointment was made. Imam Qari Asim, deputy chair of the anti-Muslim hatred working group, was appointed to lead the process for establishing a definition of Islamophobia. There has been no second appointment. Imam Qari Asim was appointed for his experience working with a broad range of communities to tackle Islamophobia, including in his role as deputy chair of the cross-Government working group to tackle anti-Muslim hatred. I have spoken to him and he is keen to begin this work. Muslim communities up and down the country are waiting; they are expecting something—they were promised something. This cannot wait. In the absence of any action, the APPG definition has already been adopted by scores of councils, and the Scottish and Welsh Governments are also now considering this.
When I appeared on Salaam Radio, shortly after my election, the first question I was asked was not about the economy, the NHS or foreign affairs, but rather about when the Government were going to complete this work. I shall be on again soon; please, let me tell them that we have, at least, started this work. My message is clear: quickly appoint a second adviser, or tell Imam Qari Asim to begin his work. I shall work with him, and with the working group to tackle anti-Muslim hatred.
I know I speak for other APPG officers and Members when I say that frustration is building. A definition of Islamophobia has the potential to be a tremendous force for good, and it is brilliant that the Government recognise that. It is the first step in a country-wide effort to stamp out this evil and improve outcomes for millions of people. I cannot stand idly by and allow the children, and grandchildren, of my constituents to face the same discrimination and racism that their parents and grandparents faced during their lives. Islamophobia not only impacts lives and outcomes, it holds us back as a country. If Muslim men and women are prevented from being all that they can be, this country will never fulfil its potential. Please, Minister, let’s begin this work.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the chair, Mrs Murray. I would like to begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) and the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) on securing this important debate.
Before I was elected, I was nervous about being a Muslim woman in the public eye. Growing up, I had seen the abuse that prominent British Muslims were subject to—I knew I would not be in for an easy ride. Today, I would like to say that I was wrong to be worried. When young Muslim girls ask me what it is like, I would like to say that there is nothing to worry about, that they would face the same challenges as their non-Muslim friends and colleagues. However, in truth, I cannot say that, because in my short time in Parliament, that is not my experience.
Let me read out a few examples. One person wrote to me to say, and I quote, “Sultana, you and your Muslim mob are a real danger to humanity.” Another wrote and said that I was a “cancer” everywhere I go, and soon, they said, “Europe will vomit you out.” A third called me a “terrorist sympathiser” and “scum of the earth”—and that is sanitising their unparliamentary language.
I have discovered that to be a Muslim woman, to be outspoken and to be left-wing is to be subject to this barrage of racism and hate. It is to be treated by some as if I were an enemy of the country that I was born in—as if I don’t belong. It was summed up by these words, in a hand-written letter, “If you can’t stand the racism, perhaps you would be happier going back to your country of origin—foreigner.” It is worse when I speak up for migrants’ rights, speak in support of the Palestinian people, or criticise Tony Blair for the war in Afghanistan. One abusive letter said, and I quote, “Our cities are full of Muslims. Send them to Pakistan.” Another suggested that I must support the Taliban—all because I am Muslim and against endless war.
This Islamophobia does not come from a vacuum. It is not natural or engrained; it is taught from the very top. These fires are fanned by people in positions of power and privilege. When a far-right online account targeted me with racist abuse, suggesting that Muslims were an invading army, a Conservative MP replied, not by calling it out for its racism, but by insulting me instead. When our England football stars were subjected to vile racism, in the Chamber I highlighted that the Prime Minister had fanned those flames by ridiculing Muslims and black people. At the Dispatch Box, the Minister told me to watch my tone.
Although none of that is nice, the worst effects of Islamophobia and racism are not just abusive language, but policies and political decisions. This Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11. That horrific act of mass murder cast a long shadow. The war on terror, launched by George Bush and Tony Blair in its wake, set a narrative that too many readily embraced. Muslims, wherever we are, were portrayed as a security threat in need of discipline and suppression. Abroad, that was the background to disastrous wars in the middle east. False links were drawn between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, providing false legitimacy to a war that had more to do with oil than the safety of British citizens.
At home, it meant the erosion of the civil liberties of all and the targeting of Muslims in particular, with policies such as the Prevent programme, which countless studies and human rights groups have demonstrated discriminates against Muslims, from young girls being referred to the programme simply for choosing to wear a hijab to a Muslim teen being questioned by anti-terrorism officers for wearing a “Free Palestine” badge. I knew about that at university, so I, too, feared speaking out in class. I held back where I might otherwise have criticised Blair and Bush for illegal wars.
Growing up, I might have hoped that things would be better, but if anything they have got worse. Today, our Prime Minister mocks Muslims as “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”. Far from scrapping Prevent, earlier this year his Government announced that a review of the programme would be led by William Shawcross, a man who once said:
“Europe and Islam is one of the greatest, most terrifying problems of our future.”
That appointment led dozens of human rights organisations, including the likes of Amnesty International and Liberty, to boycott the review, saying that it was just there to rubber-stamp the discriminatory programme.
Closer to home, things are not good either. My party has seemingly welcomed back a man who said that Muslims
“see the world differently from the rest of us”,
and that we are a “nation within a nation”. It has been silent after a Muslim colleague was cleared following vexatious claims and endured 18 months of horrendous Islamophobia. In a recent by-election, it supposedly had a senior source pit Muslims against Jews, demonising whole communities.
I have always known what it is like to face racism, and through my political life I have come to understand this bigotry better—to see it in its different forms and to recognise the need to confront and challenge it wherever it is found. Islamophobia is very real in Britain today. It is something that I know too well, but it cannot be defeated in isolation. The people spreading this hate target not just Muslims but black people, Jewish people, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, migrants and refugees. There is safety in solidarity, and it is only through uniting our struggles that we will defeat racism.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
Before I call Mr Baker, I apologise to Ms Shah, because I understand that she is a co-sponsor of this debate. I will go to Mr Baker, then I will come to her. I do apologise; I was unaware.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I begin by referring to my unremunerated interest as advisory board chairman of Conservatives Against Racism for Equality.
I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana), who made a very moving speech. I am very sorry indeed that she has been treated so very disgracefully. There can be no place at all in our society for the way she has been treated. We can all see how she has been affected by it, and I do not mind admitting that I am affected by watching her report what she has experienced. It is just a disgrace, and absolutely every one of us has an obligation and a duty to stand against such intolerance and hatred in our society. I certainly will do everything I can to stand with her, despite our occasional differences, to make sure she is secure and safe in her identity and valued for it. For what it is worth, I often agree with her anti-war views, too—even as a former member of the armed forces—but that is for another debate on another day.
I am very proud to represent Wycombe. According to the last census, about one in six of my constituents are British Muslims. Some of my very best friends and supporters in Wycombe are British Muslims. I am very proud to have their support, to knock on doors with them, to go to mosque with them, to have meals together and to share and celebrate their faith at all appropriate moments. They are people who have very often taught me even about my own Christian faith.
We have a wide and rich variety of institutions in Wycombe. Let this be understood: in a Conservative, home counties seat, our largest religious institution is the Wycombe Islamic Mission and Mosque Trust, which runs a number of mosques across the constituency. We have the Wycombe Islamic Society, the Imam Ali Islamic Centre, the Karima Foundation, which educates young people, Seerah Today and Jamia Rehmania. We have many imams, people whom I regard as the most godly and dignified people, capable of teaching us all how we should relate to one another in community. We have the Council for Christian Muslim Relations, which has worked extremely hard over many years to make sure that our churches and mosques come together and share values, friendship and fellowship across a broad range of issues. The council helps us, crucially, to listen to one another when things are difficult, when there is a matter of international relations or security and so on. The Wycombe Muslim Communication Forum is always keen to give us its views, and I am always grateful for them.
This is the crucial point: if we are willing to listen to one another in good faith, we can make progress. That is what has happened in Wycombe over many years. I am extremely proud of the level of integration and the very flourishing relations that we have. They are the products of a great deal of effort. I want to make something very clear. We have moved far beyond what one might call tolerance, where one agrees to disagree and to go separate ways. We have moved into deep integration and friendship, and that is something of which I am very proud.
There is, however, something that we cannot tolerate in our society: the kind of anti-Muslim hatred that the hon. Member for Coventry South has so powerfully described today. That is why I need to say the following to my hon. Friend the Minister. As a Conservative Government, we have been in power for 11 years, and we will go into the next election having been in power for 14 years. One in six of my electors are British Muslims, and thousands of British Muslims voted for me. That is why I am here. I am quite sure that, if I lost the Muslim vote in Wycombe, I would lose the seat—and I can assure him that people tried extremely hard to dislodge me in that way. Minister, we have to represent, value and respect the votes of those thousands of people in Wycombe, in Peterborough and elsewhere who have put their faith and trust in Conservative representatives. To do that, we really must define anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia. We must have a working definition, one that we can be proud of, that is not susceptible to exploitation for political purposes and that also—it has to be said—respects the equal worth of Muslims.
Around the world there are conflicts based, I am afraid, on religious grounds. Like Christians, Muslims around the world are persecuted for their faith. I think of the Rohingya; I think about Xinjiang. And it has to be said that Israel-Palestine is very often seen through a prism of faith. I just say in passing that we must not forget the plight of Muslims in Gaza and on the west bank as we move between periods of conflict.
Something that we can do that would be really meaningful, particularly for young people in constituencies such as mine, is to say, “We not only value you; we respect you. We respect the dignity of your identity in Islam, and we are going to define what it means for people to express Islamophobia. We are going to say, very loudly and clearly, that we absolutely will not tolerate that form of prejudice and hatred.”
I have probably spoken for long enough. I will finish where I began, by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Coventry South. I know she is not a huge fan of Conservatives, but wherever we have disagreed I would have thought that every Member of this House would agree that every person should be secure in their identity. Islam is one of the world’s great faiths and no Member of Parliament should suffer anything approaching what she has suffered. I, for one, am extremely grateful to her for speaking as she has done today. I am very humbled by it. And I am very sorry, once again, that she has ever suffered anything like that.
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I echo the words of the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker). This debate is much richer for the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana). In our words, may Allah make it easy for you.
In the main Chamber right now, there is the debate on the legacy of Jo Cox. My hon. Friend mentioned what happened in Batley and the divisive attitudes from different quarters, particularly with regard to Islamophobia. I and I am sure many others wanted to attend that debate—it is a shame that we cannot—but let us in Westminster Hall not forget the words of Jo Cox, that we
“have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]
We are here today because this Government have failed British Muslims. Prior to 2018, the Government disregarded the need for a definitive definition of Islamophobia altogether. Having come to their senses in May 2019, the Government were happy to accept a definition—just not the one that the Muslim community supported. Instead, the Government proposed to appoint two independent advisers on Islamophobia to go in search of their own definition, and 845 days later we have only one nominal Islamophobia adviser and no definition. It is clear that this is not a matter of the Government not trying; it is a matter of the Government not caring.
Time and again, I have raised the fact that if it is absolutely okay for women to understand and define patriarchy and feminism, for Jewish people to define antisemitism, for people of colour to define racism and for LGBTQ+ communities to define homophobia, why will this Government not adopt a definition of Islamophobia rooted in the experience of British Muslim communities? In total, 75 academics and over 750 Muslim organisations and institutions have endorsed that definition, from the Muslim Council of Britain to British Muslims for Secular Democracy, including organisations representing every single sect of Islam.
In my adult life, I have never seen an issue in the Muslim community receive such widespread formal support as this definition has. In rejecting that definition, are the Government really telling me, this Chamber and the House that their proposed definition will also garner the support of Muslim communities? The Labour party has adopted the APPG definition and we have also written to Labour councils to follow suit by adopting it on a local level. The Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National party, the Greens and even the Scottish Conservatives have adopted the definition, and yet this Government feel that they can silence Muslim communities by rejecting the definition that those communities support.
The last time that there was a debate on this issue in the main Chamber, the Government’s concerns about the APPG’s definition of Islamophobia centred on the opinions expressed in a letter to Downing Street by police chiefs, which was leaked, insinuating that it would hinder UK counter-terrorism efforts. Yet on further investigation, both police chiefs—Martin Hewitt and Neil Basu—concluded that the definition does not in any way affect counter-terrorism efforts. It was this ludicrous claim about the definition that the former Member for Beaconsfield and former Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, described as “total and unadulterated rubbish”.
Additionally, it has been repeatedly noted by the APPG and experts that the working definition of Islamophobia being proposed is a non-legally binding definition and therefore presents no challenge to statute, which takes legal precedent, and therefore it does not impede on free speech, as the Government claim. The APPG definition of Islamophobia is a working definition, similar to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.
In fact, the APPG definition of Islamophobia is built on the IHRA framework; every single example used by the APPG definition comes from the IHRA definition of antisemitism. If one definition does not impede free speech, why do the Government think that another definition, which is built on the very same framework, does so? If the APPG’s definition does contravene the Equality Act 2010, as the Government have previously suggested, why do they not publish the legal advice they have taken on holding such positions?
The fact is that the Government maintain their silence as hate crimes targeted at Muslims exceed 50%. They turn a blind eye to the qualified, educated Muslim women denied jobs. They benefit from the Muslim contribution to the pandemic response—need I remind the Government that more than 50% of doctors’ fatalities from covid have been Muslims?—yet ignore the Islamophobia that 81% of medical professionals face. They allow social media to perpetuate narratives of terrorism around Muslims, while failing to call out the one in three articles that misrepresent and generalise Muslims. They delay a definition that is both timely and imperative; a 2019 YouGov poll found that 45% of British people saw a “fundamental clash” between Islam and the values of British society, while 73% of complaints in the Government’s own party relate to Islamophobia.
This is not a matter of a Government’s not trying, but of a Government’s not caring. If the everyday Islamophobia faced by British Muslims is not enough to shake this Government into action—if the daughter of the Muslim Scottish Health Secretary being denied a nursery place because of a Muslim-sounding name and a young Sikh boy wearing a turban being called “Taliban” and racially attacked for being perceived as a Muslim are not enough—then the terror attacks that have taken place against Muslim communities should wake them up.
Mohammed Saleem, Mushin Ahmed and Makram Ali are the three grandfathers who have already been murdered in Islamophobic terror attacks across the UK. Across the world, we have witnessed 51 Muslims murdered by a far-right terrorist in Christchurch, New Zealand, and only this June we witnessed a terror attack that led to three generations of a single family being murdered in Ontario, Canada.
It has been a decade since Baroness Warsi, the former Conservative party chair, said that Islamophobia had
“passed the dinner table test”.
We have seen not only a year-on-year increase in Islamophobic sentiments online, in the media and across society, but a terrifying rise in attacks on Muslim communities.
When I say that all the evidence points to the Government not caring, I am not saying it merely as an Opposition Member, but because if, God forbid, there is another deadly terror attack on Muslims in the UK, this Government’s inaction, negligence and often silent condoning of Islamophobia will be partly responsible. When they deny Muslim communities even a simple definition of Islamophobia and halt the work of the Government’s own anti-Muslim hatred working group, it is that serious.
If the Minister disagrees, I am happy to let him intervene to tell the House the last time the Government’s anti-Muslim hatred working group actually met. Who are the two independent Islamophobia advisers? Has one of the advisers the Government appointed even started his role, two years on from his appointment? The answer is no—just as I thought.
The reality is that Islamophobia is widespread. A report by the Centre for Media Monitoring, analysing media output over a three-month period in the fourth quarter of 2018, comprising analysis of more than 10,000 published articles and broadcast clips, found that 59% of all articles associated Muslims with negative behaviour, and 37% of articles in right-leaning and religious publications were categorised with the most negative rating of “very biased”. More than a third of all articles misrepresented or generalised about Muslims, and terrorism was the most common theme.
Recent research by Professor Imran Awan and Dr Irene Zempi found that, be they one-off events or a series of repeated and targeted offending, Islamophobic hate crimes not only affect the victim, but send reverberations through communities as they reinforce established patterns of bias, prejudice and discrimination. In the British context, Islam and Muslims have increasingly been seen as culturally dangerous and threatening to the British way of life. Muslims have been labelled both “deviant” and “evil”.
We know, and we witnessed through the height of the pandemic, how untrue those sentiments are. When the nation needed communities to come together, to serve, to unite and to protect our nation, British Muslims played a leading role. Sadly, however, far-right extremist and Islamophobic stereotypes peddle a narrative that can lead to worrying consequences for Muslim communities.
Adopting a definition is only the first step. Preventing, tackling and challenging Islamophobia is a debate that must still take place. Nobody—not I, nor the British Muslims here today or in my constituency—is asking for special treatment from this Government. All we are asking is simply that the Government accept the definition, so that we can help people and better understand Islamophobia. We need to put out a political statement that Islamophobia, in all its forms, is unacceptable and that attacks on Muslims must stop. That is all we asking for—literally, it is just equality. This is not about requesting a change of law, or Muslims asking for extra protection. We are simply asking the Government to recognise Islamophobia, accept a non-binding working definition and make a political statement to that effect. That is why I end by asking the Government to end the discriminatory behaviour towards Muslims. The Government should accept the definition, and let us all work together to tackle racism, prejudice and hatred in all its forms.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
As always, it is a privilege to serve under your stewardship, Mrs Murray. I thank the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) for securing the debate, and I also thank the Members who spoke before me. I particularly thank my young colleague and former constituent—her family are still my constituents—my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana), for the heartfelt issue that she raised. She is a Member of Parliament who spoke so movingly about the hate that she has received. We serve in this Parliament and it is absolutely disgraceful, in this day and age, that the media allow that sort of behaviour to take place. It is absolutely crucial that the Government look at how we deal with that sort of media. I commend my hon. Friend and hope that she continues in the same vein, because she will be a wonderful Member of Parliament and represent the interests of her constituency.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West has said, the definition of Islamophobia under discussion is non-binding. That is not good enough for me or my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South. It is not good enough for all the people who are affected by the continuing hatred of Muslims. It is not good enough for us in this day and age. Every day that we in this place vote and go through the Lobbies, we do so to vote for legislation. We have a right to protect our citizens—that is what we are here for. We can talk as much as we want, but that is the real reason we are here, and it is what this great democratic institution allows us to do—to make legislation, day in, day out.
I am concerned about the definition of Islamophobia, as I have made clear for a long time. In 1997, the Runnymede Trust referred to Islamophobia—although its first term for it was “anti-Muslim prejudice”, which it aligned with antisemitism. What we are really discussing is the issue of hatred. That should be put in legislation and it should be a legal requirement for us, and other committed people, to deal with it. That is what I am here to speak about. There is a certain irony in the fact that the chairman of the Runnymede Trust when it produced its first definition of Islamophobia was one Mr Trevor Phillips, whom I believe is still under investigation following his criticism of the definition of Islamophobia that the Labour party has now adopted.
Naz Shah
I might just point out that it would be very wrong of us to comment on any individual investigation. My understanding of the case that my hon. Friend mentions is that it has nothing to do with the definition. From what is quoted in the press, my understanding of the individual mentioned is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South pointed out, he said that Muslims have a different view from that of everyone else. It is not about the definition in question. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Mr Mahmood
No, I would not, because my hon. Friend just got up and said that she will not discuss the individual case. She then proceeded to do the very thing that she said we should not do. We need to look at that in much more detail. Certainly, I do not wish to discuss the substance of the case; I merely pointed out the history of the individual.
The term Islamophobia suggests that it could be a medical term, with “phobia” being used. Medical phobias include tomophobia, which is a fear of medical procedures; haemophobia, a fear of blood; trypanophobia, which is fear of needles; dentophobia, which is fear of dentists—a lot of people have that—and nosophobia, which is a fear of getting sick.
Mr Mahmood
Of course. I had not completed my list, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for completing my list.
If Islamophobia is being suggested as a medical fear, then the term Islamophobia is acceptable. If not, as it seems, and the terminology is incorrectly used, then the correct term would be anti-Muslim hatred, racism or Muslim hatred, which clearly defines on the basis that that is something being done. The actual definition that has been put forward for Islamophobia encompasses any distinction, exclusion, restriction towards or against Muslims, that has
“the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social and cultural”
and other fields.
As has been said, Muslims have been discriminated against by companies when they have Muslim-sounding names. The hon. Member for Peterborough, who led the debate, mentioned that and that is what we want to get away from. The only way we will get away from that, as with the Race Relations Act 1968, is to have definitions that are purely actionable in terms of Muslim hatred. That is what we want to look at and that is what we are here for.
We are not here to have a term for people to accept, with no real translatable meaning and which we cannot act upon. If we want to serve our constituents and tackle the issues of Muslim hatred that they go through, we should pin down the definition. We should make it clear that if people behave in such a way, somebody will call on their door and deal with it, and that if people do that through social media, somebody will look them up and call them to account. We want a definition that actually works, a definition that actually delivers for our people—not a definition that claims “a fear of”, because I never agreed with that definition.
We should push the Government—of course we should—to adopt that definition. My two learned colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) and for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), have both been barristers. I am sure that if they were to look at this in far more detail they would find that a much more appropriate way of going forward and trying to resolve the issue. I do not know why my hon. Friend is shaking her head, because we want to have laws that enable us to prosecute people who have racist tendencies towards Muslims. That is what I want. I do not want excuses.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I was actually just moving my head; I was not agreeing or disagreeing. On the point about prosecution, yes, we have laws in place, but that does not detract from the fact that the definition of Islamophobia needs to be made. As a barrister, if someone is asking my legal opinion, I would say yes, we do need the definition.
Mr Mahmood
In answering that, I say to the hon. Lady, as a barrister, that I explained what phobias there are, and they are usually used in medical terms, not in legal, prosecutorial form. The Government have to define this and we have to define this in legal terms—that is what is important.
Yasmin Qureshi
Language develops over the years; language and words change and are culturalised. Language does not stay static forever.
Mr Mahmood
It is not static at all. Of course language develops—I am fully aware of that. However, there is language that we have to use in Parliament, which has been established for over 500 years. Our work is based on precedent; we will continue to formulate our laws based on precedent, as we have done in the past.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Just to help my hon. Friend, the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims had a number of lawyers engaged on this matter. Just for his assistance, I am also a lawyer. Even the former Attorney General of this country went over this. I am not sure why he is too concerned, as though lawyers were not engaged: they have been.
Mr Mahmood
I thank my hon. Friend for his words of wisdom. However, I said to the former Attorney General, in the debate we had in the Chamber, that I did not believe what he intended to write. He accepted that, because he said he did not have enough time to look at that. So I agree with my hon. Friend.
Again, my hon. Friend is trying to fight a battle that I do not oppose. I am saying that it has to be done properly, in statute. That is what we are here to do; that is what I want to do; that is what is important. Using the word phobia will damage us and it will not allow us to get what we want. I want there to be a law against social media abuse—a law that helps my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South, because it affects her; a law that will allow the social media companies to tackle that abuse. I want a law that deals with someone trying not to deliver a service to my constituents because of their name. I want a law under which people get recognition for the work they do, and are not targeted because their name is religious or Muslim. I want there to be no discrimination against them, and I want an ability to formally track, log and see that abuse. I am fed up of just having words. We are here to legislate, and that is precisely what I want to do.
Paul Bristow
I am perplexed by the hon. Member’s argument. I understand that he wishes to legislate on this matter, but how will having a definition accepted by the Government stop this abuse? I do not understand how those two things are at odds with each other.
Mr Mahmood
What I am saying is that the Government can adopt it, and I think that they should adopt it. It means nothing. I am essentially making the same point as the hon. Gentleman. I want to put it in statute so that we can continue to deal with this properly, effectively and legally, and deter those who abuse people based on their religion—on being Muslims in this country. My great-grandfather served in the British Army; my great-grandfather and grandfather served in the British merchant navy. We have a right because we are Muslims, and we are proud of being Muslims in this country. All I want is for our children and grandchildren to be protected by the legislation and not be targeted for being Muslim.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman come to a conclusion? There are other Members who are waiting to speak.
Mr Mahmood
I appreciate that. There are so many people who are interested and who wanted to intervene on me. I apologise for that. Therefore I conclude by saying that I want Muslims to be put on an equal footing through legislation, so that they are protected legally by us, here in this Parliament.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
I call Imran Hussain. I intend to call the Front-Bench spokesman at about five minutes to 4, and there is one other speaker, so please bear that in mind when you are speaking.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
Thank you, Mrs Murray. My difficulty is that I cannot do any justice to this debate in two minutes, so please bear with me. I can certainly assure you that I will not take as long as the previous speaker.
I thank the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) for securing this important and pertinent debate. I thank all individuals and campaign groups who bravely fight to raise awareness of Islamophobia and tackle it in our society on a daily basis. I also thank Bradford Council for Mosques, which this week celebrated a proud 40 years of serving our communities. I want to take this moment to commend its work, commitment and leadership, not just in Bradford but on a regional level.
Sadly, I cannot speak in this debate without feeling a deep sense of frustration and disappointment because, since we last debated this issue, Islamophobia has continued to run rife in our society. It has continued to blight our communities and, sadly, has not got any better. Indeed, the campaign group Tell MAMA last year reported that the UK had seen a rise of almost 700% in Islamophobic incidents. Let us take a minute just to take that in: a 700% rise. That is borne out by the sickening stories that people tell me of Muslim men, women and even children of all ages, in my constituency and across the country, who still face Islamophobic attacks and Islamophobic persecution on a daily basis, who are still subject to vile abuse because of their religion, and who are still told go home—even in the very town where they were born and raised.
It is a sad day when we have my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) reduced to tears for merely trying to do her job. That my hon. Friend, as one of the youngest Members, has come here and told this House that she feels she is unable to carry out her job as a democratically elected Member of Parliament is shocking and disgusting. We must all hang our heads in shame over the appalling treatment of my hon. Friend and Members like her.
At the heart of the issue is the normalisation of Islamophobia in our society. I accept the definition; I will not get into debates about a definition. The reality is the vile poison that has spread. We have seen the creation of a culture that tells people that it is acceptable to discriminate against, to persecute, to abuse Muslims because everyone else seems to be doing it. It has spread because it has been actively promoted in the rhetoric espoused in the media, and by countless public figures who reinforce over and over again a false narrative that Muslims are dangerous, and second-class citizens in our society. It has spread because it has been pushed and endorsed even by our own politicians—even by the Prime Minister, who thinks it is okay to describe Muslim women as “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”—as well as by many others who are in the public eye, talking down Muslims, treating us as a policing and social problem and promoting divisive policies that disproportionately target Muslims, such as Prevent. It has spread because society has normalised it, and that is the real problem.
Indeed, the normalisation of Islamophobia has now reached the point where it has become so commonplace and trivialised that, even if we do not see an active discrimination against Muslims that manifests in the most extreme way as violence and a vitriolic hatred by racists and bigots, we still experience a bias against us that sees Muslims denied employment opportunities, taken less seriously, and talked down to, because it has now become so endemic and so institutionalised that it has become subconscious discrimination. This normalisation is therefore as big a threat as the far right, because it creates an atmosphere on which far-right thugs and fascists feed—an environment in which they feel welcome, and in which bigoted Islamophobia can flourish unchallenged.
Mrs Murray, I am looking at the clock. I have a lot to say, but I will cut it short because of your request. The last thing I will say is this. If we are serious about tackling Islamophobia—this is where I agree with the point made earlier—we must move on from discussing the definition. We have spent the last two years talking about a definition, but that has not stopped Islamophobia. The point is that we need a definition in legislation. At the moment when these matters go to judges in courtrooms, they are not obliged to take it into account; it is a mitigating factor that they may take into account if they so wish. We need to legislate against this, which was the point made earlier by the hon. Member for Peterborough. We must stop talking and start acting—acting to stop religiously and racially motivated hate through legislation and acting, as a society, to challenge and tackle the vile and appalling normalisation of Islamophobia.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Two years ago, we had a general debate on Islamophobia in which I delivered the Labour party’s position. Sadly, two years later, no progress has been made and the Government have failed to take any action on Islamophobia. The APPG on British Muslims has worked tirelessly on creating the definition. My colleagues have already touched on the detail of accepting this definition. Many councils, 800 Muslim organisations and almost all political parties, including the Scottish Conservative party, have accepted it. However, two years later, the Tory party have shown that they are in pure denial of Islamophobia through their refusal to accept the definition proposed by the APPG and their failure to conduct an independent investigation or to appoint Government advisers on this issue. They promised all of this.
What concerns me is that the Tory party has an institutional problem and, frankly, does not care about Islamophobia. The damning Singh review earlier this year revealed institutional failings within the Conservative party in how it handled Islamophobia complaints and that it failed to engage with any Conservative Muslim parliamentarians—it did not even acknowledge or mention the term “Islamophobia”. When a definition has such widespread community support, I ask the Minister why the Government are insistent on reinventing the wheel. Let me tell him why: I know the Conservative party does not care about Islamophobia. After writing to the Prime Minister during Islamophobia Awareness Month urging him to take action and meet me and key Muslim organisations, I never received a response. It has been 10 months. Perhaps I can try again during this year’s Islamophobia Awareness Month.
The UK is home to 2.7 million Muslims, but Islamophobia is on the rise and can have distressing and real-life implications for our Muslim community. A prime example was the far right peddling false narratives during the pandemic that British Muslims were spreading coronavirus. As a result, Muslim communities have suffered a shocking 40% increase in online Islamophobia during this period, according to Tell MAMA.
The Government’s own figures reveal once again that Muslims have been victim to the highest proportion of all hate crimes committed this year. The ugly face of right-wing racism reared its head in the horrific attack in Ontario, Canada—a sobering reminder that Islamophobia can kill. Here in the UK, we have seen the chilling results of Islamophobia too. Just this week, a young Muslim student in Rotherham was repeatedly punched and kicked by fellow students, leaving him hospitalised.
These are not isolated incidents. Home Office data supports this, and shows that referrals to Prevent for extreme right-wing ideologies have exponentially increased. I, along with colleagues, have pushed for the independent review of the Prevent strategy for several years. A coalition of more than 450 Islamic organisations, including 350 mosques and imams representing thousands of British Muslims, have boycotted the Government’s review of Prevent in protest against the appointment of William Shawcross as its chair. Shawcross has openly expressed hostile views of Islam and Muslims, including saying:
“Yes, the problem is ‘Islamic fascism’”.
Will the Minister urgently outline why the Government have appointed someone with Islamophobic views? Will he also respond to the overwhelming discontent over the Shawcross appointment and put on the record why the Government refuse to engage with the Muslim Council of Britain, the largest Muslim organisation in the UK?
Finally, as chair of Labour Muslim Network and vice-chair of the APPG on British Muslims, I reaffirm my commitment to tackle Islamophobia. I hope that today the Minister will finally endorse the definition and pledge to take action.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Murray. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and for Bradford West (Naz Shah) for securing this debate, and for their excellent speeches, as I am for all the excellent speeches today.
As an officer for the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims, I am always struck by what a fantastically constructive cross-party space that group is. With our collective purpose and determination, we have much to be positive about. That is just as well, because there is much to do and a great distance to travel.
Some people ask me why we need to define Islamophobia. We have to be clear about what we are talking about, what is acceptable, and why. We cannot effectively deal with Islamophobia if we and others are not confident of what it means. That matters, because we need to develop that understanding more widely. People need to know what Islamophobia is, why it is a problem, how it manifests itself, and, vitally, the impact that leaving this terrible stain on our society untackled has on far too many individuals in our communities.
We have heard the figures from Tell MAMA: there has been an increase of 700% in Islamophobic incidents. That is horrendous, and I sincerely hope that the UK Government are listening. It may be uncomfortable to confront the reality that society, even now—especially now—is Islamophobic and intolerant, but we need to acknowledge that if we hope to drive change. That is why we need the UK Government to step up and shape up.
Recently, I was pleased to receive an email from Peter Hopkins of Newcastle University; he authored a powerful report on Islamophobia in Scotland, working with the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party group. Hon. Members will, I suspect, be used to me patiently explaining how Scotland is a brilliant place. It is, of course, and I am proud to represent one of the most religiously diverse constituencies in Scotland. However, it would be a mistake to suggest that Scotland is some unique haven of tolerance, or that we, uniquely, are not affected by Islamophobia. We need to be grown up about this, and about our politics. Accepting that Islamophobia is an issue is vital. I am particularly glad that the Scottish Government has the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon on this, because I know that she is absolutely unflinching on this issue, and that really matters.
We should take heart from the people in Kenmure Street in Glasgow, who came out of their houses at Eid and stopped the Home Office from deporting their neighbours. There are things to be positive about, but we must also look hard at ourselves and recognise the reality that much progress remains to be made. A big driver in my support of independence is the opportunity for equality, respect and fairness to be the building blocks of the country. However, as we move to that, we need to act. That is why the adoption of this definition, and action, matter.
I recently had a very useful meeting, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), with Zara Mohammed, the new general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain. She is the first Scot, the first young person, and the first woman to hold that role. Zara is focused on, among many other things, the dearth of Muslim women in public life. She is absolutely right. We need far greater diversity, particularly where it would be most visible—in the higher reaches of public bodies, in leadership roles and in politics. Although I am very pleased that the Scottish Parliament is looking much more diverse this Session—I applaud all parties that contributed to making it so, and would particularly like to mention my colleague Kaukab Stewart, the new MSP for Glasgow Kelvin and the first Muslim woman elected to Holyrood—there remains a great deal to do, and Zara’s work will make a difference in that.
It is clear that women are disproportionately impacted by Islamophobia in many ways, and there are two issues to reflect on there. First, if we accept detriment to any minority group, we are opening the doors to detriment to others. Intersectionality is important, and, as the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) said in her important speech, that interrelationship between different equality groups is important, as is, I would say, the relationship between different religious groups. On the same day that I met Zara Mohammed, I also met representatives from the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council and the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities. Those organisations have very understandable concerns about antisemitism, but were also keen to discuss working with Muslim colleagues, and shared concerns regarding Islamophobia and the impact of this intolerance on all our communities.
The intolerance is increasing, as is the normalising that we heard about from the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain). There is a nasty, dark underbelly of bile, which is enabled by right-wing populists such as Trump and Farage, though they are not alone. That contributes, here and further afield, to the othering and mistreatment of Muslims. I must again reflect on the Prime Minister’s absolutely disgraceful comments about Muslim women looking like letterboxes. Those comments will have contributed to countless hardships and worse. They should not have been made. They are completely indefensible, and I struggle to understand how people can defend them.
Our Governments need to be alive to and focused on this issue, as do political parties. I am pleased the Scottish Government are taking this seriously, and that the SNP Westminster group adopted the definition of Islamophobia, but this is not political—or should not be. It should be about being part of a decent society—one to which our Muslim communities contribute immensely in Scotland, the UK and further afield.
Colleagues will wish to make use of their time, and it is important to hear what the Minister has to say, so I will conclude. So many Muslim groups in my area do really important work in our communities. We heard about all the amazing contributions made during the pandemic, but I want to put on record the immense amount of work that the Ahmadiyya Muslim community and the Scottish Ahlul Bayt Society did to support people in need during really difficult periods of the pandemic. Congregations such as those in the Woodfarm Education Centre and Langrig Road in my constituency offer vital support day in and day out.
I point out, as others have done, that this is a big issue across the world, but we need to start here by looking closely at ourselves. The fact that it is a big issue is all the more reason for us to take our position in this Parliament seriously and use it to drive forward change, so that we can better challenge Islamophobia, wherever it is. We cannot carry on as we are, so the UK Government should recognise that adopting a definition of Islamophobia is not only important, but increasingly urgent.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) on obtaining this urgent and timely debate. I thank all colleagues who have spoken. It has been a sterling debate. I particularly want to touch on what my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) was saying. I do not know if it will help her, but many of us Muslim women have been abused in a similar format. I have had emails and messages on social media saying that I am, and I quote, words beginning with “f” and “b”, and that I should be sent off to Saudi Arabia to be raped. There are all kinds of interesting words being used and letters written. That does not help, but I hope that she understands.
Islamophobia has been rising in this country and in the western world at a very disturbing rate in recent years. Despite this, as we have heard today, there is still no accepted definition of Islamophobia. There are three million Muslims in the UK—almost 5% of our overall population. Despite Muslims having been present in this country as far back as the 16th century, many believe they are treated as the other. Islamophobia permeates all domains of our society. It threatens education, limits employment prospects and impacts everyday issues, including health, wellbeing and housing.
It is time that we finally address the issue. In 2019, the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims worked tirelessly to create a definition of Islamophobia that was widely applauded and supported by over 750 organisations. As was mentioned, the definition has been adopted by the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National party, the Mayor of London and the Mayor of Greater Manchester. It has been debated in this House and has received cross-party support, so it is disappointing that two years later, we are still urging the Government to do the right thing. That is an absolute denial from this Government. To add insult to injury, they cannot even bring themselves to use the term “Islamophobia”.
In May, the Singh report, resulting from an independent investigation into the handling of Islamophobia by the Conservative party, was published. It was a damning indictment of the discrimination rife in the party. It found that Islamophobia is a serious issue for it, and that the concerns had too easily been denied or dismissed. Indeed, it even looked at the Prime Minister’s comments about women wearing burqas looking like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”, which we have heard a lot about. It found that Islamophobic incidents of hate rose by 375% in the week after the Prime Minister made those comments. The report called for the party leadership to publish an action plan to set out how it will tackle the failings it found. Will the Minister today acknowledge the scale of the problem? Will he update us on the progress his party has made on the action plan and the new code of conduct?
In my party, I pay tribute to the work of the Labour Muslim Network, which brought to our attention its findings and concerns about Islamophobia. Unlike the leadership of the Conservative party, we are seriously committed to tackling and eradicating Islamophobia, both in our party and in society.
