Grand Committee
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Arrangement of Business
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
My Lords, Members are encouraged to leave some distance between themselves and others and to wear a face covering when not speaking. If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Ageing: Science, Technology and Healthy Living (Science and Technology Committee Report)
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Lord Patel
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Science and Technology Committee Ageing: Science, Technology and Healthy Living (1st Report, Session 2019-21, HL Paper 183).
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to open this important debate on the Science and Technology Committee report Ageing: Science, Technology and Healthy Living. I thank the Minister for making time to respond to the debate. I am hoping that, being new in the post, he might have a more positive response to the conclusion of the report than the one we got from the Government.
It is a compliment to the committee and its report that so many notable noble Lords are taking part in the debate. I thank them all and look forward to their contributions. I sincerely thank all the committee members. I could not ask for a more committed, passionate, understanding, gentle, malleable and only occasionally challenging committee—or maybe not. I thank them all for their hard work and tolerance.
The committee was fortunate to have talented, hard-working committee staff: our clerk, Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin, policy analyst Dr Amy Creese, and committee operations officer Cerise Burnett-Stuart. I thank them for their hard work in running the committee and producing the report. The committee was well advised and supported by our specialist adviser, Professor Janet Lord, professor of immune cell biology and director of the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham. On behalf of the committee, I thank her for all the help and advice she gave us.
We started our inquiry in July 2019 but had to delay concluding evidence sessions and publication because of the pandemic. It has already become clear that those who are old, who suffer from multiple comorbidities and who are socially deprived will pay the highest penalty as a result of Covid-19, compared to the young and healthy.
The background to our inquiry was a government publication in November 2017 naming an “Ageing Society”, as one of four “Grand Challenges” of the industrial strategy. It committed to
“harness the power of innovation to help meet the needs of an ageing society.”
In 2018, the Government announced that the mission of the ageing society grand challenge was to:
“Ensure that people can enjoy at least 5 extra healthy, independent years of life by 2035, while narrowing the gap between the experience of the richest and poorest.”
The aim of our inquiry was to understand to what extent developments in science and technology related to ageing will be important to reaching the goal of the Government’s grand challenge of an ageing society.
We also considered how current public health policies and co-ordination of healthcare for older people may contribute to years spent in poor health. Demographic projections suggest that, by 2035, 7% of people—some 5 million of the population—will be aged over 80. Life expectancy continues to rise, but the rate of rise is slowing. There is a strong link between deprivation and life expectancy. Males in the least deprived areas live nine and a half years longer than those in the most deprived areas. For females, the gap is 7.7 years. A more important measure than life expectancy is healthy life expectancy. The average age of healthy life expectancy in England is 63 years, with males spending a further 16 years—20% of their lifespan—and females 19.4 years, which is 23.3% of their lifespan, in poor health.
Inequalities in healthy life expectancy are even starker than those for life expectancy. The difference of 18.3 years in healthy life expectancy between the least deprived and most deprived is striking, with 70.6 and 52.3 years of healthy life respectively. Prioritising reducing health inequalities will have huge gains for health and for the economy.
Data from deaths from 2003 to 2018 show that that one-third of the deaths in England are attributable to social inequality. The King’s Fund report of September 2021 says that the Government have
“failed to make significant progress in reducing inequalities”.
While there is clear understanding of the lifestyle and environmental factors throughout life that correlate with good health, interventions in public health do not seem to be effective. Public health interventions need to find ways to motivate and to facilitate change to a healthier lifestyle, particularly for those living in deprivation and suffering the worst health. A child in year 6 from one of the most deprived areas is twice as likely to be obese compared to a child from a well-off area.
Ageing is a major risk factor for a wide range of diseases. Older people often have more than one health problem, often referred to as multimorbidity. Some 14 million people in England have two or more health conditions and 4.7 million have more than four health conditions. The health system currently fails these people for lack of co-ordination of care, with polypharmacy and overprescribing adding to their misery and making them sicker. The report indicated ways of reducing overprescribing, particularly in older patents with multi- morbidity.
I am pleased to see that the report on overprescribing from the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer confirms our views, with one in five admissions to hospital of the over-65s and 6.5% of all hospital admissions related to overprescribing. The Government did not accept our recommendations to help reduce the problem. When will the Government publish their response to the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s report and the implementation plan?
From a biological perspective, ageing is the result of an accumulation of a wide variety of molecular and cellular damage over time that leads to decreased physical and cognitive function, increasing the risk of illness and death. A recent animal study suggests that an ageing immune system may play a critical role in diseases related to age. The timing of these changes is not fixed, hence a person’s biological and chronological age can be out of step. Genetics, lifestyle and environmental factors may all have a role. Ways to measure how well a person is ageing will help science to develop understanding of the biological effects of ageing and how they can be modulated.
Understanding the biological pathways that lead to multisystem ageing will help us to discover new diagnostics and technology. Cellular senescence and deregulated nutrient sensing are two good examples of hallmarks of ageing. Understanding biological processes opens up the potential for developing new therapeutic interventions that could reduce or even reverse biological ageing and decrease the risk of developing disease. For example, targeting senescent cells which cause inflammatory changes in tissues leading to disease may allow us to develop senotherapeutics. Some repurposed drugs have already shown promise in mitigating age-related tissue damage.
Despite my enthusiasm for speaking more about the science related to ageing, there are several eloquent speakers taking part in today’s debate who have greater knowledge than I do and can—and I hope will—say more. The recent government report Life Sciences Vision identifies two key areas for research that relate to ageing. The first is improving translational capabilities in neurodegeneration and dementia. No doubt my noble friend Lady Greenfield may have more to say on that. The second is research into better understanding of ageing-related pathways. It is suggested that funding should come from partnership with industry. What plans do the Government have to implement those proposals? Our report recommended increased funding for ageing-related research and better co-ordination. I am pleased that UKRI has taken some recent initiatives in funding such research, but who will provide the necessary co-ordination, for which our report indicated a need?
I now come to the ageing society grand challenge and the mission of extending healthy life by five years by 2035. Our single conclusion in the report was that the Government are not on target to deliver on it, with lack of leadership and lack of a clear plan being major barriers. Different government departments had a role, but no one had responsibility for leadership or co-ordination. I hope that the Minister can confirm that the Government are still committed to the ageing society grand challenge of extending healthy life expectancy by five years. If that is the case, who will lead on it? When will the Government publish a detailed plan with timelines to achieve it? Who will independently monitor progress and will Parliament be able to review progress on a regular basis?
Any plans to extend healthy life expectancy cannot succeed without also addressing inequalities in health outcomes. The Government had said that they would publish their response following the end of consultation on the prevention Green Paper to address health inequalities. When will they publish their response? The Government are to publish the levelling-up White Paper by the end of the year. Will the White Paper address the issues related to inequalities in health and the means of reducing them?
In conclusion, research to better understand the biology of ageing, developing technologies, diagnostics and treatment for age-related diseases and keeping people healthy longer are the themes that our report tried to address and to suggest possible solutions to. Although the Government’s initial response was disappointing, there are now some positive signs and promise of more, so I remain hopeful.
I end with a plea to the Minister. I know that he will have a long brief to read out in response to today’s debate. My plea to him is to leave some time to answer the questions raised by noble Lords today and not just read the brief. If he does that, he will make himself very popular. I beg to move.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, when I first came to this House, the doorkeepers told me that this was the best elderly daycare centre in London and that it would give me another 10 years of life expectancy, so this is an apt report for your Lordships’ House. I join my former colleagues on the Science and Technology Committee in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his chairmanship of this important inquiry and echo his thanks to the staff, who supported us splendidly.
It is clear that improvements in healthy life expectancy have stalled. On average, about 20% of our lives is spent in poor health. The gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor has widened even further.
I want to pursue three areas this afternoon. The first is to touch on technological support for older people to help to improve the quality of their lives. The second is to focus on the root causes of increases in years of ill health and disability—the root cause is indubitably poverty and deprivation—and to explore what the Government’s levelling-up agenda must do to tackle them. The third is the importance of integration of action across all policy areas nationally and locally and how the recent changes in responsibilities for prevention of ill health will work out.
I have some lasting impressions of the committee’s work. First, the foundations for healthy old age are laid down from our youth onwards. We need to focus on how people can be healthier throughout their entire life course and not try to put a sticking plaster on the situation once old age is reached. Secondly, there is a pronounced societal difference in healthy life expectancy, which is highly correlated with deprivation and ethnicity. The difference in healthy life expectation between the least and most deprived is nearly 20 years. Poverty and deprivation are the root cause of unhealthy ageing. That is totally unacceptable in a civilised society. However, perhaps my most abiding memory was that we convened a panel of elderly people to help our deliberations only to find that Select Committee members were generally older than the elderly people.
I will raise three issues directly with the Minister. The first is the role of technology in enabling healthier ageing. There are many technologies, such as digitally based products and services such as fall trackers, medication monitors and digital befrienders, and other newer technologies such as robots and digital surveillance programs, all of which could help to support older people, improve their quality of life and allow them to maintain a more independent existence. But provision is low and the poorer and more deprived simply do not get access to such help. That gradient will increase with new technologies becoming more and more available. That has to change. What plans does the Minister have to accelerate not only the pace of technological development but, more importantly, the uptake of those technologies?
Secondly and most importantly, let us not be in any doubt that the root causes of unhealthy ageing are deprivation, unemployment, poor education and housing, lack of opportunity and unhealthy diet and lifestyles, including smoking and alcohol. Tackling these root causes sounds just the thing for the Prime Minister’s levelling-up agenda. Sustained action is needed over a lengthy period, with co-ordinated efforts between national and local government.
Cutting the income of the poorest by removing the £20-a-week universal credit payment does not fit that bill, nor does a spending review and Budget in the next few weeks that has been trailed as the ultimate austerity measure by the Chancellor, who seems increasingly out of love with his boss’s objectives. We are facing another version of the TB-GBs—I will leave your Lordships to fill in whatever acronym you would like for the new Chancellor versus Prime Minister tension. We need not a focus politically on the red wall seats and town centre tart-ups but a sustained attack on inequality and lack of opportunity wherever it occurs.
It is only three years since the Government set themselves the target of five extra years of healthy life by 2035, but that target is already being airbrushed out. Its future is unclear from the Government’s response. Can the Minister confirm whether, in his view, the ageing society grand challenge will survive the proposed review that will be undertaken and whether the five extra years will still be a target? If the target has gone within three years of being established, how confident can the Minister be that the sustained approach required to tackle poverty and deprivation will not be as ephemeral? We no doubt await the White Paper on levelling up later this year, but it would be good to get a feel from the Minister now.
My third point is about the importance of integration of action to promote healthy living across all departments and many policy areas, such as work and education, transport and housing, air quality, local environment quality et cetera. Public Health England, which was responsible for co-ordination on prevention and health promotion, has gone and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities was launched only at the beginning of this month. I understand that there is to be a cross-government ministerial board on prevention to drive forward a co-ordinated government approach on the wider determinants of health. How often has this ministerial board met and what has it done so far?
The local effort is to be driven by local directors of public health. I will pay a small tribute to those incredibly important people. They are currently up to the neck in Covid and before the pandemic were definitely below the salt for esteem and resources in local authorities. Can the Minister tell the Committee in detail how the Government will ensure that local directors of public health will be given the position, authority and resources to do this co-ordination job across many policy areas on a local level?
We hear much about the pressure on the NHS these days. Much of that pressure is due to those substantial years of poor health that, on average, many people experience. The Government need to see the challenge of healthy ageing as an issue of economics and of health service sustainability, but above all as an issue of equity.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I joined the Science and Technology Select Committee just in time for the inquiry that led to this report, so was able to appreciate the consummate ease with which he chaired the complex scoping exercise and then of course the inquiry itself. I add my thanks to the clerks for their hard work and dedication. My remarks today will focus on the impact of the Covid pandemic on the fundamentals of the Government’s two-tier grand challenge strategy to, first, increase healthy independent living by five years by 2035 and, secondly, narrow the gap between the richest and the poorest.
Like all developed countries, the population of the UK is ageing. The report tells us that we will see a 51% increase in people aged over 80 to about 5 million from 2018 to 2035, and all the while the working-age population remains static. It was against that backdrop that in 2017 the Government named our ageing society as one of the four grand challenges in the now sadly abandoned industrial strategy. Between 1980 and 2018, life expectancy at birth rose to 79.3 years for males and 82.9 years for females. However, healthy life expectancy—the number of years for which a person is expected to live in good health without disability—has not improved at the same rate; it stands at 63.1 years for males and 63.6 years for females.
It will come as no surprise, given the heavy mortality rate due to Covid last year, that the ONS reports that, for the first time in four decades, life expectancy for men in the UK has fallen. Life expectancy for women remains unchanged. Are the Government assessing the impact that long Covid may have on healthy life expectancy? On the last page of their response to the report, the Government seem to imply that the ageing society grand challenge will no longer be identifiable as such in the more nebulous plan for growth, under the “build back better” soundbite that replaces the more solid industrial strategy. I hope that the Minister can offer reassurance that this will not be the case, and in particular that R&D funding into the science of ageing and support for SMEs at the cutting edge of technological innovation to aid independent living will be protected from any cuts to the promised £22 billion per annum investment in R&D. I would appreciate it if he could refrain from listing the Government’s historic support, as was the case in their response to the report, and instead tell us their future plans.
I turn to the second tier of the grand challenge: narrowing the gap between the richest and the poorest, which stands at nine and a half years for life expectancy and, distressingly, almost 20 years for healthy life expectancy. That will have been exacerbated by the country’s recent experience of those who bore the heaviest toll in lives lost during the pandemic. Covid hit the poorest hardest and, within that, hit people from ethnic minorities even harder. The report’s first recommendation is that the Government, along with NHS England and the erstwhile Public Health England, “prioritise reducing health inequalities” between the least deprived and most deprived areas, and asks that they set out a plan to do so over the next Parliament. In response, the Government in effect say that we will get the report due course when they come forward with proposals in response to the prevention Green Paper. What is the progress to date on that response?
My final remarks will focus on obesity, which is closely linked to deprivation. Food loaded with cheap harmful additives is leading to an increased number of lives lost and points to a failure by successive Governments to act on the prevention agenda by promoting healthier diets and a more mobile lifestyle. Frankly, it is a disgrace that poorer people have little choice but to buy food that is poor in nutrition and positively harmful to their health.
The experience of the pandemic illustrates starkly that the Government have not curbed the appetite of the food and drink industry to maximise profits at the expense of the health of their customers. Cheap and addictive additives such as sugar, salt and hydrogenated fats in heavily processed foods—to boost flavour and shelf life—have wreaked immeasurable harm on the population at large. Will the emphasis that the Government propose to place on prevention include tackling the food and drink industry’s role in increasing obesity? Will they, for example, extend the sugar tax to foods and drinks that are high in added cheap sugar? Trans fats, a form of processed hydrogenated cooking fats, have been identified as one of the most dangerous food additives. Are the Government rethinking their reluctance to introduce curbs on their use, if not their total ban?
Our report points to the damage that a lack of movement does to our bodies, let alone a lack of physical exercise. The sedentary lifestyle of a couch potato is one that will lead to an end of life riddled with multiple morbidities and a carrier bag full of drugs to treat symptoms of each disease, as well as drugs to counteract side effects. The Government have failed to provide central oversight of the volume or interactivity of these drugs. GP oversight is proving inadequate, to the detriment of the patient and NHS finances. I hope that the Minister will give us greater cause for confidence than the Government’s written response.
Baroness Greenfield (CB)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for the opportunity to consider how we might enhance the prospect of a long and healthy life. Accordingly, I declare an interest as founder and CEO of Neuro-Bio Ltd, a biotech company developing an innovative treatment for dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s disease. As the noble Lord correctly predicted, I will focus most of my comments on that subject.
Alzheimer’s is a neurological condition characterised by memory loss, disorientation and general cognitive impairment. It is a disease typically, though not exclusively, of older people. One in six over the age of 80 have dementia, a condition that affects as many as 70% of residents in care homes. The spectre of Alzheimer’s is one of the cruellest potential scenarios awaiting us in later life. While heart disease and cancer are serious, often disabling and sometimes terminal, you can still reminisce over old photographs and spend meaningful and precious time with your grandchildren. These life-enhancing moments are gradually closed off to an individual with dementia.
Despite hearing from witnesses from both Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Alzheimer’s Society, there seems to be no substantive discussion in the report of the very real threats that Alzheimer’s currently poses to enjoying a healthy older age. It is cited as the most common cause of death for women, then flagged in relation to air pollution and reported as mitigated by cognitive reserve. That is three mentions of one of the most important issues related to ageing and its potential alleviation by science.
The Alzheimer’s Society’s website reports facts and figures that are truly concerning. First, there is the societal impact of dementia as one of the main causes of disability later in life. There are currently around 850,000 sufferers in the UK; this figure is projected to rise to 1.6 million by 2040. This year, 209,600 people are expected to be diagnosed with dementia; that is one person every three minutes.
Secondly, there is the economic factor. The total cost of care for people with dementia in the UK is £34.7 billion. This is set to rise sharply over the next two decades to £94.1 billion by 2040.
Thirdly, there is the impact on carers, in addition to the financial and mental health repercussions of perhaps giving up a job to care for a loved one. On more than one occasion, I have heard this daily existence described as a living death.
Since these problems are not raised in the report, it is unsurprising that there are no recommendations specifically to resolve them. I want to make a few suggestions for brief consideration here. The only successful way to combat Alzheimer’s disease will be to devise an effective treatment. In turn, this is dependent on gaining insight into the underlying brain processes. Further research, both basic and translational, is thus essential.
However, dementia research is desperately underfunded. For every individual living with the condition, the annual cost to the UK economy is more than £30,000, yet only £90 per patient is spent on research. Five times fewer researchers choose to work on dementia than on cancer. Yet if we could come up with a means of delaying the onset by five years, the number of deaths from the condition would be halved, saving 30,000 lives a year.
Admittedly, various recommendations in the report are concerned with drug development in a more general sense in relation to older people. However, sadly and strangely, no specific issue is raised in relation to improved therapies for Alzheimer’s disease. An obvious and predictable recommendation would be to make more funds available for research, be they from public, private or philanthropic sectors.
Just as important, but much less obvious, is the question of how such resources should then be deployed. Currently, the majority of funding is directed at just one strategy to combat the histological marker in the brain—amyloid—as it is a frequent feature of Alzheimer brains. However, drugs designed to antagonise amyloid at best only slow down the progression of the disease. There is increasing doubt that it is the primary cause of the neurodegenerative process. The report could have highlighted the lack of success of current treatments and thus argued the case for promoting initiatives pursuing innovative lines of inquiry. In this way, we could truly understand the degenerative mechanism in order to intervene with a successful pharmaceutical strategy.
The hunt for an anti-Alzheimer’s drug that actually works is far from straightforward. As yet, there is a no accepted narrative for how and why neuronal loss starts, nor for—of equal importance—how it is perpetuated for decades before the classic profile of cognitive impairment presents. Unless and until we understand what is happening in the brain for this period, we will only ever be able to deal with downstream symptoms, such as amyloid accumulation, rather than halting cell loss by intercepting the driver of the disease.
The second reason for failure to date is the lengthy time window of 10 to 20 years between the onset of cell loss and the eventual presentation of cognitive impairment. Any treatment initiated at this late stage is comparable to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, as the pernicious cycle of cell loss would have been under way for decades. Analogous to the measurement of cholesterol for detecting cardiovascular problems, we need a routine blood test, say, that would enable easy screening to determine whether the degenerative process was already in train, even though the person may feel perfectly fine at the moment. Imagine if we had a blood biomarker indicating early on that degeneration had already started, well before the behavioural symptoms of Alzheimer’s were apparent. Imagine if we had a drug that stabilised cell loss and halted neurodegeneration. If such a drug were taken before the symptoms became apparent, those symptoms may never arise—not a cure in the literal sense, but effectively just that.
What is stopping us developing such a biomarker and such a drug? We need to facilitate more innovative lines of research and challenge existing dogma. Admittedly, there will be false dawns and blind alleys. There will be risks to take and cynicism to overcome, but that is the only way we will ever develop an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. The American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn famously argued that science does not evolve gradually towards truth but has a paradigm; that is, it has an accepted approach that remains constant until anomalies start to accumulate, and accumulate to such an extent that it is finally accepted that established thinking cannot explain the phenomenon in question. A completely new theory must then be conceived—a paradigm shift. If we are to understand and tackle this devastating condition successfully, we are long overdue for such a shift in our thinking.
Alzheimer’s disease is not an inevitable consequence of ageing, but it is a disease of old age. In my view, the report has missed a golden opportunity to draw attention to its current impact and future threat. Most importantly, it has missed the opportunity to promote new strategies to consign dementia to being a disease of the past. Only when this happens will we be able to have justified confidence in an old age that is not only able-bodied but clear-minded.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow that eloquent speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, and her strictures are well made. I begin by commending the noble Lord, Lord Patel, not only on securing this debate but on steering the committee through a vital and largely virtual piece of work. He did so with charm, wisdom and not a little fierceness when necessary.
The main issue that our report grapples with, as others have said, is the gap between health span and lifespan. We are spending longer living, but even longer dying. We would all like to live lives of perfect health until, one day, we drop dead, but it does not happen that way and the gap is not closing. I am horrified to hear the statistics from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and that, as a 63 year-old, my health span is coming to an end. By largely or partly exterminating the quick killers, such as smallpox and heart attacks, we have left ourselves with slower killers, such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.
The first thing to say is that this is a problem born of success. The defeat of premature mortality is a spectacular triumph of modern medicine and we should not forget that. In my lifetime, global life expectancy has increased by about five hours per day; it has gone from 49 to 71. Let us not be so keen to complain about the failure to defeat the morbidities of old age that we forget to celebrate these unprecedented achievements. I am not wholly convinced that better leadership and accountability by government on the grand challenge would necessarily have made a big difference in the last few years.
As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, the central issue with which we grappled was how to close the gaps between health span and lifespan and between rich and poor. There are four possible ways to do it: we can teach young people not to get into unhealthy habits, such as obesity and lack of exercise, which will make them unwell in old age; we can learn to treat people’s illnesses better when they get ill in old age; we can diagnose illnesses better and earlier, as the noble Baroness said; or we can do research into the underlying mechanisms of ageing in the hope of finding preventive therapies. Today, I argue that, from what I heard in the inquiry, the first and second suggestions are unlikely to work very well; the third and fourth may be much more important.
I am a little cynical about public health advice to the young as a cure for old age. In the report, we say that
“a life-course approach to healthy ageing is to be commended”
and that
“There are advantages to adopting healthy lifestyles earlier in life.”
But we lament that
“We heard differing views on whether young people tend to engage with the issue of healthy ageing”,
which is a bit of a euphemism, yet we recommended
“regulatory and fiscal measures, actively to encourage people to adopt lifestyles that support healthy ageing”.
That would all be great, but do we really think that we can tell the young that they must drink in moderation now to prepare for a sedate old age, free of illness, or that they will believe that we can deliver that promise? After all, lots of us adhere to Hunter S Thompson’s advice, even in middle and old age:
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’”
We sort of admit in this report that solving the problem of the gap between health span and lifespan through public health advice is not working but say that we should do more of it.
On treating people’s illnesses better, we rightly focused on multimorbidity. One doctor treats one symptom, another treats another and the fact that the patient has five things wrong with him at the same time either is ignored or, worse, leads to multiple medications that interfere with each other. “Polypharmacy” was a word that I learned during this inquiry.
I like to think that we can reform healthcare in such a way as to do better at this, but it will be a Sisyphean task, because the rise of multimorbidity is, to some extent, an inevitable consequence of defeating premature mortality. Someone with multiple organs failing at once is simply expressing their biological sell-by date. It is an interesting fact that when supercentenarians—people older than 110—die, they generally just fade away with no particular cause. The machine just stops. Even cancer cells struggle to keep going in their elderly bodies.
By the way, an even more interesting fact is that, while the number of people reaching 100 goes up and up all the time, the number reaching 115 remains extremely small and has hardly changed in decades. There really is a sell-by date on human life. Jeanne Calment, who is the only person to get past 119 and supposedly died at the age of 122 in the 1990s, had probably swapped her birth certificate with her mother’s, we now think. There is currently one 117 year-old and one 118 year-old woman alive in the world and no man older than 113, I think. For those worried about pensions, it is a good thing that we just ain’t going to live to 150—not without genetic engineering, at least.
That leaves diagnosis and research. I genuinely think that the best thing we can do for the elderly and the best way to help to close the gap of social inequality is to diagnose people’s ailments sooner. It disappoints me that this country does not seem as keen on early diagnosis as other countries sometimes are. As for research, like the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, I am convinced that Britain, with its terrific bioscience expertise, has a great opportunity to make a huge contribution to the underlying science of ageing. Therein we might find a way to treat people either with senolytic drugs or with telomerase to give them the bodies of 40 year-olds in their 80s, followed by a sudden death at 110. That seems a noble goal, which the Government should heartily embrace. In his reply, will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to support ambitious research into both the mechanisms of ageing and the value of early diagnosis?
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. I am pleased to accept his advice that, before we address the challenges, we should celebrate the achievements of medical science. If he will excuse me, I will take some time to reflect on some of his other advice, and I will certainly not introduce him to my sons until I have worked out what the implications might be.
It was a privilege and an education to have been a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee while it was carrying out this inquiry under the expert chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I associate myself with his words of recognition and thanks to the committee staff and our expert adviser, and I thank him for his impressively comprehensive introduction of a complex report in an accessible way. I do that principally because I will use it as reason for concentrating on one aspect of the report, which was raised both by my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone and the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan—the impact of inequalities. Over the months during which we took evidence, we found that inequality was the most significant challenge.
Our committee heard evidence from many witnesses to support the finding set out in the first conclusion of our report, which is that inequalities in healthy life expectancy remain stark. People in the most deprived groups on average spend almost 20 years longer in poor health than those in the least deprived groups. There are also shockingly large differences in healthy life expectancy among ethnic groups. The evidence that we received more than justified our recommendation that the Government prioritise reducing health inequalities and our request that they set out a plan for reducing health inequalities over the next Parliament—a request with which they respectfully declined fully to engage. There is hope yet. The Government, via the Minister, have been invited three times to engage with this issue, so it will be interesting to hear his response.
Our relatively short paragraphs on inequality disguise the scale of the evidence that we received of the all-pervasiveness of its effects on longevity and healthy living and the degree to which it repeatedly raised its head in our evidence sessions. In our report, the word “inequalities” is used 77 times.
We conducted our inquiry largely over the course of the pandemic, during which there has been a growing awareness of the degree to which poverty and the underfunding of public health have been associated with a large and unequal mortality caused by Covid-19 across the whole UK. However, before the pandemic, in many communities both life expectancy and, in particular, healthy life expectancy had begun to decline after a period of improvement. Hitherto, this decline in longevity was explained by growing unemployment or the replacement of long-term secure jobs by largely insecure and low-wage employment because of de- industrialisation and changes in the economy of the UK in the latter part of last century. Largely, these trends resulted in greater loss of good economic opportunities and jobs in the north as opposed to London and the south-east, where the burgeoning service economy and education opportunities gave young people, including some from poorer areas, a better chance to succeed in that changing environment.
However, during the period of austerity, these long-term changes were worsened by a deliberate decision to reduce social support, welfare payments and funding to local government and public services. By 2018-19, one in five people in the UK, including many in work, was living in poverty and many still are—in fact, those numbers are increasing. Like the changes in the economy, these austerity cuts had a greater impact in the poorest communities, making the effects of the loss of secure employment worse. Poverty and reduced funding of this nature were reflected in increased unhealthy and harmful behaviours, such as poor nutrition, alcohol use and smoking, and less provision of or use of preventive healthcare and, consequently, increased mortality.
Pedantically—and I hear this said regularly—it is correct that healthcare spending was affected less by austerity than other sectors. There has been an annual 1% to 3% increase since 2010, but it has been insufficient to keep up with the increasing demands of an ageing population. This imbalance has led to longer waiting times for primary and specialist care and, once again, the most significant effects have been in deprived areas. The real-term cuts in public health spending have also been larger in the north and north-east, where life expectancy lags.
To make matters worse, helping people to stop smoking and health checks, which affect diseases with substantial contribution to mortality inequalities, had greater than average funding cuts. To arrest and reverse this trend of falling life expectancy, we need economic and social policies that specifically address inequalities, supported by greater investment in public health and healthcare in the communities with the lowest healthy life expectancies.
Despite the terms of the Government’s response to the committee’s recommendations, thus far the post-Covid “build back better” agenda does not explicitly address equity. The levelling-up funding plans to address these regional inequities, particularly in the so-called left-behind districts, appear to be focused on investment and infrastructure. At best there has been a limited specific focus on areas such as child poverty, public health or high-skilled education.
An awareness of place is crucial to tackling inequity. It is regrettable that place-based improvement in northern cities, for example, remains limited to local action facilitated by devolution in cities such as Manchester, and community resilience, well-being and regeneration initiatives. Without additional resources for education, employment and health, these positive steps will prove insufficient to address this issue. To reverse the decline in longevity in many of our communities, health equity needs to be a key outcome of policy.
The date set for the publication of the spending review, 27 October, is the opportunity for the Government to provide at least some certainty on these important areas of spending and investment, including those identified in this report. It could also be the foundation for at least the outline of a coherent plan for reducing health inequalities over the next Parliament, as recommended in this report.
Lord Mair (CB)
My Lords, it was a privilege to have been a member of this House’s Science and Technology Select Committee under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I too thank him for his leadership in our inquiry on ageing and the production of our report. Our report highlighted that people are living longer but, regrettably, many of the extra years are spent in poor health and in difficult conditions. Today I will focus on the role of engineering and technology in improving the situation and how it can enable people to live independently in their homes for longer in old age.
Our committee concluded that technologies and related services have an increasing role in helping people to live healthily and independently in old age. This was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. These include assistive technologies, which can compensate for declining ability and help individuals to cope better with their environment, making it possible to extend independent living. They also include medical technologies, which can improve health and capability.
I will first address assistive technologies that can provide the ability for independent living, which is especially important. Remaining in one’s own home and community is vital to many older people and can contribute to an improved sense of health and well-being. To this end, there is considerable potential for smart homes, with technologies in the home such as sensor networks, motion sensors, infra-red cameras and even robots.
Today’s internet of things makes the possibilities of the smart home much more easily attainable. Wireless monitoring devices can be placed around the home to monitor the individual’s daily activities. Monitoring could be done directly, by devices that monitor gait, breathing or speech, for example, or indirectly, by devices that monitor the use of the fridge or utilities such as electricity and water, for example. Data can be accessed by formal and informal carers, who can make real-time care decisions to help the elderly person.
However, although such smart homes can promote independent living and safety, there are two important issues. The first is privacy: how would an elderly person react to being constantly monitored in their home? The second is the possible risk that such technologies, by making the elderly person more capable of being on their own, could even promote further loneliness and social isolation. Impressive as these new technologies and services are, there is a need for more research to understand whether they would be acceptable to the user and whether they would in fact make a real difference to older people’s lives.
There is also the important issue of digital service provision for older people. We heard evidence suggesting that only around 60% of one-person households, where the person is over 65, have broadband. This widespread lack of broadband connection is likely to become less of an issue with the advent of 5G. Nevertheless, we recommended that the Government ensure internet access for all homes so that older people can access services to help them to live independently and in better health. Lifelong digital skills training is needed, so that when people enter old age they will have the ability to use the available technologies to their benefit. The Government’s recent introduction of a new entitlement for adults with few or no digital skills to undertake specified digital qualifications, up to level 1, is to be welcomed.
I will now address medical technologies. Our committee received evidence that wearable and implantable medical devices have an increasingly important future for the ageing population. Miniaturised devices applied to the skin or implanted into the body can allow precise and timely interventions to improve healthcare while reducing the number of medical appointments. For example, people with diabetes can use implanted technology to monitor blood glucose levels and deliver insulin. Devices monitoring other important health indicators, such as blood pressure and skin temperature, are also envisaged. More futuristic are exciting engineering developments in the field of microrobotics that may enable very local drug delivery or other treatments, such as microsurgery, within the body. There are also non-invasive surgical techniques, “robotic” implants, ingestible robots, in-body sensors for monitoring purposes, implanted drug delivery systems such as insulin pumps, and many others.
In the light of the evidence that we received, our committee concluded that the use of wearable and implantable technologies for monitoring health conditions and administering treatments is likely to become increasingly common. Such technologies have the potential to provide more precise and timely treatment and could well contribute to better health and greater independence in old age.
Our committee recommended that the Government support the deployment of technologies that contribute to healthier and independent living. Our universities and industries are world leaders in science and engineering and are consequently well-placed to undertake the necessary R&D. UKRI is making significant investment in early-stage technologies to support the ageing society grand challenge through the healthy ageing challenge. It is to be hoped that the forthcoming spending review and Autumn Budget will continue to support and indeed increase this UKRI funding that is so vital for our ageing population.
My final remarks relate to the mission of the ageing society grand challenge announced by the Government in 2018. This was eloquently addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, in his opening speech and by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. The Government’s mission was to
“ensure that people can enjoy at least 5 extra healthy, independent years of life by 2035, while narrowing the gap between the experience of the richest and poorest.”
Technology can undoubtedly contribute to independence and social connectedness in old age. However, even with the rapid engineering advances that we are seeing, it seems unlikely that technology can add five years of healthy and independent living by 2035. Moreover, there is a risk of new technologies actually widening the health inequalities gap in old age, due to barriers to uptake being more prevalent in disadvantaged groups. We heard from several witnesses that technologies and services may heighten inequalities if products are not affordable and accessible to deprived groups. The Government will need to take the necessary steps to make these new technology tools ubiquitous and beneficial for the whole population in old age. Can the Minister comment on this and indicate how the challenge will be met to avoid the inequalities gap potentially increasing?
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
The Science and Technology Committee’s report on ageing was written before I joined the Committee. I have no hesitation in declaring that it is an excellent report. It is lengthy and comprehensive and it contains numerous important recommendations.
The report has disposed of the optimistic belief that citizens of affluent societies can look forward with equanimity to the prospect of increased longevity. However, in comparison to the experience of Britons 100 years ago, the average lifespan has already increased markedly. A century ago, average life expectancy at birth for men was 48 years, whereas for women it was 54. By 2015, life expectancy for a man was 79 years and for a woman it was 83 years. It should be noted, however, that it can be misleading to compare average lifespan statistics then and now. The earlier figures are affected by a higher frequency of infant mortality and death in childbirth, both of which have been radically reduced.
The process of increasing longevity has slowed and there is little prospect of further significant increases at the top end of the range. Nevertheless, there remains considerable scope for reducing the incidence of premature death associated with social deprivation. The prospects of a morbid senescence, in which people suffer from the ailments of old age, have increased disproportionately. Both the duration of that period of affliction and the incidence of the associated ailments have increased markedly. Although it should be possible to delay the onset of the diseases of senescence and to mitigate their effects, they will not be eliminated. As the report observes, few of these ailments are liable to be eliminated by natural selection, since they occur mainly after the age of reproduction.
The report also revealed the wide differences in health and longevity among individuals in different socioeconomic circumstances. The expected duration of a healthy period in life—the health span—for those in the most affluent areas is 18 years longer than for those in the most deprived areas. Those in poverty suffer more from the ailments of old age. If there is a realistic prospect of increasing longevity on average and of reducing ailments, it must be by addressing these inequalities.
The statistics of disease and mortality recorded 100 years ago are dramatically different from the modern statistics. The Office for National Statistics has a web page titled “Causes of Death over 100 Years”, which shows the top causes of death by age and sex from 1915 to 2015. The incidence of mortality through infectious diseases has been radically reduced over that period. Until after the Second World War, infections were generally the leading cause of death for young and middle-aged males and females. During the second half of the 20th century, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella were all virtually wiped out, largely as a consequence of childhood immunisation. Meanwhile, from 1945 onwards, heart conditions became a leading cause of death for middle to older-aged males, followed by cancer. A similar trend, occurring at older ages, has been seen in women during that period, while younger to middle-aged women have more frequently died of breast cancer.
The committee’s report remarks that modern medicine is still dominated by the objectives of defeating single diseases and single ailments. To be more appropriate to treating an ageing population, it should be addressing what is described as multimorbidity, which is the state of having two or more long-term medical conditions. Coronary disease, hypertension—or high blood pressure —diabetes, dementia and strokes are all highly correlated in the aged cohorts; that is to say, they occur together, but they are being treated as if they were isolated ailments.
The experience of death and the social attitudes towards it have changed markedly over time. In predominantly rural communities, the realities of birth and death, witnessed in both the animal and the human populations, are liable to be part of everyday experience. These experiences are curtailed in urban populations.
In late Victorian times, the decline in premature mortality was accompanied by a curious side-effect, which was the ritualisation of death. This can be witnessed by visiting the cemeteries that date from then that accommodate lavish funereal monuments. In London, the Brompton, Highgate and Abney cemeteries are prime examples. Later, when cremation became an acceptable means of disposing of bodies, the memorialisation of the dead was much diminished. The incidence of mortality per head has been much reduced by the increased longevity that we have witnessed in the past 100 years. Nowadays, death is marginalised. It is no longer ever-present in our consciousness. I suggest that this marginalisation has had some deleterious consequences.
Although we are aware that the population has aged, we have been unwilling to face the consequences. Our provision of care for the elderly has not adapted to these circumstances and it has become seriously inadequate. We are frequently surprised and resentful when relatives die. Many appear to believe that death occurs only through medical negligence or malpractice. Doctors are fearful of being blamed for the death of relatives and they seek to indemnify themselves against complaints by asking relatives to assent to “do not resuscitate” orders.
The report is replete with recommendations of what should be done to reduce the impact of the diseases of senescence. It emphasises the well-known circumstances that undermine health in later life. Foremost among these are smoking, alcohol consumption and obesity, but only the first of these has been consistently targeted by public health campaigns. Much less has been done to address alcohol consumption, obesity and the lack of physical exercise. It is notoriously difficult to change human behaviour merely by exhortation and there has been political resistance to the interference of what has been described as the “nanny state”.
The recommendations of the committee’s report are too numerous to recite, but some of them are striking and should be remarked on. The report declares that the piecemeal approach to the problems of ageing needs to be replaced by a co-ordinated approach that addresses the complex and interrelated problems. Patients are often prescribed a multiplicity of drugs, with little attention given to the potential for their damaging interactions or to the harm caused to a patient by a pharmacological overload. It has been recommended that ageing people should be assigned to a designated clinician who has a complete oversight of their care.
The report calls for further research into the processes and problems of ageing and asserts that not much is fully understood yet. It calls for fuller and more enduring longitudinal studies. However, cross-sectional studies are needed that would highlight the disparities in health that are attributable to the inequalities in our society. The Covid pandemic has revealed the health hazards associated with social and economic deprivation and the stark differences in health and mortality between ethnic groups. Surely the most effective means of promoting good health in an ageing population is by striving to achieve a just and equitable society.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. We most certainly owe the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and his committee a big vote of thanks for their excellent report. I am only sorry that I was not here to participate.
As an actuary, life expectancy is my subject and I hope that I will be forgiven for emphasising aspects of how the issue is discussed. A crucial distinction, which needs to be understood in such discussions, is that between period and cohort life expectancies. It is not that one is right and the other wrong, but it is important to understand the distinct roles that both play in such discussions.
Period life expectancy is defined as the average number of additional years a person can be expected to live for, if he or she experienced the age-specific mortality rates of a given era in the current time period, for the rest of his or her life. The latest figures from the ONS are based on the experience of people for the three years 2018 to 2020. If you want to compare current mortality experience with that of the past—the experience of 2018 to 2020 with that of 20 years previously—the period life table is the one that you want.
In contrast, cohort life expectancy makes allowances for mortality improvements by combining observed and projected changes in mortality into future years. A cohort refers to a group of people with the same year of birth. For example, if someone is aged 18 in 2018, they were born in 2000 and would therefore be part of the year 2000 birth cohort. It has to be accepted that estimating future changes in mortality is difficult, but to ignore them would be even worse. Over many years, we have seen consistent improvements: people are living longer. However, the report points out that the rate of improvement has slowed in the last decade. While there are no uncontested explanations for this slowdown, I, along with many other practitioners, have no doubt that austerity has played a key role. In any event, this is a subject worthy of further study.
The report also points out the gross differences in life expectancy by social circumstances—one might even say class. But it is not the absolute level that differs by social circumstances; it is the rate of improvement. The wide differences that we see in rates of improvement are as much or more of a cause for concern as the current position. As has been mentioned, we await the levelling-up White Paper and it will be judged by how effective we think it is at addressing these issues. Can the Minister give us any reassurance that this will be a headline in the White Paper?
I come back to period and cohort life expectancies. Period life expectancies are based on solid data: we actually know how many people died in a particular period and what the population was. Cohort life expectancies depend on the exercise of some judgment about what changes in life expectancy are to be expected in future—over a period of many years, in the case of young people. However, if you want to know how long someone is expected to live—so that you could, for example, advise them on how much they need to save for retirement—you really need to use the cohort expectancy. In the same way, if you want to know what the future population will be then you need to adopt the approach of the cohort and build in allowances for potential improvements. This important distinction appears in the report, with footnotes that provide links to a detailed explanation. However, I am disappointed that the report focuses on period life expectancy. Fortunately, that does not affect its key conclusions, but it would be better to have used the more useful figure.
I am running out of time but want to say something about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on life expectancy. Quite understandably, given when it was written, the report itself says little. In any event, it is still relatively early days and the pandemic itself is a moving target. What we can be sure about is that it is here to stay. Every death is a tragedy, and the latest estimate from the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group—I can recommend its website—is that the pandemic has cost 155,000 lives in the UK. It would be natural to assume, therefore, that this has had an adverse effect on life expectancy, particularly next year when more up-to-date data covering the period of the pandemic will be available. However, as is so often the case, it is more complicated than that, particularly when we come to cohort life expectancies. There are many consequences of the pandemic on future mortality, but not all are necessarily negative. For example, the improvements in hygiene, working from home leading to less traffic and pollution, and the mask wearing have clearly had some success—whatever their effects on Covid-19—in controlling influenza and other illnesses. I am sure that I, along with many others, will maintain these behaviours. We wait to see whether there will be the feared rebound, but the long-term effect will probably be positive overall.
There have also been significant improvements in medical science that might have a substantial effect on future mortality. The pandemic has spurred scientific innovation and collaboration from immunology and vaccine science through to new approaches to the collection and processing of health data and the organisation of healthcare. In particular, it has catalysed research and medical advances. RNA therapies are being harnessed to develop vaccines for personalised cancer therapy, infectious and autoimmune diseases and other disorders, not least cystic fibrosis and haemophilia. Work was already under way, but there is no doubt that Covid-19 has brought forward the time when these new treatments will be of value and extend human life.
I mention these positive effects not to make light of a pandemic where every death is a tragedy. However, it sets the Government a higher target: are they prepared to take advantage of these advances and deliver not just for those in the lucky groups who gain from improvements but across the board, focusing on those with fewer social advantages?
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Patel on the remarkable, thoughtful and insightful way in which he chaired your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee on this inquiry, on the preparation of the attendant report, and, of course, on the way he introduced this debate. In so doing, I declare my own interests, in particular those as chairman of the King’s Fund, of UK Biobank and of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research.
Your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee identified the profound consequences of an ageing society and demographic in terms of the impacts economically and on the delivery of health services, but also of the broader societal impact. In considering the implications of ageing, we must be clear at the heart of all consideration and the development of any policy that it is the responsibility of society and government to ensure that we continue to deliver support and care for an ageing population compassionately.
We also have to ask ourselves the question, “What is going wrong at the moment?”, particularly in the delivery of health services. The committee was able to receive important evidence in this regard. We heard that the delivery of services is not joined up; we still provide healthcare services in a very disjointed fashion. In so doing, we have a focus on single diseases and single conditions, rather than providing a service for an ageing population where there is capacity to consider multiple comorbidities at the same time and provide interventions that ensure that each of those is addressed meaningfully and in an integrated fashion, so that individuals can maximise the opportunity for improved outcomes and avoid the many deleterious consequences of ill-co-ordinated multipharmacy and multiple ill-co-ordinated interventions.
Her Majesty’s Government will shortly bring to your Lordships’ House the Health and Care Bill. In that Bill there will be the opportunity to look at the way services are delivered. Is it Her Majesty’s Government’s intention that this Bill will provide the opportunity to deliver and address with a potential legislative change the important recommendations in this report that plead for the more co-ordinated and joined-up delivery of care services for an ageing population?
We also received evidence of the remarkable basic science research effort established over recent years in the creation of a new specialty of biogerontology—basic scientists studying the processes of ageing at a molecular and cellular level. That scientific output has identified hallmarks that can be associated clearly at a cellular level with the ageing process, such as telomere attrition, mitochondrial dysfunction and stem cell exhaustion. All this fundamental research provides the opportunity both for novel targets in the establishment of biomarkers that can be used to address, identify and diagnose the ageing process clinically at a much earlier level, and, most importantly, for novel therapeutic targets that will become future interventions and the opportunity for us to target the multifactorial manifestations of the ageing process.
We also heard that the next stages in the development pathway in clinical research in particular are dysfunctional. The current way we regulate clinical trials is to provide regulation to achieve a single treatment for a single disease, rather than undertaking clinical research for the ageing process, which, by definition, affects multiple end organs. We also heard that elderly populations and those with multiple comorbidities are frequently excluded from clinical trials, so much of the evidence generated for potential therapeutic intervention is generated in populations who are not elderly, and we extrapolate from those populations to a highly complicated ageing population. That is why the interventions we offer frequently fail to have the impact we might anticipate or to provide the advantages that so much technology and innovation in healthcare and research could provide. It is essential that the insights, innovations and interventions we will provide to deal with the ageing process and diseases associated with ageing are derived in and from those specific populations, rather than extrapolation.
Her Majesty’s Government have suggested that they will use the opportunity availed by leaving the European Union to look at the clinical trials regulation. Do they intend to look at the regulation to ensure that we can address this major fault in conducting clinical research to address the ageing process, so that we can not only achieve important benefits for those individuals and citizens who will benefit from the research output but have the opportunity to provide for our country to lead in the clinical development of interventions and innovations to address the ageing process?
Finally, we were also able to look at the question more broadly of how the health service can help us to address this important societal and national challenge. One of the important questions is how we are able to mobilise and use data collected within the National Health Service and in many large cohort studies that Her Majesty’s Government and research charities have supported over many years and decades, in terms of generating data to identify novel biomarkers, to establish approaches to appropriate imaging, and to apply emerging techniques of data science to these large cohorts and datasets to help us identify novel biomarkers and accelerate and improve the clinical trials process.
This is a very real challenge and once again Her Majesty’s Government have identified the opportunity to look at the general data protection regulation. Will that opportunity be used to provide for a review that allows us to access and address health data in a responsible and meaningful fashion, of course with appropriate social licence, to ensure that we can drive forward innovation in this important area? It is with data and it will be with innovation that we are able to make a major contribution to the issues identified in your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee report.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, it was a huge pleasure to have the noble Lord, Lord Patel, as our chairman yet again for this inquiry, which was conducted with some challenging difficulties that were faced. He was, as usual, remarkable in his leadership and what we did. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and others have just emphasised, the findings show very clearly that the biggest single problem with ageing in the UK is widespread deprivation, which means that the Government are failing to reach their targets of trying to extend longevity.
There are many processes that we looked at which are associated with ageing. Multimorbidity, of course, is one of the key issues, where these processes between organs have a connection and are often responsible for what is happening. Unfortunately, there are not enough specialists doing regular connected medicine. This is one of the things that needs to be looked at in the health service. How many geriatricians who are specialised are available for this service in the United Kingdom at present? Do the Government feel that, given the manifestations of ill health, which are so interconnected, there should be more people of this kind? Perhaps that could be confirmed at the end of this debate.
An important aspect of this report was the science behind ageing. It is complex and surprising. I remember 35 years ago in my own lab we found that a human embryo, just three days after fertilisation, showed processes of ageing and that cells were changing and being destroyed. As we age, that process is not so efficient, so abnormal cells often appear in the adult human.
The committee identified a wide range of other mechanisms, including mutations in mitochondria—the battery packs of nearly every individual cell—which are an important aspect of ageing, the shortening of chromosomes, changes in DNA and in its repair, the loss of stem cells and, importantly for many of us in this Room, the process of inflammation, to which older people are much more susceptible. These and other issues are reported in the excellent chapter 3 of the report. I recommend that people read it because one of the most important aspects is changes in the immune system; of course, this aspect has been absolutely relevant during the Covid pandemic. We learned a great deal more about ageing, rather supporting some of the things we have been looking at. It turns out that these things are critical in all aspects of ageing in nearly all tissues and most organs, but they are not understood.
I should declare an interest that I have not declared before and which is not listed in the committee’s report: that of my own recent experience. Before the pandemic, I knew that I had cataracts in both eyes. An optician did not see anything else wrong with my eyes. I was therefore happy to continue reading on my computer without thinking about it, and I felt that my general processes were not impaired when I was doing stuff in Parliament; of course, your Lordships may have other views of my efficiency in that respect. I found that, while reading continuously on my computer, I was able to see films and re-read Dickens, Hazlitt, Hardy and many other authors. I did not really read newspapers.
In the past few weeks, however, I have suddenly found that I cannot read newsprint and am increasingly unable to read a printed book. In fact, I cannot read a printed book. I also cannot see road signs—I do not drive, obviously—and I do not recognise people. At the recall of Parliament, the only way I could identify noble Lords—even those on the same side of the division between the two major Benches as me—was by the sound of their voices. I realised that something was seriously wrong, particularly when I looked at my computer and saw that horizontal straight lines were no longer straight but wavy and often changed; I also saw black spots, of course, and colours such as green and red were all rather entrancing but very different. It seemed that something rather serious might be going on.
Of course, not being able to recognise your Lordships by sight and not being able to read a speech is really a blessed relief. I must say, if a few more noble Lords were in the same position, it might be quite good for the Chamber, but there we are. Unreadable speeches are not a great thing. At least when the noble Lord the Whip comes to say that I have been conducting myself too long, I will not recognise what is happening and so can go on wittering in this way.
I rapidly turned to Moorfields hospital and was very fortunate to meet Professor Adnan Tufail. He happens to be a notable international expert in retinal disease—oddly enough, particularly in my rare manifestation of age-related macular degeneration, which is quite common. My condition—seeing as I have not written a speech, I say this for the purposes of Hansard, because I like to tease them—is called reticular pseudodrusen age-related macular degeneration. Unfortunately, it seems to be a rare genetic kind of this disease and is particularly aggressive. Anyway, I was immediately sent for treatment by Professor Tufail, who was amazing. I had a treatment that noble Lords may have seen in “Un Chien Andalou”, a surreal 1929 film by Buñuel, where things are injected directly into the eye—although in my case, it was a monoclonal antibody, not a knife. It was done efficiently and without pain, but that treatment will have to be continued for some time.
To cut a long story short, I went to the lab and was able to see exactly the problems that they face. They are doing a huge amount of research at Moorfields—it is internationally recognised—and so many of the chemical processes that they are looking at, which are extremely complex in the eye, particularly in the retina, are exactly the same processes in the rest of ageing.
Multimorbidity with eye disease is one of the problems because people who are really short-sighted tend to fall down and break limbs, and are much more likely therefore to have other health problems as a result. Some become isolated, of course, and may not be able to get their brain in motion; dementia is therefore much more likely.
This is a massive problem because age-related macular degeneration, which may in different circumstances be very different, is still the commonest cause of blindness in the United Kingdom. We are not doing a great job, particularly among deprived people who, unlike me, do not have access to medical care in the same way because they are not medically qualified. What number of age-related macular degenerations are seen in the United Kingdom? What is the possible cost of this, both with and without treatment? How might we do something about this?
There is a real need to do more research. I must say, I found that there was very little public research at Moorfields. It was mostly from venture capital and other commercially derived areas. This is not good for widespread research, which can be immediately available to medicine. I commend Tufail’s team for carrying on. Finally, how much money is available from the Medical Research Council for retinal disease and cell therapies to treat those diseases?
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston. I wish him a speedy recovery. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and members of the Science and Technology Committee on producing this thorough report. I urge the Government to adopt all its recommendations.
Technology plays a great role in every walk of life. However, it must not be a substitute for caregivers or human interactions. We have already seen that face-to-face appointments to see GPs are becoming rare. In online appointments, patients are expected to describe their medical condition. This is impossible to do with any degree of certainty, especially when patients have not encountered a similar health problem before. Technology can be a boon but it can also damage your health; just ask anyone addicted to online gambling, for example, hence the need for regulation.
That said, people’s welfare requires that they must have access to digital technology. However, that access is constrained by institutionalised inequalities. About 1.5 million homes in the UK do not have internet access at the moment. Around 20% of children did not have any access to a device for online learning while schools were closed recently. Those without access to the internet are most likely to be people aged over 65 or households with low incomes or financial vulnerability. Free broadband was a radical Labour policy at the last general election and would have helped many to benefit from the digital revolution. The Government have already plagiarised many of Labour’s policies and revarnished them; I urge the Minister to do the same with the broadband policy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne, indicated that economic inequalities are a key determinant of healthy life expectancy, but the Government’s policies have accelerated those inequalities and denied millions of people good food, housing, education, internet and participation in democracy to inform policies that can improve their lives. Even before Covid, 14.5 million people were living in poverty. The poorest 50% of people in the UK have just 9% of its wealth and 42% of all disposable household income is in the hands of 20% of people, while only 7% of it goes to the lowest 20%. Some 18.4 million individuals have an income less than the income tax threshold of £12,570. Only 58% of the adult population pays income tax because the other 42% is too poor. Some 6.2 million people have an income of less than £8,844. With such an economic predicament, a large number of people cannot easily access technology and harness its benefits, yet the Government continue to neglect this challenge. Hopefully the Minister will explain why they are so committed to hurting the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society.
Income tax is payable on incomes above £12,570, but the new Johnson tax—a 1.25% hike in national insurance—applies to incomes above only £8,844. As has already been mentioned, universal credit has been cut, and the average state pension is only around £8,000—about 25% of average earnings—which is the lowest in the industrialised world. Some 2.1 million retirees live in poverty. It is estimated that around 3 million people in the UK are undernourished, and 1.3 million of them are retirees. Every year, around 25,000 of them will die because of the cold and related problems. Nearly 6 million people are awaiting hospital treatment in England and there is no relief in sight.
On top of that, the Government have adopted regressive taxation policies. Even before Covid, the poorest 10% of households paid 47.6% of their income in direct and indirect taxes, while the richest 10% paid only 33.5%. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us how he is going to address that situation, because the redistribution of income and wealth is the key to unlocking the door to healthy life expectancy—but Ministers do not utter the “R” word. None of the Ministers at the annual Conservative Party conference mentioned it; hopefully the Minister will put that record right.
On several occasions, the Government have published impact assessments of their policies, but I am yet to see an assessment that explains the impact of their policies on women, senior citizens, children or other marginalised groups in our society. Nothing is said about the impact of matters such as the suspension of the triple lock, the cut in universal credit, the new Johnson tax, wage freezes and cuts in public services on inequalities or healthy life expectancy. Late last year, the 107-page Budget document said absolutely nothing about these things; indeed, the word “women” appeared in it only three times. Can the Minister give an undertaking that, from now on, all government policies will be accompanied by an assessment of their impact on women, senior citizens, children, marginalised groups, inequalities and healthy life expectancy?
Finally, I want to say a few words about the pharmaceutical industry. Two issues have a direct relevance to this debate. First, the pharmaceutical industry has been profiteering through drugs pricing, thereby depriving many people of vital medicines that affect the quality of their lives. Secondly, the pharmaceutical industry does not have the zeal of people like Edward Jenner to eradicate anything; it increasingly creates dependency. You can see that people are dependent on drugs for blood pressure, asthma, cholesterol and many other things because the industry wants more customers. Indeed, some of these drugs themselves have side-effects that affect quality of life, but it seems to me that the drugs industry is off the Government’s radar. Its business model must be examined.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)
My Lords, I have been given permission to sit while giving my speech because I am having great difficulty with my vision. First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for initiating this discussion on the report on ageing. The report makes the apt point that, although life expectancy is increasing,
“the UK has seen low rates of life expectancy increases compared with most European and other high-income countries.”
With any medical condition, we must focus first on diagnosis, secondly on aetiology and, thirdly, on treatment. Well, the diagnosis is clear: the people of the UK are the most unhealthy in Europe. Seventy one per cent of those aged over 30 are obese or overweight. When I first mentioned that statistic last year in the Chamber, it was dismissed by a prominent politician as being over the top. I was not over the top; I was just dealing with facts, truth and science.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, mentioned, obesity leads to widespread disease, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, strokes, heart attacks, dementia and many other conditions that cause premature ageing, morbidity and death. The fat in the gross excess of fat cells leaks out, impairs the immune system and leaves the polluted body susceptible to very many diseases, especially infections such as Covid-19. The countries with the highest prevalence of obesity are the ones with the greatest incidence of Covid-19. So when the Prime Minister was accused of being responsible for 130,000 deaths, it was a false accusation. The aetiology of obesity epidemics is simply that people are putting too many calories into their mouths. Therefore, the treatment is, first and foremost, to get obese people to put fewer calories into their mouths. In fact, the Prime Minister was the first national leader to advocate eating less in order to reduce the obesity epidemic. He showed the way by losing three stone himself and coined the phrase, “Don’t be fatty at 50”.
Before we focus on complex solutions, we must first ensure that we have mastered the simple ones. It is not the case that eating less is impossible; what is impossible is to go on eating too much and remain healthy. There is no doubt that eating less requires effort and, for some, it is very difficult indeed, but the effort pays off in terms of morbidity, mortality and improving the quality of life in old age.
It was said that one group of people suffered more from Covid because of poverty and government cuts. Then an honest commentator pointed out that this particular group of people is more likely to suffer from heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes and hypertension, but no one had the courage to say that the cause of those four conditions was mainly obesity. The critics say that they were obese because they could not afford the right food, but they would not be obese if they ate less of the wrong food.
Elements of the scientific world and some authorities have confused the public by mixed and inaccurate messages—for instance, that physical exercise is the answer to the obesity epidemic. The scientific institution known as NICE has maintained for years that all the calories we eat are used up on exercise, but surely one of the 500 employees of NICE could have gone to the gym, exercised for half an hour on a machine and seen how few calories they expended. On average, approximate intake of adults is 2,000 to 2,500 calories a day, which means that a person would have to exercise for four or five hours every day to burn up the calories they ate. This would increase their appetite and their calorie intake. I should emphasise that physical activity is essential for good health but is not an effective way of reducing weight.
There should be a clear message to the public that obesity is a disease that destroys the human body slowly and, as people get older, produces an enormous amount of suffering and death. The Department of Health has not always been helpful, in that it advocated a low-fat diet—but it is fat that acts as a brake, limiting the amount we eat. We clearly need to limit the amount of saturated fat, but unsaturated fat is fine. As fat leaves the stomach it goes into the duodenum and releases hormones that act on the stomach, delaying its emptying, thus giving an early sensation of fullness and satiety. After the fat has been emulsified and absorbed, it moves down the small intestine and normal service is resumed by the stomach. This is a beautiful mechanism that limits the amount we eat but, not surprisingly, the food industry dislikes it.
In the 1970s, Professor John Yudkin of London University set out clearly in his research that fat was not the problem; the problem lay in sugar. The food industry not only deliberately demonised fat but demonised Professor Yudkin. It was influential in his dismissal from his university post. The food industry advocated a low-fat diet, which is not only tasteless but bad for sales. It therefore added large quantities of sugar to the diet, and so the rot set in, with increasing obesity leading to the obesity epidemic.
Whole milk used to play an important part in limiting how many calories people ate. Skimmed milk was an industrial by-product which was at first discarded, then fed to animals and later to humans. The Department of Health has not helped matters by continuing to advocate a low-fat diet. It told GPs not to call patients obese because it was judgmental; it does not seem to realise there is a distinct difference between being judgmental and making accurate diagnoses.
The committee’s report focuses on the cure for the lifestyle choices of an ageing population, but prevention is better than cure. We could save millions from untimely deaths and billions in expenses if we focused on prevention. The struggle to keep an ageing population healthy has no greater challenge than this: the problems posed by bad choices. What is the Government’s role? It is not to tell people what to do. Instead, it is to honestly present them with the facts and the truth, and encourage them to make the right choices to grow older unhindered by increasing morbidity and mortality.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, I am not a member of the committee so it gives me great pleasure to say that I thought this was a really excellent report. The science was fascinating and it was very readable as well. I almost thought I understood most of it, which was gratifying. It deserves a wider audience for bringing it all together in the way that it does. It is also a privilege to follow on behind a distinguished doctor and to be followed by a distinguished nurse; I suppose that is the right place for somebody whose background is in health management.
I want to pick up three points. Two of them are about the Government’s response and the other is about something specific within the committee’s report. As a health manager, perhaps the right place for me to start off is with that nexus of issues that noble Lords have talked so much about: the multimorbidity, the unplanned cocktail of drugs that people are taking and the lack of co-ordination. Very interestingly, there was also the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, picked up about older people not being included in drug trials. Indeed, as the report said, there was no real research being done on ageing in general, as opposed to the more specific points as a whole.
This area of co-ordination and oversight of what is happening with old people’s medication and their health is vital. I am not sure the committee’s recommendations were strong enough—other things could be there—but, frankly, the Government’s response was bland, as if to say: “Yes, you have already got a designated clinician.” I do not know if many older people know that, and I speak as somebody with a 97 year-old father-in-law. The truth is that it is left to the family. It is left to the individual, the family, the carers, the friends, and so on. That is another manifestation of inequality, because of access to having people who can help you.
I liked the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, that maybe this can be picked up in the forthcoming Bill or the debate in the House about it. But I would like to ask the Minister if he recognises that there is inadequate co-ordination and oversight of older people’s health and medication. Will he ensure that the department and the NHS do more to address this?
My second point refers to the committee itself. The whole document treats older people as a problem and a burden, but what about the contribution and value that they—or perhaps we—bring to society? One may say that is not within the scope of what the committee was looking at, but I have seen a lot of evidence that having a meaning and purpose in life is good for your health. However, being undervalued and seen as helpless—as most of us are reduced to being helpless when in the health system—or not being in control, which is a vital part of one’s health and self-esteem, is bad. We should not forget that whole range of issues. They are susceptible to good evidence, good policy and good thinking that recognises the role and contribution of older people. There is an admirable focus in the report on the causes of ill health, but there needs also to be thought about the causes of health. There needs to be more research in that area.
I shall also pick up a point that the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, raised, even though he is not in his place. I do not disagree with him on the importance of research but this is about research and society; it is not one or the other but both. Research is vital but he caricatured public health as being about advising young people to do healthy things. That is not often going to work; I suspect I agree with him. Having said that, just by chance this morning I was on a webinar Zoom call with Everton Football Club, which is doing remarkable things to teach young people about health using that very strong force of role models, so that area is not a guaranteed failure.
A good public health approach is much more about enabling people to have a good life, in the sense of making sure that they are secure. Love comes into this, as does education, opportunity and all the things that enable people to be all they can be. It is what Aristotle referred to as eudaimonia and is normally referred to as human flourishing. The public health aspect of dealing with inequalities, but going wider than that, is really important. This committee is right to have picked up both the biological science in research and the society aspects.
Let me pick up one final point. In its last chapters— I think it is recommendations 20 to 23— the report presses the Government on how serious they are about this challenge and how determined they are to do it. Have they got somebody in charge of it? Is there going to be the impetus, energy, support and mobilisation to make something happen? Those are really important issues. Again, I thought the government response on this was bland, at best. There was no indication of the energy and importance of this issue in the way that it needs to be taken forward. Will the Minister reassure the Committee that it is not only about whether the grand challenges are going ahead in this form, but that these issues around health, ageing, science and technology are to be picked up in the appropriate fashion?
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and a pleasure to speak in this debate on the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, who has been my mentor since I entered this House and encouraged me to speak today. He introduced this debate so effectively and outlined the challenges that face society in relation to ageing.
Many noble Lords have developed and will continue to develop the important themes of science and technology research investment as an essential building block in developing treatments, AI and robotics to assist people in older age and to target specific illnesses through effective new drugs. I intend to discuss the challenges and opportunities outlined from social care and a “happiness and health” perspective in later life.
The report notes that the proportion of the UK population that is older than 80 is expected to increase from 4.9%, or 3.3 million people, in 2018 to 10%, or 7.6 million people, by 2065. The Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty, explained to the committee that it is anticipated that older age groups will be
“highly concentrated … in places where delivery”
of care and health services
“is more difficult than it is in cities.”
I recently attended a lecture that he gave at the University of Plymouth. He outlined the particular challenges of reaching people in rural communities and seaside towns, where many young people leave for work but return to retire, leaving a very small young workforce pool to provide paid care work to support older people.
This morning, the current challenges of providing enough care workers to support people as they come out of hospital were made clear by several speakers on the “Today” programme, including Vic Rayner, chief executive of the National Care Forum. There is insufficient modern accommodation, particularly in the social housing sector, to provide supportive living in a cost-effective manner to older people. Yet there is huge opportunity to build units with appropriate technology to enable more independent living, even for people who have multiple morbidities.
I am amazed that it is now possible to wear a watch with a tracking device that records a person’s whereabouts and, if their routine changes, enables alerts to a central hub and/or a named relative or carer within seconds. As a district nurse in the 1970s, I had to return to base to phone a patient I was worried about. If they did not answer, I had to go back to see them. Think of the difference for district nurses today because of mobile phones and modern technology. In addition, Housing 21 and Bath University work to link innovative engineering to do what appear to many to be simple interventions, such as a kettle that can never boil dry, due to a switch-off mechanism, or baths and showers that control the water temperature so that people cannot scold themselves when bathing. People can therefore stay independent.
Can the Minister please explain how the Government intend to promote investment in social housing that will meet the needs of the most deprived older people, so that they can live healthier, more independent lives? The boom of such housing available to those who can afford to buy age-specific homes of this kind illustrates that many older people enjoy living in such communities and are often less lonely as a result. Will the Government also invest in research designed to identify the potential benefits of such interventions on a longitudinal basis to provide data to inform future investments for older people?
I turn from housing as a key social determinant of health to the NHS and social care. Loneliness is a risk factor for both physical and mental health, as is adequately detailed in paragraph 34 of the report. What role should the NHS and care services play, possibly through social prescribing, to reduce extreme loneliness in old age? In the village where I live, the local post office and shop have just closed and, other than school transport, the bus operates twice a day—that is, two buses one way and two back, without a timetable focused on getting people to and from work. There is no bus that enables a 10 am departure and a return before 4 pm, so that someone of 70 years old can use their pass to go to the nearest town to shop, visit the library and perhaps have coffee. These are real issues for people, yet here in London I can pretty well go anywhere anytime. Could further investment in transport from central and local government overcome these issues and thus promote the health of older people?
Can the Minister explain whether Health Education England is exploring the need for specialist health and social care workers to work with older people? There are few Admiral nurses to support people with dementia, yet this is the highest cause of death in women and the second-highest cause of death in men in England, as illustrated by table 1 in the report. The report also highlights the need for more regular medication reviews for people as they get older and the fact that Age UK reported to the committee that
“care packages can only focus on the essentials such as meals and toileting, without any time for help with mobility”.
That is a damning indictment of our individualised care interventions. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, outlined the need to provide co-ordinated, compassionate care. It is essential at the moment, let alone in the next 20 years.
Promoting independence is vital if people are to live longer, healthier, happier lives in old age. I suggest that the recommendation outlined in paragraph 275 of the report—
“that the Government clearly defines the roles and responsibilities for healthy ageing among national and local government and their agencies”—
is as essential as blue-skies research. The report clearly outlines the differences in life expectancy between different socioeconomic and ethnic groups. Why is my life expectancy estimated to be nine years longer than that of someone living nine miles away from where I reside, in the most deprived ward of Plymouth?
Finally, can the Minister comment on whether the ageing society grand challenge needs revision, or is to be completely reviewed from the current term, to ensure
“that people can enjoy at least five extra healthy, independent years of life by 2035, while narrowing the gap between the experience of the richest and poorest”
and enable all older people to have high-quality support and care in the last five years of their lives, as necessary, to reduce loneliness and thus promote health and happiness irrespective of income? The new social care levy could, I argue, be used in part to achieve this aim.
Lord Desai (Non-Afl)
My Lords, this is a very good report, as many noble Lords have said. There is not much I can say in any kind of expert way, so I will follow the model of the noble Lords, Lord Davies and Lord Winston. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, talked about the report from his own professional side, while the noble Lord, Lord Winston, told a lovely personal story. I will do those two things because it will be more helpful.
First, as an economist, I was involved in measuring human welfare. Twenty years ago, I was involved in inventing the concept of human development. At that time, life expectancy was popular among economists. However, I discovered that it is not a good measure of what we really want to measure because, once a country has taken care of infant mortality and under-five mortality, life expectancy rises. After that, it slows down and does not actually indicate anything much except that the death rate in older people also slows down slightly.
I always say that if I move from a country with a lower life expectancy to one with a higher life expectancy my health does not improve. How is my health condition to be measured? I think the report has an angle on that which is: how many years do I have left to live? I thought I had invented a new concept about potential lifetime. What is the potential lifetime of any person? Your age-dependent life expectancy minus your age is how many years you have left to live. One of the things we ought to look at is whether that measure should be more easily available as an indicator.
On a personal level, what is my condition? I may be 50, but my multimorbidities make my potential lifetime shorter. The idea of healthy years of life left has less utility as a group measure than if you could measure it individually, as I am sure we can. We need better measures of what we are trying to measure—not so much ageing, but healthy living as you get older and how many years of that you have to deal with.
About six months ago all my underlying conditions, as they are called, flared up and I became an ageing person, as it were. At least two hospitals are currently looking after me. One is King’s College Hospital near where I live and another is the Tessa Jowell. I am very well looked after.
What is very interesting about my experience—and I think it was partly inactivity during the pandemic that finally got me—is that, until then, my overworked GPs were not able to tell me what was happening with me. When I went to the GP, which I did not do very often as I knew how burdened they were, my GP had no time. It is a group practice and no GP had, until now, ever introduced themselves to me or asked my name—but they know my name. They have five minutes, if that. They stare at the computer and look at what medicines I get and give me some medicine. No GP ever told me what the medicine does for me. It is just “take this”. It is one of those things that happens. They know what they are doing and I presume that, as they know, I do not need to ask. It would only waste their time.
The report says something about how care is episodic. As a patient, I would like to have an assurance that somewhere is a portfolio of all my conditions from the first time I saw a GP until now, which the GP can access. If that was the case, then at some stage somebody would tell me why I have got to where I have, what I have done wrong and what I could do further. It is not that they cannot do it; they just do not have the time. We are living with an extremely underfunded National Health Service and, while it is doing marvellous work without a doubt, there are limits to what a human being can do in a day.
It is an unfair contrast but, when I grew in India—no doubt we were paying for the GP and were slightly better off—my mother would go to the GP and say: “Now listen, this boy has got such and such. Last time you gave such and such medicine. Can you give something else?” The GP would then have a nice, long chat. Obviously, I was lucky. I was richer, but my family was not very rich, believe me.
When my multimorbidities caught up with me again, I was in India, and I had an amazingly detailed explanation of what was happening to me and why, and which morbidities were interacting with each other. It is not possible to get that sort of thing. Can we somehow make lives easier and give GPs the technical apparatus so that they can quickly see how to improve the care of an individual patient, especially elderly patients who have more complications?
We also know that these conditions are exacerbated by income inequalities, where you live and so on. This happens all the time. Whenever there is a crisis, I could tell you who would suffer most—the elderly, women, ethnic minorities and others in a postcode lottery. In the 2008 financial crisis, the same people suffered, because of the economic conditions. All I can hope is that we improve the support that clinical people have to take care of us as well as possible.
We should also do something about inequalities. Last week, in your Lordships’ Chamber, we had a lot of discussions about the cut in universal credit, pension problems and so on. As the Government are levelling up, they should try to reduce inequality as much as possible.
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
My Lords, I join my colleagues in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his wonderful leadership of our committee and his patience under provocation from Zoom, not to mention committee members. Listening to the evidence of this inquiry was sobering. There has been virtually no progress in reducing the UK’s stark health inequalities, and years of unhealthy living before death have lengthened. The NHS is not structured to tackle multimorbidity and much has to be done to cope with an ageing population, let alone meet the aim of the grand challenge, whether or not it survives in those terms. Of course, there are lots of societal and economic issues as well as health issues.
Many of the things I thought of saying before this evening have already been covered, so I will focus first on the costs of this. I know that Governments, in looking at the recommendations of Select Committees, react when we recommend that a lot more money should be spent —and indeed there are such recommendations, including extra funds for research or certainly refocusing them. But the committee also felt there were plenty of opportunities to save money while—this is most important —putting the patient first. With the opportunity to save substantial NHS funds, the cost of not doing so is vast.
Like the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, I had also not heard of polypharmacy, but we heard evidence of too many patients taking a cornucopia of medicines—maybe as many as 20 drugs, often more than necessary, without proper recognition of the side-effects and their interaction with each other, for example, and their propensity to cause falls in some cases and lead to a poorer quality of life.
In my experience, GPs have little time to conduct detailed drug reviews, however much they wish to. I note from the Government’s reply that they were reinstituted in July 2020. Understandably, GPs are also often reluctant to delete from a list a drug that has been prescribed by a specialist consultant, and the advice that you get from pharmacists varies. I strongly echo the request from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for a proper plan to deal with this very expensive issue, about which the evidence we heard accords with a more recent review by the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer. Apart from saving and helping patients who are confused by this array of drugs—I have spent the last few years dishing out dozens to my husband—it could also save millions.
My second point is that the NHS is simply not structured or geared for multimorbidity. Expertise and specialities continue to narrow. We need those—geriatricians and others—who can take a broader view of a patient’s whole requirements. Until fairly recently, in my GP surgery there was a sign instructing patients in the waiting room to raise only one issue with the doctor per visit. I recognise the time pressures that led to that stricture, but it was very unsatisfactory. Patients should not have to edit what to mention and what to suppress. To ask them, in effect, to decide what their main problem is themselves through self-diagnosis, and to make journeys that may be long and expensive, particularly in rural areas—as the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, said, we heard about Chris Whitty’s view that the elderly are moving out of cities and are more difficult to reach—for multiple visits is expensive and unreasonable. It is also inefficient and potentially dangerous, as the complaints they have may well be linked. I should like to hear from the Minister how he believes that the NHS can adapt to gear itself to the reality of patient need in multimorbidities on the scale outlined. As many other Peers have mentioned, much greater co-ordination is needed, and efforts are to be made where possible to avoid patients having to trek to different appointments on different dates and in different places.
My final point is about research, on which many others have spoken. The demands on UKRI are high, and recent cuts to its budget damaging, but there is still too little focus on each end of the life course. That runs from conception, where, as we know, many health problems arise—the noble Lord, Lord Winston, mentioned this—to the final years, with some focus on the causes of ill health, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, suggested. Government should consider how to stimulate research at both ends: reproductive health and ageing health. These areas do not currently have much appeal for researchers; they are less well funded than other areas of medical science.
Whether or not the grand challenge survives—and I hope its aim does, whether or not it is relabelled or ditched for whatever reason—my main hope is that the Government produce a coherent and consistent plan to address the multiple problems from our ageing society, including health inequalities. These problems are not reducing; they are becoming more acute. I hope the Minister will be clear about when we might see such a plan.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his excellent report. It is a report I will not be getting rid of; it will stay on my shelf. That puts it in distinguished company, because it means that it is one that has been not only worth reading but worth keeping and referring to in future. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, said that this was the best old people’s home. When I came here, I was told it was the second best, but that there were no vacancies in Buckingham Palace.
I am very pleased that people are living beyond 80, particularly because I am now in my very late 70s and I look forward to joining them, but we need to remember that it is important to keep people alive, or to help them stay alive, in a way in which they can enjoy life, not as people struggling from day to day. We have the challenge not only of longevity but of helping people to contribute to society and to be able to be a useful part of it.
My first point is this: we are very lucky that we are in the House of Lords and have plenty to do. However, in the community in Cambridge that I live in, I see many people who could contribute a lot to society but somehow or other there is no structure for them to do so. Indeed, in many ways, there is almost a feeling that they are not quite wanted and are part of a generation that has gone. We must first look at changing our attitudes and realise that many people can contribute at many levels, and that that also helps to keep them healthy and on top of things.
I would distinguish between the changes that we have seen and which have contributed to the lengthening of people’s lives. Some of them are what I would call national changes, and some are individual ones. During my lifetime, we have seen the advent of the National Health Service, which has certainly helped a lot of people to live longer because those who cannot afford or do not see doctors have been able to access medical care.
We have also seen a number of incidental changes, which are now almost forgotten. For instance, I advise those noble Lords who have few weeks spare to read Chips Channon’s diaries. You will read about a London where fog was so dense that you could not see in front of you. Now, we have made marvellous steps in the reduction of pollution. You will read about a London where the amount of alcohol consumed—particularly in this place, incidentally—was prodigious. Nowadays that has gone down, which has contributed to change. You will read about a London where people bought each other a cigarette case for Christmas as a matter of course. How many cigarettes do you see now? Not many, quite rightly. We have made a lot of changes as a society. I say to the Minister that part of the department’s strategy must be to make it unacceptable for certain behaviours to take place at all. I am not going to start a debate on them, but there are areas where we need societal shifts to make it clear that certain types of behaviour are no longer accepted.
We also need to look at individual behaviour. One thing that has not been mentioned is class, although we have of course mentioned poverty. The fact of the matter is that the middle class is, and has always been, very good at looking after itself. One thing we have to spread is the inquiring nature of the middle class. Its ability to get the best out of society for itself must be extended. You cannot get hold of people and say, “Here is a social worker, we are going to make your life better”. Fundamentally, people have to change the way they look at society and make their own life better. For some years, I was the president of the British Dietetic Association. Dietitians will tell you that the biggest difficulty they have—or one of the biggest—is getting the intellectual case across. I hear what my good friend and doctor, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, has to say, but one of the biggest difficulties in persuading people not to put those calories into their mouths is persuading them that it is actually the wrong thing to do.