We are often told by critics of the APPG’s definition that it should not imply that some Islamophobia is rooted in racism, yet the evidence says otherwise. Last year, the largest number of referrals to the Government Prevent programme related to far-right extremism. Indeed, the Security Minister warned that far-right terror poses a growing threat, and we all know the consequences of that ideology.
A recent report by Hope Not Hate found that Islamophobia has become the driving force behind the rise of far-right movements in the UK, and that anti-Muslim prejudice has replaced immigration as the key driver of such groups. A poll found that 35% of Britons think that Islam is generally a threat to the British way of life. We see this happening globally, and particularly in western Europe, where there has been a rise of far-right political parties and discriminatory laws passed in France and other countries. Earlier this year, a UN expert concluded at the UN Human Rights Council that Islamophobia has reached epidemic proportions globally, and that Muslims are often targeted because of visible characteristics, such as names, skin colour and clothing.
Many, including this Government, argue that Muslims are not a race. Of course they are not a race, but they are racialised when they are treated as having characteristics that mark them as wholly different. The question when it comes to racism is whether there is a set of attitudes and behaviours that are socially widespread and used to justify discrimination against a particular group. That is why it makes sense to call antisemitism and Islamophobia forms of racism.
I am the chair of the APPG on religion in the media, and last year we conducted an inquiry on religious literacy in the British media. Our report found that media reporting can be sensationalist, and that it reinforces stereotypes and contributes towards discriminatory attitudes. Headlines such as “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis” and references to “Muslim problems” have real-world consequences. Of course, journalists should be able to question and criticise religion—we live in a democracy that values freedom of speech—but this is about not censorship but transparency. We ask the Government to consider looking at press regulation, because the current system of self-regulation is not working.
Does the Minister at least accept the inescapable reality, which is that Islamophobia has damaging consequences for the life chances of and equalities enjoyed by British Muslim communities? There are people in the UK who are scared to leave their home for fear of verbal or physical attacks. People have withdrawn from public services, with devastating knock-on consequences for their health and education. They feel like outsiders in their own country. That should shame us all.
Last year, in the other place, when the Government were asked about the progress that they had made on adopting a definition, they said that the definition proposed by the APPG was not compatible with the Equality Act 2010, which treats race and religion separately, and
“could have consequences for freedom of speech.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 February 2020; Vol. 801, c. 2337.]
Can the Minister tell us whether he or the Government have published for public scrutiny any evidence regarding the legal advice that suggests that the APPG definition is incompatible with the Act? It has been repeatedly noted by experts that the working definition of Islamophobia is not legally binding, and therefore presents no challenges to statute, which takes legal precedence. I ask the Minister not to revert to the predictable, rehearsed responses and platitudes that we have heard from the Government. Each time they do that, they show their disdain for the British Muslim community.
In this debate, the ask is simple: adopt this definition, which has been accepted by cross-party MPs, national groups and hundreds of organisations. In some respects, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood). We need a definition because it will be a starting point for addressing the real issue of Islamophobia that we face in this country. Islamophobia is rising not just in the United Kingdom but in France, Austria and other parts of the western world. Muslims are being treated as though they are fifth columnists—as though they do not belong in this society.
I referred to our inquiries on media coverage. I do not want to restrict free speech—I am sure nobody here wants to—but we ask the Government to look at cases in which the newspapers and others publish pure lies. There is a difference between covering something and carrying blatant lies, like the story about one in five Muslims having sympathy for Isis, or The Sunday Times coverage of a Muslim family who had adopted a child in the east end of London, which turned out to be completely made up.
Those kinds of stories cause people to view Muslims with suspicion and lead to hatred towards Muslims. Let us face it: a lot of people will probably never meet a Muslim in their life, and their understanding of what a Muslim is comes from what they read in the newspaper or watch on the television. Therefore what our media, social media, press and others say is an important part of this debate.
Imran Hussain
My hon. Friend makes a really valuable and pertinent point. Does she agree that the situation is far worse than that? We see Islamophobic tropes increasing under the guise of freedom of speech. Would she agree that freedom of speech is not an absolute right? It does not give you a right to promote hatred, and it certainly does not give you a carte-blanche right to attack Muslims.
Yasmin Qureshi
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that the Minister has heard, and takes on board the points and issues that have been raised in the debate, and I look forward to his response.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
I remind the Minister to leave a couple of minutes at the end for Mr Bristow.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Eddie Hughes)
I will proceed as quickly as I possibly can. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) and my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) on securing this debate.
I want to begin by saying that although, unfortunately, the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) and I agree on nothing politically, I admire her tremendously. Together, we have done the local politics programme in the west midlands—it is always a pleasure to be on it with her. I can only imagine that she is a true inspiration to women of all political persuasions when it comes to entering politics. Whatever abuse she may suffer from a bunch of idiots, she is reaching far more people as an inspiration. She should take heart from that.
I am blessed in my constituency to be aided by two excellent Muslim councillors, who are true community representatives; Councillor Gaz Ali and Councillor Amo Hussain do tremendous work across their ward, and across all demographics with people of all faiths and none. It is a pleasure to work with them. I am also delighted that Imam Hafiz Shahid Bashir Qadri gifted me a copy of the Koran, and has taken time to explain parts of it to me. My education is an ongoing project, but I am incredibly grateful for his kindness and his patience.
My point is that people learn by experience; when they experience members of the Muslim community, they see the tremendous work that they do within the community. That is to everybody’s credit, and that is how we will build a better society.
Mr Baker
My hon. Friend has reminded me that I did a terrible thing and failed to acknowledge the great plethora of Conservative councillors who I have in my constituency. I said “supporters”, but there are councillors too. We have had many Conservative—and, indeed, Labour—Muslim councillors in Wycombe for a very long time. I am extremely grateful for all of the brilliant work that they do.
Eddie Hughes
I completely concur with my hon. Friend’s comments.
As a man of faith, I firmly believe that Muslims in our country should be able to practise their faith in freedom. This Government have always been clear that they do not, and will not, tolerate anti-Muslim hatred in any form, and will continue to combat such discrimination and intolerance wherever it occurs. We have instituted some of the strongest legislation in the world to tackle incidents where people incite religious hatred, or are engaged in criminal activity motivated by religion. We have also supported Muslim communities in combating anti-Muslim hatred. We are supporting groups fighting anti-Muslim hatred on the ground, including through the places of worship protective security funding scheme, which has supported more than 240 places of worship, with approximately £5 million in grants enabling them to install measures such as protective alarms, security lighting and access controls.
Following the Christchurch attacks, we funded faith associations to run 22 training sessions during, and prior to, Ramadan, to provide advice to mosque leaders on how to improve security. In November 2020, we awarded £1.8 million through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government faith, race and hate crime grant scheme to support established community groups and civil society organisations to run projects to boost shared values and tackle religiously and racially motivated hate crime. We funded work in schools and with young people, including through the Anne Frank Trust UK and Solutions Not Sides; these two organisations, funded through our grant scheme, aim to bring religious communities together to tackle prejudice and discrimination against religious groups from a young age. Today we announced the faith new deal: a pilot fund that will provide £1 million to support faith groups to deliver innovative partnership projects that will benefit communities as they recover from the impact of covid-19.
We believe that the definition proposed by the APPG for British Muslims, although well supported, is not fit for purpose, and that, if adopted, it would create significant practical and legal issues. Islam is a religion that includes a wide range of races and thus stating, as the definition does, that Islamophobia is a type of racism is incorrect and conflates religion with race. These concerns have been raised by the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and the director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding. A poll by the organisation Muslim Census found that only 21% of Muslims polled agreed with the APPG definition, primarily due to the confusion it creates between race and religion. The report says:
“For attacks on Muslims and Islam to be dealt with appropriately, selecting a definition that the majority of Muslims agree with is vital. The findings of our survey suggest that the APPG definition does not have the backing of the community.”
Naz Shah
I would be interested to understand whether the IHRA definition accepted by the Government was accepted unanimously, by every single person, because there is lots of debate on that—yet, when it comes to this one, the Government have said what they have said. I would really value any examples that the Minister could point me to on the issues of the legality, given that it is a non-legally-binding definition.
Eddie Hughes
I am not sure whether the definition that the hon. Lady refers to was completely universally accepted, but it is internationally accepted—and therein lies the difference.
As has been raised by the former commissioner for countering extremism and the Government’s current independent adviser for social cohesion, the APPG’s definition does nothing to address the issue of sectarianism or the right of minority Muslim groups such as the Ahmadiyya community, who may receive prejudice from other Muslim communities who do not agree with their views.
Finally, the definition suggested may have negative implications for free speech. Concerns have been raised that the lack of clarity in the definition could lead to its being used as a back-door blasphemy law, providing a shield for Islamists to espouse hatred, and to criticise or disregard anyone who challenges them as Islamophobic.
Several hon. Members rose—
Naz Shah
The Minister just referred to the back-door blasphemy law. If there is a back-door blasphemy law, it is what the Conservative party is putting through with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which protects statues because of commemorative feelings. That is back-door blasphemy, not this definition.
I would really like to understand: since when does any definition deal with issues among communities? It is absolutely like a dead cat on the table: “Let’s just not adopt the definition”—more than 750 organisations, more than 60 academics. This is just the Conservative party throwing the issue into the long grass, because they do not want to take responsibility and they do not care about Muslims.
Eddie Hughes
Time is against me, unfortunately. I will say, for all the reasons I set out earlier, that the actions taken by this Government to develop community cohesion and address some of the issues—
Several hon. Members rose—
Eddie Hughes
I am afraid time will not allow interventions, if I am to conclude.
We remain committed to there being a robust and effective definition, and we will outline our steps to achieve that in due course. I thank hon. Members for the views they have put forward. However, we cannot accept a definition of Islamophobia that shuts down legitimate criticism and debate. Freedom of speech is the foundation of a healthy society, allowing for debate and disagreement underpinned by the values that bind people together—tolerance, equality and fairness. It is important that all have the right to speak freely and provide legitimate criticism.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
Paul Bristow, you have one minute to sum up.
Paul Bristow
Since being elected in 2019, I have heard a few speeches that will remain with me for the rest of my life. The hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) and I will agree on little, but she will find me standing side by side with her in her fight against Islamophobia. I was humbled and privileged to listen to her speech.
We have had an interesting debate today. What is clear—I hope the Minister takes this away—is the strength of feeling people have on the issue, and that Muslim communities up and down the country have. We heard some positives about the contribution that Muslim communities have made to this country, and we have heard some negatives, sadly, about Islamophobia, discrimination and racism.
The hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) made a statement about the Conservative party. There is a difference between the Conservative party and the Government; when she conflates those two things, it does her case no good whatever.
I hope that the Minister will have heard very clearly the need for this definition. Once the definition is there, we can move forward together. It is just a start, but we can start rooting out anti-Muslim hatred.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the definition of Islamophobia.
Written Statements
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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National Lottery Products: Sales
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for Media and Data (Mr John Whittingdale)
Following a consultation, the Government announced last year that they were raising the age at which national lottery products can be bought and sold from 16 to 18, protecting young people from the possible risk of gambling harm. The new minimum age comes into force on 1 October and the operator and retailers have already stopped selling tickets to anyone aged below 18.
Following a further consultation which was held in July and August, the Government intend to make some technical amendments to the requirements placed on retailers in connection with the uplift in the minimum age for buying and selling national lottery products from 16 to 18, and today a statutory instrument is being laid which will introduce this change.
The approved sales system is a minor technical easement and will be based on the two existing provisions already in place for alcohol sales in England, Wales and Scotland, and for sales of tobacco and nicotine vaping products in Scotland, through which a designated person aged 18 or over can approve a transaction being handled by a 16 or 17-year-old. This approach therefore builds on an existing framework and maintains the intent of the original policy.
The majority of national lottery retailers will already be familiar with at least one of the systems. By offering both approaches we hope that the easement will meet the diverse needs of the national lottery’s 44,000 retailers who range from large supermarket chains to small independent family run shops.
The consultation response is being published today on gov.uk, and thank you to everyone who took the time to respond.
[HCWS272]
Prevailing Market Rates
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for Universities (Michelle Donelan)
I am announcing today a temporary reduction in the maximum student loan interest rate following the recent decline in the prevailing market rate for comparable unsecured personal loans.
In accordance with the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998, where the Government consider that the student loan interest rate is higher than the prevailing market rate for comparable unsecured loans, we will take steps to reduce the maximum student loan interest rate.
The Government regularly monitor the interest rates set on student loans against the interest rates prevailing on the market for comparable loans.
Following a decline in the prevailing market rate, I have today, 9 September laid legislation to cap the maximum post-2012 income contingent repayment undergraduate and the postgraduate income contingent repayment student loan interest rate in line with the prevailing market rate. The cap will come into effect from 1 October 2021 and last for a period of three months.
The reduction will be 0.4 percentage point on the maximum student loan interest rate to reflect the average market rates during the preceding monitoring period.
The maximum post-2012 undergraduate income contingent repayment student loan interest rate and the postgraduate income contingent repayment student loan interest rate will be 4.1% between 1 October and 31 December.
From 1 January 2022, the post-2012 undergraduate and postgraduate income contingent repayment student loan interest rates will revert to the standard rate +3%.
Further caps may be put in place should the prevailing market rate continue to be below student loan interest rates.
[HCWS275]
Covid-19 and Flu Vaccinations: Health and Social Care Sector
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
I wish to inform the House of the action the Government are taking to consider how to further improve uptake of covid-19 and flu vaccinations by those who work in our health and social care services.
Following a public consultation on making covid-19 vaccination a condition of deployment for those working in adult care homes, the Government informed the House on 17 June 2021 that covid-19 vaccination would be required of people entering a CQC registered adult care home, unless exempt, to protect vulnerable residents.
While residents in care homes are some of the most at risk from covid-19, the responses to this initial consultation made a clear case for extending this policy beyond care homes to other settings where vulnerable people receive care and treatment.
It is right that the Government strain every sinew to maximise the benefits of the vaccine and protect the most vulnerable as we return our freedoms and get back to a normal way of life.
The Government are therefore now undertaking a further public consultation on whether or not to make covid-19 vaccination and flu vaccination a condition of deployment for frontline health and care workers, to help safeguard the vulnerable.
While many of those working in health and social care sectors have taken up the offer of vaccination, it is crucial that this is consistent across services to safeguard vulnerable people, and that this high level is maintained as new people join the workforce.
Recent research has shown people infected with both flu and covid-19 are more than twice as likely to die as someone with covid-19 alone and nearly six times more likely than those with neither flu nor covid-19, so it is right that both are considered within the consultation.
These are complex and important issues and the consultation seeks to gather a wide range of perspectives from the public and across the health and care sectors about whether vaccination requirements should be introduced and how they could be implemented.
I will provide an update to the House, following the completion of the consultation.
[HCWS273]
House of Lords
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Sports Participation in Schools
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bassam of Brighton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to Team GB’s success at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, what steps they plan to take (1) to raise sports participation levels in schools, and (2) to provide additional funding to support this.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are, along with noble Lords, extremely proud of the success of Team GB at the recent Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. We are committed to raising school sports participation by investing through the primary PE and sport premium and funding to open school sports facilities. On Monday, I had the pleasure of visiting a new free school—Coombe Wood School, in Croydon—which puts health and fitness at the heart of its educational approach.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I pay tribute to all our Olympians and Paralympians in Tokyo; not all returned with a medal—though of course many did—but all returned, I think I can safely say, with the enduring respect and admiration of those of us watching at home, in recognition of the clearly tremendous efforts they put into training over years. This is surely a carpe diem moment for the Government to ensure that participation levels in sports increase in all schools, but particularly primary schools. Habits gained at an early age are more likely to be carried into adult life. In June, the Secretary of State announced, in respect of the PE and sport premium for primary schools, to which the Minister has just referred, that underspends for the two pandemic years could be carried forward into this academic year but must be spent by the end of it. Why should such a limit be imposed when primary schools need additional resources to increase and maximise sports participation levels?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, the PE premium is in fact a ring-fenced grant that normally has to be spent within the academic year that it is given. This was an exceptional relaxation, and we are keen that those pupils whom it was intended to benefit have the benefit of that money, and therefore it should be spent by the end of this academic year.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I totally echo the words of congratulations to Team GB and ParalympicsGB. Critical to the future improvement of sports participation in schools is teacher training. Some student teachers get as little as six hours of training on PE, and there are many examples about resulting problems with teacher confidence and competence when it comes to delivering a minimum 60 minutes of sport and physical activity a day. How do the Government propose to tackle that?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, in relation to the spending of the premium, a survey was done by the department in 2019, and we are aware that schools are spending a proportion of it on scaling up their workforce. Over 97% of those who teach PE have the relevant level 4 qualification, but I will take my noble friend’s comments back to Minister Gibb in relation to the reform of PE that he announced to my noble friend’s Select Committee back in July.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, I add my congratulations to those already expressed by noble Lords. There are sports facilities that stand unused when schools are not in session. Can the Minister look to putting in place arrangements by which all schools in the maintained sector—including of course academies and free schools—are required, and where necessary funded, to make sure that those sports facilities are available to their communities?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
The noble Baroness is correct that 39% of sports and recreation facilities in England are on school premises. That is why, over the last two years, we have invested over £11 million to enable those facilities to be used for extra-curricular activities for pupils and by communities. We have seen nearly 100,000 community users benefit from that, as well as nearly a quarter of a million pupils in extra-curricular formats.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the athletes of Team GB and ParalympicsGB. Beyond sports participation, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the stories of Olympic and Paralympic athletes, and their ability to act as role models, should, alongside the Olympic and Paralympic values, run through our education system like a golden thread of possibility? Would she also agree to further consider how we can make even more use of our Olympic and Paralympic athletes and their stories, to drive potential right through our education system?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My noble friend is correct; these stories are inspirational, and your Lordships’ House benefits from the presence and participation of people like my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I am pleased that, on Monday, the Youth Sport Trust announced precisely this: it will have a programme of events, to make sure that Olympians and Paralympians can tell their stories in our schools.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, we found out in 2012 that it is incredibly difficult to translate the excitement of the Games into greater participation. We also know from experience that, when people leave education—at 16, 18 or 21—if that is where their sporting activity is, they tend to stop. What positive steps are the Government taking to make sure that, before they leave school, people are playing sport in amateur structures outside, which will lead to a continuation of activity?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
I have outlined to noble Lords the increase in the extra-curricular participation that we have funded, by way of premises being open. On 16-plus, as part of Ofsted’s inspection of FE it considers personal development. The matters that the noble Lord refers to are of course part of our overall emphasis, through health and well-being, on active participation for adults.
Baroness Sater (Con)
I, too, add my congratulations to Team GB and their great achievements at the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Given our shared ambition to leave a legacy post Games, does my noble friend the Minister agree that it is now time to make sports, and physical activity, a higher priority in schools, given that it fosters long-term physical, emotional, social and positive well-being, and to consider making PE a core subject?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
I agree with my noble friend, and that is why, back in 2017, as a result of the sugar tax, we doubled the PE and sport premium for primary schools to enable them to do just that. In fact, when looking at the number of hours per week on average in our schools, PE has the third highest number of hours after English and maths and it is the only foundation subject in the national curriculum that is mandatory at key stages 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, I count it a privilege to be able to associate myself with the expressions of congratulations to both the Olympic and Paralympic teams. I hope that I can easily persuade the Minister and the House to reflect on the fact that, for most of the members of these teams who are not medallists, the fact of selection and participation in the Olympic Games will be the high point of their sporting careers. The British Olympic Association has a saying: “Once an Olympian, always an Olympian.” Would that not be a very effective saying to use in the encouragement of sports in schools?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
I can only agree with the noble Lord. It is pleasing to note that 20% of the athletes we sent to Tokyo are alumni of the DCMS 2010 initiative of funding School Games, so we are seeing that graduation from participating in School Games to being an Olympian. I agree with the noble Lord that everybody who participated, particularly in the difficult circumstances this time round, deserves our congratulations.
Lord Polak (Con)
Speedy access to a defibrillator saves lives. A decade ago, the budding sportsman Oliver King, aged 12, suffered a cardiac arrest during a swimming lesson and, sadly, passed away. It happened at my old school, King David High School in Liverpool, in the pool where I learned to swim. Oliver’s dad, Mark King, has campaigned for 10 years, via the Oliver King Foundation, for defibrillators to be in all schools. I attended a meeting a few days ago with the Secretary of State, along with Mark and the charitable and legendary former Liverpool player Jamie Carragher. Surely legislation is not needed. Can my noble friend the Minister assure me that defibrillators will be placed in all schools urgently?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
I am moved to hear of my noble friend’s experience. I think that those of us who watched the Euros were aghast at the events there, which showed us that the speed with which Christian Eriksen was resuscitated is vital in such circumstances. I can assure my noble friend that all new free schools and refurbished schools—the 100 schools we have announced—will have AEDs as standard, and we encourage all schools to have them as part of their first aid equipment. In health education at secondary school, students are taught how to use that equipment, as well as how to perform CPR.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, given the noble Baroness’s obvious commitment to school sports, can she tell me why, since 2010, 215 school playing fields were sold off? Will she put a stop to the practice?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, on school playing fields, there is a policy only to permit; the Secretary of State has to give consent. There is a variety of circumstances in which the policy allows playing fields to be sold, but there is a recommended allocation which every school should have, and the department benefits from the advice of the School Playing Fields Advisory Panel on any suggestion. But the policy is to retain land within the school estate wherever possible.
Lord Caine (Con)
My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register. In my part of the country, the West Riding of Yorkshire, and across the whole of the north of England, rugby league plays a huge role in communities. But for most young people, especially those from less well-off backgrounds, entry into the sport is predominantly through schools. Can my noble friend therefore assure me that support for rugby league in schools remains a priority for the Government?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
In the School Sport and Activity Action Plan, flexibility is given to schools to deliver what is appropriate for their communities. To develop that plan, which will be updated this year, we have a forum where the department takes advice. I can assure my noble friend that the Rugby Football League is part of that forum and makes its views clear to the department.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.
Net-Zero Emissions: Planning and Building Regulations
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Whitty
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to align England’s planning system and building regulations with (1) the net zero emissions target, and (2) other environmental goals.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
Through our current programme of planning reform we will ensure that the planning system continues to play an effective role in supporting progress towards net-zero emissions and delivering meaningful change for our environment. In addition, the future homes standard will ensure that new homes built from 2025 will produce at least 75% less carbon emissions than homes delivered under current regulations.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister, but the fact is that the carbon assessments in the present system are not biting or binding. Construction and building use between them account for nearly 40% of carbon emissions. There are two things which might actually bite. First, in regeneration projects of housing or offices, demolish and rebuild means the release of embedded carbon, the carbon cost of rubble disposal and then the carbon cost of complete rebuild with carbon-intensive products such as steel, glass and concrete. Developers, local authority planners and architects should be required to first assess the relative carbon effects of the option of retrofitting to higher-grade efficiency standards. Secondly, building regulations should prescribe and enforce the use of energy efficiency and water-efficient systems and appliances in all new build and retrofit. Can the Minister include this in the reform of the planning system?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I point out that the current approach is biting. We have achieved a growth in our economy of 78% while cutting emissions by 44% over the past three decades, which is something to celebrate and something that successive Governments can be proud of. We also recognise the benefits of retrofit ahead of demolition. Reuse and adaption of existing buildings can make an important contribution to tackling climate change, and the National Planning Policy Framework already encourages this.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. As your Lordships may be aware, the Church of England has declared a climate emergency and is aiming for net zero by 2030. In the diocese of Oxford, we are stewards of 470 parsonages and many other buildings. We have a lot of work to do, and a lot of investment is required to bring those buildings to net zero. Two things are preventing us making progress; we clearly need to spread the work over a decade. The first is knowing the Government’s plans for home heating and the second is the help and support that will be available from government for those changes. The system needs to be simple and sustainable and to carry confidence. When will we know the way forward?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
Well, we are shaping the way forward through building regulations, and there will be further movement on that this year as we move towards the future homes standard in 2025. We welcome the fact that the Church is doing its bit to recognise the climate emergency. I point out that at least 74% of councils are also working towards that, but more will follow as we respond to the consultation following the publication of the White Paper.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
Can my noble friend give an assurance that the planning system will continue to support and protect the environment?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I can give my noble friend that assurance. Existing environmental protections will continue to be upheld and mandatory biodiversity net gain will lead to wider environmental benefits.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. In June this year, the Climate Change Committee recommended that all government policy, including planning decisions, should be subject to a net-zero test, yet last week the Government announced that they would not be reviewing the outdated airports national planning policy statement, so we risk the approval of infrastructure projects which clash with our climate and environmental commitments. Will the Government remedy that situation by including a net-zero test in the planning Bill?
Lord Greenhalgh
My Lords, I point out that our proposed outcomes-based system of integrated assessment will provide the Government with a mechanism to reflect their environmental ambitions, including wider net-zero commitments, in the planning process.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
I call the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. No? I call the noble Lord, Lord Oates.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that the decision in 2016 to scrap the zero-carbon homes scheme was a catastrophic mistake, and can he tell us the amount of carbon that has been emitted from the 1 million substandard homes that have been built since that time?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I point to the considerable progress we have made in cutting carbon emissions while building more homes. We have a plan to further reduce that. Our work on a full technical specification for the future homes standard has been accelerated, and we will consult on it in 2023. This year, we are introducing an interim uplift in Part L standards that will deliver a meaningful reduction in carbon emissions. This is the stepping stone to ensure that our future homes reduce their carbon footprint and we hit our targets.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, the water companies are committed to achieving net zero by 2030. To be able to do so, they need the tools to do the job. In ending the automatic right to connect, it is essential that sufficient sustainable drains are built. Will my noble friend ensure that the Government adopt the necessary building regulations to facilitate this?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My noble friend is an inveterate champion of sustainable urban drainage, which is far better than the use of grey infrastructure. Of course, we will reflect the desire to see sustainable planning and urban drainage solutions where practicable.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Last month, the i newspaper reported that homes in the UK heat up twice as fast as the European average during heatwaves. As a result, demand for air conditioning units has increased, which in turn uses energy and increases emissions. Can the Minister outline what steps the Government are taking to address this, especially considering that temperatures are expected to rise in the coming decades?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, above all, we recognise the need to move away from fossil fuel heating to meet our commitment to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. We are approaching that by continuing to set performance-based standards rather than mandating a solution. We are making progress to achieve that and we will continue to come up with ideas that drive progress in this area.
Lord Bird (CB)
Could we also insist that the Government, as well as putting an enormous effort into zero-emissions reduction, look at all the industries that need to be supported so that they can counter the worst effects of what is happening with the climate?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I think we are well positioned to take that on board, because the number of people in low-carbon industries has increased considerably and we are seeing a reduction in emissions.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, two Liberal Democrat Secretaries of State for Energy and Climate Change quadrupled our renewable electricity output, making us a world leader in offshore wind. With only 52 days to go before COP 26, why are the Government not saying a categoric no to projects such as the Cumbrian coal mine, which will move us backwards and torpedo our international credibility, not least in persuading China and India to stop their investment in coal?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I am not surprised that the Cumbrian coal mine has been mentioned. As noble Lords will know, on 11 March the Secretary of State called in the planning application for a coking coal mine in Cumbria. The Secretary of State’s published letter calling in the application set out his reasons for doing so. The application having been called in, a public inquiry overseen by an independent planning inspector is currently under way to consider the proposal. Once the inquiry is closed, the inspector will prepare a report and recommendation and the case will come before Ministers. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to comment on the details of the application.
Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, the built environment is responsible for around 43% of total carbon emissions and the planning system has a central role to play in addressing its environmental impact. As president of the CBI, I ask the Minister whether he agrees that it is absolutely essential to business that there is consistency and alignment across planning, net zero and building safety. Furthermore, although business supports the Government’s vision for a streamlined, faster process for planning decisions, surely he would agree that more needs to be done and set out so that planning can incentivise greener homes, greener buildings and a low-carbon energy network.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I would agree with what the noble Lord said: it is important to join up government and we are making progress in this area. How we intend to do this will be outlined imminently as we respond to the consultation on the Planning for the Future White Paper and set out our legislation in this Session.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and we now move to the next Question.
Artists and Musicians: Working in Europe
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Kennedy of Cradley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have (1) to reduce the red tape, and (2) to improve access, for artists and musicians based in the United Kingdom seeking to work in Europe.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, the Government want our creative and cultural industries to be able to tour abroad easily. We have moved at pace to provide clarity. This includes publishing traveller summaries for individual member states and sector-specific landing pages to make relevant guidance easily accessible on GOV.UK. Nineteen member states have confirmed that they allow some visa-free and permit-free short-term tours, and we are actively encouraging the remaining member states to match the UK’s generous rules.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the lack of any deal for the creative industries in the Brexit negotiations has caused considerable anger, especially for the many thousands of British musicians who rely on touring Europe for a large part of their income. What work has been done specifically with the eight EU member states that the Government identified earlier in the summer that will require musicians to use visa and work permits to perform? Does the noble Baroness agree that the UK risks losing its dominant position in the European live music market if this situation remains unresolved?
Baroness Barran (Con)
Formal approaches have been made by officials and DCMS to the eight states to which the noble Baroness refers. Ministers are also working closely with the sector to amplify each other’s lobbying efforts. I cannot accept her final assertion that we will lose our place in the world, given the talent of our artists and the work that we are carrying out.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, in addition to the member states that do not allow visa-free touring for UK musicians and performers, there are numerous complications to access the countries that allow it. With more travel now taking place as Covid restrictions lift, will there be a transition fund to support our live entertainment sector similar to that provided to the fishing industry? Can the Minister indicate what assessment has been made of the implications for our UK music and performance sector resulting from the restrictive arrangements for touring in the EU?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Baroness is right to say that the situation is more complex than previously and that is why we remain disappointed that our initial ambitious approach was not accepted by the EU. She will be aware that we have given a total sum approaching £2 billion to support our creative sector during the pandemic. We are looking at a range of issues for further support and approaches, including proposals for a creative export office.
Lord German (LD)
I declare my interest as chair of the trustees of the Parliament choir. Can the Minister distinguish between talks and negotiations? Talks are what are referred to in the government statement as speaking to countries, including clarifying what happens in the EU withdrawal agreement. However, negotiation is needed here to reduce the red tape and create a frictionless trade for those parts of our economy that are so strong in exporting our artistic examples. How many countries have the UK Government engaged with in negotiation, with the aim of removing red tape such as cabotage, carnets and permits currently strangling our industry?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I am not sure whether I have the exact precision of the noble Lord’s use of language but we have set out that we now have clear guidance around short-term touring with 19 member states. However, we are also focused on the outcomes and achieving ease of movement for our artists, including existing successes such as clarifying, for example, that touring artists and support staff will not be double charged for social security contributions.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, have not the Proms wonderfully illustrated this summer what an international language music is? Can we make it plain that we in this country are prepared to admit any European musicians, just as we welcomed Haydn and Mozart in the 18th century?
Baroness Barran (Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right and already we have announced, for the reasons he set out, generous criteria for European musicians performing here.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister share the frustration that many in this House feel at not getting from the Government any estimate of the damage being done by the failure to negotiate a deal at the time we left the European Union? If she does, can she give us some figures, first, for the number of British musicians, artists and others who were able to travel unimpeded in 2019 and, secondly, for those who have been able to travel in 2021? Perhaps I may discourage reference to Covid because I have just spent some time in France, where its festivals were going at pace.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I accept the noble Lord’s reservation about referring to Covid but the most important reason for the damage done in the past 12 months has been Covid. As for bands, I am not sure about the noble Lord’s musical tastes but I am informed that bands such as Jungle and Jake Bugg are already booking European tours; festivals are starting; we are both emerging; and established bands will be performing in, for example, Croatia and Spain.
Lord Strasburger (LD) [V]
My Lords, the creative arts sector was completely omitted from the EU trade deal, despite being the UK’s largest sector after financial services. The Government should urgently be fixing this gaping hole in their trade agreement. Instead, they are overselling their meaningless mitigations that do little to reduce the catastrophic impact on British performers and companies. Can the Minister please explain why the Government are still painting the signs while the wheels are coming off?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The Government are doing anything but painting the signs and I should like to put on record our thanks to our officials who have been working tirelessly to sort these issues out.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, the Society of London Theatre estimates that the live entertainment sector was worth more than £11 billion in gross value-added—four times as valuable as the US market for British artists. Given that the sector faces such significant new operational and financial burdens as a result of the trade and co-operation agreement, will my noble friend consider providing extra support, particularly for the smaller and emerging artists who are so disproportionately disadvantaged by the different red tape and work permit requirements that each country imposes?
Baroness Barran (Con)
As my noble friend will have heard, we have already given unprecedented support approaching £2 billion to the sector. We are working tirelessly to make sure that the practical advice works for the sector and we thank it for its co-operation and feedback on that. We are exploring the options for a creative export office.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is clear from industry that any one of a number of concerns, whether visas, permits, carnets, CITES or cabotage, may by themselves make touring impossible through costs, red tape or, in the case of cabotage, the sheer impracticalities involved, as things stand? The department’s August announcement was misleading. This matter urgently needs to be sorted out through further discussions with the EU.
Baroness Barran (Con)
We are keen and our aim is to make touring completely accessible once more to all artists who wish to tour. Our belief is that the best way to do that is through bilateral agreements with individual member states, which is what we are doing.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I follow on from the questions of the noble Lord, Lord German, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. The noble Lord, Lord German, asked about talks and negotiations. I am not going to draw a line between them but will pick up on the point about cabotage. Are any active talks or negotiations—however they are described—going on, on either a bilateral or an EU-wide basis, to deal with the issue of cabotage?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Baroness will be aware that during our negotiations with the EU we pressed for a special derogation from the cabotage restrictions. We are working closely on the issue with the Department for Transport, which recently issued a call for evidence. We are working with the department and the sector to resolve the issue.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. I call the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale.
EU Borders: Refugees from Afghanistan
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the European Union about refugees from Afghanistan who may have a right to settle in the United Kingdom being processed through EU borders.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and, in doing so, draw attention to my entry in the Lords register.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the UK has committed to resettle up to 20,000 at-risk individuals through the Afghanistan citizens’ resettlement scheme, in addition to relocating those who supported our Armed Forces or the UK Government in Afghanistan through the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, or ARAP. We continue to work with EU partners to co-ordinate our response to Afghanistan and support those most at risk.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for that response but it does not really answer the Question. We all know that, over recent years, significant numbers of potential Afghani refugees have come through Europe to relocate either in other European countries or, if they felt that they had a connection to here, here in the United Kingdom. I would be very concerned if there was any suggestion at all that the Government’s more difficult relationship with the European Union might inhibit safe passage for those who have a right to come to the United Kingdom to move perhaps from the eastern European border to here in order to be processed suitably. Will the Government guarantee that there will be discussion with the European Union to ensure that not only are there processes in place in Pakistan and in neighbouring countries but, where potential Afghani refugees have come to the European Union in order then to move to the United Kingdom, there will be a system in place to allow them due consideration?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
One thing I can assure the noble Lord of is that today the Home Secretary is meeting EU Commissioner Johansson and that migration, including the provision of safe and legal routes, is also being discussed today at the G7. An EU resettlement forum, also attended by the US and Canada, is also due to take place on 27 September. Finally, let me say to the noble Lord that anyone who makes a journey to Europe should claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
In our mid-August debate, I asked—without getting an answer then or since—about the fate of the 3,200 Afghan asylum seekers already here in this country. They are unable to work, they have to subsist on £5 a day and most of them must be traumatised by events back home. They are stuck in this limbo of a backlog of asylum cases that is now longer than ever before. Clearly, it is now as impractical to send them back as it would be immoral to do so. Clearly, they need to be given permission to stay. Clearly, their cases should now be approved en bloc. Can the Minister tell us when that will happen?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The noble Lord talked about a mid-August debate—I do not recall, but I may have misheard him. On asylum seekers, I certainly agree with him on several fronts, including that asylum applications should be expedited as quickly as possible. However, I do not agree that we should grant asylum to people en bloc because we need to be very sure that the people we welcome here are not a threat to this country.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, in discussions with the European Union, are the Government seeking to distinguish between those Afghans who left after the Taliban takeover and those who fled the Taliban before the takeover and reached Europe some time ago? Surely they should all be treated equally.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Again, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, every asylum application should be treated on its merit. If a person left Afghanistan some time ago, before the Taliban takeover, and their application is in the system, that application will be treated on a case-by-case basis. Clearly, others came through Operation Pitting and the ARAP scheme. I repeat: anyone who finds themselves in Europe should claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, can the Minister clarify two of the answers that she has just given? The Government maintain that all refugees must claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in and that they will seek to return any asylum seeker who travels to the UK, particularly through EU countries that the Government consider safe. Is the Minister really saying that, if those Afghans who helped the British forces are unable to fly back to the UK and have to travel by land through EU countries, they will be refused entry to the UK because they travelled through EU countries?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Let me clarify: no, that is not the case at all. If anyone has been accepted through the ARAP scheme or Operation Pitting, they can go to a VAC or be processed in any country in the world, so I am absolutely not saying that. What I am saying is that if someone is not coming through a legal route, they should claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I think that the answers to the last few questions show the difficulties since the Government have not yet outlined the full details of the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme, confirmed when it will begin or confirmed how many people are expected to join it. We are seeing some of the difficulties arising from that. The Government’s responsibility to Afghan citizens who have worked closely with our troops over the past 20 years extends beyond giving them the basic right to settle in the UK. The Home Office and other departments must surely support their integration into British life by beginning to help them to find permanent accommodation. In their Statement on Afghanistan this week, the Government said:
“Years before this episode, we began to fulfil our obligation to those Afghans who had helped us”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/21; col. 21.]