This is where the food and drink industries have a part to play. I am afraid that we have to get a bit tough with them. If any noble Lords wish to go across the road to Tesco and have a look at the meal deal on display, they will see that, if they have a Tesco card, they can get various commodities quite cheap. There are special offers and, of all those commodities—I went and had a look at them today before this debate—not a single one would be classified as healthy eating. They are all high in hydrogenated fats or are straightforward sweets, sugar and chocolate. The voluntary approach is not going to work. I think that the department would find that it had the country behind it if it took a tough line with the food and drink industry. Incidentally, I am a vice-president of the Food and Drink Forum, so I have some dealings with the industry. I listen carefully to all it says and believe about 5% of it—and I am a generous sort of person.
I also point out to the Minister the difficulty in getting things done. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and I have been campaigning for years—he has done most of the work, to give him his credit—for the addition of folic acid to bread. It has taken years and years. The Minister is going to have to be tough with the industry.
My final point is that there is a need for a better science of geriatrics. Most general practitioner services do not have a doctor who specialises in the elderly. They need it, but we also need more in the way of literature and publications that will help elderly people to know how to help themselves—in particular to tackle the polypharmacy case, because it could be tackled much better if people knew that they needed some help.
Baroness Greengross (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his opening remarks and for highlighting the important issues raised in this report. I also thank the many noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon. Ageing is an area I have worked in for most of my adult life. I am grateful for the work done by the committee on these important topics, and for it inviting me to speak to Members on the issues raised.
I declare my interest in the register as chief executive of the International Longevity Centre UK. In its 2020 report, Health Matters: Why We Must Commit to Delivering Prevention in an Ageing World, the ILCUK warned that the average number of years people will live in poor health is set to increase by 17% over the next 25 years. We know that the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto made a commitment to ensure that people lived at least five extra healthy and independent years of life by 2035. The report we are discussing has a similar goal of wanting an increase of five years in disability-free life expectancy at birth for both males and females by 2035.
Sadly, in many parts of the UK, we are in fact going backwards in terms of healthy years lived. Sir Michael Marmot’s 2020 report for the Institute of Health Equity found that, for the first time in a century, life expectancy had fallen for women in the poorest communities in the UK. Overall, we have seen low rates of life expectancy increases compared with most European and other high-income nations, which is very sad news to read. Further, Sir Michael’s report found that, since 2010, the percentage of life spent in ill health has increased for both men and women.
Given this, to achieve the 2035 goal stated in the Science and Technology Committee report and the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto, there will need to be significant investment to stop health inequality and support people to live longer lives free of illness and disability. Do the Government still stand by their manifesto commitment of five extra healthy and independent years of life by 2035? If so, given the recent evidence of increased health inequalities throughout the UK, what will they do to address this?
Another area of the report that I am very interested in is the section on housing and the built environment. Paragraph 287 states:
“A basic requirement of independent living is the ability to move around the home and undertake the tasks of daily life. However, we heard that many homes are poorly suited to life in old age.”
According to the charity Habinteg, only 9% of homes in England are suitable for people living with disabilities.
I have for a long time been a supporter of housing with care, where older people can enjoy independent living in a community setting where care and support can be provided if needed. Yet only 0.6% of the over-65s in this country live in housing with care settings—about one-tenth of the levels seen in countries such as the US, Australia and New Zealand.
I agree with the report’s recommendations that the Government should use planning rules to ensure that homes and communities are accessible for people with limited mobility and adaptable as their needs change with age. Promoting housing with care and using planning laws to ensure that developers are able to build these sorts of living situations would be an extremely effective way to achieve this recommendation.
I conclude by once again thanking the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for the opportunity to debate this report today. Longevity and technology change are both transforming the human life course in profound ways. The Covid-19 pandemic has in many ways accelerated some of these changes in technology and highlighted the health inequalities that still exist. This report makes a number of important and timely recommendations to which I hope the Government will give serious consideration.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to begin the winding speeches on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches, not least because we have just had 19 excellent speeches. Indeed, the level of agreement about the relevant issues indicates to me that the Science and Technology Committee had a lot of the right answers, and I make no apology for repeating some of them in a few minutes.
First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, the committee staff, our witnesses and, in particular, the medical experts on our committee who helped me to understand some of the more scientific elements of what we were hearing. As a member of the committee, I enjoyed it very much. I found it interesting but also important because in the introduction to the report on ageing we pointed out that by 2035 there will be some 5 million people over 80 and I will be one of them—in fact, I will be over 90 if I live that long, so I have a vested interest in the Government’s response to this report. In welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, to his new Front Bench role, I hope he is going to give me some comfort at the end of this debate.
As the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, emphasised, we can thank medical science for the fact that we are living longer. The doctors and scientists are keeping us alive, but we have to ask ourselves: for what quality of life? That is why the Government issued their grand challenge of five more years of healthy life by 2035, while narrowing the gap between rich and poor. I welcome that, but is it achievable? That is what the committee set out to discover.
We heard that although average life expectancy in the UK has continued to increase year on year, although recently at a slower rate, healthy life expectancy has not kept pace. Indeed, there is a widening gap between the two, and between rich and poor. People are living longer—although women in the lowest 10% demographic group are not—but many of those extra years are spent in poor health, with multiple diseases that can mean a person spending half the week visiting several different departments in their local hospital.
The health and care system is not designed for people with multimorbidities, as the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, just said, nor for early diagnosis in many cases, as mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. We therefore recommended that older people should have a designated medical professional to integrate their care and smooth out the bumps in the availability of treatment; the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Kakkar, recommended this too. The Government say that it is already happening, but not according to the evidence we heard. We think it could save money in the end, as well as providing a better service for older people.
However, there is something to be thankful for, although the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, pointed out the problems with the clinical trials regulation. Our report outlines considerable progress in researchers’ understanding of the biology of ageing, and we reported on the work on new therapies and repurposed drugs to tackle age-related diseases. We urge the Government to continue to support this work, but believe that the “R” of R&D is often better supported than the “D”. More effort thus needs to go into developing the discoveries of our scientists here in the UK, to avoid the benefit going to companies and patients abroad.
Age-related diseases do not just happen as soon as you turn 60. We heard evidence of the lifelong lifestyle and environmental factors that correlate with health in old age. This is particularly relevant to the second part of the grand challenge mission: to narrow the gap between rich and poor, as many noble Lords have mentioned. We concluded that this knowledge should be used by public health authorities and national regulators to help individuals to understand and make use of it but, critically, to enable them to do so.
However, no matter how healthily a person lives through life, inevitably they will become frail in old age, even if relatively fit, because of the cellular and molecular changes referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Patel. Most people would rather live safely—significantly, he also used the word “independently”—in their own home when they get old. They would of course be happier in their own community and, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said, in control. This would also be cheaper for the health and care services and it is where home care comes in. Sadly, we know about the pressures on that, as well as on residential care, but the recent government announcement of an increase in national insurance contributions will do little for social care. Staff shortages and poor pay and working conditions mean that many old people, who would be better off at home, are kept too long in a hospital bed which could better be used to clear the backlog of procedures resulting from the pandemic. This illustrates the spider’s web of linked policy areas.
We heard encouraging accounts of where technology can help older people look after themselves, to ensure that they are safe and well, but many older people do not have the digital skills needed to operate these aids. They also cost money, which again is a challenge to achieving the second part of the mission: narrowing the gap between rich and poor. The availability of technological solutions should not further add to health inequality by being available only to the better off and digitally savvy. Do the Government have a plan to avoid that happening?
As the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, said, loneliness can be a negative factor in well-being, as we have seen during the pandemic, when many people living alone have suffered mental health challenges. The internet can provide some communication but only if you have a connection, so this depends on the availability of decent broadband and a costly device, as well as the skill to use it. I join the noble Lord, Lord Mair, in asking: what are the Government doing to make sure older people are not left out of the digital age?
We heard from civil servants and Ministers that there is enthusiasm for achieving the grand challenge, but we came to the conclusion that this is unlikely. Why? It is partly because the progress towards achieving the challenge is not being monitored, while there is no road map to ensure the actions needed happen in a timely way. Achieving such a goal would have required a two-pronged approach: action to pick the low-hanging fruit—better support and joined-up health services for older people—alongside a prompt start on the long-term actions which can prevent many age-related diseases through lifelong strategies.
I repeat my noble friend Lady Sheehan’s question: has the grand challenge mission been ditched, diluted or incorporated into something else? Prevention of age-related illness is not just a matter of information and education about how to live a healthy life. Many people know exactly what they should be doing yet lack the resources to do it, such as enough income to buy healthy food and keep their home warm. But it also requires government to look at the lived environment and pressures under which people live. Examples of these are tackling our polluted air, which causes 40,000 extra deaths every year, enough income to keep the home warm and dry and the availability of nutritious food near to where people live, rather than high streets full of cheap fast-food takeaways.
The Institute of Health Equity recently reviewed the Marmot report 10 years on, and it emphasises that health and life expectancy follow the social gradient. It is abundantly clear that the challenges are worst in certain groups, so interventions to prevent the diseases of old age should be prioritised in the poorest groups if levelling up is to mean anything at all across all constituencies, not just the former red wall.
When all is said and done, what became obvious to me was that we should not start action on healthy old age when we are old; we should start when we are children. That would help us all and protect the NHS. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, commented on that, and I very much agree. The widening gap between rich and poor among older people living with multimorbidities says it all. Clearly, although we can mitigate the ill effects of an unhealthy old age with all the technical solutions we have recommended, such as research into the diseases of old age, repurposed drugs, technological aids, co-ordinated medical treatment and oversight—I recommend the sort of electric hob that turns itself off when you remove the pan, which is much safer for old people—in the end and over the longer timescale, it is the socio-economic factors that will have the greatest effect in giving us all more years of health at the end of life. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I do not think you need to be old. I have one of those magic hobs myself.
Almost every noble Lord here today can declare an interest in this debate, because we all—possibly excepting the Minister, who is quite a youngster in this Room—have a direct, personal interest in the recommendations and actions arising from this important report, presented by the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I join in the congratulations and applause directed at the noble Lord, who chaired this investigation, and his committee, many members of which have spoken today. They must have worked hard, in unusual and challenging circumstances, to produce this excellent report. I add my congratulations to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, and thank the Library and many other organisations for the briefing provided.
The challenge, of course, is what happens next; it always is. It is ensuring that change and progress results from the committee’s labours and deliberation. The Minister’s job today is of course to convince us that these many excellent recommendations will not be consigned to the long grass or worse, because of the blandness—in the word of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp—of the Government’s response.
I was impressed by two things about this report in particular: first, that it linked the socioeconomic factors with the scientific ones; and, secondly, that its clear recommendations provide a pathway—a route map, as the noble Baroness just mentioned—which, if followed and implemented, would lead to significant improvement in the lives of many of our fellow ageing citizens. Although there is not much to celebrate about the ongoing pandemic, the timeliness of the committee’s deliberations meant, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said in his opening remarks, that it became clear that the old, those suffering from multiple morbidities and the socially deprived would pay the highest penalty as a result of Covid-19, compared with the young and healthy.
This links to the Government recognising in November 2017 that ageing was one of the great challenges of their industrial strategy; in 2018, they announced the ageing society grand challenge. Indeed, the NHS’s long-term plan accepts that the NHS has a key role to play in ensuring that the extra years of life are spent in good health, while research into the effects of Covid on older people’s lives recognises, as do organisations such as Age UK, that we have a major challenge. Now, we have the Government’s commitment to levelling up, which of course includes looking at the inequalities in our ageing population and the huge differences in life expectancy in different and sometimes neighbouring communities, to which many noble Lords referred.
A combination of all those things suggests, therefore, that this report and its recommendations provide the Minister and his colleagues with a huge and important agenda. Many noble Lords have made those links; this report does the same. My noble friends Lord Browne and Lord Hanworth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, all addressed this issue.
The Government have said that addressing health inequalities will be at the core of their levelling-up agenda, and the Prime Minister has acknowledged that healthy life expectancy needs to improve. However, as yet, there is no sign of meaningful action or investment to make this a reality. The current plans appear partial and fragmented, while many deprived areas where people are likely to have the poorest health have not yet been identified as priorities for investment. I suspect that my noble friend Lord Davies could give the Government a hint or two on the methodologies that they might use.
In her excellent book, The Age of Ageing Better? A Manifesto for our Future, Dr Anna Dixon says:
“Few of us think of ourselves as old, whether we’re 60, 70 or 80.”
We are privileged here because age discrimination does not really feature in your Lordships’ House. When we hear of an ageing society, we are not experiencing care homes full of people staring at a TV screen. We are generally not bed-blockers, nor do we generally suffer from the loneliness described by this report. In fact, we think of our fellow Peers with value. We think of them bringing wisdom, enlightenment, humour and commitment to the work that we undertake in this place, even at some very great ages.
Yet we are all ageing, of course. It is a natural biological process. I think about my own background: my aunts and uncles come from a working-class family in Yorkshire, where the heavy load of working in the building trade and factors such as diet, smoking, drinking and pollution weigh heavily. All of my mother’s 10 siblings died before the average age you would have expected them to live to, and all of them died of heart disease, stroke or lung cancer. Among my contemporaries from school in Yorkshire, I am the only one who still has a full-time job; they have all retired, apart from one farmer. I intend to keep working full-time as I contemplate the future. We need to celebrate the long-term lives that we experience.
People in England can now expect to live far longer than ever before, but these extra years of life are not always spent in good health, as described in this excellent report, with people developing conditions that reduce their independence and quality of life, as my noble friend Lady Young said. I read with great interest the science bits of this report, and I particularly enjoyed the briefing I received from the British Society for Immunology about the report itself. It is worth looking at that brief, which states:
“It is well established that the immune system changes as we get older. The balance between immune activation, regulation and resolution can be altered as we age, resulting in inadequate protection against infection, along with a greater risk of inflammatory disease. As with many aspects of the human body, there is no one ‘cut off’ point for this to occur but instead it is a gradual process.”
However, the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the relationship between ageing and the progression of our immune systems as a part of our natural life. My noble friend Lord Winston talked about the complexity of ageing. I wish him well with the challenge that he is facing.
I particularly liked recommendation 7:
“We recommend that UK Research and Innovation commit to funding further research into the biological processes underlying ageing as a priority, in particular to address gaps in understanding the relevance of ageing hallmarks to humans. Research to identify accurate biomarkers of ageing in humans should also be prioritised, to support studies to improve health span.”
This is the recommendation that the British Society for Immunology focused on. It makes the point, which other noble Lords have made, that the scientific understanding of the way in which many drugs interact with the immune system in older people is lacking, often because of a dearth of this age demographic in clinical trials. I found the Government’s response to that recommendation particularly weedy. They need to think about the teeth that the MHRA and other bodies need to ensure that clinical trials have the right demographics.
There are 20-odd recommendations in this report and that is the one that I have chosen to highlight, but the Government have to implement a concerted and co-ordinated set of national policy responses to support healthy ageing. That has to include regulatory and fiscal measures encouraging people to adopt healthy lifestyles. The Government have to have a plan. The response that we have had so far is not a plan. There needs to be a plan and a timetable. As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said, the Government need to show how serious they are about this matter.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
My Lords, this has been an excellent and fascinating debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his chairmanship of the Science and Technology Committee. I have heard the challenges that he faced. I also thank those noble Lords who sit on the committee and all those who contributed to the report. It was in-depth and covered a range of issues, in the fine tradition of reports from the House of Lords. I remember that when I was a Member of the European Parliament a number of reports from this place were read there. The expertise available here was widely acknowledged.
The report covered a number of issues: the trends and challenges, the science of ageing, lifestyle and environmental factors on ageing, the better use of technology and digital services, and the ageing society grand challenge mission. I will come back to those in more detail.
I also thank all those noble Lords who have spoken today for their knowledgeable and insightful contributions, particularly building on their expertise. I have admired many of them from afar for many years. It is a real privilege to be here in the same debate as them.
Promoting good health, enabling people to live long and healthy lives, and improving the health of the whole population are all something we want, but they are also fundamental aims of this Government. We can do this most effectively by harnessing the incredible opportunities provided through innovation, science and technology, as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and other noble Lords mentioned.
Before I respond to the specific points made today, I will return to one of the points that noble Lords rightfully acknowledged: the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns on life expectancy. A number of noble Lords quoted the Office for National Statistics, as well as some interesting pages and websites that we could read to learn more about this. They also highlighted that life expectancy at birth in the UK between 2018 and 2020 was 79 years for men and 82.9 years for women, but this saw a decrease of seven weeks for men with almost no change for women compared with 2015-17. However, the committee report mentions that there has been a decrease for females over the past decade.
One of the Government’s current priorities is to clear the backlog resulting from the pandemic. This report rightly acknowledges the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and its response on people’s lives in this country, but also how the pandemic has exposed existing health inequalities, which the Government will tackle as part of our levelling-up agenda—as many noble Lords have referred to today.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has been tasked with helping more people to live longer lives in good health and reducing health disparities by breaking the link between someone’s background and their chance of living a healthy long life. As noble Lords are aware—indeed, some have mentioned this—while people are living longer, many suffer poor health towards the end of their lives. A notable statistic is that people in the least deprived areas live in good health for almost two decades longer than those in the most deprived areas. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others referred to this statistic.
The Medical Research Council is leading a cross-government programme of research to understand the ageing process better and promote health in later life, but also on how to motivate healthier lifestyles to improve healthy life expectancy. Like many noble Lords, I want to see the MRC rely more on evidence-based research to ensure that targeted interventions work and avoid unintended consequences.
Many noble Lords have shown an interest in the ageing society grand challenge mission for additional healthy, independent years of life while narrowing the gap. The noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Greengross, mentioned this challenge in particular; I assure noble Lords that the Government remain committed to it. One of the most effective ways to increase life expectancy and healthy life expectancy is to prevent people getting ill in the first place. The report rightly lists risk factors, including the impact of smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, pointed to the impact of alcohol, when interventions are often focused on other substances, such as tobacco. From looking at the statistics, alcohol not only leads to cirrhosis of the liver but is often responsible for other deaths—drownings, murders, et cetera—so it is important to look at the wider impact of alcohol consumption. We should also look at poor diets, nutrition, obesity, physical inactivity and the environmental factors that affect physical, cognitive and mental health as humans age.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities will drive this cross-government effort to reduce ill health. As many noble Lords know, part of the title of this office is about health disparities. It will continue to publish the productive healthy ageing profile, which provides data at national, regional and local levels on a range of indicators, including healthy life expectancy, health behaviours, NHS health checks, employment and housing.
As the Minister for Technology, Innovation and Life Sciences, I am hugely excited by the role that all three will play in our economic recovery from the pandemic, as well as in our long-term prosperity and in improving the health of the nation. The Government’s new innovation strategy, announced in July, sets out our vision to make the UK a global hub for innovation by 2035, not only in digital technology but in the exciting area of life sciences.
The Government’s commitment to innovation also applies to social care. In the September announcement on social care reform, the Government were clear that innovation would play an important part. Therefore, we continue to work with care users, providers and other partners to codevelop the reform plans, and will publish further detail in the forthcoming White Paper.
GPs’ surgeries are the first point of contact for many patients. The pandemic rapidly changed how services are provided, moving to telephone and online to complement face-to-face appointments where necessary. We continue to look at ways to improve the experience, as many noble Lords will remember from the discussion yesterday when face-to-face appointments were raised. The Government are clear that you have to leave it between the patient and clinician but, when a patient requests a face-to-face appointment, there has to be a good medical reason for the clinician to turn it down.
Many noble Lords alluded to technology. I will continue to work with NHSX and NHS Digital to drive digitisation and the sharing of appropriate data across our system of healthcare, from GP practices to hospitals, and to the social care sector to complement the proposed reforms in the Health and Care Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, mentioned the issue of data sharing and making sure it is all there, but there are some challenges, as I am sure the noble Lord will acknowledge. Many civil liberties organisations have expressed concerns, and I have been in contact with a few to pledge that I will discuss how we can make sure that data is safe, and appropriate data is digitised and shared in the most appropriate way, so that patients have trust. We are looking at the development of things such as trusted research environments to make sure that patients are reassured.
I will work across government with the Office for Life Sciences, BEIS, the Department for International Trade and No. 10 to make the UK a location of choice and hub for life sciences, not only in the Cambridge-Oxford-London golden triangle but across the UK as part of the levelling-up agenda.
I will try to address some of the specific points made by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked a number of specific questions and I will try to respond to some of them. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, talked about overprescribing. There was an overprescribing review published on 22 September, and I thank Dr Ridge and all those who participated for their diligent work, which produced such a thought-provoking document. It sets out a series of practical and cultural changes, including the better use of technology. I hope that this report will be a call to action for everyone, whether a patient, clinician or healthcare leader, to think about what we can do to take forward this vital agenda.
The Government remain committed to extending healthy life expectancy by five years and I repeat that pledge. To deliver on this commitment we will work with the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, as I have mentioned previously. The office—I will use its acronym OHID, as I know many in healthcare like their acronyms—will set out its future plans for extending healthy life expectancy, including how these plans will be delivered and, crucially, monitored in due course. In addition, the new health promotion taskforce will drive and support the whole of government to go further in improving health and reducing disparities to tackle many of the factors that are critical to good physical and mental health.
The Government are strongly committed to supporting research into dementia, which a number of noble Lords referred to. UK researchers are at the forefront of global efforts to find a cure or disease-modifying treatment by 2025. Sadly, the response to the prevention Green Paper has been delayed by the need to focus on the pandemic response, but we will bring forward a response to the consultation in due course.
Many noble Lords asked about the levelling-up White Paper, which will be published later this year. It will set out policy interventions to improve livelihoods and opportunity in all parts of the UK, especially to improve health outcomes and reduce the gap in healthy life expectancy. Given the very technical nature of some of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, on the biology of ageing, I hope he will not mind if I respond to these points in writing.
A number of noble Lords raised the issue of technology, including the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Mair. Once again, the issue of data sharing came up. We welcome the report’s recognition of the role that technology can play and it is really important to drive this. Part of it is data sharing, and part is making sure that the different parts of our system of healthcare work together and that we can learn from best international practice.
Before I entered this House, I used to do a lot of work analysing technology. One of the things I looked at is how the Japanese decided to respond to the changing demographics of their country. Some countries respond by immigration, but others do not want to respond like that and Japan is one of those that is very sceptical of immigration. Therefore, it is focusing on technology and how to improve the lives of people getting older, whether through some of the technologies that other noble Lords mentioned, such as touch-sensitive items and data communicating with clinicians, or through robots and extraskeletal equipment to allow older people to live a more meaningful life.
The NHS is also supporting many people to stay at home for their healthcare with digital tools and remote monitoring, partly helped by the fact that more and more of the population are buying mobile phones, Fitbits and various digital devices, and are able to provide that data. Once again, we have to be very careful and make sure that the public is onside as that data is shared.
The noble Lord, Lord Mair, also talked about AI and robots. The Government are taking action in this area. In August 2019, the Prime Minister announced a £250 million-boost to AI in the healthcare sector. I have been in very interesting conversations with the NHS AI Skunkworks. It is fascinating to see some of the technology that has been looked at there.
A number of noble Lords also mentioned how we make sure that an ageing population is digitally aware. I worked with a number of local civil society projects in a previous life. One of the interesting projects was where we got younger people to come in and teach older people to use technology. Not only did it give a more meaningful life in many ways to the older people learning technology but it was interesting that quite often some of the young people were from deprived backgrounds—sometimes single-parent families—and they were able to connect with the older person they were teaching. In many cases they found a new mentor or a new role model in their life. It was one of those interventions that helped the elderly people and some of the young people from broken families. We have to look in a more joined-up way at how we can make sure that we help more people that way.
The noble Lords, Lord Mair and Lord Sikka, also talked about the internet. There is something about the essential digital certificates that are being funded for digital entitlement and based on new standards. The Government and Ofcom have agreed a set of commitments with the UK’s major broadband and mobile operators to support vulnerable consumers, not only during the pandemic but as we go forward to make sure there is no real digital divide.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne, spoke about inequalities, as did the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and my noble friend Lord Balfe. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has said that it is time to shift the centre of gravity for the department and the health system from treating disease to building good health. As many noble Lords have said, we should start this at a young age as effectively as possible.
One of the issues that my noble friend Lord Ridley mentioned is that it is all very well having these health education programmes at a young age, but will people listen then? When I was at school we had programmes about smoking, alcohol and other things. I remember my friends saying that they were never going to drink or smoke, but a couple of years later we were all out partying. When is public education effective? Do you just assume it is at childhood and not again? How do we make sure that it continues throughout one’s life? That is why it is important that public health messages are built on evidence and communicated in a way that appeals to those we are trying to reach.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, also spoke on various other things about public health. I assure her that regional directors of public health will sit within the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and will join up at the national and local level.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, spoke about levelling up. The White Paper will look at how we set out bold policy interventions to tackle a number of different inequalities. As many noble Lords will know, there are multidimensional inequalities and many ways of people identifying, if you like.
A number of noble Lords also spoke about obesity. Many noble Lords will be aware that we published our current obesity strategy in July 2020. This sets out an overarching campaign to reduce obesity by taking forward actions from previous chapters of the childhood obesity plan and setting out measures to get the nation fit and healthy.
This will involve a number of interventions; some of them have been controversial. Some, such as the restrictions on advertising of food high in fat, sugar and salt, both on TV and online, will be progressed as part of the Health and Care Bill. We should be aware of the controversy around some of this and make sure that, when we make these interventions, they are based on evidence, and we are able to review the evidence and bring it back to show what difference it has actually made, rather than just make the intervention, hope for the best and feel good that we have made it. Evidence-based research is very important as we make these interventions.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, mentioned ethnic-minority inequality, and the Better Health campaign that the Government launched will look at how we focus on those most at risk, including those from specific ethnic-minority communities, those living with long-term health conditions and people over the age of 40 from lower socioeconomic groups, looking at particularly targeted interventions for each of those different minority groups. On long Covid, which she also mentioned, OHID will be looking at a range of factors that impact life expectancy as we look to reduce health inequalities, and that includes some of the issues on long Covid.
A number of noble Lords talked about dementia, and we have been implementing the 2020 challenge on dementia, published in February 2015, to make sure that dementia care, support and awareness of research are transformed. We will be setting out our plans for dementia for England for future years in due course. The noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Greenfield, mentioned dementia research and statistics, and I commit to write to them with more details on the questions they asked, given the time.
I already mentioned that the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, talked about some of his scepticism of the public health agenda, and I mentioned my experience and that of many friends, but one issue that he mentioned was diagnosis. The work of Genomics England is interesting. As it goes forward, it will be able to identify potential diseases that individuals will face in their life. This is not as easy as it sounds, because it also raises a number of ethical issues. At what point do you notify people that they will suffer from particular diseases? Do you intervene early, or do you wait until a particular age? A number of these issues are incredibly difficult, but we will try to get the right balance.
We talked about research and funding, and the National Institute for Health Research is welcoming funding applications for research in a number of different areas, including those who want to look at the issue of healthy ageing. I hope I have talked in detail about the data strategy, but it will be important that we get there.
I apologise to noble Lords for not being able to cover all the points raised. To finish, I say just that it is an insightful and wide-ranging report, and that the Government remained committed to ensuring that as many people as possible enjoy a long and healthy life, whoever they are, wherever they live and whatever their background.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I will not keep you longer than half an hour. I am joking, of course. First, I thank the Minister very much for his response. I teased him to start with not to read his brief, but to try to answer the questions and, I have to admit, he attempted to answer the questions raised by all noble Lords. On those that he was unable to answer, he promised to write, and I thank him for that.
He confirmed that the grand challenge of adding five years to healthy life expectancy by 2035 is still government policy, but did not say who is in charge, who will monitor and who is going to report on progress to Parliament. At least this gives the Science and Technology Committee the opportunity, in a couple of years maybe, to review it and see what progress we have made, so he has been warned. He had better be on your guard, as we or some people might come back to him.
He answered the questions, but there was still a lot of “in due course”, so we will look forward to the reports that we will receive in due course. I wrote down at least five that he mentioned and I particularly look forward to the levelling-up White Paper, which is coming, because a lot of issues about inequalities need to be addressed. Once the NHS Office for Health Improvement and Disparities is established—it uses the word “disparities”—I hope to see a plan of how it will go about its task of reducing disparities.
I thank all noble Lords who took part today. All the speeches were excellent. I thank all my colleagues on the committee, because the attendance of Members, past and present, was spectacular, as were their speeches. I was also impressed by others, who were not part of the committee and by their backgrounds—economists, engineers, neuroscientists, those with decades of experience of the ageing process, nurses, accountants and an actuary. You suddenly start measuring your life’s limits. I did not declare an interest, as other noble Lords did, about their age or illnesses. I am 16, going on 83, and I intend to be 17 sometime. I thank noble Lords and beg to move.
House of Lords
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Royal Assent
Wednesday 20th October 2021
(2 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 22 September 2021 - (22 Sep 2021)
Gambling Commission: Data
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Foster of Bath
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that gambling operators provide high quality and accurate data for use by the Gambling Commission.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, operators must already provide accurate data to the Gambling Commission as a condition of their licence. If an operator misrepresents or fails to provide information, this could lead to regulatory action. However, it is clear that data quality standards need to improve. The commission has announced that the industry can expect targeted enforcement action in this area from next year.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and draw attention to my entry in the register. The establishment of the data repository is very welcome. Can the Minister put very clearly on the record that it will be a requirement for gambling companies to provide data to that repository and that this will not be voluntary? Can he further tell us what plans there are to ensure that all legitimate researchers will have access to that data?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I am glad we had the opportunity to discuss this last week in the debate initiated by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. The PHE review that we debated highlighted the significant evidence gaps and the importance of research. We are looking at the best ways to facilitate high-quality research as part of our review of the Gambling Act, including how we can make better use of operator data. The commission is taking forward the work on the national data repository, with the aim of collecting operator data for use by researchers.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I have given notice of my question. Recent research reveals a correlation in one in four gamblers between higher rates of gambling spend as a proportion of income and gambling harm. This challenges the Government’s oft-repeated view that
“the vast majority of people who gamble do not experience harm”.—[Official Report, 7/1/21; col. 281.]
The Minister’s predecessor dismissed this research when I brought it to her attention, because it does not establish a causative link between gambling spend and gambling harm. Surely the correct response is for the Minister to engage with this research and expand upon it to see whether it can prove that link, rather than dismissing it and preferring surveys of high-risk gamblers.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the advance notice; it gave me an opportunity to look at his Written Question and the reply from my noble friend. I do not think she was dismissing what he said. This is simply a product of what is still, as I have said, an emerging area in which data and research are being gathered. Dr Naomi Muggleton’s research has been an important contribution to our efforts to understand the widening impacts of gambling harm. Our review is looking at the barriers to conducting high-quality research such as this, which can inform our policy. Following the publication of the PHE review which we debated last week, we are working with the DHSC and others to complete that picture and improve the data and research we have.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
Given the Minister’s belief in data and research, why are the Government not taking action on research that shows that 60,000 children are gambling addicts? Why is the consultation on loot boxes taking so long, when this is a serious problem today? Will the Minister get a move on, please?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The proportion of children gambling is in decline. As the noble Lord will know, we have raised the age limit for playing the National Lottery to 18. We are also delivering on our manifesto commitment to tackle the issue of loot boxes. We called for evidence last year and received over 30,000 responses, which of course we will respond to in the proper way.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, the losses to the gambling public last year were £14.2 billion—also known as the profits made by gambling companies after expenses. In looking at this data, as the Minister has promised to do, will he look at how much has been spent on media and online advertising, because the sole purpose of this advertising is to increase the amount of gambling, often at the expense of some of the most vulnerable in society who can least afford it? Will the Government look at the data and the consequence of it? Will they also look at either further restricting or, indeed, banning some of this appalling advertising?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
All gambling advertising, wherever it appears, is subject to strict controls on content and placement. As part of the broad review of the Gambling Act, we have called for evidence on the impacts of advertising to make sure that the right controls are in place and, particularly, are effective in the digital age.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
I would like to build on the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Browne. Recent research has shown that a quarter of gamblers are 400% more likely to take out payday loans than the average person. It is a shocking figure. Surely the Minister would agree that giving the Gambling Commission access to anonymised gamblers’ data would help uncover the causal link between the two and enable the commission to step in and prevent further harm to gamblers?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I certainly agree with the noble Viscount that the data is crucial to understanding the causes of harm and what we might be able to do to tackle it. That is why the Gambling Commission is taking forward work on the national repository of operator data. It is also working closely with credit reference agencies and others to understand what role financial data can play in preventing gambling harm.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, the Gambling Commission regularly publishes statistics and research on the regulated gambling sector, helping to form the basis of its responses to challenges such as problem or under-age gambling. It is acknowledged that the pandemic has changed not only the industry but the way in which the information is submitted, collated and reported. Is the Minister concerned that some of the figures relating to the impact of gambling may have been understated in recent releases? When do the Government expect normal service to be resumed?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right to point to the impact of the pandemic which, in this area as in so many others, will have definitely had an impact. A lot has changed in the 15 years since the Gambling Act, which is why we are reviewing it in the way that we are. The commission is setting out the next steps that it will take to make sure that operators are submitting high-quality and accurate data to inform that review.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I declare my interest as chair of the Proof of Age Standards Scheme. Will my noble friend welcome and note the willingness of the industry to co-operate in providing this data and to work with the Government and the Gambling Commission? Will he also ensure and give a commitment today that gaming, betting shops and casinos will not be disadvantaged in relation to their online counterparts in the provision of data?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I certainly welcome the engagement that we have had, and continue to have, from the industry in this important area. As part of our review, we called for evidence on the changes to the legislation governing casinos and we are looking at those responses. Making sure that we have an equitable approach to online and land-based regulation is an important objective of our review.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, through the pandemic the use of data in the National Health Service has made it obvious to all of us what a good database can help us achieve. Surely a database of a similar order in respect of the gambling industry would similarly help us make good progress towards addressing these problems that are frequently, and over many years, mentioned in this House. The single customer view methodology takes people’s data—with the permission of the Information Commissioner, as regards GDPR—and pools it to provide precisely the database that I think we would all welcome. Will the Minister assure us that this is a way forward and that he is committed with his officials to finding a solution?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Lord is absolutely right that good data drives good policy, and that is what we want to see in the review. The Gambling Commission is working with operators on how they can share data where they believe a customer is at risk, and the Information Commissioner has confirmed that data protection law can permit this in relation to the work on single customer view, as the noble Lord mentioned. We encourage the industry to trial a solution swiftly.
Lord Smith of Hindhead (Con)
My Lords, I refer to my interests as set out in the register. Some reports have estimated that unregulated gambling on the dark web and black market has doubled during the pandemic. Can my noble friend the Minister tell the House whether his department is working or has plans to work with the Gambling Commission to investigate illegal gambling activity taking place and to collect data on the levels of money being spent?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The dark web is clearly one area where the changes over the last 15 years can be seen. We called for evidence on the black market as part of our review and we must make sure that the Gambling Commission is set up to respond flexibly to the challenges that the future will bring. The commission has also received an uplift to its licence fees, which came into effect this month, which will strengthen the resources which it has to monitor and tackle illegal gambling.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that gambling can be a great entertainment, particularly in places such as Spanish City in Whitley Bay, but it can also be a very destructive addiction. Does he agree that targeted advertising aimed at vulnerable people, particularly young people and chronic gamblers, is one of the main drivers of addiction, and will the Government make this one of the priorities for reform?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I certainly know and remember Spanish City well; I will be back there this weekend. The advertising codes are clear that gambling adverts must never be targeted at children or vulnerable people. The Advertising Standards Authority recently announced changes to the gambling codes to protect vulnerable people, and further details on changes to protect children will follow by the end of the year.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and we now move to the next question.
Regulation of Property Agents Working Group
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to implement the recommendations of the final report of the Regulation of Property Agents Working Group, published on 18 July 2019.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
My Lords, I declare my residential commercial property interests as set out in the register. The Government are committed to promoting fairness and transparency for home owners and renters and making sure that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. This commitment includes raising professionalism and standards among property agents. The Government are considering the recommendations from the independent working group of the noble Lord, Lord Best, on property agents and we welcome the work by the noble Baroness and the industry itself to improve best practice across the sector.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that. As he suggests, we now have cross-industry and consumer agreement on codes of practice for all residential agents covering letting sale and block management. The whole industry and its users want to see the report by the noble Lord, Lord Best, implemented and the regulator set up. Therefore, in addition to the words of comfort that the Minister has given us, can he go one further and give us a commitment to implement that report for the sake of all people who rent their houses?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I am not able to go any further but I know that the final code is ready, and that is a springboard to action. I am looking forward to engaging with the noble Baroness in due course.
Lord Flight (Con)
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Best, and his working group on a most thorough report. In its 56 pages, it makes recommendations on a model for an independent property agent regulator, for a single mandatory and legally enforceable code of practice for property agents, and on clarifying processes and charges for leaseholders. Do the Government have any material criticisms of the report to date?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My noble friend should note that the Government welcome the final report of the independent Regulation of Property Agents Working Group, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Best. The Government have been clear about the need to raise professionalism and standards among property agents, which is why we tasked a group of experts from across industry, led by our highly experienced chair, to advise on the best way to secure this objective. The working group’s report and recommendations are an important development towards ensuring that all consumers are treated fairly and all agents work to the same high standards.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, as noble Lords have mentioned, I chaired the Government’s working group on regulation of property agents. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for her sterling ongoing work on this issue. Bearing in mind that the leading industry bodies for estate, lettings and managing agents were all on our working group, as well as consumer experts; our recommendations for a regulator of property agents were unanimous and favourably received by Ministers; the cost of a regulator would fall on the industry rather than on the Government; and I delivered our report over two years ago, may I press the Minister to confirm that there will at least be news of the necessary legislation within six months?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work undertaken by the noble Lord on the wide-ranging recommendations contained in the final report from his working group. I am grateful to him and to all those who contributed. However, he will appreciate that this is a complex area with many interdependencies. Having paused work on it at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, we continue to consider the recommendations in the noble Lord’s report.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is not here.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the advisory board of the Property Redress Scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Best, put it very clearly: this report was two years ago, and still nothing concrete has happened. Some things can be done quite simply. The first recommendation is the appointment of a new independent regulator to lead matters in this instance. May I specifically ask the Minister when he expects such a regulator to be appointed?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
The noble Lord will know that the creation of a new regulatory regime requires a legislative underpinning. We are considering how to move forward on this and other areas and will come back to this House in due course.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lady Hayter, all the working-group members and the progress made towards adoption of the codes of practice as outlined. I add my support to the calls for the Government to implement the report at speed. Last year, a court ruled that letting agents are no longer able to advertise properties as unavailable to those in receipt of universal credit. What steps have the Government taken since to prevent this discrimination? Does the Minister agree that implementing the codes of practice would prevent such discrimination in future?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, we recognise that having an overarching code of practice will be an important step in addressing these issues around discrimination. That is why we are looking forward to receiving the draft code compiled from the hard work done by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and others. We will come back in due course on how we take that forward.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, leaseholders in cladding-scandal-ridden flats have seen a meteoric rise in their service charges. Emily in Leeds has seen hers rise from £400 per year to nearly £3,000 per year. The Minister has said this afternoon that he is committed to leaseholder fairness. Regulation is urgently needed to save these leaseholders from bankruptcy. When—not if—will the Government introduce regulation?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness knows, the Building Safety Bill is currently going through the other place. We strongly believe that all fees and charges should be justifiable, transparent and communicated effectively. By law, variable service charges, and pollution and administration charges, must all be reasonable, and, where costs relate to work or services, those must be of a reasonable standard. There are already significant legal protections in place.
Prime Minister: Meeting with First Ministers
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the Prime Minister will next meet the First Ministers of the United Kingdom’s devolved Governments, and what they will discuss.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
The Prime Minister met the First Ministers on Monday to discuss the next steps of Covid recovery and the upcoming COP 26 summit. He expects to meet them again early next year.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, next Wednesday the Chancellor will present his annual Budget to Parliament. I understand that that Budget was not on the agenda, despite some economic references in the items discussed on Monday at the meeting with the First Ministers. After 22 years of the devolution settlement, which has since expanded the tax-raising and tax-varying powers of the Scottish Government and others, surely it is time for Budgets to be prepared in the United Kingdom on a slightly different basis, with some consultation and engagement in advance with all levels of government, including the devolved Governments.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I know that the intergovernmental review is specifically looking at arrangements for the development of Budgets. I point out that there have been a number of meetings between the UK Government and the devolved Governments in the run-up to the spending review.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, DIT Ministers are refusing to engage with the devolved Governments on trade negotiations, other than on very specific devolved competences. However, major trade deals, especially those dealing with sectors such as agriculture, food processing, energy or manufacturing, can have a major impact on devolved territories, so will the Government undertake to involve the devolved Governments fully on any issues impacting on their economies in trade deals and not simply on areas of devolved competences?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, the model of international engagement is also something that the intergovernmental review is looking to iron out so that there is effective engagement. Engagement on international matters has now been embedded in the inter-ministerial group for trade and EU issues as well as in the inter-ministerial standing committee.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, in engagement with the devolved authorities, the Government must respect the devolution settlement and the devolved authorities need to recognise that we have a Government of the whole United Kingdom. Is it possible to do that with equal respect to both parties?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
Absolutely, there needs to be equal respect. That is why there has been a major review of how we ensure effective working between the devolved Governments and the United Kingdom Government. It has taken some time to conclude.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
Will my noble friend the Minister inform the House of what progress the intergovernmental relations review has made since the March progress update and why it has taken so long to conclude the review?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My noble friend is right that it is not a fast process, but we are now in a position to conclude. Developing a package that best reflects each devolved Government’s views can be the result only of detailed joint analysis by the UK Government and the devolved Governments.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister undertake to remind the Prime Minister to remind in turn the First Minister of Scotland of the vital contribution to the Scottish economy of United Kingdom defence expenditure, in particular the submarine base at Faslane, the Type 26 frigates now being built on the Clyde and now the Type 31 frigates being built at Rosyth?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I will undertake to do that. Of course, the Prime Minister is now also the Minister for the Union, and I am sure that he, as well as my right honourable friend who is now the Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, will use every opportunity to remind the First Minister of that important defence contribution.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
During the Covid pandemic, the Welsh Labour Government at Cardiff Bay have received substantial additional funding—indeed, billions—through the Barnett formula and other funding. Does the Minister agree that, when they next meet, a discussion of the reluctance on the part of the Welsh Government to spend that money in support of the ailing Welsh national health system and of Welsh businesses would be very appropriate, as well as an additional discussion as to why they are reluctant to hold an inquiry into their performance in dealing with the pandemic in Wales?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, it is important to recognise that through the Barnett formula a considerable amount of money has been made available to all the devolved Governments—some £28.1 billion. We are happy to continue to engage in a productive way with the Welsh First Minister and others on how best to recover.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)
My Lords, when the Prime Minister next meets the First Ministers in the new year, I hope it will be a convivial and friendly gathering. I hope that all in the room will reflect on how they responded to Covid and to some of the backlogs in education and health, and that each part will find that they have done some things better and others worse. Could we encourage them to compare their experiences and learn from each other so that the whole of the United Kingdom will benefit from some of the divergences of the four units?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, that is absolutely an opportunity to learn. The pandemic will probably have been the most memorable event in my lifetime, as someone who was born well after the Second World War, and it is important that we learn the lessons from divergence and different approaches so that we are better prepared for the next time, should this ever happen again.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I would like to extend the debate to the devolved entities in England. Earlier this year, PoliticsHome reported that some metro mayors are growing increasingly frustrated with the Government’s favouritism towards certain mayors by way of, for example, meetings with the Prime Minister or the Chancellor and access to officials. What steps have the Government taken to increase engagement with all metro mayors regardless of their party affiliation?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I am certainly aware of a number of meetings that have taken place— I have had numerous meetings with the Mayor of Manchester and the Mayor of the West Midlands, and many with the Mayor of London. Of course, we recognise the importance of effective engagement. It is through effective engagement with our mayors that we can support each other so that we recover from this pandemic.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
My Lords, one area for profitable discussion would be how we can ensure that all countries and regions of the United Kingdom can benefit from growing economic prosperity. As part of that discussion, would it not be useful to discuss how we can prevent Northern Ireland being placed at a severe competitive disadvantage compared with the other countries in the UK by the provisions relating to state aid in the Northern Ireland protocol, something that does not get much coverage but which is vital? Can we ensure that the Government’s proposals in their Command Paper in July are implemented as quickly as possible? That would help to redress this problem.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord is obviously more expert than me on the specifics, but it is important that the state aid rules apply fairly and equally across all our four nations.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
My Lords, given the somewhat frayed cords that hold the nations of the United Kingdom together, are the Ministers of the devolved Governments satisfied that they have a fair voice in drawing up the agenda of these meetings? Are the issues that they want to discuss being discussed?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
The noble and right reverend Lord should understand that there is a three-tiered form of engagement: there are portfolio-level meetings, cross-cutting issues and then the Prime Minister meeting with First Ministers and the Deputy First Minister. The sheer volume of meetings indicates that there are plenty of fora to ensure that we deal with the issues at the appropriate level of engagement, whether at the bottom tier or in meetings with the Prime Minister.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I would like to suggest something for the agenda for the next meeting. Could the Minister ask the Prime Minister—nicely—to put on the agenda ways of ensuring that money allocated by the Treasury for devolved areas is spent properly on those areas, not improperly on reserved areas?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
There is a clear political point there, but also a practical point. We must spend money for its intended purposes, which is why we have bodies such as the National Audit Office to ensure that taxpayers’ money is properly spent. We need to look into how we can have a similar regime for devolved Governments.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have now been asked.
Shortages: Protection for the Vulnerable
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to protect the most vulnerable in the event of shortages of (1) energy, and (2) other necessities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, there is no shortage of energy, and the Government have taken action to increase the supply of HGV drivers. The supply of fuel and food is secure. Protecting vulnerable consumers is our top priority, which is why our energy price cap will remain in place. We are supporting vulnerable and low-income households through initiatives such as the £500 million household support fund, the warm home discount, winter fuel payments and cold weather payments.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I do not agree with the Minister that everything has been fine following the shocks that we have suffered from Covid and Brexit over the past few months, and neither would the underprivileged in our society. Are the Government doing some contingency planning, as we have really big threats coming, possibly with climate change, to protect the most underprivileged and deprived in society to ensure that they are looked after? People are talking in the press about forms of rationing. We could look for schemes through which we could protect them more than we do at the moment. Similarly, we need to get out and make certain that people who are working on the front line are given all the protection they need—including petrol—so that they can get to work and so on. That has certainly not been happening in the past few weeks.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, I can tell the noble Lord that the poorest and most vulnerable are always at the heart of our policies in this area—we always seek to protect them. It is, however, important to emphasise that there is no shortage of essential items, and we have taken action to ensure that supply chains remain robust.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, one of the other necessities mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, is food. Nationally and globally, we waste a third of all food. When 1.7 million children, between September 2020 and February 2021, were living in food poverty along with their families, surely there must be a better way. This week, the Earthshot Prize celebrated Milan’s citywide food-waste policy, which saves 260,000 meals-worth a year. What steps are Her Majesty’s Government taking to encourage and support the better local collection and distribution of food waste in the UK more effectively?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The right reverend Prelate makes a good point. Everybody across all levels of government—national and local—want to do all they can to minimise food waste. Of course, we are always looking for additional ways to protect the most vulnerable.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, shortages of energy and food have driven up the cost of basic necessities. Does the Minister agree that the poorest pensioners are likely to struggle most, as they spend so much of their budget on these items? What are the Government doing to increase take-up of pension credit, as 40% of pensioners who are entitled do not claim it and therefore do not get access to the warm home discounts, cold weather payments and so on that this benefit could provide for them? With 40% of pensioners not receiving that benefit, what will the Government propose to improve the situation?
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, nearly 1.5 million people across Great Britain do receive pension credit, but I agree with my noble friend that many are not claiming what they are entitled to. We are working constantly to increase awareness of pension credit; we recently joined forces with Age UK and various celebrities to try to encourage pensioners to check their eligibility for access to this important benefit.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]
My Lords, could we not provide statutory protection of a national scheme for individuals acting as service providers and the needy, whereby individuals—perhaps even neighbours —acting as volunteer service providers, could take on responsibility for arranging appointments and performing other designated life tasks? This would all be under clearly defined model arrangements, thereby relieving pressure on statutory providers. There is an army of volunteers out there, but many are wary of liability. A national scheme could complement existing charity arrangements.
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord is right. During the pandemic, we saw the massive difference that volunteers can make to people’s lives. Our role in government in volunteering is as a steward, enabling a further unlocking of the voluntary sector. We are always aiming to simplify the routes into volunteering to help match up supply and demand.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, in the light of the upsurge of food, energy and living costs looming this winter, does the Minister agree that the best way in which to support the most vulnerable people is to restore the £20 uplift and reverse the 5% cut to 4.4 million families? If not, what special measures will be on offer, particularly to people with disabilities, who have suffered most disproportionately during the pandemic, through loss of income and support, increasing care charges, poor access to essential services and generally feeling forgotten and not cared about? How will they be protected from cold and hunger in the coming months?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I know that we have debated these matters a lot in the House recently, and I know that the noble Baroness will be aware that the uplift to universal credit was only ever meant to be temporary. I outlined earlier some of the many schemes that we have on offer to pensioners and those living in fuel poverty to help them get through this crisis.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
In the energy market, when consumers were encouraged to switch suppliers to find the best deal, it was to encourage competition and innovation among utility companies. Are the Government still confident that the supplier of last resort mechanism is the correct outcome for suppliers and consumers in the process in a competitive energy market?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The answer to the noble Lord is yes. A number of energy companies have, sadly, gone to the wall, but the supplier of last resort scheme has so far been successful in transferring to other providers. We have other administrative regimes in place should they be necessary but, so far, the SoLR process has worked well.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, the shortage of energy is going to be felt by those households which simply cannot afford the soaring energy prices. Given the forecast that gas prices are going to go up another 30% next year on top of the already very high levels, are the Government considering further measures to alleviate the intense hardship that this will cause for millions of families? This could be done, if not by removing VAT, which may be difficult, by vastly expanding the warm homes discount or easing or temporarily suspending some of the many green levies that bump up our energy bills. Is some further action being contemplated?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Of course, my noble friend will be aware that domestic fuel, such as gas and electricity, is already subject to a reduced rate of 5% of VAT. He will understand, I am sure, that I cannot comment on any speculation about any other changes that might happen in the Budget, beyond saying that protecting consumers is our top priority, which is why the energy price cap will remain in place. I announced earlier the other levels of support that we have in place.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, millions are already made vulnerable by poverty—too often deep poverty—and food insecurity. The pandemic has underlined the need for a decent social security system that protects them in difficult times. I repeat the question, because the answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, was so inadequate: will the Government therefore rethink their decision to end the £20 universal credit uplift as a first step towards ensuring that social security benefits are adequate to meet needs? The proposed local authority household support fund that the Minister mentioned is not a solution that provides security for those in vulnerable circumstances.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I think we have a difference of opinion here. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, the universal credit uplift was only ever meant to be temporary. The opposition parties do not accept that, but that was the case. We recognise that some people continue to need extra support, which is why we introduced the £500 million household support fund.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I refer to my position as president of National Energy Action. Does my noble friend share my concern that there are currently 4 million people in fuel poverty? Will he use his good offices to ensure that everyone has a warm home this Christmas?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Of course, we are constantly looking at the various schemes we have. We announced £850 million for the home upgrade grant yesterday, which will go precisely to those my noble friend is concerned about—the fuel-poor living in rural areas.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest in that I chaired a commission on vulnerable consumers of energy, two or three years ago. The industry has taken on some of the recommendations; Ofgem and the Government have taken on rather fewer. Does the Minister not recognise that the way Ofgem has licensed over 100 new competitors without any requirement that they look after vulnerable consumers has caused distress and the kind of fuel poverty that has already been raised? Over 100 licences have been given. Competition benefits consumers, but it has to be accompanied by resilience and reliability. Will the Government and Ofgem look at this again?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Of course, we always keep these matters under review, but to a certain extent the noble Lord answered his own question: competition is good for the consumer, and the extent and array of competition in the energy market has produced lower prices for many consumers. Obviously, in a competitive market, particularly with the recent spikes, some companies will go to the wall, but there are protections in place for those consumers under the follow-up process that I talked about with the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. But of course we always keep these matters under review.
Covid-19: Plan B
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Scriven
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the rising number of Covid-19 cases and comments made by the NHS Confederation regarding the reintroduction of certain restrictions, what criteria they have put in place as the triggers to implement their Covid-19 “Plan B”.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for the very important Question. As set out in the Government’s comprehensive Covid-19 Response: Autumn and Winter Plan 2021, if the data suggests that the NHS is likely to come under unsustainable pressure, the Government have prepared plan B contingency measures. We monitor a wide range of Covid-19 data closely, so we can act if there is a substantial likelihood of this happening. We also track the economic and societal impacts of coronavirus to ensure that any response takes into account those wider effects in a balanced way.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, Professor Stephen Reicher, a member of SAGE’s sub-committee, said yesterday:
“I don’t want lockdown … The danger is if you do nothing … in terms of infections, in terms of long Covid, in terms of hospitalisations … they will be left with no alternative.”
Based on what the Minister has just said, what evidence do the Government have of why scientists such as Professor Reicher are wrong in seeking mitigation measures now to deal with the worrying number of viral transmissions as a way of stopping future lockdowns?
Lord Kamall (Con)
In order to judge what the next action should be, the Government have laid out plan A. Plan A is focused, for winter 2021-22, on building defences through vaccines, antivirals and disease-modified therapeutics, identifying and isolating cases of transmission through test and trace, and supporting the NHS and social care, but also advising people on how to protect themselves and offering clear guidance and communications.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, it is quite clear that those things are not working. When I saw the Secretary of State for BEIS doing the media rounds this morning denying that plan B was coming down the track, I thought we might open a book on how soon the Government will actually launch plan B. I would like to ask the Minister whether plan B becomes necessary because the Government have made such a mess of plan A, with very late vaccinations for 12 to 15 year-olds and a worryingly low uptake of booster jabs. Is it too late to prevent an NHS winter crisis, with the knock-on effects that will have for our backlog?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question and, while I have the opportunity, for all her advice, as a new boy in the role. We will continue to look at a number of different factors, including both economic and health indicators, before we judge whether it is necessary to move to plan B. Plan B does not actually involve complete lockdown. It involves introducing mandatory vaccine-only Covid status certification in certain riskier settings; legally mandating face coverings in certain settings, such as public transport; and communicating clearly and urgently to the public if the risk level increases.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, could my noble friend tell us, following the amazing success of the vaccine rollout, what proportion of hospital beds are occupied by Covid patients? Because it seems to me that some people—some doomsayers—are trying to create panic where there is no need for it.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his question. I do not have the detailed data and I will write to him. But in terms of the link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths, it is quite clear that the vaccine has been working to break the link between the number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
Would the Minister accept that one of the unfair criticisms, in some ways, over the last 18 months, has been “too little, too late”? That cannot happen again. We need to set good examples. At Prime Minister’s Questions today, there was not a single Conservative MP wearing a mask in a crowded Chamber. What on earth is that as an example to the people on the Tube and everywhere else? Clearly, some small measures now will save the big measures later.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I agree with the noble Lord that it is important that we take as many measures as possible to make sure that we do not have to move to plan B. I assure the noble Lord that I do wear my mask to, hopefully, set an example, and I hope others will too—but it is really important that we understand what factors are driving this rise in numbers and the most effective way of tackling it.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, can the Minister say what action the Government are taking to ensure that the inequalities that have been experienced by black and ethnic minority people in relation to Covid-19 are being addressed now?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question, particularly in the light of this being Black History Month, an important month to be celebrated in terms of the contribution that the Afro-Caribbean community has made to this country over many years. However, on the specific issue, sadly there are some demographics in communities that have a lower uptake of vaccines. The Government are discussing with a number of stakeholders how we can improve information, but also encourage and exhort people from these communities to take the vaccines.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, we know there are government advisers who are advising the Government to implement plan B. Can the Minister say which ones are advising the Government not to implement plan B?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I am sure the noble Baroness will appreciate that all these issues are not necessarily binary, and that there are often a number of trade-offs, not only between economic and health factors but also within the health community itself. For example, there have been warnings that if we go down the route of more restrictive measures, we will see an increase both in patients who are unable to have the surgery that they had planned and in mental health cases.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, taking the Minister back to the answer he gave to my noble friend Lord Rooker, on the issue of mask wearing, the evidence seems to be that wearing a mask does have an impact on whether viruses are transmitted, and in this case there is efficacy in respect not only of Covid-19 but of other viruses which could be circulating at this time of year and themselves putting pressure on the NHS. What is it that the Government cannot bear about asking people to wear masks? It has no economic cost, costs very little in terms of inconvenience and has a very significant impact.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I assure the noble Baroness that plan B does involve legally mandating face coverings in certain settings, such as public transport and shops. I am sure many noble Lords will have recognised, when they are travelling in by public transport, the number of people wearing masks on public transport, even though advice by the transport companies has dropped.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, I have a daughter who works in A&E in a London hospital who simply says, “Please will you make people act responsibly once again?” It costs us absolutely nothing. We acted too slowly previously. We have seen 10% increases in the last week; please just get on with plan B.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the right reverend Prelate for his question. It is important. Personally, I do believe that many people should be wearing masks and that there is evidence for this. But the fact is, we have to look at a number of indicators and balance those up.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, could my noble friend tell us how many of us who are eligible for the third jab have had it? I have had mine. Could he also tell us what forward planning we have? Is this going to be an annual event? Are the resources available to ensure that it can be continued indefinitely?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that very important question. Some of the data suggests that there has been a slower uptake for the booster. I do not have the exact information and data available on the uptake of the booster, but I will make sure I write to my noble friend.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister keeps referring to plan B, but he has not answered the fundamental question that my noble friend Lord Rooker raised. This Government have too often in the past been slow to respond, and as a result has had to introduce far harsher measures as a consequence. Does he accept that that has been the case in the past, and what assurances can he give us, as we go forward, that that will not happen later this year?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I am afraid I disagree with the noble Lord on that particular question. In fact, the UK is seen as a leader in the speed and efficiency with which it adopted vaccines. Countries that criticised the UK were, only a year later, saying “How did you do it? How did you manage to roll out your vaccines so quickly?” Of course, things change, and it is very important that we balance all the factors when considering whether to move to plan B.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
One of the reasons why there is a health crisis at the moment seems to be that it is a non-Covid crisis. Would the Minister comment on the fact that the backlog, the collateral damage of lockdowns, has created a terrible situation? It is non-Covid related, so we should not overreact. Quickly, on plan B, which experts will he take advice from? Will it be Professor Reicher, a behavioural and social psychologist, or the NHS Confederation, run by someone who was on “Moral Maze” with me? Not all experts are experts, or should be listened to.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for pointing out the important issue that there is a trade-off. There are some who continue to argue against moving to plan B, and it is important that we assess the balance of arguments. There are trade-offs within health itself. There will be some patients who will be concerned about plan B because of how it will affect their access to healthcare, and there are other, wider societal factors.
Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)
My Lords, will the Minister ensure that before any change in government policy, whether it be plan B or any other changes, there will be proper consultation with the devolved Administrations?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The Government have co-ordinated action and been in constant conversation with the devolved Administrations—or, as one noble Lord said, the devolved Governments—to co-ordinate and to learn from each other in terms of a UK-wide response.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that not only have ethnic minority communities seen tremendous disparities in their experience of Covid, but so have people with disabilities where long-term care is needed. Is his department in consultation with them at the moment, in preparation for plan B?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The new office OHID, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, clearly assesses a number of factors and government policy to help those from more deprived communities and in more deprived areas. If the noble Baroness has specific examples and wishes to write to me, I will answer.
Lord Brownlow of Shurlock Row (Con)
My Lords, would my noble friend tell me whether the Government are still happy with the composition, mathematical modelling and advice from SAGE?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, can the Minister explain now—and not write to me—how and by whom these decisions are made? Are they made by the chief executive of the NHS or by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, or do they have to wait for a decision from the Prime Minister and wait until he returns from his beach holiday?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The Government are consulting widely on the measures to be taken, balancing and looking at the trade-offs not only in health but with wider societal factors.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, nearly 1,000 people are dying every week from Covid. What is the trigger in deaths before plan B comes into effect?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I am not sure I agree with the noble Baroness on the figure she cites; I will double-check and write to her. On the triggers, it is clear that we have to look at a range of factors before deciding whether to move to plan B.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, clearly these are very difficult issues, but can my noble friend help the House—if not today then in writing—by explaining some of the statistics being used to judge what is happening with Covid right now? For example, the use of a Covid-positive test within 28 days of death is not necessarily indicative of what is happening, and the vaccine programme seems to have ensured that those who are seriously ill or sadly dying of Covid are those who are not vaccinated or have serious underlying other conditions—in which case, the statistics may be misleading us somewhat.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for making that valuable point. When one looks at the broken-down data, one sees that there are some demographics that have not taken up the vaccine as much as they should have, including a number who have not received the booster. We want to make sure that as many people as possible are vaccinated so that we do not have to move to plan B and can continue with plan A. Plan A includes provisions for ensuring that we increase the number of people vaccinated.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Private Notice Question has now elapsed.
Armed Forces Bill
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Earl of Courtown
That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which the Armed Forces Bill has been committed that they consider the bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 9, Schedule 2, Clause 10, Schedule 3, Clause 11, Schedule 4, Clauses 12 to 15, Schedule 5, Clauses 16 to 26, Title.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Minister, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Wednesday 20th October 2021
(2 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 View all Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 40-I(b) Amendments for Committee (supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (20 Oct 2021)
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
Before I call Amendment 1, I should alert the Committee that the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris of Richmond and Lady Brinton, will be taking part remotely.
Clause 1: Police covenant report
Amendment 1
Lord Coaker
Member’s explanatory statement
This would explicitly require that mental health and the impact of trauma on the police workforce must be reported on as part of the report on the covenant.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to start the discussion of this very important Bill in Committee, and I look forward to discussing it with the Minister and, no doubt, many other colleagues across this House. I am particularly moved to speak on the policing part of the Bill and to open this discussion, since, as some of your Lordships will know, my father was a Metropolitan Police officer for 30 years. He retired fairly recently—over 30 years ago—and is still alive at the age of 95, so it is a great privilege and an honour to speak. One or two people may have met him; I am not sure. It probably goes back a bit further than that.
The serious point is that the amendment gives us the opportunity to start this debate by praising our police. Yes, there have been some serious questions raised about our police. Very well-documented issues have arisen which need proper investigation and inquiry, and they will, in due course, be looked at and raise serious questions. I am not saying that these issues are not important, but we should also recognise the serious job of work that the police do. The noble Lord, Lord Clarke, is in his place. Nottinghamshire has a very fine police force, as is the case across the country. Many of us have had cause to call on police officers and their staff to help us in our daily lives. That was evidenced in our own Parliament not long ago when PC Keith Palmer was killed on our premises as the result of a terrorist attack. Every single day, as we come on to the Estate, we see the police protecting us. It is important to set that on the record so that, when we discuss these issues, police across the country—both past and present—their staff and families know that we start from this perspective.
We strongly support the police covenant, which we believe is long overdue. These amendments are about making the covenant as strong and effective as it can be so that it works for police officers and their families. I know that the Minister will take the amendments in that spirit as we seek to clarify some parts of the clauses.
I suggest that the Minister looks at the lessons learned from the Armed Forces covenant, to build on that experience and mirror its strengths in the way in which it has developed. It is important that the covenant is designed to cover both former and serving police personnel; we welcome that. I want also to pay tribute to the Police Federation and all those who have long campaigned for the introduction of a covenant, the Police Federation having done so through its Protect the Protectors campaign.
The size of the Bill has been remarked on. It will raise a huge number of issues during the next few weeks. However, today’s debate and the amendments we have put forward are related to the covenant. I will speak also to the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Rosser.
Amendment 1 would put into the Bill that a report about the police covenant must specifically include
“mental health and the impact of trauma.”
I have also added my name to the important amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which probes what access members and former members of the police workforce have to mental health programmes and support. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s reply because the importance of mental health support for our officers cannot be overstated. As we know, they are regularly exposed to traumatic and dangerous situations in their job—something they willingly accept as part of their duty. As the covenant says, it is therefore incumbent on us to recognise the trauma that may be imposed on officers and their families, both when they are serving and when they have moved on or retired.
I sometimes think—as I am sure many other noble Lords do—what it must be like to go to some of the scenes of horrific murders or of child abuse. All these occur in the normal, everyday life of a police officer, who then has to go home. I know that the Government will want to ensure that this support is given to them. These amendments ask how we ensure that somebody who has to deal with such situations is given the support they deserve. The amendment would specifically recognise the impact of trauma in the Bill.
This was raised by a number of Members in the other place, particularly my colleague Sarah Champion MP, and I pay tribute to her work on that. She raised the necessity of training our officers in recognising and identifying trauma and how to deal with it. She said:
“The fact that across police forces there is not a standard level of support to be accessed once an officer feels he has the need for it is really letting our forces down.”—[Official Report, Commons, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 25/5/21; col. 178.]
That is a concern that we all have. No doubt there are examples of good practice, but how does one ensure such good practice across all forces and areas? The lack of consistency in mental health support is something that we need to address.
Since the debate in the Commons, to be fair to the Government, they have announced a programme of mandatory annual mental health checks—but they are for the Armed Forces. The Minister for Defence has called it an annual mental health MOT, with the intention of ensuring that our Armed Forces understand what help is available to them and are equipped to manage the unique pressures of service life. I wonder whether the Government might learn from that. Might that be something that could be applied to the context of the police in our country? We could learn from the Armed Forces covenant on what has worked with respect to this and from the successes and failures.
This is about the safety not only of the police but of our communities. Regular and high-quality mental health support makes sure that our police are fit to be in post, are able to process the situations that they deal with regularly as part of the job and are capable of supporting and responding to traumatised victims.
Amendment 3 would specifically add to the Bill that a report on the police covenant must look at what mental health support is required by officers’ families. This is to probe the simple issue of what support is available for an officer’s spouse, partner or family. The key thing here, which I am sure the Government will recognise, is that if your partner is regularly put in harm’s way in the course of their job, or they are traumatised by their experience during their service, there should be a service that you can call to seek support and to have a specialist speak to you about its impact on you and your family. That is an important point for us to consider.
Amendment 5 goes to the absolute heart of how the covenant must work. It would set up an oversight board with an independent chair and membership from policing organisations, including the Police Federation, the Police Superintendents’ Association, UNISON, the College of Policing and others. The oversight board would review the Secretary of State’s annual report on the covenant before it is laid before Parliament. The basis for this was put succinctly in the other place by my honourable friend for Croydon Central, who said:
“In essence, the amendment would ensure that the covenant does not have Ministers marking their own homework.”—[ Official Report, Commons, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 25/5/21; col. 193.]
The covenant must belong to our police forces, and the Government must listen to our police. It should not be for the Home Secretary to decide how well the Government are fulfilling their duties under the covenant.
We recognise that, currently, there is an oversight board, which met for the first time over the summer, but that was chaired by the Home Secretary. This would rebalance that by putting an independent chair in her place. This is an important point about putting the police themselves in the driving seat, instead of Ministers.
I turn now to Amendment 6, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, which has our full support. It would amend our own Amendment 5 to include the National Association of Retired Police Officers in the proposed oversight board. Our Amendment 2 would require the Secretary of State’s annual report on the covenant specifically to consider the support needed by the police workforce on retirement, including access to training courses. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for her work on this issue and look forward to her contribution later in our discussions.
A crucial part of the covenant and a key strength of it is that it applies, as I say, to both serving and former officers and their families. The service an officer has paid to their community and the impact it may have had on, for example, their health, does not finish the day that they retire from the force. The covenant is about that long-lasting partnership and recognition of the unique situation of the police workforce.
Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]
My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to this policing debate and to hear of his antecedents. I added my name to this amendment and, with your Lordships’ indulgence, will speak to Amendments 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, to which I have also put my name. These all deal with the many associated issues in this group, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, just outlined.
I have been extremely concerned at the growing number of police officers and former police officers who have turned up at the police treatment centres run by the charity of which I am president with clear mental health issues alongside whatever physical injuries they might have. In the year 2019-20, we provided 3,600 hours of one-on-one counselling. Some 1,200 patients received well-being support through the psychological well-being programme, well-being weekends and recharge days. This is a 19% increase on those attending in 2018. To facilitate this growing area of work, we have provided a new clinical wing at PTC Harrogate, in association with Police Care UK, another police charity.
In its latest research, Police Care UK found that 90% of police officers will be exposed to multiple traumatic incidents during their career—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker—and that one in five serving personnel are currently living with symptoms of PTSD.
While they do an amazing job at the St Andrews centre, the new clinical wing will be of enormous extra benefit, having two new wings with two floors and adding 20 bedrooms to the estate. It will give four additional counselling rooms, one nursing surgery room, six therapy rooms, three workshop spaces and a community room. Noble Lords can see how necessary these will be; we can only hope that the extra facilities will be enough to meet the increasing demand for well-being provision for the officers who need it.
The impact of trauma is deeply debilitating and for many years officers felt that they could not speak out about it. But we have now seen clearly how damaging that can be. We absolutely must take the mental health of our police officers seriously and give them the support they need by including this requirement in the covenant.
In supporting Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I declare an interest as an honorary member of the National Association of Retired Police Officers—NARPO. Why should former police officers not receive help and support and access to training when they require it? Many go on to do valuable work in other careers and the community and often need help with access courses.
My Amendment 6, which is an amendment to Amendment 5, as we have heard, seeks to insert the National Association of Retired Police Officers to the oversight board. I believe it is essential, as many of those former officers still need support. I have spoken on a number of occasions about the impact of being a police officer on an individual’s mental well-being, both during their time in the force and when they have left. The Bill will make it mandatory for the Home Secretary to publish a report on the police covenant each year outlining the work that has been done to protect officers and ensure that they are properly supported following the sacrifices they have made to be part of the force.
It is important that this report is considered by an independent oversight board, which can hold the Government to account on the work that they are doing around the police covenant, and they are not simply left to mark their own homework, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has said.
Among those organisations that oversee the report, there must be an organisation which represents the police officers of the past, who, as I said, often continue to live with the effects of their job long after they have departed. Police officers bear witness to some of the most traumatic events and sacrifice so much, placing themselves in danger in order to protect society. It is therefore absolutely vital that their contribution is also acknowledged and any support that they need is given throughout their life. Placing the National Association of Retired Police Officers among the organisations giving oversight to the covenant ensures that officers past and present are supported in the continued challenges that a life in policing can bring.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 7. Every year, it costs £5 million to operate the two police treatment centres; 89% of that income is generated by donations from serving and retired police officers. The remainder comes from various sources: fundraising events, legacy donations, hospitality and lottery money. Noble Lords will note that not only do the PTCs save the NHS huge amounts of money by treating our police officers who present with trauma injuries; they treat psychological trauma as well. The PTCs are a charity—they do not get any money from the Government or the NHS. There should be some acknowledgement that the work that they do not only saves the NHS money but enables police officers to return to work much more quickly than they would otherwise have done if they had had to wait for NHS appointments—for physiotherapy, in particular. Have your Lordships tried to get an appointment with an NHS physiotherapist recently? Officers may also need mental health services appointments urgently. My amendment addresses those concerns and urges the Government to tell health providers that they must address the needs of police officers and ensure that they get the same recognition for treatment as that for members of the armed services.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I was unable to speak at Second Reading on this topic of the police covenant. As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has already noted, this is an extraordinarily large and complex Bill, and Second Reading speakers were limited to a mere three minutes, meaning that, inevitably, some matters could not be raised. I apologise for raising what is from my perspective a new issue. Before I begin, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Harris for her many years of campaigning for the well-being and support of police officers.
I support all the amendments in this group, Amendments 1 to 7, which seek to ensure that police officers and former police officers have access to health services and particularly to mental health support, and to set this down in the Bill as an equivalent of the Armed Forces covenant. I will come on to the covenant later in my contribution.
We must recognise that our police officers and other emergency service personnel are on the front line day in, day out, often facing many things daily that ordinary members of the public would hope never to see once in their lives. That for decades police officers have “manned up” and internalised problems, because that was the culture, perhaps makes mental health pressures even more inevitable. The Police Federation reports that resilience in the service is at an all-time low and that officers are being put under inordinate amounts of pressure, which is taking its toll on their health and well-being. Even worse, the unprecedented cuts to the police service have meant that officers are under more strain now than ever before. While many are asked to do more and more with fewer resources, and have risen admirably to the challenge, it is inevitable that the increased pressures they are facing will have an impact on them, mentally and physically.
The Police Federation campaign “Protect the Protectors” noted that between 2015 and 2017, over 20 police officers took their own lives each year. That is almost two a month. Something must change. Research has shown that emergency workers are twice more likely than the public to identify problems at work as the main cause of their mental health problems, but they are also significantly less likely to seek help—the “man up” culture. Therefore, it is good that in 2017, the Police Federation developed a nine-point plan for police organisations to work with it, supporting serving staff and ensuring that the well-being and mental health of staff is properly delivered as soon as it is needed.
There are 48 organisations that have worked in partnership with the Police Federation and with the mental health charity Mind. The guide that they have produced has all the information that employers need to set up and deliver mental health support in all blue-light organisations. This week, another excellent campaign, the Blue Light group, has reported that 87% of emergency responders have experienced stress and poor mental health. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was looking for good news, and it is that 83% of those who accessed this support through their organisation found it helpful. Mind tells me that the Home Office funding for this essential work—which has been running since 2015—is due to run out in March 2022. Can the Minister confirm that the Home Office will continue the support and funding for this vital work, not just support for blue-light workers but a blue-light service for blue-light workers?
Some officers are very badly affected and need more than can be offered by counselling and other internal support. The Police Federation tells the story of Richard, a DCI with a provisional diagnosis of PTSD when he sought help, which explains much of the pressure and distress that so many officers face.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my interests in the world of policing as set out in the register, particularly in policing ethics, both with the Greater Manchester Police and the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
At Second Reading I referred briefly to the culture of policing. I did not specifically mention a policing covenant given that time was so short, but I have been intrigued by the debate we have had this afternoon. I note the way in which Members have referred to the Armed Forces covenant. That is helpful in some ways, although I am just a little concerned. As I said at Second Reading, the heart of the policing model is that our police are civilians in uniform; they are not the Armed Forces. We need to be careful not to put police too easily into the same category as the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces are agents of the state while police are agents of society in a slightly different way. That is an important civilian distinction I would want always to hold before us.
Nevertheless, I support the amendments in this group, and I believe that we can do better for policing. A covenant is the right way forward—we are working on a similar thing for clergy in the Church of England at the moment—and these amendments will strengthen the initial proposals to help us that way. Over these last 18 months, when I have been chairing Operation Talla, the Covid operation ethics committee, on behalf of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, we have had in our minds and hearts not just how to police effectively but the tensions and pressures put on policing during the pandemic and how to advise police forces to implement the various regulations that were coming from government, sometimes in rapid succession, in ways that were proportionate and would not place undue extra pressure on the mental health of police. We monitored sickness rates throughout that process, and it has been a great example of how we worked together to ensure that policing did not lose its civilian base in the course of the pandemic. Therefore, I support these amendments, but I treat with a little caution how closely we draw parallels with the military covenant.
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, I no longer have to declare an interest but some Members here may know that I was until May this year police and crime commissioner in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. As such, I will make a very brief contribution to this first debate in Committee.
I personally support—I hope from my experience—the early amendments that have been proposed. As has been said already, it is quite clear that anyone who works with the police nowadays, knows them or sees them closely at work, will know that for a long time, I suspect, as in the rest of society, mental health, mental illness and all that follows from it was not given anywhere near the importance it should have been. I am glad to say that it is my experience, certainly in the police force I was close to, and I am sure in others too, that chief officer teams are now giving the issue of mental health due regard. That is why any covenant that left this out would be lacking; I do not want to comment on the covenant— good points have been made on it.
I urge the Minister and the Government to consider seriously these obviously non-partisan suggestions, which are meant to be helpful. That is all I want to say, but my experience tells me that this is becoming a larger and larger issue as year follows year for police forces up and down the country.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I start also by paying tribute to my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond for her tireless work in supporting police officers in the many different roles that she has in addition to her work in this House. It was particularly important to hear about the work of police treatment centres, although they clearly do not have the capacity to deal with all officers who are affected. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in his opening remarks, talked about only being able to imagine what police officers go through. I hope to enlighten the Committee about some of those experiences.
I have Amendment 4 in this group, but I support all these amendments, though perhaps with a qualification on one of them. My experience in the police service was not, in many respects, very different from that of others who have served or those who continue to serve, except perhaps that I was the most junior officer on my relief or response team, as it would now be known. For 18 months, as the junior officer delegated, I was the one who dealt with all the sudden deaths. My first appearance in court was at the Coroner’s Court, when the husband of an elderly couple had taken an overdose of prescription medication. Having worked night duty until 4 am, I was allowed to “slide off”, as I had to be at the mortuary at 9 am to identify the body. I had not seen a dead body before that night—I was 19 years of age—and I was unprepared for the sight and smell of at least half a dozen other bodies that had been opened up for examination by the pathologist when I arrived at the mortuary. It is an important role for a police officer to identify the body that he or she found as being the same one that the pathologist is about to perform the post-mortem on. I will not go into graphic details, but the Committee needs to get a flavour of the trauma that police officers are exposed to.
Noble Lords might think that the first case is the one that sticks in one’s mind, but whether it is the open-top car that overturned at speed, with no protection for the passengers in the back from the road surface, or the pensioner not seen for weeks in the summer, with swarms of flies on her badly decomposed body that was sticking to the bed when the undertakers tried to remove her, or the charred bodies in a number of fires that I attended, the impact on one’s mental health is considerable and cumulative. I can still picture and smell those scenes; I remember the taste that they left in my mouth.
It is not just the horror of such scenes; it is the emotional impact as well. There was a young man in his early 20s who had hung himself from a coat hook on the back of a door. There was a young mother, whose normal session with her psychiatrist had been cancelled because of Christmas; finding a name and address in her handbag next to her body at the base of a tower block, I went to the address, knocked on the door and was invited by her husband into a room where her young children were playing under the Christmas tree with the toys that the mother had bought them. If that was not bad enough, when I suggested that we ought to go into a different room so that I could tell the husband the tragic news that his wife had committed suicide, he asked me, “How did she do it?”. Experiences like that, as noble Lords can hear, I still vividly remember.