Can the Minister say how many evacuated Afghans are currently being housed in hotels and other temporary accommodation, and how many are now in permanent accommodation?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The noble Lord raises the issue that many of the people who have now arrived here are still in quarantine; many of the people whom we have flown here will be in quarantine until tomorrow, I think. He is absolutely right that it must be a prime consideration that those people can eventually be found permanent accommodation.
Health and Social Care
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, yesterday we saw in the House of Commons quite an extraordinary sight. The very day after an outlined policy announcement on social care, the Government rushed through a vote for a 10% increase in national insurance contributions that will not even be used for that purpose until 2023.
There is a no doubt that addressing social care is a critical and complex issue, and one that is expensive to address. However, what we heard in the Prime Minister’s Statement was not the oven-ready plan he promised two years ago. The danger for the Prime Minister—and, unfortunately, for the country—is that this now feels like an impetuous decision made for political reasons when there are so many who are willing to work across parties, professions and interests to find a consensual way forward. Despite the usual hyperbole, we did not hear a plan for dealing with a system crumbling under strain; nor did we hear a guarantee that this money will go into social care.
Despite this measure being flagged as a social care policy, the Prime Minister announced that, for at least the next three years, the bulk of the money raised by the levy will be spent on the NHS to “clear the waiting list backlog”. Yet the Secretary of State for Health seemed very uncertain that this would work. Waiting lists were already at record highs even before the pandemic struck, and our health and social care services had been left weakened and exposed when the virus hit.
Where would that leave both the NHS and social care services? To me, this feels just a bit too close to the Prime Minister’s Brexit bus tactics. Remember: Brexit was going to deliver £350 million a week to the National Health Service. Already, care sector experts and leaders are critical of using the NHS as a political fig leaf to break a manifesto commitment and make the introduction of a deeply controversial tax palatable, as well as using it to cover up many mismanagements and misjudgments during the handling of the pandemic. If the Prime Minister’s tactic of a rushed vote was to avoid scrutiny, it has failed. On an issue of this magnitude, scrutiny is essential. It is not just about holding the Government to account; it is about trying to get the best policy outcomes.
At the election, the Government promised to ensure that no one needing care would have to sell their home to pay for it. Can the Minister repeat that commitment today? The cap benefits those who live in the most expensive parts of the country or have the most expensive houses, but someone who has a house worth £100,000, for example, will still have to pay £86,000 for their care, even with the cap. That cap does not include the associated care home living costs, which are not covered by the cap and often far exceed the personal care costs of residential care.
The Chancellor’s explanation yesterday, which I hope that Minister will not attempt today, was that people needing to raise money for care need not sell their homes while they are still alive because they can get a loan that is then repaid when their estate is sold after their death. That is nothing new. Deferred payments were already available. Did anyone really think that this was what the Government’s promise of not selling homes meant?
I think that most people understand that good services cost money, but it is the unfairness of these tax rises that is wrong, especially with the lack of a proper plan or guarantees. Two and a half million working families face a double whammy: a national insurance tax rise and a £1,000 per year universal credit cut which even the Government’s own analysis has said will have a catastrophic impact. So many of those who kept us going through the pandemic—the medical teams, the care workers, the shop workers, the cleaners, some of the lowest paid workers—will be paying more, but they are the ones who will benefit the least.
The Government have not listened to warnings or proposed alternatives for supporting social care, nor have they addressed the rising demand. Conservative Governments in the years prior to the pandemic have cut the social care budget by £8 billion. At present nearly 300,000 people are on local authority waiting lists for adult social care services in England because of the funding pressures and delays in assessments for social workers. Yet we heard absolutely nothing yesterday about the role of local government. It would be helpful if the Minister could say how much funding will be provided to support local government in delivering social care. She must understand that despite being on the front line, it is concerned that the NHS will absorb the extra money and that the social care allocation will be swallowed up by the cap costs.
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services has said that a chronic shortage of care workers means that more than one in 10 people assessed as needing care in their own homes were instead offered care in residential facilities, often against their own wishes. This is a stark reminder of why we need the investment now. A well-thought-out plan would, as we have repeatedly said, involve a real reform of services that allows people who wish to do so to stay in their homes for longer. There is nothing in the Prime Minister’s Statement about how we use technology, how we improve home adaptations, how we build and adapt more lifetime homes and how we support care workers. Can the Minister tell us whether there has been any engagement with charities and campaigners who deal with these issues every day of their lives, with the national forum, with policy makers, with service users or with carers?
It is a huge frustration that the long-promised White Paper on reforming social care and integrating it with healthcare has again been kicked into the long grass. All Ministers have said is that it will be published later this year. Would it not have been logical—a response to this would be appreciated—to publish the White Paper, set a timetable to consult and then discuss and engage in order to provide a transformative plan that includes how we support an army of unpaid family carers, how we ensure that working-age adults with disabilities have more control over their lives and how we tackle the workforce crisis and support care workers? Instead, we have an unfair funding plan, no reforms and no guarantees.
None of us underestimates the scale of the challenge this issue presents in funding and providing the proper services the country needs. Unfortunately, the fear now is that in the Government’s rush, they have missed that opportunity to seize the real prize for the British people. There is a better way to do this.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, according to the Prime Minister, the package of proposals in this Statement represents
“a project of our era equivalent to the creation of the NHS and the welfare state.”
How, then, do the proposals measure up to this challenging claim?
Taking the spending side first, the Statement covers three separate but related areas. First, there is the implementation, at last, of something like the Dilnot proposals for placing a cap on the contribution that individuals need to make towards their social care. This principle was legislated for by the coalition in 2014 and its implementation is long overdue. Secondly, the Government are making a major investment of about £10 billion per annum for the next three years in the NHS to deal with the backlog of elective procedures. Undoubtedly this is necessary, but not necessarily sufficient. Yesterday, the Prime Minister failed to give any assurances about the rate at which the backlog of procedures would be reduced. Can the Minister today give any further indication of timescale on this?
Thirdly, the Government claim to be making more resources available to state-funded social care beyond Dilnot. This is arguably the most pressing problem of all, with 112,000 vacancies, massive staff turnover rates and providers teetering on the edge of financial viability. Sadly, the Statement was almost silent on the substance. Instead, all details about the future of social care are yet again pushed back into the long-promised White Paper, for which no publication date has been set, as the noble Baroness pointed out. Can the Minister confirm that there will be no immediate increase at all in funds available for social care, not a penny? If so, how does she expect care homes and domiciliary care providers to survive over the coming months? Over the whole three-year period covered by the Statement, exactly how much additional central government funding will flow into adult social care provision unrelated to the Dilnot reforms, bearing in mind that the current annual cash shortfall is somewhere in the range of £6 billion to £14 billion?
After the first three years, the proceeds of the levy are supposed to go increasingly towards social care. However, given that, on the basis of previous experience, overall NHS spending in future is likely to be greater than that currently budgeted for, there will undoubtedly be pressure for this additional level of NHS funding to continue, even after the pandemic catch-up is more or less complete. What assurance can the Government give that over the medium term, the bulk of the revenue raised by the levy will go to social care, as promised? When later this year does the Minister expect the White Paper to be produced? We have heard so many assurances that it is almost here, nearly here or will soon be here. We are a bit sceptical.
The Government document states that they want to
“make care work a more rewarding vocation”.
How will these announcements allow care providers and local authorities to increase the wages of the many thousands of care workers stuck on zero-hours contracts and the minimum wage? Do the Government really believe that offering a few training courses will solve the recruitment and retention problem in this sector? The Government say that they will
“ensure that the 5.4 million unpaid carers have the support and respite that they need”.
How much additional funding over the next three years will now be available to fulfil this promise?
The Government say that they will move towards equalising the amount paid by self-funders and those funded by local authorities. Do they plan to do this by reducing the amount paid by self-funders or by increasing the amount paid by local authorities? If it is the latter, where will the money come from?
I turn to the new hypothecated health and social care levy. Many people are indignant that a major manifesto promise has been broken, but why are they surprised? For this Prime Minister, a promise is not a binding commitment; it is simply a holding position, until it becomes easier to do something else. More surprising than a broken promise is that the Treasury has agreed to introduce a hypothecated tax—something that it normally never countenances, because of all the inflexibilities that it brings. Why has a new, unprecedented, hypothecated tax been introduced here? The obvious reason is that the Government know that they will have ever-growing demands for future spending in health and social care, for which tax rises will be required, and they see this tax as a vehicle for doing that in future. Can the noble Baroness confirm that, for this Parliament at least, there will be no more increases in the levy?
All in all, does this Statement amount—as the Prime Minister claims—to the equivalent for our age as the creation of the NHS and the welfare state? For those trying to run a care home, act as an unpaid carer or subsist on a minimum income, such a boast will ring hollow. Beveridge, Attlee and Bevan must be turning in their graves.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their comments, but I am slightly surprised that they have not welcomed our announcement of a new £36 billion package to help tackle NHS backlogs, reform adult social care and bring the health and social care system together on a long-term, sustainable footing. That is a hugely significant amount of money to help our precious NHS and to solve a problem that all across this House have acknowledged for many years.
We have indeed held many discussions throughout the year with leading members of the sector, specifically on reform, and will of course continue to do so. We have committed to spending an additional £5.6 billion on social care in England, across the next three years. As the noble Baroness rightly says, the deferred payments agreement remains in existence to enable people to use the value of their home, if they need to, without selling it. Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord asked why this involves national insurance. To raise the sums needed for this significant investment in the NHS and to reform social care, only a broad-based tax, such as VAT, income tax or NICs, is able to do so. NICs already ring-fences funds for the NHS and successive Governments have increased it, so there is precedent for our belief that this is the best and fairest way.
The noble Lord is absolutely right: the levy will be ring-fenced for health and social care. HMRC will send funds to the health bodies in all four nations of the UK and, by 2023, to social care funding bodies, such as MHCLG, which will deliver it through local authorities. As I say, part of the reason for using NICs is that the more you earn, the more you pay. I am sure noble Lords are aware that a typical base-rate taxpayer, earning £24,100, will contribute roughly £180 a year, whereas a typical higher-rate taxpayer, earning £67,100, will contribute £715 a year. The highest-earning 14% of people will pay around half the revenues. The 6.2 million lowest earners will be kept out of the levy. The use of NICs also means that the cost of the levy will be shared between individuals and businesses; however, 40% of all businesses will pay nothing extra.
The noble Lord asked about tackling the backlog in the NHS. We will spend £2 billion this year, which is double our previous commitment to tackle the backlog. In addition, we plan to spend more than £8 billion in the following three years, from 2022-23 to 2024-25. On the waiting list, we do not know how many people who did not come forward for help from the NHS during the pandemic will now seek treatment, so plucking numbers out of the air about the size of the waiting list is not helpful. But I can certainly assure both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness that the funding announced will deliver 9 million more checks, scans and procedures until 2024-25. This is a significant investment and, over the next three years, will be the biggest catch-up programme in NHS history.
The noble Baroness asked about local government. She is aware that, in 2021-22, we have provided councils with access to over £1 billion of additional funding for social care, on top of the significant funding provided to help the sector. In the spending review, we are also committed to ensuring that local authorities have access to sustainable funding for core budgets. This announcement includes funding to enable local authorities to move towards paying providers a fair rate for care, which should drive up the quality of adult social care services, improve workforce conditions and increase investment. The funding package covers the costs to local government of implementing the charging reforms, including the cap, the increased capital limit moving towards paying a fair rate for care, which I just mentioned, and associated implementation costs.
The noble Lord asked about self-funders. As he knows, under the current system, individuals who fund their care often pay more than individuals who are funded through their local authority for equivalent care. Under this new system, self-funders will have a choice to ask their local authority to commission their care on their behalf, which means that individuals fully funding their own care could choose to benefit from the market power of local authorities. We will be publishing a consultation document on the details of these proposals next month.
On other issues, we are investing more in supported housing and exploring other innovative housing solutions to support more people to live independently, as the noble Baroness said. As part of the additional £5.4 billion of investment announced, we will fund an extension to the established disabled facilities grant to enable more people to live independently in their own homes.
On the integration work, the House will be looking at the Health and Care Bill shortly, before Christmas, when it begins its passage through this House. That is laying the groundwork for reform, and we will see an improved oversight of how social care is commissioned and delivered. It will facilitate a greater integration between health and care services, on which these reforms build. As we have said, we will work further with the sector and more broadly to coproduce a comprehensive national plan for supporting and enabling integration between health and social care, but I am afraid that I cannot go any further than saying that the White Paper will be published later this year.
Finally, the social care workforce has worked incredibly during this pandemic. Our investment of £500 million across three years will deliver new qualifications, progression pathways and well-being and mental health support, which is critical. We will continue to support the fantastic 5.4 million carers to have the support, advice and respite they need.
Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)
I remind noble Lords that there will no doubt be lots of questions for the Leader, but the Companion is clear that they should be brief. This should not be the occasion for a separate debate, which I am sure will come later.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely and I invite her to speak.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. My noble friend Lord Newby asked, but the noble Baroness did not answer, so I ask again whether she will give an undertaking from the Dispatch Box to guarantee that social care will receive the bulk of the revenue raised by the levy, in the medium term, regardless of whether the NHS has completed the backlog of waiting lists. Otherwise, this is no reform to social care at all, however delayed.
These proposals do nothing to help the current problems in the social care sector. The noble Baroness referred to the extra £1 billion to local government, but all the experts say a minimum of £4 billion a year is needed to help solve them. Can the Minister confirm that, given the current severe crisis in staffing and funding in our care homes, there will be funding on top of that £1 billion at least to start to remedy the problems in social care?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
As I said in my opening remarks, we are committed to spending an additional £5.4 billion across the next three years. This will end the risk of unpredictable care costs and include at least £500 million to support the social care workforce.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, can I ask the noble Baroness about the people currently paying their way in care homes? Are they to get no credit whatsoever for the fees they pay up to October 2023? Is it not grossly unfair if the clock starts only when we reach that point?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
This has been an intractable issue. If all parties had managed to deal with it better, people in the situation the noble Lord mentioned—for whom we have a lot of sympathy—would have been helped. Unfortunately, that is not the case. We have announced a package that will begin with the new cap in October 2023.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I very much welcome the additional resources for the NHS and social care, but will the Government increase and accelerate the resources for social care? Everyone in the NHS knows that only by increasing the capacity in local authority-funded social care can they relieve the pressures on the NHS. The House will recall that we legislated in the Care Act 2014 for a Dilnot-style plan. It is now more than 10 years since he submitted that plan to me as Secretary of State. We should bring it into force, and we can and should do so by April 2022.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am afraid I have already set out the timescale on which we are doing this. This is a complex area and, as I said, the new cap will come in in October 2023. As I said, the funding in this package covers the cost to local government of implementing the charging reforms, including the cap, the increased capital limit moving towards paying a fair rate for care and the associated implementation costs. We will be working closely with local authorities to make sure that we can implement this to the benefit of all our citizens.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, can the noble Baroness say how much additional employers’ NICs will be paid by struggling care home providers in respect of their staff? Could that not be sufficient to make them go under?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I do not believe so, no. As we have said, the levy will be shared between individuals and business. The largest 1% of firms will pay around 70% of the total business contributions, with the smallest 40% paying nothing extra.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, in Northern Ireland the money given directly through Barnett consequentials normally goes into the central pot in the Department of Finance. There is money with this new health and social care tax because it is a UK-wide tax, so what guarantees can the Minister give your Lordships’ House that the money allocated to Northern Ireland will go directly to the health and social care budget?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
That is exactly what we intend to happen. In fact, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will benefit from around 15% more than is generated for their residents, which will be equivalent to around £300 million every year on average. As a total, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will benefit from an additional £2.2 billion each year on average. We intend to put the money directly into the health services across the nations, as the noble Baroness said.
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, as I think I was the first person to propose a cap on care costs in the minority report to the royal commission in 1999, it would be churlish of me not to welcome the fact we are now getting one, albeit a mere 22 years after I first proposed it. It is disappointing that the Government have concentrated their sole attention, practically, on government, state-funded—which means national insurance-funded—care and have apparently paid no attention whatever to the great role that the private sector can play in helping richer people to afford their care in later years.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
The noble Lord will be well aware that historically there has been very low demand for social care insurance products and insurers have actually withdrawn products from the market. We believe that there will now be certainty about costs faced by individuals. We hope that more financial products will come on to the market to enable individuals to plan for their future care needs. We intend to work with the financial services industry to innovate and help people insure themselves against expenditure up to the limits.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, of course everyone welcomes the extra money for the health service. The last big additional sum given to the health service was some £20 billion, which is more than the entire spending on social care. Social care is in immediate crisis; it needs the money now. There are 1.5 million people not getting the care they need and care has been rationed by local authorities that have not got the costs. How will the Government cope with this? The importance of having a settlement for local government to deal with that is there. How do the Government expect this money to get to social care in three years’ time, given what we know will be the pressures on the National Health Service? How will that money be ring-fenced? If it is not, the most vulnerable people in our country—that includes half the budget going to people of working age—will suffer.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I can certainly reassure my noble friend that the levy will be specifically ring-fenced for health and social care. As I said, HMRC will send funds to the health bodies in all four nations of the UK and by 2023 to social care funding bodies such as MHCLG, which will deliver through local authorities. In the up-and-coming three years, £5.4 billion will be provided to support social care.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I remind the House of my registered interests. In 2016, the Government introduced the social care precept and council tax payers have had to pay up to 15% more over the past five years than they otherwise would have done. Council tax is a regressive tax, so would the Minister please confirm that this practice of increasing council tax bills will now stop as a result of this new funding proposal?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I can certainly say to the noble Lord, as I again said in my opening remarks, that we are committed to ensuring that local authorities have access to sustainable funding for core budgets and we will do so in the spending review.
Lord Walney (Non-Afl)
My Lords, how are the Government factoring into the calculations the urgent need for an increase in the basic pay of care workers to increase the quality and availability of care?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
Obviously the noble Lord will know that the vast majority of the workforce is employed privately. Local authorities, as part of the fair rate for social care, will be working with that sector to help improve conditions and pay rates as part of the overall involvement further in the system.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, I very much welcome this announcement. It is a very pragmatic way forward in the circumstances we find ourselves in, particularly when one looks at the past 18 months. Health inequalities have increased significantly and this will go some way to addressing that. However, it is imperative that one looks at the relationship between acute care and social care. Could my noble friend assure me that this will be looked at immediately, with a view to these budget allocations being ring-fenced accordingly?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I thank my noble friend. As she will well know, the Health and Care Bill, which will come to your Lordships’ House shortly, lays the groundwork for that. We are certainly doing much more work on integration. As I said, a White Paper will be published this year. We will be looking at creating the right incentives for integration and prevention, as well as working with the NHS—both hospitals and primary care—social care providers and other partners to ensure that they are working to deliver effective care in people’s homes and communities.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, the plan for health and social care says that a
“workforce that is rewarded and feels valued is essential for high quality care”.
The Care Workers Charity, which provides cash support for care workers in desperate financial need, paid out more than £2.2 million last year. How will the Government’s plan deal with this pay crisis in social care within the next three years?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
As I mentioned to a noble Lord earlier, the vast majority of care workers are employed by private sector providers, which ultimately set their pay, but local authorities are going to work with them to determine a fair rate of pay based on local market conditions. This investment of £500 million across three years will deliver new qualifications, progression pathways, and new well-being and mental health support. We are going to provide support to professionalise and develop the workforce by providing hundreds of thousands of training places and certifications for care workers, so we are putting in a lot of investment. We understand the importance of the social care workforce and the fantastic job it has done, particularly in the incredibly difficult times of the pandemic.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. As the leader of the second-largest metropolitan local authority in the country until earlier this year, I ask the Leader of the House what direct conversations she has had with leaders in the sector, particularly from a local government perspective. If she is not able to tell me directly who she has spoken to, I offer my services to arrange for her to come and visit the leaders in the sector, so that she can fully understand the pressures they have been under over the last several years—before Covid—and what they have gone through during the pandemic to protect the most vulnerable in our society. I concur that without the necessary investment in local government, the National Health Service will fall over; it will be on its knees. It is just not good enough to ignore the needs of local government to provide the services that the most vulnerable people deserve. It is not just older people but all age groups.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I completely recognise the passion the noble Baroness has spoken with, and I thank her for all her work. I would absolutely be happy to take her up on her offer and listen and talk to people. The most useful person for people to talk to is probably the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. He will have had a huge number of conversations about this, and they will be ongoing. I thank the noble Baroness for her offer and look forward to taking it up.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry to say that I cannot see how this solves the social care crisis. Can my noble friend explain how this extra money will actually address the discrimination that there is against those who have dementia, relative to those who have cancer, how it will improve staffing levels or the level of pay, and how the Government have decided that nothing needs to be contributed out of pensions income or buy-to-let income to something that is clearly a social insurance need across the economy?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
What will help the people my noble friend has talked about is the fact that, under these plans, we will now cover all care costs for anyone with assets under £20,000, which is up from the current level of £14,000. Importantly, she will know that, currently, anyone with assets over £23,350 faces paying their care costs in full. The new £100,000 limit is four times higher than that, which means that many thousands of people will now be eligible for further state support under our plans.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
What significance should the House attach to promises made by the Prime Minister?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am sure the noble Lord will make his own judgment on that. I repeat that the Prime Minister was perfectly honest about it in his Statement. He said that
“no Conservative government ever want to raise taxes”,—[Official Report, Commons, 7/9/21; col. 155.]
which is absolutely true, but he wanted to be honest and accept that this will break a manifesto commitment. I am sure that even the noble Lord would agree that, having provided more than £400 billion of support for jobs and livelihoods, businesses and public services at the start of the pandemic, we have particular challenges around our public finances. And that was not in our manifesto.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, do not the questions asked in the last 20 minutes or so illustrate the need for a thorough debate in your Lordships’ House? I say with great respect to my noble friend that the point raised by my noble friend Lord Forsyth needs addressing in detail. Can she give the House an assurance that, when we come back in October, an early, full-day debate will be devoted to these issues?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I can say to my noble friend that the Health and Care Bill will come to this House when we come back, which will allow a lot of debate on this subject matter. He will be pleased to know that, now we have returned, we have many more opportunities for Back-Benchers to put down the titles of debates they would like to bring before the House. I am sure he will take advantage of that.
Baroness Barker (LD)
My Lords, can the Leader of the House explain why employers in freeports are exempt from paying the levy for some employees?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am afraid I will have to get back to the noble Baroness on that.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, under cover of this announcement, the Government broke another manifesto promise by abandoning the triple lock on pensions. With the costs of energy and food projected to rise substantially, how are pensioners who depend on the basic pension going to survive?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am sure the noble Lord will understand that, given the statistical anomaly that has led to average wage growth being 8%, it is just not fair to raise pensions by this figure. For one year only we are moving to a double lock and increasing pensions by the higher of inflation or 2.5%. We will then return to the triple lock. Since the triple lock was put in place in 2011, the state pension has increased by 3% a year; it is now at its highest level relative to earnings for 34 years. The number of pensioners in absolute poverty has fallen by more than 200,000 in the last decade. I do not dispute that this will impact some people, but I think that, for one year, in the light of everything the country has gone through, it is fair and people will agree with it.
Lord Brownlow of Shurlock Row (Con)
My Lords, clearly many people welcome the hypothecated levy and the intended ring-fencing of those resources, but can my noble friend the Leader assure me that these resources will not end up being more waste in the NHS and social care, of which there clearly is too much today?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My noble friend is certainly right; this is a huge amount of investment going to where it is greatly needed. But he is absolutely right that, seeing as taxpayers—all of us—are being asked to contribute more, it is also reasonable to expect health and social care providers to ensure the money is well spent. We will work with them to ensure that happens.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, I wonder whether the Leader of the House can help me with some puzzlement. As I understand it, the Government have produced what they regard as a solution to the problem of social care, but later this year the Government will produce a White Paper on the topic of social care. Can she tell us of any previous occasion when any Government have produced the solution before they have produced the White Paper? These are the politics of Lewis Carroll.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
As I have said, there will be consultation on the detail of the local authority elements and further White Papers on integration. This is a long-running and complex programme, and we will continue to talk to people and consult as we continue developing it.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, asked why income from pensions and buy-to-let property was not covered by these proposals. I wonder whether the Leader can answer that.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I said at the outset that only a broad-based tax such as VAT, income tax or NICs could raise the sums needed for this kind of investment, and we believe that NICs is the fairest way to do that.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, historically, no Government have imposed a percentage increase on national insurance contributions because it hits the very people—the NHS and local government—who are delivering health and social care. For what reason have the Government changed the position on this?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
As I have said, the reason we went to NICs is that we believe that is the fairest, as the higher your earnings, the more you contribute; I gave some figures to show that. As I said, the highest-earning 14% of people will pay around half of revenues, and 6.2 million of the lowest earners will be kept out of the levy.
Standards in Public Life
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to be able to introduce this important debate on standards in public life. There are no saints in your Lordships’ House, nor down the Corridor. If there were they would not declare it, on the grounds that they were saints. I am no exception, so I want to make it clear that I would not be in your Lordships’ House if the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, in his capacity as the Cabinet Secretary, had not undertaken a thorough investigation into allegations against me. Therefore, procedures and processes are really critical to getting this right, and to the debate today.
On Monday evening the noble Lord, Lord True, who is winding up this debate, talked about people being careful not to throw stones when they live in glass houses—but you see we are in a glass house. We are accountable and on the public platform, whether as Peers, Members of Parliament or those in senior positions in public life outside. That is why this debate is so important for that transparency that makes it possible for people to trust those in whom they have placed trust.
Thirty years ago the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who I hope is recovering from his illness, floated the “good chap” theory. This goes back to Renaissance civic virtue, which I fear was challenged by Machiavelli; in other words, none of us is going to avoid making mistakes at some point in our lives, and therefore we need to countervail the overriding issue of power with the procedures and practices that make people trust us.
I was thinking of avoiding talking about the debates on 17 June, 1 July and Monday this week and at Questions yesterday, but I have to draw attention to a couple of points that were made on Monday evening, when in his short intervention the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, reminded us of Lord Acton and how absolute power absolutely. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, as she did in her speech on 18 August, gave us an insight into one part of—I stress only one part—of the Conservative Party when she suggested, and I hope I am not maligning her, that all power, once a party is elected, should lie with the Prime Minister. This is a complete misunderstanding of our constitution. There must always be a separation of party and government and one of the biggest issues to have emerged over recent months is the failure of the governing party to always be careful not to confuse the two. This is true of private emails, it is true of taking private planes and not declaring them and it is true of the appointments, as described at yesterday’s Question Time, of non-executive directors to departments. We all have to be very careful that we understand the responsibility that we carry as public representatives, as appointees to key posts or as Ministers of the Crown.
This afternoon’s debate is not about individual issues, although I know that noble Lords will be raising them, but about a functioning democracy and the example that we set to those dysfunctional regimes and states across the world that we often describe as “failing states”. How can you rail against corruption and the misuse of power elsewhere if you are not incredibly careful that you always demonstrate that you understand the importance of avoiding that misuse in your own country—not only politicians but all those who have a responsibility in public life, whether they are public servants, working in the Civil Service, serving as elected representatives in the devolved Administrations and in local government or who are appointed to undertake key tasks?
In the excellent publication Standards Matter 2, the Committee on Standards in Public Life rightly spells out the direction of travel, and I hope that its final report will be even more robust about the way in which appointments to a whole range of areas of our life are made.
I am very fond of quoting Antonio Gramsci, because I think hegemony is something we should be very wary of—the idea of winner takes all, which in some regimes across the world means literally that. The consequences are horrendous for the population and for the probity and morality of the functioning of those countries.
So, on appointments to whatever post, it is crucial that we are reassured, as I hope the Minister will reassure us, that this is constantly under review and that steps will be taken to avoid what appear to be—because appearance really matters—unfortunate moves towards the hegemony not just of the ruling party but of which particular line individuals took on the issue of Brexit. This issue that was raised at Questions yesterday. It cannot be right for Ministers to stand at the Dispatch Box and remind us, as the noble Lord, Lord True, did yesterday, about who voted which way in the referendum.
On the Ministerial Code and the role of the independent adviser, it is of course absolutely fundamental that there is proportionality. We need to have in place mechanisms that put things right which are not cliff-edge or immediate actions that would be disproportionate to the problem that we are addressing. On appointments outside government once people have left, it is important again that there is proportionality: people should be able to earn a living, but it should be transparent, and any suggestion that they are taking with them the power to influence decisions should be overcome.
Ironically, with the issue of Greensill Capital and the former Prime Minister, while there were many questions to be raised—including about the placement of individuals in the Westminster and Whitehall system, and the interplay between that and business—the system actually worked, because the lobbying by the former Prime Minister was not successful. However, the transparency that would have made that clear much earlier would have helped both David Cameron and those who were accused of actions around him to be able to defend themselves, and those who could not because they are no longer with us, such as the late Lord Heywood, would not then have been traduced in a way that I found very unpleasant.
Lobbying that is not successful often highlights the lobbying that is—for example, on the allocation of public contracts—and people need to be reassured. I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that I think constant reassurance on this and a willingness to investigate, as I was investigated 16 years ago, is really important for public trust.
However, it is also crucial to ensure that we recognise that we are making progress. When there was no register of interests, either in the Commons or in the Lords, all kinds of things went on that we did not know about, including major loans to Prime Ministers to save their historic homes that were never repaid or, for that matter, the gift of a smallholding by a band leader to one of my personal Labour Party heroes. Now that we have a register, we have moved on a little. Ironically, of course, the public are even more sceptical, because they now read about the register and take to heart the idea that something new is happening that they should be wary of.
In the end, of course, every time we take a step to ensure that our procedures and processes, our openness, the register and the reassurances that I am seeking today are very clear, the more we will ensure people’s confidence in our democracy. When we stop caring, the public will stop caring, and when the public stop caring, as we saw under Donald Trump and as we are in danger of seeing here, anything goes—and once anything goes, everything has gone. So, in building trust in politics, in an independent Civil Service and in the actions and probity of those whom we appoint to a range of interests and responsibilities across the country, and in reassuring ourselves that we have the mechanisms in place to hold their feet to the fire, we are doing everyone a service.
So this afternoon I thank everyone who is preparing to take part in this debate. Above all, I appeal to the Members on the Benches opposite to persuade their Ministers that it is in everyone’s interests, including theirs, to get it right for the future.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, this is the third occasion this week on which the House has considered related aspects of the Government’s disregard for the advice of different bodies on the standards of public life. The noble Lord, Lord True, was a close adviser to John Major when the Committee on Standards in Public Life was set up and, we must assume, then agreed with his reform to strengthen propriety and ethics in government. I hope he will not now deny that there is a real problem of declining propriety in this Government. Our Prime Minister seems to think that the rules which govern our constitutional democracy do not apply to him.
The Minister and other Conservatives dismiss concerns on a number of grounds. The noble Lord, Lord True, has told us several times that the Government’s overwhelming majority in the 2019 election allows them to behave as they wish. Another argument is that only the metropolitan liberal elite worries about such fine distinctions on the rules of political behaviour and that most people accept that Governments share the spoils of office with their friends. I remind the Government Benches that their apparent majority in December 2019 rested on 43.5% of the popular vote.
I also remind them that one prudent rule for any democratic Government is that they should refrain from actions that they would strongly oppose if they were taken by a Government of a different colour. We can all imagine the raucous opposition that Conservatives and the Conservative press would create if a Labour Government or—even worse—a left-of-centre coalition dominated by metropolitan liberals bent the conventions of constitutional propriety. This Government will not be in power for ever—unless they manage to bend constitutional financial rules a lot further.
Constitutional democracy is not a contest, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, in which the winner takes all and the losers have to swallow whatever humiliation is inflicted on them. It is about limited government, checks and balances on executive power, the rule of law, transparency and respect for minorities as well as for the majority currently in power. The new book of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, Governing Britain, spells this out very well and I recommend it to all on the Conservative Benches.
The debates that surrounded the drafting of the US constitution set out these principles well. In Britain, our constitution has evolved through a series of understandings about limits on executive power. If those in government throw over those understandings, they undermine our unwritten constitution and threaten to slide from good government to corrupt and authoritarian government.
Standards matter, too, and the CSPL sets out a number of concerns about current shortcomings, such as a lack of transparency in many public appointment processes and the limited independence of the Prime Minister’s officially titled independent adviser on the Ministerial Code. I particularly noted the reference in paragraph 35 to the implications of the massive growth in government outsourcing and the opportunities for corruption that it has opened up—as we may have seen in the management of the Covid pandemic. Other CSPL reports have focused on the regulation of electoral finance and the importance of the Electoral Commission. Careful regulation of money in politics in vital to the maintenance of an open, democratic system. The weakening of limits on campaign spending in the USA has clearly damaged the quality of American democracy; we need to avoid the same happening here, and the forthcoming Elections Bill threatens to do that.
The Minister has adapted remarkably easily to the transition from John Major’s style of ethical government to the rule-bending populism of Boris Johnson. I nevertheless hope that he will reassure the House that he remains committed, personally as well as on behalf of the Government, to the seven principles of public life, to ethical standards, to transparency and public accountability in appointments, and to maintaining broad public trust in government. The Prime Minister likes to speak about the UK as a beacon of democracy for the world; it is the Minister’s responsibility to ensure that that beacon does not get dimmer.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, on his choice of subject and the way he introduced it. He demonstrated that this topic is best discussed in your Lordships’ House, rather than the other place. My experience there was that the exchanges resulted in the political currency being debased, as each party tried to portray its rivals as the more corrupt and the collective reputation of politicians was further tarnished. Here, we are an offshore island to the mainland of political controversy. We benefit from Cross-Benchers, not least the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life; and the politicians taking part are, for the main, men and women whose reserves of partisan venom have been drained by the passage of time—although the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, still had a drop or two left.
Each speaker approaches this issue from their own perspective. In 1997, I thought I had the least attractive job in public life as Secretary of State for Transport, charged with privatising the railways in a Government with no majority. Then I became chairman of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges in 2001, charged with enforcing the Code of Conduct for MPs, sitting in judgment on my colleagues and friends, and occasionally bringing their careers to an end. That was not why I became a Member of Parliament. My first point, from that experience, is to welcome the trend of removing politicians from decisions about their conduct and pay; I believe that process has further to go. There are now voting lay members on the committee I used to chair, but perhaps they could go further and have an independent chairman.
On the Ministerial Code, again, we need to go further. Gordon Brown appointed an adviser on ministerial standards in 2008, a post now held by the noble Lord, Lord Geidt, but he can suggest areas for investigation only privately to the PM. This falls short of what is required—namely, full discretion to launch inquiries, as with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, along with the ability to publish findings in full.
Related to that are decisions on pay and allowances. Again, these decisions should be distanced from beneficiaries. Here, I make a suggestion which will not be greeted with acclaim. Normally, your Lordships’ House is ahead of the other place on internal reform—televising proceedings and having iPads in the Division Lobby—but on pay and allowances I would argue that we lag behind. In 2010, the other place contracted out decisions on both to IPSA. It was a baptism of fire, as the organisation was set up at speed and made mistakes. Your Lordships decided not to join, and I understand why, but now we are the only national body that fixes its pay and allowances. IPSA has been up and running for over 10 years; it has authority, credibility and experience of fixing pay and allowances for parliamentarians. The annual controversy over MPs’ pay has been largely defused.
I happen to think that our present system of allowances is our Achilles heel, generating bad publicity and unfair on those who do not have a home in London, but we are too terrified to risk controversy and change it. We should follow the other place and contract out. To those who think that IPSA would dress us in hair-shirts, the evidence points otherwise. Since I joined this House in 2015, our allowance has gone up from £300 to £313, or by 4.3%. Over the same period, that of MPs has risen from £67,060 to £81,932, an increase of 22.2%.
I move on to what I hope is safer territory to make a final point. While there are no grounds for complacency, I believe standards in public life here are among the highest in the world. Nicolas Sarkozy, the former President of France, has been sentenced to three years in jail, two of them suspended, for corruption. Silvio Berlusconi, the former Prime Minister of Italy, was convicted of tax fraud in an Italian court and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. Jacob Zuma, former President of South Africa, is now in prison for contempt of court and facing trial for corruption. Ex-President Trump was impeached twice, and he and his company face a range of civil and criminal actions while, in 2018, the ex-President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, was the front-runner for the presidency, even though he was in jail serving a 12-year corruption sentence. So yes, we can do better; but we are not bottom of the class.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for securing this debate and for the way he introduced it. We are also indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, for providing us with the agenda for the debate in his June report, which the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, referred to. I cannot really share the sunny optimism of the previous speaker. I speak from the perspective of an ex-public servant and I fear that there is a huge amount of evidence around that standards are slipping. The report of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, cites a good deal of evidence; I will just touch on three points and then add two thoughts of my own.
First, to me it is shocking and, in the words of the report by the noble Lord, Lord Evans, it is not “sustainable” that most public servants now have
“no confidence in the regulation of the Ministerial Code.”
That is very dangerous, and the report says it is unsustainable. The noble Lord, Lord Geidt, must be given the ability to instigate his own investigations.
Secondly, so must ACOBA, the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, which currently can only advise when advice is sought. We can see someone occupying a senior position in the Cabinet Office while being paid a salary by a financial company and joining it immediately on leaving the Cabinet Office without having any contact with ACOBA; that absolutely cannot be right. The rules need to be made enforceable in employment contracts of officials and in arrangements with Ministers.