It is not just the deaths. I remember a young man who had a broken glass slammed into his face. We had to take him to hospital in the police van, as there were no ambulances available—some things do not change. I remember the terrified look on his face as he shook uncontrollably from the shock. Another man jumped from the fourth floor and landed on spiked railings. We held him up for what seemed to be an eternity, while the fire brigade cut around the railings; they could not use oxyacetylene torches because the heat would have transmitted to his body. Then we had to hold him in the ambulance between two trolleys, with the railings still through his body.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in an incredibly thoughtful debate this afternoon. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to his first Committee and the tone in which he opened this debate. I also pay tribute to his father. I jolly well hope that he is sitting at home watching this afternoon. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for setting out their amendments to the first clause of the Bill, which relates to the police covenant.
I echo other noble Lords’ comments on PC Harper and Sergeant Matt Ratana, who gave their lives protecting the general public. To echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, there is no doubt that our brave police encounter some of the most challenging circumstances on a daily basis, often operating in some of the most difficult and traumatic situations imaginable. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for outlining, albeit in very graphic detail, some of the experiences he has had to endure during his policing career. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for bringing to this House a unique experience as Parliament’s only PCC, and I wish him well in his retirement.
What we have talked about this afternoon is what makes the police covenant so important, with its central tenet the health and well-being of members and former members of the police workforce, their physical protection, and support for their families. It is a priority for the Government, and I am very pleased that we have brought this forward.
We recognise the very positive intention behind Amendments 1, 3 and 4, and I could not disagree what most noble Lords have said. However, what I would say is that they are not necessary, on the basis that consideration of mental health, including having regard to programmes offering advice on assessment and treatment, the impact of trauma and support and the training for health and resilience, are already well within scope of Clause 1, under the banner of health and well-being.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked me to outline what the provision includes, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris and Lady Brinton, talked about PTSD, which affects an awful lot of police officers, both when serving and after their career. I shall outline some of those things. First, we will ensure that occupational health standards are embedded in all forces, holding chiefs to account for providing the right quality and investment in their workforce. The National Police Wellbeing Service has been working hard to embed occupational health standards in forces, including for mental health. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who said that people should receive the right support that they need at the right time. That is absolutely central to providing effective mental health services.
The other thing that will be contained is consideration of a new chief medical officer for policing in England and Wales, and a review of what a good support model for families looks like, drawing on established good practice and research from other sectors and international partners. Once agreed, forces will be required to implement locally, bespoke to their local infrastructure, development of training for GPs around the role of the police, similar to military veterans GP training, and the development of pre-deployment mental health support provided to the police workforce, particularly in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the effect that this will have had on the police workforce, some of whom I have already spoken to.
There was quite a lot of talk about the interface between the Armed Forces and the police covenant, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester clearly made the distinction between the two forces, which are very different in terms of the demands on them. The work under the police covenant will recognise the specific issues that affect those working or who have worked in policing—to answer the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, it will include those who have retired—as a result of their role, and will seek to provide support to them and their families in addressing these issues. The police covenant and the legislation underpinning it have been drafted to ensure that they reflect the specific, unique needs of our police as they currently stand.
The heading is deliberately broad to allow the Secretary of State to consider the issues as they arise. We consciously framed the provisions in this way to enable a flexible approach to ensure that the issues that matter most to members and former members of the police can be taken into account and addressed in the annual report as they arise. This flexibility will allow the police covenant to evolve to respond to the most pertinent needs of current and former members of the police workforce in a timely manner. What we do not want to do is create a hierarchy of issues by explicitly listing specific issues in the Bill, where they will fall within those broader priorities.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in a very thoughtful and helpful discussion on this first group of amendments, as we begin our discussion on the Bill. I also thank the Minister for her reply. The way in which she tried to respond directly to the points the amendments were making was very helpful for the Committee on a number of issues, so I thank her and I think the Committee would thank her as well.
Having said that, and having been a Minister myself, I am always slightly suspicious when the term used for amendments is that they “are not necessary”. That was always a term I was told to use when I was not quite sure where I was. I say gently that when they “are not necessary” what I want to do—and I am sure other noble Lords would—is reflect on the Minister’s remarks to see if they indeed meet the points the amendments are making.
I have a couple of points to make. For example, the Minister said on a number of occasions, “We will keep this under review”, “We will look at how it works out” and “We will try to understand how the covenant operates in practice”. What many of us would say is that we can learn. The Minister mentioned the Armed Forces covenant, and I take the right reverend Prelate’s point about this, but we can learn from what the Armed Forces covenant has done. It seems a bit strange to say that this is not the same as the Armed Forces covenant. Everyone recognises that, but why wait to find the same thing happening with the police covenant, when we have seen from the Armed Forces covenant that for either central government or other public bodies to have due regard is important?
I note the point the Minister made about NARPO and the importance of the involvement of retired police officers. So, there are a number of points that we will need to reflect on as we go forward from Committee to Report, but with those brief remarks I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
I cannot call Amendment 6, as it is an amendment to Amendment 5.
Lord Paddick
“Scrutiny of investigation: timeliness
(1) The Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2020 are amended as follows. (2) After regulation 13 insert—“13A Scrutiny of investigation: timeliness (1) A legally qualified person within the meaning of regulation 28(4)(a) and (6) of the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020 shall be appointed to scrutinise the information provided pursuant to regulation 13. (2) On each occasion where information is provided in writing under regulation 13 paragraph (1) or (2) the legally qualified person appointed under paragraph (1) shall determine whether there is good and sufficient reason for—(a) the time already taken; and(b) realistically anticipated to be needed for completion of the investigation.(3) In determining whether there is good and sufficient reason under paragraph (2) the legally qualified person may have regard to any relevant matter, and shall have particular regard to—(a) whether the investigation has been efficient and effective;(b) whether there has been unnecessary or unreasonable delay having regard to complexity and seriousness of the case;(c) the impact upon the officer and others;(d) any anticipated further delay;(e) the public interest and affect upon confidence in the police disciplinary system; and(f) representations made on behalf of any person entitled to receive a copy of the information provided under regulation 13.(4) Unless the legally qualified person determines that there is good and sufficient reason under paragraph (2)(a) and (b) then—(a) all investigation into possible misconduct or gross misconduct shall be terminated forthwith; and(b) no disciplinary proceedings may be initiated in respect of the matters under investigation.(5) Nothing in this provision shall have any effect in relation to any criminal investigation.”(3) After regulation 19 insert—“19A Scrutiny of investigation: timeliness (1) A legally qualified person within the meaning of regulation 28(4)(a) and (6) shall be appointed to scrutinise the information provided pursuant to regulation 19.(2) On each occasion where information is provided in writing under regulation 19(1) the legally qualified person appointed under paragraph (1) shall determine whether there is good and sufficient reason for—(a) the time already taken; and(b) realistically anticipated to be needed for completion of the investigation.(3) In determining whether there is good and sufficient reason under paragraph (2) the legally qualified person may have regard to any relevant matter, and shall have particular regard to—(a) whether the investigation has been efficient and effective;(b) whether there has been unnecessary or unreasonable delay having regard to complexity and seriousness of the case;(c) the impact upon the officer and others;(d) any anticipated further delay;(e) the public interest and affect upon confidence in the police disciplinary system; and (f) representations made on behalf of any person entitled to receive a copy of the information provided under regulation 19.(4) Unless the legally qualified person determines that there is good and sufficient reason under paragraph (2)(a) and (b) then—(a) all investigation into possible misconduct or gross misconduct shall be terminated forthwith; and (b) no disciplinary proceedings may be initiated in respect of the matters under investigation.(5) Nothing in this provision shall have any effect in relation to any criminal investigation.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amends the Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2020 to provide for a mechanism for scrutiny and consequences where there are delays in disciplinary proceedings being brought against police officers.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, there has been much criticism of the police complaints and misconduct process from the perspective of members of the public being unable to achieve justice, but much less has been said about the impact on the officers under investigation, to which I alluded in the last group. When we come to consider Clause 43 and Schedule 4 to the Bill, I will remind the House of the changes the Government brought about in the Policing and Crime Act 2017 to limit the length of time members of the public could be kept under investigation by the police and on police bail. The Government accepted the unfairness of suspects being kept in suspense for months, even years, with the threat of prosecution still hanging over them. This is something many police officers face, with even graver potential consequences than someone who is accused of a criminal offence—potentially losing their livelihoods through being sacked or required to resign from the police service.
When I was a police inspector in charge of a relief, or shift, of officers, a woman who had been arrested and taken to one of my police stations made an allegation of indecent assault by a police officer during a routine search to ensure that she did not have anything that could cause injury while she was being held in a cell. I heard a commotion in the custody suite and went to see what was happening, only to find her spreadeagled on the floor with one officer on each limb. The situation was explained to me: she had resisted being searched, fighting with the female officer designated to search her, and had to be restrained. I asked the prisoner if she was okay and if she was going to behave herself now, and then ordered two female officers to take her into a cell to be searched, much to the concern of male officers, who I ordered to remain just outside the cell door.
Another prisoner, who was present in the custody suite and subsequently interviewed in prison by officers from the complaints unit, corroborated to some extent the female prisoner’s account—a scuffle and then being held down on the floor—although her allegation was actually of indecent assault by a female officer during the search, out of sight of the witness. When the complaints unit took all the female officers who had been on duty that night away for questioning simultaneously and suspended one from duty, I asked that I be interviewed as I was also a witness who had seen nothing untoward.
As a result, I was interviewed as a suspect under caution in a criminal investigation. Although I had already qualified for a promotion, it was delayed for 18 months, and the local area police commander recommended that I face a full disciplinary hearing for lack of supervision, with a recommendation that I be sacked—perhaps related to having recently separated from my wife and having sought permission to cohabit with a man, or perhaps not.
The day that the local area commander retired from the police service, the headquarters complaints and discipline department responsible for scheduling discipline hearings dropped all proceedings against me, and I was promoted. But in the intervening period, my health suffered, my marriage ended and my career was on hold, even though I had done nothing wrong and, arguably, in coming forward as a witness, everything right.
This is but a relatively minor, albeit personal, example of the impact that prolonged police misconduct investigations can have, which, unlike criminal investigations, have no effective time limits placed upon them.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, it has been fascinating and very moving to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but I am coming at this from a completely different direction. Although I am partly thinking about the police officers involved, I am also thinking about people who bring complaints against police officers. I have seen the police complaints system at first hand. At some point in the past, a Met Police sergeant came to me and told me that he had seen a few officers deleting files that the Met held on me. These were files that I had asked to see and had been told did not exist—so I saw the police complaints system at first hand. I took a complaint to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, a vastly underresourced organisation trying to do its best on very difficult work. This was not an emotional issue for me—it was a professional, work issue—but that Met Police sergeant suffered PTSD and was essentially hounded out of the Met Police because he had come to me as somebody who wanted the truth exposed, and so was in a whistleblowing situation. I could not do anything for him, but I persisted with my complaint.
There is a saying that justice delayed is justice denied, and it is true on both sides—perhaps more when people are emotionally involved in the complaint they are making, which as I say did not really apply to me. In a way it is doubly true for complaints against the police, because there is a power imbalance. The police are seen to retain their positions, authority, power and legitimacy while complaints are ongoing, and this can be extremely upsetting.
This issue has come to light because of the allegations against the murderer of Sarah Everard. It is staggering, and truly terrifying, that the police had within their ranks somebody they knew, jokingly perhaps, as “The Rapist”. A noble Lord from this House, a previous Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who is not in his place today, said in an interview on the radio that it was not true that he was called “The Rapist”—but he is the only person I have heard saying that was not true. Perhaps another ex-Metropolitan Police Commissioner here might know better.
So it is time to cut the delays that everybody on both sides experiences in police complaints and disciplinary hearings and, most importantly, to give the independent watchdog the resources it needs to do the job. I have complained in the past about the number of police officers it employs, because it seems to me that you do not necessarily set a police officer to catch a police officer—but in fact it is so underresourced that I feel it would benefit from almost anybody if it increased its staff. So this is something that the Government have to deal with.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, I support this amendment. The basic problem around IOPC investigations is one of timeliness and quality. I am afraid it has gone on an awful long time. To be fair, from time to time it concerns police investigations under other bodies, but it has persisted, despite the fact that the organisation has changed over the years from the IPCC to now the IOPC. This particularly affected groups of officers such as firearms officers, some of whom have been under investigation for in excess of 10 years. That cannot be for anyone’s good.
We talked earlier about the trauma suffered by individual officers, and that is one of the major causes of such trauma. I therefore think that some time kind of time limit would be helpful. Even in a criminal case such as murder, the point from commitment to arriving at Crown Court is expected to be of the order of 100 days. If such a complex case can be taken so quickly, it seems to me that these cases are surely susceptible to travelling far more quickly and then being decided in the hearing far more quickly, too.
There are some peculiarities around the police misconduct process which have to be understood and, I think, given some sympathy—but these things can be changed. For example, when a complaint is made, particularly where a criminal allegation is alleged, there is a transmission of the case, first from the force to the IOPC, then it may go to the CPS, and then it may go back to the IOPC and then it may go to the force. This merry-go-round goes on for months. It is not at all unusual for these cases to go for at least one year and usually more, and for there still to be no outcome.
There is a further level of complication when, for example, special evidence needs to be given in a court case. It is difficult to talk about this in public, but essentially, when intelligence is gathered by the police that cannot be shared in court and cannot be shared in a coroner’s court, a public inquiry has to be held in front of a qualified judge. All this does is lengthen the whole process. It particularly affects firearms officers when they have to justify why they shot someone and they are unable to explain the intelligence they received. It means that the whole process goes round this rigmarole again.
There are various remedies to try to resolve this. One is a simple time limit. The difficulty with a time limit is that it can be hard-line and does not fit every case. Sometimes you need some discretion. I would argue that the decision-making between the IOPC, the CPS and the force should be done in parallel and not in sequence. The consequence of it being done in sequence is that it keeps going on and on and they keep referring it back to each other. Surely, they could consider the same case in parallel and therefore reduce the time. It would be a good idea to have a legally qualified chair seriously examining the timeline and whether or not it is justified. If it is not justified, the chair should be able to intervene. If it is justified, of course the case should continue.
My final point may be to one side of the amendment, but it is important because it goes to the point about timeliness and quality. One of the challenges faced by the IOPC is that it does not always send its most experienced investigators to deal with the most complex cases. The equivalent for the police service would be that you never send your shoplifting squad to deal with a murder—that would not be very sensible. Officers build their experience in the shoplifting squad and may go on to do more complex things.
The reason may be, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, that the IOPC has insufficient resources. I think it also has insufficient specialism and does not build up its expertise. When a serious case comes in—someone loses their life or it is a serious allegation—they should dispatch the A team, not the people who happen to be available. I do not think that does anyone any good when they have to deal with serious matters which the families want straight answers to and the officers want to believe that the investigators have some maturity of judgment. It is not a matter of age but a matter of experience. For those reasons, the IOPC should consider this. It is not exactly pertinent to the amendment, but it is relevant to the discussion about quality that we can fairly have about IOPC investigations at the moment.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I strongly support these amendments. I too have little confidence in the IOPC and the resources that are available to it. It was very interesting to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said about it. We must shed some light on the timelines for these investigations, both for the police officers and for the alleged victim.
I have been within and have commanded a disciplined organisation, and I was always acutely aware of the need to complete investigations as fast as possible when something had gone wrong. If this amendment does not find favour and the noble Lord needs to return on Report, I can make a very much longer speech then.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak to Amendment 8, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and of which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is a co-signatory. It is an important amendment. I was particularly moved by the comments made by the noble Baroness, reminding us that of course it is from a police officer’s point of view but that this is also about a complainant’s point of view. It is from both sides that this debate has taken place.
Sometimes you look at an amendment and wonder whether it is as important as some others. Listening to the moving opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and others, I have been struck that this is a crucial amendment and a crucial discussion which is of huge significance to the police, communities and our country, particularly in light of issues that have arisen over the last few months. However, investigations that are delayed and drag on without resolution are completely unacceptable for the complainant and the officer in question.
I was completely unaware and absolutely astonished to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, from his experience as a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, that officers under investigation have been waiting for 10 years. Whatever the rights and wrongs of what happened and whether they were guilty or innocent, that cannot be right. This has got to be looked at by the Minister who now has responsibility for this, wherever you come from in the debate. I am sorry if other noble Lords knew this, and that I was the only person here who was unaware of it. I knew that there were delays, but frankly, that is astonishing. We have just had a significant and important debate on protecting the mental health of our officers. One can only imagine the mental health implications for people under investigation but also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, reminded us, for people who have made the complaints. It does not serve justice for anybody.
There is some suggestion about delays in driving cases, but if she knows, can the Minister tell the Committee whether there is a particular delay in one area or a general problem across investigations? The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, mentioned firearms, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, mentioned some other examples, but is there a particular problem which emerges when a complaint is made in a particular area? There have been many references to certain offences not being taken seriously even when complaints were made, but it would be interesting for the Minister to come back to us on that.
I think that, at its heart, this amendment is saying that if we do not get this right, public confidence is undermined and eroded, and it is of no benefit to any of us not to be confident in the system. We must believe that the investigations which take place are fair, operate in a timely manner and are done with that integrity which people can understand and believe. We all accept that. Nobody here would disagree that this is the process which must happen and should be in place. However, as we have heard, that is not happening. Therefore, the amendment rightly asks us whether the answer is to set a time limit, to lay out a process that is better and more effective. The key question for the Minister is: what plans are there to review and update the disciplinary process, to restore public confidence and to reassure all of us that, at the end of the day, not only those who are complained against can feel confident but those who are making the complaint? That is the resolution that we all want from this important amendment.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, set out, this amendment seeks to further improve the timeliness of disciplinary and misconduct proceedings against police officers. It seeks to do this by amending existing regulations governing complaint and misconduct investigations by the IOPC, as well as those conducted by force professional standards departments. In substance, they seek to introduce a new system of separate independent adjudicators with powers to close down investigations which have taken longer than 12 months, where they decide that there is no “good and sufficient” reason for delay.
Again, with this amendment, I agree with the thrust of what the noble Lord and others said, namely that disciplinary and misconduct investigations should be conducted and completed in a timely fashion, for the reasons set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Hogan-Howe. Like the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, when I heard “10 years” I was utterly shocked. However, this amendment comes at a time when investigation timescales are already reducing and when the Government have worked hard to reduce bureaucracy in the system and not add to it.
Under the IOPC’s predecessor, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, investigations would on average take 11 months. Since 2018, under the IOPC, that has fallen by almost 30% to just eight months. The IOPC has closed more than 90% of its cases in under 12 months and is making strong progress on the number of cases that it closes in under nine months and even in under six months. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said, it is in nobody’s interest for investigations to drag on for long periods unnecessarily. We recognise the impact that this can have on everyone concerned.
It might be helpful in terms of explaining the trajectory that the Government introduced a package of reforms in February last year to the police complaints and disciplinary systems. It included new provisions to improve timeliness, with an expectation that investigations will normally be completed within 12 months. If not, the investigating body must provide a written explanation of any delays and steps to bring the investigation to a conclusion. The Government expect the IOPC to go further, and it now has targets in its business plans to complete many of those investigations in under nine and six months, as I said.
There are a number of reasons why cases might take too long, including the complexity of a case, the time- scale being impacted by parallel criminal investigations, and delays in obtaining expert evidence or post-mortem reports. It might be further complicated by delays in obtaining accounts from key police witnesses and subjects. That said, it is not acceptable for investigations to go on for too long, but the trajectory of timescales is certainly downwards.
The noble Lord’s amendment would introduce an additional layer of cost and bureaucracy. It would also risk creating perverse incentives for investigators to rush to meet deadlines at the expense of the quality of an investigation, particularly in those complex cases or if historic matters are at stake.
If an investigation into police wrongdoing was terminated without being concluded and that officer might have had a case to answer for gross misconduct—I can think of very recent cases which are relevant here—this would significantly undermine public confidence and potentially the course of justice. I am sure that is not the intention of noble Lords.
The amendment also risks undermining the independence of the police disciplinary system, blurring the lines between when legally qualified persons are appointed to this role and when the same person is appointed as a legally qualified chair of a misconduct hearing. These individuals would be selected from the same pool. That fundamentally changes the role of a legally qualified chair and jeopardises the independence of their position and the disciplinary system.
In conclusion, the Government have already taken steps to reduce investigation timescales and we will be monitoring the timeliness of investigations, drawing on new data collection requirements that we introduced as part of recent reforms. I hope that, for the reasons I have outlined, the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this important debate, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her support for speedy justice. Obviously, this impacts the complainant as well as the officers.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for his contribution. It seems very strange standing here and talking about a former commissioner in that way, but I am in police mode at the moment, I think. He made a very important point about firearms officers who volunteer to take on this enormous responsibility and are then treated so badly by the system.
The Police Federation—I am grateful for its support of these amendments—accepts that there will be delays if a criminal investigation is involved. However, there are still significant delays even after the criminal matters have been dealt with, as I outlined in the examples I gave.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for his promise to come back all guns blazing, as it were, if I bring the amendment back on Report.
It is interesting that there is a parallel with the Armed Forces again. I spoke to a former soldier who was resigning from the police service and asked him why. He said that he was leaving because, in the Armed Forces, when something goes wrong, the most senior officer involved takes responsibility and faces a court martial, while in the police service, the responsibility is pushed down to the lowest-possible level, to alleviate the responsibility of senior officers. That is an aspect of the culture of the police service; I agree with that officer’s conclusions.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, talked about public confidence. If there is no confidence in the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the police complaints system, this will be partly due to the undue delays. Complainants are beginning to think “What are they trying to cover up? Why is it taking so long?”. It is essential that these things are dealt with in a timely manner.
I thank the Minister for her support in principle, but the examples I gave were not complex cases; they were simple, but they still took years. They did not involve expert witnesses, yet there were still delays. These are recent cases from last year.
I am sorry but I do not accept the Minister’s assertion that this amendment would result in a rush to complete investigations. These completely independent people would assess whether there were justified reasons for investigations going on as long as they had. Clearly, if these investigations were not being dealt with in a timely manner, they would have something to worry about. This is about picking up those cases in which there is unnecessary and unreasonable delay. Of course, the same chair would not adjudicate over whether an investigation was going on too long and then chair the discipline investigation.
We are on to something here and I am very grateful to the Police Federation for bringing it to my attention. We may well need to discuss this further on Report, but at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Earl Attlee
“(3) After section 2 of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 insert—2A Potting (1) A person commits an offence of potting if the person—(a) maliciously causes an emergency worker to unwillingly or unwittingly come into direct contact with any substance containing urine, excrement or ejaculate,(b) is in custody and causes or permits their own urine or excrement to be intercepted without lawful reason or excuse, or (c) is in custody and causes or permits their own ejaculate to be intercepted without lawful reason or excuse.(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), a substance that looks and smells as if it contains urine or excrement is to be taken to contain such substances.(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b), only in exceptional circumstances may the court accept a defence of “lawful reason or excuse” in the absence of evidence of a prior direction by a clinically qualified person.(4) In each and every case where the alleged offence takes place in a custodial environment and the Crown Prosecution Service decide not to prosecute on the grounds of not being in the public interest, the Lord Chancellor must be notified within 28 days of any such decision being made.(5) The Secretary of State must ensure that sufficient suitable kits for collecting evidence samples are available within the Prison Service.(6) A person guilty of an offence to which this section applies is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months;(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.””
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 9 standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede.
From time to time, it falls on this House and its committees to debate extremely distasteful matters. This will be one of those occasions. However, there are some euphemisms that we can utilise. We can use the term “relevant substance” to mean any substance mentioned in the proposed new Section 2A(1) of the 2018 Act. If we need to be more specific, we can refer to subsections (1)(b) and (1)(c) in the proposed new section. The type of assault in question is generally termed “potting”.
Let us suppose a dedicated and efficient junior official of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is walking down the high street and he or she is assaulted by an aggrieved taxpayer. Suppose the assault is achieved by inverting a bucket containing the relevant substance on his or her head, or alternatively by using what I would call the “custard pie technique”. The Committee will appreciate that the distress caused to the junior official would be off the scale. The victim would be comforted, if that was possible, by the knowledge that the police would regard it as a very serious assault. There is no doubt that the police would go to great lengths to secure the evidence and that the CPS would invariably prosecute if the police produced the necessary evidence. If such an assault occurred, the Committee would expect to see extensive national media coverage, possibly with public statements made by the Home Secretary or the relevant chief constable.
I have to tell the Committee that this type of assault is not unusual in the prison service today, but a thorough investigation and prosecution does not invariably follow. In the event of such an assault, the Committee will completely understand the overriding desire of the prison officer or other victim to immediately get under a shower and wash off every drop of the relevant substance. Unfortunately, this may interfere with the evidence trail.
There are other difficulties associated with bringing the perpetrators of such an assault to justice. First, the police have numerous and conflicting priorities; I am afraid that they are often unable or unwilling to attach much priority to an assault of this type when the victim is a prison officer or governor, and the assault occurs within the secure estate. A further difficulty is that the CPS is apparently not very energetic in prosecuting these cases. Part of the problem may be the evidence trail that I have already referred to.
I should also point out to the Committee that there is a complex criminal infrastructure in most prisons. It can be that the prisoner carrying out the assault has no grievance himself but makes the assault on behalf of others. Often, this is because the prisoner who is “invited” to do the deed has no more time that can be added to his time in custody without being charged with a new offence. He could also be put under considerable pressure by other criminals to commit the offence. The Minister will doubtless correctly tell us that there are existing relevant offences, but without a specific offence, prosecution is less likely.
Furthermore, the existing offences do not catch preparatory acts; that is to say, intercepting the relevant substance. Of course, the person who commits this offence of interception could easily and certainly be identified. My amendment proposes a new offence of potting. It makes it clear that, if the substance looks or smells like the relevant substance, it is that substance. It makes it an offence within the custodial environment for anyone to intercept their own relevant substance, under new subsection (1)(b), with a tightly defined medical exemption. The lawful reason or excuse exemption is less constrained for relevant substances falling under new subsection (1)(c) for obvious and understandable reasons. Proposed new subsection 4 requires the CPS to notify the Lord Chancellor if it is decided not to prosecute on public interest grounds. I would like to make it clear to the Committee that the intention is to make the probability of prosecution and conviction very high, in order to completely deter such assaults.
We ask prison officers, governors and others to look after some of the most mad, bad and sad members of our society. Some, as we know, are just minor offenders, while others are particularly evil, devious and dangerous. We have a retention problem within the prison service; allowing this type of assault to go unpunished must surely have a negative effect on morale and retention. We owe it to those charged with such onerous duties to protect them so far as is possible from assaults of this nature—and indeed from any other. We can discharge our duty by ensuring that there is a high probability of prosecution and conviction for these offences. I beg to move.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 11, in the name of my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester, with her permission, as she is sadly unable to be here today. I declare her interest as Anglican bishop of prisons in England and Wales.
This amendment seeks to improve Section 3 of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 by expanding the definition of “emergency worker” to include all staff working in prisons. All those who work in prisons play a valuable role. However, currently, only officers and some healthcare staff are covered by this legislation and, as such, the risk for others working in prisons is increased, because prisoners are well aware of the more severe consequences of assaulting an officer compared with others working in prisons. Someone described this as effectively painting a target on their backs. This is an unintended consequence of the current legislation, which is unfair to many prison workers, undermines their safety and can be easily dealt with through this amendment.
The work of chaplains, educators and others who work in prisons is essential. They play a crucial role in the well-being and support of prisoners, in the work that underpins successful rehabilitation of offenders, and in maintaining a well-run and ordered prison. Prison chaplains, teachers, instructors and healthcare workers are vital vocations within the justice system. They need support and security to perform their roles well.
This amendment is supported by the Joint Unions in Prisons Alliance, and it has shared disturbing anecdotes from prison workers, as yet unsupported in law as emergency workers. One worker reported:
“Cutbacks in prison officers mean we are at greater risk than ever. I have been working in this environment for 10 years and have never known it so bad.”
Another noted:
“The prison is unsafe despite receiving an urgent notification last year—little has changed. We are running at significantly reduced numbers but there is no order or discipline in the jail. Staff assaults are an almost daily occurrence. One of my nursing staff was severely assaulted in the clinic room and I have a high level of staff receiving counselling due to fears around safety.”
A third said:
“I am a lone instructional officer in a textiles cutting and manufacturing workshop within an immigration removal centre. As a civilian, I don’t receive Control & Restraint training, carry a baton or wear a body-worn camera.”
Prison chaplains share in the front-line care of prisoners, providing pastoral and spiritual comfort. It is shocking that they might be seen as an easy target for physical assault. This is an account from a prison chaplain:
“I was leading some funeral prayers for an 18 year old. He was poorly and had had a hospital place to go to until a more needy child in the community got it. His Aunt Died and he requested funeral prayers. He was edgy as we moved to Chapel and I spent some time settling him before I led him through some prayers. As I was reading Ps23, I saw movement to the side. I remember asking myself ‘What happens if I am assaulted here?’. Momentarily later I was hit side on causing bruising to my face and bruising. I had some concern as I am currently on blood thinners. Staff back up was immediate, I had photographs taken and was taken out to hospital for a check-up. I then went home for the afternoon and returned into work the following day, I wanted to ‘get back on my bike and start pedalling!’. As a Priest Chaplain we speak about ministry through adversary, I can now stand alongside my uniform colleagues who are at risk every day from assault and understand better how to support them, because I have been there.”
Another said:
“As a Christian Chaplain I was assisting a visiting Imam to ensure that Friday Prayers was able to take place. Just as prayers were about to start I was asked by staff to go downstairs and speak to a prisoner who had not brought his ID card and was not therefore being allowed in. My intention was to ask his name and if his name had not already been ticked off on the list, to allow him in. When I arrived at the door the prisoner was extremely angry. He said he did not want to speak to me but would only speak to the Imam. I explained that it was a visiting Imam who would not be able to help him and that he was busy as prayers were about to start. He said that if he was not allowed in he would go back to the wing and ‘start smashing up staff’. I looked around to ascertain the whereabouts of staff and as I turned my head to the right I felt a blow to the left hand side of my head, knocking off my glasses and causing a cut to the side of my nose. He was immediately restrained by staff and taken to the segregation unit. I was attended to by healthcare staff. I remained on duty as the visiting Imam was a friend and I wanted to ensure that all went smoothly and that he was able to get off the premises after prayers.”
This chaplain received excellent care from colleagues working in the prison but should be supported through the law, as an emergency worker.
I would add that, in the last 12 months, I have spoken to two prison chaplains in my own area; one was assaulted and the other explained the fear they now face because of the amount of lone working they find themselves doing and how often there is no one nearby if something were to occur. It cannot be right that some front-line prison workers are protected while others are not.
In conclusion, prisons that are dangerous for staff are dangerous for prisoners too and disrupt the essential task of rehabilitation. Will the Minister give assurance that the Government are committed to making prisons safer working environments for all staff?
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I have Amendment 10 in this group. According to the Times newspaper, in an article dated 10 March this year, Chris Philp MP, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office and Ministry of Justice responsible, according to the article, for sentencing, said that
“detailed research had found that the likelihood of being caught and punished was much more important in discouraging people from committing crime than length of jail sentences.”
Answering a Parliamentary Question about the deterrent effect of longer sentences, he said, again according to the Times:
“The evidence is mixed, although harsher sentencing tends to be associated with limited or no general deterrent effect. Increases in the certainty of apprehension and punishment have consistently been found to have a deterrent effect.”
I subsequently discovered that this was the Answer to a Written Question on 19 February from the Conservative Member for Rother Valley about pet theft—of which more on another day. The Bill certainly is the gift that keeps on giving.
Noble Lords around the Committee will be aware that we on these Benches have consistently said that longer prison sentences do not deter criminals and now, according to the Government, harsher sentences have limited or no deterrent effect. So why do we have Clause 2 in the Bill? Noble Lords may be surprised that, as a former police officer, I am not supportive of this measure. Something needs to be done about assaults on emergency workers, but an increase in the maximum sentence is not what is needed. What is needed is a change in attitude among the general public, in society and in the courts towards assaults on emergency workers in general and on police officers in particular. It appears to me to have become accepted by many that being assaulted is part of the job of a police officer or an emergency worker. But no one should be expected to tolerate abuse or assault because of the work they do, whether they are a Member of Parliament or an emergency worker.
The type of assault covered by this clause is common assault. Anything that causes a significant injury, even if it is not permanent, such as a bruise, can and should result in a charge under Section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, for which the maximum term of imprisonment is already five years. We are talking about relatively minor physical harm. Can the Minister tell the Committee how many cases of assault on an emergency worker to date have attracted the current maximum penalty of 12 months in prison—or a sentence of imprisonment at all?
The reason for my amendment, in effect for the Sentencing Council to review its guidance for the existing offence where the existing maximum penalty is 12 months’ imprisonment, is to ensure that the courts and the Crown Prosecution Service reflect the seriousness of this offence in their decision-making, rather than what we see week after week reported on social media, where assaults on emergency workers in general and police officers in particular are treated by the CPS and the courts as part and parcel of the job. That sends a message to criminals and the general public that you can assault emergency workers with impunity, because in court you will be just be given a slap on the wrist—if it even gets that far. What is the point of increasing the maximum penalty for an offence to two years when the Government themselves acknowledge that harsher sentences have little or no deterrent effect and the courts, which can currently send someone to prison for up to 12 months, rarely if ever do so?
The Government may say that in some cases severe penalties can have a deterrent effect—but an increase from one year to two years for an offence often committed in the heat of the moment during the course of a confrontation between a police officer and a member of the public is unlikely to be one of them. Far better that the Government mount a publicity campaign stating that it is completely unacceptable to attack emergency workers who put their lives on the line every day to protect and serve the public, than that they make a minor adjustment to the maximum penalty that is likely to go unnoticed by those it is targeted at, either as a deterrent or in court following conviction, unless there is a significant change in the attitude of judges, prompted by a change in the sentencing guidelines.
On Amendment 11, proposed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, clearly, prison officers are as vital a uniformed force as police, fire and rescue services, the ambulance service and the coastguard, and they are afforded similar protection. I quite understand how others working in prisons feel that they are more vulnerable and, as the right reverend Prelate said, they feel they have a target on their back because they are excluded. He gave the appalling example of an assault on a prison chaplain that resulted in bruising to the chaplain. But, again, I say that that offence could have been prosecuted under Section 47, where there is an even greater penalty available than for an assault on an emergency worker. So we are not supportive of the increase.
On Amendment 9, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, of course, if such substances are actually thrown at a prison officer or other emergency worker, it would amount to assault and therefore it would be covered by existing legislation around assaults on emergency workers, with a similar penalty to the one the noble Earl is proposing in his amendment. So we feel that there needs to be a change in attitude towards the apparent acceptability of assaults on emergency workers, rather than simply a cosmetic increase in the maximum penalty.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I think the noble Lord and I are in agreement that the problem is that we are not prosecuting these offences, rather than the outcome in the courts. Because, for the prisoners, it may be that even another three-month penalty for my new offence would be enough to deter them—or, using the existing penalties, as the noble Lord said, it is the probability of being prosecuted that matters.
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, of course we want to change attitudes and that is what we must try to do, however long it takes us, but I have to say, from my experience over five years as a police and crime commissioner—I am sorry to keep on about this—this wrong seems to have increased on a fairly enormous scale. That is only anecdotal, but the truth is that many more of those who are about to be arrested seem to think that it is okay to have a go at the police in order not to get arrested. That seems to me to be very unfortunate, and it is going to take a long time before it changes. It puts the police, and obviously other emergency workers, in a nearly impossible position sometimes—and when I talk about the police, I am really referring to other emergency workers as well.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, I do not want to see higher sentences for the sake of higher sentences, and I do think that their effect is often very limited, but I have to say—it seems odd, coming from these Benches, I suppose—that I have a certain sympathy with the Government here, because it seems to me that the position has to be dealt with immediately in some way, and one of the purposes of raising the maximum sentence available is to try, in the best possible way, to convince the courts that this is a more serious offence than sometimes they think it is. It is not always minor, I am afraid—sometimes it is undercharged—but it is a really serious problem that every emergency worker, and in particular every police officer, faces every time he or she makes an arrest, and I do not blame the Government for wanting to do something about it.
I am not saying it will be very successful; I think it is a much wider societal problem. But I do think it is something the Government are entitled to at least think about in this way. I do not say that with any happiness at all, but to claim that it is not a real problem is just untrue: it is a real, everyday problem.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, I entirely accept that this is a real problem, but real problems require real solutions that have some chance of being effective. I cannot imagine anyone who commits an assault on a police officer or emergency worker actually knowing what the maximum sentence is for that offence—still less that the Government are currently increasing it. That information might just get through to the newspapers for a week or two, but there is no measurable deterrent effect from something that people do not know much about anyway. Most people must realise that if they get caught assaulting an emergency worker they will get into some kind of trouble, but whatever impels these dreadful assaults is clearly not likely to be affected by what is happening here.
What happens when you increase the maximum sentence? If you achieve generally longer sentences, you have made a commitment of resources. The question has reasonably to be asked: is this the best way of spending money to try to stop emergency workers being attacked? We must therefore look at any other measures that you can reasonably take that would have that effect, if, as I contend, there is no evidence that increasing the maximum sentence will lead to any reduction in attacks on emergency workers or police officers.
This is just one of many examples, and there are others that we will perhaps debate more fully later in the Bill, where the Government rush to have something to say—lengthening the maximum sentence certainly looks like having something to say—but it does not have the effect in the real world that we all desire.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am a bit too squeamish to discuss Amendment 9 but I wanted to reflect on Amendments 10 and 11 and to follow on from some of the comments just made about the deterrence factor and expanding how long people are threatened with jail for.
I thought the Bar Council raised some very useful challenges for us to consider in relation to the section of the Bill dealing with assaults on emergency workers. The Bar Council asks us to consider if increasing the maximum penalty for such assaults is necessary or commensurate or whether it will work. It notes the limited evidence. I thought when I was listening to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, who I was very compellingly convinced by, that it can feel a bit like virtue signalling rather than tackling the problem.
I was particularly interested in a slightly different point from the one that has been made and was struck by what the Bar Council said in relation to, I think, these amendments: there is a danger of creating a disparity between the penalties for attacks on emergency workers and those on other workers, and indeed a disparity between attacks on emergency workers and those on members of the public. There is an offence of common assault that should be considered a serious offence whoever is on the receiving end of it. Whoever is attacked, I would want the law to deal with it.
We heard from the right reverend Prelate how, if you start saying that an attack on this particular group of workers has to have a particular length of sentence, that might make other groups of workers—in this instance, in prisons—feel as though they are being neglected or somehow are not as important. We therefore have to be nervous about differentiating between categories of workers because that might end up being divisive, implying that front-line workers in some jobs are more important than others.
As a former teacher who has worked in the education sector—I worked with some challenging young people and was on the receiving end of some common assault, let us put it that way—I have been following closely the case of Professor Kathleen Stock, a feminist philosophy academic at Sussex University, whom the police have advised should not return to her place of work on campus because of the danger of violence from some self-styled anti-TERF activists. There have been all sorts of threats and harassment. They even have a special phone number for her to ring. There are other teachers who face this.
I raise that because when it comes to this kind of threat, that kind of potential violence and those kinds of assaults, it does not matter if you are a front-line worker. I do not know why the “emergency” bit should give you an extra penalty. I am not advocating for a special penalty for attacks on education workers. I just do not want people on the front line to feel that some are more important than others.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I will open by discussing first some of noble Lords’ contributions on their amendments.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, spoke to his Amendment 10. The amendment is about preparing sentencing guidelines for assaulting an emergency worker, or along those lines. My experience as a sitting magistrate is that those guidelines are not available at the moment so we use the old guidelines for assaulting a police officer as the guidance. However, I reassure him that whenever I sentence people I invariably make it explicit that part of the sentence, or maybe part of the uplift, is due to the role played by the person who was assaulted. So although it may not have been expressly set out in legislation about emergency workers, if it concerns a teacher or something like that, I will say that it is a very serious matter and I have taken that into account in the sentence. Nevertheless, I understand the points that the noble Lord made.
The amendment by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, who spoke on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, seeks to expand the definition of “emergency worker” to include all prison staff, and he gave some very moving examples of chaplains, educators, instructors and healthcare workers. I think he has seen some of the same briefing that I have, which says essentially that many of those people are saying that they have never seen it so bad in terms of assaults on those people working in prisons.
As is often the case in Committee on Bills in this House, the debate went wider. I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said about being cautious about having a hierarchy of people who work in public service in one way or another. Nevertheless, I also took into account what my noble friend Lord Bach said: there is a role for sending a message about the Government responding in some way, although that does not necessarily mean increasing sentences themselves; there are other ways of responding that may be more effective.
I turn to Amendment 9, which I have put my name to, and I thank the noble Earl for tabling it. As well as sitting as a magistrate in London, I am also co-chair of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group here in Parliament and I have had a lot of lobbying on this matter, as I know other noble Lords have too.
The noble Earl explained the practice of “potting” in prisons. It can be done by prisoners who are mentally ill or, as he explained, by other prisoners as part of a tactic to punish officers who are targeted by particular groups of prisoners. He explained the circumstances where it may have a relatively minimal effect on the offender if they are towards the end of their sentence.
There is a widespread perception among prison officers that they have been neglected by the Government and that the CPS and the existing discipline structures within the prisons, and indeed visiting judges, do not take the practice of potting sufficiently seriously. In fact, on various TV programmes about working in prisons, we can all see, as I have, prison officers being potted. In fact, I have a magisterial colleague whose niece is a serving prison officer and, only a few months ago, she was potted herself. Of course, this is a completely disgusting and disturbing thing to happen. I hope that it will not reduce her commitment to the job of being a prison officer, but I have to say that I do not know; it might be one of the reasons that some officers choose to resign from the service.
There are many issues facing the Prison Service, which we have debated many times: high turnover of staff, pay and conditions, inexperienced managers, a change in the retirement age—the list goes on. I suspect that the noble Earl is right to anticipate that, in his answer, the Minister will say that the practice of potting could be charged in any number of ways and may well argue that it is covered by existing legislation. But the point that the noble Earl was making is that it simply is not taken seriously enough. The addition of a separate, specifically defined piece of legislation outlining this practice, making it more difficult for the authorities to minimise, would show that the Government value prison officers. This is an opportunity, I would say, for the Government to demonstrate that they value prison officers.
I do not know what the noble Earl plans to do at further stages of this Bill. This is such an egregiously disgusting practice and it is a tactic used in prisons; this is a specific way of responding to that tactic, which is within the Government’s hands in this Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Wolfson of Tredegar) (Con)
My Lords, I begin by placing on the record my apologies for not being in my place at Second Reading for personal family reasons. I also place on record my thanks to many noble Lords for their kind and supportive words and messages; I am very grateful.
Turning to the substance of the matter before the Committee today, Clause 2 of the Bill proposes an increase in the maximum penalty for the offence of common assault and battery when that offence is committed against an emergency worker. The definition —this is important—of “emergency worker” is set out in Section 3 of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018. The pandemic has reminded us, if we needed reminding, that the vital front-line role that our emergency workers play, and indeed always have played, is of immense importance to our society. But we have recently seen an increasing number of assaults being committed against emergency workers in the course of their duties. This will simply not be tolerated.
Last summer, we delivered on our manifesto commitment to consult on this issue. We found that the large majority of respondents supported our proposal to double the maximum penalty to two years. This will ensure that the law provides our police and other emergency workers with sufficient protection to carry out their duties and will enable the courts to pass sentences that reflect the severity with which we view these offences. This measure builds on previous legislation introduced by the Government back in 2018. We have enhanced already the protection of emergency workers where more serious assaults such as ABH and GBH are committed—I think the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made this point. These more serious offences obviously carry higher maximum penalties than common assault. Where such offences are committed against an emergency worker acting in the course of their duties, this is regarded as an aggravating feature of the offence, warranting a higher sentence.
Let me deal first with the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. I am grateful to her for tabling the amendment, and to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for acting as her spokesman this afternoon—I was going to say, “as the Aaron to her Moses”, if I may put it in those terms. The purpose of her amendment is to broaden the definition of “emergency worker” to encompass all staff in custodial institutions. The Committee will be aware that all prison officers, prisoner custody officers and those who exercise functions associated with these professions are already included in the existing definition of “emergency worker” from the 2018 legislation.
The problem is that broadening the definition of “emergency worker” can have unintended consequences. The broader definition would capture anyone employed or engaged to carry out functions in a custodial institution, which can extend to prisoners who undertake jobs within the institution. The amendment would then place this group of convicted prisoners on the same statutory footing as prison officers, constables and NHS staff. That would be unacceptable.
By means of increasing the maximum penalty for the assault of an emergency worker, we want to protect those who protect others. That is why it is right that emergency workers are on a different statutory footing. Clause 2, therefore, does not seek to amend the underlying definition of “emergency worker” that was accepted by Parliament when passing the 2018 legislation. I acknowledge the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, given the work of the Bar Council in this area, but it is right, I suggest, that we acknowledge the special position of emergency workers, as Parliament did back in 2018.
Of course, that is not to say that any form of violence in custodial institutions is acceptable; it plainly is not. We want to make sure that our prisons are safe for all staff, as well as all prisoners. Picking up on the point from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede—
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
I have a pertinent question. I am troubled by the rather lame excuse that the noble Lord offers from the Dispatch Box about the “unintended consequences”. Surely it would be very simple to put in place an exemption that barred prisoners from benefiting from that clause. I cannot understand why the noble Lord is so resistant to this particular move; there must be a workable way round it. I have been a Home Office Minister and have had lame excuses written for me—this sounds like one of those.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
I am afraid that the noble Lord appears to have missed the point of principle that I made before making what he characterises as a lame excuse, but which I thought was in fact rather a good point. The point of principle is that we have a definition of “emergency worker”, which Parliament accepted back in 2018. It is a good working definition, and we shall stick with it; that is a point of principle. The point on this amendment was that it goes too far because it has those unintended consequences. The noble Lord should not lose sight of my first point by concentrating only on the second, which he regards as lame and which I regard, from a legal perspective, as quite a nice point—I do urge upon him the point of principle as well.
I was coming to the point that we value prison officers. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, laid down the gauntlet and asked that we do so from the Dispatch Box. Of course we do. Our position on this amendment has nothing to do with not valuing prison officers or the work that anybody does in prison.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham asked what we were doing to protect prison staff. Those who carry out corresponding functions to prison officers and prison custody officers are already included in the definition of an emergency worker. Offences against those people will be treated as an aggravating factor in sentencing guidelines. That is what I wanted to say in response to that amendment.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
I am sorry—I thought very carefully about whether I should intervene. I was genuinely so taken aback by the Minister’s reference to prisoners being included that I nearly leapt up immediately. The question was then asked, but I have tried to replay it in my head. I absolutely understand that the Minister meant no offence but, out of context, I fear how it might be understood by those workers, such as chaplains, tutors and so on. By, in a sense, lumping them together with prisoners who have been employed, it could easily be misheard outside this House. I know that was not the Minister’s intention, but I ask him to put on the record that it was not what he meant.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to do that. As I am sure everybody recognises, that was not the point I was making. I appreciate that it was regarded as lame by some people, but the point that I sought to make was that the distinction and purpose of the amendment was to expand the definition from prison officers to other people working in prison. My point was that from the way in which it is drafted—and I appreciate that it could be redrafted—it could and would be read so broadly as to include prisoners who were doing jobs in prison. It was certainly not what I was saying to place prisoners doing jobs in prison with chaplains and others who are working in prison. I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for giving me the opportunity to make that clear, if it was not already.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
I seek one matter of clarification, although I should not need to. Is there no way, apart from raising the maximum sentence by legislation, by which government could bring to the attention of the prosecuting authorities, sentencing courts and so forth the aggravating features that cover all these amendments? There are the emergency workers in the first place, and the nauseating offence of potting, which I confess not to have heard of before, and assaults on prison officers. There are those who find themselves, in the ordinary course of their employment, exposed in these highly vulnerable circumstances to miscreance of an obvious character. Is there no governmental input to the Sentencing Council? Can the Government not influence those sorts of bodies to isolate the fact that these are manifestly aggravating circumstances, which should go to raise not only the likely sanction being imposed but the likelihood of prosecution?
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
As the noble and learned Lord knows far better than I do, one has to distinguish between aggravating and mitigating factors and the likelihood of prosecution. With regard to the Sentencing Council, I am confident that it already has that point on board. The question before the Committee is that of maximum sentence rather than aggravating or mitigating factors. I have also said—and, I hope, explained—that there is clear guidance in place to make sure that, when these offences are committed, they are dealt with either through the courts or through prison adjudication.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I just want to take the Minister back to the comments made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham on the definition of prisoners as workers. I cannot think of any other legislation where a prisoner enjoys the same rights as a worker. There are many rights that workers enjoy in this country, but none of them that I am aware of apply to prisoners. There must be a way around this, perhaps by a government amendment or some sort of redrafting, that would allow the suggestion made to be incorporated.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
I think I made it clear earlier that I was making two points in response to this amendment. The point that we are focused on at the moment is whether we could have more—and I say this respectfully—felicitous drafting than the drafting of the amendment that we currently have. I have accepted in principle that one could, and I made that clear in my previous answer and my answer to the right reverend Prelate. However, I do not want us to lose sight of my first response, on the point of principle: we have a definition in the 2018 Act of “emergency worker”, and that was regarded in 2018 as suitable and fit for purpose. It treated that definition as a separate status and a distinct group, and the Government’s position is that definition was good in 2018 and remains so now.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. On Amendment 11 from the right reverend Prelate, I am aware of the problem that he describes, but I did not make my new offence cover other Prison Service staff. I deliberately excluded probation officers just for reasons of simplicity, but if I managed to make my potting amendment find favour with the House, I would have to decide who was to be protected by it.
I am slightly disappointed by my noble friend’s response, because I thought that I was offering him the best thing since sliced bread, but he turned me down. The problem for the Minister running the Prison Service is that he cannot direct the police force to investigate these issues and, as he carefully explained to the Committee, he cannot direct the Crown Prosecution Service to pay greater attention to these offences either. My noble friend has no tools to protect prison officers—so I suspect that the Prison Officers’ Association will be a little bit disappointed with his approach.
I think we identified the underlying issue, which is the probability of being prosecuted for these sorts of these offences, and we need to have another look at that. I shall, of course, withdraw my amendment, subject to the usual caveats and discussions with the Opposition Front Bench.
Net Zero Strategy and Heat and Buildings Strategy
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Grantchester (Lab)
I thank the Minister for bringing yesterday’s Statement on the net-zero strategy and the heat and buildings strategy to your Lordships’ House. As he knows, the clock is ticking, and it is less than two weeks to go before COP 26 in Glasgow. I congratulate the Government on getting these two vital documents out—two coming along together at once—to fulfil long outstanding commitments to show the spread of attention needed across the economy. These are two vital aspects to the challenge to decarbonise all areas of our national life, our homes and buildings, and to how the Treasury values net zero in its command of the nation’s finances.
COP 26 is making the Government face up to the size of the challenge, and we support them in the focus that that brings on climate change action. We want the conference to be successful. It comes at a very opportune time in world affairs, and it comes now. Can the Minister update the House on the amount of commitments that the Government have secured to their goal of raising £100 billion annually for climate investments internationally?
There are many aspects of the Statement that are rightly welcomed—that the Government recognise that they must take action now, and that these two major initiatives represent vital change in the economy and environment. People are thinking that the Conservative Government are taking Britain back to the 1970s, with energy shortages and high prices. At this last moment before COP 26, there is a growing sense that the Government are finding the climate emergency too big to ignore and yet too hard to grasp. As the Minister is presenting both documents, can he confirm that the Treasury is now fully committed to helping industry and the public through this present crisis? There is a sense that the funding commitments nowhere near match the size of the challenge. There has been almost a decade since David Cameron shredded vital confidence on action when he slashed the renewable energy incentives that so many wished to participate in to do their bit.
Emissions from buildings are higher today than they were in 2015. There are 19 million homes rated below EPC band C that desperately need insulation and upgrading. However, having said that, I welcome the element on the incentivisation for heat pumps, especially recognising those off the grid, most notably in rural areas. It does rather leave consumers at the mercy of electricity prices, and the Statement makes mention of a further £950 million for a home upgrade grant scheme to decarbonise low-income homes off the gas grid. Can the Minister expand on this and say how many households this will benefit?
I wonder whether the support for heat pumps is actually a step back in support. To the majority on the grid, heat pumps are generally seven times the cost of conventional gas boilers. The £5,000 grant appears less than the help that is currently provided through the RHI. Granted that the RHI is being scrapped in April, and that it pays back over a longer timeframe, is the Minister convinced that the Government are doing enough to defray the huge up-front costs for consumers? The Government say that they would like to see conventional gas boilers no longer included in new house builds from 2035. Can the Minister show more commitment? Why cannot the Government bring in a ban on all new conventional boilers being available after at least 2035? This would parallel the challenges and ban on the production of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.
The hydrogen sector would certainly welcome the commitment towards hydrogen-ready boilers, that all quotes for any replacement or new boiler must include one for hydrogen-ready boilers. While they are still more expensive than conventional boilers, they certainly do not carry the huge price disadvantage of heat pumps. The Statement does not add any additional funding to the £240 million in the hydrogen strategy, which will not be made available until 2023. How do the Government plan to kick-start green hydrogen production at home when, to date, all orders for green hydrogen technology have been made overseas?
Hydrogen would certainly benefit the transport sector in the long term as well. In the meantime, I welcome the promotion of electric vehicles. Can the Minister outline the Government’s plan to help make electric cars more affordable for all consumers? I also welcome the emphasis on investments across the regions, most notably the HyNet cluster in the north-west, and stress to the Minister the need to engage effectively with metro mayors and local authorities, who are all eager to promote the net-zero agenda.
The Government used to insist that they were technology-neutral in their policies. They then moved to the scattergun approach of the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan without setting out a comprehensive plan across the economy. As they now fill in the gaps left, are the Government moving in this Statement from a scattergun policy towards picking winners and losers? This Statement, welcome as it is, resembles a pick ’n’ mix of support—so much has been omitted. I will leave it to other speakers to raise those many areas. However, the Government must go over to the touchline and check the monitor of reality. The Statement says that the Government will “gradually” move away from fossil fuels. “Gradually” is too slow. Action is needed now, and the Government must immediately cease the contradiction of providing support for fossil fuels both in the UK and overseas. The Government have said—the Statement repeats it—that the conference needs to be “a turning point for humanity.” What has been taking the Government so long? The earth is on the edge across the globe, and the Government must act as if they really believe it.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the Statement on these important and extensive documents, and I hope that the Government will provide time at an early opportunity when the House can have a full debate on the full detail that is included in the hundreds of pages that have been published.
I know that in the past when I have responded to publications, the Minister has sometimes been offended that I have not been as effusive in my praise as he thought was merited. As I know him to be a sensitive soul, I will try to start off as positively as I can. There is merit in the fact that, after so long, we actually have the documents at last. There is merit in the fact that the Government remain committed to our climate change goals, and we should give thanks that climate has not become the political dividing line that it has in other countries. I also welcome the decision to introduce a zero-emissions vehicle mandate and a new target for greening all electricity generation. However, I am afraid that, after that, I am running out of things to credit the Minister and the Government with.
The Treasury tells us in the Net Zero Review:
“The transition has implications for current and future taxpayers”—
but it does not tell us what they are. It provides no indication of how the black hole arising from declining fuel duty revenues will be replaced. It says only that
“the government may need to consider changes to existing taxes and new sources of revenue”.
Likewise, in addressing the crucial issue of carbon leakage, which is critical to the viability of our industries as we decarbonise, the Treasury blandly tells us:
“Further work is required”
and that
“a case for conducting a formal call for evidence may emerge.”
There is nothing in the document about using the financial regulatory system to curb the financing of new and dangerous fossil fuel exploration and exploitation, and there is nothing about net-zero requirements on all planning decisions. The complacency is breath-taking. The Treasury clearly thinks that the climate emergency is a distant threat rather than the clear and present danger that looms before all of us.
The heat and buildings strategy is even more devastatingly unambitious. The Government propose a grant scheme that they estimate will deliver 90,000 heat pumps per year, and they convert what was assumed to be a mandate to end new conventional boiler installations into an aspiration. Every year, something in the order of 1.2 million new gas boilers are installed. The Government’s target for heat pumps will reduce that number to just over 1.1 million new gas boilers installed every year. Bearing in mind that they have a lifespan of about 15 to 20 years, it is immediately apparent that we will be building in a long legacy of fossil fuel heating year after year. If that was not bad enough, 90,000 units will not provide the scale to drive down costs and incentivise installers to retrain in heat pump installation, so the Government’s hopes of falling prices driving demand will remain a fantasy.
However, worse than all that, there is no credible plan to upgrade the energy efficiency of our existing homes, which should be the very first priority. If we are going to upgrade the millions of homes the Government say we need to, we have to rapidly scale up our capacity so that we have the skills base to deliver at least 1 million home upgrades a year. We are nowhere near that yet and there is no plan here to achieve that. Installing heat pumps in homes that are leaking energy makes no sense at all, but the Government offer no route to tackling these problems.
What about the money? I would ask what happened to the £9.2 billion promised for energy efficiency in the Conservative Party manifesto, had it not become abundantly clear by now that a promise in that document now seems the best indicator of what will not happen rather than what will. However, it is clear that, after the green homes grant scheme ended, we are now being given a promise of less money over a longer period of time, and it seems to achieve less than we were promised.
So, while I welcome the continuing ambitions of the Government, I remind the Minister that, some months back, he acknowledged in response to questions that the Government needed not only ambitious 2050 targets but a credible short-term action plan to get there. Regrettably, this is not it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Oates, for their comments, even though the screen indicated the noble Lord, Lord Oates, had been renamed Lord Fox for most of his contribution. I am pleased to say he has been reincarnated in a different guise.
I was pleased to have the initial support of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. It deteriorated slightly from there, but never mind. On funding commitments, since the 10-point plan was announced, and including the commitments yesterday, that makes a total of £26 billion worth of public investment. More importantly, that has leveraged £90 billion of private sector investment into this sector as well. I can confirm the figure of £950 million for the home upgrade grant, which will particularly benefit the homes of low-income families in off-gas areas.
Both the noble Lords, Lord Oates and Lord Grantchester, mentioned the boiler upgrade scheme, which I can confirm will have £450 million over three years: £5,000 for air-sourced heat pumps, £6,000 for ground-sourced heat pumps. What most noble Lords missed, and a number of commentators as well, is that this is not the totality of our support for heat pumps. We are also installing a considerable number under the social housing decarbonisation fund, the public sector decarbonisation scheme and, of course, from 2025 when the new housebuilding strategy comes into force, there will be, pretty much, no alternative option for new builds than to install low carbon heating, so that will see a further acceleration. We are currently installing about 30,000 heat pumps a year: roughly 10,000 as a result of subsidy schemes and 20,000 in new builds. This is a massive ramping up.
If the green homes grant taught us anything, it is that we cannot just inject a large amount of funds and expect the industry to change overnight. There is a huge amount of transformational change taking place. To the credit of many private sector companies, they are coming forward with ambitious plans themselves. If I may mention but one: I visited Octopus yesterday morning. It has a fantastic new training centre in Slough and is proposing to employ and retrain hundreds, if not thousands, of currently qualified gas engineers to enable them to install heat pumps in the new revolution. The chief executive told me that by April next year, including this new grant system, they hope to be offering heat pumps for costs roughly comparable to existing gas boilers. I know that many other private sector companies have similar plans.
Clearly, heat pumps are expensive at the moment, but this is all about government funding, pump-priming the market, helping the private sector to innovate and bring the costs down. I am sure noble Lords will accept, that it is a strategy that was extremely successful in the offshore wind market. Costs for offshore wind were initially very expensive and are now comparable to, or possibly even cheaper—we will find out in the contracts for difference round—than existing fossil fuels.
I was surprised to hear that both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats now seem to be in favour of banning boilers. Our position is that it is certainly our aim and ambition that by 2035 we will be able to move away from installing gas boilers. Crucially, before we do that, we need to make sure there are viable alternatives in place. We certainly hope—given the figures that I gave for heat pumps—that by 2030 there would be comparable offers on the market, and alternatives in place. Maybe the hydrogen offer will be comparable by then. We will certainly consult on the possibility of making all boilers hydrogen-compatible, to enable that transition to take place, but as of yet the jury is very much out on whether there will be the ability, at reasonable cost, to produce the enormous quantities of hydrogen that would be required if we were to get anywhere close to it replacing natural gas. I am on the record as saying it is more likely that we will end up using it for industrial processes—trains, HGVs et cetera—rather than the large-scale replacement of gas for domestic heating. Although already, of course, there are trials taking place of hydrogen being injected into the gas main. Injecting up to 20%, it is still possible to work with existing appliances.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, also raised the issue of electric vehicles, and I can tell him that a further £620 million of funding for zero emission vehicle grants and EV infrastructure was announced. We allocated a further £350 million of the up to £1 billion automotive transformation fund, to support the electrification of UK vehicles and, importantly, their supply chain, as well, of course, as a £3 billion integrated bus network, and £2 billion to enable towns and cities to be cycled or walked.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, ended by talking about a pick-and-mix approach. I fundamentally disagree —this is a comprehensive strategy, looking at every individual sector of the economy in turn and outlining a comprehensive strategy of how they all need to do their bit to contribute towards the legally binding net-zero target.
I am grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Oates, started on a positive note before things descended. He asked me for details of the funding under the heat and building strategy. We have talked about the boiler upgrade scheme, and the social housing decarbonisation fund that is bubbling away in the background. They are extremely successful schemes, and I recommend that noble Lords visit some of the excellent schemes we are already installing. That is a further £950 million and £800 million respectively over 2022-23 and 2024-25. A further £1.4 billion over 2022-23 to 2024-25 is being invested in the public sector decarbonisation scheme, with the aim of reducing emissions from public sector buildings. There is £338 million for the heat network transformation programme and £270 million for the green heat network fund, sector regulation and new heat network zones by 2025.
I understand why noble Lords will always call on us to do more, but I think this does represent a comprehensive strategy tackling all parts of the economy and shows how they can all do their bit to contribute towards our decarbonisation goals. It was even recognised by the BBC’s environmental analyst Roger Harrabin. This is an extremely ambitious programme and is world leading.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, reports suggest that a companion document to the net-zero strategy entitled Net Zero: Principles for Successful Behaviour Change Initiatives was published and then withdrawn a few hours later. The report suggests that this government document raised concerns over the expansion of airports contained in government policy and tax exemptions for the aviation sector. It said that the Government needed to do more to make behavioural changes easy and affordable, and align commercial interests with net-zero outcomes. It proposed carbon taxes, a financial levy on food with a high-emission footprint, and forcing the markets to be more transparent to enable consumers to choose more sustainable options. Will the Minister confirm if these reports are true? Will he tell me why this report was withdrawn and what its status is now?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I believe there were some documents that were published in error, but they have been withdrawn. Fundamentally, we do not believe in telling people what to eat or how to live their lives. Our focus is on helping people, incentivising them to make green choices, and to make those choices easier and cheaper. As we transition to net zero, we will be tech- led using British technology and innovation, just as we did in the last innovation revolution. I appreciate that the Greens want to lecture people and instruct them; I believe that carrots are much better than sticks.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome this Statement. I have not had the opportunity, as yet, to read all the documents. I fear the criticism that I made in the debate on levelling up on Thursday is relevant. There is a clarity of destination about the Government’s policies, but no viable plan to get there. The thing that stuck in my mind is that when we are looking at the necessary move away from gas central heating, the incentives being offered for heat pumps—the £450 million over three years—is clearly inadequate, in comparison with the huge scale of the challenge.
I have always understood the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, to be a Conservative who believes in the use of market mechanisms—they are what Conservatives normally support. Can he tell me the Government’s estimate of the rise in gas prices that would be necessary to persuade the public, under market mechanisms, to install heat pumps?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord will be pleased to know that I do believe in market mechanisms. His question is impossible to answer, and let me explain why. Heat pumps are three to four times more thermodynamically efficient than existing gas boilers. At the moment, because of the costs of various policies on the production of electricity to successfully decarbonised the electricity sector, there is an imbalance in pricing. The Treasury and the Government have accepted that we need to do something about rebalancing gas and electricity prices. Now is clearly not the time to do this, when we are experiencing record gas prices. In the longer term, and bearing in mind that this is a 15-year strategy, we need to change the balance of these costs. We are committed to do so. There are other market mechanisms of which I could speak in favour. We will consult on a market mechanism for gas boiler manufacturers to have a certain proportion of their sales be in heat pumps. I repeat what I have said before: the boiler upgrade scheme is not the only support mechanism we offer for installing heat pumps.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
The Minister and I live in the same region, where masses of new building is going up. I have had only a quick read of the document —we have not had time for anything other than that—and there is a lot about retrofitting in it. Given that we have all the technology and knowledge now, can the Minister explain why new builds are not being built to a net-zero target from this year or perhaps next? Everything is in place to be able to do this. We are delaying too long.
Lord Callanan (Con)
The decision was made by what was then the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that the future homes standard would kick in in 2025. There is a long process of consultation to go through with industry to ensure that the standard is applicable, that the supply chain is there, and so on. The right reverend Prelate will be pleased to know that we are changing what is called Part L of the building regulations next year. This will also produce substantial carbon savings in advance of the future homes standard coming in in 2025.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for answering a question I asked a few weeks ago, to which he did not then really reply. I asked when the owners and landlords of buildings and housing will know whether hydrogen is to be the basis for what is currently the gas network. In one place, the document says that it will be “in” 2026, and in another it says “by” 2026. Either way, building owners have five years during which they will not know whether or not their heating systems can be transferred to hydrogen. The Minister is tonight deeply sceptical about whether we would have enough hydrogen, given its other uses, as earmarked in this document, and the need for an increased production in hydrogen for transport and industry. Can the Minister go further and indicate whether any buildings or housing will be convertible from natural gas to hydrogen, or whether some buildings in areas of industrial hydrogen use could be transferred to it? There are three scenarios, varying from nil hydrogen for home heating to it being used for something like a third of home heating by 2050. Will this mix now take place? Do we have to wait till 2026 for any sort of answer to this question?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I would like to give the noble Lord a direct answer: it is genuinely impossible to say, at the moment. Let me explain why. It is clear that hydrogen will play a major role in our economy. It will probably contribute to some heating, but I have given my view based on current technology. It is perfectly possible to use hydrogen for heating and gas boilers; the technology exists now—I have seen it. Two houses have been built our area—for the benefit of the right reverend Prelate—of Gateshead—which are entirely hydrogen-fuelled. They have hydrogen boilers, hydrogen hobs and hydrogen gas fires. They work perfectly well — I have cooked an egg on a hydrogen hob.
The question is where we get the hydrogen from. There are two ways of producing it: either from natural gas through carbon capture storage for blue hydrogen, or through electrolysis to produce green hydrogen. You then have to ask yourself the question: does it make sense to use green electricity to generate hydrogen to heat homes, or is it more sensible just to use electricity in the first place to heat the home through a heat pump? That is a question about thermodynamics and conversion and there will be different solutions in different places.
We can say with certainty that the future of home heating will almost certainly be taken over by three technologies: electrification through heat pumps; a greater use of heat networks, for which we have allocated funding; and a certain percentage from hydrogen. The reason we have announced our hydrogen strategy, are funding lots of research programmes and are consulting on a market mechanism to generate large amounts of hydrogen is to try to kick-start the market—to get it going and to bring in private sector investment and ingenuity. This will help to generate large amounts of hydrogen—cheaply, we hope. But we do not yet know to what extent the technology will develop, how much we will be able to produce at reasonable cost, and whether it will be suitable for use in home heating or whether it will be more sensible to use it in industrial processes. We have a multi-pronged strategy. As soon as we have more information, I will be sure to update the noble Lord.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
The Government have announced that new-build housing will have charging points for electric vehicles. But the Minister will know that many houses and much other accommodation do not have access to driveways or sufficient space for such points. People will rely increasingly on electric vehicle charging points in public places. Their rollout has been very slow, and those that exist are in a very unreliable condition. More than two years ago, legislation came to this House and was passed which gave the Government considerable powers to improve their availability by making public charging points easier to use and easier to pay for and to ensure that they were better maintained. That legislation has not been implemented. Why not?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I believe that it has been implemented. As I said earlier, we have allocated £620 million for vehicle grants and for further funding for local EV infrastructure. This is being rolled out across the whole country. Many local authorities are installing EV charging points in lamp posts, in publicly accessible areas. Grants are available for the installation of electric charge points in the home. Many are being rolled out in service stations and petrol stations. The infrastructure is being rolled out. I understand that the noble Baroness is impatient for it to be done faster, but it is happening.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, given that I cannot see anyone else rising, perhaps I may return to a point raised by both Front-Bench spokespeople about the ending of the sale of gas boilers by 2035. The Government’s document seems to say that this is a confirmed ambition. Can the Minister explain what a “confirmed ambition” means? Given that the Climate Change Committee recommends that these should be ended for residential properties by 2033 and for commercial properties as early as 2030, and given that the International Energy Agency says that there should be a global international ban by 2025, why is this so late?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I understood that I had explained that earlier in my answer to the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Oates, but I am happy to do it again for the benefit of the noble Baroness. It is an aim—an ambition—that by 2035 we will be able to move away from the installation of gas boilers, but we want to make sure that cheap, easily available and affordable alternatives which cost no more to buy or run than a gas boiler are in place. We are fairly certain that the technology will be available. That is why we are supporting so many of our insulation schemes and the heat pumps that we spoke about earlier, but we want to make sure that the technology is available. This also chimes in with the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty—hydrogen will play a role, but we do not know to what extent at this stage. I understand the impatience of noble Lords, but this is a strategy to be rolled out over many years.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, given that there are 19 million homes in the country marked on the bottom rung for energy efficiency—D or below—and that the Heat and Buildings Strategy stresses in its introduction the need for a fabric-first approach, can the Minister tell me why there are no firm proposals to replace the scrapped green homes grant or funding for improving the fabric of our homes?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Baroness has obviously not been paying attention to what I have said, but let me repeat the figures yet again. She might want to go and look at some of the fantastically successful delivery we were doing for low-income families under the local authority delivery scheme. We spent hundreds of millions of pounds on that; we have already rolled out the first phase of the social housing decarbonisation fund, and we are investing £950 million and £800 million respectively over the next two years. I referred earlier to the home upgrade grants. All these are paying for home insulation measures for the most vulnerable in society and for people on low incomes. I am sorry if the Greens are not aware of that or do not support it, but we are investing these very large sums of money to upgrade the fabric of people’s homes and install low-carbon heating systems in them. I have been out and viewed many of these schemes.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
If I may also take advantage of being able to jump up again on the Minister, I would mention one aspect of the spread of areas to be covered with new developments: nuclear. There was no mention of nuclear in the Statement. Are any updates to the small modular reactors policy being brought forward by the Government?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I am happy to tell the noble Lord that there was mention of nuclear in the Statement, and we announced £120 million for a nuclear innovations fund. I can also tell him that we will have more to say on our nuclear ambitions shortly.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
It is obviously the evening to get a second go. Yesterday, the Transition Pathway Initiative launched the Global Climate Transition Centre, which will be a key part of the COP 26 financial infrastructure, to assess 10,000 companies on their alignment with the net-zero pathway and support accountability and action on this very important issue. Understandably, that is not in the paperwork, because it was announced yesterday. Is the Minister aware of the Transition Pathway Initiative—which has been around for a while now—and the Global Climate Transition Centre, and what actions will the Government take to support these initiatives?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Yes is the answer to the right reverend Prelate’s question. They are excellent initiatives, and they are indicative of some of the leadership of many of our leading companies and how they are committing to net zero. Many of them are going to be displaying at COP, and it is great to see some of the biggest businesses in our land also helping us on the pathway to net zero.
COVID-19 Pandemic in Latin America
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Coussins
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, Latin America accounts for 8.2% of global population but has experienced a disproportionate 20% of Covid infections and a third of global deaths. The response to Covid has varied enormously within Latin America. In Brazil, the laissez-faire attitude of the Government left everything to a devolved health system, and they actively refused to take any central responsibility or leadership, with President Bolsonaro dismissing Covid as just “a little flu”. This has resulted in Brazil suffering the worst rates of death and infection in the whole of Latin America.
By contrast, Uruguay saw the most effective response by miles, ramping up the test, trace and track systems, avoiding lockdowns and school closures, and achieving some of the lowest infection and death figures in the world—although, during 2021, the beta variant from Brazil has now increased infection rates among young people in particular. I am aware that funding from the UK embassy in Montevideo has helped to fund genomic surveillance and public health monitoring. Is that funding still in place, and could it be replicated in other countries of the region? In El Salvador, the borders were closed quickly, and quarantine was enforced by the police and the military. Containment centres were also set up quickly but proved to be ineffective at infection control because shared accommodation became a vector for spreading the disease. In Panama, it was hoped that transmission rates would be reduced by allowing people out to pharmacies and supermarkets by sex: women one day and men the next. This has been monitored by Google tracking people’s phones. There are no reliable data on whether it was effective, although the infection rate appears to have declined.
But the Covid factor that is characteristic across the region is the way in which the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities. Corruption over the acquisition of ventilators has been notable in Bolivia. In Colombia, there was a 103% increase in domestic violence between March and December 2020. Some 21% of Latin America’s urban population live in slums, informal settlements or precarious housing, where overcrowding and the lack of services are some of the factors that help to spread disease. You cannot be two metres away from someone if your house is only two metres square and for multiple generations.
In Colombia and elsewhere there was already very limited access to healthcare and basic services such as clean drinking water and soap in poor and rural areas, making simple Covid measures such as handwashing very difficult, if not impossible. Similarly, in Peru, the pandemic has exposed chronic weaknesses in the public health system, especially in rural areas such as the Amazon region. The poorest in the population found it hardest to comply with lockdown and social distancing because they rely on daily wages in the informal economy and could not afford not to work, even if they risked infection or knew they were infected. These pressures fall most heavily on women, indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians and peasant farmers. The number of Colombians living in extreme poverty grew by 3.5 million in 2020 alone, and the UN added Colombia to its list of so-called hunger hotspots.
In Peru, too, a further 3.3 million people now live in poverty as a direct result of Covid. Around 2 million lost their jobs, the economy shrank by 11%, and average wages for those with jobs fell by a quarter. Has any audit been done on how the cuts in our overseas development aid spending will affect programmes we have been funding in Latin America to improve health systems and inequalities? In light of the devastating impact of Covid, will the Government consider restoring such funding?
Inequalities have also surfaced in relation to vaccines. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru all participated in clinical trials or storage in exchange for access to the products. Vaccines have been procured through agreements with pharmaceutical firms and through the COVAX scheme. But factors such as purchasing power, population size, delivery infrastructure and political will mean it will take years for vaccination at population level to be achieved—in Paraguay, for example, it will not be until 2024. Is the level of vaccines signed up for under COVAX—which I believe was to get 2 billion doses to the region by the end of 2021—actually on target?
I have two other vaccine-related questions. First, what is the Government’s position on the protection by patents of the intellectual property of the vaccines? There is a WTO waiver for public health emergencies, which was activated for antiretroviral drugs during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Could this be helpful for getting Covid vaccines to Latin America, as well as better technology transfer and support for domestic producers?
Secondly, there is the question of which vaccines are being used. Brazil has AstraZeneca but has also been using Russian and Chinese-produced vaccines which are not approved by the WHO. The main supply of Peru and other countries has been the Chinese Sinopharm. Has any assessment has been made of the restrictions on travel for those with unapproved vaccinations or unrecognised vaccine programmes in relation to the UK’s business relationship with some of our major trading partners in Latin America? Would it be in our own enlightened self-interest to do more to share approved vaccines so that trade, and indeed cultural and educational travel and exchanges, will not be impeded?
Finally, but no less importantly, I want to touch on the impact of Covid on security, crime and human rights in the region. The cumulative impact of Covid has led to widespread civil disruption and riots in some parts of the region. In Colombia in April this year, mass social protests met with horrendous police brutality. Armed groups took advantage of lockdown to terrorise and control communities, including the killing of 177 human rights defenders in 2020 alone. I know that the Government take the UK’s role as the penholder for Colombia at the Security Council seriously, and I would like to know what the Minister thinks can be done to make sure that the peace accord in Colombia will not be destroyed altogether by Covid and its ramifications.
Equally disturbing is the spike in murders and violence generally, including sexual violence, in Mexico. Organised crime appears to have been helped by Covid restrictions. Although lockdown put fewer people on the streets, reducing the demand for drugs and the capacity to smuggle drugs to the US, this led to drug cartels competing more aggressively for business, including by securing allegiance from isolated communities by offering food and medical supplies to establish control in return for their allegiance.
Does the Minister agree that it is in the UK’s economic, diplomatic and security interests for us to be much more proactive? Latin America got just two brief paragraphs in the recent integrated review. Surely the impact of Covid illustrates that a greater level of attention and engagement is needed.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, I thank and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on securing this important debate on Latin America, which is of great interest to many across the House for a variety of reasons. As she said, Latin America has just 8.2% of the world’s population, but by February 2021 had recorded more than 650,000 deaths—more than one-quarter of the world total. I think we can be sure that the attitude of and policies pursued by Jair Bolsonaro have been responsible for the huge number of deaths in Brazil. In general, the pandemic has highlighted the inadequacy of public health systems and severe inequality in Latin American society—an aspect of the Covid pandemic in evidence, in terms of equality, in the UK as well, alas. One of the outcomes among Latin American nations may be that higher social spending on health and so on will be called for, which would be no bad thing.
Colombia reacted reasonably quickly in the initial stages of the pandemic, but prolonged lockdown eventually led to a falling away of compliance as people needed to work, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said. In fact, many people have now lost gainful employment. Against the background of a high level of human rights abuses and serious opposition to proposed tax reforms, which would further entrench inequality, many Colombians have faced considerable harm at the hands of state forces in addition to the harm they faced from the pandemic. Armed groups have clearly taken advantage of the lockdown to wreak havoc in communities, with the UN observing huge increases in massacres, which were already all too common in Colombia.