Thirdly, another recent case reveals that special advisers can be double-hatted as non-executive directors in departments. That is absurd. The concept of the non-executive director was to help Whitehall by bringing in the expertise of senior businesspeople who knew how useful to a CEO was the challenge provided by a strong board. The position is not meant for chums; it is meant for challenging. Clearly, there is a need to bring the non-executive directors into the scope of the regulated appointments.
All these changes are clearly necessary and urgent, but will they be sufficient? Here are my own thoughts. The tone from the top seems to be the problem. It is not just about overruling the watchdog or a casual insouciance about the rules on financial disclosure; it is more fundamental. Standards in public life will continue to slip if there is a continuing failure to see that the public servant is most loyal when he has the courage to challenge what he believes would not work or would be improper. I am no fan of the French cabinet system, but at least their cabinets do not just consist just of political chums. The administrative experience is also imbedded in the cabinet. We risk getting the worse of both worlds.
Finally, what happened to personal responsibility? We have seen the issues of the building standards for Grenfell, the Post Office and Horizon, the Kabul embassy guards, and no ministerial resignations. Noble Lords will remember Peter Carrington, who was in no way responsible for the Falklands. It was not he who paid off HMS “Endurance” or refused Cabinet discussion of the Ridley plan, but Peter Carrington resigned because it happened on his watch. That is the right tone from the top and it sets the right standard in public life.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford
My Lords, it is a great privilege to take part in this debate and to follow the noble Lords who have spoken. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for his leadership and introduction. I learned a great deal from the noble Lord while Bishop of Sheffield.
I suggest that improving standards in public life is a three-cornered stool. One leg of that stool is being neglected in the public conversation. It is right that we have the highest possible principles and standards. The Nolan principles have stood the test of time and I support their application to people and their extension to areas of technology. They are the first important leg. The second leg is the way in which we hold one another to account on those principles, which is where I guess that the majority of this debate will be focused. Others are better qualified to speak on this than me. Those ways need to be thorough and consistent with the Nolan principles.
There is an important third leg to this stool, which I want to call formation and support. How do we intentionally grow a community of diverse public servants who are ethically formed and equipped, and have the inner capacity to be honest, open, objective, accountable and selfless? How do we form boards and cultures which are able to work in those ways? They do not simply happen. How do we offer ongoing support and learning to those who exercise high public office and have to cope with greater and greater complexity, pressure and temptation?
According to the great biblical tradition, there is one central insight on leadership in communities which is foundational and counter to much contemporary teaching on leadership. It is that the exercise of leadership in communities is very, very, difficult. The greater the power and authority we are given, the more our character is tested. Part of our humanity is that we are fallible; politicians fall short and so do churches and Church leaders. Being honest about our fallibility creates a much better climate for public discourse. Remember the biblical stories of Abraham and Sarah, of David, Ahab and Jezebel and of Peter. Last Friday the Church remembered Gregory the Great, a Pope in the 7th century. Gregory’s Pastoral Rule, his legacy to all the centuries, is a masterpiece on the complexity of leadership and the need to balance the inner and outer life. For centuries, translated by King Alfred, it was the foundation of good government in Europe.
So, what are the ways in which this Government and Parliament can recognise the need for this formation and support and develop it? First, is it possible to make a similar investment in training and support in the Nolan principles as the recent welcome investment in relationships and conduct in the workplace? Secondly, is it possible to ensure confidential networks of support across government departments, especially for those in senior roles, given the stresses and strains they carry? We need to nurture and look after our leaders. Thirdly, is it possible to build formation and training on ethical principles into every team and board so that, year by year, we tend to and grow this aspect of our common life?
Lord Puttnam (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, although in all honesty I would have preferred to have been book-ended by Conservative Peers, as it is to members of their party that most of my remarks, rather like those of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, are necessarily addressed. I find it deeply regrettable that so few Conservative voices have chosen to contribute to the subject which, as a young man, I thought was synonymous with everything the party stood for.
I hope the Minister will offer the House some form of explanation as to when the subject of standards in public life became so far removed from his Government’s concerns. I also hope he will acknowledge that his party, many of whom over the past quarter of a century I have had the opportunity to befriend, listen to and respect, have found themselves at a point where their Government gets “nil points” in all seven categories of the Nolan principles.
It was to address a self-inflicted parliamentary crisis that Sir John Major, a man for whom I have nothing but respect, helped encode what most believed to be a self-evident set of standards to be followed by those pursuing careers in political and public life. It was not a particularly complicated set of standards, and, with our traditional sense of complacency, most of us believed that, with the odd tilt of the tiller, we could retain, or gain, the sense of self-respect that we had always believed ourselves to enjoy. We were horribly wrong. How often have I heard wiser voices than mine in this House warn against the dangers of the slippery slope? Where standards in public life are concerned, the present Government have taken us careening down the Cresta Run.
Little over a year ago, I had the honour of chairing a special committee of this House, compiling a report entitled Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Trust. I had originally intended the title to read, “The restoration of trust”, but the evidence that our committee received was so damning that, in our judgment, nothing less than a “resurrection” of trust would be sufficient to regain broad public confidence. At several points in the report, we made particular reference to the Committee on Standards in Public Life as being the most appropriate body to support, and even help to deliver, a number of our unanimous recommendations.
So far, the pandemic has prevented the House debating that report. Of course, it is possible that differing views might surface, but our report was published six months before the horrifying Trump-inspired spectacle that occurred in Washington on 6 January. I sincerely believe that many of our conclusions precisely anticipated those events. We argued that, far from being outdated, the Nolan principles were more relevant in a digital environment than ever. I will go further: anyone who believes that our fragile form of western parliamentary democracy can withstand a barrage of duplicity, deceit and obfuscation—most especially when its principal source is from within our own Government—is a danger to themselves and to the very best of everything that this House has ever represented.
The Government’s claim, reiterated by the Minister at the conclusion of Monday evening’s debate, that the Prime Minister—particularly this Prime Minister—should have sole responsibility for setting the standards and making public appointments is rather like offering Basil Fawlty sole responsibility for developing closer relationships with our European friends and neighbours.
In conclusion, I have no idea how long I will be around, but, with all the force and energy that I can possibly muster, I beg those many decent Conservative Peers and Members of another House with a concern for the principles of parliamentary democracy to do what they know they will have to do sooner or later: muster the courage to say to the Prime Minister, “In God’s name, go. Go before you destroy the last sliver of self-respect that our party can call its own”.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, it is a huge pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. I commend his Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Trust report to all noble Lords who have not had the opportunity to read it. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for initiating this debate.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, I will refer to a Select Committee report, going slightly off track in terms of today’s debate: last February’s Artificial Intelligence and Public Standards report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale. This made a number of recommendations to strengthen the UK’s “ethical framework” around the deployment of AI in the public sector. Its clear message to the Government was that
“the UK’s regulatory and governance framework for AI in the public sector remains a work in progress and deficiencies are notable … on the issues of transparency and data bias in particular, there is an urgent need for … guidance and … regulation … Upholding public standards will also require action from public bodies using AI to deliver frontline services.”
It said that these were needed to
“implement clear, risk-based governance for their use of AI.”
It recommended that a mandatory public AI “impact assessment” be established
“to evaluate the potential effects of AI on public standards”
right at the project-design stage.
The Government’s response, over a year later—in May this year—demonstrated some progress. They agreed that
“the number and variety of principles on AI may lead to confusion when AI solutions are implemented in the public sector”.
They said that they had published an “online resource”—the “data ethics and AI guidance landscape”—with a list of “data ethics-related resources” for use by public servants. They said that they had signed up to the OECD principles on AI and were committed to implementing these through their involvement as a
“founding member of the Global Partnership on AI”.
There is now an AI procurement guide for public bodies. The Government stated that
“the Equality and Human Rights Commission … will be developing guidance for public authorities, on how to ensure any artificial intelligence work complies with the public sector equality duty”.
In the wake of controversy over the use of algorithms in education, housing and immigration, we have now seen the publication of the Government’s new “Ethics, Transparency and Accountability Framework for Automated Decision-Making” for use in the public sector. In the meantime, Big Brother Watch’s Poverty Panopticon report has shown the widespread issues in algorithmic decision-making increasingly arising at local-government level. As decisions by, or with the aid of, algorithms become increasingly prevalent in central and local government, the issues raised by the CSPL report and the Government’s response are rapidly becoming a mainstream aspect of adherence to the Nolan principles.
Recently, the Ada Lovelace Institute, the AI Now Institute and Open Government Partnership have published their comprehensive report, Algorithmic Accountability for the Public Sector: Learning from the First Wave of Policy Implementation, which gives a yardstick by which to measure the Government’s progress. The position regarding the deployment of specific AI systems by government is still extremely unsatisfactory. The key areas where the Government are falling down are not the adoption and promulgation of principles and guidelines but the lack of risk-based impact assessment to ensure that appropriate safeguards and accountability mechanisms are designed so that the need for prohibitions and moratoria for the use of particular types of high-risk algorithmic systems can be recognised and assessed before implementation. I note the lack of compliance mechanisms, such as regular technical, regulatory audit, regulatory inspection and independent oversight mechanisms via the CDDO and/or the Cabinet Office, to ensure that the principles are adhered to. I also note the lack of transparency mechanisms, such as a public register of algorithms in operation, and the lack of systems for individual redress in the case of a biased or erroneous decision.
I recognise that the Government are on a journey here, but it is vital that the Nolan principles are upheld in the use of AI and algorithms by the public sector to make decisions. Where have the Government got to so far, and what is the current destination of their policy in this respect?
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Blunkett for initiating this debate. I was a member and acting chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life about 20 years ago. We undertook the first review of the seven principles and set up a number of codes for Ministers and spads, as well as looking at the issue of lobbying, among other things. I am pleased that the current chair, the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, is present today—I can only guess at the challenges of the current role and, for what it is worth, I am confident that no one could carry it out as well as he can. This reminded me that the late Baroness Maddock was a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life at the same time as me. I want to pay tribute to her work and say how much she is missed.
On the same floor in Great Smith Street was the commissioner for Civil Service appointments—then the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar—who is present today. Also on the same floor was the Commissioner for Public Appointments, whose responsibilities had not then been filleted, or, as I would call it, “Grimstoned”, compared with the current occupant of the post. It is fair to say that the challenges were the same then and the pressures as great. I first ask the Minister: will he restore and strengthen the role of the Commissioner for Public Appointments—perhaps de-Grimstone it?
Turning to the recent Committee on Standards in Public Life appointment, I want to emphasise that I am not saying that a former member of the Bullingdon Club is not fit to be a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. No doubt, he has paid his debt to society. However, I am concerned about the standard of applicants who failed if he was the best. I appreciate that, if you interview people on Zoom—other remote devices are available—you cannot spot whether they are wearing an ankle tag, but surely some diversity is called for.
The Institute for Government has said that the Ministerial Code and the role of independent adviser were no longer working, and I agree with that. However, the Institute for Government and Transparency International, of which I am a long-term admirer, have both called for the Ministerial Code to be embedded in statute. I prefer to accept the recommendation on this of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The Prime Minister is responsible, and it is his or her integrity that is under the spotlight. The committee offered some sensible suggestions about sanctions and the independent adviser’s powers. Are the Government minded to accept them?
On Greensill Capital, I welcome the statement from ACOBA that lobbying the Government unfairly to benefit a new employer on leaving office is “inappropriate and unacceptable”. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, is doing the best he can with tools which have been woefully inadequate for decades.
My interest in the Greensill affair centred on what I believe to be the disgraceful treatment of Lady Heywood, the widow of Sir Jeremy, who would have brought distinction to this House had it not been for his untimely death. She sensed, quite rightly, that her husband was being lined up as a scapegoat. Lady Heywood described the Boardman inquiry as a “travesty of process”. She was repeatedly denied requests since late April for her late husband to have representation and was included only one week before publication, where Mr Boardman read out his conclusions to her. She said:
“I am horrified that I have to be here to try and defend my husband against what has been a fabricated attack on him and an absolutely horrible process.”
Let us be clear: Jeremy Heywood, Lord Heywood, was implementing government policy decided by Ministers. Lady Heywood’s name is listed under
“List of interviewees and other meetings”
in the Boardman report—the Report of the Facts. It implies much more than the reality. She did not have a proper opportunity to ensure that her husband was defended. I shall not comment on the suitability of the author to conduct the inquiry, but, having looked at the 150-page report closely, I want to say that the blurred lines of accountability at the centre of government could not be clearer.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for whom I have huge respect. I also commend, as others have done, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for calling this debate.
Standards are not a topic that those of us in public life like to discuss. If I am being charitable, I think that is because we sometimes fear being accused of throwing stones while we live in glass houses, but the cynical side of me recognises that, sometimes, the less said, the better, because we do not necessarily want people to be reminded that we are here to uphold standards and to be held to account for that.
However, we have to acknowledge that our privileges as legislators and decision-makers on matters which affect other people do not come without responsibility. Part of that is upholding standards which people have every right to expect of us. Obviously, that includes not breaking formal rules, but people’s expectations of us are sometimes hard to codify. “No rules were broken” cannot be an excuse when it is obvious that we have fallen short in our conduct. That is why, as public figures, we have to meet another test in meeting expectations and that is in how we hold one another to account on behalf of the public. That includes in a debate such as this.
Before I go on to my main point, I should say in respect of your Lordships’ House that we have done a lot in the past 10 years to improve the sanctions regime here, but, as noble Lords will know from other debates, because we are an unelected House, I believe that we still have further to go. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, is a member of the relevant committee. I hope that this is a subject it will revisit.
As my main point today, I want to make a positive case for why any of us as public servants should, just as the code requires of us under the heading of “Leadership”, uphold standards and promote them. The simple reason is that these standards help promote behaviours and social norms which bond us together as a society. Behaviour which we associate with good character is particularly important for us to see among those who obtain or are given the power to lead or to make decisions which affect everyone else—that was mentioned earlier by the right reverend Prelate. It helps stimulate the confidence necessary for us to comply with and follow what is asked or requested.
In a complex world where people are increasingly angry and distrustful, and asked to take on trust complex solutions, we look for simple motives. But we can judge people’s motives only through the actions that we see on display. Leaders need to promote the importance of common standards of behaviour and social norms for us to tackle some of our biggest and most difficult problems, because that is the only way we can bind everybody in. What we must not do if we are to be successful in meeting that challenge is weaponise or politicise the standards in public life that people have every right to expect of us. We must uphold and promote by example those standards to make sure that, together, we meet people’s expectations and serve them better.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Blunkett for instituting this debate and for the measured terms in which he introduced it. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, about the collective and individual responsibility for leadership in standards. Of course, one has to reflect that standards at Westminster can permeate the whole of public life. Therefore, we need to be very cautious about how we conduct ourselves here as well as in government as a whole.
We know that concern about public standards is not new. Lord Nolan’s committee was a response in part to the cash for questions affair, and we know that party funding and expenses were a major concern in the 2000s. However, I have to say that, since 2010, the litany of poor behaviour by Ministers and ex-Ministers seems to be have been off the scale. Rather like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I have deplored the near-contempt that many Ministers have shown towards their officials in failing to understand that constructive criticism is partly what they are there to do to enhance the quality of decision-making.
I pay tribute to all those members of the various regulatory bodies that have been established over the past 30 years, but I am afraid that they have proved flimsy in the face of the behaviour of some Ministers and former Ministers. My noble friend Lord Blunkett referred to the “good chap and chapess” theory. The problem is, what happens if the Prime Minister is not a good chap? How far can we have confidence in a system where the Prime Minister himself, who has overall responsibility for standards in public life, is clearly a man who over the years has had a default position of carelessness with the truth and no concern whatever about upholding standards? This is the problem we have with all the recommendations that I have seen so far for improving the situation.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Evans, and his committee and to the other committees. I think the recommendations that have been put forward should be implemented, beefing up the current system, with the independent adviser being able to initiate investigations and publish the outcome of those investigations. The Institute for Government has suggested that the Ministerial Code should set out the sanctions that might be applied for different breaches. We are going to hear from the Committee on Standards in Public Life shortly, but there are other very useful recommendations on business appointments, transparency, and lobbying and public appointments where it said that the commissioner ought to be given more powers to uphold the integrity of the process. The scandal of the Government’s determination to put one person into Ofcom to do over the BBC and completely traduce the system of appointments is one of the most disgraceful acts I have ever seen any Government do.
Next week we have another debate, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on the training of Ministers, which I think will be interesting. He wants it to be training in decision-making; I am afraid I think it has to be training in integrity, ethics and understanding what the Ministerial Code means and how they ought to behave, including their attitude towards officials. Will this do in the face of a Prime Minister who has no concern whatever about those standards? I doubt it.
I am afraid that, in the end, I reach the conclusion that, while it may be against our political tradition, if it goes on like this, it will have to be outsourced to the courts or an independent body. We cannot trust the person who is responsible for the Ministerial Code to oversee it properly and effectively, and our democratic institutions and public life generally suffer hugely because of it.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I shall start with a surprise and say how pleased—indeed, delighted—I am that the noble Lord, Lord True, will reply to this debate. He will be relieved to hear that I am not going to have a go at him or indeed his Government. However tempted I am, I am leaving that to others—and, as we have seen, they are doing it much more eloquently and effectively than I could have done.
As my noble friend Lord Blunkett said in his brilliant introduction to this debate, the seven principles of public life apply not just to the UK Government but to local government and now, of course, to the devolved authorities, to which I am going to turn. When the Scottish Parliament was set up many said that it should not copy the outdated traditions of Westminster. That was understandable, but, sadly, on breaches of the seven principles the SNP Government have not just copied us here but seem to be after the gold medal—if there was a gold medal—for doing this.
It has not always been the case. The Labour First Minister Henry McLeish resigned over a small muddle in his office expenses, and the Tory MSP David McLetchie, who was much respected but is sadly no longer with us, resigned because he took a taxi via his office to go to the Scottish Parliament. They were honourable resignations, but we have not had any from the SNP.
Coming to the SNP, the notorious Salmond/Sturgeon duo is the prime example. It has been well chronicled, but the allegations of an organised conspiracy against Alex Salmond continue. Indeed, astonishingly, the former ambassador Craig Murray—I am not his greatest fan—was sentenced to eight months in prison not for naming the complainers, which would have been a clear contempt, but for so-called jigsaw identification from which, it was claimed, they might be identified. Nicola Sturgeon says that she told everything to the parliamentary committee of inquiry in the eight hours of evidence that she gave. But Jackie Baillie MSP, one of the most effective members, if not the most effective member, of that committee, rightly contends that the Scottish Government deliberately withheld vital information from it. There was no transparency there.
Then there is the scandal of the secret £12 billion deal with two Chinese companies which was signed by Nicola Sturgeon in March 2020 in private, withheld from Parliament and the public, and which then mysteriously fell through six months later. There was no transparency there. As Ian Murray, the shadow Scottish Secretary says, there was also a complex web of links between SNP Ministers and Sanjeev Gupta, the Scottish part of the now notorious Greensill saga. Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon continues—as we saw yesterday in her statement to the Scottish Parliament—her obsession with another referendum on independence, wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned cash on improperly paying civil servants to produce a case that is clearly party-political and is, indeed, in a reserved area of the constitution. Then there is the rapidly growing scandal of the Crown Office. Having already outspent its budget by pursuing malicious prosecutions, it is now facing a further claim of £120 million on top of that as the Rangers crisis deepens.
These are just a few of many examples—I could give more if time allowed—of how the seven principles, particularly of integrity, objectivity, accountability and openness, have been breached by the SNP Government. And although the controversies of the missing £600,000 in the SNP’s finances and the McGarry embezzlement charges are party-political, they also reflect badly on the Scottish Government. The SNP has become very skilful at controlling criticism using patronage and threats. Nevertheless, some courageous people, such as Jim Sillars, have spoken out, describing the Government of the party of which he still a member as corrupt. Sadly, with honourable exceptions, some of the media and civil society are also cowed. STV is heavily dependent on Scottish Government advertising and the BBC seems to be in the thrall of the First Minister. Opposition parties—the Tories and the Lib Dems, as well as Scottish Labour—are increasingly effective at exposing the scandals of the SNP.
Now I come to the noble Lord, Lord True, again. There is one action that the UK Government could do to help. If parliamentary privilege that we have here in both Houses were extended to Holyrood, MSPs would be able to speak the truth without fear of prosecution. I hope that Ministers will give consideration to taking action on this in legislation as quickly as possible. Since I have resisted the temptation to attack the noble Lord, Lord True, I hope he will respond positively this afternoon.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I think I should steer clear of the topics raised by the noble Lord who spoke most recently, but I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for her kind words about my late colleague Diana Maddock. She is much missed on our side. She was a predecessor on the Committee on Standards in Public Life on which I now serve.
One of the key tasks of that committee is to monitor how the seven principles are being applied and to assess the relevance and resilience of those principles in an age when society is changing and evolving, when legislation imposes new challenges and demands on those who deliver public services, and when public expectations are a moveable feast and reshaped. There are new risks and new opportunities, so the committee has a full agenda.
The principles operate in a dynamic society. Even seemingly rock-solid principles, such as the principle of objectivity, which require office holders to act “without discrimination or bias”, change from generation to generation. I will give an example: when my mother got married, she was required to resign from her job in the Civil Service. There was not much objectivity there. In my generation, the fight for equal pay for equal work across public services finished only when it was resolved in the High Court. There was not much objectivity there. Now, my children have expectations about protection from sexual harassment and bullying in their workplace that would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. Noble Lords may well think it has been a change in the application of the principle of objectivity in the right direction.
However, some changes have had more mixed results. The advent of social media has indeed dramatically improved openness, but it has also—as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, pointed out—enhanced bullying and created a polarised climate in which calm and balanced decision-making may put at risk. That polarisation has made custodianship of those principles—
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I am grateful to him for referring to my contribution earlier, but I am just a little concerned: I was not suggesting anything in the way that he is interpreting—I did not refer to anything in the way that he is suggesting I meant. I would just like to correct him on that.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I deeply apologise if I misunderstood or misinterpreted what the noble Baroness said. I certainly would not wish to sustain that. What I will say is that there has been a polarisation in political dialogue, which has led to the custodianship of those principles being an increasingly challenging task.
An example I will give is that, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton gave a hint of a tax change to a journalist a few moments before giving his 1947 Budget speech, he felt compelled to resign over his leak. Last Friday, the Prime Minister set out a new tax policy in a daily newspaper, with a three-day lapse before a Statement was made in the House. Any idea that this breach should lead to his resignation is now regarded as absurd in the popular discourse. That means that, clearly, the application of the principles of integrity and selflessness have migrated in that period. Yet the principle of leadership still requires a leader to
“be willing to challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.”
The CSPL does not deal with individual cases. It does not make findings of fact nor does it pass sentence. Where appropriate, that is the task of the various regulatory and monitoring bodies. Nevertheless, when a pattern of practice emerges in public life that, at the very least, challenges the conventionally understood meaning of the principles, the committee does report on it and makes recommendations. Those recommendations go via the Cabinet Office direct to the Prime Minister. That is of course both a great strength and a serious weakness. However, those who argue that it should report instead to Parliament, or maybe have a free-standing statutory constitutional position, are surely mistaking the presenting symptom for the underlying disease, which is that the UK has a uniquely powerful prime ministerial constitutional model.
All roads lead to the door of No. 10. Everything depends on the occupant leading from the top, whether it is on Covid, Brexit, or standards in public life. Seen that way, the more directly that the Committee on Standards in Public Life sends its good advice and strong recommendations to the top, the better. There is certainly a strong case for urgent reform of our current model of prime ministerial power, but that is a matter for a further debate.
Lord Evans of Weardale (CB)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, in this debate. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for securing this debate, which is timely and important. I declare an interest as the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
I am grateful to noble Lords for their support for the various recommendations that we have made in recent years and also for the contribution that many noble Lords have made to our consideration. The cross-party nature of our committee is a real strength and means that the recommendations that we make carry more weight that they would otherwise. We wait with optimism that the Government will respond positively to the most recent recommendations that have been discussed already this afternoon.
There has been no golden age of public standards in the United Kingdom. We have already heard about MPs’ expenses and cash for questions and, going further back, we can think about corruption in local government in the 1960s. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom has a strong reputation for the public standards that are embodied in our public life and for the lack of corruption that we enjoy. That is something that matters enormously to our national well-being.
I was struck by the compelling evidence that the committee received recently from business leaders as to the value that they put on high public standards and the fact that this makes the United Kingdom a more attractive investment area. We were also impressed when we talked to members of sixth forms the year before last and asked them what they saw as the right public standards. They gave a strong endorsement to the seven principles of public life that were first articulated by Lord Nolan. More recently, our committee has commissioned research into public attitudes towards public standards, and we were encouraged again that there was strong support for the idea that those in public life should live up to high standards. I do not believe that this is something merely of interest to the metropolitan elite; it is also of great interest to young people today, and to the people of this country.
We have a strong reputation but we need always to be looking for ways in which we can shore that up. Our system of public standards regulation in this country is complex—probably too complex—and relies on a network of bodies, some of which have statutory power, some of which do not, and some of which are dependent entirely upon convention. There are strengths to that, in that standards apply differently in different environments, but some of the institutions that we rely on need to have better statutory underpinning to ensure that they are able to undertake their roles strongly and without fear of any political interference. We need to consider whether there is more to be done by way of statutory underpinning for our standards system.
I have also noted with interest the way in which legal process is starting to encroach on this area. The Good Law Project has brought a number of cases that, ultimately, have been about public standards. We are seeing the way in which the courts are starting to make decisions or how the Government have sometimes changed their position when challenged in the courts. I do not wholly welcome that. This is something where the political leadership of this country needs to provide the strong lead; we should not have to rely on the courts. The seven principles of public life are a personal responsibility for all of us who have a public role, whether in politics, government, local government or beyond. The seven principles, which I think have stood the test of time extraordinarily well, are ones that apply institutionally, but also individually, and are a personal responsibility.
A number of noble Lords have made reference to recommendations that we made in our Standards Matter 2 report in respect of a number of the institutions that we rely on. I await with hope that we will see progress and that the Government will respond positively to those.
I also draw attention to another matter that has been referred to briefly—namely, the forthcoming Elections Bill, which contains provisions that, in my view, would significantly weaken the independence of the Electoral Commission. We should view that with great concern, not as a party-political issue, but one of good governance. There was a Written Ministerial Statement on this recently, which was encouraging, but I believe that we need to see changes to what is in the Bill if we are going to underpin the independence of the electoral system which is, in turn, a critical part of our public standards.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Evans, and indeed to take part in a debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Blunkett. He set the case before us, and it has been illustrated widely. My contribution shall be much narrower; I mean to complement what we have heard thus far.
If I may decouple the words “my noble friend”, I shall take the word “friend” out for a moment and release it from its honorific usage when we are in this House, which limits its application to those on our side of the House. Suppose, in a debate like this, we look for what the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has just suggested is the benefit of the committee system—namely, that all of us, on all Benches, have a common interest in seeing this together as a team and not in oppositional terms, although there is plenty of illustrative material that could point the finger here, there or anywhere else.
The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said that he was not a saint. From my professional background, I found saints a pain in the backside and prefer dealing with sinners any day.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
The realities are all around me, as I can hear from that response.
If we consider ourselves a Committee of the whole House and if the word “nobility”, freed from the word “friend” just for a moment, can be a word that sums up all those Nolan principles—truth, integrity and all the other things—we will have a starting point.
I have to say that this House astonished me in recent times in the way it responded to the introductions to the House made by the Prime Minister that took the proportions between our respective parties into such an unhealthy place. The Labour Party, since the Burns report, has tried hard to follow the formula we all agreed as friends, and I think the Liberal Democrats have done the same. However, the expansion on the Conservative Benches is in defiance of an agreed position that all of us took in accepting the Burns report. I was astonished that there was not an uproar. My noble friend Lord Blunkett introduced Machiavelli into these discussions this afternoon. I would introduce Extinction Rebellion, because its tactics are more appropriate for this present age. If we had glued ourselves to our seats or bolted ourselves to the doors, protesting against the mistreatment of this House and of this Parliament by overruling the common, agreed statement of the House on the question of its membership, we would have shown some stamina and spunk and would have had a word we could possibly say outside this Chamber.
Public trust has been invested in every one of us. The electorate have put their trust in every Member of the other place. When the body politic has a rotten head, it will soon find itself infected similarly. I therefore believe that we must take the general points and address the philosophy and constitutional aspect of this case, but it is in the interests of all of us—and of our credibility outside this Chamber—for us to see that we simply must find a way to deal with infractions and diminished responsibility, which are a threat to the public life of this country.
I suppose that, as I sit down, that someone will say, “There we are, he has reverted to type—that was a Methodist sermon.” If it was, let the cap fit.
Baroness D’Souza (CB)
My Lords, in the UK, where governance relies heavily on conventions, there is always the danger that these conventions are ignored or significantly tailored to fit the current zeitgeist, in Parliament and beyond. Parliament has recognised this by creating a whole raft of behavioural standards and rules. In bringing up this topic, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, indicates that there should be better monitoring of all those involved in governance, and surely that must be right. However, there is the wider question of how to foster trust, especially if trust has been eroded. Governments must inspire trust to govern effectively and, ultimately, trust is based on the citizen’s perceptions of the Government’s competence and intent. This in turn requires overt values, transparency, data access and giving citizens a voice. Conversely, non-compliance with the rules, such as last-minute U-turns on decisions immediately following categorical statements, has confused and irritated the public, and the failure to call Dominic Cummings to account following his flouting of the Covid-19 travel restrictions meant that others felt that they too could disobey rules with impunity.
How is trust best achieved? It is by means of clear rules for legislators, uniform adherence to those rules and rapid effective sanctions for transgressions. How does the UK measure up to these criteria? Not too badly, as it happens, but many areas are in need of tightening up to prevent and sanction transgressions and, most importantly, the perception of abuses. The British Academy review on the longer-term social impacts of Covid came up with nine areas, one of which was continued
“Low and unstable levels of trust”,
particularly at local or national government level. This is not a desirable culture and will likely lead to further structural inequalities—for example, them and us attitudes—and even greater tensions between safety and security and personal freedoms and privacy.
The emphasis has to be on reviewing the current rules and ensuring their implementation, the aim being to build a culture of open government. In recent years, lobbying, cronyism, the sometime arbitrary invoking of the Ministerial Code, public procurement, overreaching executive powers and misinformation, among other weaknesses, have provoked adverse press attention and much more public distrust than there would otherwise have been. In 2020 alone, some 30 alleged breaches of parliamentary and ministerial rule were reported.
If we accept that trust forms the basis for policy-making in governance, the following actions seem urgent: more detailed definition of and adherence to integrity principles; political leaders leading by example; common standards at all levels; perceptions of fairness and improvement in public services; and the sound use of public money. As ever, these principles in action come best—and must come—from the top. It is absolutely in the interests of government to do so.
Lord Parekh (Lab)
My Lords, I begin by congratulating my noble and good friend Lord Blunkett on securing this debate and introducing it with great understanding and wisdom. Standards in public life has become a common subject of anxiety for many of us who care for this country. I want to make four or five points of a systematic kind.
The first thing to bear in mind on standards in public life is that there is a danger of being rather nostalgic about them and imagining an age when things were fine. That is not so. Look at 18th-century Britain and the scandals that took place then, or at 19th-century Britain, when things were horrendous. That is not to underestimate what is happening today but simply to put it in a historical perspective. Standards in any given age always seem to fall.
The other important thing is what kinds of standards we are talking about. If you asked a medieval monk—or my good and noble friend Lord Griffiths, who gave us a Methodist sermon—they might talk about religious standards. Later on, people might have talked about moral standards of people falling. What standards are we talking about—financial standards, those involving the treatment of women, or what? The first and most important thing to bear in mind is that when we talk about standards, we should not be too nostalgic about the past and should be precise about what standards we are talking about. The Nolan principles are very relevant but, at the same time, they are also limited. They never talk about sexual harassment or the treatment of women, which has become a subject of great importance. Therefore, the first point I want to make is, as I say, on specifying the kind of standards that we have in mind.
The second important point is that when standards fall, corruption sets in, and corruption always starts at the top. The man at the bottom does not have the guts to violate standards, because he knows he will get caught. The man at the top starts the process, feeling confident that others will bail him out if he is caught. So corruption starts at the top, gradually spreads downwards and, if we are not careful or if the process is not arrested at some point, it permeates the entire society like a blanket and creates a situation where it simply cannot be dealt with. Who do you appeal to against corruption when the entire society is complicit in it?
Another important point is that corruption in any society is often sustained because people are generally too tolerant. It is a difficult point to make but, in our own country, people often talk about the Prime Minister. I do not wish to get into this, but the point is that, whatever he has done, people seems to have lapped it up. People seem to be with him. How do you accept a situation where standards are violated—I could mention half a dozen systematic violations—and people laugh it off and allow him to get on with it? It never seems to be held against him.
To me, that is the danger: standards are ultimately sustained by what? What are the sanctions behind standards? The sanctions are individual conscience, although that may or may not work, and professional ethics. For example, as a doctor or professor, I cannot do certain things; however, again, that may or may not work. What else? There is public opinion. Public opinion is the guarantor, the custodian, of standards in public life. When the public opinion is no longer interested in or is indifferent to those standards—or, indeed, delights in the playful violation of those standards—who will guarantee that they will be kept and preserved?
That is the danger, and not only in this country. I am sorry to disagree with the earlier remark that we are better off than other countries. Sadly, we are not, partly because our standards are not as vigorous as those in some other countries and partly because we have not examined them as carefully. Our standards are no better and no worse than elsewhere; we are all the same human beings. The simple point is that the same failure of public opinion is evident in every country, including the one I come from—India—where standards have been systemically falling. The question is this: when public opinion fails to perform its role, where do you go? Whom do you appeal to?
The next question, therefore, is: how can public opinion be educated? However, that sounds very patronising, as though we are in the business of educating public opinion. How can the public themselves arrive at a more sensible view? There, you need freedom of information and all kinds of machinery by which the public can be kept informed.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Blunkett. He has done us an enormous service. I hope that enough people will follow what he said for him to have done this country an enormous service in terms of standards in our public life.
We have always said traditionally that our standards in public life are of a high order. I wonder whether that is still true today. I look at the seven principles of public life and think that they are exemplary, but they must be made to work. Before I develop that point, let me say that I listened carefully to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Young. He said that we in this House do not inject into our debates venom of the sort that characterises some debates in the Commons. Well, I wonder—perhaps we need a bit of venom to pinpoint failings in public standards. The noble Lord was not making a bland speech but, if we become too bland about all this, we are failing.
I have thought very hard about some of the excellent speeches I have been listening to. It seems to me that there are two aspects: whether we can develop good enough systems or safeguards to protect standards in public life; and whether it is a matter of the personal integrity of the people at the top. I cannot help feeling that, if there is no personal integrity at the top, no amount of systems and safeguards will remedy this. We must demand the highest standards of personal integrity, which is where the seven principles come in.
In listening to programmes such as “Any Questions?” or “Question Time”, I always find it a matter of sadness when, if one of the contributors makes a sneering comment about MPs, an enormous cheer goes through the audience. This is sad because, if we denigrate our elected politicians, we weaken democracy. The question is whether they deserve some of that denigration; of course, some people would say that they do, up to a point, but not to the extent to which they face this abuse. I repeat: I am always saddened when people denigrate our elected politicians because our democracy suffers.
I have been thinking about previous Prime Ministers. By the way, I was told by the powers that be in this House that I am not allowed to call anybody a liar, and I do not intend to do so. I was thinking about Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Theresa May. What they shared was personal integrity and honesty. I spent most of my political life opposing what Margaret Thatcher did and opposing quite a lot of what Theresa May and John Major did, but the fact is that, for all her awful policies, Margaret Thatcher had personal integrity, believed what she said and made sure that it happened. I think that that honesty was important. I never thought that I would hear myself praise the late Lady Thatcher but, in terms of this debate, it matters.
The Ministerial Code is crucial. I want, if I may, to tell a little story about when I stopped being a junior Minister in Northern Ireland. I remember being asked whether I would host a meeting in one of the Committee Rooms about voting machines so that we could have an American system of voting. I was going to put on display a whole set of voting machines and invite Members of both Houses to have a look at them. I had a real job getting permission to do that; eventually, Lord Mayhew, who was in charge of the appropriate committee, said yes, but it took several weeks. There was not a penny coming to me for this—there was no personal benefit for me at all except for the fact that I was hosting the meeting—but it was interesting. That was a tight standard, and I think it was right. I had no relationship with electoral systems in Northern Ireland, but I think it was right that there should have been a hurdle for me to overcome.
I want to make two brief points. First, we have to look at the way in which membership of this House happens. We must look at appointments. There is a lot of scepticism about whether they are made in return for favours or whether the principles of public life apply to them. I have a lot of respect for most Members of this House, but I feel that the integrity of this House depends on our having standards that pass all the tests we are applying in this debate for appointment to it.
Secondly, on the Ministerial Code, as has been referred to before, when the independent adviser resigns, there is something amiss with the whole system.
Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I warmly commend the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, on both initiating this debate and introducing it so superbly.
Many years ago, in the early 2000s, I was a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life for two and a half years. I must say, it is a great enhancement to our debate today that the current distinguished chairman is able to be with us and take part in our discussion. The committee was, and is, charged with the stewardship of the Nolan principles. They remain as vital for the success and value of public life and service as they have always been. Sadly, I must observe that they are no longer held to as firmly and clearly by Ministers and Governments as they once were.
When a Minister is incontrovertibly found to have bullied the senior staff in their department and nothing happens, what is the value of the principle of leadership? When contracts are awarded to friends and acquaintances without a proper tendering and evaluation process, what is the value of the principle of accountability? When Ministers from the top down simply make up figures because they suit their argument, and fail to correct mistakes and misinformation subsequently, what is the value of the principle of honesty? When planning permission is rushed through to assist a party donor, what is the value of the principle of integrity? When a former Prime Minister lobbies aggressively by text on behalf of a private company, what is the value of the principle of openness? When the public appointments process is manipulated to secure a politically favoured candidate for a supposedly impartial role, what is the value of the principle of selflessness? I fear that these principles, on which the integrity of our entire system of governance is founded, are being regularly undermined.
No Government have ever got this completely right, but I have never seen a Government getting so much so wrong. Too many people in public life, including senior figures in government, are disregarding the ethical standards that ought to govern behaviour and action. When contraventions occur and are seen to have occurred, nothing happens.
This is serious. Two things in particular happen when public officials and representatives play fast and loose with standards. First, a Government develop an arrogance, a kind of hubris, a sense that they can get away with anything. That ultimately leads to bad decision-making. Policy gets made regardless of evidence or consequence, and disaster often follows. I could, for example, argue that hubris led to the poll tax and to the Iraq war.
Secondly, the public distrust of organisations and people in authority simply intensifies. That distrust is already there—we know that very well—but the flouting of proper standards makes the problem of public scepticism and distrust far greater. Leadership to change this downward drift has to start from the top. The Prime Minister, above anyone else, has to set, lead and enforce the standards. I doubt he will, but that does not diminish in any way the urgent necessity that he do so.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to take part in this debate. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Blunkett on his wonderful opening speech. I took away four issues—procedures, processes, transparency and trust—and many other noble Lords have spoken about these, as well. I will give the example of what I believe is a disgraceful standard in public life, as applied by the Government to HS2. I am pleased that my noble friend Lord Adonis is in his place, and I am not going to start criticising whether it is the right project or not; I am talking about its management and the way that Parliament has been misled. I hope we can have a few lessons learned.
I remind the House that this is the most expensive public sector project on the Infrastructure and Project Authority’s annual review of government projects, and it has the dubious record of having the longest run of amber/red designations—seven years—followed by a red one. That means
“successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable”.
I believe this is a good example of a project that needs regular and detailed scrutiny, instead of what we have, which is a massive, long-lasting cover-up of costs.
This week, we received from senior managers in HS2 —I think you can call them whistleblowers—85 megabytes of files, so big documents. That is interesting because, for the first time, it says that they had produced a detailed estimate of this project from the beginning. They had always denied that to me and to many others, but they have an estimate and the problem is that it came out at £48 billion, at a time when Ministers were telling the House of Commons and your Lordships’ House that the cost was £23.5 billion. It was on the basis of that £23.5 billion that the House approved phase 1 of the HS2 Bill.
Everybody knew about this; it is clear from this documentation. I can list all the people who knew about it, and it goes back to a meeting in Oxford, at the Saïd Business School. The present Prime Minister was not there—this was in 2016—and the notes of the meeting, which we have, indicate that Ministers and officials knew that the project could not completed for the figure that they had given to Parliament. Somebody wrote an email to the current Prime Minister when he was assuming leadership of the Conservative Party, saying that the cost would be over £120 billion, when they were saying it would be £20-something billion. This is a serious misleading of Parliament and a breach of the ministerial code.
I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary on 7 July, suggesting that Ministers appeared to have misled Parliament on the costs and timescale, and asked him to set up an inquiry. I also asked him to look at the role of the Permanent Secretaries at the Department for Transport, who are the accounting officers and must have known all these figures. Did they tell Ministers, as they are required to under the code, and did they ask for a letter of instruction to authorise the funding? There is no record of either.
The Cabinet Secretary passed my letter to the Department for Transport, but the Permanent Secretary there is the accounting officer. It is interesting that the Cabinet Secretary thought it the right thing for the Permanent Secretary to investigate her department’s own failings, but there we are; that is what happened. The Cabinet Secretary has now replied to me and said that the decision to investigate any matters like this rests with the Prime Minister, which goes back to what several noble Lords said, including the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Kerr.
I quote in support a comment made to me by Sir Tim Lankester, a former Permanent Secretary, who has quite a track record from the Pergau Dam issue in Malaysia, 20 or 30 years ago:
“Like you, I think the continuing deception over the costs of HS2 is an absolute disgrace. We had come to expect this from ministers, trying to protect their own backs and trying to protect the project’s credibility against mounting evidence … But what I find utterly horrible, and in some ways even worse, is the Permanent Secretary’s complicity in this deception. Her weasel words … are utterly unacceptable from a senior civil servant, or indeed from any civil servant.”
That is a very telling comment.
The project is massively over cost, at £160 billion now. One of these whistleblowers—
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
I was about to finish. The latest opening date for phase 1 is 2041, and I think this boil needs lancing. I hope the Minister, when he responds, confirms that he will pass on my comments to the Prime Minister and ask him to take some action to lance this boil.
Baroness Prashar (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for securing this debate and providing us with the opportunity to discuss this important subject.
As we have heard, the seven Nolan principles, which have stood the test of time, are there to ensure that those in public life act in the public interest and do not abuse power. I know for a fact that the Committee on Standards in Public Life, a body that I greatly admire—I had the privilege of working closely with it when I was the First Civil Service Commissioner, on the same floor—has not always had the wholehearted support of successive Governments but continues, despite all, to do some sterling work. Its report, Standards Matter, published in June this year, illustrates that, after 25 years, the time has come to take stock and identify the reforms that are needed. The report is well judged. I agree with its findings and the areas identified as requiring significant reform, and with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, the current chairman of the committee, about the need for the statutory footing of some of the regulatory bodies to be looked at. Perhaps the Minister can tell the House whether the Government will heed the committee’s advice and support the reforms that it recommended.
I should like to highlight the committee’s recommendation regarding the process by which regulators are appointed. The committee rightly argues that the appointments process for standards regulators requires a greater element of independence than is the case for other significant appointments. If those who are regulating standards are appointed through a process that is not seen to be independent, that would discredit the very bodies charged with regulating and monitoring standards. For the system to be credible, safeguards to ensure the integrity of the appointments process for regulators are crucial. But no safeguards are adequate unless the will to give effect to them is fully present. Do the Government have that will?
Codes or guidance are not likely to be effective unless they are accompanied by education, training and induction that inculcates the meaning of what they mean in practice and are ingrained into the DNA of the organisation. The seven Nolan principles provide a set of tools to negotiate the challenges that organisations face. The principles can be used in a deliberate, open and honest manner to steer the way through dilemmas and, in the process, to educate institutions and raise awareness. Similarly, leadership in the overlapping areas of business and politics involves ethical decisions. Again, this should be managed within the framework of the Nolan principles, and the committee rightly suggests that the advisory committee on public appointments should be given additional resources to promote awareness and understanding of the rules.
However, as other noble Lords have said, regardless of rules and regulations, those in public life need to take personal responsibility and act on their honour, be eternally vigilant about purpose, and respect boundaries and the checks and balances, and understand why those checks and balances exist. I know for a fact, as a former Civil Service Commissioner, that it was my job constantly to remind Ministers that the system was for their benefit.
Failure and mistrust come when we forget our ideals, values, principles and objectives. Those in public life cannot exempt themselves from ethical and exemplary behaviour, because ethics make democracy safe for debate on the substance of public policy. When ethics are in disorder, they are a digression. A reaffirmation of the Nolan principles, both in words and actions, and embracing the reforms suggested by the committee, would therefore send a strong signal that the Government care about standards and that standards matter, as does our standing in the world. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, like others, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Blunkett for introducing this debate in such a magnificent way, based on his long experience in politics. It was a great blessing for us. I am grateful, too, to the Library for the briefing note that it provided, which reminded me to spend a little time looking at the seven principles.
In that context, it is interesting that the new Lord Speaker recently sent out a little reminder to us all about how we conduct ourselves and the courtesies that we show each other when we come into the Chamber. I think that that has been quite well received. It might be worthwhile if the seven principles were circulated among all of us, particularly for newcomers, who are coming into politics perhaps for the first time.
I was particularly taken by what my noble friend Lord Blunkett said in his introduction about the responsibility that we hold, given the privileges we hold, our ability to exercise power and how we do so. I would like to focus primarily on a narrow area, one that my noble friend Lord Griffiths picked up on: the way we conduct ourselves.
If we look at the seven principles, we see that I as an individual and we as the Lords are somewhat weak when it comes to accountability. Who are we accountable to? What is our principal job? I would say that scrutinising legislation is our principal role: legislation comes to us from the Commons, or we introduce it ourselves, and because it goes through the Commons, ultimately we are accountable to it, because it decides, yea or nay, whether our amendments will be taken. But there are many areas beyond that in which, when I look for accountability, there is a great big gaping hole. I am not really sure, in the context of this debate, whether I am asking questions of the Minister or of the House on how we conduct our business, because there is a Nolan principle up there, when we come to it.
I share a room with my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Young, who raised the issue of finance. We are not accountable to the Commons on finance. I do not know who we are accountable to on that. Is it the Government directly? We seem to run our own show in what we believe is the best way possible and acceptable. But as to a clear line of accountability, there is no stream there to be identified, and that is a weakness of this House that we should address.
Linked to that of course is the growth of the House. There are now 830-odd of us—it is far too big and we do not need that. We need change, and we have endeavoured to make that change ourselves. I put it to the Minister that the Government have a responsibility to say what they will do about the ever-growing size of this House, the way in which they conduct themselves in making appointments, and how we contain it and reduce the cost. We, in turn, still have further work to do in that area; we ran away from having an age of retirement, and I can see the arguments against that. But our basic function here is to vote. If people do not come here and stay to vote, they are not fulfilling the public duty that they have been given. If they are not fulfilling the full role given to them, as for a policeman, a nurse or others, they should not be Members of this House; they should exercise the principles and voluntarily leave. We should go back to our work in looking at the House and review whether we could do more to reduce our numbers.
We then come to the issue of accountability to the public. Deep down, we do not want any real change, because it threatens our positions. Whenever this has come up, we have found ways and means, as has the Commons, of avoiding elections to this Chamber. I do not want to get involved in that today, but we still have a gaping hole in our accountability to the public. I hope that we can open up and start to have a conversation in that area. I might suggest that a start would be to do some MORI-type work among the public at large on how they perceive us in the light of where we stand in 2021, particularly after Brexit. In 2016, we were well out of touch with the mood of the public, notwithstanding all our intelligence and expertise. We have to be close to the people and we need to find ways in which we can get closer to them than we are, for the betterment of ourselves, for the betterment of the public and for the betterment of public standards.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, it is a great honour to take part in this debate, initiated by our good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. It is also great for me, because I get lower and lower down the speaking list, to a point where I am now so low that the Chamber is beginning to fill up for the winding-up speeches, so I am actually getting a better audience than I normally do.
I will begin by saying a word in support of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It has been very much maligned because of a decision about a Lord, but, when I was appointed to this Chamber, there was a very thorough investigation. Two of the people on the list nominated by the Prime Minister were later withdrawn—and this is by no means uncommon. I am told that if you look at the commission’s proceedings, quite a lot of names have, after investigation, been withdrawn, so I do not think that we can tie all the commission’s work around one nomination. I am also told that the nomination that was turned down from the present Prime Minister was not the only one. Indeed, in the reign of Gordon Brown there was also someone turned down who was subsequently put forward—but I am sure we can look at that.
The next thing I would like to say is that there is a general ooh-ah about corruption in this country. I was shocked last Sunday to see the headline in the Sunday Times where a gentleman, Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, was castigated for receiving a CBE for donating a huge amount of money to Prince Charles’s charity Dumfries House. Were it not for the Prince of Wales, that house would not have been rescued. He has done an enormous job as prince and, frankly, if you have to give away the odd bauble to get some money in, I would have said that that is a matter for congratulation, not for having a go at people. We probably need to get a scale and a perspective, because if you look through any honours list you always see a number of honours “for charitable services”. That is all this particular person did, so I exonerate him.
I will make one or two points about what we could do in our House. First, I very much endorse what my noble friend Lord Young had to say. The time has come for us to look to IPSA to be our regulatory body. I do not think we would have the scandal, frankly, of Members of this House who do not live in London basically being given a different rate of allowance from those who do. IPSA is probably the place to look after our pay and rations, because it has worked down the Corridor.
I would also like to see some attention paid to the revolving door. When I was young in the Civil Service, almost 60 years ago, people wanted to bring in outsiders. At that time, the union I was associated with warned that if you brought them in, their premium would be on getting a job outside and that senior civil servants would constantly be looking to the people they were giving the contracts to and thinking, “What happens when I’m 60?” Well, the first thing to do of course is to increase the retirement age, but the second is to look at this revolving door, because it revolves a bit too smoothly in some places.
I would also like the Government to look at the situation of trade envoys. Trade envoys are not government appointments, yet my good friend Andrew Rosindell was sacked as trade envoy to Tanzania for voting against the Government. Trade envoys also come from the Labour Party. I do not know whether they have any sanction about Labour trade envoys, but I do not think it is right that a trade envoy appointed on expertise should be treated as part of the payroll vote.
My final the point is that we really have to look at the idea of non-legislative Peers. There are people in society who deserve high honours and who have contributed enormously to the country, but they are not trained legislators. There should be a way for this top honour of being called a Lord to be split into two divisions: legislative and non-legislative Peers. This would get rid of a lot of the problems of donors as well.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, it is a real privilege to participate in this debate. In fact, it has been a real privilege to sit and listen to the contributions, which have in many respects identified issues that should be of great concern to the Government but which we all feel are being somewhat derided at present. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, for emphasising the difficulties for senior civil servants in relation to Ministers under the present regime.
It seems very important that we get the key points from this debate across to government. We know that the Prime Minister himself probably pays little regard to principles, but there is a capacity for the generation of pressure in specific areas, which is what we should concentrate on, in order not just to improve the situation but to stave off what several speeches reflected, which is the growing sense of unease about critical aspects of our democracy being undermined. I remember when it was suggested during the middle months of the Trump regime that there were one or two defections from democratic participation—challenges that looked to smack of belief in other forms of running society. Then look what happened: it all exploded. Of course, we are not in that situation, but we must guard against such developments.
One of the things I miss most at present is that Covid has taken away school visits for a lot of us. I enjoy talking to young people—by “young” I mean 15 to 16 year-olds and sixth formers, who are certainly young in comparison to the vast majority of us—because two things crop up each time. The first is, “How do you become a politician?” That is interesting, because it seems to give the impression that it is a career in which you have to learn to make the progress of securing first base and then move on from there. I am afraid that I tend to destroy those illusions fairly fast. I have a good record of failure in politics, so they do believe me after a short while.
The second aspect, which is of great importance, is that they do believe that our society can be made better and that there can be improvements—and there are aspects of this debate that must be translated into those anticipations so that it is recognised that the body politic needs improving.
I look forward to the response to this debate of the noble Lord, Lord True. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Blunkett not just on initiating the debate but on the brilliant speech he made. I hope that the Minister will not let the intervening three hours pass in such a way that he will fail to respond to the crucial points put to him by my noble friend. I very much look forward to that speech.
Of course, we have to appreciate the limitations of this House when it comes to action to protect crucial aspects of democracy, because we are unelected and can easily be put down in those terms—but we still need to articulate those defences. The other House needs support on this, because Members there are expressing obvious anxieties, and those anxieties are real when power begins to believe that it can be utterly untrammelled and uncontrolled because of the legitimacy of the last election. Politics in this country have always meant a good deal more than that, and I think today’s debate in this House has helped to establish how important these crucial points are for the continuation and extension of our democratic tradition.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, our thanks are certainly due to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, not just for this very timely debate but for the comprehensive way in which he looked at so many aspects of the concerns that we are all now experiencing. We also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Evans, his current colleagues and his predecessors, some of them Members of your Lordships’ House, for the meticulous work of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. In that connection, I express my appreciation for the kind words said about our much-missed former colleague, Diana Maddock.
I have a personal interest in the value of the committee. It was in answer to a Question from me on 18 October 1994—about Tory sleaze, as it happens—that the then Prime Minister, John Major, announced his intention of appointing the committee; the Minister may recall that exchange. In addition to supporting the work of the CSPL over the years, not least on political funding, I echo the contribution today from the noble Lord, Lord Evans; I am only sorry that he was limited in time. I refer also to his trenchant evidence to the Select Committee on Tuesday. His insistence that the overall integrity of our electoral system depends on the independence of the Electoral Commission, the statutory regulator, and that it should not be infringed by government or party interests is very germane to this debate.
The Speaker’s Committee is not only overweighted with Conservatives—and MPs who have a grudge against the commission, due to their own electoral misdeeds—but surely inappropriate. As I have already pointed out, the commission is answerable to Parliament as a whole, so it should be a joint committee so that Peers can ensure that the MPs on it are not just there to be partisan. Adding some lay members to the committee would also increase confidence in its impartiality.
The Statement by the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution, which was referred to earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Evans, was somewhat misleading in this respect. She said that
“the Government will empower the UK Parliament to hold the Electoral Commission effectively accountable”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/9/21; col. 16WS.]
But this is a two-House Parliament. It is not just the House of Commons keeping an eye on our electoral system; this House has a responsibility, too, and some among us may feel that we are slightly more impartial. It should not be a question of MPs marking their own homework, as we might expect if it is left simply to them.
I very much endorse the points about the CSPL made by my noble friends Lord Wallace, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Stunell—himself an assiduous member of that committee, as he demonstrated in his contribution today—but in the interests of brevity I am not going to repeat their comments. However, I will pick up one comment by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. As it happens, I have been listening to the noble Lord for over 60 years and I have experienced much wisdom from him. I felt that he too, after his long experience in government and in this House, was making an extremely strong case for strengthening adherence to standards but that there was an element of complacency in his reference to other international experience. I felt that that was not really where this House was this afternoon; I do not think there is any inclination to be complacent.
In that connection, I want to take up the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. We have to see this in terms of both institutional responsibility and individual responsibility. They go together; you cannot divorce the two. A number of other contributions have made a similar point. Indeed, there have been many formidable contributions and clearly we are going to have to read Hansard with great care. I hope the Minister is going to do so as well.
Reflecting those contributions, I will take one very topical example. Naturally, much of the debate today has concentrated on the issues covered by the CSPL report Standards Matter 2. I want to refer to its even more recent report on electoral finance regulation. It was the product of careful consideration and examination, and equally thorough consultation, over some 12 months, with all the committee’s usual independence and integrity, and it resulted in 47 recommendations. All seven Nolan principles are rigorously relevant there. In particular, the committee was determined that electoral law should be approached with selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness and honesty. It obviously also hoped that the Government and Parliament would show leadership in adopting a strictly non-partisan approach.
Given that we manage to review and update electoral law only every 20 years or so, you would hope that Ministers would recognise the overwhelming case for delaying the Elections Bill until the CSPL recommendations had been fully considered, incorporated or adapted. Not a bit of it. Ignoring the unique status of the committee, Ministers have charged ahead with their partisan Bill. Indeed, when my colleague Alistair Carmichael challenged the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution on this during the Second Reading debate on Tuesday, she abysmally failed to answer the point. Not only is this a direct insult to the committee but it prevents Parliament from doing its scrutiny duty.
In these circumstances, I am sure that Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House will sympathise with the evidence given by the noble Lord, Lord Evans, on Tuesday. He noted, incidentally, that the Government did not even consult the committee on the vital financial elements of the Bill. I also thought it significant that the Conservative chair of the committee told the Commons debate that the Bill should have had pre-legislative and cross-party scrutiny before the Government finalised their proposals. This is a classic case of trying to ensure that scrutiny is cross-party, not partisan.
The vexed issue of compulsory photo ID at polling stations has attracted most attention so far, but I believe that the clauses relating to cash are even more insidious—hence the vital significance of the CSPL recommendations. “Follow the money” is the watchword of all effective investigative journalism. We should learn the lesson there. Ministers have already had to admit that policing the eligibility of foreign residents for both electoral registration and political donations could be fraught. How can the UK registration authorities check the eligibility of a resident in a far-off tax haven?
A less noticeable set of clauses tears up the 2018 Supreme Court judgment that reiterated the century-old principle that candidates and agents should be fully responsible for all expenditure seeking to secure election in a constituency. Your Lordships’ House has a number of former MPs and we know how important that is; if that is not going to be a rule in future, it goes to the very basis of the integrity of our electoral system. We should not forget that the judge in that case urged the necessity to return to a level playing field. Suspended sentences are not verdicts of innocence. Reversing that judgment could enable a very rich party, benefiting from even more foreign donations, to pour hundreds of thousands of pounds into marginal constituencies without proper recording, reporting or controls.
In short, the Elections Bill looks like a measure to help millionaires buy seats while ignoring the voting rights of millions of disenfranchised citizens. This goes to the very roots of our parliamentary system, as the noble Lord, Lord Evans, and his committee have already said. This is all about standards of propriety in public life and in our representative system.
At one point we were told that the Government intended to introduce a Bill with the title of “Electoral Integrity”. Presumably trading standards then intervened, since there is no such claim to integrity now. The CSPL naturally pays much more attention to the need for fairness at the very heart of our electoral and political system. It should be listened to by Ministers now.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I join those who have congratulated my noble friend Lord Blunkett not just on initiating the debate but on the way in which he did so and the points he made. One of the most poignant things he said in his introduction was that the integrity and conduct of our Government is not just important for the functioning of democracy at home; it impacts on our international reputation and authority.
What I have found so encouraging about this debate is, first, that despite the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, Members have been here to listen to other Members and not just make their own speeches; and, secondly, how deeply colleagues feel about the integrity of the political and parliamentary processes of public service. I draw particular attention to the comments of my noble and much valued friends Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Dubs, with their own long public service in both Houses, and their concerns that this can be denigrated and affect our ability to be effective in what we do.
In some ways, today’s debate follows on from the debate on Monday in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, about the status of the House of Lords Appointments Commission and the Government’s approach to appointments. The issue of standards is about not just politicians and politics but the behaviour of all those in responsible positions in public life. That has to start with government and Parliament. The comments about our personal responsibility by my noble friend Lord Hunt and the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, are points extremely well made. What we do and say, and what government does and says, has an impact on the national behaviour. The comments made by my noble friends Lady Donaghy and Lord Puttnam showed just how much this House values the integrity and credibility that we bring to our work.
Let us be realistic: there has never been a golden age in which politicians have been universally loved and admired. I recall a meeting with a former Secretary of State for Health, speaking to a room full of medics. He said to them: “Between us, we have the support of 99% of the population. You’ve got 97% and I’ve got 2%.” These are not golden times, but perhaps that is a little harsh. The question today is: has there been a fundamental change in political responsibility that has had a deep impact on the respect and, more importantly, the confidence in which politicians are held?
My starting point on this is a ministerial resignation—understandably not recent, but the one referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, from 1947. As Chancellor, Hugh Dalton made his way to the Chamber—this Chamber, incidentally, because the other was damaged—to present the Budget in 1947. He was stopped by John Carvel, a reporter from the evening Star, who asked an innocuous question about what he was going to drink at the Dispatch Box. Unfortunately, like most politicians he chose to talk too much, got into a brief conversation and gave him a few bullet points from the Budget as he was going to the Chamber to present it. The Star immediately got a stop press of a few bullet points on the front of the local paper. MPs were in the Chamber—he was presenting the Budget—and very few people outside could have read it before he presented it to Parliament. An inquiry that later took place even said it had no economic impact whatever, but he took full responsibility and resigned his post. His integrity was praised.
By contrast, when the independent adviser Sir Alex Allan investigated the Home Secretary following allegations of bullying civil servants, he advised the Prime Minister that she had broken the Ministerial Code. It was not the Minister who resigned but the adviser.
As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referenced, when the Falkland Islands were invaded in 1982, the Foreign Secretary resigned, saying in a letter to the Prime Minister:
“The Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands has led to strong criticism … of the Government’s policy. In my view, much of the criticism is unfounded. But I have been responsible for the conduct of that policy and I think it right that I should resign.”
Contrast that with a Foreign Secretary going on holiday and then remaining out of the country as an international crisis unfolds.
So, yes, there is clear evidence of a fundamental shift. I do not think that our expectations are lower, but we have ceased to be surprised when a Minister clings on to their job by their fingertips. In this regard, I was struck by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, on the consequences of flouting standards of behaviour. While the individual Minister and the Prime Minister may breathe a collective sigh of relief at getting away with it, they need to recognise that this chips away at the moral integrity and authority of government, and indeed of politics as a whole. That is the danger in some of the behaviour we have seen.
We have heard a number of examples today, but I will focus on three areas in which changes could and should be made: government procurement; appointments, particularly of non-executive directors; and the Ministerial Code and the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
On procurement, it has now been exposed that companies with no relevant experience or track record were awarded contracts for PPE during the Covid crisis. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, has had to admit to Parliament that there was potential litigation in respect of 40 PPE contracts to the value of £1.2 billion, involving 1.7 billion items of PPE that were not delivered or were unsafe. That is a scandal of historic proportions. The noble Lord shakes his head, but I got this from a Parliamentary Answer he gave. He said discussions are ongoing that could lead to potential “legal action”.
We need a full and independent investigation to uncover the scale of this problem, including the involvement of Ministers and their political advisers, whether the rules were adequate and whether the rules were broken. It has to investigate whether there was any impropriety in the awarding of £2 billion-worth of Covid contracts to Conservative donors or friends of Ministers, because £2 billion is a lot of taxpayers’ money. It would be helpful if the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, could report back on the legal action as soon as he is in his place; we would welcome that.
On government appointments, it was Peter Riddell, as Commissioner for Public Appointments, who said that
“the precarious balance between ministerial patronage and appointment by merit ‘is under threat’.”
Personally, I am not against ministerial involvement in public appointments, but it has to be absolutely clear and transparent that the appointment is on merit. I wrote to Simon Case about the appointment of the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, to try to understand whether she was a civil servant and what the rules of appointment were. The response I got back was inadequate but honest: basically, there were no regulations in place and no transparency. She did not have to abide by the Civil Service Code and could be very party political. That seems to me an unacceptable position that we are in.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, drew specific attention to the appointment of non-executive directors in government. When the Government insist on appointing friends, donors and special advisers to non-executive director roles on departmental boards, it fundamentally alters the role of those boards. They are supposed to be there to provide challenge, scrutiny and insight to government. If they fail to do that, it undermines the role of the boards and good governance.
On Monday, we discussed appointments into your Lordships’ House; it was raised today by my noble friends Lord Griffiths, Lord Dubs and Lord Brooke. The Government seem to have torn up the rulebook on this. The House agreed to the Burns report—that two Members would come out and one would go in, to reduce the size and maintain political balance. That is not the Government’s view, and it is very sad. It is interesting that it has been universally condemned across the House.
Time is not allowing me to say as much as I wanted to on the Committee on Standards in Public Life. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for his very thoughtful comments today, as well as his comments on the Elections Bill, with which I concur. It is quite clear—I have mentioned this to the Minister before—that there need to be changes. The Government should take forward some of the changes recommended to preserve the integrity of the work the committees do.
Perhaps the greatest obligation on Ministers and all parliamentarians is the responsibility and obligation of honesty and openness. I have had to write to the Leader of the House more than once about the inadequacy of ministerial answers to questions from Members of your Lordships’ House. We want to see full answers for good reasons, and I hope that the Minister will be able to address that today, but it has to start at the top, with the Prime Minister.
I am sure the Prime Minister wishes that he had never been caught on camera telling manufacturers in Northern Ireland that they would not have to fill in any forms and, if they had a customs form, they could throw it in the bin or send it to him. We have a Prime Minister who will give answers to get him through the moment with a throwaway line, and that does not help to improve public perception of the honesty of your Lordships’ House.
I think things have changed from the days of Hugh Dalton and Lord Carrington. I do not share the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, but I want to remain optimistic. I still believe that politics is a force for good. I also believe that the overwhelming majority of those in political and public service behave with decency, integrity and honour—and with enthusiasm for and commitment to what they do. When others do not, that undermines us all.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, it has been an extensive debate. It is customary on these occasions to say that it has been an outstanding debate, but let me not, on this occasion, be customary. Let me say sincerely that it has been an outstanding debate. I thank all those who have taken part. The subject being discussed is of profound importance, and I know I speak for all noble Lords present, as well as those who have spoken. So many people here in this Chamber have had the honour that I have had, over quite a long life, of public service in many different walks of life. I believe that we all share a common desire and a common interest to achieve the best, to root out wrongdoing and to reflect in the best way we possibly can a sense of honour— honour on the profession of politics and honour on our place in your Lordships’ House. I have been very grateful for the opportunity to listen to the debate; I assure all noble Lords that I have listened to it very carefully; and I am grateful to all those who have taken part.
I do not wish to single out the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, or the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, but it has obviously been particularly helpful to have their contributions from the perspective of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and I thank them for the work they do. I must echo others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for moving the Motion and, as many have said—including, I think at her conclusion, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith—for the way in which he moved it.
On these occasions, I try—although I am sometimes a little combative, I know—to avoid the yah boo thing that our dear friends in the other place sometimes get into of saying, “Well, he did that, but you did that”, et cetera. I agree with the very wise remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I do not agree with politicians criticising other politicians except where there is a very legitimate and strong case to do so. It does not help any of us. The tenor of this debate, where we have, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, come together in a common endeavour, is very important. I was not so happy about his use of the word “rotten” later in his speech, but I will forgive him for that.
I have listened with great respect. I agree with the fundamental point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, about the need for high standards. I differ with some on the idea that we have now descended into an age of rust and that standards now are uniquely poor or corrupt. I do not believe that is true and, as I said at the outset, it does a disservice to the vast bulk of those in this place and in public service.
I will try to address the main points that have been made, but before I move on, I give the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, the fundamental assurance he asked for: these matters are constantly under review. The voices that your Lordships have raised today will be part of that review and consideration, and a number have been referred to in the debate.
I agreed with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and others, notably the right reverend Prelate, about the need for proportionality. That informed this debate: the need to admit our own fallibility. It is certainly my personal credo that one is imperfect and must seek to do better day by day. We must all strive for the highest ethical standards, and I agreed with the point made in the thoughtful speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: it is about not just the processes of central or local government, but ourselves in this House. Yes, we need to examine ourselves and the way we do things and, in the old language of this House, as I said, to seek to stand on honour.
I agree, too, with what my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said: meeting the letter of the law is not enough; we need to go beyond the letter of the law. I do not wish to impugn the legal profession, but this is not a House of small print lawyers; this should be a House which aspires, as should the Government as a whole, to do more than the letter of the law to uphold standards.
This House, with its Members drawn from so many walks of life and professions and with such experience to share—that is the strength of an appointed House—has always played an important role in preserving our national reputation for good government and high standards. I know it does not always seem that way but, while I am at this Dispatch Box, I welcome the challenge that comes to the Government from this place, from parties and colleagues opposite and—yes, I use the word used by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, I think—friends.
We should never be complacent. We should continually hold ourselves to high standards. Many noble Lords have rightly continued that tradition today in the course of their comments.
The noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Tyler, in particular, referred to the fact that it is 26 years since the Committee on Standards in Public Life completed its inaugural report. Before that, yes, indeed, I was present in No. 10—I think it was on a Monday morning—when we discussed these matters and decided to go forward with that proposal, which was a good policy and has stood the test of time, to set up the Committee on Standards in Public Life under the chairmanship of a former Member of your Lordships’ House, Lord Nolan.
He set down those principles, which have rightly been referred to by so many of your Lordships. We know what they are, but it is worth reading them into the record again, because they are fundamental: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability—yes—openness, honesty and leadership. I have heard the call for a broader tapestry to be woven on top of them, and work is done constantly by the Committee on Standards in Public Life to do so, but we must never lose sight of those fundamental principles. Lord Nolan led the committee admirably, and his legacy through the Nolan principles will be remarked on for many years to come.
The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, said that those seven principles of public life are the bedrock of ethical standards in government—in this Government and in all Governments. They give all of us who work in public life a set of principles to embody and to take pride in upholding, at every level—in my case, from my first day in local government as a young councillor upwards.
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, referred to devolved Administrations. I was grateful that he did not attack me today, although I always enjoy it when he does; I rarely go home from this House without a few lashes on my back. I will not go too far—as he knows, this is a delicate area—but I am aware that Article 9 of the Bill of Rights is not necessarily applicable to Members of the Scottish Parliament. However, it is a matter for the Scottish Parliament to consider, in our view, and I am sure that his powerful speech will have been heard and noted outside this House.
Following on from Lord Nolan, I pay tribute to the successive chairs of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, coming down to the present day with the noble Lord, Lord Evans. He and his committee have, a quarter of a century after the Nolan principles were first laid out, embarked on the second Standards Matter review to ensure that the highest standards are maintained. This work is in progress, but it has been a landscape review of the institutions, processes and structures in place to support high standards of conduct. Let me be absolutely clear: the Government welcome the work being undertaken by the committee, recognise the importance of such recommendations in ensuring the conservation of high standards in public life and will, of course, consider the final recommendations of the committee’s review carefully—as the committee would expect and all noble Lords would accept.
In the interim, the committee has set out its views on four main topics: the Ministerial Code and the independent adviser on ministerial interests; business appointment rules; transparency around lobbying; and the regulation of public appointments. Although we are at this interim stage and the final government responses will come later, since many of the observations made by noble Lords in the debate touched on these areas, I will venture to provide some comments on all four of those issues now.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and many other noble Lords, referred to the Ministerial Code and the role of the independent adviser on ministerial interests. The Government have discussed this frequently and believe that the Ministerial Code should remain the responsibility of the Prime Minister of the day. This reflects the Prime Minister’s constitutional position as the sovereign’s sole adviser on matters concerning the royal prerogative—in this case, on the appointment, dismissal and acceptance of resignation of other Ministers. From that position flows the accountability to this sovereign Parliament of the Prime Minister for the appointment and removal of Ministers.
In its valuable and important report—and I am not anticipating the final report or conclusions—the Committee on Standards in Public Life said in its findings that the Ministerial Code should be issued by the Prime Minister and that there should be a range of graduated sanctions for breaches of the Ministerial Code. This is being addressed. It said that the issuing of those sanctions should be a matter solely for the Prime Minister, and that rests on this constitutional doctrine, which most of us under successive Administrations have accepted.
However, the Ministerial Code does require Ministers to maintain high standards of behaviour and provides guidance on how Ministers should act and arrange their affairs in order to do so. The Prime Minister is the judge of that, ultimately, but to assist him in the responsibility a Prime Minister has an independent adviser. In May, the Prime Minister appointed a highly regarded Member of your Lordships’ House to that role, the noble Lord, Lord Geidt. Many noble Lords will remember that, as part of the process of appointment, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister agreed with the noble Lord new terms of reference for the role and set out his position on the role in a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Evans.
The letter confirms a number of important points. First, where, in the assessment of the adviser, the adviser believes an allegation about a breach of the code might warrant further investigation, he will raise the issue with the Prime Minister. Secondly, where a matter is referred to the adviser and his work is concluded, the adviser’s advice on his conclusions will be published in a timely manner. There should be a range of potential outcomes if the breach of the Ministerial Code is determined to have occurred—in fact, this has always been the case, but a more formal approach is suggested. The adviser should have a specific role in providing recommendations about the appropriate sanction in the circumstances where it is determined that a Minister has failed to adhere to the standards set out in the code. The adviser should be appointed for a non-renewable five-year term to give him or her independence. And when the adviser undertakes work, it should be supported by civil servants who act under his direction and report to him.
Many noble Lords today, including my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, have commented that the changes to the terms of reference embodied in that letter do not go far enough and that the independent adviser should have the power to initiate their own investigations. In response, I point to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Geidt, in evidence to PACAC in the other place, that he would wish to operate the new terms of reference for a period before drawing conclusions about their efficacy, but I take note of what noble Lords have said in the debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and others, referred to the role of ACOBA and business appointments. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, also referred to this matter, which has been a focus within the Standards Matter 2 review. The business appointment rules are an integral part of how the Government uphold integrity and retain public trust. I share the concern of noble Lords that they should be effective and consistent, and as set out in my honourable friend the Minister for Constitution and Devolution’s Written Statement on government transparency and accountability in July, the Government have been working to improve the operation and efficacy of the rules.
Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett asked, we do not assert that this is completed work; it is all ongoing work—ongoing consideration. The work will consider and implement improvements to the scope and clarity, the consistency and proportionality, and the enforcement of the rules. The Government are working closely with the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments and departments across the Government to implement changes, and there will be an update to the rules later this year.
The Government do differ from some of your Lordships. They believe that a statutory system would be out of line with the general principle of UK law that Ministers and officials are subject to the same legal system and statutory framework as all others. The rules form part of civil servants’ and special advisers’ contracts of employment and, as such, are subject to legal processes. That is the same legal approach and potential sanctions for breach of contract as apply to all other private citizens who might have similar provisions in employment contracts with private companies.
The noble Baroness opposite asked about PPE and procurement in that respect. As the noble Baroness said, my noble friend Lord Bethell on hearing those remarks, I think, would say that is not true, and the Government would say that, in relation to whether the PPE in the cases referred to was necessarily inadequate, we are protecting the taxpayer’s interests—
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I am so sorry to interrupt the Minister, but he is aware that the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, shook his head at me as I made a particular point, and he has just said that would not be true. This was a Written Question that was answered on 1 September 2021. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said:
“As of 27 July 2021, the Department was engaged in commercial discussions (potentially leading to litigation) in respect to 40 PPE contracts with a combined value of £1.2 billion covering 1.7 billion items of PPE.”