It takes an enormous amount of courage to be a human rights defender, or even an active trade unionist, particularly a teacher trade unionist, in Colombia. The UN mission has called the number of deaths of human rights defenders an epidemic of violence, with 177 individuals killed in 2020. With what we hope will be the gradual subsiding of the pandemic, the focus must return to high-profile condemnation of the violence of the Colombian police and paramilitaries. Will the Minister ensure that Her Majesty’s Government will continue to call for full implementation of the peace process?
Repeated incidents of state violence call into question Colombia’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law, on which the UK-Andean trade deal is based. The Colombian unions and the TUC have called for the suspension of the deal to put pressure on the Colombian Government to address the violation of human rights and to implement in full the 2016 peace agreement so that post-Covid peace in Colombia can be a real prospect.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Rogan) (UUP)
My Lords, as the noble Lords, Lord Bethell and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, have withdrawn, I now call the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, as I, like others this evening, have an affinity with Latin America.
The situation is dire, which is supported by a depressing collection of facts and numbers. The pandemic has had a devastating social impact. Poverty—and extreme poverty, as has been mentioned—has dramatically increased, with inequality having grown throughout the region. The only question I can muster is: what is we can we do to help?
While international trade contracted globally in 2020, it contracted more severely in Latin America. The only light at the end of the tunnel is that there has been a more considerable drop in imports than exports, which has reduced the region’s trade deficit. However, the prospects for recovery are not good. Companies are recording significant losses as commodity prices fall. Generally, exports have fallen by 10% and imports by 13%. Unemployment has risen and businesses have been closed. Public accounts have deteriorated. The pandemic has caused the closure of a staggering 2.7 million Latin American companies, equating to 19% of all companies in Latin America.
The differences between the countries are high. Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador, Mexico and Colombia have been the most affected countries, with small businesses and low-skilled workers struggling the hardest. It would be inappropriate not to record that a staggering 600,000 Brazilians, including a disproportionate number of indigenous citizens, have perished. Venezuela has felt the effects of a break in its relationship with Cuba, with doctors emigrating. Women and the youth are among the most affected.
The majority of countries have established instruments of direct help to households, such as the emergency family income in Argentina, the Covid-19 voucher in Chile, the solidarity income in Colombia, the proteger voucher in Costa Rica and the emergency voucher in Brazil. Some countries have been able to take advantage of the boost in their exports of medical and agricultural products. Guatemala and Honduras have benefited from the sales of masks and Costa Rica from those of medical equipment, mainly destined for the United States market.
The all-important remittances from Latin American workers outside the region fell by 19.3% in 2020, according to the World Bank. These incomes are particularly important in Central America. The worsening environment for migrants during the pandemic means that their basic needs are unmet and their social and economic capabilities not realised. In short, Covid-19 has illustrated the urgent need to support the impoverished with aid from overseas.
Baroness Hooper (Con)
My Lords, in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for her perseverance in getting a time slot for this debate, I also support all she said about the prevalence, consequences and challenges posed by the pandemic throughout Latin America. She underlined in particular the social and security aspects. I agree not only with her, but with the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, that the overall picture is dire and depressing.
In my three minutes, I would like to refer in particular to the three countries with which I am engaged as a trade envoy, namely Panama, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. I was appointed just before lockdown. Inevitably, Covid and the restrictions of lockdown have affected any attempts to embark on promotional trade activities in both directions. It is only very recently that Costa Rica has come off the red list of countries which we cannot visit and from which we cannot receive visitors. It came off the list with two other Central American countries, Honduras and Guatemala. The three countries are very preoccupied with the issue of the red list.
Tourism, of course, is vital to the economies of these three countries and to wider Latin America. In particular, eco-tourism is vital to Costa Rica. As the Minister well knows, Costa Rica is recognised as the greenest economy of the region, and of the whole of Latin America, so it is of the utmost importance to facilitate travel as soon as possible, not only for the Costa Rican economy but to support travel operators in this country, many of which are small and medium-sized businesses specialising in areas such as eco-tourism.
The latest figures I have from Costa Rica show that 70% of the population have had one dose of the vaccine and 40% have had two doses. The figures vary slightly—those I received from the Library are slightly different. However, those are quite impressive figures and perhaps account for the fact that Costa Rica was removed from the red list. I should also mention that AstraZeneca opened its new headquarters for the whole region in Costa Rica last year—a very important link.
The fact that Costa Rica is off the red list leaves me with Panama and the Dominican Republic. These countries also need to be able to open up to tourism and trade. We had a Zoom meeting with parliamentarians from Panama this afternoon and were told that 80% of the population have been double-jabbed. There have been recent discussions and information flows at a high level, which, I trust, will lead to a reassessment of its position.
I am sorry about the timing, but since two people have dropped out, I thought I might have an extra minute or so. The Dominican Republic is puzzled to be left on our red list when tourists from the United States seem to have no problem other than the need for a double vaccination certificate and vice versa. I hope that my noble friend will be able to reassure us of a speedy reassessment of the situation affecting Latin America, in particular the countries I have mentioned.
Lord Loomba (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for securing this important debate. As we consider the devastating consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic in Latin America, it is important to bear in mind that, due to deeply ingrained cultural attitudes, some are better placed to cope than others.
Gender discrimination affects women and girls and, as in most other parts of the world, widows in particular face additional hurdles. Rural widows who find themselves left alone to fend for their families are often not permitted to take over livelihoods due to the highly gendered nature of farm work and agricultural supply chains. In Colombia, for example, the arrangements for allocating the property of an intestate husband do not in practice allow for the widow maintaining control of the family farm or business—that is, providing for their own economic autonomy.
There are examples in parts of Latin America of disinheritance, whereby widows are prevented by male relatives from inheriting property to which they are legally entitled. Widows’ circumstances put them at high risk of poverty and additional acute direct threats to their well-being.
As regards any support we are able to provide, whether in vaccine distribution or other overseas development aid, can the Minister give an assurance that the Government will take these underlying inequalities into account to make sure that support is targeted first at the most vulnerable?
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I thank and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, and echo all that she has said this evening. She gave an excellent speech and I congratulate her on getting the time available to speak on this important subject. There is all too little focus on the huge impact Covid has had on South America and, as the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, said, on the dire situation it has created, not least among women and the youth, who have been very badly affected because of the inequalities that have grown in those societies.
I talked to somebody who worked for a good while with Goni Sánchez de Lozada, when he was President of Bolivia, on social and economic policies and development programmes in his country.
I have to be brief this evening, although I note that the Clock has not started yet. I want to pick up on what the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, said. She highlighted that the pandemic highlights public health systems and that funding should concentrate on public health systems. I just want very briefly, in a minute, to state that I hope that when it comes to recovery programmes, the Government will prioritise public health support in Latin America. That extends beyond many of the points that the noble Baroness wisely raised and I hope were well heard by the Government.
Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that I believe that sport, recreation and active lifestyles can help very much in recovery programmes. They can go to the heart of good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality—which is critical in any recovery programme—decent work opportunities, growth and reducing the inequalities which the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, rightly spoke about.
It was interesting that, in the build-up to the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the IOC, through the UN, encouraged all member states to include sport and physical activity in their recovery programmes from Covid-19; to integrate sport and physical activity into national strategies for sustainable development, taking note of the contributions sport, physical activity and an active lifestyle make to health; and to promote safe sport as a contributor to the health and well-being of individuals and communities.
That is the message I want to leave the House with in this debate. I urge the Minister to incorporate those policies and aspirations into the additional programmes that we now need to put in place to help recovery in South America, which is so vitally needed.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, to reassure the Government Whip, I will not seek to take advantage of the flexibility on timings this evening. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins—I consider her my noble friend—for securing this debate and introducing it so well. She has a very consistent and strong interest in this region. As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, indicated, this is an area which is debated far too infrequently in this House.
The world saw a differing approach to a global pandemic in that region, with politics over health, open boundaries and borders and minimal economic assistance, even when this was fiscally possible. I watched President Bolsonaro’s speech at UNGA with an element of horror, and I note the legal challenges that he now faces in his own country.
Information today from Our World in Data shows that his approach has seen 604,000 people die in Brazil, with deaths likely to be underreported. In Mexico, there have been 285,000 deaths; in Peru, there have been 200,000. Peru has had 6,000 deaths per million people of its population, compared with 752 in Canada. Perhaps the most startling figure I read was that, while the UK has seen a horrific 11% of excess deaths during the pandemic, Mexico has had 40%, Ecuador 49% and Peru an astonishing 93%.
The vaccination rollout has also been patchy. Data from today interestingly shows a full vaccination rate for Uruguay and Chile—higher than in the UK—but Brazil has only half of its population vaccinated and Peru 42.4%. The impact on that country has been enormous. The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper—whom I also consider a noble friend—and I visited there together and have both made many calls for greater UK interest in that country since the visit.
The noble Lord, Lord Browne, who had hoped to speak this evening, was in touch with the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, and myself. We all share a concern over the ongoing economic impact. At the end of last year, an estimated 231 million people in Latin America were living in poverty, the worst level for 15 years. Data from a World Bank report published on 8 June this year forecast how countries would return to pre-pandemic levels, if at all, by 2022. It suggested that advanced economies would be 0.1% smaller, but medium-income countries would be 4.1% smaller.
So the need for UK involvement at this time of crisis and the opportunity for investment and trade into the future are obvious. Can the Minister therefore explain why UK ODA support for Peru has fallen from £3.7 million in 2019-20 to just £1.1 million in the year going forward—slashed by two-thirds? It was even more alarming to read on 10 October in the Financial Times an anonymous briefing on the new Foreign Secretary’s priorities which said:
“Latin America is one region that is expected to fall down her list of priorities, according to senior British diplomats.”
Can the Minister confirm that this anonymous briefing was not correct, that the region will not fall down the priority list for the new Foreign Secretary, and that we will honour two centuries of very close relationships and ensure that this region, which is facing a huge economic crisis, will now be a UK priority?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I too would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for initiating this debate. We are looking at a tale of two worlds here. In the first week of August, 85 million Covid vaccines had been administered in the United Kingdom. In Paraguay, the situation could not have been more different. The President of Paraguay addressed the nation amidst frustration that only 4% had been vaccinated. He told his people in simple terms, “We bet on COVAX mechanisms and COVAX did not work”. I hope the Minister will say something about that.
Two months on, the figure in Paraguay has risen from 4% to 26%. A night-time curfew remains in place and those who have received vaccinations are crediting China for Sinovac and Russia for Sputnik V, as the noble Baroness said.
Latin America has been especially hard-hit by Covid-19. It has 8% of the world’s population but over 16% of global cases in the top six countries alone and, except for Chile, the highest number of deaths. Reasons include poor health infrastructure, the inability of workers in the informal economy to self-isolate and the lack of decisive, co-ordinated government action.
The ILO estimated that, by the end of 2020, employment across the region had fallen from 57% to 52%. It also illustrated how women and young people had been adversely affected, describing the results as
“a time bomb that could affect social and political stability”.
Here I highlight the point made by my noble friend Lady Blower on the impact on the peace process, particularly in Colombia. Will the Minister tell us a bit more about how we are influencing the situation there, to ensure that the peace process is kept on track?
I hope the Minister will also address the issue of the global vaccination effort and what we are doing to ensure that we donate surplus doses, as well as develop a co-ordinated investment programme for new facilities.
What is the Minister’s strategy to support these countries in their recovery, including through international development and aid, which the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, highlighted, and in addition to our trade policy? On trade policy, will the Minister address the fact that, as my noble friend mentioned, the UK’s trade agreement with Colombia did not mention human rights at all and was criticised by trade unionists both there and here? I hope he can reassure us on that and on future trade relationships.
The fundamental question is: what is the United Kingdom doing to ensure that a multilateral system is in place to ensure that, when the next global crisis comes, countries work together?
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for tabling this important debate and for her continued interest in the region. She made a very compelling speech. I thank all noble Lords for their insightful contributions.
This is a timely debate. While some countries are, happily, starting to see a return to a more normal life, Latin America is the region hardest hit by the pandemic. The effect has been devastating. While home to just under one-tenth of the world’s population, Latin America accounts for nearly one-third of all reported Covid-19 deaths and one-fifth of confirmed cases. Covid-19 has increased poverty, plunged the region into recession and set back economic growth by a decade in some countries. That, in turn, impacts the region’s health and education systems and, worryingly, it also increases reticence about the climate change commitments that much of the world is signing up to.
The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, focused particularly on the process of recovery. The UK is playing its part to help the region recover. In answer to her question, we are championing access to vaccines through COVAX and encouraging scientific exchange in areas such as genome sequencing. We are mobilising climate finance at COP 26 and pursuing trade agreements so that our shared future can flourish.
Latin America is an important partner for the UK’s global ambitions. From climate change and nature, economics and trade, democracy and human rights, we work with the region on countless priorities set out in the integrated review. With many countries aligned with UK values, three members of the G20 and Mexico, currently a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council—Brazil will join in January—we have strong strategic allies right across Latin America.
The Foreign Secretary visited Mexico in the first week of her new role. She held discussions to strengthen our trading relationship, deepen our economic partnership and tackle climate change together, in support of our shared values.
I have recently returned from a trip to Peru and Colombia, where I saw for myself the devastating impact of Covid in the region. The pandemic has plunged Latin America into an economic recession. Regional GDP fell last year by 7% and predicted growth is below what we would expect from emerging economies. In two decades, before the start of the pandemic, the number of people living in poverty in the region had fallen by nearly half, but Covid has driven a significant reversal of that progress. By the end of last year, 78 million people were estimated to be living in extreme poverty in the countries of Latin America—an increase of 8 million people since the pandemic began.
Where inequalities existed before, the pandemic has cut the deepest. An increase in unemployment in the region has hit the most vulnerable the hardest, including women, young workers and migrants. It has worsened the plight of many of the nearly 6 million refugees and migrants who have fled the Maduro regime in Venezuela. The majority have sought safe haven in neighbouring countries where, notwithstanding the welcome that they have been given, many go hungry. Mandatory school closures have lasted longer than in any other region of the world. Around 100 million students in Latin America have been affected. Some, especially the most vulnerable, may never make up this loss in education. The World Bank estimates that this could cost the region $1.7 trillion in lost future income.
Many countries were ill-prepared for virtual education, and a lack of access to the internet for many, especially those in rural areas, widened the gap even more between those from the poorest households and the most fortunate. Health systems are being pushed to their limits. In Mexico and Colombia, the recent third wave put pressure on hospitals that were already exhausted from the last 18 months. In Peru, which as we have heard has suffered the worst cumulative per capita death rate globally, the pandemic has pushed the healthcare system to breaking point.
The only way that the world is going to bring this pandemic under control is through widespread immunisation, using all available safe and effective vaccines, and the UK is playing its part. We are at the forefront of the international response to Covid-19, through our commitments to COVAX, Gavi and the World Health Organization. The UK’s early support of the AstraZeneca vaccine has been instrumental, and that vaccine is now produced locally in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. The three countries are expected to produce around 250 million doses for the region this year.
Two-thirds of the population of Latin America have now received their first dose of the vaccine, up from just a fifth two months ago. In some countries the effects of the vaccine are beginning to bring cases down, and the overall picture in the region is finally improving. I was delighted that a fortnight ago we were able to move most Latin and Caribbean countries off our coronavirus list. However, some countries remain vulnerable to further waves of Covid-19, and those with low vaccination rates are particularly vulnerable.
In response to a question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, all Latin American countries that are no longer on the red list, apart from Brazil and Chile, are awaiting verification of their vaccine certification. Until international standards are agreed globally, we will review each country’s certificate to ensure that it meets our minimum data requirements. She also asked about accelerating patents, as in the case of the AIDS retrovirals. I am afraid that I cannot give her an answer. The question is best directed to the Department of Health, and I will convey it to the department and will respond as soon as I can.
This is one of the reasons why we will continue to share our learning from the UK rollout with partners in the region and, most importantly, work together to control new variants. In Brazil, for example, we are doing this with a new variant assessment platform, working in partnership with the Brazilian Government to ensure that UK expertise helps to boost genomic sequencing capability in the country. We hope to work with more countries in the region to support this work and strengthen sequencing capability, so that we all have a better understanding of the variants as they arise.
The recent changes to the red list demonstrate that the UK is taking a scientific, country-by-country approach to these decisions. I recognise the real personal and economic impact for many people living in red list countries—a point made well by my noble friend Lady Hooper—who want to travel, who depend on the tourism industry for their livelihoods, who are businesspeople, students and more. The decision to keep countries on the red list, or to move them off it, is one that affects us far more widely: not just in our trade and prosperity partnerships but in our ability to deliver an in-person and inclusive COP 26 next month. We want to work alongside important partners, many of them in Latin America—Brazil, Mexico and Colombia—while also ensuring the safety and security of all participants.
As the scientific picture changes, we will continue to keep the list under regular review, but our priority must be to protect the health of the UK public. We will do that by continuing to take full account of scientific evidence, while balancing the advantages and risks of reopening our borders.
In the meantime, we are working with partners in the Latin American region to help them recover and rebuild. The UK is not only supporting vaccine supply but has been working with countries such as Brazil and Mexico to strengthen their health systems through the UK’s Better Health programme. I saw for myself in Peru how UK companies’ expertise is supporting the country to rebuild schools, hospitals and river defences after the devastating effects of flooding caused by El Niño four years ago.
Even through the pandemic, the UK has been working with countries across the region to help them to become more resilient and adapt to these extreme weather events. Through the UK PACT Green Recovery Challenge Fund, for example, the UK has funded projects in Brazil, Peru and Argentina, supporting greening financial systems and nature-based solutions. That includes deforestation-free cattle ranching in Peru, promoting green finance for sustainable development in Argentina and building climate risk assessment into the credit operations of Brazilian development banks.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I hope I was about to answer the noble Lord’s point about our support for Peru—a point that he made well. In 2020—last year—the UK signed a second Government-to-Government agreement with Peru to support the delivery of what we estimate will be a £1.6 billion infrastructure programme to rebuild schools and hospitals in the northern regions affected by El Niño-related flooding and landslides in 2017. UK businesses are already providing technical assistance while transferring the required knowledge to Peruvian experts so they can develop similar projects in future. This is an example—I do not pretend to be an expert but I did witness much of this—of the UK using its skills and relatively small sums of finance to leverage far greater support for that country. If the noble Lord does not mind, I will come to a broader point about future support for Peru in just a few moments, and I will combine that with an answer to the noble Baroness as well.
Ahead of COP next month, we have especially encouraged ambitious climate commitments. Latin America suffers the severe weather effects of climate change just as surely as its rainforests hold so many of the solutions. The region must therefore make its voice heard at COP 26 in support of ambitious climate targets.
I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, who mentioned Costa Rica. It may not have been, in which case I apologise for not having made a note of who made that comment. Whoever it was, I strongly agree with them. I apologise; it was my noble friend Lady Hooper. She is absolutely right: Costa Rica provides an example for the world. It has managed to incorporate concern for and a focus on the environment with economic growth. It managed to double its canopy in just over a generation and has grown its economy at the same time. It has gone from pretty low in the league table to being pretty high in the region, and I do not think that is a coincidence.
Colombia, which I recently visited, is also showing extraordinary leadership on both climate change and the environment, not only in addressing, halting and reversing forest loss in the Amazon but in combining those efforts with attempts to strengthen the peace process that began just a few years ago. Again, I saw examples—
Viscount Waverley (CB)
The Minister spoke about the need to approve a certificate from Colombia. Is he able to say whether the UK does that in isolation from others around the world, or is it that we are part and parcel of a global approach in approving, for example, the certificate specifically from Colombia?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank the noble Viscount for his question. I hope I am not wrong in saying that the UK has now recognised the vaccine certificates for Colombia; that has happened. Colombia remains on the red list, but this means that when it comes off that list, it ought to be a relatively smooth transition. I hope I will not have to correct the record on that, but I do not think I will.
I was amazed by some of the projects that are happening in Colombia, which combine efforts to raise living standards and reinforce the peace process by involving those people who are very much involved in conflict in this global endeavour to restore and protect nature, and which are doing so in an extraordinarily successful way. I really hope we will be able to step up our efforts in that region and beyond in support of a series of truly world-leading initiatives.
Increasing trade in the region is also essential to overcome the unprecedented economic challenges caused by the pandemic. Opening up markets, unlocking business opportunities and sharing British business expertise will benefit both the region and of course the UK. The UK has negotiated continuity trade agreements in the region with Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and the countries of Central America.
In Mexico, we will soon be starting negotiations on a new ambitious free trade agreement to support jobs, opportunities and prosperity right across the UK in industries that will shape the future of the global economy and secure better access for British goods and services. Our ambition to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership is also important for UK interests in the region.
The UK is acutely aware of the devastating impacts that the pandemic has had on the lives of many individuals and the economies of countries across Latin America. It has widened inequalities and pushed back—
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
I know the Minister is running out of time, but he did say he was going to address this, so I would be happy if he will write to me with the forward ODA plans. However, I would be very happy if he would say, on the record, at the Dispatch Box, that the unattributed briefing to the Financial Times that Latin America is now lower down on the Foreign Secretary’s priorities is wrong. If he can say that, I would be very happy.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. The rule is that we do not respond to leaks of that sort—actually, I do not know the leak he is referring to—but I can tell him that it is a priority of mine as a Minister in the Foreign Office and someone with a particular concern for climate change and the environment that we ramp up our support for those initiatives that I just described, not just in Colombia but beyond. I can only say that I sincerely hope that the briefing is wrong—I believe it is wrong and I think it would be wrong, in fact, were that to be the case. It was a point I was going to make to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, in terms of our involvement and our offer for Colombia, Peru and the wider Amazon region.
I will briefly address a couple of points. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, that we are doing what we can to integrate our diplomacy and our development programmes to deliver a much bigger and better impact. I make my final point to the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. Of course, we are appalled by the reports of human rights violations and the deaths of environmental defenders in Colombia and elsewhere.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
And trade unionists, of course. While these are the result of criminality within that country—a legacy, perhaps, of some of the difficulties that are beginning to subside, but nevertheless have really wracked Colombia for some time—these are not the consequences of malignant action by government. I raised this issue when I spoke to President Duque a week or so ago and it was very clear to me that he and his Government are doing what they can to get to grips with the issues that the noble Baroness raised so well. Although it is not entirely clear how we can help, certainly the offer from the UK is on the table to provide what support we can to enable the Government to get to grips with the problem, which is clearly tragic on so many levels. My colleagues and I raise these issues on a regular basis, but I believe that by supporting some of the initiatives that I hinted at earlier, albeit briefly, we have an opportunity in the UK to provide very meaningful support to the Government of Colombia in strengthening and extending and making that peace process endure.
On that note, I thank noble Lords for their contributions—
Baroness Coussins (CB)
Before the noble Lord sits down, will he undertake to write to me with answers to the few questions I asked that he has not been able to cover in his reply?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
I do apologise: I thought I had left this debate with a clean sheet, but I clearly have not, so I undertake to scan the record tomorrow and to respond to any questions from the noble Baroness that remain unanswered. I pay tribute to her for her speech, for initiating this debate and for her work in the region.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
My Lords, that concludes the Question for Short Debate business.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Wednesday 20th October 2021
(2 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 View all Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 40-I(b) Amendments for Committee (supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (20 Oct 2021)
Lord Paddick
“Meaning of special constables
In all legislation in force applying to England and Wales (including legislation enacted after the coming into force of this section)— (a) the term “members of police forces” shall be deemed to include special constables, and(b) the term “constable” shall be deemed to include a special constable.”Member’s explanatory statement
The aim of this amendment is to ensure that special constables are considered to be members of the police service, as they are in Scotland.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, Clause 3 enables special constables to be represented by the Police Federation, which is an important and welcome acknowledgment of the role played by specials in police forces—but it does not go far enough. I have been surprised at the lack of knowledge among those I have discussed the amendment with surrounding the role of special constables, who are sworn servants of the Crown with all the powers and responsibilities of a regular police officer. The only difference is that special constables are unpaid volunteers whose only recompense is to be paid expenses. I have also been surprised to learn how widely special constables are now used across a range of policing duties.
When I was a serving police officer, specials were generally treated quite badly by regular officers, who referred to them as “hobby bobbies”. It was almost seen as a punishment for a regular officer to be paired with a special constable on patrol—a liability rather than an asset. Such attitudes were unfair and, in most cases, unjustified. As the devastating cuts to policing continued at the end of the coalition Government, special constables came to be increasingly relied on to perform an extensive range of duties, including being trained in public order to be used in the front line on potentially violent demonstrations. Special constables carry warrant cards, handcuffs and CS spray, can exercise force and make arrests, unlike police community support officers, who are unable to do any of those things. Their uniforms have evolved over time so that today they are barely distinguishable from a regular police officer.
To all intents and purposes, and as far as the law and the public are concerned, special constables are in every way the same as regular police officers, except they are unpaid volunteers. That equivalence has been recognised in Scotland, where they are considered to be members of the police force, but it is not the case in England and Wales. While I welcome the recognition that this Bill proposes to give special constables in allowing them to be represented by the Police Federation, I am at a loss to understand why they are not also to be considered members of police forces to which they belong in England and Wales, as they are in Scotland.
Special constables have a vital and increasingly important role to play. In many places, the visible policing presence on our streets has all but disappeared; specials could help to fill that gap. The nature of policing is changing, with increasingly complex and technical crime being committed, such as online fraud. While police forces cannot compete with tech giants in terms of salaries for those technically qualified and experienced, there are opportunities for those with technical expertise to devote some of their spare time to serving their fellow citizens by becoming special constables dedicated to cybercrime, for example.
If I recall correctly, the Labour Party would seek to recruit significant numbers of special constables, were it to be in government—but that requires more than a statement of intent. Being a special constable has to be an attractive proposition to potential recruits, and recognising them as full members of police forces would send a clear message as to how important and valued they are. Can the Minister explain to the Committee why special constables cannot be members of police forces in England and Wales when they are in Scotland? I beg to move.
Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]
My Lords, this amendment, proposed by my noble friend Lord Paddick, is one that I wholeheartedly support. Many years ago, when I was a magistrate, it was one of my happiest duties to swear in the new special constables. It was fascinating to hear their reasons for wanting to serve their communities voluntarily and to learn about their day jobs. Whatever motivated them, whatever their background, they shared the same driving commitment to help to keep us safe. They put themselves in as much danger as a full-time officer, and they do it voluntarily.
For many years, as my noble friend Lord Paddick, has said, full-time officers derided them. Fortunately, they began to see their worth and special constables are now, almost, fully integrated into the workforce and finally treated properly. I am delighted that my noble friend has brought forward this amendment and I support it totally.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I am very happy to discuss Amendment 12, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. It is really interesting and certainly gives us cause to think about the issues he has raised about special constables being members of police forces in England and Wales, as they are in Scotland. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response as to why that is not appropriate, or whether the legal difference between England and Wales and Scotland with respect to specials is an important difference and there is some logical reason for it. It is certainly something for this Committee to think about. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for bringing this amendment forward.
We also very much support the provisions in Clause 3, which allow special constables to join the Police Federation. This is a long overdue change, so the Government are to be congratulated on bringing that forward.
It is really important for us to put on record—given that our proceedings are read by many outside and watched by others—what will be the Committee’s unanimous view of the importance of specials and the work they do. All, or many, of us will have been out with our local police forces on the beat. I have at times been out with the specials. It is important to remember that, when a special turns up at an incident in a uniform, with the full powers of the police constable, the people to whom he or she is going do not ask them whether they are a special or whether, because they are special, they do not somehow put themselves in danger in the same way that a full-time police officer would. They are just grateful that a police officer—a uniform—has turned up to support them.
It is really important for us to state in this Committee debate that we support the specials and value the work that they do across communities up and down the country. It is also worth reiterating the evidence given to the Bill Committee in the Commons by John Apter, who said that special constables
“stand shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues. They have exactly the same powers and they carry exactly the same risks.”
In that short phrase, John Apter has completely summed up our view of the work that they do. Alongside that, Chief Superintendent Paul Griffiths, president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, said that special constables
“epitomise the relationship between the public and the police”.— [ Official Report, Commons, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 18/5/21; col. 26.]
It is important, in this short debate on the amendment, to put that on the record. I know it will be the unanimous view of the Committee, but I am also interested in the noble Baroness’s response—sorry, the Minister is the noble Lord; I will get it right. I have been in the Commons for a long time and it takes a little while to get used to—I am nearly there.
The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, raises an important issue on which we need some clarification, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, I want to amplify one point made by both previous speakers. I am sure that the Minister would agree that what we want to do in the police force—all parts of the police force—is to encourage recruitment. The feeling that one has standing encourages that enormously. I would just like to make this point: we want to encourage recruitment, and therefore if police special constables feel that they are part of the police force, they are more likely to join and stay.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for explaining his amendment. Before I get on to dealing with this amendment, I want to say that I was very moved by the noble Lord’s earlier comments. In the interests of full disclosure, I should declare that I was an inspector in the Royal Hong Kong Police. That is where I started out; I can confirm that one never forgets the smell of a mortuary.
Amendment 12 effectively seeks to dispense with the need for Clause 3 by ensuring that, for all purposes, special constables are treated in law as members of a police force. Our professional and dedicated special constables increasingly carry out a range of specialised and front-line roles in their mission to keep us and our communities safe, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, noted. He also made some very relevant points about the technical skills that they can bring. They often face the same risks as regular officers while on duty; they deserve the same protection and support as regular officers where appropriate. That is why, through the Bill, we are enabling special constables to become members of the Police Federation, should they wish to do so.
Having been subject to long-standing separate regulation in England and Wales, the distinct nature of special constables is recognised in law with clearly defined benefits that result directly from this separate status. In contrast, legislation in Scotland has long included special constables as “members of police forces” and has been drafted to take this into account. It would not be appropriate for special constables to have access to the same conditions of service, or indeed face the same restrictions, that legislation confers on regular officers. Including special constables in the existing definition of “members of police forces” would have that effect. Legislation on the pay and pensions of “members of police forces”, for example, is not relevant to special constables, who are unpaid volunteers, choosing to give up their free time to help strengthen our police forces. As warranted officers, special constables in England and Wales hold the office of constable and are therefore already included in the term “constable”. This means that, where legislation confers powers on a constable, they will also be exercisable by a special constable.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, mentioned how we value special constables, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Harris. I will digress briefly to set out what the Home Office is doing to recognise and support the special constabulary. The Home Office has raised the profile and status of the annual Lord Ferrers Awards, which recognise the outstanding contribution of volunteers in policing. We have consulted on proposals to extend the eligibility of the Queen’s Police Medal to special constables, along with proposals to lower the service threshold for bars to the Special Constabulary Long Service Medal from 10 to five years. Those proposals could support the retention of highly committed volunteers who may, for example, be incentivised by an award that recognises more realistically the length of service volunteers are able to provide and their ongoing commitment to public service. I hope that this also answers something of the question from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about recruitment.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, referred to John Apter, chair of the Police Federation. I note that he started out as a special constable, which I suppose, by implication, suggests that that is a route into becoming a regular police officer.
For those reasons, we consider that this amendment is not necessary and could cause confusion to the status of special constables, which the law recognises as distinct from regular officers. Further, this amendment could have unwelcome, unintended consequences, for example by applying pay provisions to volunteers. I hope that, in light of my explanation and assurance, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, will be content to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond for her support and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for his inquisitiveness and his recognition of the value of specials. I warmly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, to the Dispatch Box. I am not sure whether this was his first outing, but it was a very, very good one. As he will find out, we work collaboratively in this House and it is good to work with such a wonderful Home Office spokesman—if that is not too over-the-top.
However, I did not actually hear—or if I did, I did not understand—why special constables are included as members of police forces in Scotland, and how all the objections the Minister raised, in terms of why they could not be members in England and Wales, have been got around in Scotland. As this is the Minister’s first outing, I would not press him to give me an answer now if he would prefer to write. But something tells me he may have the answer in his hands, in which case I shall allow him to respond.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I will try. The noble Lord is asking why specials are treated as members of the police force in Scotland but not in England and Wales. Special constables in England and Wales have been subject to long-standing separate regulation for members of police forces, and their distinct nature is recognised in law, with clearly defined benefits that result from this separate status. By contrast, legislation in Scotland has long included special constables as members of police forces, and it has been drafted to take that into account. I hope that goes some way to answering the noble Lord’s question.
Lord Paddick (LD)
It was a good try, but it quite clearly does not answer the question at all. Specials in Scotland have always been considered to be members of police forces; they are not paid, but if that happened in England and Wales, they would have to be paid like regular officers. I would like, if possible, for the noble Lord to write to me with a fuller explanation, rather than just stating what the facts are; an explanation of why the facts are as they are would be extremely helpful. But at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Randerson
Member’s explanatory statement
This would specify that the new standards only apply to “police pursuit purposes” rather than all “police purposes”.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased to have this opportunity to introduce this group of amendments, and of those, Amendments 13, 15, 16 and 18 are in my name. They are of course probing amendments at this stage.
The Government are seeking to change the standards by which police driving is to be judged. I should explain to noble Lords that I have some background on this issue, because for 18 years I was a JP, and over those years I dealt with a number of cases that involved police pursuit. Controversial cases where police pursuit leads to traffic accidents of course occur regularly.
I have my own personal experience of this. More than a decade ago, I was involved in one such incident. One evening, I was driving along a long, straight stretch of road in Cardiff—a two-lane road, with a mix of residential and commercial properties, that had intermittent central barriers. I suddenly became aware of cars coming towards me at considerable speed, well above the 30 miles per hour limit. It turned out to be a car driven by a very young man, with a passenger, pursued by two police cars. The problem was that they were on my side of the road, and I was on a part of the road with a central barrier. There was literally nowhere for me to go. There was a head-on crash, my car was a write-off, and there was a three-car pile-up because the car being pursued turned over and one of the police cars impacted it.
The seriousness of the crash was indicated by the fact that the road was closed for the night. We had three additional police cars on the scene, two ambulances, a fire engine and a police helicopter. I spent the night in A&E, but it could easily have been very much worse, because the passengers in the other cars suffered only minor injuries too.
Why were the police taking the risk of this pursuit? There were a number of pedestrians around—the crash happened in front of a pub. The official explanation was that the car was stolen, and I was told that the young men were suspected of at least one burglary—but that was a historical suspicion. However, until the pursuit, there was clearly no risk to life and no immediate danger of violence. It has always been clear to me that that pursuit was unlikely to have been justified.
My Amendments 13 and 16 are designed to probe how the Government envisage the new standards being applied. Since the Road Traffic Act 1988, police driving standards have been judged in the same way as those for any other driver despite the additional training they receive and the various exemptions that apply to them. Following a Police Federation campaign, there was a Home Office consultation which included a question on whether the new looser standards should apply only to pursuit or to police response driving generally. Clauses 4 to 6 give effect to the proposed changes, which would judge police driving against the standards of a competent and careful police officer with additional training. The new standards are to be applied to police purposes generally. However, this is a very wide definition. My amendment suggests that it should be limited to pursuit only.
I fully accept that there is an argument that it could also include I-grade—immediate grade—responses. I know that the grading of police responses varies from one force to another but, generally, I-grade calls are those where the immediate presence of a police officer will have a significant impact on the outcome of an incident. It is typically categorised as where there is likely to be a danger to life, a serious threat of violence, serious damage to property or serious injury. The response time is 15 minutes. The other grades of police response are generally called significant, S grade, or extended, E grade, and they do not involve a risk to life or injury. S grade gives a response time of 60 minutes and E grade 48 hours. Clearly, in neither of those cases is there a justification for extremely fast speeds and less than the normal, competent standards of driving that the rest of us ordinary mortals are expected to follow. I would therefore appreciate an explanation from the Minister as to why any kind of police purpose would be regarded as acceptable. We need a greater justification for these changes.
Amendments 15 and 18 also probe the impact of these changes by suggesting that the Secretary of State be given the power to extend the new standards to other emergency services. Noble Lords will understand that this is an inquiry. Ambulance drivers and drivers of fire engines also receive special training. They are highly skilled drivers, trained to break the normal rules of the road. They respond to calls where there is an immediate danger to life. It could be argued that that applies routinely in the case of ambulance drivers, whereas it probably applies fairly exceptionally in the case of the police. My question to the Minister is this: where do the other emergency services stand in relation to the changes to the rules that the Government are suggesting in this legislation? Are we to expect changes for other emergency services in further legislation, or is that not necessary for legal reason that I have not been able to uncover?
I realise, of course, that the two sets of amendments do not sit particularly well together. I am not arguing a case one way or the other. I am simply seeking to emphasise that these are probing amendments to see what is in the Government’s mind. What is their intention?
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I have Amendments 14 and 17 in this group. I hope—in fact I am confident—that my noble friend the Minister will give a full explanation of the purpose of these clauses in the Bill, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. My concern is the inclusion of staff members in these new tests of dangerous and careless driving. I can understand the need to include civilian police driving instructors, but what I do not understand is the inclusion of other staff members. I hope that the Minister can explain why they need to be included.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, this is a difficult and contentious part of the Bill. There has been much debate for decades about the police approach to vehicle pursuit in particular, and the ability of emergency service drivers to disregard traffic signs and speed limits in an emergency. There have been tragedies where emergency vehicles on their way to serious and urgent incidents have ignored traffic lights or give way signs, or driven on the wrong side of the road, often in an attempt to save or protect lives, and tragically they have been involved in collisions with innocent members of the public, causing serious injury and sometimes loss of life, as my noble friend Lady Randerson has so graphically illustrated from her own personal experience.
This is perhaps the less contentious of the two areas. But even here, for police control room staff—I am sure the same happens with the fire brigade and the ambulance service—calls are graded as follows: emergencies, with arrival as soon as possible; immediate, with arrival within an hour; or routine. This is to ensure that police vehicles are not driven at speed unnecessarily.
I declare an interest as a former police officer who, although in possession of a full driving licence, attended a six-week, full-time police driving course just to become a standard police driver. I was not authorised to drive high-powered cars designed for use in responding to emergency calls and I was not allowed to become involved in vehicle pursuit of criminals, but simply to be a police driver answering routine calls. Of course, it is possible to become inadvertently involved in a chase, when a car that is asked to pull over refuses to stop, as happened to me on occasion, but as soon as a qualified driver was behind, I dropped out of the pursuit. Being an advanced trained driver involved many more weeks of intensive training; from memory, two six-week courses, with a very high failure rate. The courses were highly sought after and awarded to only the most experienced officers. Police drivers are trained to some of the highest driver standards in the world.
In addition, police control room staff have the authority to direct police vehicles to withdraw from pursuits where the driver of the police vehicle involved is not suitable to conduct the pursuit, where the seriousness of the offence alleged does not justify the risks associated with a high-speed chase, or where the driving conditions —the type of road, the time of the day or any other factor; my noble friend mentioned the presence of pedestrians, for example—present an unreasonable risk to the public and the officers who are involved in the pursuit.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, to his place, and wish him well in his role. If I had realised that he was responding, I would have said that when I made my initial remarks. I apologise and look forward to our discussions.
One thing I did before discussing this group and the next group of amendments—which are incredibly important and deal with really difficult areas of law—was to Google some of the problems. Before I look at some of the examples, just from Googling, of where there have been problems around police pursuits of one sort or another, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for sharing her horrible, terrible and awful experience with the Committee. That is another example of the sorts of issues that can arise from a police pursuit, and thankfully she is here to tell us the tale. We all found it very moving.