That is a direct quote from Hansard.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I did not deny that there were cases of litigation. I was making the point that, in those cases, it was not necessarily the case that the PPE concerned was inadequate. I do not challenge what the noble Baroness opposite said and was not seeking to do so.
The experience of Covid-19 shows that we could be better at ensuring consistency in the management of conflicts of interest. Updated commercial guidance on the management of actual and perceived conflicts of interest was published this May, to provide commercial teams across government with further information on the roles and responsibilities of those involved in decision-making and risk management and how provisions may be applied to suppliers. The future legislative scheme will continue to place a legal duty on authorities to prevent and remedy conflicts of interest, with additional policy and guidance provided by the centre where the need arises. Our broader proposals to strengthen transparency and non-discrimination measures will also complement the fight against conflicts of interest, which is an important fight.
Regarding the next theme in the committee’s Standards Matter 2 review on strengthening transparency around lobbying, I am pleased that, despite the need to reprioritise resources to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, good progress continues to be made this year by central government departments in publishing core transparency data. Yes, transparency is important.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked about AI transparency and standards. We recognise the need to develop appropriate mechanisms to increase transparency and accountability in decisions made by semi-autonomous systems, and to monitor their impact. Currently, data scientists across departments use the Data Ethics Framework and other guidance, including the guide to using AI in the public sector, to support a safe and fair use of algorithms. Building on the existing work on algorithmic and data ethics, the Government are developing appropriate and effective mechanisms to deliver more transparency on the use of algorithmic-assisted decision-making within the public sector. I can assure the noble Lord that that remains under consideration.
More broadly, the Cabinet Office supports departments to publish data that is consistent, timely and helpful, including with regular communications, guidance and training, and offers of more bespoke support where required. The Government will consider the committee’s recommendations on how the Cabinet Office should work
“To improve the quality of departmental transparency releases”.
Separately, I can assure noble Lords that the Government are reviewing Part 1 of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014. Part 1 of the Act increased transparency around the work of consultant lobbyists by establishing a statutory register of consultant lobbyists and an independent registrar with powers to monitor and enforce compliance. We will set out the conclusions of this review work in due course and take also into account the work of the Boardman review.
I do not wish to go into the matter of the Boardman review at great length, but I heard the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and understand her strong personal statement on that. Mr Boardman provided the Prime Minister with a report that sets out his findings of fact. It was published, as we all know, on 22 July, with the contested consequences the noble Baroness referred to. The Government thank Mr Boardman for all his work in examining the evidence. We will publish the second part of the Boardman recommendations shortly and consider them. The Government will also, in that context, want to consider the recommendations made by the parliamentary Select Committees which have looked at this and the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Again, this is work in progress, not in any sense work dismissed.
The final part of the review by the Committee on Standards in Public Life focused on the regulation of public appointments, on which a number of noble Lords have spoken. We also had some discussion earlier this week about the appointment of non-executives to government departments. I repeat that all non-executive appointments are subject to compliance with the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The process—
I am sorry, but I have been looking at the wrong clock.
Lord True (Con)
I was about to say that a number of checks and balances are built into these matters. Fortunately, we have a Whip here who is a check and a balance. I do not wish to take any time away from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, given his outstanding speech. I would like, in brief conclusion, to repeat my reference to the seriousness with which the Government take these issues and the points raised by your Lordships’ today on the vital importance of high ethical standards in public life. I apologise for overrunning.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the tenure of his response and hope he will be able to transmit to present ministerial colleagues—and perhaps, very shortly, future ones—the feelings of this House. In the interests of openness and honesty—two of the Nolan principles—I should say that I am indebted to my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, because it was the communication between us during the recess that led to me leading this debate. I want to put that on record for transparency purposes.
I thank everyone who has taken part this afternoon for their tremendous contributions and thoughtfulness. I know the House will forgive me for saying, as was said by the Minister, how grateful I am that the noble Lords, Lord Evans and Lord Stunell, were prepared, as members of the committee, to come and contribute. That indicates their very genuine commitment to their work, and we wish them well in the next stages. Again, I thank everyone for being here and for addressing what I consider to be the core of our constitution and democracy.
Covid-19 Update
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I hope the Minister has had a good break and I thank him for the Statement today. I regret that phrases such as “Groundhog Day” and “Here we go again” keep jumping into my mind unbidden. Obviously everybody welcomes the continued rollout of the vaccine, and I congratulate the NHS and its partners on this. However, we must not pretend and behave as if we are at the end of this pandemic. The figures still show a substantial daily rate of infection, hospitalisations and deaths. If we go into the winter with a high proportion of ICU beds still occupied by Covid patients, this will have a knock-on effect for serious elective surgery, emergency needs and flu. It will affect the ability and capacity of the NHS to deliver the beginning of the catch-up that we face in the next couple of years. The context of this catch-up is starkly illustrated by the figures concerning cancer this week. The Macmillan Cancer report reveals that
“More than 600,000 cancer patients in the UK are facing treatment delays or missing out on vital support because of a shortage of specialist nurses”.
Less than a month ago, the Health Secretary said that he wanted booster jabs to be given at the same time as flu jabs and that they would be starting this month. However, is it the case that, due to supply issues linked to a shortage of drivers, equipment and flu vaccinations, these are delayed? If so, for how long? Is it for two weeks or is it longer?
In this context, it is not surprising that GPs are at their wits’ end, forced to cancel first blood tests because of test tube shortages and now flu vaccination appointments. We need to think about what that means; for example, if you are pregnant and need a flu vaccination, the delay is a serious matter because you cannot put your pregnancy on hold while the supply catches up with you. It is especially worrying as we head into what could be one of the most difficult and challenging winters for the NHS. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that there are not further delays and to avoid a flu crisis this winter?
If the CMOs are recommending vaccination, will the Minister guarantee that our public health workforce, our health visitors and our school nurses, as well as primary care, will have the resources they need to roll out that vaccination? Can he advise what the anticipated time frame for commencement and the communication strategy will be? He Minister must be aware that many parents appear to be hesitant and that with other groups with low levels of vaccine uptake, access to accurate and trusted information is key.
Some scientists have suggested that the vaccination of children against Covid-19 is already too late to blunt an autumn wave of the infection because they will get only one dose, which is not terribly effective at preventing infection with the delta variant. What assessment have the Government made of this and what consideration has been given to limiting the minimum interval between first and second doses?
The Education Secretary has suggested that weekly Covid tests for pupils could be scrapped this month, following a review. That may be quite concerning, given that the autumn could bring a surge in cases driven by a new variant, by more mixing of people at school or work, or indeed by a drop in the levels of immunity provided by the vaccine. Does the Minister agree that testing really ought to continue?
The Education Secretary also seems to have removed many of the infection control mitigations in schools. From these Benches, we urged the Government to use the summer to install ventilation, air filtration units and carbon dioxide monitors in schools. I would like to know how many schools now have these systems installed. I also share with the Minister our concerns that the current rules seem to suggest that a child can go to school even when their parents test positive. That seems not to be a sensible way forward.
Are the Government making contingency plans for an October firebreak lockdown if hospitalisations continue to rise at their current rate? Last week, the World Health Organization designated mu as a variant of interest, adding that it can potentially evade immunity granted from a previous Covid infection or vaccine. Perhaps the Minister could update the House on that issue.
On Tuesday, the Prime Minister finally made his long-awaited social care Statement, over two years after standing in front of the steps of Downing Street proclaiming to have a plan. Now, we had a debate and discussion earlier today about whether it is actually a plan—because we think it is not—and what the tax increase means. However, the timeframe for the delivery of this plan does not seem to recognise that we already have bed blocking in our hospitals. There is already an emergency in social care and the knock-on effect of that on Covid, flu and the winter could be substantial. I would really like the Minister to address that issue.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness now to speak.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, yesterday 38,486 new daily cases were reported. That is equal to daily cases in mid-January and there are now just under 8,000 people in hospital, with 1,000 on ventilators—and yesterday 191 deaths were also reported, equal to the daily numbers at the beginning of March. The consequence of removing all mitigations and life returning to the new normal means Covid is still very much with us, especially the delta variant. Members of SAGE appear, according to the press, to be advising that preparations for an October lockdown should now be made.
It appears that Ministers are reliant on vaccination as the main mitigation, until the NHS is overwhelmed again. But we are already hearing of hospitals having to dedicate more wards just to Covid, with the complexities of double staffing for hot and not-hot wards. These numbers also make it much harder for the NHS to catch up on the long waiting lists, which have been talked about a great deal during the week, with the health and social care announcements.
The Statement talks about test and trace being another pillar. That is right, but the advice to the public is complex and there is evidence that many are not taking tests even when they have symptoms or have been in touch with a positive case. For example, you have to hunt quite hard online if you have had a negative PCR test but still have some residual symptoms to find out whether you should release yourself from self-isolation. Are there plans to make it clearer exactly what people should do, because we all know that sometimes the first PCR test is a little early and a second one is necessary?
Are the news reports true that there is about to be an announcement that anybody double vaccinated will not need to take a PCR test if they come into contact with a Covid-positive person? The delta variant can and is being caught by double-vaccinated people, and—importantly—they can transmit it too. That can have difficult consequences for those not vaccinated, or those who are clinically extremely vulnerable. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, referred to the mu variant. If it is true that the Pfizer vaccination is ineffective in holding it back, that is serious and we may need to think about mitigations again sooner rather than later.
The Statement explains the partial changes on policy for vaccinating 12 to 15 year- olds with underlying conditions. It is good to see that those with blood cancers, sickle cell, type 1 diabetes, congenital heart disease and poorly controlled asthma are now added to the list. Actually, it is vital, given Gavin Williamson’s removal of all mitigations in schools. But other children are omitted from this list, who may be on immuno-suppressants or immunocompromised, and who are now expected back in school. The Statement refers to
“no more home schooling, no more bubbles, teachers vaccinated, and all 16 and 17 year-olds offered a first dose”.
But the removal of bubbles and facemasks, and the Government’s shameful lack of movement on providing proper ventilation interventions in classrooms, means that Covid can and will spread, and not just among the children—they may well take it home. While most children will not have a problem, some—those with underlying conditions—will.
Can the Minister explain why all children with serious underlying conditions have been removed from the clinically extremely vulnerable list of shielders? Parents are already getting threatening letters from schools, yet their questions about why their at-risk child has been taken off the list have not yet been properly answered. The evidence in America is that these children are occupying more paediatric hospital beds and more intensive care beds.
Turning to clinically extremely vulnerable adults, it is good that the 500,000 severely clinically extremely vulnerable are to get a third dose as soon as possible. But delaying the decision on a booster jab for the remaining clinically extremely vulnerable, who number just over 3 million, is worrying. Guidance online for them is still 10 pages long, muddled in with advice to the general population, but the key parts are still not to go into any environment with people who are not yet double jabbed or might breach social distancing, and if they come inside your home they should have had a lateral flow test first. As I have said, that amounts to a stay-at-home order but without the support that government provided before. When will the booster decision be made for this particular group of people?
Care home providers are warning that they are already losing staff ahead of the 11 November deadline for all staff to be double vaccinated. This is in addition to the staff shortages that they are already trying to manage, which include the perfect storm of losing staff through Brexit and increased pay in retail and agriculture. Losing more staff who are unvaccinated will be catastrophic. They have asked for a delay to the start of the scheme, particularly now that a new consultation has started for NHS staff on a scheme which would start at a later date. What plans are there to delay this implementation date?
Finally, the Minister for Vaccines came a real cropper in the House of Commons yesterday when trying to justify Covid vaccine passports, when he was on record in the past as not supporting them. Can the noble Lord update the House on the Government’s plans regarding vaccine passports in light of yesterday’s debate, which demonstrated that the relevant Minister could not even explain his own policy credibly?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful for such thoughtful questions. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her kind remarks: I had a very good break, and I hope that both she and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, did so too.
We are in a much better place than we were this time last year, but there are still serious challenges on the horizon. I am grateful for the opportunity to address some of those.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, rightly alluded to the important flu vaccine rollout ahead of us. I reassure her that any issues of supply are focused very much on single suppliers, and we have a wide range of people stepping forward to supply us. We will continue an extended vaccination programme for the whole of the 2022 season, and more than 35 million people should be eligible for free seasonal flu vaccines. It will be the biggest flu vaccine rollout that we have ever done, beating, we hope, the record uptakes that we had last year. It will include a continued offer of vaccination to 50 to 64 year-olds and, for the first time, will be extended to additional cohorts in secondary schools so that those in years 7 to 11 will be offered a vaccination. The vaccination rollout is on course and we hope that it will hit all its targets.
While talking about education, I reassure the noble Baroness that asymptomatic testing in secondary schools and colleges will be continued. That includes two tests in person on return, which many have recently done, but there will be a review point at the end of September. Schools will not be responsible for contact tracing of positive cases. As with positive cases in other settings, NHS Test and Trace will work with those cases to identify close contacts. I believe that will lift a severe burden on schools and make life easier both for parents and for pupils.
On ventilation, both the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, are quite right: these are important developments. But we cannot turn around a massive change in the infrastructure of our education system overnight. As autonomous institutions, it is right for providers of education to put in place their plans based on individual circumstances, including allocating their own budgets. None the less, we are putting in place special provision for ventilation in schools where there is an acute need.
To answer the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, directly, she is right: vaccines are the primary but not the only way out of this pandemic. She will know as well as anyone our remarkable achievements in that space. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked whether we are therefore planning to have an autumn “firebreak” of lockdowns. The Government are undertaking a review to assess the country’s preparedness for autumn and winter, which will consider whether to continue or strengthen public and business guidance. We may need to take measures to help manage the virus during periods of higher risk, such as autumn. However, we will do everything we can to seek to avoid imposing restrictions that have significant economic, social and health costs. We will do it only as a last resort if absolutely necessary.
Both the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about children’s and young people’s vaccines. As they know, on 3 September we accepted JCVI advice on extending the list of 12 to 15 year-olds with underlying health conditions who can receive the vaccine. That is very good news. It includes children with haematological malignancies, sickle cell disease, type 1 diabetes, congenital heart disease and a number of other conditions. We are now awaiting the CMO’s assessment of the JCVI advice so far and its advice to us on whether the remaining 12 to 15 age group should also receive the vaccine. We look forward to receiving that advice.
Regarding boosters and a third vaccine, on 1 September we accepted JCVI advice on offering a third vaccine dose to individuals with severe immunosuppression. That dose is being given to bring severely immuno-suppressed individuals nearer to the same level of immunity achieved by healthy individuals in two primary doses. Again, this is very good news. Following the publication of interim advice by the JCVI in June, the Government are preparing for a potential booster vaccination programme from September, and I look forward to bringing details of that to the House at a future date.
On the mandation of vaccination in social care, we are enormously grateful for the huge amount of support among social care workers for our vaccination programme. It is true that some—a very small proportion—have not taken up the opportunity for vaccination. We hear the concerns of providers of social care, but, in the round, this has proved to be an effective programme that has delivered a huge amount of reassurance to those who live in social care and has put safety at the forefront of our efforts. That is why we are looking at a consultation on mandatory vaccination for NHS workers, following a public consultation that we recently announced. While many of those working in health and care have taken up the offer, it is crucial that this is consistent across relevant services to safeguard vulnerable people, which is why we are looking further at mandatory vaccination elsewhere.
Testing is still very much an important part of our campaign against the virus. We are supporting the testing programme, but we maintain it under review. On discharge arrangements, there has been generous financial support for discharge provisions from hospitals to schools because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, rightly pointed out, that is a very important bottleneck that has tied up a large number of hospital beds. As we go into winter, we want to have the best possible arrangements for ensuring that those hospital beds are prioritised for those who need them most.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I have some supplementary questions. I am most grateful to the Minister for the update and for yet again appearing before the House. I will pose short questions about three areas.
First, on the public health messaging over asymptomatic carriers, we seem to have had a complete drop-off of mask wearing and of being distance aware. Neither of those impedes the economic viability of any business at all; they are simply social behaviours. People seem to have gone back to the most inappropriate social hugging, which is unnecessary. Yet I do not see any public health messages coming out just to maintain the control measures we had in place before. Could the Minister tell me what the plans are for that?
Secondly, does the noble Lord plan to widen the list of eligible children to ensure that those who have a family member, whether a sibling or parent, who is particularly vulnerable are offered vaccination—this would not be forced but would be an offer to them—rather than being excluded, as they are at the moment, because they themselves are not ill? They may carry quite a large emotional burden, knowing that someone at home could become very ill, despite being double vaccinated.
Thirdly, on preparing for the winter, does the Minister recognise this week’s notice from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine showing that 80% of respondents are not confident in their ability to cope safely in their departments as we go into winter, and that half of the emergency departments are reporting delays of transfer from ambulances into their departments? That compares with a quarter of such departments reporting these delays in October 2020, which would suggest that the whole backlog and silting up has got worse. Can the Minister explain what provision there is to expand bed provision, so that people who arrive in emergency departments and need admission can be moved rapidly into beds to be looked after, rather than having this backlog, which also stops ambulances going to other emergencies while they are stuck outside an emergency department?
Lord Bethell (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for three extremely thoughtful questions. I will dwell on them, if I may, because they are a good opportunity to answer some of the concerns that I know many noble Lords have.
On public health messaging and behaviours, there is a question of perception. If we look closely at the analysis done by our behaviours team, we see that the public remain extremely conservative and restrained. While the noble Baroness’s perception may be that mask wearing and distancing have been given up and that hugging is not where she would like it to be, from the data it appears that the public remain extremely concerned about public transport, going to the shops and attending major events. Therefore, we are in a moment of transition, but roughly speaking we are where we would want to be.
Let us be clear: we are keen to get back to the life we once had, and vaccines are going to be the way that we do that. We want to return to intimacy and to the way in which our community likes to live. Testing, social distancing and the panoply of virus control play a role in that—but we are seeking to step back from those days and, so long as the vaccines work in the way they are working at the moment, we are keen not to disrupt people’s lives as much as we can.
On eligible children, that ball is with the CMO at the moment. I completely hear the noble Baroness; she is entirely right about the emotional burden. I also emphasise the importance of making sure that children get the education they need, while at the same time empathising with their concerns for their loved ones and those with whom they live. It is an awful position for those children and families to be in. That is why the CMO is looking at vaccination for 12 to 16 year-olds and possibly beyond.
On winter preparations, I hear the noble Baroness’s comments about the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. The statistics she gave are a matter of concern, but the medical director of the NHS monitors these questions extremely carefully. We think we are in the position we need to be in to get through this winter. We are on the balls of our feet in case there is either an uptick in the current delta variant or a new variant. A huge amount of investment has gone into the redeployment of NHS beds. The NHS has never had a bigger capacity in terms of its workforce and the number of beds available. The use of ICUs and the management of Covid patients have become much more efficient and productive than they used to be, and we believe that we are in good shape.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, perhaps I could ask the Minister two questions. My first question is the question I asked on the day we broke up in July, about whether there are plans to do booster jabs combined with flu jabs. The Minister was not certain and said he would try to let us know. Has he got more information on that?
My second question is slightly more speculative, but it is something I am very concerned about. BBC news has been extremely conscientious about keeping everybody informed about the Covid rate, the death rate and the number in hospital. Can we have an assurance that no pressure will be put on the BBC by the Government in order to bury the worrying developments that are taking place?
Lord Bethell (Con)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for asking about the co-administration of the flu and Covid vaccines. I hope very much that I got back to her. If I did not, I shall give her an update now. JCVI’s interim advice is to plan to offer Covid booster vaccines from September 2021 to prolong the protection of the vaccines provided to those who are most vulnerable to the serious effects of Covid ahead of the winter months. This would take place alongside the annual flu vaccination programme. The NHS will continue to follow the guidance given by the JCVI on the co-administration of flu and Covid vaccines—so, yes, they will be co-administered. That is an enormously effective way of delivering the vaccines, and the reach of both programmes is amplified by the other.
On the BBC, I reassure the noble Baroness that no pressure is put on it. If we had an effective pressure mechanism on the BBC, she would certainly be the first to know about it.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, may I take the noble Lord the Minister back to a question about Covid passports that my noble friend Lady Brinton asked and that he did not have time to answer in his first response? I understand both sides of the argument regarding Covid passes, but what I do not understand is the potential exclusion of those properly vaccinated overseas, or indeed anyone double-vaccinated outside England.
In July, the Vaccines Minister, in a Statement in the other place, said that, by the end of that month, those vaccinated overseas could have their vaccinations recorded on the NHS England system and access their Covid pass using the NHS app. Despite the Government promising that this would happen by the end of July, it is still not possible. What do these people do when they are told to self-isolate on arrival into the UK from yellow-listed countries, or when they are excluded from designated premises, if the Government bring in compulsory Covid passes for access to certain types of premises?
Lord Bethell (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the point again, and my apologies to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for not addressing her point the first time around. I will just say that, from 19 July, it has been voluntary for organisations to use and implement the Covid pass under step 4. There are some essential settings where certification should not be used, and we have made that plain.
However, the Government are encouraging and supporting businesses and large events to use the Covid pass. The Government intend to make full vaccination a condition of entry to nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather from the end of September. Work is under way to find a solution for Northern Ireland citizens who have been vaccinated in England but are registered with a GP in Northern Ireland. We are also very close to establishing data flows with the Isle of Man.
To the noble Lord’s point about those who have had their vaccinations overseas, in countries such as Norway, he is entirely right. We are working extremely hard on those processes. I have met with NHSX and NHSD to talk about this matter and I assure him that we are putting every effort into dealing with it. I wish that we had dealt with it by now. It is an extremely complex matter. The validation and verification of vaccines requires an enormous amount of bilateral and multilateral co-ordination, and the approval of different vaccines taken by different people in different locations and the record keeping by overseas countries are things that we have to consider and manage. He is right: when the Covid pass system is brought in, those who have had a vaccine overseas will need special consideration. I reassure him that we are working as hard as we can to resolve that issue.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I might bring up the subject of antibodies. All the statements seem to be focused completely on vaccinations, yet there is growing evidence that those people who have had Covid and have had vaccinations are indeed almost super-immune even to variants. There was an article in today’s Telegraph about that. So my first question is, do the Government have any idea how many people have in fact had Covid? There are an awful lot of people who have not had symptoms, have been at home, have had it and have recovered, and the Government have not really been informed about it. Is there knowledge in the Government about this area and, if so, is research being done on the strength of the antibodies of those who have had Covid and is that being taken into account in policy?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My noble friend has had an interest in this very important area for some time, and I completely applaud his diligence on it. It is an area that I share an absolute fascination with. We know so much about the vaccines but so little about the body’s immune system. It is incredibly frustrating but it is, I am afraid to say, just one aspect of this pandemic.
To answer the specific question of how many people have had the disease, it is difficult to be precise. Unfortunately, a lot of people have had the disease and never known that they had it. The fact that they have now gone on to have a vaccine means that it is extremely difficult for us to trace whether they have had the disease, because we do it mainly through the counting of antibodies. My noble friend can look on the ONS website, which I am sure he probably has, and he will see that the Venn diagram makes it almost impossible to figure out exactly how many people have had the disease. I can, through correspondence, share with him the various modelling that we have done, but there is not a definitive answer to that question.
I wish it were true that having had the disease and the vaccine together creates some kind of super-immunity, but I am afraid that there is a subset of people who have had both the vaccine and the disease who then go on to have the disease again. I have met a few of those people; they are extremely frustrated, as you can imagine. I am afraid that it does not bode well for thinking that the vaccine presents a concrete and immutable guard against the disease. I am afraid we will be living with the thought of boosters and improvements on the vaccine for some time to come. That is emerging as something we are working on. We are doing a tremendous amount of research on this. I had a meeting earlier with the antibody team, and I reassure my noble friend that we are doing everything we can to understand it better.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I come back to the advice from the JCVI relating to 12 to 15 year-old children who do not suffer the underlying conditions it has set out. I worry about the implications of that being overruled through the process that the Ministers have set up, seeking the advice of the four Chief Medical Officers. The Minister will know that they concluded that some young people, although it would be extremely rare, could suffer from myocarditis with lifelong consequences.
I must ask about the ethical considerations here as to some young people who will be damaged as a result of that decision because 6 million adults are too stupid or ignorant to have the vaccination. That surely is where our focus should be. Could he say something about what the Government are doing? Does he agree that the integrity of the whole vaccine process, not just in relation to Covid, is at stake here? I think that the JCVI should be listened to.
Lord Bethell (Con)
I violently agree with both the noble Lord’s points in spirit. If I may take them in reverse order, he is right that there are people who are not taking the vaccine, and they put the entire community at risk. Vaccination uptake among the under-30s has plateaued at around 60%. I cannot tell him exactly what will get that number up any further. That is why we look at questions such as certification and mandation. These are already in place in many European countries, including France and Italy, where they have taken advantage of certification and mandation in an extremely tough way to drive through vaccination. That example weighs heavily on our minds as we assess those two important opportunities. It is tough, and we will have important debates here in the House of Lords on both of them should they come to pass.
On children, the noble Lord is right that there are profoundly complex epidemiological and ethical issues around child vaccination. Child vaccination has been rolled out in America and in many European countries. Some European countries are looking at vaccinating those aged over three, not just those aged over 12. Why do they do that? It is because children are vectors of infection and drive the disease through their families, schools and communities. He is right that there are very rare examples, but examples none the less, where harm is done to children through the vaccine. Therefore, the assessment of that harm and weighing it up against the harm done by Covid to children, which again is extremely rare but is a statistical occurrence, and the community obligations and the damage done through the spread of the disease is something that ethicists and epidemiologists are looking at right now. We are being extremely careful about the way we do that. We are aware that it might be open to challenge. Therefore, we are dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s.
Universal Credit
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what impact assessment they have made of the proposed withdrawal of the £20 uplift to Universal Credit.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register, particularly as a member of the Financial Inclusion Commission and president of the Money Advice Trust. I very much look forward to hearing the contributions of other noble Lords, who I know feel passionately about this issue—one that goes to the heart of who we are as a nation and our moral obligations to each other. I thank the Library for its excellent briefing note setting out the context around the proposed withdrawal of the £20 uplift in universal credit.
The basic facts are as follows. In March 2020, the Chancellor announced that the standard allowances of universal credit and the basic element of working tax credit would be increased by £1,000 a year, or £20 a week, describing this very welcome uplift as a measure to “strengthen the safety net” during the pandemic. It was part of a wider package of support for family finances hit hard by Covid, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-employment Income Support Scheme. This package was generally considered to be well-judged and the right thing to do in quite extraordinary circumstances.
In March 2021, the Government announced that the uplift, initially intended to last 12 months, would be extended for a further six months. In July, the Government confirmed that they would withdraw the uplift at the end of September. What has been the impact of this and how has it been received?
Back in November 2020, the Legatum Institute reported that, although poverty had risen because of the pandemic, government policy, including the uplift to universal credit and working tax credits, “has insulated many families” from it. It estimated that the policies had protected 690,000 people from poverty in winter 2020. On the day that the withdrawal was announced, Boris Johnson told the House of Commons Liaison Committee that, as Covid-19 restrictions eased, the emphasis
“has got to be on getting people in work and getting people into jobs”.
This statement, suggesting that there was a binary choice to be made between work and benefits, completely ignored the high and rising levels of in-work poverty.
It is fair to say that the withdrawal announcement has been met with widespread criticism across the political spectrum. Among others, the Centre for Social Justice, the chairs of the relevant committees in the House of Commons and devolved assemblies, the influential Economic Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House and, quite remarkably, six former Conservative Work and Pensions Secretaries have called upon the Chancellor to make the uplift permanent, with many calling on it to be extended to legacy benefits. Tellingly, the six former Tory Secretaries of State argued that
“work remains the best way out of poverty for those who can work, but we want to make sure that those who cannot work are supported with dignity”.
It is hard to disagree with that statement.
In September, 100 organisations, including charities, health professionals and others, called on the Government to abandon their plans to remove the uplift. They argued that the decision would
“pile unnecessary financial pressure on around 5.5 million families, both in and out of work”.
That list is not just the usual suspects; it is a much wider cross-spectrum of opinion.
Crucial to this debate, what assessment did the Government make of the impact of this highly controversial decision? There has been no shortage of calls for the Government to publish any impact assessment or analysis they have done on the effect of withdrawing the uplift. I was shocked to learn that, in response to a Written Question on 22 July, asking the Government to publish the impact assessment for the removal of the uplift, Will Quince, Minister for Welfare Delivery, said,
“no assessment has been made”.
I ask the Minister if she will explain whether such an assessment is now available and, if not, why not, when it will be published and, ideally, what it says. Is there any truth to the report in yesterday’s Financial Times that an internal Whitehall analysis says that the Government should be braced for a “catastrophic” end to the welfare uplift?
Given this gaping hole, various organisations have produced their own analysis of the potential impact, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Citizens Advice—both highly respected organisations. Among others, these assessments have commented that 6 million low-income families will lose over £1,000 from their annual incomes; 0.5 million more people will be pulled into poverty, including 200,000 children; working families make up the majority of families who will be affected by the cut; families with children will be disproportionately impacted; and the impact of the cut will be greatest across the north of England, Wales, the West Midlands and Northern Ireland.
It is ironic to note that, according to Citizens Advice, people are 1.5 times more likely to claim universal credit in places the Government have said they want to invest in, including those areas prioritised by their levelling-up fund. Indeed, it seems that this decision will take more money out of these local economies than it would put in, which is an extraordinary case of giving with one hand, but taking—in brackets more—with the other.
I am particularly concerned about the real-life impact: heart-rending decisions that individual households will need to take on whether to put food on the table, pay the rent or pay the bills—in short, going without essentials or being forced into debt to cover the costs. According to recent research from Toynbee Hall looking at the experiences of Londoners disproportionately affected by Covid, for many, income has reduced, expenditure has increased and debt has risen.
The Financial Inclusion Commission, of which I am a member, has argued that continuing the uplift is a key measure in avoiding the future financial and human costs of unpaid bills, evictions and debt recovery. For the most financially vulnerable households there is a real danger that people will have no option other than to turn to high-cost credit or illegal lenders to meet basic costs. The charity StepChange has highlighted how the termination of this uplift will be a cliff edge for millions, pushing them into deficit budgets. Can the Minister say what plans the Government have to ask all financial services providers and utilities suppliers, as part of their vulnerable customer activity, to signpost claimants to the freely available benefits and grants information and advice provided by a wide range of charities?
On the impact on mental health, many people with severe mental illness rely solely on benefits to survive, and the uplift has provided a much-needed lifeline to people who cannot work because of their condition. According to a recent Rethink Mental Illness survey, 76% of UC claimants said that over the last 12 months, concerns about money had impacted on their mental health “a lot” and over half said that they had experienced not having enough money to pay for food.
I want to ask the Minister, who I know thinks deeply and feels passionately about these issues, the following questions. First, all of the last six Work and Pensions Secretaries have described the uplift as a vital improvement in the adequacy of social security, joining hundreds of charities and other experts who have warned that this cut will cause real hardship, rising poverty and debt. Why are the Government ignoring this warning from such a wide array of voices and taking welfare support back to inadequate levels, particularly at a time when energy bills are set to rise?
Secondly, we keep hearing the Government’s plan for jobs as the justification for this cut. However, the majority of people who will be impacted by the cut are in fact already in work, and universal credit provides vital support for families moving back into work at precisely the same time as other pandemic-related government support schemes finish. How does this add up?
Thirdly, what are the Government’s plans for families on universal credit who are unable to work due to caring or disability? Surely, we believe these families should live above the poverty line and with dignity.
Finally, what assessment have the Government made of the interaction between the ending of the uplift and Tuesday’s announcement about the rise in national insurance to fund health and social care? Will there be any overlap between universal credit recipients and those earning enough to pay national insurance, in which case is this a double whammy?
I end by making a heartfelt plea to the Government, adding my voice to so many others, urging them to keep the £20 uplift, make it permanent and extend it to legacy benefits.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, today’s debate is a very important one. The subject matter is understandably highly emotive and families, especially those with children, who are suffering poverty need our concern and our practical help. Unfortunately, universal credit has had naysayers from its inception. I feel it has been the unsung hero of the pandemic, with 3 million extra claimants rapidly joining the system. The old tax credit system would have let people down badly, and errors and delays would have led to massive hardship in the depths of lockdown. The book by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, said that paperwork got lost in 40% of tax credit claims.
It is clear to all of us that the days of the pandemic have been difficult for people, but they have also been difficult for government. Difficult decisions have had to be made. When the pandemic hit, the Government created a range of measures and it was always made clear that the uplift to universal credit was temporary. Can the Minister say whether the £6 billion cost of universal credit was modelled on a zero improvement in the labour market? Obviously, the economy is now revving up, so there are so many more job vacancies. Now the labour market circumstances have dramatically changed, there are more work opportunities.
The aim of and philosophy behind universal credit is to help people to escape the negativity of a life spent permanently on welfare. Attempts by previous Governments, such as tax credits, have trapped people in welfare. While the uplift is being removed, the Government are increasing the number of jobcentres and work coaches—factors to help people to find more, and better, jobs. The problem of in-work poverty is concerning. Can my noble friend the Minister inform the House about the in-work progression scheme, which, I understand, is aimed at helping with this situation?
The uplift is costing £6 billion. I believe that there can be, and must be, more and better ways for the Government to help people.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, for initiating this debate. She was so comprehensive that I do not think I will use all my time, so as not to repeat her.
I want to make a couple of points, if I may, in reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. Somebody who was born on the day the old benefits disappeared and UC arrived has probably celebrated their 10th birthday by now, so I wonder how long that argument will be played out in this Chamber. I congratulate the noble Baroness on her stalwart defence but, really, it is getting a bit thin and memories of how bad the old system was are fading. I am the first to accept that it was a bad system; I just do not think that this is a particularly good one. I agree with the noble Baroness that it came into its own during the pandemic, however.
I slightly resent—this is not against the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, or anybody individually—the fact that, if the benefits were adequate, we would not be having this discussion about a £20 uplift. If the benefits were decent, people would not be struggling. We are not talking about people falling into poverty here; we are talking about people falling deeper into poverty so that they cannot even afford the basics.
I want to say a little about the impact on actors, writers and other creative workers, who are often ignored in these debates. Some 65% of Equity members rely on universal credit and other welfare to stay in the industry. Removing the £20 uplift would mean 53% of them experiencing financial hardship, with 41% unable to meet housing and other essential costs. These figures were taken from a recent impact survey; I thank Equity for its excellent briefing. It joined 100 other organisations across the UK that wrote to urge the Government to abandon their plans. Only 9% of its actors and creative workers had received a grant or other funding from Arts Councils, and more than 40%
“have not received help from the Self Employed Income Support Scheme”.
Of equal concern is the reintroduction of the minimum income floor. These moves will risk an exodus of talent from our world-leading creative industry, already clobbered by the Brexit legacy. Obviously, there will be time in future to discuss the minimum income floor and Brexit, but families will receive significantly less help from the social security system now than they would have a decade ago. The loss of the £20 uplift will take the main rate of out-of-work support down to its lowest level in real terms since 1990.
I am aware that the chairs of the relevant House of Commons Select Committees have written to the Government to ask for the uplift to be made permanent. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, has already said, six former Conservative Work and Pensions Secretaries have urged the Chancellor to make the uplift permanent. If they cannot change the Government’s mind, I begin to despair. Why will they not publish the impact assessment mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler? If—
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I hate to interrupt a good speech but the noble Baroness is almost a minute over the suggested speaking time.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for introducing this important debate, and I declare my interest as a trustee of Feeding Britain. I will focus my time on the impact that withdrawing the £20 uplift will have on food poverty. More than 500 anti-poverty workers, volunteers and supporters within the Feeding Britain network have signed a petition calling on the Government not to remove the increase, and that petition will be delivered to No. 10 in about an hour.
Food banks in the Feeding Britain network have credited the £20 increase with helping to stabilise, or indeed reduce, the levels of need for crisis support. As has been said, the decision to remove that increase coincides with the ending of other support schemes, such as furlough and local support grants and, with the imminent predicted increase in food and energy prices, there is deep concern that withdrawing this uplift will lengthen the queues outside food banks.
A survey published this week for the Trussell Trust found that, faced with a cut of £20 a week, 1.2 million people—20% of those who claim universal credit—say that they are very likely to need to skip meals, and nearly 1 million—that is, 15%—say they are very likely to need to use a food bank as a result of the cut. I find it really shocking to read a stat from the Food Foundation, which estimates that in order to eat according to government guidelines for a healthy diet, the poorest in our society would have to spend 74% of their disposable income, compared to only 6% for the richest.
This is most certainly not about laying all the solution for addressing food poverty at the Government’s feet. The role of civil society and community engagement, particularly during the pandemic, has been inspiring and has involved many faith groups, and it needs to continue to be fanned into flame. During the first six months of the pandemic, a project involving the diocese of Gloucester partnering with a charity in Stroud called the Long Table delivered over 35,000 meals to the vulnerable and NHS workers. However, to enable civil society and community responsibility, we need the Government to put the right enablers and safeguards in place, and that means keeping this £20 uplift.
In 2018, I added my voice to the End Hunger UK campaign. Three years later, the fundamental point remains. While celebrating the work that churches and other faith and voluntary groups are doing to respond to urgent need, it is clear to me that structural change needs to happen to reduce the need for food banks in the first place. That now includes retaining the uplift to universal credit.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I rise to contribute to this debate with very mixed feelings. I was very approving of the Government’s decision to have a substantial uprating at the beginning of the pandemic and to extend it from the original 12 months to 18 months, but I query the wisdom of ending it abruptly at the end of this month. Others have made mention of those six Conservative Secretaries of State who have urged that this should be permanent. I remind everyone that the architect of universal credit, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, was one of those who contributed to this, and I think his views are worth a great deal. That said, I have been long enough in politics to know that it is one thing to give a benefit but quite another to take it away. Whatever the merits or demerits might be of doing so, as night follows day, there will be instances of real hardship—real, agonising true-life stories—which will immediately diminish the reputation of the Government for doing something that was in fact very good indeed.
I know that the Government are setting great store by getting more people into work, and I fully subscribe to that. I am delighted by the number of schemes that are afoot to try to help, particularly those that will give people greater skills and therefore the chance of earning better money in better jobs, which would bring them off universal credit altogether. Others have mentioned the fact that many people on universal credit are also working. That is something that we ought to see the end of as soon as possible. In the meantime, I am deeply concerned about such an abrupt ending—what I call the “cliff edge”. I am sure there are other ways of dealing with this, if the Government feel they cannot make the uplift a permanent arrangement, as they have made clear. Surely it would be more sensible to have some gradual diminution of the amount rather than doing it all in one go. I do not know whether that has been considered in government circles, but I think they should take another look at it to ensure that, as I say, we do not cause people immense hardship by an abrupt ending of something on which so many people rely.
I know the Minister understands very well the position of people who have not had it very good in life and who have been at the bottom of the pile, since much of her work has dealt with that, so I look to her to see if she can bring her powers of persuasion to bear on the powers that be.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, it is good to see the Minister again; we have spent a lot of time together this week.
We have to give credit to the Government for having had the sense and the compassion to introduce the £20 uplift in the first place, so equally we must now condemn them now that they want to take it away. It goes without argument that we should have a proper assessment of the impact of withdrawing the uplift. Indeed, we have several clear assessments and measured judgments of the impact—just not from the Government. We have the assessment of reputable organisations including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Citizens Advice, and they have made the position clear. I also had the privilege of attending a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Universal Credit earlier this week. We heard from a wide range of organisations, including the Trussell Trust, which has been mentioned, but also, crucially, from individuals who were able to enlighten us about their real experiences and their fears of what faces them after the cut in their benefits.
We are recovering from the pandemic, but much more slowly than we hoped and expected earlier in the year, not least with the expected increases in unemployment and the consequent poverty and financial difficulties. It is also worth mentioning the loss of the economic stimulus that will arise because of the withdrawal of the uplift; that money is being taken out of local economies across the country.
My question to the Minister is simple: given the overwhelming weight of opinion and evidence, from and on behalf of those in receipt of universal credit, how can the Government in all conscience proceed with this action?
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for securing this debate.
I started by contemplating £20. What does that mean to different people in our society? Like the right reverend Prelate, I focused on food. I thought about the people in this Chamber and those who live around us here in Westminster. I looked at some of the restaurants around us here in Westminster. At the Corinthia London Hotel, just up the road, you can get a baked fig starter for £18. At the Ivy restaurant you can get a shepherd’s pie for £19.50. If you have lunch at the Ritz, you can get a veal sweetbread starter for £28.
Also visiting us here briefly at Westminster were people testifying to the Work and Pensions Committee, telling it what £20 meant to them. Anthony Lynam said that it means,
“do I go hungry, do my kids go hungry?”
Amina Nagawa said that already with the £20 she goes without food and her son cannot eat something nutritious. Gemma Widdowfield said that she would buy essentials on her credit card and just stack up the debt.
The right reverend Prelate talked about the need for structural change. We have a crisis of inequality in our society. £20 means the world to some people or a veal sweetbread starter to others. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, just said, this involves not just individual households but whole communities. Citizens Advice assessed the community impact of this cut as the Government appear not to have done. It worked out that for each £1 of investment that the Government might put in their levelling-up fund, £1.80 was being taken from local economies targeted by the levelling-up fund, the poorest in our society.
We come back to food. We think about what people might be eating in Doncaster, Wigan or Merthyr Tydfil. If they are eating out at all, it might be spending £2 in the café for a pie and chips. They probably will not be eating out at all but shopping around in supermarkets to find the cheapest possible thing to put food into people’s mouths. The people dining at the Ritz and the Ivy are taking the food out of the mouths of the children who cannot eat now. Twenty pounds is not much, but taking it away as well is absolutely unconscionable.
Lord Desai (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is almost a universal law of poverty studies—I used to do that 40 years ago—that any level of payment at which the Government of the day fix as being necessary is 15% short of what is really needed. Peter Townsend, a great economist carried out a study way back in the 1970s in which he was able to show that what we then had by way of supplementary benefits was 15% to 20% short.
When the £20 extra was given in the pandemic, the Government just fixed the existing allowance to what it should always have been. One of the things that happens when you puts your name down to speak is that people write letters. The actors’ union, Equity, has written to me. Actors are peculiar people because even in normal circumstances they have a precarious career. They never know when they will get a role, especially in the pandemic because of the restrictions on large gatherings. Even now, when the theatre and film industries are reviving, the situation is always peculiar. Even when one is employed, one is insecure and inadequately compensated. For them, saying that the economy has recovered and wages are rising is not good enough. There is a large class of such jobs; even when one has a job, one is not actually secure.
For those people, £20 is a lot of money. Two-thirds of actors are in the position whereby under universal credit they are insecure in terms of having an adequate amount of money. I therefore urge the Government to extend their hand—I know things are hard—and perhaps do what the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, said. If they have to do it, please do it slowly. Break it down into stages and try to see from the data where it will hurt most and do something. Please do not do it suddenly. The best of all possible worlds would be to make the extra £20 permanent.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for securing this debate and focusing on impacts.
It has been said that the national insurance increases announced this week will hit the poorest and younger workers hardest, and these categories will often include UC claimants moving into employment, so not maintaining the uplift could be a double whammy for those cohorts. Can my noble friend the Minister give us an indication as to the impact of the interaction of these two measures? If a claimant is paying increased national insurance on their earned income, does that mean that there is now, effectively, an even higher taper rate and they lose more than 63p of every £1 they earn? I am sure my noble friend will put me right if I am misunderstanding how UC and NI work together.
Much has been written about a decade of underfunded reform, but the focus should be on adequately resourcing the principles of UC, which promised to make work pay. I am particularly interested in the impact on work incentives of not maintaining the uplift. Instinctively, it can be argued both ways. Has modelling been done to establish whether its retention is a marginal disincentive to moving into work or, in fact, a security blanket that keeps morale high and makes moving into work less daunting?
As the Government are rightly very exercised by job vacancies and skills shortages are very high, work incentives are of paramount importance. Strengthening these would make better use of any ongoing increase in the welfare budget than this emergency blunt instrument, which boosted the incomes of almost all claimants regardless of circumstances. If the Government decide against maintaining the uplift, they should decrease the taper rate so that it is closer to the 55% level mooted in early design of UC in 2009-10.
My noble friend Lord Freud was unable to establish properly the system of universal support to run alongside universal credit to help those who will always struggle to get into work, with all the advantages to well-being for them and their children this entails. What progress is being made to help those furthest from the labour market to overcome barriers of addiction, mental ill health, poor education and family relationship problems which a more generous basic welfare payment would barely touch?
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Tyler for bringing this debate and to the Secretary of State for sitting in for a quite a lot of it. That was a good sign. She is no longer here, but I hope that the Minister will share her answers and the Hansard record with her, because it is about time the Government listened.
In July last year, your Lordships’ Economic Affairs Committee produced a report on universal credit. It called on the Government to make the £20 uplift permanent. It is an indictment of us as Peers that we have not yet found time to debate that report, over a year later. We need to do a better job of ensuring that we make use of such reports, because that committee raised a set of questions that necessitate considerable reflection.
In particular, the committee noted that universal credit can disadvantage women, disabled people and BAME, and that it was linked to increased food bank usage. The Leader of the other place has talked about the support given to food banks being “rather uplifting”. I do not find the support uplifting. It is a travesty that, in this country, people need to go to a food bank at all.
While I listened closely to the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, and it is clearly encouraging that people have rallied around the most vulnerable during the pandemic, we should not need food banks in this country, ever. The state should ensure that people are not indebted to such an extent that they cannot afford to feed themselves and their children.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, made absolutely the right points. For so many of us, £20 might seem a very small amount of money. How many chai lattes does it buy—how many things that seem so incidental to many people above the poverty line? But for others, that small amount of money makes all the difference. If it is right during the pandemic, it is right going forward as well, because we have heard that so many people are on in-work benefits. They cannot do more and more jobs. If they can get a better-paid job, fantastic—but if they cannot, there are questions to be raised.
I have a final question for the Minister. The Economic Affairs Committee, in calling for the uplift to be made permanent, said:
“Universal Credit should be set at a level that provides claimants with dignity and security.”
Does the Minister agree? If so, does she think that reducing the uplift will leave people with dignity and security?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and all noble Lords for their contributions. The Government have very few supporters on this matter, and nor should they.
We have heard about the impact on poverty. Citizens Advice has said that 2.3 million people could fall straight into debt. That is because £20 is not a small amount of money. Basic universal credit for a single person over 25 will fall by 21% when this comes in. If they are under 25, the fall is more than 25% overnight. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, may think the Government were clear about this, but Turn2us surveyed people last month and found that 36% of respondents were unaware this cut was coming. Rethink found that many severely mentally ill people, because they do not go online, have no idea this is coming down the track.
The defence we have heard from the Prime Minister, that the Government want to prioritise work, is simply misleading. We have been here before. Back in 2012, George Osborne tried to justify cutting £10 billion from social security by talking about the need for fairness
“for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits”,
even though he knew he was cutting in-work benefits. Now here we are again.
The Prime Minister will know that 38% of adults in families on universal credit are employed. This cut is a direct blow to low-paid workers, including many we feted as pandemic heroes not long ago. The RSA found that 660,000 low-paid key workers, including nurses, supermarket staff and carers, will be hit by this cut.
The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, is right: when the Government take £1,000 a year from low-income families, they should remember that this money is spent in towns and cities across the country. Poorer families spend their money because they cannot afford not to. Taking that cash out of the economy, when the recovery is so fragile, damages us all—disproportionately so in the north and the Midlands.
Let us remember one thing. There is a reason why the Government had to increase universal credit when millions of people flooded on to it: because people could not live on the benefits at the level they were at previously. They had gone up under Labour Governments —historically, they have not always been bad—and the Government cut over £10 billion out of our system, so people could not afford to live on the system that was there. As my noble friend Lady Donaghy pointed out, that is why the Resolution Foundation is right that if this goes ahead, we will be back to the lowest level of basic benefits for three decades.
We deserve a decent social security system and an economy with secure, well-paid jobs. We do not get there by plunging the poorest people into deeper poverty. Can the Minister tell us now whether the FT is right? Is there really internal modelling saying that this will have a catastrophic effect, leading to a rise in homelessness and poverty and soaring use of food banks? Is that true? I find it impossible to credit that a Minister would look at that assessment, shrug their shoulders and do it anyway.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, for securing this debate, and I thank all those who have contributed to today’s discussion on this important question. I know how important it is, and I understand the depth of feeling.
I was pleased to hear some balance and the view that the Government had done well in supporting people through the pandemic and through their work to get people into work. The debate has been wide-ranging, and there is no doubt that the last 18 months have brought unprecedented challenges: we all had to change the way we lived and worked, and, in the face adversity, this Government provided an unprecedented response, delivering support to people right across the country in response to the crisis.
We have heard how the £20-a-week uplift to universal credit has made a difference to households facing economic shock and financial disruption as a result of the pandemic. The noble Baronesses, Lady Donaghy and Lady Tyler, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and others have made reference to the £20 uplift. It was clear right from the word go that it was temporary and not going to be permanent. I remind the House that the Chancellor has always been clear that the universal credit uplift was a pandemic response. He has ensured that support was in place well beyond the end of restrictions and reopening the economy, and we are not finished supporting those who need our help. No one wants to see anyone in poverty, so I agree with my right honourable friend the Chancellor when he says that he does not accept that people will be forced into poverty because it is now right that we switch our focus to getting people back into work and improving their prospects to progress in work. Our comprehensive plan for jobs will help to deliver this.
As I have said, the £20-a-week uplift to universal credit and working tax credit was announced by the Chancellor as a temporary measure in March 2020. We took this approach in order to give those people facing the most financial disruption the help that they needed as quickly as possible. At the Spring Budget, we announced a six-month extension of the temporary £20-a-week increase, meaning that it would be in place well beyond the end of restrictions. The additional support has increased the universal credit standard allowance and working tax credit basic element by up to £1,560 since its introduction.
We have also provided other support, and we should look at that rather than just at the £20 uplift in isolation. We introduced the Covid winter grant scheme—now the Covid local support scheme—with £269 million provided to local authorities in England between 1 December 2020 and 20 June 2021 to help the most vulnerable children and families with the cost of food, utilities and other essentials. This temporary scheme has now been extended for the final time, with an additional £160 million for local authorities to help vulnerable households as the vaccine rollout continues. From April 2021, we increased the national living wage. It has always been this Government’s intention that this additional financial support and other Covid support will end once the economy has reopened. Now, as we open up and our recovery gathers pace, it is right that we switch our focus to getting people back to work and improving their prospects to progress in work.
My noble friend Lady Eaton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler and Lady Smith of Newnham, talked about dignity. In my career, I have never seen anything more dignified than someone having a job that enabled them to live and be independent. Our vacancies are currently above pre-pandemic rates, sitting just below a record high since the series began in 2018. This is a very promising sign that the economy is recovering.
In this context, extending the uplift, even by a further 12 months, would have been premature and come at a very significant cost—the equivalent of adding 1p on the basic rate of income tax in addition to a 3p increase on fuel duty—when we consider that total welfare spending in Great Britain will be £241 billion in 2021-22, with over £111 billion on working age welfare, or 4.9% of GDP. Universal credit provides a safety net but is not designed to trap people in welfare. Fundamentally, we recognise—and I support the fact—that work is the best route for individuals.
As we are aware, there have been significant positive developments in the public health situation since the extension to the uplift was announced and the vaccine rollout is now progressing well, with 80.3% of the population fully vaccinated. It is now right that the Government should shift their focus to supporting people into work and to progress in work. We have a comprehensive plan for jobs to do this.
We are spending over £7 billion, around £1 billion more than the cost of a one-year extension of the £20 uplift. This includes £2 billion on Kickstart; £2.3 billion on the number of work coaches, which we have doubled; tripling sector-based work academies; £2.9 billion on Restart; £200 million on JETS; and tripling the number of traineeships. Our work coaches will be working very hard to get people into work and to progress them.
The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked about an impact assessment. The department has not completed an impact assessment on the ending of the temporary uplift as it was introduced as a temporary measure. We have no obligation to conduct an impact assessment as we are returning to business as usual as the temporary Covid uplift is expiring, as it was always intended to do. Understandably, the noble Baroness also asked us about fuel poverty. My noble friend Lady Bloomfield, who has expertise in this area, said to me that we are doing an awful lot on it. If I may, I will write to the noble Baroness to update her on what we are doing.
My noble friend Lady Eaton raised the point about a £6 billion improvement in the labour market and asked how we would spend it. I cannot answer that in detail, but I have every confidence that those discussions took place. She asked how we would use that money differently, if we could use it again. I cannot answer that, but I am sure that those discussions have taken place.
My noble friend also mentioned in-work progression. Currently, 4.2 million individuals are in low pay, and the Resolution Foundation has found that only one in six low-paid employees managed to escape low pay over the decade to 2016. There are 2.2 million universal credit claimants in work. These numbers have risen due to the impact of the pandemic. My noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith has conducted an in-work progression report, which I hope noble Lords have read. My colleague at the Department for Work and Pensions, the Minister for Employment, is busy trying to implement the things that will make a difference to people to achieve in-work progression.
The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, also spoke about addressing poverty. Looking at the impact of poverty on an individual is complex and inherently speculative, as it requires projecting how incomes will change for every individual in society, which are affected by a huge range of unknown factors. In 2019-20, working-age adults in households where all adults were in work were six times less likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than adults where nobody worked.
The noble Baroness, and other noble Baronesses and noble Lords, asked why we are ignoring the comments and points that stakeholders have made. We are not ignoring them; we are listening but, at the risk of repeating myself, this was always meant to be a temporary measure. As I understand it, the Government have made their decision, but it is not just to stop it and run; they are investing in other areas where we hope this will make a difference to people’s lives.
The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, raised the issue of planning for jobs. I could give her a running commentary on all that we are doing. Let me write to all noble Lords to tell them exactly what we are doing.
The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, mentioned people in the creative industries who have precarious employment. These things have an impact on them when their work stops; I acknowledge that. I am pleased to say that the Minister for Employment in the Department for Work and Pensions has been working with the creative industries. We have been working with Pinewood Studios to help people into jobs there, because there are so many of them. I would be happy to arrange a briefing from the Minister for Employment for noble Lords to see how that work is progressing, and I hope that it will give noble Lords an opportunity to raise other things.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, talked about food bank usage. I pay tribute to the food banks; they are doing a great job in supporting communities. They have enabled people and communities to work together to benefit the people they are trying to help, but it is difficult to predict impacts on the use of food banks. There are many reasons why people use them, and their use cannot completely be linked to a single cause. Impacts also depend on the speed of economic recovery and how we can quickly return individuals to work.
Time has eluded me again—it does annoy me when that happens because I feel that I have not answered everyone’s questions and shown them respect—so I will conclude my remarks now. I will write to the noble Lords who asked me questions and place a copy of my answers in the Library, but let me say that I am also prepared to meet people to further this discussion, if that would be helpful.
Finally, our focus is rightly on continuing the implementation of our plan for jobs programme, which will continue to help millions of families into stability and on to the path of prosperity because a working Britain is at the heart of a Britain that works.
Covid-19: Vaccinations and Global Public Health
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Boateng
To move that this House takes note of (1) the shortage of, and (2) the obstacles to the manufacture and distribution of, COVID-19 vaccinations in the Global South; and of the consequent implications for global public health.
Lord Boateng (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to move the Motion standing in my name. Covid has revealed in every aspect of our lives the impact of inequality, has it not? In no case is that inequality greater than in access to vaccines and the means to manufacture them as between the north and south of our world, as well as between countries that have and those that do not—that is, poor and impoverished countries. The facts speak for themselves; I am grateful, as I am sure all noble Lords are, to the House of Lords Library for its research work on this.
The figures revealed are a stark reminder of the problem that we as a world face in relation to Covid and inequality. On 23 August, approximately 32.5% of the world’s population had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, while 24.5% were fully vaccinated. That is in the world as a whole. However, only 1.4% of people in low-income countries had received at least one dose. I repeat: 1.4%, as opposed to 32.5%. There are many countries in the world, many of them in Africa—such as Chad, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, to name just a few—where the percentage of the population that is vaccinated is less than 1%. That is the reality on the ground. Of course, it presents a threat to us all because an unvaccinated world is a world in which variants that threaten us all are more likely to emerge. So, we have to find a way of addressing this imbalance.
We are also confronted too by the stark reality that, on existing projections, we are faced with a situation in which low-income countries cannot expect to have widespread vaccine access before late 2023. In the UK, we have bought enough vaccine to vaccinate the entire population more than three times over—on some calculations, four times over—and even after boosters have been given and the lower age groups have received their vaccinations, we will still be sitting on 210 million surplus doses. That is the figure that represents the reality of the gap between north and south.
The WHO estimates that some 16.2 billion doses will be needed for 2021-22 to achieve universal vaccination. That means that we are going to have to more than quadruple the world’s pre-Covid capacity to manufacture vaccines. That is the scale of the problem, but there is every reason to believe that, with the right attitude, approach and strategy, and with a willingness now to co-ordinate global action and to put the resources behind that action, the world could in fact meet the challenge. This is not one of those situations in which we can say, “Oh well, it’s all pretty terrible but really there’s nothing much we can do about it, that’s the way of the world”. Actually, it does not have to be the way of the world, because one thing we have learned from Covid is that where there is the concerted will, we can totally transform the picture. We know what has to be done, and what has to be done involves our Government being prepared to take a lead and the world recognising that existing mechanisms simply are not working.
Let us take a look at one of them: COVAX. The COVAX Facility was established—and we should celebrate the fact that it came into being—to create a global procurement mechanism to supply Covid vaccines to all the countries of the world in an equitable and effective way. But I am afraid it simply has not worked, because it was based on the flawed assumption that you could still have business as usual as an approach to the development, manufacture and pricing of vaccines. When I look around the Chamber, the expertise present is indicative of the degree of expertise that is present in this House on a range of issues. On this issue, we all know that, if COVAX is to work, it has to be reformed. It has not just simply to be given more resources; it also has to be geared towards dealing with inequality and not accepting it as a given.
The reality is that COVAX is at risk of failing even the modest, limited targets that it set itself. It looked to allocate just 2.3 billion vaccines by the end of 2022. That would not be enough, anyway, to deal with the scale of the problem that, as your Lordships are aware, exists, but we now face a situation in which it will be able to distribute and disburse less than a quarter of the intended doses on time.
That is hardly a wonder, because in June of this year, the UK received a distribution of vaccines that was greater than that of the entire distribution to the whole of Africa. In one month, June this year, the UK ordered and received 535,000 doses of vaccine from COVAX, and that was more than double the amount given to Africa in that month. How can the Minister justify that? Will he justify that this afternoon, or will the Government at last recognise that, yes, COVAX has got to be reformed? We and other wealthy nations cannot go on taking vaccines out of that pool, and we also need to put more into it. We hope that we will hear from the Minister this afternoon just what the Government are doing about that.
The other issue—again, one on which our nation needs to take a lead—is addressing the obstacles to scaling up manufacture in low-income and middle-income countries. We must be brave and ambitious in this regard, but we must also recognise that the capacity is there in the developing world. Even before Covid, developing country manufacturers were supplying at least 65% of the vaccine needs in all the WHO regions except the Euro region—so the countries of the developing world were already doing it with their existing capacity before Covid. India, China, Brazil, Cuba, Thailand, Senegal, Indonesia and South Africa all have the capacity to produce Covid vaccines. What they need is the additional investment and, significantly, a WTO regime that permits licensing and the sharing of information and encourages the pooling of intellectual property, and a WTO set of regulations to underpin that.
It is not about a free-for-all in which there will be inadequate and insufficient money for R&D in the pharmaceutical industry. That is not what is being proposed. What is being proposed is reform of the WTO. There are initiatives out there from South Africa and India, working together, and, importantly, from the United States. If the United States, which in the past has been at the forefront of restrictive practices in relation to intellectual property, is prepared to take a lead in reform, what is the reason for Her Majesty’s Government being so mealy-mouthed in this respect?
Why have we not taken the opportunity that the much-vaunted freedoms from the EU have given us to say that we will adopt a different negotiating position from the EU on this? Instead, what we have done is to go along with an EU consensus that has in fact been blocking reform within the WTO. I hope that we will get some inkling from the Minister. I do not expect him to reveal all his cards in a debate such as this; that would not be feasible or realistic, but he can at least indicate that we are prepared to join the United States, South Africa, India, and even France, in negotiating wording with the new director-general of the WTO that would give some hope that we will be able to see advances in this area.
There are many other experts in this House who will address this issue and talk about the importance of sharing knowledge and of building on the manufacturing capacity that exists—as I have indicated —in the global south; they will bring their expertise to bear on this. I hope that the Government will utilise the expertise that exists across Whitehall departments to come forward with a policy on this, so that we see the FCDO working with the Department for International Trade and the Department of Health. The Government should be congratulated on the energy of their Vaccines Minister and the strategy that has been brought to bear to meet the demands of our own country, so why can that not now be brought to bear to meet the demands of the world? This is not only a moral imperative but a public health imperative.
There was a great teacher who lived at the time of our Lord in Palestine by the name of Hillel. He said, in relation to self-reliance and solidarity:
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?”
This is the importance of recognising our common humanity, our interdependence and the need for solidarity. But he also went on to say, “If not now, when?” That is the importance of action, of getting on with it. Now is the time to demonstrate that solidarity and to make sure that all have access to vaccines for the benefit of all.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, on securing this important debate, and I agree with every word that he said in his compelling contribution.
I am also grateful to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry for its briefing, updating us on the substantial increase in manufacturing capacity for Covid vaccines. It is worth starting by noting the extraordinary work of our vaccine experts globally, from scientists such as Sarah Gilbert and her team who were working in January 2020, through to the manufacturing companies that have made the most extraordinary steps to provide over 5 billion doses of vaccine to date worldwide, with 41% of the world’s population having had at least one dose. But—and this is the reason for the noble Lord’s important debate today—shockingly, only 1.9% of people in low-income countries have had one dose to date.
The role of Gavi and the World Health Organization in encouraging high-income countries to share doses as soon as possible has been laudable, and those countries, including the UK, that have guaranteed funding to Gavi are also vital. Credit goes to our Government for stepping up to the plate early with those offers. The comments from the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, about the theory of COVAX versus the actual practical attitude of G7 countries were blunt and right, however.
Much money has been made available to Gavi for COVAX. The practical problem of sourcing new vaccine manufacturing has proved understandably difficult. That is why the World Health Organization has repeatedly asked high-income countries to donate substantial numbers of doses to low-income countries. We on these Benches urged the Prime Minister to set an example from the United Kingdom in his role as the chair of the G7, but sadly he did not. All that was repeated was the amount of money given to Gavi, which was no use when there was no manufacturing availability. The figure of a 1.9% rate of vaccination in low-income countries is testament to that.
The World Health Organization has rightly said that
“none of us will be safe until everyone is safe.”
That is about overall safety, not just for all people in all countries, but also about the mitigations that we in the UK need to take in our own communities to keep transmission down. I am sorry to say that we are not doing that here in England. This Government have removed all mitigations and that is one of the reasons they are pushing for so many people to have booster jabs—way beyond what is really necessary at the moment. The clinically extremely vulnerable, of whom I am one, are staying at home under the government guidance because we should not be mixing with unvaccinated people. But we must make sure that those who can manage and make changes in their lives—face masks, social distancing and ensuring that spaces they enter are ventilated—play their part as well as government.
I have been watching what has been happening in America. The difference in the numbers of cases, hospitalisations and deaths between states where there are mask mandates and other mitigations and those where there are defiantly no mitigations is truly shocking. Many countries in the global south do not have the resources to provide even these mitigations.
However, there is hope. This month, Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing output will pass the 7.5 billion dose mark, with manufacturers worldwide now producing 1.5 billion doses per month and further continued growth is expected. If there are no major bottlenecks, by June of next year total vaccine production is estimated to reach over 24 billion, by which time vaccine supplies will most likely outstrip global demand.
This is subject, of course, to the emergence of any new variant that is resistant to the currently approved vaccines. There is recent news of the mu variant, which appears to be resistant to the Pfizer vaccine, and worldwide experts are monitoring that and all new variants continuously. We may be relying on our pharmaceutical industry to produce new vaccines for whatever threats are coming down the line. The good news is that G7 countries have sufficient stocks of vaccine doses to vaccinate their own adults and teenagers, and to roll out booster programmes to protect the most at-risk groups—as well as substantially increase the number of doses available to lower and lower-middle-income countries.
There are various things that need to be done, though, and the UK must take the lead on this while we chair the G7. These include stepping up dose sharing, continuing to optimise production, calling for the trade barriers that the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, spoke about to be eliminated, supporting country readiness and driving further innovation. I ask the Minister: what is the current number of doses to be donated from the UK between now and the end of this calendar year? How much will be donated next year? While we chair the G7, it is vital that we lead the way and donate as many doses as we can as soon as we can.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, the vaccination effort, here in the UK and in many parts of the world, has been nothing short of incredible, with 5 billion vaccines developed, manufactured and distributed. Of course we must pay tribute to the scientists, health workers and all involved in that but, as the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, set out so powerfully, this incredible success has not been equitable across the world. I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving us the opportunity to debate this today.
I will add a further disturbing statistic to the noble Lord’s: 50% of the world’s vaccine supply has been bought by high-income countries, which account for just 16% of the world’s population. So the vaccine rollout has not been equitable, and indeed has exacerbated existing pre-pandemic inequalities.
The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted every corner of the world and, to avert further public health and economic disaster, we must address this vaccine inequality. It is in our enlightened self-interest to do so, as well as being the correct ethical thing to do. While the UK is gratefully reaping the benefits of a successful vaccination programme, that is not the case in the rest of the world. We know that economic recovery will be longer in poorer economies, compared to advanced ones, and that low-income countries will now face longer-term debt. We will see an increase in poverty and a reduction in spending on health systems. Unless we address this inequality of distribution, we will see the reversal of many of the impressive gains in development we have seen over the last few decades. Achieving the sustainable development goals by 2030 will be well out of reach.
The moral and ethical case for vaccine equity is clear; if that is not enough, so is the case for it being in our enlightened self-interest. It is right that wealthier countries should do more. Immunising many people in just a few countries, while in large parts of the world the virus remains unchecked, will simply allow more variants to emerge in these places. When variants appear, they will end up in the UK, in the end. We can close our borders and try to buy ourselves more time but, at some point, if the variant has sufficient biological advantages, it will spread around the world and into every nation. This is a global problem that must be dealt with globally.
It is clear that more must be done. In the United Kingdom, we have high vaccination rates, relative wealth, the presidency of the G7 and a desire to be a force for good in the world, so we in the UK must do more. We are rightly proud of our involvement in the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine, our early activity and our funding for COVAX. But, as we have heard, COVAX is struggling to deliver its objectives, given the practice of high-income countries such as ours to make deals directly with manufacturers. This has been exacerbated by high-income countries using COVAX for their own vaccinations. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, in June alone the UK received around 539,000 vaccine doses from COVAX—more than double the amount sent to Africa that month. Not much surprises me these days, but I was genuinely taken aback when I heard that. While COVAX is open to higher-income countries, given the supply issues it is facing, we should surely not be using its precious doses in our own country.
As I understand it, the UK has another 27 million doses on offer from COVAX and we are not the only country involved in this activity although, under public pressure, Canada has returned some of the doses it got from COVAX. We are not the only country but, given that we have 27 million additional doses on offer, will my noble friend commit the UK not to take up the option to withdraw any further vaccines from COVAX, so that the vaccines that it has can go to countries with far lower vaccination rates than ours?
I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister put global vaccination on the agenda for the G7 summit in Cornwall, and I would welcome some updates on progress following that. While falling well short of the 11 billion doses that the WHO said are needed, we saw pledges for 870 million doses via COVAX, half of which will be delivered before the end of the year. The UK’s part in this was 100 million doses, with 30 million going before the end of the year. We all know that time is of the essence, so can my noble friend tell me how many of those doses have been delivered and whether we are on track for that 50%?
The G7 summit communiqué also pledged to create the appropriate frameworks to strengthen our collective defences, so I ask what progress has been made on that and whether the task force to which we committed is up and running. The G7 also agreed to “engage constructively” with discussions at the WTO on the intellectual property issue; can my noble friend share an update on that? Finally, will the Government back calls, at the United Nations General Assembly this month, for a global summit to ignite urgent global action to end the pandemic?
I look forward to my noble friend’s contribution at the end, setting out what the UK has done so far. That is not insignificant, but the UK has a responsibility and opportunity to contribute more to end the global pandemic. I hope the Government will do so.
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Boateng for bring us this debate this afternoon. The pandemic in the last 18 months has been devastating around the world, and 18 months down the line we are in a position to address it with the development of the vaccine that has helped us to protect lives.
COVAX was set up to ensure that the Covid vaccine reaches the world’s poorest countries. Its aim is to vaccinate healthcare workers, social care workers and those who are over 65 and high risk within a community. COVAX was created as a global procurement mechanism to distribute vaccine around the world. A recent report on economics intelligence from the Financial Times showed that low-income countries would have only 1.4% of the 5 billion vaccines delivered. This means that they will not be able to vaccinate 60% of their populations by mid-2022. The knock-on effect will plunge these countries into longer term debt. This debt will also spiral out of control, leading to increased poverty and reduced spending on countries’ health systems.
Another report which came out in July stated that 170,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine were at risk of expiring within two weeks. NHS doctors have also reported thousands of Pfizer and Moderna shots being discarded. There are signs that the Government are encouraging the pharmaceutical companies to share their know-how and technology to waive intellectual property, but there are also signs of hoarding of doses by high-income countries. This is said to be caused by the pharmaceutical companies, which have control over the vaccine.
The British Government have announced that they intend to donate 100 million doses, while the US President announced that the US intends to donate 500 million doses of the Covid vaccine to poorer countries in the next year. This was announced at the G7 meeting of world leaders earlier this year. Do the Government understand that the pandemic is not going to wait a year before taking more lives?
The question is: will the Government look to speed up how the vaccines are reaching lower-income countries, as the prediction is that access to the vaccines will not reach those countries until 2023, as my noble friend Lord Boateng said? The G7 countries do not need a surplus; they could make a decision that lower-income countries should receive the vaccines they need now. The Financial Times has talked about vaccines passing their sell-by dates in warehouses, so we know that there is sufficient to vaccinate the world.
Ghana was the first country to receive vaccines from COVAX in February this year. Since then, more than 81 million doses have been delivered to more than 120 countries around the world, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia and Fiji, but many African countries are still waiting for the vaccine to reach them.
COVAX is not without its critics; it is said that it is built on an unequal distribution structure. Countries which pay upfront have the option to buy vaccines for up to 50% of their own populations through COVAX. Lower-income countries, financed by advance market commitments, are able to buy for only 20% of their populations. It is morally wrong for rich countries such as the UK to have enough vaccine to vaccinate its population more than three times over, after it has vaccinated the lower age groups and given booster shots in the autumn.
Can COVAX help to end the pandemic that is spreading around the world? This is for not only our Government but world leaders to answer. Speaking on Radio 4 last Sunday morning, the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, talked about ordering vaccines and storing doses that are not needed; in some cases, their date has expired. To keep all of us safe, it is important that COVAX has enough vaccine to distribute to all countries:
“No one is safe, unless everyone is safe”—
that is from the World Health Organization.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-chair of the APPG on Vaccinations for All, and I thank the secretariat for the briefing they provided to me and other noble Lords. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, in particular for bringing forward this important debate.
Some months ago, at the beginning of the vaccine programme, Nicky Tyler and her husband, my noble friend Lord Tyler—Paul Tyler—contacted me, because Nicky felt when she got her vaccination that she wanted to be able to donate to people who had not. We worked together to get a facility where people could donate individually to COVAX. As a result of that fundraising effort and with the assistance of the then Lord Speaker and noble Lords from across the House, including the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, we managed to raise some funds. We did not raise huge amounts because, unfortunately, the Government and NHS bureaucracy could not get in gear to offer people that chance at point of use, but it was useful revenue none the less.
But all the time the frustration was that we knew that while money was going to be needed, money was not actually the key issue. The key issue was supply. The problem was not only that we in the West, in the UK and other countries, were hoovering up vaccines; we have heard all the statistics. But now we hear—the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, cited the figures—that, absolutely disgracefully, we were taking from COVAX as well: 539,000 doses, as has been said. That was more than went to Africa in that month. So, not only did we screw up the way things were supposed to work by all our bilateral deals; we then went and effectively stole from the multilateral vehicle—heads we win, tails you lose. That is not just bad policy; it is morally bankrupt and callously wicked policy. Whoever the Ministers are who signed that up should hang their heads in shame.
It is easy to talk about vaccines in terms of billions of doses and hundreds of thousands taken from COVAX, but the reality is that this is about people. It is about people in these African countries who are not getting vaccinated, who are getting sick, and many of whom are dying. It is utterly wrong, and I hope the Minister will take up the questions from noble Lords and assure us not only that we will not take from the COVAX Facility anymore but that we will return those doses.
The lack of vaccines impacts not only people’s health but the economies of those countries. Shortly before the Recess, I chaired a meeting on behalf of the Royal African Society and the APPG for Africa about the impact of Covid on the tourist and wider economies of Africa. As I mentioned in the debate on Africa yesterday, we heard about the triple whammy on African economies. First, we hoarded vaccines, meaning that their economies could not get back on their feet because people were not vaccinated. We then imposed travel restrictions against them, and then, not content with that, we slashed the aid budget well below what it would have even gone down to under the 0.7% rate.
The Government have to approach this in a way that addresses all these factors, because if we are taking out an estimated $168 billion in tourist income from Africa as a result of the travel restrictions that have been imposed, that impacts health. It impacts people’s lives, and African economies will not recover. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, about the importance of allowing those countries which have the manufacturing facilities to be able to get on and start delivering. That must happen now, and we should be assisting it. On the issue of intellectual property, again, it is completely wrong, at this time of global crisis, that we are denying people access to those vaccines by hanging on to that outdated thing.
I conclude by reinforcing this point: every day that we delay, more people die, more people get sick and more economic damage is done. We have to stop, and start acting with moral responsibility.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey (Con)
My Lords, as we have heard from previous speakers—particularly the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, in introducing this debate—the shortage of Covid-19 vaccines in the global south is serious but it could be corrected. Many ideas have come forward, but the thing to underline in this debate is that it is a question of different parts of Governments, not just in this country but all over the world, working together with their departments of trade and their technical people to get production in many of the more developed global south countries that could provide vaccines themselves. I will come back to that matter in a moment.