As I say, just from Googling, there are various examples that show some of the difficulties: an M27 police pursuit and 100-mile-per-hour chase, with a driver weaving in and out of traffic; “Driver, 18, narrowly misses bus in police pursuit”; “Driver loses police in wrong-way pursuit”; “Car driven along a railway track to escape the police”. This is not to question any of those individual cases—I did not read them; I just looked at the headlines—but a quick Google shows the extent of the problems that arise. Clearly, as it stands, the Government are seeking to address a very real issue. It is not easy, because if you are the victim of a crime, or something is going on, you want the police to respond as quickly as possible. It is a difficult situation for the police, and these clauses seek to deal with that. I appreciate that these are probing amendments, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, but they raise important issues that will need clarifying in both this group and the next.
We welcome these clauses because, like most people, we have been saying for a long time that there is a need for proper and improved protection for police drivers, who regularly put themselves in danger in the line of duty to pursue suspects. That is what we all want them to do. These clauses put recognition of the training that officers have had and the purposes of the journeys that they take into law. We should pay tribute to the Police Federation for the work it has done in campaigning consistently for this. As I have said already, however, we can see that issues arise from it—indeed, they have already been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Earl opposite.
Amendments 13 and 16 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, narrow the clauses to police pursuit. We can see the purpose of the amendments when rereading the Bill, which says:
“Subsection (1B) applies where a designated person … is driving for police purposes”.
I suggest to the Minister that that is a bit vague. What on earth does it mean? Without being sarcastic, “police purposes” could mean that you get in a car to drive down the road because you have to go and see somebody about a crime. That is a police purpose. I am not suggesting that any police officer would therefore drive at 100 miles per hour to do that, but we can see the problem that the noble Baroness is trying to get at; “police purposes” is really wide-ranging. On the other hand—and no doubt the Minister will say this when he responds—saying “police pursuit purposes” narrows it down to the extent that we end up excluding the possibility of the police having an emergency response to things that we would all wish them to have an emergency response to. That is why, I suspect, the noble Baroness has made them probing amendments. Indeed, she said that if you thought somebody was in danger, or if a murder, serious rape or something like was that taking place, you would not want the police driving along slowly to get there. You would want them—in a proper way—getting there as soon as possible with an armed response or whatever response was appropriate.
On one hand, the Bill has, “police purposes”, and I am not sure that that is drafted as well as it might be, but then the definition we would want—“police pursuit purposes”—probably narrows it too much, which is why I am pleased it is a probing amendment. The Committee wants the Government to come back, I think, with something that encapsulates that competing and conflicting point about where we go with respect to that.
Amendment 17 from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee—again, this is the point of any Committee—removes any driver from the Bill who is not a constable or civilian driving instructor who is training a police driver. He is saying to the Government, and I think it is a really good point, that they have a long list of designated persons in the Bill—I will not read them all out. I remind the Committee that it does not apply just to the police force; it applies—and it is a good thing the Government added this to the Bill—to the British Transport Police, the Civil Nuclear Police Authority, the Chief Constable of the Ministry of Defence, the Scottish Police Authority and the National Crime Agency. These can be designated and it gives power to the chief constables and chief officers of those to designate a person, to give them the authority to drive in that way if they have received training. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is therefore right to ask why. What is the Government’s justification for extending this to that range? There might be a very good reason for it, but it is a point we need to understand.
To conclude on this group of amendments, can the Minister shed light on my earlier point as well as who is covered by the current list of designated persons in the Bill and why they have been included?
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, if I may come in briefly before my noble friend the Minister speaks, I think the term “for police purposes” appears in other forms of road traffic law. I am not certain, and maybe the Minister can help us on that.
On “police purposes”, I have given the Committee an example of where a police driver might choose to go very fast indeed but perfectly safely. Suppose a passenger carrying vehicle, a minibus, breaks down on the motorway somewhere. As soon as the driver tells the police control room they are a passenger carrying vehicle and they have passengers in the back of that vehicle, I imagine that the police will try to get there as fast as they possibly can, to get a police car behind that broken-down vehicle. That would be a “police purpose”. It is not a pursuit, it is not after criminals; however, a police driver in those circumstances, because he is properly trained in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, says, would be expected to identify a change in road surface. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, will remember being trained to identify a change in road surface, so actually, if he fails to identify a change in road surface, he could in fact be caught by the changes proposed by the Government.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and my noble friend Lord Attlee for explaining their amendments. I think it is clear that we all want the same outcome, which is protecting police officers who are pursuing dangerous criminals, but also protecting the public. The Government believe that Clauses 4 to 6 of the Bill achieve a sensible balance in meeting these objectives. We believe police officers must be able to do their jobs effectively and keep the public safe without fear of prosecution for simply doing their job in the manner that they are trained to do. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, pointed to some really quite poignant examples of exactly that.
Current laws do not recognise the training that police drivers undertake and the tactics they may have to employ to respond to emergencies and pursue criminals. The new test will allow courts to judge their standard of driving against a “competent and careful” police constable with the same level of training, providing assurance that their skills and training will be taken into account. The new comparison with a “competent and careful” police driver takes into account whether a police driver with the same training would have reasonably made the same decision under the same circumstances.
I was very moved by the personal experiences of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. Her Amendments 13 and 16 seek to specify that the new standard should apply only to “police pursuit purposes”, rather than all “police purposes”.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, could the Minister tell us what powers ambulance drivers and fire engine drivers have in terms of being able to disregard speed limits and traffic regulations? He may choose to write to me—that will be fine—but I think it would be very helpful for the Committee to know what those drivers can and cannot do. I understand his point that the requirements of the police are more extensive.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, with my 30 years’ experience in the police service, I am having some difficulty in understanding some of the Minister’s explanations, for example about when surveillance becomes a pursuit. We are talking about a situation where an officer is potentially facing a prosecution for careless or dangerous driving. In the ordinary course of surveillance, the people who are being followed will not know that they are being followed. That is what surveillance is. It becomes a chase when the people being surveilled recognise that they have a police vehicle behind them and try to escape. It then becomes a pursuit. So, with the greatest respect, I think that the Government need to sharpen their reasoning for dismissing amendments which, if my noble friend Lady Randerson does not pursue them on Report, I am very likely to.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. I think I gave some other examples, though, of things that do not necessarily qualify as police pursuit but are still none the less covered by this: emergency response, armed vehicle interventions and so on. I thought those would cover most of the noble Lord’s points. I take his point, obviously, that if you are under surveillance, you do not necessarily know that anybody is there—that is the whole point. At some point, that could turn into a pursuit; I suppose it depends on the specific circumstances. But I do take his point.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, could I ask the Minister if I heard him correctly? I think that, in the early part of the remarks he read out, he used the phrase “pursuit or emergency.” That appeared to me to be quite a helpful definition of what we are talking about here, and excluded things that were neither “pursuit” nor “emergency”. Could that wording not be what the clauses should be based on, and was it not helpful of him to use it in the early part of what he said?
Baroness Randerson (LD)
I will wait for a moment or two. I do not know whether the Minister wants to answer now.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Can I come back to the noble Lord on that in a second, please? Sorry.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
I first want to thank the Minister for his response and all other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. In particular, the quick interchange at the end has been a helpful response to the situation. My noble friend Lord Beith has I think raised a realistic solution to the problems with this legislation that this debate has shown up for the Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and my noble friend Lord Paddick both referred to the controversies and tragedies that occur in these situations. There are endless stories of controversy. Any changes the Government make to the legislation will simply shine a harsher light on the problems that inevitably will occur. So the Government really need to tighten up their thinking on this, and I would ask the Minister to take on board my noble friend’s advice to consider some tighter wording. The Government’s own consultation in 2018 offered two options: the use of the phrase “police purposes” or the use of “pursuit”. That shows that the Government themselves must have been considering those options at the time—so there must have been a logical reason for offering them.
I would like the Minister to take the time between now and Report, when I am pretty sure the issue will come back, to look at potential amendments that the Government believe may be helpful. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. The Government need to be on very sure ground here, because they have drawn a broad definition. “Police purposes,” as the noble Lord, Lord Attlee, said, is a very broad term, and the circumstances in which the new rules can be applied will be questioned. With that, I will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
May I respond to the noble Lord, Lord Beith? I do not know if this is appropriate. I am probably breaking all the rules. I apologise if I am. I think I said, “to respond to emergencies and to pursue criminals”. This applies to all policing purposes where the staff member has had training. I will expand on whether the new test means that the police officer would be prosecuted if they departed from their training and guidance under any circumstances. The police driver training includes decision-making in line with the national decision-making model. This allows for a degree of flexibility. Police drivers should also take account of guidance found in the College of Policing authorised professional practice. The new legislation compares the police driver’s actions with what a careful and competent police driver would reasonably do. In other words, a police driver will be prosecuted for dangerous driving only if they drive in a way that would not be considered reasonable by a careful and competent police driver.
Lord Paddick
“National standards of competent and careful constable
For the purposes of sections 4 and 5 the Secretary of State shall, after consultation with such persons as they consider appropriate, publish national standards expected of designated persons.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish national standards of what would be expected of a competent and careful constable under sections 4 and 5, against which their driving should be judged.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 19 is supported by my noble friend Lady Randerson and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. Amendment 20 is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham. I asked for these two amendments to be degrouped from the group we have just debated because that group was about the principle of police officers being given dispensation from the usual tests applied in cases of dangerous and careless driving. These amendments are about a separate issue—the consistency of the likelihood of police officers being prosecuted on not.
The changes proposed by the Government in Clauses 4 and 5 are problematic in that they define the threshold for prosecution or conviction for dangerous or careless driving, set against,
“what would be expected of a competent and careful constable who has undertaken the prescribed training.”
The Police Federation, which provided a draft of this amendment, has reminded me that, while groups of forces tend to pool their resources in police driver training, none the less, there is no national standard. What would be expected of a competent and careful constable who has undertaken the prescribed training can vary from police force to police force. A tactic, such as physical contact by a police vehicle with a stolen motorbike, or a motorbike being driven by a suspect involved in an armed robbery, causing the driver of the motorcycle to crash, might be trained for and practised in some police forces but not in others. To be clear about what I mean, the police driver knocks the criminal off the motorbike by colliding with it—a tactic used by the Metropolitan Police Service.
This could result in a police driver, who was driving in exactly the same way as another police driver in a different police force, being prosecuted and potentially convicted; while the other officer in almost identical circumstances would not face any sanction, if that police driver had been trained in that technique and it was part of the policy of that officer’s police force. Amendment 19 proposes that a national standard be established to ensure consistency in the application of the law, and certainty for police drivers.
Amendment 20, proposed by the Police Federation and based on its wealth of experience in this area, offers an alternative approach by providing a reasonable excuse defence to an allegation of dangerous or careless driving. Instead of adhering to the standard of a careful and competent driver, a police driver could avoid prosecution or conviction, provided the departure from the standard was necessary, proportionate and reasonable in all the circumstances. This would take account of the relevant driver policy and training, the split-second decisions faced in real time by the driver and the honestly held belief of the driver at the time. This is similar to the dispensation allowed to armed officers who have to make split-second decisions to use their firearms.
I am not a lawyer and I cannot elaborate on whether such a reasonable cause defence is accepted in other similar scenarios. I beg to move Amendment 19.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, we are extraordinarily lucky to have the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I have just one anxiety about a national standard: conditions in the Metropolitan Police area are different from those facing, say, Devon and Cornwall Police. Devon and Cornwall Police might not have to dismount someone riding a motorbike illegally very often, whereas I suspect it is something the Metropolitan Police has to do quite often. On the one hand, I can see the benefit of national police standards, but I have an anxiety that they might not meet the different needs of different types of police force.
Lord Paddick (LD)
I am grateful to the noble Earl for his intervention. I think national standards would say that the tactic of colliding with a stolen motorbike was an acceptable tactic that officers could be compared against whether or not it was actually used by particular forces, bearing in mind the circumstances faced by different forces. So, legally, officers in Devon and Cornwall could use that tactic according to the national standard, but it would be very rare for them to use it—if ever at all.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My noble friend has raised the issue of national standards. I want to approach this issue in a slightly different way. I have added my name to the amendment because I have concerns about clarity. The existing standards are set out in the 1988 Act, and we as drivers are all familiar with them. We passed our driving tests however long ago, but on an almost daily basis we practise following those standards—fairly rigorously, I hope.
According to this legislation, we are now moving to a set of standards based on a format for training of which we, with the exception of my noble friend, have no real concept. We do not understand exactly what is involved in this training and what is expected of police drivers. Indeed, I am sure this debate has been very instructive for us all in finding out a bit more about it.
Add that issue to the fact that standards are different from one part of the country to another and we have a difficult situation for the Government in applying this new approach. Good law has to be easily understandable. Publicising the details of these standards—making sure that the public, as well as police officers, understand them—is essential for acceptance by the general public. That will be essential if cases brought under this legislation are to succeed in court.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I have a confession to make: I love the traffic police. I have spent many happy hours in the front of a police van with an automatic number plate recognition machine, spotting illegal drivers. The fascinating thing about criminals is that not only do they break the law on drugs, guns and so on, but they do not pay insurance on their cars either. If I were a criminal, I would make sure that my car was perfectly legal, but for some reason they do not. So the traffic police are incredibly successful at catching criminals; at one point—I do not know if this is still true—their arrest rate was far higher than that of the average police officer here in London.
In the 12 years that I sat on the police authority, I took advantage of that to go out with the traffic police. I remember one spectacular day when they had a car-crushing machine next to the A1. All the vehicles speeding down the A1 saw that machine and slowed to legal limits. We were not actually crushing cars that had been taken that day; they had brought some cars out with them from central London. So I am a big fan. The traffic OCU serves an incredible function of keeping our roads safe.
I support Amendment 19. Of course, everybody expects the police who respond to blue-light emergencies to drive fast, overtake, go through red lights and so on, and it is right that the police are given the necessary legal protections to do their job in these situations. Then there are more controversial and dangerous tactics, such as officers aggressively ramming moped drivers who refuse to stop. We cannot leave that for the courtroom to decide—it has to be a political decision. Whether a tactic meets the standard of a reasonable and careful constable is political, because you cannot leave police officers uncertain about whether their behaviour is legal. It would also leave the public unsure about what standard of driving you can expect from our public servants. Amendment 19 addresses that issue and is an extremely neat solution.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, the amendments would improve the Bill. The legislation in some respects is too loose, and needs to be tightened. I hope that, when we move from Committee to Report in a few weeks, the Minister will have had time to reflect on the previous group but also on some of the points being made here, because that will make what we all want much more likely to happen. I hope that he will be able to reflect on the points that noble Lords have made and come forward with the Government’s own amendments to take account of those points, some of which are exceedingly logical and good and would enhance the Bill and what the Government are seeking to achieve.
The amendments raise key issues in relation to the police driving provisions. The aim of the clause is not to allow the police to drive without safeguards or scrutiny but to ensure that they are not criminalised for what they have been trained to do. Amendment 19 raises a reasonable question about national standards for competent and carefully trained drivers. As we will come on to in Amendment 20, there are various levels of training, and the number of fully trained officers will differ between forces. However, that does not alter the fact that there is a need to set out in more detail and with more clarity what a nationally recognised standard will look like. Will it be covered in the training that officers receive, and is the Minister confident that the Bill makes it clear what a national standard means? The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, posed a reasonable question, which was answered well by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about what that means between different police forces such as Devon and Cornwall and the Metropolitan Police, and how they do things. Those are the sort of points that the Minister needs to raise.
On Amendment 20, the idea of a reasonableness defence is an issue that officers are concerned about, which was raised consistently in the Commons. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, did not mention that quite as much as he did the national standards, but we need to ask how this whole area of reasonableness, which is used in the courts, stands with respect to this Bill. It is difficult to craft an answer, but the issue goes back to the level of training that an officer receives, which varies from force to force. It not only varies from force to force, however: the level of training varies within the police force.
Let me give an example for clarity. If I am a member of the public on the street, I know generally what a response car looks like, and you would expect a response car driver to have had the highest level of training, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said he had received in the past. It is about a proper response driver responding to emergencies or pursuing a vehicle. That is what you would expect if you were a member of the public. But not all police cars are response cars. What about a police van? I have seen police vans driving after people. What happens then?
Is this level of training—police pursuit—available only to response drivers? What about other drivers, or will they be compared to the normal standard? This takes the police into very difficult territory. I have not been a serving police officer like the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but I can only imagine that if someone said, “Officer, a mile down the road there is a really serious incident”, and a police van driver did not put the blue lights on and go down there, and as a consequence a murder or a rape took place, people are not going to say, “That officer driving the police van was quite right; he did not respond in the way that he should because he has not had the proper level of training”. This takes us into difficult territory, and it is also about the reputation of the police.
What happens, however, if the police van driver does that, but then crashes or injures somebody else? I thought that was the point of Amendment 20 and the reasonableness defence: you would expect the police officer driving the van to do that, even though they are not trained to the level of the police response driver. From the Bill, however, it is not clear whether the police van driver—I am making that up as an example—would be able to do that and respond to an emergency situation with the same level of protection that the Bill tries to give to a response-level trained driver, whereas the public would expect them both to respond in the same way.
That is the point of the reasonableness test that Amendment 20 seeks to drive into the Bill. I hope that I have given a clear enough example of the sort of situation that might arise for a police officer, whether operating in Devon and Cornwall, the middle of London, Sheffield, Cardiff or wherever.
This is the point of the Committee: it drives that level of detail that seeks to clarify the way the legislation is drafted—as we saw with the previous grouping, where there is a real problem around the phrase “police purpose”—but also tries to ensure that the legislation delivers in both its wording and its intention.
On the drafting of the Bill, can the Minister just give us some assurance that officers with basic police driver training would be protected if they found themselves having to respond to an incident that ideally required a higher level of training? That is a fundamental question and if I were a police officer driving a vehicle that was not a response vehicle, I would want to know whether I was protected by law in the way that we seek to protect other drivers.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I think the answer to the noble Lord’s question is that, if the police officer is driving more aggressively than he is trained to do and he has an accident, he is in trouble because he is driving outside of what he is trained to do.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
May I speak? Sorry, I do not know what the rules are. That is the point that I was making, and I am asking the Minister: what is the answer? The public’s perception of that would be, frankly, dreadful from the police point of view. There is an issue here for the Minister to resolve and to clarify for the police forces and the people driving.
Earl Attlee (Con)
I have two points: one is that we are in Committee, so we can speak as many times as we like, and the other is that the public may have to be disappointed, because the police officer may not be able to do everything that the public expect. The public could complain; there is a complaints procedure, so the police could explain why they could not respond in the way that the public would expect.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Thank you, my Lords—I have enjoyed this debate. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for setting out the rationale for his amendments and I thank all other noble Lords who made a contribution. I was particularly delighted to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is such a supporter of the traffic police, although I found her relish for car crashes a little upsetting.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. To my noble friend Lady Randerson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, I say that I have just started cycling in London again and it is terrifying; we need more traffic police.
I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, particularly for the way he absolutely hit the nail on the head with his example of a police van driver who is not an advanced driver who is told by a member of the public that, 100 yards down the road, somebody is being murdered, but who has not received the level of training that they will be judged against. In the debate on the previous group, the Minister said that if they have not had the training, they will be judged like an ordinary driver; he also said that the legislation provides the protection that they need. But the example from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, shows how they will not get protection under the law as proposed and drafted by the Government in the Bill.
The Minister said that these changes have been made in consultation. Dare I suggest that they were not made in consultation with the Police Federation? They have not been made in consultation with the officers who will be directly affected by the legislation, because it was the Police Federation that asked me to propose these amendments to the Bill. Again, I am afraid I must suggest that the Minister has been rather let down by his brief in not being able to address the very real concerns that noble Lords around the House have expressed. We will clearly come back to this on Report, but at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Rosser
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require specified authorities subject to the “serious violence duty” to safeguard children involved in serious violence.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
We now move on to Part 2 of the Bill. The amendments in this group all relate to the issue of ensuring that safeguarding and tackling the criminal exploitation of children is a central part of the duty to reduce serious violence as set out in Part 2, with its duties on specified authorities to collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce serious violence.
There are a considerable number of amendments in this group. Amendments 21, 23, 36, 37, 42 and 43 would require specified authorities subject to the serious violence duty to safeguard children involved in serious violence.
Amendment 24 would require specified authorities to safeguard children involved in serious violence as part of the serious violence duty, including identifying and safeguarding children who are victims of modern slavery and trafficking.
Amendment 25 would require specified authorities subject to the duty to prepare and implement an early help strategy to prevent violence, support child victims of violence and prevent hidden harm. Early intervention is surely crucial to prevent violence before it occurs, and that needs to be in the Bill. Preventive safeguarding activity can be focused on offering support to a child and family through targeted or universal services at the first sign of issues in their lives becoming difficult to prevent them being coerced in activity associated with serious violence.
Amendment 27 would ensure that any children’s social care authority which was not already involved in the strategy would be consulted in the preparation of the strategy.
Amendment 49 would require specified authorities to collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce child criminal exploitation and safeguard affected children.
Amendment 50 introduces a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation. Children who are groomed and exploited by criminal gangs are the victims, not the criminals.
Amendment 52, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, is a probing amendment. It would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a strategy for providing specialist training on child criminal exploitation and serious youth violence.
While we support this part of the Bill, the statutory duty to reduce violence will not work in the way we need it to unless it includes the duty to safeguard children who have been pulled into that violence or are being impacted by it. These amendments would require authorities subject to the serious violence duty to safeguard children involved in serious violence, and would specifically add safeguarding children involved in violence and identifying and safeguarding children who are victims of modern slavery and trafficking as requirements of the serious violence duty. They would make preparing and implementing an early help strategy to prevent violence, support child victims of violence and prevent hidden harm a specific requirement of authorities as part of their serious violence duties and would ensure that any children’s social care authority that, as I said, was not already involved in the strategy to reduce serious violence, would be consulted in the preparation of this strategy.
The amendments on child criminal exploitation would require specified authorities to collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce child criminal exploitation and safeguard affected children, as well as introducing the statutory definition of child criminal exploitation to which I referred. The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, to which I have already referred and which we support, would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a strategy for providing specialist training on child criminal exploitation and serious youth violence. I will say more about the amendments on child criminal exploitation shortly.
The Bill places a significant and welcome new duty on specified authorities to identify the kinds of serious violence that occur; to identify the causes of serious violence in the area; and to prepare and implement a strategy for exercising their functions to prevent and reduce serious violence in an area. While obviously prison and policing are crucial in terms of justice and bringing to book those who have committed offences, prevention of crime in the first place is the real long-term solution to reducing violent crime and creating a safer and better society. Case studies have shown that, if someone is in care, is vulnerable, has experienced domestic abuse in the home, has parents with addictions or has no parents at all, these are matters that make them more vulnerable to getting involved in violence later in life. If we can intervene at the earliest possible stages, we can have a significant impact not just on the lives of those young people but on society and on the costs to society of high levels of violence.
This part of the Bill is a step in the right direction towards doing that. However, while a public health approach to tackling serious violence that seeks to address the root causes is welcome, creating a statutory public health duty will not deliver if the desired result of reducing the number of children who are harmed by serious violence is not also achieved. An approach for tackling serious violence that does not also help to protect children from harm, does not include the full range of partners and interventions needed and does not consider some of the more structural factors that contribute to violence just will not deliver the desired outcome that surely we all want.
We need a strategy that equips the safeguarding system and the statutory and voluntary services to protect children from harm with the resources and guidance to do so. These amendments make the specified authorities involved in the serious violence duty safeguard children at risk of or experiencing harm and they refer in particular to children involved in serious violence in the area as a result of being a victim of modern slavery and trafficking offences under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
I repeat that the statutory duty to reduce violence cannot be effective on its own without a statutory duty to safeguard children, as provided for in this group of amendments. Currently, the draft guidance on the serious violence reduction duty does not mention safeguarding. Can the Minister reassure the House that this will be revisited?
Amendments 49 and 50, and the amendment in the lead name of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, deal specifically with the issue of child criminal exploitation and are supported by organisations including Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society. Amendment 50 would introduce a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation, putting a recognised definition in law for the first time. It provides that exploitation is where:
“Another person manipulates, deceives, coerces or controls the person to undertake activity which constitutes a criminal offence.”
At the heart of this group is the fact that children and vulnerable young people who are being pulled into violence require a bespoke response that recognises their particular risk factors. I think it is fair to say there is a growing awareness of child criminal exploitation, but it is also irrefutable that, for so many children being exploited, we are failing to identify them and provide support in time to quite literally save their lives. Not only do we need to improve that support, and action at the point of crisis, we need to look at the long-term support required by a child who is traumatised by what they have experienced.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I have signed most of the amendments in this group because I think they are extremely valuable. I want to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, on his very thorough exposition of why they are needed.
As I and others have mentioned many times, there is a serious failing of the police and the Home Office to safeguard children and young people from serious violence. This is most explicit in the police’s ongoing use of child spies, where they scoop up children who have got stuck in dangerous criminal situations and put them in even more danger by working them as an intelligence asset with very few safeguards. Obviously, Amendment 50 could then apply to police officers who put children in that sort of situation.
The serious violence duty is important, but it must include a duty to safeguard children and young people who are caught up in the chaos of organised crime. Early interventions, removing children from organised crime, and well-funded youth programmes are all key to ending this cycle of violence. Writing them off as destined for a life of crime and using them as disposable police assets is inhumane and dangerous. I hope that the Minister can change tack on this so that we can change many young lives for the better.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester was in his place earlier but has had to go elsewhere for the evening. He has asked me to speak on his behalf on the amendments in this group tabled in his name alongside those of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I thank the Children’s Society and Barnardo’s for their support and helpful briefings.
The Church has a particular concern for vulnerable children. As far as the Church of England is concerned, there are 4,644 schools in which we educate around 1 million students. This educational commitment is combined with parish and youth worker activities that bring the Church into contact with thousands of families each year. Through the Clewer Initiative, many parishes and dioceses have worked closely on the issues of county lines and confronting the blight of modern slavery. Accordingly, we have seen at first hand and, sadly, all too frequently the terrible damage caused by serious youth violence and by the criminal exploitation of children. The latter is an especially insidious form of abuse, which one victim has described as “when someone you trusted makes you commit crime for their benefit”.
Amendment 50, as we have heard, seeks to create a definition of child criminal exploitation that would sit alongside other definitions of exploitation already in the Modern Slavery Act. The present lack of a single statutory definition means that local agencies are responding differently to this form of exploitation across the country. Research by the Children’s Society in 2019 found that only one-third of local authorities had a policy in place for responding to it. By its very nature, exploitation through county lines crosses local authority boundaries, so it is imperative that there is a national shared understanding of child criminal exploitation so that children do not fall through the gaps if they live in one area but are exploited in another. A consequence of the current lack of a shared definition and approach is that many children receive punitive criminal justice responses rather than being seen as victims of exploitation and abuse.
Youth justice data shows that in 2019-20, 1,402 children were first-time entrants to the youth justice system due to drug offences, with 2,063 being first-time entrants due to weapon offences. Both issues are often associated with criminal exploitation through the county lines drug model. Despite positive work from several police forces and the CPS, many criminal cases are still being pursued against a child even when they have been identified as a victim of criminal exploitation.
Relatedly, too many children are coming to the attention of services only when they are arrested by police for drugs-related crimes, as early warning signs are not understood or are simply missed. We too often find that not all professionals involved in children’s lives fully understand this form of exploitation and how vulnerabilities manifest in children. There are countless serious case reviews that point to safeguarding interventions not being made earlier enough in the grooming process.
A statutory definition agreed and understood by all local safeguarding partners would enable professionals to spot the signs earlier and divert vulnerable children away from harm, in much the same way as the recently adopted statutory definition of domestic abuse is now helping to improve responses on that issue. I am sure that every Member of this House shares the desire to protect vulnerable children. Adopting this definition would send a strong message to those children that their abuse is seen, heard and understood.
This also leads me briefly to address Amendments 21, 23 to 27, 42 and 43, which would amend the serious violence duty. Concern with the serious violence duty, as presented here, is about a lack of clear commitment to the safeguarding of children. No differentiation is drawn between how this duty impacts on children as opposed to adults.
Children and vulnerable young people experiencing serious violence require a different response. Being involved in violence is often an indicator that children are experiencing other problems in their lives, such as being criminally exploited. It is important to understand these underlying causes of why children may be involved in violence, and for these underlying causes in a child’s life or in the lives of children within certain areas to be addressed. We need to intervene to protect and divert children, not treating them as adult criminals. This requires a co-ordinated approach to preventative safeguarding which focuses on offering support to a child and family through targeted or universal services at the first signs of issues in their lives to prevent them being coerced into activity associated with serious violence.
Safeguarding and protecting children and vulnerable young people from harm should be the first priority of statutory agencies, and in any subsequent duty for these agencies to co-operate with one another. The duty as currently drafted does not mention “safeguarding” once, nor does it signal the need for the specific involvement of children’s social care teams in creating a strategy to prevent violence in a local area. A failure to write into the duty the need to safeguard children risks young people falling through the cracks in statutory support and receiving a punitive response from statutory services. It makes the duty all about crime reduction at the expense of safeguarding. It would also hinder the ability of the duty to be truly preventative if it did not specify the involvement of children’s services.
I hope that we shall receive some assurances from the Minister on the commitment to safeguarding, ideally on the face of the Bill, but certainly a commitment that the issue of how the duty relates to safeguarding will be more closely considered in guidance.
Baroness Stroud (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendments 50 and 52, which seek to create a statutory definition for child criminal exploitation and provide training on child criminal exploitation and serious youth violence.
The intention of these amendments is to ensure that those who first encounter victims—most often, police officers on a child’s arrest—know what they are looking for and are prepared to respond to signs of child criminal exploitation and secure the intervention and support for children who are being exploited.
This amendment could well be needed to ensure that we no longer allow our most vulnerable children to slip through the cracks and end up in a cycle of exploitation, violence and criminality. I was particularly struck by a story published by the Children’s Society in which a child was repeatedly exploited to transport drugs and weapons, and his mother threatened by older youths when he failed to provide money to those coercing him into criminal activity. He was known to his youth offending team, but the extent of the ways in which he had been exploited did not become manifest until his tragic murder in January 2019. His story is just one of thousands.
The Children’s Commissioner has estimated that at least 27,000 children in the UK are currently at serious risk of gang exploitation. The national referral mechanism has begun to recognise the weight of this criminal exploitation as a form of modern slavery, and 2,749 of the 4,964 child victims that it encountered in 2020 had been subject to child criminal exploitation. However, only a minority of exploited victims ever reach the national referral mechanism. These amendments are designed to probe whether we need a clear definition and understanding of criminal exploitation, and training which equips local authorities to intervene and protect children from it.
It is important that we recognise that when a child is being exploited, first and foremost, as we have heard this evening, they are a victim. According to an FOI request by Barnardo’s, only one of 47 local policing departments responded with existing awareness and a strategy for combating child criminal exploitation, leaving 29 which had no approach and 17 which were unresponsive.
Without awareness of child criminal exploitation and a policy in place for its detection and eradication, children are arrested as criminals and enter the criminal justice system with no assistance against the coercion that they face. This often results in their continued exploitation on release and a perpetuated cycle of coerced reoffending.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I agree very much with the concerns that have been expressed this evening, and I would because I have an interest which I should declare as a trustee of Safer London whose work is directed to deterring young people from becoming involved in crime. Giving young people the tools they need to resist being pulled into crime is a very wide agenda. As is obvious from the name, the work is confined to London, but it is needed all over.
As well as that, I remember the debates during the passage of the Modern Slavery Bill on what is meant by “exploitation”. I take the point about people—it is not just children—who may be perceived as criminals but who are actually victims, so I understand the calls for much better understanding of child criminal exploitation. I hope that what I am about to say is understood to be support for, not opposition to, the thrust of what is being proposed.
Amendment 52, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, on training is absolutely to the point. If all agencies and authorities were trained to recognise what they are seeing but not recognising, in a way that would answer all the other points that have been made. If the prevention and reduction of crime, which is what these clauses are about, means anything, surely it must include safeguarding. That is prevention. Safeguarding is not defined, which does not surprise me because it is comprised of an awful lot of component parts and is different in different circumstances. I would be interested to know whether the Minister call tell us what is already on the statute book in this area. Are we talking about bringing together provisions that should be brought together that are scattered, as can be the case, or are we talking about something new in statutory terms?
I do not think that we can leave the issue without referring to resources. If there were the resources to extend the excellent work being done by various organisations far more widely, both in the voluntary sector and to statutory authorities, I do not think we would be talking about all this. But I am quite convinced that it comes back to training to recognise what should really be in front of people’s eyes. I know it is easy for us, standing up in the Chamber, to say that, and I would not like to do the job that some police officers, teachers, health workers and so on do. But the training should support the achievement of everything that noble Lords are seeking this evening.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, there are a number of general points I need to make about the new legal duties to support a multiagency approach to preventing and tackling serious violence. I will try to make them in the appropriate group of amendments, but I hope the Committee will accept that there is a great deal of overlap.
The overwhelming response of the non-governmental organisations I have met with which have concerns about this part of the Bill is that, as drafted, it is actually about forcing agencies to support a police-led enforcement approach to serious violence—not a public health approach, or even a multiagency approach, to preventing and tackling serious violence. The Government’s own consultation on this issue gave three options: a new legal duty on specific organisations to effectively share information with the police; a new legal duty to revise community safety partnerships, the existing and well-established mechanism where local authorities and police forces work together to prevent and tackle crime, and where the local police chief and local authority chief executive are equal partners in doing whatever each partner and others can do to reduce crime and disorder; and a voluntary non-legislative approach. There was more support for a legislative approach than a voluntary one, but more respondents favoured enhancing community safety partnerships—40%—compared with a new legal duty to provide information to the police—37%—and, tellingly, the police supported equally options one and two.
Even the police, the sector most likely to benefit from a police-led enforcement approach, were ambivalent as to whether it should be a truly multiagency approach by enhancing community safety partnerships or a police-led enforcement approach. So why did the Government opt for the latter and not the former? A police-led enforcement approach was the Government’s preferred option from the beginning. These amendments, which we support, are the first manifestation of challenging that police-led enforcement approach, in that the legal duty does not sufficiently recognise that many young people, particularly those involved in county lines, are victims of criminal exploitation rather than free-acting criminals. Henry Blake is a former youth worker who draws on his personal experiences of working with at-risk young people in his powerful film, “County Lines”—a drama about one young man who is drawn into county lines drug dealing. I would highly recommend this film to any noble Lord who is unaware of the realities of county lines.
Many young people lacking family support and living in poverty find themselves groomed by adults who appear to show them the love and concern they desperately seek, and who treat them to meals in burger restaurants and buy them new trainers—something their often lone parent cannot afford. They promise them money, not just so they can afford the latest designer clothing that they need if they are not to be bullied by gangs, who see those who do not wear designer labels—even Nike and Adidas—as targets. It is not just so they can go to McDonald’s whenever they want, but so that they can help their mum put food on the table and make sure their younger sister has decent clothes to wear. I hope noble Lords can see how easily vulnerable young people are drawn into criminality, not just for pecuniary advantage but for the sense of belonging and the sense that someone is at last paying them some attention. For many, it is as much an emotional need as a financial one.
Of course, the reality is very different. The adults exploiting these young people take the vast majority of the profits of the drug dealing in which they are involving these young people whom they have groomed, and the youngsters take all the risks, often ending in violence from rival drug dealers. These young people are victims of criminal exploitation, and each one of us is to blame—not them. It is our fault that their single mothers have to do three minimum wage jobs to pay the rent and put food on the table and so, through no fault of their own, can rarely be there for their kids as most wish they could be. It is our fault that too many people do not have a decent place to live, because they cannot afford private rents for an appropriately sized home in a good state of repair, and that there is a shocking shortage of social housing and much of what exists is in an appalling state of repair. It is our fault that, as the cost of living spirals upwards, we take away £20 a week in universal credit from those most in need. The Government’s response is to force other agencies to divulge information that makes it easier for them to prosecute these victims of criminal exploitation.
That is why the Bill needs to radically change from a police-led enforcement approach to preventing and tackling serious violence to a truly public health and multiagency approach, starting with—although this is only the beginning of the changes needed—putting the safeguarding of children involved in serious violence in the Bill. That must include, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, suggests in his Amendment 50, and as both Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society have suggested, including a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation in the meaning of exploitation in Section 3 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, suggests in her Amendment 52, training for police officers in particular, to ensure that they are aware of child criminal exploitation and actively seeking evidence of such exploitation.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for setting out the case for these amendments. I wholeheartedly agree that nothing is more important than safeguarding children at risk of harm. That is why we introduced reforms to safeguarding in 2017, which led to the establishment of multiagency safeguarding arrangements in 2019. The statutory safeguarding partners responsible for safeguarding—that is, local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and chief officers of police—are also named as specified authorities under the serious violence duty, so I would argue that it is truly a multiagency approach. This demonstrates the importance of safeguarding in protecting children and young people from involvement in serious violence. We expect that existing work to safeguard vulnerable children will link very closely with local efforts to prevent and reduce serious violence. Therefore, we do not believe that it is necessary to include a separate safeguarding requirement in this part of the Bill, and it would not be possible to do so without duplicating existing safeguarding legislation.
On Amendment 25, which would require specified authorities to prepare and implement an early help strategy, the noble Lord is absolutely right to highlight the importance of prevention and early intervention and this, of course, is the key aim of the serious violence duty. We recognise that early intervention and prevention are essential to reducing serious violence. The duty requires partners to work collaboratively to develop a strategy to reduce serious violence in their local area. We expect partners to work with upstream organisations, such as education providers and children’s social care, when developing this strategy to ensure that it covers actions that relate to early help and considers risks that occur before a young person becomes involved in serious violence. This ensures that any strategy will include early help for this cohort. We believe that it would be less effective to separate this out into an additional strategy.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, and the Minister for the Government’s response. I will, of course, be withdrawing the amendment at this stage and I certainly do not want, at this late hour, to detain the Committee for very long.
I think we are back to the usual issue. As I understand it, the Government do not seem to disagree with the points made in this debate or the concerns expressed. It is just that they do not think that adding things to the Bill, in the way provided for in this group of amendments, will contribute to making the situation better. That, I suppose, is where we have, at the moment, a fairly fundamental disagreement. I will read the Minister’s response on behalf on the Government very carefully in Hansard and reflect on what they have had to say. My feeling at present, which may turn out to be unfair, is that the existing arrangements for safeguarding children and preventing their exploitation by criminal gangs are, frankly, not working as effectively as we want. As I say, I may be being very unfair in saying this, so I will read very carefully what the Minister had to say in Hansard, but the impression I am left with is that the Government believe that the present arrangements are working effectively and no significant change is needed.
Once again, if that is a fair reflection of what the Minister has been saying, there is obviously a fundamental disagreement between us—between everybody who has spoken on this issue, apart from the Minister, and the Government. After all, organisations dealing with the exploitation and safeguarding of children clearly do not hold the view that the present practices and procedures are effective.
I do not want to spend my time reiterating the points I made—that is not the purpose of summing up or responding at the end of the debate—but I do think there are significant differences of view between those of us on this side of the Committee and the Government over the effectiveness of the present arrangements. The Government appear to think that no change is needed, but I simply come back to the point that a statutory duty to reduce violence cannot be effective on its own—and that is what is provided for in the Bill—without a statutory duty to safeguard children also being placed in the Bill. We will need to reflect further on what we do on Report but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.