It is 24 years now since my time as an FCO Minister and a development Minister. I have worked with NGOs during that time on the prevention of all sorts of diseases, but in none of them—malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other preventable diseases, including sight loss through trachoma—have we seen such fast development of a solution to the problem we face. We have seen very fast development by some outstanding companies. That development and that knowledge should be shared across the world, not kept to the more developed countries.
It is imperative that we change our developed-nations storage, as I call it, of vaccines, with 27 million doses in this country, plus the Canadians and others, as has been said. Oxford University reported last month that 32.5% of the world’s population had received at least one dose but that only 1.4% of the population of low-income countries had done so, and most of those are in the global south.
I can accept that higher-income countries hedged their bets in the early months of the Covid-19 infection, but surely there is now a case, when we and other higher-income countries have been successful in administering the vaccine—91 million doses of vaccine have been administered to citizens in the UK alone—for us to stimulate and donate more doses, even beyond the pledges made at the G7 meeting and other meetings.
I note that 54 African countries have received about 31 million doses of vaccine through COVAX, and the G7 is now committed to 870 million doses via COVAX, but the real problem seems to be with intellectual property rights. I have a few key questions for my noble friend on that. They concern the waiving of IP rights, both on vaccine production in low-income countries and on distribution. What has happened to the WTO discussions involving the director-general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, about developing a text to give developing countries access, where there is expertise, to vaccine production under the guidance of the established vaccine providers? What is being done about getting the supply of the tested vaccines to low-income countries as soon as possible?
Given that before Covid-19 hit there was economic growth in a number of African countries of up to 6%, probably driven by new technology and mobile telephone usage, we know that these countries are capable of taking up the information provided in the more developed countries and those countries lucky to have well-developed industry. Will the Minister undertake to investigate how, by distributing greater supplies of vaccines to low-income countries and by supplying technology training, we can develop the licensed developers in those countries? By doing so, we could increase the vaccination in low-income countries substantially.
It does not take a lot of imagination to see what needs to be done; it simply needs someone to get on with it, and I can think of no one better than my dear friend Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, for securing this debate and his excellent introduction, and I have enjoyed the uniformly excellent contributions to it.
It is worth going back a step and thinking about the nature of the world in which the Covid-19 virus arrived. This is a world of massive, almost unenvisionable inequality. Rich countries have drained $1.52 trillion from the global south since 1960, according to a calculation from the anthropologist, Jason Hickel. I refer to his paper in New Political Economy, which looked at the unequal exchange in the post-colonial era, the rate of which increased dramatically in the neoliberal structural adjustment period imposed on the global south, taking us to the point where Covid arrived. The global north was drawing from the south $2.2 trillion each year through unequal pricing, which is a reflection of unequal power. That has been calculated as being enough to end extreme poverty in the world 15 times over, or it could pay for far more Covid vaccines than we actually need.
At the same time, we have seen destruction of natural worlds and the dumping of plastics and toxic wastes on those nations. We have an economic system—a power imbalance—which sees multinational companies having far more power than entire nations, or even groups of nations.
Then we come to what is happening with Covid vaccines. Here I am particularly pleased to be following the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker of Wallasey, and to pick up on her point about how we are not taking the knowledge of the world and sharing it with the world. Currently, the cost of vaccinating the world is five times what it should be if pharmaceutical companies were not profiteering by charging five times as much as it costs to produce vaccines. These calculations are made by the People’s Vaccine Alliance, which includes the African Alliance, Oxfam and UNAIDS. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have been charging Governments as much as $41 billion above the estimated cost of production of vaccines. To bring this to a national level, Colombia is estimated to have paid $375 million more than the cost price of the vaccines that it has been able to purchase. They are making vaccines for $1.20 a dose; COVAX is paying on average five times that.
There is a huge moral argument here, which many noble Lords have made, for why this should not be allowed to continue, but I know that there are some people in politics who do not acknowledge moral arguments so I shall look briefly at the economic arguments. The economic cost to rich countries of not supplying vaccines could exceed their cost by 10 to 100 times. Essentially, we are shooting ourselves in the foot economically. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, spoke about the impact on economies in the global south, but the damage there will have huge impacts on our economies as well.
Of course, as many noble Lords have noted, no one is safe until everyone is safe. One million new infections occur in the world every day right now.
I have some expertise in the area of biology so I will venture for a second into what that means. Uncontrolled transmission of the virus is what drives mutations of it. Each infection in an individual person produces millions of viruses. Most of those viruses will be identical to the infecting virus dose but some will be mutations. There is then a bottleneck, where that person transmits a small dose of virus from what they have to others. Individually, cases will almost certainly be the same as the original virus, but in some cases they will transmit the mutations. The more infections you have, the more get transmitted.
I will finish by looking at some figures. The New York Times has a very handy table for the number of doses per 100 of population. Here are some rates. In Congo there are 0.1 doses of vaccine per 100 people; in Haiti, 0.4; in Papua New Guinea, 1.5; and in the UK, 138.
Baroness Osamor (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great honour and privilege to participate in this important debate secured by my noble friend Lord Boateng. Coronavirus has taught us that the future is never going to be business as usual and that the virus knows no boundaries either. People all over the global south—Africa in particular—are hungry for change, not charity. That includes harmful, unequal, discriminatory global agreements. A truly global Britain must stop blocking solutions to end the Covid-19 pandemic. They must be available, affordable, suitable to the people we care for and adapted to the place where they live. Imagine trying to keep vaccines cool and effective in blistering temperatures without electricity for refrigeration. People get sick and die needlessly because of these obstructions.
Millions of people are still waiting to benefit from the important medical innovations of the past year and a half. Intellectual property is deepening social and racial injustice across the globe. Shared Covid-19 vaccine know-how to increase global production and supply is needed. Can the Minister tell us whether the Government will support this? Vaccines made in the global south—for example, in Madagascar, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, India, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Brazil and so on—could be a game-changer in the Covid-19 response. Lives over profit is not too much to ask—or is it?
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Boateng on securing time for a discussion of one of the most urgent life and death issues in the world today. As someone who advised him in government on pro-human rights and equality measures over 20 years ago, it is a particular privilege to support him today, as it is to speak in the same debate as my noble friend Lady Lawrence of Clarendon, with whom I have campaigned for so many vital causes over the years.
In my too short time I should like to focus on the immorality and self-destructive illogic of the Government’s current opposition to the vaccine patent TRIPS waiver. To be clear, and to be clear on the record, I believe that the inevitable national and international inquiries, like future generations, will be very harsh judges of this.
Of course, the waiver is, as we have heard, promoted by South Africa and India and supported by half of our Commonwealth, including Pakistan and now Australia. It is advocated by the WHO, the Pope and the United States, with—it would seem—only Germany and the United Kingdom in embarrassing resistance. Forthcoming elections in Germany might even alter the German position.
In answer to a question in your Lordships’ House on 21 July, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said:
“It is our strong view that this Government support intellectual property, because it is only through our commitment to intellectual property that we can encourage the kind of massive investment by the private sector … in the first place. For that reason, we remain hesitant about supporting a TRIPS waiver policy.”—[Official Report, 21/07/21; col. 250.]
As a human rights lawyer, I believe in intellectual property as well, but, given that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was 97% publicly funded, and that it is a similar story for Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech in the US and Germany, it seems to me that there is a very strong argument that there should have been government-owned patents, or indeed creative commons, in the first place.
Furthermore, like so many of our fundamental freedoms, property is a qualified right at the best of times, and proportionate interference is even more justified in the exceptional circumstances of a pandemic. Ordinary people, businesses and nations have made extraordinary sacrifices of their liberties, livelihoods and lives over the last 18 months—so why weep hot tears for a temporary reduction in the profits of pharmaceutical giants that would only make them more popular and trusted in the future, as a result?
Another argument that is sometimes made against the waiver is that countries in the global south are somehow incapable of safe generics production. It is as if we are advocating a sort of “Breaking Bad” solution, with people mixing vaccines in their basements. That is an insult that verges on the racist. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, suggested, with proper support, know-how sharing and regulation, there is substantial capacity. Indeed, the Serum Institute of India was producing vaccines for export to the West while the bodies of Covid-19 casualties were floating down the Ganges. During that same Indian peak, Teva offered in vain to help with the vaccine effort, and, if we had engaged the TRIPS waiver then, that Israeli company could have begun production to help, as it wanted to do.
Not to share vaccine recipes and know-how free of charge during a deadly pandemic is as obscene as it would be for one of us in your Lordships’ House right now to restrict or charge for advice on emergency exits from this building in the event of a raging fire. While I congratulate the professionals and volunteers of our wonderful NHS on our domestic vaccine rollout—indeed, I encourage anyone and everyone offered to take up their jabs—it is a luxury to be deliberating child vaccinations and booster shots when less than 2% of people in low-income countries have received a single dose. If we want to trade and travel, while protecting ourselves from endless mutations and variants, this vaccine apartheid is positively self-harming, and it must end.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Boateng on securing this debate. He made an excellent speech in introducing it. From the quality of the contributions thus far, he also appears to have exposed a rich seam of knowledge, wisdom and humanity in your Lordships’ House; we owe him a debt for that.
On 15 October 2020, I asked a supplementary question about vaccine equity. Referring to expert warnings—there were many then—that the COVAX initiative offered no guarantee that Covid-19 vaccines would reach the world’s poor, I asked the then Minister for Overseas Territories and Sustainable Development at the FCDO, the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, whether she was aware that a team of global experts led by Ezekiel J Emanuel, a world-class, distinguished medical ethicist, had proposed a new model ethical framework for global vaccine allocation, dubbed the “fair priority model”, and if so what was the Government’s assessment of it.
In the experts’ words, this framework
“is the best embodiment of the ethical values of limiting harms, benefiting the disadvantaged, and recognizing equal concern … Ultimately, the model offers governments, international organizations, and vaccine producers a practical way to fulfill their pledges to distribute vaccine fairly and equitably”.
Graciously, the noble Baroness restated her belief that
“the right way forward is for the world to come together through the COVAX commitment”.—[Official Report, 15/10/20; col. 1186.]
She offered to look at the fair priority model and come back to me in writing. I am afraid I am still waiting for the promised letter, but there may be a simple explanation for that omission. On 25 November, the noble Baroness, a Minister of ability and admirable integrity, quit after Rishi Sunak announced that foreign aid expenditure would be cut from 0.7% to 0.5% of national income. Interestingly, her former post still exists with all its responsibilities, but is vacant; she is indeed irreplaceable.
I expect that the response to this debate will be that COVAX will deliver, but the truth of the matter is that it is not. We have a situation now in which only 1.9% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. Today, CNN reports that only
“330 million doses have been released for delivery to underserved countries through COVAX”,
while the ambition for this year was 1 billion. In August only 12.6 million of the 4.46 billion doses administered globally were in low-income countries. On 4 August, the WHO director-general had to issue a plea for a moratorium on third-dose boosters in high-income countries. These facts prompted the Lancet, for a second time, to add its voice to growing demand for equitable access to vaccines.
As we have heard, the mantra for the Covid pandemic is:
“No one is safe until everyone is safe”—
and with good reason. Unmitigated transmission means rampant viral replication and the likely emergence of new, more transmissible variants that could overcome natural or vaccine-induced immunity. In the words of the Lancet editorial:
“A perverse social experiment would be to allow the virus to continue ripping through low-income and lower-middle-income countries … where people tend to live in close proximity and infection prevention strategies are difficult to implement … while seeing how quickly”
high-income countries
“can redesign vaccines to counter yet another variant that has emerged”
from low and middle-income countries.
“Beyond the moral argument, this approach would make no economic sense”.
Rich countries
“rely on raw materials and intermediate goods”
from low and middle-income countries, and if they
“cannot provide these materials because their populations are dying from COVID-19 or are prevented from working because of lockdowns”
how long do we think we can keep our own economies running?
On 1 September, for similar reasons, Professor Emanuel re-entered the fray too, this time in the company of 80 other leading world figures, who published a letter in the FT. He urged world leaders to convene a global summit during this year’s UNGA to boost vaccine availability. They wrote that
“inequitable access to high-quality vaccines and capacity to administer them is prolonging the pandemic and destabilising economies and societies around the world.”
The briefings we all received for this debate are excellent. They are redolent with evidence of rampant injustice. My noble friend Lord Boateng asked for specific steps to remedy this injustice, as did others. I support them all, but I am struck in my reading by the constant theme from experts that a global pandemic needs a global plan of attack—why did we not think of that ourselves? To boot, it needs one that is developed within an ethical framework, to secure the commitments and actions needed to close the vaccine supply and capacity gaps, to increase countries’ distribution and delivery capabilities and to strengthen health systems and, importantly, our preparedness for the next pandemic.
It appears that not only do we no longer have a specific Minister who holds the responsibilities that the noble Baroness had but we have no comprehensive plan of response to this challenge either. I invite the Minister to urge the Prime Minister to join the call for a global summit during the UNGA and, in the meantime, to study the fair priority model framework, consult its authors and assess its merits and, if he can find the time to do so, to write the letter that I have now been waiting for for coming on a year.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I join in congratulating my noble friend Lord Boateng on introducing this debate. My mind goes back more than 40 years ago to when we were colleagues together on the Greater London Council. I am pleased to report that he has lost none of his power of advocacy. It was an excellent speech. I will echo one point he made: we know what is to be done. That is the criminal fact. We know the nature of this terrible disease. We know it will not be over until it is over for everyone, including and especially the people in the global south. Of course, we cannot just think of the impact it has on us. There is also the moral imperative to get it right for everyone.
The position has been set out clearly by previous speakers, with compelling arguments. I will echo the comments made by a group of relevant voluntary organisations that we know what is to be done. Will the Government, as a matter of urgency, encourage the redistribution of the vaccine via COVAX, targeting healthcare workers and vulnerable people in low-income countries? Will the Government push the pharmaceutical companies to share their knowledge, particularly, as has been stressed throughout the debate, since so much of that knowledge has been accrued and accumulated through the public sector and public service finance?
Will the Government support South Africa and India to waive the restrictions on intellectual property rights so that production can be ramped up? Will the Government encourage investment in manufacturing capacity in low and middle-income countries? Will the Minister commit the Government to protect the health of our people and to meet the moral imperative of helping others in low-income countries in the global south?
Lord Hussain (LD)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for allowing me to speak in the gap. I have a particular issue to share with the House. I have just come back from a red-list country, Pakistan. I would like to share my experience. The region I went to is Azad Kashmir, where the majority of the people who are known to be British Pakistanis come from. They keep going back and forth to that area.
You cannot leave this country to go to Pakistan until you are vaccinated and until you have a test proving that you are negative. Of course, once you get there, they test you again. While I was there I witnessed the vaccination programme in the area. It was widely accepted, with people queueing up every day outside vaccination centres. Vaccination is down to school-age children now. People are really encouraging all ages to have the vaccination done.
Also, I have to say something about the local government I saw, with local lockdowns and national lockdowns. My wife and I went to see my elderly in-laws many times—we were in a village—but whenever we wanted to go out for shopping, we were told, “No, there is a lockdown. You can’t go”. So, there is a heavy lockdown in the country. In Azad Kashmir, including in the Mirpur district and the surrounding areas, I did not hear about many deaths from Covid-19, and the hospitals were not full of Covid-19 patients either. That is where the majority of British Pakistanis are travelling to and from.
My experience was also this. Obviously, we could not return without showing a certificate of vaccination and tests. Here, getting from the aeroplane—that is, from the minute the flight landed at the airport—to getting to the hotel, all in London, took nearly seven hours. It was tortuous, and it cost me and my wife £2,300. Yes, we were able to pay, and did pay, but what about those families who have three or four members with them, perhaps elderly relatives or children?
Not only that, let me share my particular experience of when we got to the hotel. Only a few minutes later, a piece of paper came through the door saying, “We do apologise but the hot water doesn’t work in the hotel. We are working on it”. The hot water did not come back for another 18 hours. This is the kind of experience that people are going through. What I am saying is that, if we have to have certain countries on red lists for whatever reason, let us make sure that we force to quarantine in hotels only those who test positive. Otherwise, we are pushing planeloads of people who are not positive into hotels where it costs them a lot of money to go through this tortuous experience.
I beg the Government to look at this from a humanitarian point of view. Please, do something about it. I do not know how long this is going to go on for but it is affecting ordinary people quite a lot.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I am glad to follow my noble friend’s powerful contribution. I start by commending the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, on securing this debate and introducing it so comprehensively. He set the right tone of fact and passion.
We have heard from all sides of the House the depressing information and the passionate contributions to back it up. I was reflecting on one of those powerful contributions, that of my noble friend Lord Oates, and thought that I have been in the House for eight years but, long before that, it has been a common thread throughout British government policy that we are an upholder of the rules-based international order. The problem with this is that a great number of countries now say that those rules are set by countries that, especially in a time in a crisis, are less interested in an international order than they are in their own internal interest. The rules are out of date and biased towards the developed West. In the 70 years since the rules were developed, the world has never suffered a health emergency such as this pandemic. It had an opportunity to demonstrate that, in the age of sustainable development goals, the response of the richest nations, which set those rules in the first place, could be flexible enough to support the less rich nations and share the enormous burden of the pandemic. That opportunity has been missed.
The chart from Our World in Data by the University of Oxford, included in the Library briefing, showing the vaccine doses administered per 100 people across the globe, is as startling as it is shameful. The OECD tells us that high-income countries, which account for 16% of the global population, had negotiated supply agreements amounting to approximately half the world’s vaccine supply. The opportunity presented itself last year through the establishment of the COVAX scheme, as the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, indicated, for fair global access between countries, regardless of income level. However, a combination of vaccine nationalism and perhaps what some may consider an understandable desire among domestic populations in rich countries to return to normal as soon as possible and release themselves from lockdowns has meant that the negotiated purchase of rich countries to vaccinate their populations many times over has limited the capacity of the COVAX programme to get access to and then distribute those doses. I shall conclude on the most sobering consequences of those actions later.
As the combined charity briefings that we received say—and as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, highlighted—the hoarding of doses has only exacerbated the core source of the inequality in vaccine access. Only 1.4% of the 5 billion vaccine doses administered globally to date have gone to low-income countries. The growing number of destroyed doses in the United States is now outstripping some countries’ pulldown from the COVAX scheme. That is a shameful indictment of how we in the richest countries in the world are operating.
Buried in the rather self-congratulatory communiqué of the G7 held in Carbis Bay was an equally sobering detail in paragraph 10 on vaccine production. It stated:
“These include exports from domestic production, with at least 700 million doses exported or to be exported this year, of which almost half have gone or will go to non-G7 countries”.
So of the 700 million doses that the G7 communiqué said had been produced so far, less than half have gone to the non-richest seven countries in the world. That was, again a shocking indictment. Just this week, the relative ease with which two of the richest countries in the world, the UK and Australia, agreed a 4 million-dose swap, when compared with the relative difficulty for African Union members in drawing down already-manufactured doses available, is telling.
The UK approach seems to have been a combination of donation in cash and of surplus doses, as well as the encouragement of manufacturers to share and pool manufacturing. However, for a full year, as my noble friend Lady Brinton said, Members on our Benches have argued that the UK should have led on activating the Doha declaration and the TRIPS waiver mechanisms. We proposed Amendment 75 to the Trade Bill in 2020 so that the Government would activate that, and were supported by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and others who took part in those discussions. It was a cross-party effort. In the Government’s response to my question about why Canada had activated the mechanisms in March 2020 but the UK chose not to, the Minister replied to me:
“The UK believes that a robust and fair intellectual property system is a key part of the innovation framework that allows economies to grow, while enabling society to benefit from knowledge and ideas.”
However, as the charities’ briefing to us highlighted, the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, if it had been openly licensed, as was originally intended by Oxford University, more suppliers would potentially have been producing vaccines to be distributed globally. Instead, the exclusive licence by AstraZeneca for producing the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine at the Serum Institute of India has meant that there have been major problems with the rollout. Indeed, in some countries it has been halted altogether and others are paying much more, as has been referred to.
Let us not forget that the innovation framework which the Minister referred to in the Trade Bill processes was part-funded by overseas development assistance—so we would not have this innovation for the UK economy if it had not been for the ODA in the first place, and now, most depressingly, as we have heard, we are stripping some of that back. I hope that the Minister can update the House on our position. Are we still acting as a block on the Doha declaration and the TRIPS waiver situation? If the Government gave the reason a year ago, almost to the day, that their situation was preferable, where has been the benefit and where has been the proof that that approach has been better?
What has compounded this—and has also been raised in this debate—has been that at the same time that the UK has not been leading from the front in those areas, it has actively cut development assistance for health systems across many countries. Part of the awful consequences of the unlawful cut of 0.7% to 0.5% has been the reduction in support for health systems to distribute the vaccine, even if those countries were able to get it. Can the Minister confirm that reductions for health system support in developing countries will not be cut next year, as it has been cut this year?
Finally, on the consequences of this, as I highlighted, we have been warning that, without a different approach, there would be consequences. What are some of those consequences? On Wednesday of this week, COVAX slashed its forecast for doses available in 2021 by roughly a quarter. The assumption that was made during the UK hosting of the G7 was “the two billion”. We all saw the Prime Minister talking about “the two billion”. The 1.9 billion has now been reduced to 1.4 billion for the release in 2021, as a consequence of hoarding. The World Health Organization has formally asked for developed countries to delay booster shots as a way of lifting vaccinations to lower-income populations to 40%. Do the Government agree with the WHO’s position? Dr Tedros, Director-General of the WHO, said:
“I will not stay silent when the companies and countries that control the global supply of vaccines think the world’s poor should be satisfied with leftovers.”
However, most shockingly in today’s debate, we have heard that in June, the UK actually drew down 539,000 doses from the COVAX facility itself. Reportedly—I would like the Minister to confirm this—it has options for a further 27 million doses to be drawn down from COVAX. Can the Minister do one thing in response today: confirm that the Government will not do it? It is a clear signal that shows the international rules-based order is working for developed countries. The statistic that Africa as a continent so far has received 100 million doses in its entirety, and we have an option from COVAX just for our country for a drawdown of a quarter of that, surely cannot be acceptable. I hope that the Minister in his response will say that we will not do this.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, said, the development of Covid-19 vaccinations has been an incredible scientific achievement that has surpassed almost all expectations of what could be achieved so soon. However, as my noble friend Lord Boateng highlighted in his excellent introduction to this debate, the distribution of vaccinations which has left most of the world without access has been a huge geopolitical failure.
Last month, the Associated Press reported scenes in Kampala of nurses desperate to avert violence as people in Uganda’s capital jostled for the few vaccines that had arrived in the country. The same scenes are being repeated across the global south, where the hopelessness that the UK experienced in 2020 as the virus spread through the country without there being any protection is still playing out.
As Gordon Brown has said, this is in part a result of vaccine nationalism. More than 80% of vaccinations worldwide have ended up in G20 countries and, as a result of over-ordering with no focus on redistribution, around only 2% of people in Africa have been vaccinated. The tragedy is that this hoarding of vaccine will benefit no one. Regardless of how well vaccinated we are in the western world, as all noble Lords have repeated in this debate, if the virus continues to circulate and mutate elsewhere in the world it will remain a threat to us all. The problem also lies with the lack of political leadership and the Government’s unwillingness to step into a vacuum and make a stand. I have no doubt that the Minister will repeat the details of what the UK has done—we have heard it in the debate—in terms of financial contributions, Gavi, the COVAX Facility and CEPI. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, said, we should absolutely have been a champion in the world in terms of global vaccination, driving the issue throughout to deal with the suffering that will otherwise continue in the global south. I repeat that we must be aware that if we do not, the virus will continue to pose a danger.
What did the Government do? What have we seen? The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, set out exactly some of the horrible contradictions which I hope the Minister will respond to. What did we do? It took almost six months for the Government to begin donating the promised surplus doses of vaccines to low-income countries, and there has been no effort to speed up the process. Ahead of the G7 summit, Labour called for a serious commitment to vaccinate the world, but leaders at it managed to pledge only 9% of the 11 billion doses the world needs. What is required is a credible plan, backed by the necessary resources from the world’s wealthiest countries, as my noble friends have said in this debate. Labour laid out a 10-point plan which we put to the Government. We wrote to government Ministers. It is a strategy which could help transform global vaccine production to produce and distribute enough coronavirus vaccines for the whole world. It included proposals to build on the audit work already undertaken by CEPI, launch a global procurement programme for essential supplies and agree a comprehensive plan to transfer the expertise, knowledge and skills required to start vaccine production at new facilities around the world. This is the exact ambition we need from the Government to overcome the shortage in the global south.
We also need to see that the Government are alert to the ongoing blockages which are preventing distribution and manufacture in the global south. In sub-Saharan Africa in particular, limited manufacturing capacity has meant that it is especially vulnerable to supply-chain disturbances, and we must be alert to these disturbances and be in constant dialogue with the political leaders in the global south so that we can address and overcome these obstacles.
In addition, we need to look at the long term, accept that Covid is likely to stay and plan for future vaccination cycles. This means building up strong and resilient healthcare systems. The noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Oates, highlighted that, instead of building up those systems, we have cut—cut support to those incredibly vulnerable countries and undermined those health systems. I have spoken a lot in this Chamber about the cuts to the nutrition programme, the foundation blocks to make vaccines effective, by 80%. Women and children are suffering. I hope, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has asked, that the Minister will respond that those cuts will be restored, as soon as possible.
The pandemic is not over. For much of the global south, the worst may not yet have passed. It is in everyone’s interest that we address the blockages and disruptions that are preventing the delivery of vaccinations to low-income nations, but we must accept that there are systematic political issues behind those shortages, too.
We are fortunate. The UK is in a fortunate position to have access to sufficient vaccines for our entire adult population, but the most effective way to protect our population is to pass on any surplus doses remaining, not taking it down from the COVAX facility, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, which should be redistributing. I hope again that the Minister responds positively to the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis.
I conclude with the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg: addressing the shortage of vaccinations in the global South is not only the morally right thing to do—it is in our self-interest to do it. It is in our country’s self-interest and the people of this country’s self-interest. It is the only course of action that will protect us from this virus again causing the destruction and suffering we have seen in the past 18 months. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, for tabling this debate and all the noble Lords who have taken part. It has been urgent and passionate, but focused. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, put it, it has demonstrated the
“rich seam of knowledge, wisdom and humanity in your Lordships’ House”.
It has been almost 19 months since the first cases of Covid-19 were reported, and nine months since widespread international vaccination programmes began. Yet, as noble Lords have rightly said today, too many people remain unvaccinated, particularly in the global south.
The rapid spread of the delta variant illustrates what we have known from the very beginning, and what the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, and others echoed today: nobody is safe until everyone is safe. Worldwide vaccination is essential to beat the pandemic, and UK science and diplomacy have been pivotal to the progress made so far. From the outset, Her Majesty’s Government have advocated rapid and equitable access to vaccines, and we have helped to drive the global response including, as noble Lords noted, by hosting the Global Vaccine Summit and through our presidencies of the G7 and the UN Security Council. We have been a champion for global action in this important area.
We have worked closely with our partners to design, fund and implement the COVAX Facility, which is an unprecedented initiative led by the World Health Organization, Gavi, or the global vaccine alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI. COVAX has brought together 191 countries to fund, develop, manufacture and deliver Covid vaccines, particularly to the global south. Its advanced market commitment is focused on providing safe and effective vaccines to up to 92 low-income and middle-income countries. From Benin to Zambia, from Bangladesh to Timor-Leste, it is delivering vaccines across the world.
It was launched at the Global Vaccine Summit that we hosted in June last year. The UK was among its founding donors and our total commitment of £548 million is among the largest from any donor. Thanks to our leadership at the UN General Assembly and our match-funding campaign, we helped to mobilise an additional $1 billion for COVAX from other donors by the end of 2021. The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, rightly talked about resources that have been made available—our work has helped to mobilise the resources that have been made available so far. By leading this early funding drive, we gave COVAX the purchasing power it needed to secure its first deals with manufacturers, which locked in the supply of internationally approved vaccines.
The first COVAX shots—vaccines from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca—were delivered to Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana in March this year, just four months after the first vaccination in the UK: an historically unprecedented speed. From a standing start in June last year, COVAX has now delivered more than 230 million vaccine doses to 139 countries and territories, including 87 low and middle-income countries.
Manufacturing vaccines at scale is difficult, even for experienced companies. Delays in production have slowed progress, a frustrating fact that has rightly been echoed throughout today’s debate. However, the COVAX vaccine rollout is now poised to accelerate, with new funding, supply agreements and donation commitments in place which will provide 1.8 billion vaccines to low-and middle-income countries for early 2022. This will protect millions of front-line healthcare workers and other vulnerable people.
It is right to draw attention—as the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, and others have—to the discrepancy between the number of vaccines available in the UK and elsewhere in the world. The first duty of the Government, just as it is for all Governments around the world, is to ensure that we have sufficient vaccine supply for our own domestic rollout. I am sure that noble Lords would not disagree with that. We are ensuring that we have sufficient future supply for the UK’s needs alongside meeting our G7 commitments.
Alongside this, as noble Lords have said today, making vaccines available globally not only helps address the coronavirus pandemic in developing countries and is the morally right thing to do, but it will also reduce the threat posed by vaccine-resistant variants which are emerging and could pose a threat to us all. As my noble friend Lady Sugg put it, it is in our enlightened self-interest as a force for good in the world. Through our participation in COVAX and by sharing vaccines bilaterally, the UK is therefore also championing the need for access for all countries.
At the G7 leaders’ summit in Cornwall, the UK committed to sharing 100 million Covid-19 vaccine doses within 12 months, including 30 million by the end of this year. Of these, 80% will go to COVAX to accelerate support to countries in need. My noble friend Lady Sugg and others asked how many had been delivered so far. To date, the UK has delivered over 9 million doses—ahead of our target for the end of September—of which half are helping to meet the urgent need for vaccines in countries across Africa, south-east Asia and the Caribbean. UK donations are already helping to immunise health workers and those most vulnerable to serious illness from Covid, and to protect health systems. Our 100 million doses are part of the broader G7 promise to finance and donate a billion safe and effective vaccines worldwide by June next year.
My noble friend Lady Sugg and many others asked about the taking of vaccines from COVAX for UK use. As well as being one of the largest donors to COVAX, the UK was one of the earliest. That is pertinent here, because the UK opted into procuring the Pfizer vaccine through COVAX at a time when that was the only vaccine demonstrated to be effective and approved by the UK regulator. COVAX subsequently decided, after consulting those participating, to procure only a small amount of the Pfizer vaccine because it is, as noble Lords will know, difficult for many countries deploy, given the challenge of establishing the very cold temperatures at which it needs to be stored in the delivery chain. Our early funding to COVAX gave it the purchasing power it needed to secure deals with manufacturers to supply internationally approved vaccines for low and middle-income countries.
These practical points lead to questions posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, and others, about donating vaccines with short shelf lives. We agree that adequate shelf life is important for all vaccines supplied to all countries. We are aiming for all donated and dose-shared vaccines to have a minimum of two months of shelf life, in line with Gavi and COVAX guidance. The partner Governments are free to refuse donations if they are concerned about expiry dates. They are working to ensure the rapid rollout of shared doses to priority groups, including people who need a second dose, and to prevent wastage. The WHO EUL vaccines are approved with a six-month expiry date at present, which may be reviewed by the WHO depending on emerging stability data.
The noble Baroness also asked what we are doing to speed up vaccine access and to tackle the problem of sell-by dates. We are working through the governing boards to ensure that Gavi and World Bank funding is available for in-country delivery and that it is approved and dispersed in a timely manner. We are also supporting COVAX to become less reliant on India-based manufacturers and to diversify its portfolio to manage risk.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked another practical question about new variants that may evade vaccine immunity. If such a variant emerges, it should be possible for manufacturers to update vaccines to protect against it, but this means scaling up vaccine manufacturing and rolling out vaccines as quickly and widely as possible. In addition, as more people get vaccinated, we expect virus circulation to decrease. This will lead to fewer mutations, but of course we must track those mutations and variants closely to detect them, and that means carrying out genomic sequencing globally and sharing data.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, referred to the UK’s role in the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine. So much of what we have been debating today would not have been possible without the extraordinary work of our scientists. The UK’s scientific excellence and co-operation has enhanced collective knowledge about the virus and led to pivotal breakthroughs. The Government’s role in supporting AstraZeneca is well known and we are proud of the helping hand that we gave. The advance there has become an extraordinary gift to global vaccination efforts. More than 1 billion doses have already been delivered at cost, with no profit, with around two-thirds of them going to lower-income and middle-income countries. That has saved countless lives across the globe.
We also supported wider international collaboration to develop vaccines. In March last year the Prime Minister announced £250 million of funding for CEPI to accelerate vaccine development against global threats including Covid-19. CEPI has supported 11 vaccine candidates, including the approved Moderna vaccine, as well as Novavax, which has showed positive results in clinical trials. The UK will host a replenishment conference to raise funds for CEPI’s crucial work on vaccine development in March next year, helping it to realise the aim of making vaccines against new health threats, including new Covid variants, in just 100 days.
In addition to our support for vaccines, the UK is a world leader in viral genomic sequencing, which will be important for the reasons I outlined in response to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. This has proved crucial in identifying the emergence of new variants and will be essential to ensuring that the vaccines remain effective. Public Health England is already working with seven countries and the Africa Centres for Disease Control to build their capacity in genomic sequencing.
A number of noble Lords raised the issue of manufacturing. The rollout of vaccines has raised important questions about TRIPS, the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, which the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and others focused on in particular. We have engaged in discussions on intellectual property and a possible TRIPS waiver at the WTO and we will continue to engage constructively with the US and other WTO members, as the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, and others urged. We have not yet, however, seen conclusive evidence indicating that the removal of intellectual property protections would lead to the scaling up of production or the improvement of the supply of Covid-19 products, including vaccines. At this point we remain unconvinced on how beneficial a waiver would be.
As a practical point, any negotiations at the WTO on a waiver would need unanimous support, which could take a long time. While we will continue to engage in IP discussions and review the merits of any proposals submitted to the TRIPS council, we must also continue to push ahead with pragmatic action now, including voluntary licensing and technology transfer agreements for vaccines, support for COVAX, as I outlined, and solutions to production bottlenecks and supply chain issues. The UK is also co-sponsoring the Ottawa group’s trade and health initiative. This aims to increase co-operation among WTO members, keep medical supply chains open and lower trade barriers, getting vital supplies, including vaccines, to those who need them most.
The voluntary licensing approach taken by the team at Oxford and AstraZeneca has had our full support, as has their collaboration with the Serum Institute of India to scale up manufacturing for global supply. We welcome the work of the new Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing, which is developing its road map to manufacture vaccines in Africa and engaging to identify opportunities for partnerships. We have provided technical support to Biovac, a vaccine company in South Africa, to develop an investment case, which helped secure financing to produce Covid vaccines there. We are giving similar support to the Institut Pasteur in Dakar, to companies in Senegal and to the Government of Morocco.
Noble Lords also focused on questions of distribution, and we recognise that distribution, particularly in hard-to-reach locations, is a critical challenge in many countries. Investment in delivery is vital in getting jabs into people’s arms. Multilateral development banks are playing a central role in funding health systems to deliver vaccines, treatment and testing while maintaining other essential services, and the UK has led engagement with multilateral banks to strengthen co-ordination with COVAX and speed up the processes for applications and release of funds. The FCDO is also working with UNICEF and other humanitarian partners to ensure that planning and finance are in place to address the challenges of distribution in difficult environments.
It is extremely difficult for charities and healthcare workers safely to provide jabs to people living in conflict zones, so the UK used its presidency of the UN Security Council in February to secure unanimous support for a resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones to enable vaccine delivery. We continue to work with our international partners to monitor and support the implementation of that important resolution.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
I am not sure whether the Minister will be coming back to the UK and COVAX. He has been asked very specific questions: to confirm whether in fact the UK drew down 539,000 doses in June and whether we have in fact negotiated options for a further 27 million doses. He was asked whether the Government will confirm that they will not draw down those 27 million doses.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I cannot confirm that number, but I outlined that we drew down some of the Pfizer vaccine for the practical reasons that I gave—the difficulty of distributing and using those doses—with the agreement of those taking part. I fear I cannot give the commitment that the noble Lord asked for today, but I will certainly take his questions and those from other noble Lords back to the Vaccine Taskforce and will ensure that all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate get the answer to that.
The goal to which we and our G7 partners have committed—to vaccinate the world in 2022—is a monumental one. Much has been achieved already but, as today’s debate has powerfully underlined, we know that there is much more to do. The points noble Lords have raised today, particularly on manufacturing and distribution, are significant issues, which the UK is working with our partners to tackle.
International collaboration remains the key to ending this global pandemic, and we will continue to work with our international partners through the autumn, including at UNGA, the G7 and the G20, to support the G7 commitment to vaccinate the world in 2022. The international community must work together to get vaccines to those who need them around the world, and Her Majesty’s Government are determined to do all we can to ensure that that happens.
Lord Boateng (Lab)
My Lords, it is late and we have had an outstanding debate. It has been a rich debate; there has been compassion, knowledge and passion, undergirded by broad experience—experience of campaigning around human rights, experience of activism around social justice, and ministerial experience—on all sides of this House.
I hope the Minister got a sense that the House spoke with one voice, and that one voice was clear. There is, as the Minister himself has said, much more to be done. This House expects more to be done, and we intend to make sure that it is. I can say only a huge thank you to all those who have contributed, but also to all those who have come and stayed—on all sides—to hear these arguments and to indicate their support for what has to be done.